The Darkest Tales. A sad fairy tale
ACCH-Platformer-meter-leveling The Darkest Tales I went out for a long time, a little more than six months ago. But my hands did not reach her. I watched the demo version of the game last summer. I even made impressions of the demo in a separate note. If briefly, then it seemed to me very good. And finally, I got to the full version.
The game tells about the mission to save the girl Alisia’s girl immersed in a deep nightmare. Rescuers are a brave but gloomy plush bear, armed with magic scissors and a fairy-light fairy, which is the initiator of a rescue mission. She also provides a bear with support. Mostly moral. In fact, also magical. It is at the expense of her magic that Mishana can use scissors as a weapon, heal, use magic tricks and so on.
During this rescue campaign, we will meet various characters from popular fairy tales, such as a red cap, Peter Pen, a mermaid, Pinocchio with his dad Carlo, a genie and others. But since we are conceptually in a nightmare, all these characters appear to us in a distorted form, being enemies.
For example, at a red hat in the game, a roof on the basis of enmity with the wolves, which she began to actively exterminate. Thus, in the game she appears to us naturally a maniac. However, this does not cancel the fact that it will not work with the wolves either. And with other local creatures too.
By the way, you could get to know the demo in demo. And there I remember even more. In a note about demo, I expressed hope that in the full version they would add some additional attack to her in order to add an element of surprise to those who managed to play demo. But either I managed to do it too quickly, or she just did not want to demonstrate her muvzet normally, but in the full version the red cap did not even use some attacks from the demos, which to some extent disappointed me.
In general, the site of the game presented in demo does not differ in any way from what is in the full version of the game. This is just the first two locations-universities. Moreover, if you played in the demo, then progress is transferred to the release version.
The plot in the game is unpretentious, with a small and enough, expected “this turn” at the end. But, despite unpretentiousness, he is still able to keep interest in what is happening if you are satisfied with the gameplay of the game.
The end of each chapter is coolly stylized under the fairy -tale book that the narrator reads.
The minus is not so much the plot itself as a separate element of its presentation, I would call the fact that during the plot dialogs the game process stops and you can’t skip them. In some points, it was wildly annoyed. Especially, before the battle with a talkative mermaid, to which I had not one attempt.
Each location in the game is unique and not like others, in terms of visual design. There is a gloomy dark forest and a much more cheerful bean tree (overshadowed by an abundance of spiked growths), and the giant shimmer castle of a giant, and the womb of the sea monster, and the underwater world, etc. D.
From all this diversity, purely https://sistersitescasino.co.uk/casinos/regal-wins-casino/ visually I did not like only the womb of the sea monster. It is very dark, so that two steps forward is not visible. Could at least fly the light-lightness to fly around and illuminate the path with her radiance. The rest of the locations did not cause such inconvenience, and from the point of view of visual design, this is rather a subjective matter.
But what The Darkest Tales very much is not enough, this is the presence of a card. Although each location itself is not to say that it is very extensive, sometimes it is problematic to navigate. And if you want to pass the game 100%, then this can cause at all serious problems.
I myself did not bother so much. Firstly, due to the lack of a card, I had not the slightest desire to scream each millimeter of each individual location. Secondly, closer to the end, the game still started to bother me. Therefore, before the final chapter, having received a complete assortment of the skills necessary for the study, I just quickly passed through the previous locations, closing them by about 80%. The womb of the marine monster did not return only to the pitch darkness, because, as I already said, I did not like this location at all.
In terms of movement by locations, their structure also raises questions. Often there are places where you need to overcome the spaces in the air, or moving conditionally forward, or up. And it is very annoying when, due to an unsuccessful clash with the enemy, a trap or a banal mistake, Mishana falls down and has to re-overcome part of the path. Let this not very large sections of the path, but they are here much more than in other similar games, like a series ORI.
Personally, the repetition of such moments sometimes annoyed wildly. Actually, this is one of the reasons why The Darkest Tales closer to the end of the game I began to bother.
The second reason is a fight with opponents. In the review of the demo version of the game, I noted that the arsenal of weapons and combat skills demonstrated there. But he expressed the hope that in the full version of all this would be much more. And partly, so it is. A spear, an ax, a two-handed sword, a bow, a boomerang, a shotgun and a shield were added to the pair swords.
The problem is that inside, relatively speaking, its class, the difference between them is practically not felt. I almost did not use a long -range weapon, since I personally got a aim from the gamepad (although a shotgun seemed cool to me).
With the most enemies, the situation, in my opinion, is also ambiguous.
Most of the opponents have quite cool design. Despite the fact that the nightmare of Alicias pretty much distorted them, giving terrible forms, a toy origin is still guessed in them. This is manifested in the presence of clockwork keys, wheels and other similar design details. Most of all, zombies-pivot (gingerbread men) amused.
But it is not interesting to fight with them, because in most cases – this implies a banal shutter with uniform attacks. And flying enemies often just bake at all. Especially, in places where you can collapse somewhere down and then spend time going back, which I already mentioned above. Such moments are very annoying.
Pumping in the game also disappointed me somewhat. It would seem that it is organized approximately as in ORI And The Blind Forest. That is, we have several branches (in this case – five), each of which is responsible for one of the abilities of the bear. The problem is that even completely pumping a branch of damage and returning at the end of the game for the first location, I practically did not notice the difference in damage compared to the start of the game. Although there are more noticeable upgrades, such as a banal increase in the number of health cells. In general, the branch responsible for health and its replenishment seemed to me the only one by which it is noticeable that the pumping does at least something in the game.
The second element of pumping is slots for skills amplifiers. Here, perhaps, there are more interesting elements and you can experiment with the builds. You can, for example, apply double damage at one cell of health (frankly, I did not dare), increase the range of jerking, get invulnerability during jerking and so on.
But here it was not without minuses. For example, you can activate the ability to inflict damage. It seems to be an interesting and pleasant bonus. But this damage is so insignificant that it does not affect anything practically.
From the bosses, I most remembered a red cap and an escape from a giantess from a sky -high castle (escape is, of course, not quite a boss, but he is cool). Well, there can still be dad Carlo with Pinocchio. Yes, and then, I remembered the red cap more from the demo, since there she better showed her Muvset, but here I somehow quickly banged it. The last boss, the wizard Merlin, was completely disappointed, because, with all the epic of his dragon form, he died in just a few seconds. Although the phase where it was necessary to reflect the shots with a shield seemed to me cool.
Not like a boss, but rather as one of the components of the location, I would allocate another genie. He is crushed by the fact that he forces Mishka to fulfill his three desires, and he, although he grins, is still forced to do it.
From a technical point of view, in The Darkest Tales More or less normal. Some critical bugs, I did not notice for passing. But a couple of times the game broke, which required loading from the control point. It seems that once I even had to restart the game. But it’s not exactly.
By the way, although the fight with Pope Carlo and Pinocchio seemed to me nothing, he has a very strange and annoying moment that looks like a bug. The battle itself passes into 2 alternating phases. In the first phase, the boss beats the bear with various attacks, but I only need to dodge. Then, he stops beating, opens for attacks and now the turn of the bear is already coming to beat him. Repeat to the victorious. So, the annoying moment is that having left the phase when I can beat the boss, he can easily dull for half an hour and do nothing. At these moments, I really started to think that the game was broken.
Generally, The Darkest Tales could be a good 2D action. But battles with enemies often do not give much pleasure here. Could be a good metroide. But due to the lack of a card, I did not have much desire to study each location along and across, in search of nooks that remained unexplored. Well, at least as a platformer, it works normally, although the moments of repetency sometimes are very annoying.
Play it purely for the sake of the plot, it also makes no much sense. He here is not indifferent and even cool in places, but not so good as to keep interest in separation from gameplay. About the same can be said about the music and visual of the game.
As a result, I would appreciate The Darkest Tales like a midjack, which can be played on the nonsense in. Still, the game also has positive points. But personally, she was somewhat disappointed with me.
