Azurik: Rise of Perathia

"Still more Ups than Downs"

I don't suppose any of you gamers read the review more ups than downs. Well, this is by the same person, only now I've beaten the game, so I know more about it. As I've gone through, there have been more cool perks in this game...and more frustrating parts. My main advice is to use a strategy guide.

GRAPHICS

The graphics are still good. Since you get to new realms and meet new enemies, it gets better and better. Humans are still near perfect, and enemies are still OK. Some enemies look really dumb, like the little purple gremlin dudes, but most are decent. Scenery is also pretty cool, from what little there is. I love the way light reflects off the axion when you climb ladders. Defenite perk. The hair is a little weird, but thats true in plenty of games. Although I was mad that the main boss isn't big or scary, graphics altogether get an 8.

SOUND

The sound in this game is also cool. The sound effects are decent, even though they're sort of annoying sometimes when you slash at an enemy over and over, and he makes the same dumb noise every time. When you hit things, your axion also makes noise, which can be cool or dumb depending on the enemy you're facing. The musics cool too. A lot of reviews said this game didn't really have any music, and at first I thought they were right, but by the time I'd beaten the game, I realized there is music, and its cool. It sets the mood of the game perfectly. The only problem is that its too quiet. Its actually cool music, and it sounds like something from the earlier Star Wars movies. The combination of SFX and music isn't spectacular, but its well done, and gets a 7.

GAMEPLAY

This, of course, is the important part. I repeat my advice...use a strategy guide. This game is mostly beatable, with only some hard puzzles, but theres some stuff no human would ever figure out, and for these I used a strategy guide. I just copy/pasted the GameFAQS one.
This game is defenitely hard. Its mostly pretty hard, but nothing you could never figure out, but certain parts are impossible, and I think they triggered most of the bad reviews. But I just looked on my guide for those. The rest of the parts were fun. It really has some pretty creative puzzled in that game. The enemies are hard, but not that bad, just minor obstacles. Just like they should be. The fighting does get boring, but you can run past enemies if you really don't want to face them. I really like the way you can put on certain elemental shields or attacks that work against certain enemies. Its awesome. One problem is that the boss, Balthazar, isn't scary at all. He's not hard. He's not even 3 times your size, like bosses always are. But aside from that, I don't really have anything against the gameplay, except that it lags sometimes. So gameplay, too, gets an 8.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/07/02, Updated 02/08/02