Afterlife Murder Mystery
Folklore mixes devilish repetition with heavenly visuals.
Published: November 4, 2007
If you own an HDTV and openly admit to being a graphics whore, there's really no other way to say it: Folklore is worth buying just out of sheer beauty and imagination alone. The sights seen in the game mirror big-screen wow-fests like What Dreams May Come or The Cell with the kind of splendor that few games, if any, have been able to provide thus far.
Unfortunately, most gamers can't get by on pure eye candy alone, and as amazingly gorgeous as Folklore is, the reliance on retracing the same locales and fighting the same enemies will try almost anyone's patience to the breaking point -- and for most it'll eventually give. That's not to say the game doesn't have a solid core, though. Collecting monsters by exploiting their weakness to other monsters is a key part of the game's charm and a major hook for the "gotta catch 'em all" types, but what is fun (if a little trying at times) the first time around becomes needlessly tedious when you're forced to do it all over again.
See, Folklore's tale of murder in a rural seaside burg in Ireland is certainly enticing enough. The idea that two different characters, an occult magazine writer and an orphaned girl both called to the village of Doolin and saddled with the responsibility and gift of being able to speak to the dead packs plenty of potential, and for the first few hours, it's a wonderous, amazing journey. It's also told from the slightly differing perspectives of both characters twice through more than a half dozen chapters, a move no doubt meant to artificially inflate the game's length.
If navigating a stoic Keats or inquisitive Ellen through the same awe-inspiring realms meant seeing different parts of said worlds, that would be one thing, but the monster collecting and boss battles are mirrored across both characters' chapters, with only their conversations (often with the exact same characters, mind you) standing out.
Keats' sections are a little more combat-heavy and a bit tougher than Ellen's, and there was an attempt to paint a picture of opposing Netherworld forces telling two sides of the same tale, but the game would have benefitted from a singular monster livery and alternating takes on things -- or even the ability to open up a second perspective as a bonus. Instead, you're forced to talk to the same people and fight the same bosses in an effort to progress the storyline and it frankly stifles the pacing of the story.
The process goes a little something like this: take on character, have them talk to someone in the village to find out a little more about the murders that took place both recently and 16 years ago, get a momento of the dead then talk to them and open a portal to a realm, enter the realm, trudge through a handful of screens fighting monsters and capturing their ids so you can bind them to one of the face buttons on the SIXAXIS, get to a boss that uses multiple ids to attack weak points and repeat for the same character in the same environments.
Don't get me wrong, I liked finding the little storybook pages scattered throughout the realms that used pictures to describe how to take down mini-bosses and end-chapter Folklore alike, but I liked it the first time I did it. By the time I finished the chapter and switched to the second character only to repeat what could have taken hours before, it felt like backtracking and it killed my motivation to see what world would be opened up next, even if some of the folks were slightly different the second time through.
It doesn't help that the game's RPG elements are a little limp. Sure, you can dust off multiple enemies of the same type to strengthen the ids you've already captured (and in the process you'll make their attacks stronger or even unlock more powerful versions of their abilities), and as you capture folks you'll gain experience yourself -- even more if you can capture multiple enemies at the same time (this also can yield restoratives, important because even common enemies have the potential to walk all over you if you're not smart) -- but how much experience you get is buried under pause menus. What's worse, there's hardly any sense of real growth or progression. The actual hit points of the characters hardly budge at all, rendering any extra time spent leveling largely fruitless.
Unfortunately, most gamers can't get by on pure eye candy alone, and as amazingly gorgeous as Folklore is, the reliance on retracing the same locales and fighting the same enemies will try almost anyone's patience to the breaking point -- and for most it'll eventually give. That's not to say the game doesn't have a solid core, though. Collecting monsters by exploiting their weakness to other monsters is a key part of the game's charm and a major hook for the "gotta catch 'em all" types, but what is fun (if a little trying at times) the first time around becomes needlessly tedious when you're forced to do it all over again.
See, Folklore's tale of murder in a rural seaside burg in Ireland is certainly enticing enough. The idea that two different characters, an occult magazine writer and an orphaned girl both called to the village of Doolin and saddled with the responsibility and gift of being able to speak to the dead packs plenty of potential, and for the first few hours, it's a wonderous, amazing journey. It's also told from the slightly differing perspectives of both characters twice through more than a half dozen chapters, a move no doubt meant to artificially inflate the game's length.
If navigating a stoic Keats or inquisitive Ellen through the same awe-inspiring realms meant seeing different parts of said worlds, that would be one thing, but the monster collecting and boss battles are mirrored across both characters' chapters, with only their conversations (often with the exact same characters, mind you) standing out.
Keats' sections are a little more combat-heavy and a bit tougher than Ellen's, and there was an attempt to paint a picture of opposing Netherworld forces telling two sides of the same tale, but the game would have benefitted from a singular monster livery and alternating takes on things -- or even the ability to open up a second perspective as a bonus. Instead, you're forced to talk to the same people and fight the same bosses in an effort to progress the storyline and it frankly stifles the pacing of the story.
The process goes a little something like this: take on character, have them talk to someone in the village to find out a little more about the murders that took place both recently and 16 years ago, get a momento of the dead then talk to them and open a portal to a realm, enter the realm, trudge through a handful of screens fighting monsters and capturing their ids so you can bind them to one of the face buttons on the SIXAXIS, get to a boss that uses multiple ids to attack weak points and repeat for the same character in the same environments.
Don't get me wrong, I liked finding the little storybook pages scattered throughout the realms that used pictures to describe how to take down mini-bosses and end-chapter Folklore alike, but I liked it the first time I did it. By the time I finished the chapter and switched to the second character only to repeat what could have taken hours before, it felt like backtracking and it killed my motivation to see what world would be opened up next, even if some of the folks were slightly different the second time through.
It doesn't help that the game's RPG elements are a little limp. Sure, you can dust off multiple enemies of the same type to strengthen the ids you've already captured (and in the process you'll make their attacks stronger or even unlock more powerful versions of their abilities), and as you capture folks you'll gain experience yourself -- even more if you can capture multiple enemies at the same time (this also can yield restoratives, important because even common enemies have the potential to walk all over you if you're not smart) -- but how much experience you get is buried under pause menus. What's worse, there's hardly any sense of real growth or progression. The actual hit points of the characters hardly budge at all, rendering any extra time spent leveling largely fruitless.
