Daemonica
Lug that corpse to your basement! Pull some levers! YES!
Tags: Daemonica Categories: PC Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Mike Morgan on May 3rd, 2006
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Daemonica (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Adventure | No | ||
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When I think of talking to the dead I don’t usually mean killing myself and then conversing with the departed in the waiting room of the afterlife, but then again I just review these games. Daemonica places you in the shoes of a normal gent… well okay, not so normal gent by the name of Nicholas Farepoynt, Haresh al-Dorem, (Take that spell checker!) as he arrives in a town beset by darkness and bandits at the behest of its mayor to try and solve the murder of a local girl. Unfortunately by the time you arrive you find that they have executed someone for the crime already. Here is where the game takes its meaty twist. You then turn to CORPSE THEIVIN’! Thats right, your first major goal in the game is to get the body of the “murderer” back to your house so you can interrogate his spirit! The clicking sound you hear is my interest being prodded awake.
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Daemonica is a very simple point and click adventure for the most part. Gather clues, herbs, corpses, that sort of thing, and in that sense it works pretty well. The game also makes use of potions to help you on your way, the standard health potion, a G’night potion and finally the big potion, SoulGreep. That one is the one that allows you to interview the dearly departed. Drinking the potion will take you to a place called the Temple of Sacrifices. Now, its not just simply find the Ghost in this place, far from it. You have to summon them by entering the right room (corresponding to how they died) and then chanting the right words at three altars. The first being how they lived (Love, Wealth, Knowledge, etc.) the next being what segment of the year they were born in and the third being the demon you use to talk to them. Now if you mess this up you will be punished pretty bad so it is in your interest to check your notes in your diary every so often. In this action, Daemonica stands above quite a few games. The macabre twist placed in the collection of dead bodies and then talking with their spirits is a very interesting change from the norm.
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Nextly I do have to say that the soundtrack for the game is amazing. Blending nigh seamless with where you go in the game, it combines Celtic themes (the game takes place in England during the Dark Ages) interesting Church melodies and some spooky sounds. It helps create a tone of fear or welcome, grace or horror. Take note people, this is what a soundtrack should be like! Unfortunately beyond that the sound takes a turn for the worse with some pretty hokey voice acting, bad accents and the fact that everything sounds like it was recorded from behind a wall. The clarity of the soundtrack mixed with the muffled everything else was jarring and kind of sad. Bad accents, Boo. I really could do withoot the cockney in me ear.
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The game is very very story driven with plenty of narration from our hero, if he is toting a body back to his basement he will talk to you. He sees something of note and he will talk you through it, all the while giving you additional information regarding his past though not enough to destroy some of the mystery surrounding him. Another thing the game is lacking is a bit of direction in regards to your quest. Most of it is just going from one place to another to see if something works or not. A bit more complete of a diary would have helped the game a lot. Did I mention this game has a lot, a ton of story? Ah, good.
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With that said, (Twice even!) the game does try and add in action elements to the game with some combat. It really doesn’t need it in my opinion, but I suppose some people feel the need to bust up an interesting story with some swordplay, thats fine too. Unfortunately the combat feels pretty stale. You will be glad that you only have to fight like five or so guys. Even then you can talk your way out of some situations. Oh hey, another thing that bears mentioning is the map. Its a fairly small area that you are playing in, but running between the areas can get boring. So to help combat that, they made it so you can quick travel to any important location by clicking it on the map! Huzzah for good maps!
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Graphically what are you getting? Well the game has some very fine textures to it, all of which are confined to a map that is very very small. There is not much to explore, but at least it does look very good. The lighting effects are also pretty nice in game and during your cinematics. The only real graphic drawback is the character models themselves. They look a little rushed and pretty bland. The only thing that distinguishes your character from the rest is he is in brown and has a beard really. Oh, and a tattoo! Thats really minor though compared to the fact that the game is more story than anything else. Graphics ain’t important if you have some fine story and this game does have a fine story.
In the end, my only real gripe was the fact that this very awesome story was indeed, just a hair too short. If you know what you are doing, where to go (and the second time through you will) you can beat the game pretty quickly. At least they added in some additional things to do at the end of the game, Kudos for Replay!
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ STORY! Holy Cats there is a lot of story. + Wonderful soundtrack + Great map + Corpse Stealin! |
9.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- Not long enough dangit! - The rest of the sounds in the game are bad - Spooty accents - Tacked on combat |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| A supremely wonderful adventure game with some dark subject matter. Though it has some faults, they are very small and don't really detract from the great story. Get this if you love a good mystery adventure. | |
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Tags: Daemonica
Posted by Mike Morgan on May 3rd, 2006 and is filed under PC Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
