"Merlin Casts a Spell of Repetitiveness"

Gameplay: 6/10

This game is mainly about puzzles and back tracking. LOTS of back tracking. You will find that if you haven't found certain items at some points in the game, you will have to go back pretty much right to the start. The puzzles give you a nice feeling of satisfaction once you solve them, but I realised I was only really thinking ''Thank God that section is over''. The fighting is aspect is minimal and I found it to be quite difficult as you don't get much practice fighting anything until you reach a major boss. Some sections of the game do have regular enemies that you can fight, but these sections are usually just massive mazes that are almost impossible to navigate, especially the Mines Section. The back tracking aspect plays a enormous part of this game; at the start of the game you start next to a waterfall and you will find you will be returning here many times from locations that are quite a long way away. If they cut out some of the back tracking or made some way to warp from area to area easily, then I probably would have given the gameplay a 7 out of 10.

Story: 5/10

Pretty linear; basically, Merlin as a kid was an idiot. Some girl falls into a river and he dives in after her to save her. Both Merlin and the girl go down this cave and are taken to a weird new place. Merlin wakes up next to a waterfall and you start from there. I'm pretty sure Merlin keeps searching for her, but I'm still not really sure. You don't get any real story from the start, as all of the NPCs (all 4 of them) talk to you with pictures and absolutely no text, but the human characters do have stupid grunts that repeat over and over while they ''talk''. Do not buy this game if you want a story inriched game, as this will disappoint.

Graphics: 7/10

Nothing spectacular, but the characters look funny, in an annoying/stupid kind of way. The bosses are also in this fashion, cool but stupid, whether you be fighting a giant pig or a green blob. The character sprites, mainly the common enemies, have very few animations and just perform a basic walk-into-you function. Meanwhile, the maze sections of the game have the same texture throughout the entire maze, which will probably actually lead to you getting lost, which in theory is okay because after all, you ARE in a maze, but this becomes aggrivating if you have been trying to find your way out for over half an hour.

Sounds: 6/10

A mixed bag; some of the BGM in this game sounds alright but eventually become annoyingly repetitive as you will hear it constantly. The character sounds on the other hand almost drove me to the brink of insanity. Here is an example: ''Grou goh, grou grou, grou goh, grou goh, goh.'' And I'm not kidding. Thankfully, this is not heard a lot, but it is heard a lot more than required from that old Wizard Bloke who makes these sounds when you get close to his damn house.

Replayability: 4/10

This game will take you a while to finish, but once you have completed the game there is nothing more you can really do. Good for a first time, a rainy day and maybe the occasional dig-out of your closet, but this is not something that will be played frequently. Basically, it will only be truly worth it the first time you play through, and maybe each 2-3 year interval you dig it up to play through it one more time.

Buy or Rent?:

You probably couldn't do either now; there might be a copy floating around on Ebay or something, but I wouldn't recommend purchasing it. A ROM is probably the best deal you can get nowadays, and even then, I'd only recommend it if you are really into back tracking and puzzles. This game isn't spectacular, but it isn't overly terrible. A mediocre affair all along the line.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/15/03, Updated 03/15/03