All Flash and No Substance

I just finished this game on hard, heres my full review:

Gameplay: 4/10
In summary, the gameplay is simply shallow. You can only move left and right, you cant even jump. Enemies attack from both directions while you slowly make your way to the right and eventually encounter the boss, its the same formula in every chapter, and it quickly becomes repetitive. There are 3 chapters and 3 short levels in each chapter. Each chapter has a well-drawn story that you can read. On hard I finished the game in about 30 minutes.

You have 2 attacks, quick swing and hard swing, and there arent any defensive moves. The movement and attacks are activated by pressing buttons on the side of the screen. As you kill enemies your weapon power builds up and glows red and does more damage. You also have one special move that uses life force, it knocks back surrounding enemies, this is activated by shaking the iPhone or touching your character. The shaking is a completely useless feature and interrupts the gameplay, it seems to be a gimmick so they could say they used the accelerometer. If your life force is full and you die youll be revived on the spot rather than starting at the beginning of the level, so theres a choice of whether to use your special move or not.

The simple control system isnt aided at all by the lack of variety in enemies, there are pretty much 3 enemies and 1 boss. In each chapter the 3 enemies are themed differently, but their behaviour is mostly the same. Scorpions constantly bombard you from each side, while bigger brutes stand in your way, and then at the end of the level theres the mini-boss character that has a shield and a spear. You button mash attack through the 2 kinds of enemies, and then against the spear mini-boss you run backward to dodge his spear (because you cant block) then attack. Thats it, thats the whole level, rinse and repeat for all 9 levels!

The entire game you are running right on a rail, and the camera is on a rail too. Once you encounter the boss you are just completely on rails, as you have just one button. Each chapter boss plays out like a cinematic, and its the same boss every time. As the fight between you and the boss plays out in a cinematic, a symbol appears and you have to quickly touch it. If you miss, you die and have to restart the boss. You have only 3 lives, so you can very quickly lose your lives in the span of 15 seconds and then have to start at the beginning of the chapter again. I found that the action just happens so fast, the entire boss plays out in 30 seconds or less, so your eyes are glued to the screen waiting for symbols to press, you have no time to pay attention to whats going on in the cinematic, nor do you care, because where the symbols appear is mostly arbitrary. In the end, the beautiful cinematic ends up being just a distraction.

Graphics: 8/10
Kroll gives a good idea the graphics iPhone can handle, but leaves much to be desired. The environment is colourful and gorgeous, it seems to be a fantasy themed volcanic island. You start at a beach, go through a volcano, and end up in a stone-filled fantasy mountainous region. Its gorgeous but there is little variation, and the backgrounds including the water and lava are mostly static with little movement. Theres *zero* interaction with the environment, you just walk right. The enemies are simple and with just 3 types, it gets old fast. Theres some effects when you hit enemies and use your special move, but actually nothing outstanding. The cinematics of the boss fight are pretty to watch, but are over quickly. With the simplistic boss fighting you wonder why they dont just pre-render the cinematic and play it as a movie. Theres some dynamic lighting on the characters and a simple circular drop-shadow.

Sound: 6/10
The sound in the cinematics is great, but the sound effects you hear most, during the gameplay, are highly repetitive and dont use 3D sound location for left-ear / right-ear. The music is cinematic, high quality, and fits the theme of Kroll.

Presentation: 8/10
The menu is interesting as its 3D and done in pages of a book. You can flip through the book to select your level, access help, and read the story for each chapter. The help is thorough and explains all aspects of the gameplay. The chapter stories are simple but accompanied by skillfully drawn art. Theres a lack of polish here, as there are some minor artifacts when the pages flip.

Value : 3/10
This is where the game really flops, because here you have to factor in the price. The game is finished in 30 minutes or less and there is zero incentive to replay with just one unlockable, no other game modes, no multi-player. A score of enemies killed, lives lost etc. is tabulated at the end of each level but there is no high score. There is one unlockable difficulty (insane mode), but the game is just frustrating at higher difficulties -- the AI isnt smarter and more interesting, they just do things like throw more damn scorpions at you so you die faster. This game was built to be played through once, maybe twice, and because of the novelty of the high quality graphics, Id say a good price point would be $4.

Overall: 5/10
High production value with little gameplay. After 30 minutes all I get is a pretty showpiece for my friends. The only time Im going to fire this game up again is to demo the pretty graphics of the iPhone. This game belongs at an Apple convention on a big screen, not on my personal iPhone that Ill carry on me for years. These graphics and production values are slowly becoming standard on the iPhone, so the novelty value will be short-lived, and this game will be sadly forgotten.

kurei_ about Kroll