Eragon

"And My Expectations Fall Lower"

The title of "Worst RPG" is difficult to achieve. Many horrific games contend for the title, but few achieve the heights (or depths?) reached by the horror that is Eragon. I'll be perfectly clear here: this game has NO redeeming qualities.

Graphics (2/10):
I really don't know what to say. Eragon's graphics are a combination of the worst possible elements that could be thrown together. First, there are abysmal character portraits which seems to be a fusion of low quality prerendered 3D and plastic or clay modelling. The game's sprites (of which there may be a dozen at most) seem to work on a 256 colour palette, and lack any definition or style. In-battle sprites consist of 6-8 colours apiece, which is far better than the menus, which have about 4. In short, the graphics are among the worst I've yet seen on the GBA.

Music & Sound (2.5/10):
Audio is a mixed bag, yet still manages to fail. To its credit, Eragon does feature a number of fairly well written tracks of music, which are neither overly cliche or short to the point of continual looping. However, the music quality itself is pitifully low, as the sound is very muddy and lacks any range of instruments, if one can call the alternating booms and chimes instruments at all. The sound effects, meanwhile, are a disgrace. All attacks, be they from sword, axe, or bow, use identical sounds, which are midway between rolling thunder and punching a sandbag.

Control (3/10):
Control while travelling the overworld has no glaring flaws, and menu navigation is effective. In battle control, however, is sloppy and cumbersome. Items and magic require use of tedious menus, in which you can spend 15 seconds scrolling to use a revival item. The spell system, which requires you to press A when a bar is at its fullest, is easily overriden by quickly tapping, as the bar ALWAYS starts at full. Meanwhile, attacking makes use of a combo of buttons A and B, which is a severe nuisance, given the game's absurdly high encounter rate. The game's system of pressing A and B to reduce damage from melee and ranged attacks respectively has bad detection, and is normally rendered entirely useless.

Story (2/10):
As with any game based off a book or movie (or both), I judge this based on its own merits alone. That being said, I'm not sure if it's fair to say this game even has a plot. In part, it seems to follow the cookie-cutter pattern of RPGs - young boy gains special powers, goes on a journey to stop evil empire, ad infinitum - while failing to include any sort of character development or key plot elements.

Your team consists of Eragon, who has the aforementioned special powers and goes on a journey after his adoptive uncle is killed by the agents of the evil emperor Palpatine Galbatorix, in addition to the archtypes: mentor who dies, female caster/love interest, angsty yet inferior swordsman who takes no part in the plot (as it ends long before he might serve any purpose). The barebones story has no finality at all, as it ends rather suddenly (the credits started rolling before I realized the enemy I had just defeated was the final boss) immediately after 'introducing' a small set of random new characters in a random new location. Conclusion: I have no clue what the hell was going on, and I'm not about to read the book to supplement this trainwreck.

Gameplay (2/10):
What an utter failure. The game consists of continual nearly-identical battles, with palette swapped versions of the exact same enemies, whose HP levels seem to vary wildly. Options include attacking - which consists of using the exact same combos over and over, magic, which features a dozen nigh-identical spells, meditating, which is ENTIRELY useless, and using items, which feature such brilliant names as "Salts 4" and "Cure 3" and such useless purposes as adding poison to an attack. No strategy is required, as (as will be mentioned) the balance and difficulty is so horribly broken.

The game features an equipment system which is nonsensical and seems to serve no purpose whatsoever. Equipment found on the field, which seems to have entirely arbitrary statistics, can be customized by forging certain materials into it too boost certain stats. Problem 1: No one knows what ANY of the statistics do. While Str and Arm are semi-obvious, what on earth is Dge or Tuf? What do Agi and Spd respectively do? These are questions that will be lost unanswered to the ravages of time. Problem 2: The materials lie. One item clearly states "+40 Def." It adds 25. Another states "+25 Def." It too adds 25. All that remains is using the absolute best damage-boosting items on the highest base-damage weapons. The result is a waste of time with no strategy involved. Problem 3: The game also allows one to equip countless accessories which provide pitifully small stat boosts. Despite getting dozens of varieties, I left Eragon equipping a Wool Cloak (which I started with) for half the game, as nothing better came along.

A somewhat interesting addition is the system of 'Focussing,' which allows players to customize which of 5 areas a character will specialize, with bonus points at level up. Herbal allows the character to pick herbs for potion making, herbs which reappear EVERY time you reenter the screen, Magic, which is necessary to get new spells and cast without killing yourself, Weapon, which features the inspirational description of "Dueling, Special Attacks," yet seems to do nothing other than boost strength (whatever it does), Endurance, which allows you to kick open boxes for useless equipment, and Hunting, which allows you to follow tracks for.. more useless equipment. Interesting idea, criminally bad execution.

Difficulty and Balance (0/10):
This game was never tested. It is so horribly unbalanced and varies so wildly in difficulty as to boggle the mind. On the one hand, you have enemies who can be killed nearly instantly, on the other, enemies which require 4-5 times the effort, while giving up the same rewards. If you establish one character as a dedicated caster, the game becomes a joke, as many spells can easily wipe out entire enemy forces with a single cast, while the HP required to cast them (yes, spells harm you, for who knows what reason) is recovered automatically at level up. Flipside: use of a spell on anyone who is NOT built entirely to be a caster will kill you instantly. For example, healing yourself for 1400 with an HP cost of 3500.

But it gets worse. Enemy difficulty is entirely random. One type of enemy encountered near the game's end is capable of dealing 14000 damage per attack. The maximum HP allowed is 9999, thus continual one-hit kills. The unexpected final boss, however, is incapable of doing more than 1000. Nothing ends up actually being difficult, as various poison attacks do 5-10% of full HP worth of damage every turn. That is, anything can be beaten in 4 turns. Gaining experience is just as random, as enemies in an area may be giving you 3-400 experience per battle, but upon gaining a level, that number is reduced to 3.

Replay (0/10):
There is absolutely no reason to ever play this game a first time, then again a second. It is strictly linear, painfully short, and lacks any sorts of sidequests or meaningful customization.

Overall (1/10):
Holy hell this is bad. I tried hard to think of redeeming qualities, and only came up with the usual: it's short.

Rent or Buy: Rent (Sadists), Neither (Everyone else)

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 01/16/07