Let's get away from GDC for a bit, eh?
So I picked it up yesterday, and I'm about 5 hours in, on the 4th or 5th floor of the Monster Tower. The DS' first 3D Action RPG? I couldn't let it slide, particularly since I'm a closet Azure Dreams fan.
In case there was any doubt, this is, for all intents and purposes and very much despite its name, a (perhaps spiritual) sequel to Azure Dreams (released in PSOne and GBC flavors years ago). There are a few changes/updates to the gameplay, but it's very much the same kind of rogue-like lite. (Or, Nightmare of Druaga lite, for those that have played the underrated PS2 gem).
Like in Azure Dreams, you play the role of a boy forced by circumstances to travel to a desert town that begins with the letter 'M' and ends in a vowel, which features a 60 (or so) story Monster Tower as its primary attraction, around which the economy revolves. Like in Azure Dreams, you putter around this Monster Tower defeating monsters for Exp and the occasional item drop, looting chests for treasure, and collecting Monster Eggs. These Eggs can then be taken back to town to be identified and either sold (for gold) or hatched and collared, thereby recruiting the monster to fight for you. Only one of each type of monster can ever be hatched, so Monster Egg dupes should be ID'ed and sold (or turned into medicine, a new mechanic).
Like in Azure Dreams, you'll find a special, non-collared human-speaking monster very early on that plays a role in the story. And like in Azure Dreams, you can have a total of 2 monsters out with you at any given time to help you fight, cast spells, etc, with 16 total monsters, the rest held back in reserves. And finally, like in (you guessed it) Azure Dreams, you can explore the town, visit a slew of shops to sell your loot and upgrade your equipment, interact with NPCs, take on quests, etc.
The game seems to be MUCH more story-orientated than before. You are Tao (can be renamed), a youth of the exiled Bente tribe, raised by your father in the traditions of the Air Spellers (mages who can draw magical symbols in the very air, and channel the ensuing magical forces through a rod or staff, quickly and efficiently). Your tribe lives on a small isle, isolated from the rest of the world. Legends speak of a great Bente hero that ended a horrendous war between humans and monsters long ago, trapping the monsters behind a seal of some sort.
Cut to the desert town of Mondominio. The opening cutscenes establish the setting as one of a town thriving in the shadows of the Monster Tower, into which Hunters enter in order to battle beasts and procure the valuable Eggs, which are then sold for great sums and fuel the town's economy. One night, a terrible wind and thunderstorm crashes into the town, shattering the seal that keeps the Monster Tower in balance. Chaos reigns, monsters (which are actually set up to be somewhat sentient creatures, with a culture and heirarcy of their own) go insane, and a few even escape the Monster Tower...
Cut back to Bente Island. Tao's first true lessons in the art of Air Spelling with his father, Amon, are interrupted by cries of alarm. A swarm of flying monsters attack the magical village, quickly overcoming their impromptu magical defenses, and turn most of the inhabitants (and all containing strongly developed magical powers) to stone. Only Tao and a bunch of elders remain, and Tao quickly volunteers to travel to Mondominio in order to locate the Monster Egg of the rare leader of the marauders, whose magical properties are needed in order to develop and magical cure to the unfortunate stoning.
The opening story (slowly) continues to develop once Tao arrives at Mondominio, and is shunned once he is recognized as a Bente child, for all of the Bente are marked by a magical symbol upon their foreheads. The reasons for the mainlanders' hatred for the Bente Tribe are slowly explained over the course of the next 2 or 3 hours, and I won't continue to spoil it here. Everything I've summed up above takes place over the course of the first hour - hour and a half of gametime, and all of it happens before the actual game really begins. It's a bit odd really, since this is a very "pick up and play" type game (rogue-like lite), yet it takes so long to get beyond the opening scenes and actually get into the Monster Tower for some dungeon hacking and looting. If you bother to explore every inch of Bente Island and Mondominio (including a TON of stores and buildings to access, and NPCs to interact with), it could literally take you 2 hours before you see your first monster or treasure chest!
Regardless, if you can slog through the opening scenes, the resulting gameplay that opens up afterwords is NEARLY identical to that of Azure Dreams. I'll provide some description of the gameplay in list form. Items preceded by a plus (+) indicate aspects that are functionally identical to Azure Dreams (as far as I can recall, anyway), whereas those items preceded by a hyphen (-) indicate differences. The symbols do NOT pertain to pros and cons. And so, the list:
+ The entire game takes place in either the town, Mondominio, or the dungeon, the Monster Tower.
+ Movement is handled via a turn- and grid-based system, where
+ every action (moving one "tile", attacking, casting a spell, using an item, picking up something, opening something, equipping or removing something, searching, investigating something, etc) takes up one turn, and
+ for every one of your turns, your allied monsters and all enemies on that floor of the Monster Tower also get a turn to move/attack/cast, etc.
+ Changing Tao's directional facing does NOT take up a turn.
+ The player controls Tao actively. Allied and enemy monsters are controlled by the AI.
+ Initiative is generally handled thusly: You move, then your allies, then the enemies. However,
+ More agile creatures might get to actions to your one, and slower creatures might only get one turn to (almost) everyone else's two.
+ Tao can equip one weapon and one shield at a time, and these can be improved with greater equipment found in the Monster Tower or purchased from Mondominio's weapons dealer. But now,
- since Tao can also wield magic, he can also equip a staff, which functions both as a melee weapon (like the swords, only physically weaker), but also...
- as a focus for Tao's Air Spelling magic, also new to the series. (I believe only monsters had special skills in Azure Dreams).
- Magic is of the elemental nature. Fire and electricity cause pure damage, at any level. Water is primarily healing magic. Earth is used to slow down enemies, and at later levels, cause damage as well. Wind is used to knock enemies back, and at higher levels, cause damage as well.
- If my spellbook is to be believed, Tao can learn up to 50 different spells. Some are gained as he grows in levels, others by interacting with NPCs (perhaps solving side-quests?)
- Thus, magic is learned in increments, they are categorized into spell levels. Offensive Fire Level 1, Offensive Fire Level 2, Healing Water Level 5, etc...
- The catch? Magic must be focused through a staff, not through a sword. Additionally, a staff can only channel magic of a certain level. The weaker the staff, the quicker it's abilities are maxed out. Your initial staff, for instance, can only cast spells of up to level 4.
- Additionally, different kinds of staves might have affinities for certain elements, boosting spells cast of the same elemental type.
- Since magic is called Air Spelling, casting is done by physically drawing the elemental symbols on the touchscreen. It's fairly intuitive, since it is NOT time based, nor does it require the symbol to be drawn in one fluid motion.
- Spells of higher levels seem to rely on the same basic symbol as earlier spells of that same element, with only relatively minor, incremental additions/changes. There is some leeway in the drawing of symbols. You can retry drawing symbols again and again, seemingly without penalty, and they are easy to master in no time at all.
+ Experience is gained for every monster slain, and shared equally between Tao and whatever monsters he currently has summoned.
+ As summoned monsters level up, their abilities (and even forms) may change as well.
- Tao's experience levels DO NOT reset every time he exits and re-enters the Monster Tower (woo!)
- You do NOT need to buy or find special items to teleport out of a tower, as Tao starts off with a non-elemental spell called Bound, which not only costs 0 MPs to cast, but also allow you to leave the tower at any time (woo woo!!)
- And, amazingly enough, you can use that very same Bound spell to instantly teleport to EVER floor ever visited by Tao (woo woo woo!!!)
(The three changes list above serve to radically alter the gameplay from its Azure Dreams roots.)
- In an interesting turn of events, Monster Tower floors do NOT seem to be randomly generated every time you re-enter the tower, and item locations and chests to NOT replenish, once looted.
+ Monsters, however, do return, and they do carry random item drops. So while re-exploring an already-conquered floor won't yield nearly as many treasures, you can still farm an (essentially) infinite amount of monsters for experience and loot.
- Since the floors are no longer randomly generated, they've been spiced up with mild puzzles and obstructions that, as of yet, remain impassible. The Bound spell will surely come in handy when it comes time to unlock these hopefully treasure laden nooks and crannies on otherwise simple, early floors of the Monster Tower.
+ Eventually, you'll be forced to egress out of the Monster Tower and back to Mondominio, either due to low hps and mps, or to a full inventory.
+ You've got an inn to restore your stats and save your game. You've got a variety of shops, catering to medicines, weapons, tools, accessories, and eggs to visit, in order to unload your loot and upgrade your gear.
+ Base equipment can be upgraded (for a cost), which ups their offensive, defensive, and elemental attributes. Adding "plusses" to your equipment, and all that.
- The game is LOADED with NPCs (and store clerks double as NPCs, btw), and the game seems to be opening up in such a way that they'll provide you with quests which you can optionally solve. I haven't gotten far enough to verify this, but it certainly seems so.
- To that end, the game also provides you with a magical notebook which automatically logs any important events and conversations for future review, broken down into predetermined categories. There's a section of the notebook dedicated solely to the game's fortuneteller, for one.
* Please note, I never actually opened my copy of Azure Dreams PSOne (and thus, never played it), so all of my gameplay comparisons are based off the GBC version, which I played quite a bit!
I guess that's about it for the core gameplay listing. So how does it all come together, in the end? Well, it's wrapped around an admittedly unintuitive touchscreen interface that is, sadly, not optional. Oh, you can still move around in all 8 directions with the Dpad (I think Azure Dreams was limited to 4 directions), and you can toggle running or walking with the X button, and you can further conversation bubbles with A, but for the rest, the buttons do nothing and ALL choices in conversations, menus, and combat require touchscreen control (You can also control movement via a touchscreen 8-way d-pad replacement, but it's only handy in combat, not for general movement.
But even the button-based movement is rather flawed. Tao defaults to walking speed, which is slow because exploration in the Tower must be methodical in order to avoid running headlong into traps or enemy ambushes. But the town is GIANT and walking around will take ages, so for that, you can press X (or double-tap the touchscreen dpad) in order to toggle running speed. The problem is, everytime you finish a conversation or enter/exit a shop, house, room, Tao reverts to his default walk speed. Uuuugh.
The rest of the touchscreen controls work rather well. Navigating menus is a relatively painless process, once you get used to it. It's true that the touchscreen "buttons" aren't clearly marked, but in all honestly, almost every word in a menu (save for item/spell descriptions, obviously) are clickable, so it might have made the interface too gaudy or out of control to make all of the "touchable" parts of the touchscreen "pop" out. Also, the touchable menu selections look and are sized like regular text, so you have to be precise when selecting. It's unfortunate to aim for "strike" in combat, but miss and hit something else by accident.
IGN utterly CRUSHED the game's touchscreen movement controls in their review, but in all honesty, the d-pad (plus X button to run) works just fine for the entire game. And the touchscreen d-pad makes it VERY easy to change your directional facing in combat before aiming a melee strike or triggering a magical spell. Just don't bother using the touchscreen dpad to walk or run around. IGN was right in stating that it's useless, but perhaps being just a bit unfair dedicating so much of their hate to something trivial and optional. IGN also derided the fact that it's only an 8-directional touchscreen replacement, and a touchscreen interface that allows true 360 degree movement. IGN is, of course, being (perhaps) typically stupid in their derision, since a good 95% of the game (the dungeons) take place on maps made of square-shaped tiles!
In such games, movement is limited to 4, or at-best 8 directions (such as this game), and 360 degree movement has NO place in it, 3D graphics or otherwise! Oh sure, it'd be nice to have a finder degree of control outside of the dungeons, in the town, but once the initial, early game story-development and town exploration ends, your exposure to the non-tiled desert town will be limited to shop-runs and a heal/save at the inn before returning to the Tower. Oh, and perhaps a BIT of NPC interaction for the sake of quests (should they wind up existing after all). And, on second thought, it'd be pretty freaking stupid to introduce a Zelda DS-style degree of movement in the town only to be forced (by the very nature of the gameplay) to take it away for the dungeons, the meat of the game.
IGN also harped on the game's tendency to "break away" from the gameplay when accessing the map (that is, not allowing you to move Tao even though the map appears on a different screen from the main view). Once again, IGN isn't being entirely honest. This ONLY occurs within the town, and is ONLY an issue during your early explorations of the town. Once you learn where all of the key buildings of note are, you'll never have to consult the map again, and it won't be an issue. Though, if you do forget where one of the many stores is, you can pull up the town map (essentially pausing the game) and tap on buildings on the map to get it to display its name.
Within the actual dungeons (where, I reiterate, you'll be spending 95% of your game-time), hitting that same map icon on the touchscreen will overlay a transparent map onto the top screen (where the main gameplay occurs, obviously), which automatically fills in as you explore, much like in Diablo. Of course, even with the dungeom map enabled, you can move to your heart's content. The only annoyance is that the map vanishes when an enemy is engaged, and will NOT pop up again when combat is over. You'll have to manually select the map again.
Ok, I don't want to turn this into an anti-IGN rant. (There's already a thread dedicated to IGN's "review", and I purposefully avoided posting this in that one in order to distance myself from it). I suspect the reviewer had no idea what kind of game it is, and while it's always refreshing to get an "outsider's" perspective on any given genre, rogue-like RPGs are, perhaps, a tough-to-acquire taste. I do insist that rogue-like fans not let themselves be swayed away from trying Tao out, however. If you've ever enjoyed Azure Dreams' "lite" approach to the Nightmare of Druaga style of rogue-like RPGs, then you'll find even more content and depth to Tao's Adventure's take on it.
I guess I should talk about the graphics and music a bit as well, though they've never been the highlight of any rogue-like RPG. Well, above average, in all. The music is catchy, varied, and of a surprisingly decent quality. The graphics engine looks like it was recycled from Lost in Blue, only with significantly better textures and a rather distinct artstyle. The graphics are pretty simple, but colorful and pleasant. And when targeting items or spells, will even display the 3D graphics simultaneously on both screens (from two different angles)!
All in all, it's Tao's Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal is a mediocre and relatively unambitious rogue-like lite RPG, but if you liked Azure Dreams, you'll probably find quite a bit to enjoy about this expanded update to that er.... classic.
And to pre-empt the inevitable, yes, I knew that this GIGANTIC impressions post of mine was going to be even more overlooked that the game itself, well before I ever started writing it. Cheers.
So I picked it up yesterday, and I'm about 5 hours in, on the 4th or 5th floor of the Monster Tower. The DS' first 3D Action RPG? I couldn't let it slide, particularly since I'm a closet Azure Dreams fan.
In case there was any doubt, this is, for all intents and purposes and very much despite its name, a (perhaps spiritual) sequel to Azure Dreams (released in PSOne and GBC flavors years ago). There are a few changes/updates to the gameplay, but it's very much the same kind of rogue-like lite. (Or, Nightmare of Druaga lite, for those that have played the underrated PS2 gem).
Like in Azure Dreams, you play the role of a boy forced by circumstances to travel to a desert town that begins with the letter 'M' and ends in a vowel, which features a 60 (or so) story Monster Tower as its primary attraction, around which the economy revolves. Like in Azure Dreams, you putter around this Monster Tower defeating monsters for Exp and the occasional item drop, looting chests for treasure, and collecting Monster Eggs. These Eggs can then be taken back to town to be identified and either sold (for gold) or hatched and collared, thereby recruiting the monster to fight for you. Only one of each type of monster can ever be hatched, so Monster Egg dupes should be ID'ed and sold (or turned into medicine, a new mechanic).
Like in Azure Dreams, you'll find a special, non-collared human-speaking monster very early on that plays a role in the story. And like in Azure Dreams, you can have a total of 2 monsters out with you at any given time to help you fight, cast spells, etc, with 16 total monsters, the rest held back in reserves. And finally, like in (you guessed it) Azure Dreams, you can explore the town, visit a slew of shops to sell your loot and upgrade your equipment, interact with NPCs, take on quests, etc.
The game seems to be MUCH more story-orientated than before. You are Tao (can be renamed), a youth of the exiled Bente tribe, raised by your father in the traditions of the Air Spellers (mages who can draw magical symbols in the very air, and channel the ensuing magical forces through a rod or staff, quickly and efficiently). Your tribe lives on a small isle, isolated from the rest of the world. Legends speak of a great Bente hero that ended a horrendous war between humans and monsters long ago, trapping the monsters behind a seal of some sort.
Cut to the desert town of Mondominio. The opening cutscenes establish the setting as one of a town thriving in the shadows of the Monster Tower, into which Hunters enter in order to battle beasts and procure the valuable Eggs, which are then sold for great sums and fuel the town's economy. One night, a terrible wind and thunderstorm crashes into the town, shattering the seal that keeps the Monster Tower in balance. Chaos reigns, monsters (which are actually set up to be somewhat sentient creatures, with a culture and heirarcy of their own) go insane, and a few even escape the Monster Tower...
Cut back to Bente Island. Tao's first true lessons in the art of Air Spelling with his father, Amon, are interrupted by cries of alarm. A swarm of flying monsters attack the magical village, quickly overcoming their impromptu magical defenses, and turn most of the inhabitants (and all containing strongly developed magical powers) to stone. Only Tao and a bunch of elders remain, and Tao quickly volunteers to travel to Mondominio in order to locate the Monster Egg of the rare leader of the marauders, whose magical properties are needed in order to develop and magical cure to the unfortunate stoning.
The opening story (slowly) continues to develop once Tao arrives at Mondominio, and is shunned once he is recognized as a Bente child, for all of the Bente are marked by a magical symbol upon their foreheads. The reasons for the mainlanders' hatred for the Bente Tribe are slowly explained over the course of the next 2 or 3 hours, and I won't continue to spoil it here. Everything I've summed up above takes place over the course of the first hour - hour and a half of gametime, and all of it happens before the actual game really begins. It's a bit odd really, since this is a very "pick up and play" type game (rogue-like lite), yet it takes so long to get beyond the opening scenes and actually get into the Monster Tower for some dungeon hacking and looting. If you bother to explore every inch of Bente Island and Mondominio (including a TON of stores and buildings to access, and NPCs to interact with), it could literally take you 2 hours before you see your first monster or treasure chest!
Regardless, if you can slog through the opening scenes, the resulting gameplay that opens up afterwords is NEARLY identical to that of Azure Dreams. I'll provide some description of the gameplay in list form. Items preceded by a plus (+) indicate aspects that are functionally identical to Azure Dreams (as far as I can recall, anyway), whereas those items preceded by a hyphen (-) indicate differences. The symbols do NOT pertain to pros and cons. And so, the list:
+ The entire game takes place in either the town, Mondominio, or the dungeon, the Monster Tower.
+ Movement is handled via a turn- and grid-based system, where
+ every action (moving one "tile", attacking, casting a spell, using an item, picking up something, opening something, equipping or removing something, searching, investigating something, etc) takes up one turn, and
+ for every one of your turns, your allied monsters and all enemies on that floor of the Monster Tower also get a turn to move/attack/cast, etc.
+ Changing Tao's directional facing does NOT take up a turn.
+ The player controls Tao actively. Allied and enemy monsters are controlled by the AI.
+ Initiative is generally handled thusly: You move, then your allies, then the enemies. However,
+ More agile creatures might get to actions to your one, and slower creatures might only get one turn to (almost) everyone else's two.
+ Tao can equip one weapon and one shield at a time, and these can be improved with greater equipment found in the Monster Tower or purchased from Mondominio's weapons dealer. But now,
- since Tao can also wield magic, he can also equip a staff, which functions both as a melee weapon (like the swords, only physically weaker), but also...
- as a focus for Tao's Air Spelling magic, also new to the series. (I believe only monsters had special skills in Azure Dreams).
- Magic is of the elemental nature. Fire and electricity cause pure damage, at any level. Water is primarily healing magic. Earth is used to slow down enemies, and at later levels, cause damage as well. Wind is used to knock enemies back, and at higher levels, cause damage as well.
- If my spellbook is to be believed, Tao can learn up to 50 different spells. Some are gained as he grows in levels, others by interacting with NPCs (perhaps solving side-quests?)
- Thus, magic is learned in increments, they are categorized into spell levels. Offensive Fire Level 1, Offensive Fire Level 2, Healing Water Level 5, etc...
- The catch? Magic must be focused through a staff, not through a sword. Additionally, a staff can only channel magic of a certain level. The weaker the staff, the quicker it's abilities are maxed out. Your initial staff, for instance, can only cast spells of up to level 4.
- Additionally, different kinds of staves might have affinities for certain elements, boosting spells cast of the same elemental type.
- Since magic is called Air Spelling, casting is done by physically drawing the elemental symbols on the touchscreen. It's fairly intuitive, since it is NOT time based, nor does it require the symbol to be drawn in one fluid motion.
- Spells of higher levels seem to rely on the same basic symbol as earlier spells of that same element, with only relatively minor, incremental additions/changes. There is some leeway in the drawing of symbols. You can retry drawing symbols again and again, seemingly without penalty, and they are easy to master in no time at all.
+ Experience is gained for every monster slain, and shared equally between Tao and whatever monsters he currently has summoned.
+ As summoned monsters level up, their abilities (and even forms) may change as well.
- Tao's experience levels DO NOT reset every time he exits and re-enters the Monster Tower (woo!)
- You do NOT need to buy or find special items to teleport out of a tower, as Tao starts off with a non-elemental spell called Bound, which not only costs 0 MPs to cast, but also allow you to leave the tower at any time (woo woo!!)
- And, amazingly enough, you can use that very same Bound spell to instantly teleport to EVER floor ever visited by Tao (woo woo woo!!!)
(The three changes list above serve to radically alter the gameplay from its Azure Dreams roots.)
- In an interesting turn of events, Monster Tower floors do NOT seem to be randomly generated every time you re-enter the tower, and item locations and chests to NOT replenish, once looted.
+ Monsters, however, do return, and they do carry random item drops. So while re-exploring an already-conquered floor won't yield nearly as many treasures, you can still farm an (essentially) infinite amount of monsters for experience and loot.
- Since the floors are no longer randomly generated, they've been spiced up with mild puzzles and obstructions that, as of yet, remain impassible. The Bound spell will surely come in handy when it comes time to unlock these hopefully treasure laden nooks and crannies on otherwise simple, early floors of the Monster Tower.
+ Eventually, you'll be forced to egress out of the Monster Tower and back to Mondominio, either due to low hps and mps, or to a full inventory.
+ You've got an inn to restore your stats and save your game. You've got a variety of shops, catering to medicines, weapons, tools, accessories, and eggs to visit, in order to unload your loot and upgrade your gear.
+ Base equipment can be upgraded (for a cost), which ups their offensive, defensive, and elemental attributes. Adding "plusses" to your equipment, and all that.
- The game is LOADED with NPCs (and store clerks double as NPCs, btw), and the game seems to be opening up in such a way that they'll provide you with quests which you can optionally solve. I haven't gotten far enough to verify this, but it certainly seems so.
- To that end, the game also provides you with a magical notebook which automatically logs any important events and conversations for future review, broken down into predetermined categories. There's a section of the notebook dedicated solely to the game's fortuneteller, for one.
* Please note, I never actually opened my copy of Azure Dreams PSOne (and thus, never played it), so all of my gameplay comparisons are based off the GBC version, which I played quite a bit!
I guess that's about it for the core gameplay listing. So how does it all come together, in the end? Well, it's wrapped around an admittedly unintuitive touchscreen interface that is, sadly, not optional. Oh, you can still move around in all 8 directions with the Dpad (I think Azure Dreams was limited to 4 directions), and you can toggle running or walking with the X button, and you can further conversation bubbles with A, but for the rest, the buttons do nothing and ALL choices in conversations, menus, and combat require touchscreen control (You can also control movement via a touchscreen 8-way d-pad replacement, but it's only handy in combat, not for general movement.
But even the button-based movement is rather flawed. Tao defaults to walking speed, which is slow because exploration in the Tower must be methodical in order to avoid running headlong into traps or enemy ambushes. But the town is GIANT and walking around will take ages, so for that, you can press X (or double-tap the touchscreen dpad) in order to toggle running speed. The problem is, everytime you finish a conversation or enter/exit a shop, house, room, Tao reverts to his default walk speed. Uuuugh.
The rest of the touchscreen controls work rather well. Navigating menus is a relatively painless process, once you get used to it. It's true that the touchscreen "buttons" aren't clearly marked, but in all honestly, almost every word in a menu (save for item/spell descriptions, obviously) are clickable, so it might have made the interface too gaudy or out of control to make all of the "touchable" parts of the touchscreen "pop" out. Also, the touchable menu selections look and are sized like regular text, so you have to be precise when selecting. It's unfortunate to aim for "strike" in combat, but miss and hit something else by accident.
IGN utterly CRUSHED the game's touchscreen movement controls in their review, but in all honesty, the d-pad (plus X button to run) works just fine for the entire game. And the touchscreen d-pad makes it VERY easy to change your directional facing in combat before aiming a melee strike or triggering a magical spell. Just don't bother using the touchscreen dpad to walk or run around. IGN was right in stating that it's useless, but perhaps being just a bit unfair dedicating so much of their hate to something trivial and optional. IGN also derided the fact that it's only an 8-directional touchscreen replacement, and a touchscreen interface that allows true 360 degree movement. IGN is, of course, being (perhaps) typically stupid in their derision, since a good 95% of the game (the dungeons) take place on maps made of square-shaped tiles!
In such games, movement is limited to 4, or at-best 8 directions (such as this game), and 360 degree movement has NO place in it, 3D graphics or otherwise! Oh sure, it'd be nice to have a finder degree of control outside of the dungeons, in the town, but once the initial, early game story-development and town exploration ends, your exposure to the non-tiled desert town will be limited to shop-runs and a heal/save at the inn before returning to the Tower. Oh, and perhaps a BIT of NPC interaction for the sake of quests (should they wind up existing after all). And, on second thought, it'd be pretty freaking stupid to introduce a Zelda DS-style degree of movement in the town only to be forced (by the very nature of the gameplay) to take it away for the dungeons, the meat of the game.
IGN also harped on the game's tendency to "break away" from the gameplay when accessing the map (that is, not allowing you to move Tao even though the map appears on a different screen from the main view). Once again, IGN isn't being entirely honest. This ONLY occurs within the town, and is ONLY an issue during your early explorations of the town. Once you learn where all of the key buildings of note are, you'll never have to consult the map again, and it won't be an issue. Though, if you do forget where one of the many stores is, you can pull up the town map (essentially pausing the game) and tap on buildings on the map to get it to display its name.
Within the actual dungeons (where, I reiterate, you'll be spending 95% of your game-time), hitting that same map icon on the touchscreen will overlay a transparent map onto the top screen (where the main gameplay occurs, obviously), which automatically fills in as you explore, much like in Diablo. Of course, even with the dungeom map enabled, you can move to your heart's content. The only annoyance is that the map vanishes when an enemy is engaged, and will NOT pop up again when combat is over. You'll have to manually select the map again.
Ok, I don't want to turn this into an anti-IGN rant. (There's already a thread dedicated to IGN's "review", and I purposefully avoided posting this in that one in order to distance myself from it). I suspect the reviewer had no idea what kind of game it is, and while it's always refreshing to get an "outsider's" perspective on any given genre, rogue-like RPGs are, perhaps, a tough-to-acquire taste. I do insist that rogue-like fans not let themselves be swayed away from trying Tao out, however. If you've ever enjoyed Azure Dreams' "lite" approach to the Nightmare of Druaga style of rogue-like RPGs, then you'll find even more content and depth to Tao's Adventure's take on it.
I guess I should talk about the graphics and music a bit as well, though they've never been the highlight of any rogue-like RPG. Well, above average, in all. The music is catchy, varied, and of a surprisingly decent quality. The graphics engine looks like it was recycled from Lost in Blue, only with significantly better textures and a rather distinct artstyle. The graphics are pretty simple, but colorful and pleasant. And when targeting items or spells, will even display the 3D graphics simultaneously on both screens (from two different angles)!
All in all, it's Tao's Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal is a mediocre and relatively unambitious rogue-like lite RPG, but if you liked Azure Dreams, you'll probably find quite a bit to enjoy about this expanded update to that er.... classic.
And to pre-empt the inevitable, yes, I knew that this GIGANTIC impressions post of mine was going to be even more overlooked that the game itself, well before I ever started writing it. Cheers.
