Daemonica
Review
Well written with an intriguing story
by Rook
reviewed on PC
Gothic
Daemonica has a unique top-down view not usually associated with Mystery/adventure games. It is more reminiscent of Diablo, but it works well with this title. The overall graphics of the game may not be groundbreaking, but they are still pleasant to view and they are more then enough to put across the Gothic feel of the environment. Lighting and shadowing are well done and blend in wonderfully with the soft interior lighting of the medieval structures. The environment is an even mix of subtle details such as the textures of stone or wood planking, and the dark foreboding feel of an ever-present gloom.
The character animations were a slight disappointment however. Only a few local townsfolk move about, and even those characters that have other tasks, have only simple animations at best. With resolutions available from 800x600 to 1280x1024, Daemonica will easily run on even the most modest of computers with very little adjustments on the options screen.
Ambiance
The musical score of Daemonica is outstanding. With a loop of full length musical pieces fitting for the period of play, it is a joy just to sit back and listen for a while. The ambient sound effects, such as birds and frogs, are seamlessly blended in with the sounds of thunder rolling overhead and rain pouring down onto thatched rooftops.
The game interface is very simple and easy to pick up. The movement, combat, and environmental interaction is all point and click. The on-screen indicators such as health and mini-map are streamlined to gameplay and are not in the way or blocking your field of view. In addition, you can manipulate the playable screen through rotation and zoom functions bound to the arrow keys. The rotation function is particularly useful and was a smart addition to the user interface.
Overall
Daemonica has the good fortune of having multiple endings. This is an excellent call by Meridian-4 since it does extend the life of the game. Players can feel free to experiment with different paths of action on their second or even third run of the game, to find out how different choices lead to different endings for the hero. Does our dark hero get the bad guy? Does he get the girl? Is there even a girl? The only way to find out is to experiment with your decisions and discover all the endings.
In closing, Daemonica is a wonderfully written game with an intriguing story. It spans over a couple of different genres and attempts to encompass the best of the mystery/adventure elements and manages to give it all a highly intriguing supernatural twist. Even casual gamers will be able to appreciate this single player adventure game since it does not require super-human finger dexterity to play. Mystery game fans may also find Daemonica to be a new and refreshing change to the genre standard. Daemonica is released on the day of this review, the March 28th, in North America.
7.0
fun score
No Pros and Cons at this time
