A VALLEY WITHOUT WIND 2

There is a little less than a year, Arcen Games came a strange game called A Valley Without Wind. There was talk freely explore a broader strategic map divided into squares where the player could enter to perform missions. The game then became a platformer action based on the collection of resources for making spells, weapons are our heroine used to get rid of his enemies. No class was imposed, and the player was free to make an arsenal of measurement and to develop it according to his good pleasure before going to war against the Overlord.

As original as it was, A Valley Without Wind nevertheless suffered a messy realization that prevented him from being really fun, the fault probably too full of unbalanced ideas. This second album, originally thought to be a graphical improvement by its developers before turning into full play, is presented to us as a spiritual sequel and tries to correct the shortcomings of its predecessor to make the recipe more palatable.

Daemonica HEAVENLY

The first thing to do when you want to avoid losing the player in a complex world is to present a tutorial detailing all the mechanisms it is likely to encounter. From this point of view, A Valley Without Wind 2 catches largely errors of the previous episode by multiplying the dialogues between the NPC and the main character, even if we avoid extending their quality. From the first minutes of the adventure, the objectives of the game are clearly set: double agent on behalf of the resistance, we passed from Daemonica to one of his henchmen to retrieve a magic crystal.

Once the big bad fooled, we escape and undertake a purification of the surroundings with companions that free men can again snorting no constraint on the land of their ancestors. Good evil genius, our former employer appreciate too much deception and decides to leave his lair to get rid once and for all rebels, accompanied by his faithful monsters. From our side, it will strive to protect our associates and recruit new ones, but also feed all these people and ramp up to be able to face the Dark Lord.

It's again a mix of platform, action, and strategy to turn that is offered here. After exiting the main tower, we are on the world map, on which three kinds of mixed colors. Visible and colored boxes represent the liberated territories, the shaded areas accessible but not yet visited, and the black regions outside attacks. Purifying a square around the boxes are filled with color and the gray area extends expanding our playground, it becomes possible to move the rebels on the liberated areas to give them a task: the boxes revealing the White silhouettes, they recruit new members, farms produce food to eat, and urban areas will be ideal for new buildings. The clinic gives one point per ally and turn the barricades make safer areas ... The nature of the field determines the type of construction possible. It also happens that box is already occupied by a special building. On the way there, will enjoy the bonus if their is a beneficial building the insurgents, and try to destroy the building if it benefits their enemy.

THE WIND Boulet

Daemonica not standing still. Besides the monsters regularly sent on the world map to tuck the human, the Black Knight will not hesitate to come out of hiding to take care of himself dirty work. In the fourteenth round, he appears on the world map, with unlimited power and three movement points, constantly renewed. From that time, the security of our allies is as important as the expansion of our territory, since the game takes place over the death of the last crew. Management of resources, limited movement, special abilities ... Everything is there to have a good time with these strategic phases.

But the charm fails. Firstly because our colleagues are moving much faster than their nemesis, but also because the fights on the card have absolutely no interest. It moves his toy soldiers on the box monsters and here exterminated without further ado. Simply that our companion has more life than his opponent, vitality also corresponding to the force. Resources are becoming available in abundance and it turns out in the end only the hero can purify the corrupted areas.

Subordinates are more used to destroy some barricades history we clear the way, and possibly recruit people to delay the end of the game to the fullest. So just turn the team around in circles opposing general, taking care to leave an NPC play farmer to harvest food and occasionally needed to build a hospital materials. This observation is not really a surprise: the first does not shine either by its strategic aspect. Nevertheless, he had the decency to let us wander freely map, which is not the case here. The gradual discovery of the territory and unlocking boxes is slow and no real interest. It is amusing to see that trying to add depth to this phase of the game, the developers have managed to make it more painful. Fortunately, there are passages of platforms and exploration to entertain us, a real highlight of the game thanks to the previous range of levels and through their labyrinthine structure conferred by procedural generation.

VALLEY OF THE DEAD OF BOREDOM

The desire for simplification comes again spoil this potential AVWW. Worlds to explore are now straight and the few buildings to visit torchent in less than two minutes, boss even in cases where they try to obstruct our path. Their size has been drastically reduced, the branches have disappeared and took with them all the verticality of the previous installment. Height of bad taste, the aim to destroy or retrieve the artifact consistently at the end of the level. As enemies are idiots like shovels, just run in a straight line spamming spells ahead for successful missions without ever being worried, and we do not really see why it is in depriving. The old system of magic required to make our own spells using harvested by cutting trees, fungi or other decorative elements and materials forced the player to explore the environment. Here, we have to choose between four or five classes of magic and just four spells operator imposed a single element, where the old system allowed to use ten of all kinds simultaneously, the levels could be mismatched. Again, the oversimplification sprayed wealth of previous panel without a shadow of remorse.

The graphics for them are still picking despite the promised improvements. Some objects in the environment are certainly more detailed, but the characters are painfully generic, like enemies, and animations rarely have more than three steps. In addition, the collages of Terry Gilliam for Monty Python pass for paragons of fluidity, humor and more. Another grievance, procedural generation associated with smaller environments gun literally any semblance of level design and creates aberrations such as boxes or equipment inaccessible parts completely walled in which the enemies circling and strafing the walls without judgment until we can not come.

Finish in style with music dripping sentimentality, worthy of the worst moments that can provide a secure elevator between floors, and controls far from perfect. By reserving their title being played at the joystick or keyboard, Arcen Games has been the priceless idea of ​​linking the system referred to the movement, very convenient for shooting at forty-five degrees without moving. Aware of this regressive extremism trip, and after taking a drubbing by players of all stripes, the studio has decided to introduce a free under the mouse transforming our avatar real god. At least they let us choose: unplayable or too simple? Plague or cholera?