No matter how hard the critic tried to be impartial, still often subjective and inexplicable determines which direction the scales bowl will bend when writing a review.
Sometimes it happens – here it is, a project licked from all sides. Parse it into elements – everything is in place. However, it does not cling to it, it does not captivate, and the taste of this perfect game action is like gum, albeit with aroma, say, mango.
And another time it’s enough to look at the game so that the shortcomings and disadvantages immediately catch your eye. There is crookedly, there is not quite thought out. But there is some kind of spark, a light that holds and does not let go, forces me to spend days and night in adventures. The second case differs from the first about the same as ripe mango, albeit with dents, from chewing gum with any taste.
The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav definitely refers to one of these types. To which one – now we will find out.
It’s good to be a loser
A young man named Geron – a pathological loser. At least, all the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Andergast think, and therefore the hero is not too complained – they say, a curse lies on it. Only elderly birds belongs to the boy kindly. He raised an orphan as a son and taught his craft. The remaining residents of this friendly region of the guy mainly chase and mock him.
The
Kingdom of Andergast is freely located on several screens. Temple, Academy of Mages, the Royal Palace and the market are huddled here in crowded, but not offense.
It is all the more amazing that our hero does not lose heart and all the time tries to turn his fate contrary to the “press of failures” lying on his bang. It compensates for the lack of luck with ingenuity – and often wins.
For example, in the competition for the collection of four oak sheets. As a reward, the laureate receives an audience with the king himself – and a set of new troubles on his head. The king on occasion gives Youngs a task-to deal with the crows, which recently, the darkness-tower has bred in Andergast in general and in the royal palace in particular. These birds bring poor omens and obscure material damage. It is only worth the hero to get to work, in addition, the mentor also sends a pet in search of a fairy. Starting with the destruction of the raven, the young man gradually ends up at the epicenter of fateful events, makes a dangerous journey, passes through the camp of the ferocious orchaeous tribe – in general, he has fun as he can.
The game world was respectfully borrowed from the beloved by many Germans The Dark Eye Board Game. Moreover Daedalic Entertainment – Not the first team of developers, which was inspired by the “black -eyed” universe: there is also a relatively fresh Rolekh series The Dark Eye: Drakensang, And in the 90s a trilogy called Realms of Arkania, where Aventuria was chosen as the scene – the continent from the “Table”.
Daedalic Entertainment you can’t call the studio of losers in any way. They released the wonderful The Whispered World and Edna & Harvey. True, their last pancake – a new beaghingining – turned out to be a lump, but such a result can hardly be justified by simple bad luck.
The developers did not even hide the fact that this time the core of Advenchura would be a plot. Indeed: despite the very “well-deserved” setting, the authors managed to present us with a rather fresh scenario, saturated with unexpected turns and elegant solutions. Here we will talk about elegant decisions further.
Artically recreated patina
Despite the classic, defiant Retrograd “point-n-click” two-dimensionality, play in The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav It is easy. Even the hard -winged quest lullah, it is most likely to frantically break Google in search of the passage. Most of the tasks – typical two -ways in the spirit of “found – applied – got a result and was glad”.
The most important person in the kingdom is the royal cleaner. Try to reduce his salary – and this is what happens.
For example, the repair of the wheel looks something like this. Geron, within the framework of one screen, finds all fragments of this collapsed turning element and asks his companion Nuri to fix the magic found using magic. Feya girl clicks her fingers-voila, the wheel is ready for use. If we initially turn on the backlight of active points, there is nothing to do here at all. If turned off-well, you will have to do Pixel Hanting.
At least slightly straining the brain, the riddle begins about the middle of the third chapter. The category of cute raisins can be attributed to a man of nuts, who should be represented by the fairy as her forest friend, so that the former inhabitant of the magic country agrees to appear to the hero on the eye. An elegant deal with greedy dwarf – the sale of a special elixir for a beard with preliminary division of someone else’s property is already closer to a multi -route combination, but still belongs to the category of children’s pranks. Over the search for the path through the orchid camp with the passing organization of God’s sign will have to think slightly.
Nevertheless, it is noticeable that the plot dynamics of the developers are in the first place. The main thing is that the player will get to the next turning point as soon as possible, so that he does not have time to get bored and throw everything halfway. The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav only masked under the adventure of the era of the nineties. In fact, all the modern principles of quest building are quite applicable to the project: the script is, first of all, tasks – just one of the forms of interactive immersion in the game world. Two -dimensional drawn graphics, defiantly outdated animation and archaic cursor in the spirit of traditional adventure of the Golden Age period – all this is just atmospheric elements. So that we feel the taste of nostalgically beloved antiquity. Painting “under the patina”, no more.
Professional breakdown of cans
Another captivating feature TDE: COS – worked out characters and dialogs in which there seems to be nothing remarkable, with the exception of naturalness. How often we have to encounter adventure with strained texts, somehow fitted under the equally strained tasks. Here is the opposite: often the right solution follows from the characteristics of the character and worldview of NPC. So, the example described above with a man’s man’s man perfectly illustrates the naive charm of a fairy that can give the names of the fruits of Mandragora and talk to them. Of course, in fact, she does this from loneliness, and not from stupidity. Over time, we begin to understand this.
The main character owns a piece of magic. A very small piece. At one time, Geron tried to get into the Academy of Magic. From there he was kicked out with a bang. The only trick to which the guy studied is to break fragile objects at a distance. The power of thought, of course, although our ward is ready to work with a hammer, if necessary. This is a small, fragmentation magic in combination with an unusual profession and fame draw a rather non-trivial portrait of the main character. He is alive, completely not pathos and at the same time does not look deliberately unhappy and lonely, although in fact it is clear that the life of the hero is not sugar. He somehow immediately wants to believe and sympathize.
This is how all the time here: two -dimensional, at first glance, the characters suddenly come to life, go off the screens and literally by hands drag us into their fabulous reality, where everything seems to be a ponaroshka, in the style of classical fantasy – yes not quite. Because by chance the authors affect the theme of xenophobia, superstitions, fatalism, loneliness. Probably, for this they want to forgive a lot.
“Love is measured by a measure of forgiveness”
But there is something to forgive. If the missing facial expressions in human characters can still be attributed to ideological nostalgia, then repeatedly repeated answers like “this will not help” and “why would I do it?»In response to an attempt, it is incorrect to apply the item – slightly monoton. In decent houses, so advent have not been done for a long time. The absolute linearity of the passage should be partly compensated by the variability of the tasks, but this variability is more formal, at the level “divide the vessel with a hammer in order to gain water from the resulting waterfall” or “lower the container on the rope, caught a certain amount of liquid”.
It often comes to ridiculous: we are literally locked in the framework of one location by “masterful arbitrariness”. For example, when Faechka asks the hero not to leave about his business because she will be bored without him, and thereby blocks our path somewhere outside the single screen. This is probably not bad for passing – it is immediately clear where you need to look for a solution. But not too successful from the point of view of the atmosphere. It is not good when the invisible boundaries shine through.
Orcs are ferocious, bloodthirsty warriors, but who said that they are able to see and hear how noisy “guests” crawl right under their camp?
However, we are aware that many players will still consider the main disadvantage to retrients and architro -theimation. Moreover, somewhere deep down it is impossible not to ask the question: is it worth looking for an idea in such a modest visual implementation or will be more accurate and honest to assume that the reason is an extremely low budget?
Nevertheless The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav manages to bribe a player and critic. Probably, first of all, by naturalness and, perhaps, with a sincere love for the chosen setting. The fact that the developers love The Dark Eye universe is difficult not to feel. Perhaps it is precisely this feeling of author’s love in the inherited world, hidden between the lines, and there is an elusive something thanks to which the scales bowl are inclined towards a positive verdict.
Pros: An interesting plot;Beautiful game world;live characters;natural conversations;Nostalgic taste of “ancient” Adventura.
Cons: modest graphics;No facial expressions;repetitions of negative sentences;linearity.