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Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows
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Graphics & Sound:
Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows is the latest Gauntlet to hit the scene, although it hardly felt Gauntlet-like, but more of a standard hack-n-slash with a light coat of Gauntlet shellac. You have your choice of the standard four characters: Wizard, Valkyrie, Warrior and Elf, however they only have one costume. Gone is the touch of personalization in, at the very least, changing the costume color. Your "color" is designated by which player you are, i.e. Player 1 is always red. Also gone are the wonderfully cheesy sound effects when your character eats food. I miss those. You still hear the voice bellowing out announcements such as "Red Valkyrie needs food badly", however the announcements often can't keep up with what is going on screen and long after you have died, you will here "Red Valkyrie has died", almost adding insult to injury.
The areas you will be fighting in look pretty and the game has nice spell and weapons effects. The characters, while nicely rendered and attractive, seem to be the same thing over and over, at least where the ground troops are concerned. Sure, one guy has a spear and the other arrows, but still...
The background music is appropriately intense when it needs to be and fits the mood well, sounding quite Gauntlet-like, however once you turn the PS2 off, it is ultimately forgettable.
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Gameplay:
When Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows was announced all those months ago, I was very excited by the possibility of a new Gauntlet game, having played and loved the excellent Gauntlet: Dark Legacy. However, now that I have actually spent a good deal of time playing the game (and have beaten it), I can honestly say that it is very disappointing.
First off, since I played so much of Gauntlet: Dark Legacy and it was also on the PS2, I will obviously be making hefty comparisons between the two. For starters, Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows seems way shorter than Dark Legacy. I was easily able to beat the game in several extended sittings, whereas I still have yet to beat Dark Legacy. In Dark Legacy, there was a central hub with several different areas to defeat in numerous "worlds". Each world had a boss that you would eventually get to, but the levels within were similarly themed. But there were a lot of levels to play through. In Seven Sorrows, you will have 9 levels to work your way through, one for each theme, if you will.
In Seven Sorrows, the plot essentially involves a bad emperor who took bad advice from bad advisors to the end goal of trying to steal the immortality of the four immortal heroes you can play as. He now regrets his actions, sorrowfully, and has enlisted these same immortals to clean up his mess and fix his Seven Sorrows, the first of which is his initial action. Each of the 6 bad advisors takes the form of a boss twisted by evil that you must defeat.
So basically, you will slog your way through hordes of enemies, slashing and unleashing magic at will. If you can destroy an area's generators (glowing green teepees releasing enemies), then you can eliminate all of the enemies in that area. You also have a mana bar that refills as time marches on. Using your mana, you can perform magical abilities that will wipe out multiple enemies at once - a handy tool indeed. Along the way, you will pick up gold, magic keys, weapons and armor upgrades and the occasional tidbit of food to restore your health. After a few levels, you will reach the boss. Kick the boss's ass, lather, rinse, repeat.
At the end of the level, you will be able to use the gold you have gathered to buy new combat moves, however these are very limited. After having completed about 50% of the game, I found I had purchased all of the moves and saw no need for any more gold. In past Gauntlet games, you could at least buy extra food or spare keys, etc. |
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Difficulty:
Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows has four levels of difficulty to choose from: Beginner, Normal, Difficult or Impossible. Beginner and Normal seemed close in difficulty level, with perhaps more food being available in Beginner. The Difficult level found you having to slash enemies 2 times before they died, and Impossible seemed to have a few more enemies that Difficult.
That being said, the game is a mindless hack 'n slash, for the most part. Gangs of enemies will crowd you to overwhelm you and you must quickly dispense with them to survive. If you have another player playing along with you, it is that much easier, however there are other matters to consider, such as the fact that your character can get "stuck" if your partner gets to a certain area on the other side of the screen without you. I did find the game to be a good bit more tough when playing alone, but not insurmountable. Since you begin the game with 5 continues and these replenish every time you beat a level, it just may take a little bit of patience, but the game can be beaten.
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Game Mechanics:
Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows has a pretty simplistic control system. You use your X button for quick slashes, Square is used for your heavy attack, O is for projectile weapons and Triangle is for launching your foes into the air. R1 is used for throwing switches, moving blocks, etc. and L1 is used to unleash your mana-infused magic attacks. You will also use the D-Pad for those special combat moves that you purchased with your gold.
When you reach the end of a level, you are given the opportunity to save your game. So you save your game, then you have to also save your individual character's progress. This was slightly confusing and clunky. At that point, you are also given the opportunity to enable auto-save, which is a nice thing (that should have been able to be turned on at the start of the game, mind you). Then you are allowed to spend the points that you have accrued. I am guessing you earn the points based on number of enemies you have killed, or something like that. Basically, this is how you increase your health bar, increase the speed in which your mana regenerates and increase the amount of damage you can take before dying.
As you play through the game, killing enemies, you will notice 5 ovals below your mana bar that fill in with green during the course of things. When all 5 have filled, you will level up, which translates to a more powerful you.
The game is supposed to offer online gameplay, but every time I tried to initiate an online game, I had problems. I even did a Network Config test to check my connection and it showed it was fine, however, no online game could be started. Maybe it was on my end, but I don't think so.
Overall, Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows doesn't feel like much of a step forward for the series. Yes, it's a fun melee combat game, but it just isn't all that great.
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-Psibabe, GameVortex Communications AKA Ashley Perkins |
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