Covet the throne Diablo – undoubtedly a brave act. Especially for developers whose track record includes exclusively car simulators. Sacred, Dungeon Siege and recent Titan Quest came from the pen of developers seasoned in RPG battles. With all this, not a single representative of this trinity managed to reach creation Blizzard. What can we say about Cyanide Studio. Studio’s debut role-playing project, Loki, by hook or by crook I tried to take a place in the sun in the close convoy of hack-n-clash titles, and in the end I found myself among the gray and wasted campaign of clones.
The plot, strikingly creative, tells about yet another confrontation between the Ancient Evil and the Nameless Hero. This time the role of the bad guy on a universal scale went to the Egyptian god Set. The casting of the protagonists included an Aztec priestess, a Scandinavian warrior, a desert sorcerer and a Greek huntress.
The parameters of the characters are firmly soldered to their owners: two magicians and two mordovoros – there is no third. As such, there is no possibility of changing the appearance of the protagonists – you have to be content with what the wild imagination of the game makers was enough for. Depending on the choice of the hero, the order of passage of four zones is distributed: Ancient Egypt, no less ancient Greece, frosty Scandinavia and the lost world of the Aztecs. How this happens, I think, is not difficult to guess.
The first thing that catches your https://kaboomslotscasino.co.uk/ eye when carefully studying the locations is the microscopic size of the territories allocated for exploration. And this is in 2007, when developers, on the contrary, are striving to expand the territory of game worlds everywhere. However, everything could have been much better if not for the insane number of enemies who occupied every millimeter of virtual space. Long-suffering fingers will have no time to rest until the very end credits. It is after doing a myriad of mouse clicks that acute symptoms of claustrophobia begin to appear.
In rare moments of rest between bloody skirmishes it is possible to appreciate Loki from a graphical point of view. The French brainchild has succeeded most in this aspect. If you don’t get hung up on the scale of what’s happening. And so: stunning special effects, high-quality textures, models sparkling with polygons – everything is of the highest standard.
The main feature of the game and the only point that distinguishes it from the crowd of imitators of the same thing is sacrifice. Bringing various gifts to deities affects the level of the Faith scale, along with the usual line of experience, which is responsible for the ability to study passive skills and spells. Certain deities, represented in the amount of three, are responsible for certain abilities. Therefore, the specification of acquired skills depends on the choice of the purpose of worship. Paying tribute to the Almighty is allowed on special altars, which in one fell swoop solved the problems of the hero’s supersonic enrichment. Objects extracted from the bodies of defeated monsters settle not only in the form of a thick layer of coins at the bottom of the character’s giant chest, but also as real stimulants for development.
By a strange coincidence, the level of loot does not depend on the toughness of the enemies. There are frequent cases when uber-blades and impenetrable armor fall out of the flimsy carcasses of small undead, and fat bosses are reluctant to share ordinary artifacts. As a result, the protagonist acquires a deadly arsenal of weapons long before common sense and balance would dictate. For the same reason, there is no need for traders and blacksmiths. Why waste a lot of time upgrading a new sword if a much more powerful copy is stored in the stash of a dead elf.
Classic RPG experience goes towards upgrading the five default skills. It is earned in the usual way – by exterminating monsters and completing quests. The latter, by the way, are worked out quite well. At least the wording “kill N adversaries” and “kill N adversaries, bring M things” is extremely rare.
It’s easy to get drowned in the flow of your own ambitions. Not everyone can cope with them. As practice has shown, Cyanide employees, including. Embellishing Loki shiny tinsel, the developers forgot about the most important thing – gameplay. The end result was a beautiful craft on the outside, but completely empty on the inside. In a word – a typical blonde.
Pros: modern graphics; dynamic battles.
Cons: another Diablo clone, with all that it implies.