Arvale: Journey of Illusion a Review

November 16, 2004 | | format - Other (ar.) | viewed - 116x
rating -

(93 votes) | category - -

Arvale: Journey of Illusion a Review

Pick up the mantle of Duncan Forsythe humble courtyard gardener and prepare to leave the compost heap behind as you to strap on your armour, the horticultural monthly gazette won’t help you where your going. Your destiny carries you across six continents, which are provided as individual locations, it really can be said that Arval: Journey of Illusion is an EPIC RPG game. Along your travels you are able to interact with the people you encounter and search the local environment for goodies, both of which affect how you play the game, as there are many goodies and secondary quests hidden away just waiting to be discovered.

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Navigation of the Arval world is conducted from a bird’s eye point of view (e.g. top down) you are free to transverse the landscape searching for towns and cities the inhabitants of which will provide you with clues and information to help you fulfill your quest.

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Don’t believe for a second that this adventure is going to be a stroll in the park, as you will encounter all manner of devils, demons, goddesses and bandits who will try their up most to stop you at every step. The journey from talented gardener to legendary hero of lore is a long and treacherous one.

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Arval: Journey of Illusion is an explosive RPG as there are literally hundreds of fight scenarios, which are viewed from a side on point of view. The strategy element comes from picking and choosing the right battles particularly on the later levels, as you don’t necessarily have to fight every battle in order to win the war.

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Becoming familiar with your arsenal of weapons is critical, as the right selection of weapon/attack can make the difference between battling the enemy and slaughtering them as each weapon has a variance making some better at defence and counter attack against your enemies attacks than others.

It’s essential to keep an eye on your health bar as at any moment an enemy could ambush you as if from nowhere and delivery a devastating blow, so choosing whether to sacrifice an attack or to top up your health can mean the difference between winning and losing.

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The combat scenes in Arval: Journey of Illusion take the form of turn based combat. This is a style that has previously proven to be an arduous task for this reviewer, resulting in the majority of RPG games being discarded after an hour or two's play. It is refreshing to experience the time and effort invested by PDAmill in to designing a responsive and entertaining combat interface for Arval: Journey of Illusion, as watching your character lunging forward to deliver a death blow while engaged in a duel to the death is as entertaining as the button bashing, d-pad destroying format.

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The story of Arval: Journey of Illusion is quite compelling (if crack was a software, Arval would be it), with the promise of a quest and the enticement of dragon slaying. This reviewer was surprised to find that after beginning Arval: Journey of Illusion with a hint of scepticism, four hours later the device had to be forcibly removed from my grip. All because a Saturday evening of jovial events had been inconsiderately planned six months earlier (apparently a mothers 60th birthday only comes around once so often). Needless to say the following day, this intrepid reviewer was slaving away on his device, just to bring you the viewer a most comprehensive review. The barricading of the office door had nothing to do with the fact that the reviewer will not be parted from Arval: Journey of Illusion, as it WILL be completed, all that is needed is to squeeze a few more hours out of the day.

Game options

The options screen is accessible at all times in Arval: Journey of Illusion and can be reached by tapping on the menu button (bottom right side).

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The options consist of:

Continue
New
Load
Save
Settings
About
Quit

Comment must be passed on Arval: Journey of Illusion’s game save facilities. As a particular bug bear of this reviewer is having to restart a game from scratch, as the developer presumes you have oodles of time to spend on each mission before the between level default game save kicks in.

Well there’s no reason to gnaw on your fist as a result of frustration at having to forfeit the last 40 minutes of gaming as Arval: Journey of Illusion automatically saves your position each time you change scenario (e.g. moving from exploring the landscape to entering a forest). If your running a tad low on resources and you suspect you may not scrape through the next battle first time then the option to manually save your position is also available.

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If you feel the urge to be sensitive to the needs of those around you, the settings option provides a screen where the both the music volume and in game sound can be adjusted.

If your device is not one of the latest superdooper all singing and dancing Über devices then fear not as the settings within Arval: Journey of Illusion also allows for the audible quality to be adjusted between low, medium and high. While the level of graphical detail can be switched to high if required.

Graphics

The graphics of Arval: Journey of Illusion cater to the norm for most RPG games. As the subject tends to be fantastical, the images reflect this with their particularly non offensive cartoon representation, The images are functional, but well drawn. The images that are presented for the battle scenes are very nicely depicted and add a very pleasing flourish to the presentation overall.

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The colours are bright and vivid, with contrasts clearly visible between the different landscapes. Suprisingly with such a large area to explore, the game maps do not become repetitive (unless you get lost in the Marshes.)

Each city and town appears to be uniquely distinct from the next, which helps to convey the feeling of actually having travelled to a new region.

The evolutionary progress in the presentation of the enemies that confront you can easily be tracked, so that a Veteran Orc is clearly distinguishable from a Warrior King Orc. Which again provides visible evidence of progression as you struggle to heighten your abilities.

If age is creeping up on you and your eyes are not what they might have been, there is again an option with in Arval: Journey of Illusion to zoom in to the screen. So if you are having difficulty locating the hidden entrance to the mountain caves (and who wouldn’t, what with them being hidden and all), fear not as all can become glaringly obvious at the touch of a button.

The use of in-game cut-scenes adds a movie like element to Arval: Journey of Illusion, as they are used very eloquently to support and carry the story along.

Control system

The in game navigation controls (as tested on an Loox 720) are very simple and intuitive, simply involving either tapping on the screen to select where you’d like to move to, or who you’d like to interact with.

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The hardware d-pad and buttons can also be used to navigate the landscape, interact with people and items with the ‘Use’ button being highlighted when an action becomes available. If you want to check your latest quest, top-up your health, check out your travelling armory, general items or quest items etc then the ‘Stats’ button presents you with a nicely tabbed screen from which to make your selection.

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The battle scenes can also be fought via either tapping the on screen buttons or playing with the hardware buttons for the more tactile individuals.

Sound

The interlude sounds and effect sounds convey the atmosphere of Arval: Journey of Illusion quite well with effects such as the crunching steps of feet ascending stairs or trampling in to a forest nicely adding to the atmosphere.

The sound effects for the various weapons with in the battle scenes are quite satisfying as you blast an opponent with your fire staff, or stave their head in with your iron battle hammer.

This reviewer agrees with the use of minimalist sounds with in a game of this genre rather than being subjected to downloading a whopping 100+megs just so the game sounds realistic (It is a fantasy game after all).

Installation

Installation is by the normal ActiveSync method from your Pocket PC to your desktop or laptop PC, and only takes approximately 6 megabytes of storage. If you choose to install to a storage card (SD or CF) the performance continues to run extremely smoothly.

Pros

Extremely addictive game play
HUGE range of battles to be fought
A good balance of landscapes to travel, large enough to require exploring but not too large as to become a boring trek.
Fantastic range of weapons and potions to collect and choose from
Great variety of opponents to battle
Extremely intuitive and fluid control system