Spirit Revenge
No summary available.
Link
Last modified 2012-05-17 00:01:24
This is Shloober's Favourite MZX game.
A splendid mix of nostalgia and awesomeness win this game a 5/5!
Nice music, good but not amazing GFX, a good plot and a fairly long game time make this game something which doesn't stand out in any particular respect, but is just rock solid in itself.
A splendid mix of nostalgia and awesomeness win this game a 5/5!
Nice music, good but not amazing GFX, a good plot and a fairly long game time make this game something which doesn't stand out in any particular respect, but is just rock solid in itself.
Link
Posted date unknown
An adventure game with the basic inventory-style system, that you know and love. You find and collect items and use them to solve puzzles, you know the drill. But where Spirit's Revenge really shines is the fact that it's a fairly long (by MZX standards), involving game that just manages to strike all the right chords. Graphics are clean, music is pretty good, it's puzzles will make you scratch your head but they're not so difficult and obscure that you'll want to quit. Not to mention, there's a story that develops as you progress deeper into the game. Definitely one of the best games out for MZX.
Link
Last modified 2017-04-26 17:32:52
Ah, Spirit Revenge... Sheer curiosity over one of your music files made me play you... and I can honestly say I'm glad I did. It's a fun little game.
The story is a little weird, all things considered, but it comes together pretty quickly as you progress through the game. The storytelling, on the other hand, is something I have a slight problem with.
The tale is told in a comprehensive and coherent way... but the way it's told -- through cutscenes -- is a little annoying. See, some of the cutscenes in this game tend to drag on for quite a while with no real indication that you're supposed as to whether or not you're supposed to be doing anything. There's also one particular cutscene that seems to take forever to play out (on normal speed), but when it finally ends... it turns out to be nothing but a scene transition... and a really boring scene transition, at that!
Long-windedness and stylistic choices aside, though, the cutscenes were pretty good from a technical standpoint. There's some cutscenes with standard player graphics, but there's also some cutscenes with big graphics drawn with blocks and the like! That was definitely something you didn't see too often in 1997 games.
The controls are kind of non-standard for a MegaZeux game. You do have your usual movement keys... but rather than shooting or bombing, you need to use inventory to progress through the game. The way this works is kind of unique, but also kind of annoying, too. There are three separate keys for inventory management: One for viewing the inventory and getting item descriptions, one for using the inventory, and a dedicated key for picking up, or attempting to pick up, objects you may see laying around. Bumping into them just causes the player character or the narrator -- or some unknown entity that observes things -- to comment on the object in-question. While this is definite more akin to point-and-click adventure games like Space Quest or The Secret of Monkey Island, it kind of feels weird here. It's a small hurdle to get over, though.
One thing I sincerely wish that yenrab had done with the inventory system is adding far more interactions between random objects and held items. I think it would have been great to be able to use certain items on certain things for comedic effect rather than have the game tell me I couldn't do that. Well, what was stopping me from trying other than "these two objects aren't coded to interact together?" In fact, I can only thing of one instance where using an item with an object results in something funny and possibly unexpected. Otherwise, you get standard and non-standard "Nope" messages. How frustrating...
I have a pretty significant nitpick I want to bring up with this game. If you download the game's music, it comes in perfectly standard MOD and S3M formats. No problem there, I like being able to listen to MegaZeux soundtracks in whatever compatible player I have. The problem there is... you actually have to convert the S3Ms to GDM files in order for them to work with the game. Why add this extra step? Why not just have the usable soundtrack as an extra download or something?
Also, while every song is used at some point in the game, there are more than a few area which completely lack music. Again, not a massive problem, especially if you came from ZZT games where music was bleeps and bloops. It just seems odd to have areas within areas that are completely devoid of music...
Finally, let's talk about the puzzles for a minute. None of the puzzles in this game are impossible by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, the game took me about two hours to complete from start to finish. However, there are a few puzzles that will definitely have you blindly poking around and using different items on different objects. But... that's pretty par-the-course for point-and-click adventure games and even MegaZeux inventory-based games such as Weirdness and Bernard the Bard.
All and all, I think Spirit Revenge is a good game that could have used a bit more polish in a couple places. If you're looking for something classic and fun to play, this definitely deserves a go.
The story is a little weird, all things considered, but it comes together pretty quickly as you progress through the game. The storytelling, on the other hand, is something I have a slight problem with.
The tale is told in a comprehensive and coherent way... but the way it's told -- through cutscenes -- is a little annoying. See, some of the cutscenes in this game tend to drag on for quite a while with no real indication that you're supposed as to whether or not you're supposed to be doing anything. There's also one particular cutscene that seems to take forever to play out (on normal speed), but when it finally ends... it turns out to be nothing but a scene transition... and a really boring scene transition, at that!
Long-windedness and stylistic choices aside, though, the cutscenes were pretty good from a technical standpoint. There's some cutscenes with standard player graphics, but there's also some cutscenes with big graphics drawn with blocks and the like! That was definitely something you didn't see too often in 1997 games.
The controls are kind of non-standard for a MegaZeux game. You do have your usual movement keys... but rather than shooting or bombing, you need to use inventory to progress through the game. The way this works is kind of unique, but also kind of annoying, too. There are three separate keys for inventory management: One for viewing the inventory and getting item descriptions, one for using the inventory, and a dedicated key for picking up, or attempting to pick up, objects you may see laying around. Bumping into them just causes the player character or the narrator -- or some unknown entity that observes things -- to comment on the object in-question. While this is definite more akin to point-and-click adventure games like Space Quest or The Secret of Monkey Island, it kind of feels weird here. It's a small hurdle to get over, though.
One thing I sincerely wish that yenrab had done with the inventory system is adding far more interactions between random objects and held items. I think it would have been great to be able to use certain items on certain things for comedic effect rather than have the game tell me I couldn't do that. Well, what was stopping me from trying other than "these two objects aren't coded to interact together?" In fact, I can only thing of one instance where using an item with an object results in something funny and possibly unexpected. Otherwise, you get standard and non-standard "Nope" messages. How frustrating...
I have a pretty significant nitpick I want to bring up with this game. If you download the game's music, it comes in perfectly standard MOD and S3M formats. No problem there, I like being able to listen to MegaZeux soundtracks in whatever compatible player I have. The problem there is... you actually have to convert the S3Ms to GDM files in order for them to work with the game. Why add this extra step? Why not just have the usable soundtrack as an extra download or something?
Also, while every song is used at some point in the game, there are more than a few area which completely lack music. Again, not a massive problem, especially if you came from ZZT games where music was bleeps and bloops. It just seems odd to have areas within areas that are completely devoid of music...
Finally, let's talk about the puzzles for a minute. None of the puzzles in this game are impossible by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, the game took me about two hours to complete from start to finish. However, there are a few puzzles that will definitely have you blindly poking around and using different items on different objects. But... that's pretty par-the-course for point-and-click adventure games and even MegaZeux inventory-based games such as Weirdness and Bernard the Bard.
All and all, I think Spirit Revenge is a good game that could have used a bit more polish in a couple places. If you're looking for something classic and fun to play, this definitely deserves a go.