Quest for Camelot

"Run!! It's the Attack of the Worthless Zelda Clone!"

Don't be fooled by screenshots of this game. This game may look pretty good (that is, stillframes of it do), but the gameplay is completely and utterly uninspired. This is yet another game that tries to dazzle people with beautiful cinema shots to make up for the lack of fun therein.

Story: 4
I'm guessing that this game follows the story of the animated movie it was based off of. Lemme tell ya, if the dialogue in the movie is as bad as the dialogue in this game, it must be a really crappy movie. Even if you happen to be a fan of the movie, do yourself a favor and try the game out first to see if you can tolerate it.

Gameplay: 2
Well, let's see. You kill things with a sword, block attacks with a shield, there are special attacks which you learn along the way :: coughcoughspinattackcoughcough ::, you pick up special tools, most of them which you only use once...yup! The gameplay completely rips off of Zelda in a really sucky way!

The monsters keep pacing in random directions until you hit them with your sword, upon which they would make a beeline for you like a retard. You can step right in front of the enemy and they won't attack you with their weapon at all (although you'll still get damage from touching them).

The game world is so linear it's not even funny. If you don't find all of the heart containers (hm...why do those two words sound so familiar...?) before you complete one of the ''chapters,'' you canNOT go back and get them, EVER.

If you don't get the items you have to get in a specific order, even if you are physically able to get one item before the other, it WON'T be there. You'll have to go get the other item to make the next one exist!

As if all this wasn't enough to make you wanna wretch, you will occasionally meet up with Merlin, an all powerful wizard who could easily beat all of the monsters with a wave of a hand and save the day, but who instead pops in and tells you exactly what to do in almost every section of the game. ''I won't let you go on unless you get that item!'' Blargh.

Although you have to collect heart containers (hm...there's those strangely familiar words again) to raise your life bar, your sword swinging strength does level up. Is there a status menu where you can check how close you are to attaining the next strength level? Well, yes, but it's hidden. More info on ''The Quest to Find the Secret Status Screen'' later.

There is battery backed saving, but you have to pay the game (???) 30 coins to save. In fact, that seems to be the only thing you can buy with your coins.

Graphics: 7
The best thing about this game isn't even that good. The graphics are large, well detailed and animated (especially the background scenery), but the scrolling can get quite choppy at times, which ruins everything. The scenery is well colored, but sprites are not. Your character and almost all of your enemies are only composed of two colors.

Yay. Cinema screen shots and stuff. That just makes the game sooooo much more fun to watch...I mean play.

Sound/Music: 1
The sound effects are so crappy it's not even funny. Your sword sounds like a pant zipper unzipping (which makes me wonder how she gets the enemies to leave her alone...). When you connect with the enemy, you hear a ding. The other sound effects don't stray far from this level of crappiness. As for the music, the first song you hear sounds decent...then as you progress through the game, you realize that all of the songs are the same as that first song, just altered slightly. To add to the crappiness of the soundtrack of this game, sometimes one of the instruments will just stop playing, making the song sound even worse than it already does. I guess this shows how much time the programmers put into coding this game.

Control: 5
When you swing your sword facing north and south, you have much less range than when you swing it left and right. You'll have to be very careful if you are in a narrow tunnel. As you go farther in the game, you will find an item that allows you to jump. When you jump, your feet barely leave the ground, so don't even think about trying to jump over enemies. It's so hard to judge your jumps it's insane. Sometimes, even though it looks like you made the jump, a split second after you land you'll see your character fall/drown. Quite frustrating.

To get to the status screen, you first bring up the item menu, then press Select, then you press Select again to get back to the item menu, then you can get back to the game. Wee! I love tediousness, don't you?

Replay Value: 2
Ha. If you actually enjoy this game, I guess you can try beating the game without all of the heart containers. Then again, if you have beaten the game, you may have already played through the game with this handicap.

Bottom Line?
Unless you are an extremely hardcore fan of the movie and/or enjoy crappy, blatant Zelda clones, avoid this game like the plague. Whoever designed this game needs to go back to game making school, because all this game is is a crappy version of Zelda, which is why I give it a 2.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 09/24/01, Updated 09/24/01