Lock's Quest

"Defend your castle - and save the world!"

Lock's Quest, by small developer 5th Cell may be something of a hidden gem for the DS. The touch-screen has been used for many things so far in the DS' 4 year life, but building games haven't been all that common, especially with the real-time ‘strategy' aspects this game has. The game's premise is that you're Lock, a boy from a small sea-side village that gets caught up in a war against the robot army of Lord Agony. Wow, in which you're a boy from the sticks and you change the world. Brilliant! But please give me a change to explain why this game deserves your attention.

Game play – 8/10 – loses two points because of the sometimes inaccurate stylus and the piece spinning that can be required.

So you're Lock, a boy on an adventure. Lock is an ‘Archineer', which, as you might expect, means you're both an architect and an engineer. Because you're just one boy, you can hardly stop the hordes of robots controlled by Lord Agony, thus you need an equalizer. Your equalizer is what you build. Lock can (eventually) build walls, turrets, traps and helpers. The walls prevent the robots from getting to sensitive areas, the turrets hammer the robots with either damage or status effects, the traps can slow, stop, damage or inhibit the robots, and finally the helpers provide assistance to the turrets (and some for the walls as well). Sounds like a lot doesn't it? To limit what you can build, you have money, called source in the game. You get source from dead robots and you use it to build and repair your defenses. The way the game scales up from very simple to massively complex defensive systems is perfect.

The game is set up in really three parts: plot, build and battle. The plot part is familiar to anyone who has ever played a strategy game with a story. Since you can't very well have conversations right in the middle of a battle, the game has cut scenes to explore whatever your environment is, and talk and gain insight to the story. The build portion is when you use the above paragraph to develop and maintain your defenses. Then in the battle portion, done in real time, you run around the field in real-time and either battle the robots or repair your defenses. I won't go into all the parts of the battle system, but suffice it to say very simple mini-games prevent the combat from being boring.

The only bad part about the game play is the sometimes inaccurate stylus control and how the computer can get confused when you want to place pieces and you'll have to waste a precious second or two to spin them, or you can't quite see them due to the level design or how you built your defenses. I can't count the number of times I got hung up running in circles when trying to attack or a repair a certain thing. THAT was bad. Other than that, the game controls are fine.

Graphics – 9/10 – loses a point because of the hang-ups you can have when building or running around behind other objects.

I know nothing about 5th Cell's other game, Drawn to Life, so I'll have to accept that it looks like Drawn to Life. Whatever that means, I do not know. The graphics are sprite based, with an isometric view of the field. The amount of action on the field is staggering, and I only had a slow down once. The character sprites for the story scenes are similar to a game like Disgaea in that the pictures change, but are not animated. Overall, I think it looks great. It is clean and easy to see what is going on (unless hidden by walls, and even then the opaque effect is well done).

Plot – 10/10 – perfect because yes, there IS a plot, and I really like it

What, you expect me to tell you the story? Fine, think Zelda because you're looking for the cute blonde. That's all I'm telling.

Sound – 8/10 – it loses a two points because none of the tunes stick with me and the sound effects are just average

Well done soundtrack, that would not be out of place in an Atlus game or a Final Fantasy. None of the tunes stick with me, but that is fine. The sound effects are good too, but not spectacular.

Value – incomplete – since I cannot try the multi-player

There is a good multi-player mode if you can use it, but I can't. The length of the game is probably a good 10 hours, and you can go back and replay whatever stage you want later, always a plus.

Overall – 9/10 (not an average)

As you can probably figure out, I really like this game. A great Christmas gift. There are some things that can be improved, but if you like strategy, I can't recommend this highly enough. A few minor problems (control issues) are overwhelmed by the amount of fun and well done ideas in the game.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/23/08

Game Release: Lock's Quest (US, 09/08/08)