I
know people that would really like this game, the
trouble is they are also impressed by Snakes and Ladders.
Necromania:
Traps of Darkness is really only a two-trick pony.
You can either set traps for your enemies to fall
into or fight them by button mashing if you have enough
experience points. The gameplay concept has the potential
to be a lot of fun but somewhere it got lost in the
mix or buried by terrible production values and a
confused style of gameplay that should have been an
action RPG instead of a strategy RPG. The similarities
to Diablo are blatantly obvious and that's what may
have been the catalyst to make this a strategy-based
RPG in an effort to distance itself from Diablo. Trust
me, this only similarities this game has with Diablo
is that it's considered a game - although I would
beg to differ.
Story-wise
the game piques my interest. An evil overlord has
been captured and it's up to you to save him with
a party of seven servants. Each servant represents
a different class such as the requisite knight, warrior,
wizard and orc. With different powers and abilities
these servants will compete against other AI characters
to collect a series of keys during the dungeon crawls.
The first party to find all of the keys will unlock
all of the doors and ultimately complete the level.
You
really have to search for these keys and that begins
to drag as you check ever nook, cranny and crate.
You're never sure if all of the keys have been found
or how many the enemy may have. You can try to kill
the enemy by setting traps or just mashing the button
until they succumb to your barbaric might in an attempt
to steal their keys. Only when you reach the end of
the level, or you see the enemy sneak out of the dungeon,
will you find out if all the keys have been located.
I can't tell you what a nightmare it is to have to
go back and look for those last few keys.
While
you're exploring the dungeons for keys you will encounter
various hazards and traps. There are bottomless pits,
flames of death, swirling blades, lava and spikes
to avoid or befriend. You have the option of setting
up some traps of your own to catch the enemy but after
the novelty wares off it's easier to just enter into
combat although it's dreadfully boring after a while.
You'll find power-ups scattered throughout the levels
and they are more effective than the lame level-up
system that only rewards you a couple of points for
completing a level. These points make such little
difference in your abilities it's a wonder they are
even included. Near the end of the 20-some levels
you will finally begin to notice some improvement
with your skills.
Environments
range from forests to caverns and suffer from low-res
blocky textures and tons of ziggy zaggies. The animation
is unnatural and unnerving to behold. Characters lurch
with such unexpected unpleasantness that you can't
help but wonder if they're all a bunch or reanimated
corpses. Sure it looks good for the skeleton warrior
but not on the fog babe. The voiceovers are tragic.
They fall under the "so good it's bad" classification
but they're not bad enough to warrant playing through
this entire game for. Sound effects are sparse and
the music sounds as though the composer was struggling
for ideas and just threw a bunch of melodies together
with some moody chords to glue the whole sonic mess
together.
It's
doubtful you'll find six other online players but
you can set a trap and invite six of your friends
to play via LAN. It will be the last you ever see
of them. Make sure you take their keys.
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