Tao's
Adventure is not much of an adventure. It borrows
heavily from classic RPGs but never attains classic
status itself. At best, it's a utility RPG that won't
appeal to a wide variety of gamers.
by Cass Andrusiak
April
4, 2006 - Tao's
Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal is not about some
crazed, ball-bouncing mammal from Marine Land that
is possessed by the devil. We're talking about the
kind of seal you use to keep something closed. Like
the plastic seal on this game.
 
First
of all, the gameplay is not at all exciting. The battles,
moves and abilities are repetitious and redundant.
In an attempt to make use of the touch screen, I think
the developers went too far by forcing you to use
it for virtually every situation. You can play the
entire game without using any buttons although you
do have the option of using the D-pad to move your
character. The touch screen features are just too
slow and awkward. You have to access menus, wait for
them to load, read through your options, make a selection
and then wait for it to be executed. It's way too
drawn out.
And
speaking of drawn out, magical spells have to be literally
be drawn with the stylus. You have to draw magical
symbols to unleash your spell attacks on the enemy.
What's more, you have to memorize these symbols. There
are 40 in all. If you forget some of them, and you
will, you will have to look them up in the spell book.
Talk about lost momentum.
Most
of the spells are useless, especially the ones in
the first half of the game. They are not very effective
and they will cost you points to use. I think that
drawing of symbols is a good idea, (although this
is not the first game to utilize this technique) but
there should be some kind of reward in terms of a
devastating attack. Instead it just feels like a novelty.
Granted, the magical spells become more powerful later
in the game as you level-up - if you make it that
far.
In
a fantasyland, far, far away, is the town of Mondominio.
It's a popular spot for egg hunters. Monster egg hunters
that is. There is a huge tower in the town that is
filled with monsters. Fortunately these monsters are
locked in the tower by a seal. Remember the seal?
I talked about it four paragraphs ago. The hunters
find monster eggs in the tower and sell them back
in town. It was a good business. But one day during
a violent thunderstorm, the demon tower was hit by
lighting which destroyed the seal, allowing monsters
to escape and terrorize the community.
Reaching
the island of Bente, one powerful monster had turned
the inhabitants to stone. All, except for a young
warrior named Tao - and useless elders. After consulting
with the elders, Tao learns that he must enter into
the demon tower and retrieve a special monster egg
that will reverse the evil spell and free his friends
and family.
Entering
the demon tower, you will do battle with different
monster on each floor level. You can fight them with
magic or weapons. The sword is the weapon of choice
and it's the most convenient and satisfying combat
tool, (think Castlevania) but it soon becomes tiring
if that's all you use. The magic may be a hassle but
at least it breaks up the monotony. The monsters get
progressively harder as you rise from floor to floor.
Every five levels or so you will have to battle a
boss.
The
purpose of entering the demon tower in the first place
is to find monster eggs, especially the one that will
bring your clan back to life, but you know that you
won't find that egg until the end of the game. In
the meantime you will find eggs that you must take
back to the town to get them evaluated. Then you take
them back to the demon tower to hatch them. The resulting
monsters are then yours to control. They will fight
alongside of you, offering you some extra backup.
But the most boldest and blatant feature of the gameplay
is that you can train these monsters and have them
fight other monsters in an arena just like in Pokemon.
The battles last for a few minutes and use the typical
rock/paper/scissors formula for each of the attacks.
These battles can be played against the AI or with
another human player. You can even trade monsters
with other players. Collect 'em all kids
 
Dungeon
crawling makes up a large part of the gameplay. You
can amass an assortment of goodies from visiting these
dungeons but the going is slow thanks to the turn-based
style of gameplay. You have some freedom when there
are no monsters around but it doesn't take long before
you have a random encounter on your hands and things
grind to a crawl. Everything that you do, such as
make a move, cast a spell, attack or defend, requires
one turn. After each turn, the monster takes its turn
and so on
and so on.. and so on
Tao's
Adventure is not a bad looking game. The monsters
are varied as are the different levels of the demon
tower. It's the gameplay that lacks variation. It's
just a Frankenstein game composed of a conglomerate
of genres and popular RPG elements. It also doesn't
help that the controls are awkward and at times fails
to register your commands.
For
best results, keep the seal on this game unopened
so as not to release the demon of boredom - and to
facilitate a much easier exchange or refund at the
store where it was accidentally purchased.
By
Cass Andrusiak
CCC
Freelance Writer
|