Orcs & Elves

"Talk to the wand"

When I heard the guys behind Doom were creating a game for mobile phones that was a dungeon crawler, I didn't believe it at first. I mean, I know they've made Doom RPG for mobile phones, but seriously, a dungeon crawler RPG just didn't seem like the kind of thing they'd be too good at making. Since I'd rather not play games on my cell phone, I waited until the game was ported to the Nintendo DS, and I do have to say that the final product, generically titled Orcs & Elves, doesn't disappoint.

The game is set on a huge grid and every time you move, use an item, attack, etc. that counts as a turn. If there are monsters in the vicinity they also get a turn, so that means you have to think strategically with every single move you make.

Potions are plentiful in this title and there is a surprising variety available to you. Some potions make you invisible for so many turns and other potions make you invincible for so many turns. For some weird reason, there are no magic potions, but there are small health potions and large health potions in case you take some damage.

While you can find these potions after defeating enemies or simply sitting in treasure chests, you can also purchase them from this big dragon that is located in a secret lair you can only access by finding blue fire portals that are scattered throughout the levels. You can buy potions, weapons, armor, and rings from this dragon, but you are given the option to barter with it in order to get a better deal. While this was an interesting idea, it ends up hurting the game a little in a different way. You see, when you buy things in most RPGs, you can choose how much you want so you only have to select the item once, but in Orcs & Elves you are going to have to constantly click on the same item repeatedly if you want something in mass quantity. This gets really annoying and the only reason this is here is because of the bartering system, so you have a chance to barter every time you purchase something. Bartering isn't even useful because you only end up saving a few coins here and there and it never adds up to amount to anything.

Orcs & Elves also has surprising depth when it comes to the weapon selection. There are a variety of swords and bows at your disposal, but the fun doesn't stop there. You can find a scroll that turns your enemies to stone, a special hammer that can hit multiple enemies at once, your trusty magic wand, and some other tools to take down your enemies.

Like I said before, you can't restore your magic using potions, but instead your magic is regenerated slowly turn by turn. Your wand can fire short bursts of magic, but as you progress in the game you also unlock some spells. In order to use a spell, you simply have to tap some icons in a certain order. I wish that there was a different way to activate each spell, but the system they have in place gets the job done and while it's not very compelling, it's better than simply choosing the spell from a list.

I have also mentioned rings and they do the obvious thing of increasing attributes. For example, one ring may make you stronger while another ring may regenerate your health. You can also equip armor to protect your health. With each hit your armor deteriorates so you have to maintain your armor using armor kits that you can purchase from the dragon or you can find them in the dungeons.

There is a wide variety of enemies who have a variety of moves and weaknesses. Some enemies can poison you to kill you slowly and other enemies rely on brute force to take you down quickly. You have to learn what weapons hurt what enemies more, but the game never starts feeling like Pokemon where you just constantly switch out to best suit your needs.

On that note, you can switch between your weapons pretty quickly by just hitting the X button. While that's all fine and good at the beginning of the game when you don't have many weapons to your name, towards the end it becomes a little annoying because there is no button that lets you cycle backwards through your weapon selection.

Minor puzzles can be found in the dungeons as well and they usually involve pushing boulders, finding something to impress ghosts, or figuring out a code to a door. While none of these puzzles are very difficult, they break up the action a little and they keep the game from getting stale.

Orcs & Elves is separated out into levels where at the end of the level you are ranked by how many enemies you've killed and how many secret passageways you've found. By the way, you level up in this title just like other RPGs and you get bonus experience points for completing levels entirely.

Elli is a young elf who has a talking wand named Ellon that used to belong to his father. Ellon has its own mind and is capable of communication. One day, Ellon receives a cryptic message from Elli's father's friend, King Brahm, so they head out to look for him, only to discover his home has been overrun by orcs and other monsters. Surprisingly, the story, as simple as it is, is oddly compelling. Character development is nearly non-existent and the story moves along at a sometimes sluggish pace, but like I said, it is oddly compelling and you will still want to play just to see what happens.

There aren't a lot of DS games that are set in 3D environments and it's nice to see games that pull off the 3D world without many control issues. Super Mario 64 DS failed due to the lack of an analog function, but Orcs & Elves uses the previously mentioned grid so controls are tight and never a problem. The environments, while not varied, still look decent and there are some nice graphical effects here and there. Unfortunately, monster sprites are a mixed bag. Some monsters look horrible, but others have quite a bit of detail to them. If you are familiar with the developer's earlier Doom titles, you should be right at home with the designs, but we all know the DS is capable of producing better graphics than this.

A lack of voice acting and compelling soundtrack does hurt Orcs & Elves a little, but the sound effects are all nice and rarely annoying.

Orcs & Elves can last five to six hours, which while it is disappointing for an RPG, it is still passable, especially for a handheld title. You may want to discover all of the secrets and complete the game 100%, plus there are scrolls you can find that allow you to unlock concept art that is actually interesting to look at.

A lot of gamers are going to be turned off by the difficulty in Orcs & Elves, but patient gamers who want a decent dungeon crawler that manages to do a lot of things right should definitely check this title out. Fans of the developer's previous games might want to give this a shot just to see if it holds up, but if you are a fan of hack-and-slash first-person RPGs in the vain of games like Oblivion then I have a feeling you'll find a lot to like with Orcs & Elves. With a sequel in development for mobile phones, I hope the developers decide to port that entry to the DS, too, because I would definitely play it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/05/08

Game Release: Orcs & Elves (US, 11/13/07)