Techtite's PC Game Reviews!

"The magical whimsy by the level editors of this game, is often quite imaginative, and a wonder to behold. My favorite levels would have to in the clouds, with bridges that span for miles, which link numerous islands in the sky."

---from the review

-----------------

Sidebar :

-------------

No sidebar comments for this review... Yet. 

-----------------

Feel free to contribute. As always, review submissions are accepted!

------------------

Given the popularity of mythology in games --fairy tales and fantasies in particular-- it's truly peculiar how few fairies, pixies, and elves there are in games. It was only a matter of time that a wise game designer would make an RPG-action-adventure, with fairies in the forefront. In the end, Zanzarah --a U.S. import for the holidays, played by overseas gamers a full half year ago-- is another sign of how European game designers are coming up with more and more innovative game ideas, while U.S. designers fumble with endless cliché Quake clones, time and time again.

The story is of a London girl named Amy, who one day hears a strange noise from the attic. She investigates, and comes across a small object the visitor left behind: a strange, magical rune, which sends Amy to the magical realm of Zanzarah. This is a world created especially for fairy folk, at a time when humans feared their power and became a threat to said fairies' survival. Now, they need your help, since only a human from prophesy can save them from a sort of folklore "folk war," as it were.

You soon learn that the inhabitants of Zanzarah all keep fairies for protection. Entering any place outside of the protected towns leads to fights with "wild fairies," and only your fairy bodyguards can protect you. In typical RPG fashion, you must train your fairies, buy them stronger spells, and maintain their health/mana accordingly. In time, you can buy and/or acquire fairy traps, which allow you to capture wild fairies beaten in battle, tame them, and use them in battles yourself. There are over 75 different fairies, each with their own strengths; an optional side challenge, if you wish, is to find them all.

I enjoyed how fairies' types are not just the cliché fire-water-air-earth combo. While there are indeed fairies of those types, there are others as well, all with unique abilities. Nature (Earth) fairies, for example, consist of either the female tree-folk fairies, or the larva fly-men who live in the swamps; each with their unique strengths and weaknesses. Meanwhile, water fairies are different from ice fairies, as are chaos fairies, from the "dark magic" fairies. There are also light fairies, robot-fairies (!), and a rare energy (lightning) fairy.

Fairy fights are common in the game --RPG that it is-- and their occurrences are random while traveling between towns. You must choose 5 fairies to join you on any such voyage, and even if you have all 75 fairies in your possession, these are the 5 that will fight for your survival in battle. The fairies are then all whisked to a parallel dimension (a sort of deathmatch arena, if you will), where they fight until all of one fairy team is defeated. Choosing the right quintet of fairies is part of the puzzle (water fairies are best against fire: nature is best against air), and the AI in such battles shows no mercy if you choose fire to combat water, or nature to combat fire. Choose wisely. 

The magical whimsy by the level editors of this game, is often quite imaginative, and a wonder to behold. My favorite levels would have to in the clouds, with bridges that span for miles, which link numerous islands in the sky. How you reach this land is particularly imaginative; an ancient platform, whose corkscrew pillar beneath it lifts you straight up into the sky. This was amusing to see, each time I used it.

I especially admired the "little details" implemented into this game's graphics. Here's an interesting factoid; while Amy isn't moving, use your mouse to rotate the camera so you can see her face; at random intervals, she blinks. This is a unique added detail for a game where you so infrequently see Amy's face at all, and a good sign at all the "little details" this game's graphics department implemented throughout Zanzarah. Every fairy has a distinct glow of colored light around them, showcasing their fairy type. When in the icy mountains, you leave a footprint trail, that gradually fades due to the constant snow. Meanwhile, using any of 10 (or so) "runes" to warp to key locations of the game, causes you to sort of magically sunburst away to that location, sort of like the sci-fi series Quantum Leap. This is an amusing added magical FX trick, where so many other game's would've had you merely disappear and re-appear with a short "poof" sound byte. This is so much more fun.

There is also a multiplayer option. What makes this so intriguing is that the fairies used in these "deathmatch" fairy fights, are related to your travels in the single-player game. Your fairies skills, spells, strengths and weaknesses are loaded from the game save of your choosing. What's even better; you can trade and acquire fairies from other players online, so if you have trouble finding a particular fairy, you can probably win a multiplayer battle, and get it "the easy way." At worst, it's another few nights of added gameplay, in an RPG that will already take several nights to complete.

If there are gripes, they would be minor, though substantial enough to consider if a sequel is to be made. For one thing, as I said earlier, there are only 10 (or so) runes to allow you to warp to key map locations. In a game of this size, this number should be nearly doubled. There's also how only five fairies can enter any one fight, and among those fairies, only one can fight at once. This is an unfair advantage when later in the game, there are at least two major battles where several enemy fairies gang up on you at once, with the gamer stuck switching slowly between their own one-at-a-time fairies. Adding the AI for an all-at-once fighting scheme, a la Project Eden, would've been nicer, with AI controlling the 4 "supporting" fairies while you control the lead fairy. Just a thought.

However, in the end, I had a lot of fun playing Zanzarah. Its ending may be a bit open, a la the typical Super Mario game title, though much like those games the idea is to allow the gamer to complete all the optional quests you may have left behind. Like most good games, there is a lot of optional sights in Zanzarah that a gamer need not experience to complete the game. The ending allows for you to restore your game save to complete such quests. It should. Just about every nook and cranny of Zanzarah is definitely worth a look.

---Techtite