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> Results: Daemonica
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Adventure games used to be very popular in PC gaming with wonderful point and click stories filled with vibrant characters, but those are now a rarity. Over the years they have adopted new approaches to attract gamers, but story remains at the center and is generally more involved and detailed than in any other genre. This is certainly true of Daemonica, an adventure game that could easily be confused for a third-person isometric role-playing game because of the character control and visual presentation. You even obtain and complete quests throughout the game, but at the core this is a story and puzzle driven adventure that takes you through mysterious happenings in England during the Dark Ages.
You assume the role of Nicholas Farepoynt who has been invited to the dark town of Cavorn to investigate a murder. Along the way you meet up with many interesting characters who tell you some things that help, some that hinder, and others that mislead you in your search for the truth in this quickly spreading mystery. Gameplay is typical for an adventure gameﾗclick to move and interact with the environment using a context-sensitive mouse pointer. The major difference is that you can rotate and zoom the camera freely, making exploration much more flexible. There are also keys allowing fast access to the area map, inventory and diary. Interacting with other people is essential to moving the game along, and there are plenty of interesting characters to speak with. The town is dark and disturbing, and the developers did a very good job of capturing the reflection of that in character dialogue. The diary and personal information files are full of useful information that you frequently consult. Farepoynt needs to create potions at various points in the game, and there are herbs needed for each potion that he must collect from around town. These herbs appear at random locations and reappear at random times, and there is not an overabundance of them, so wandering around collecting herbs becomes an integral part of the game. The problems with Daemonica are numerous and spread throughout but fortunately none of them are major. First, because of the nature of the story, everything happens in a single dark town making the game seem small. Despite it lasting approximately fifteen hours, this single dark setting seems confining. Also, the combat system is a reflex test. You need to be the first to start attacking, and click like a maniac while blocking frequently. It's not particularly satisfying or deterministic. Another issue comes from herb collection. The only means of healing is through potions requiring various herbs shared with other critical potions. This creates the problem of constantly walking around the game world to find any herbs, making it a dreadful chore that only gets worse as the game progresses. The game allows up to ten saves, which is good because it is fairly easy to make mistakes that seem game-ending. There is very little voice-acting. It only occurs during the cutscenes and between ﾑacts', which is probably a good thing. I think no voice-acting is better than some of the terrible attempts at it in other games.  Daemonica is an enjoyable and detailed adventure game that offers multiple endings based on how you feel about what you have learned over the course of the game. It rewards thoroughness and careful dialogue skills by revealing more interesting information about the town and people. The story is interesting and worth uncovering through interaction with the townspeople. The issues shouldn't keep you from playing this. If you like adventure games, this budget priced adventure is worth playing. 
Daemonica is another one of those games that illustrates how poorly many games fit within the ESRB rating scale. It is rated T because of "Blood, Mild Language, and Mild Violence", and features visuals that are more in line with Neverwinter Nights than anything modern and realistic. From that viewpoint it seems like a game that should be appropriate for kids 10 and up.
Yet the story is much more gruesomeﾗinvolving a main character who brings himself into a near-death state to communicate with the dead as well as a story involving demons and possessed humans killing others and using their skin and other parts in an attempt to free the demon. There are no graphic scenes or detailed descriptions, just the imagery and emotional responses of others. That helps mitigate the visuals, but the result is a T-rated game that is definitely not one to share with younger kids. This review edited by Dave Long Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Browse Amazon.com's selection of "daemonica" themed games Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Daemonica |
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