NeoPets: The Darkest Faerie
Nothing here is reminiscent of the Neopets name other than the characters.
Tags: NeoPets: The Darkest Faerie Categories: PS2 Reviews, Reviews
Posted by David Hinkle on Dec 1st, 2005
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| NeoPets: The Darkest Faerie (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Action | No | ||
Neopets.com has been a staple for virtual pet fanatics for years now, allowing any would-be caretaker to enter the site and create a neopet of their own. You can establish species, color, gender, habitat, and enjoyed activities. Over 158 million pets have been created on the website – it’s no wonder that the Neopets name would branch out into new territories.
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Optioning the name for a new game, Sony brings us Neopets: The Darkest Faerie. The title is only reminiscent to the Neopets band through the look of its characters and in… well, the name. The character creation process of the website, along with the virtual caretaking of the neopet, has been tossed aside for a rather bland and boring action adventure title. From the outset of the game, these things become evident, and might cause Neopets fans a grim realization that this just isn’t what they might’ve been expecting.
Starting the game, you’ll have two characters at your disposal, Tormund and Roberta. It’s here that the truth that this title is nothing like the pet-creation utility the Neopets.com site is revealed, as you’re taken through the game’s tutorial phase and shown the basics of combat and movement. Tormund really wishes to raise his prestige higher than his farmboy roots, elevating to the status of a knight. This is the primary driving force of the first chapter of the game.
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In the next area of the game, you’ll take up control of Roberta. Niece to the King, her focus is more on the mystical arts of magic. So during the second chapter of the game you’ll spend time learning the ins and outs of how magic works, eventually training her to be quite the sorceress before she meets up with Tormund. Then you’ll be able to control both of the characters, switching them out at will throughout the game.
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So where does the Darkest Faerie fit into all of this? Once you’ve gotten Tormund off the farm and to the city of Meridell, he takes up the challenge, along with Roberta, to rid the land of the evil that is the Darkest Faerie. Fairly cookie-cutter, you’ll also find several side-quests along the way as you do an awful lot of trekking and exploring throughout the game’s expansive environments. Accomplishing these quests can be rather difficult at times, even moreso if you decide to skip the in-game text describing where you must go and what you must do. If you get within a short proximity of your objective, a small blip will pop up on your map, but the rest of the time it’s all on you to find out where to go. For a game aimed at such a young audience, this really isn’t a practical way to handle these quests.
The game has a very basic form of combat, which you can utilize through one button. Your attacks can be strung together for three-hit combos, but other than that it’s pretty much it. Combat becomes repetitive and pointless early on once you realize you can just run away from anything and don’t really need to fight enemies. With no levelling up or collectables dropped from your foes, the game never really presents much reason for you to engage enemies.
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To aid you in combat, there are small orbs called motes that can be attached to your armor and weaponry. These motes have elemental properties and allow you to have the upper hand in certain situations. For example, if you’re fighting a blatantly fire-propertied enemy, you can affix a water mote to your sword and hack the enemy to pieces. The idea for these motes is executed well, but the combat is so dull that there is little room to even care about utilizing the system.
Very reminiscent of PS2 launch titles, the graphics are very simplistic and poor. Given the cute, cartoonish look of the title overall, the textures, effects of spells and combat animations all look rather boring and unpolished. The game looks rather rushed. The voicework of each character is understandably cutesy and exaggerated, but it doesn’t keep them from all being annoying and campy. The addition of generic grunts and chuckles for the rest of the characters also doesn’t help.
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Neopets: The Darkest Faerie is nothing like the Neopets.com website that has enticed millions of patrons. Using the Neopets name to try and bring attention to a medicore and boring action adventure title isn’t really the most sound creative and business decision for Sony. By creating a game affixed with the Neopets name and completely lacking everything that helped get that name to where it is now, Sony has only managed to show that can take a completely viable, existing game design that has already been proven to be fun, and turn it into something far less substantial.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
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+ Same inspiration of Neopet design integrated into the game's characters + Vast gameworld |
5.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
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- Cannot create your own Neopet - Very easy to get lost in trying to get to your next quest - Combat is pointless |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| A poor title with a popular name attached. | |
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Tags: NeoPets: The Darkest Faerie
Posted by David Hinkle on Dec 1st, 2005 and is filed under PS2 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.
