Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage

"A 1? Now you are TOO generous!"

Don't let the cool box art fool you. This game is just the opposite of what the box art suggests. It suggests fun, great visuals, and a stellar, epic storyline. In (game) reality, the fun comes in very small, almost untraceable doses, the visuals offer a palette of dark colors that blend the setting with characters and items, and the storyline is neither epic nor stellar. If that doesn't chase you from the game, then the rest of this review most definitely will.

The Good:
+ The level-up system is actually rather good
+ The dialogue will make you laugh—whether it's meant to or not

The Bad:
— Somebody let this game out into the market
— Long sequences of boring combat
— Many people might not even find their way out of the first castle

The Ugly:
:( The character and monster designs

Storyline—1/10

Those used to spiky-haired heroes, don't fret. Alaron, this game's hero, keeps the trend alive by appearing as though he just rolled out of bed. Those who like their heroes to be good-looking dudes, or chicks, turn away. There's not one ounce of beautiful person in the whole game, though I have to give developer H2O Interactive some credit for that. Why should every game and movie star some hot chick or dude? It's not fair to those of us who are just average-looking. As long as they're intelligent people, what does it matter how they look?

Unfortunately the script-writers don't provide the characters with any intelligent dialogue. In fact, it's laughable. The game doesn't take itself very seriously, which makes things even worse. It's as though the developers want to let us know they're in on our laughter, only the developers are laughing not because they know what's so funny, but because everyone else is laughing. Take for example what Alaron says when the party stops to rest. They sit before a campfire and the camera zooms on Alaron's face. He says, “Ah! Pass the marshmallows.” Obviously this is a joke, but the gamer is laughing because it is a very bad joke, and the developers are laughing because they think it is a good joke.

The best line of dialogue, though, belongs to the knight, Abrecan. When the king sends Alaron on a quest and offers as a reward to make Alaron (who is at the time a squire) a knight, Abrecan objects throughout. He continuously insults his king by saying, “You are too generous.” And each time he repeats those words, more and more of them become capitalized, expressing Abrecan's abhorrent anger for the king allowing this young squire a chance to become a knight. Compared to that line of dialogue, nothing else is worth remembering.

Gameplay—1/10

This paragraph is for those of you who will quit playing after several hours of trying to find your way through the labyrinthine castle where Alaron lives. Nothing in it is connected logically. Areas and rooms you once visited are almost impossible to find again. There isn't a good map to help you explore it or a single sign to point you in the right direction. Before you set off on the quest, you have to choose four characters from five or six candidates. I suggest picking whoever you see first, because if you scout them all out first, finding them again later will be very tricky, if not impossible. In fact, finding the throne room so the king can give Alaron his quest is such a difficult task that the poison that has coursed through his body will probably take effect before he knows what to do. And then his dead body will be lost for years. How does the king find his own throne room? I can imagine him lugged around by his guards, and when he's tired of searching for it, he says, “Set me down here. This will be my throne room today.”

Now for those who do manage to get out of the castle by some miracle (I doubt even the FAQs could help. I swear, the mischievous castle changes on its own). You'll be out questing, searching through the not-so-labyrinthine-but-still-difficult-to-navigate outside areas. Most importantly, you'll be battling bad guys. That's what you bought the game for, right? To battle bad guys? For this, the game developers bumped their heads together and thought, “What is so fun about video games?” They made a list, narrowed it down to “What's so fun about RPGs,” and then, for the fun of it, made a list of “What would not be fun in an RPG.” But somebody accidentally slipped this last list to the developers and threw out the other one. So the combat that lasts 10 to 20 minutes and consists of lots swinging and missing. I swear, the chance to hit in this game is about as low as the chance to miss in other games. There are so many factors that go against your chance to hit that there just is no hitting. And when you reach a high enough level to actually start hitting the enemies, you move on to the next area where the enemies are stronger and, thus, harder to hit. ARGGHH!!! Back to square one.

On the bright side, the experience system is rather good. You can put points into different skills for each character, giving you a lot of freedom for customization. Too bad the rest of the game couldn't have been so fun and original.

Longevity—1/10

As I said, many of you will probably never leave the castle, where poor Alaron will breathe his last, but for those fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to make it out and go on your quest, there's a lengthy quest here. Much of it consists of long battles between incompetent fighters, and very little of it consists of an engaging story. In the end, it would be much more merciful to allow Alaron to live out the rest of his days lost in the castle.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 04/11/08

Game Release: Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage (US, 03/14/01)