Sylvan Tale (GG, 1995)
Graphics-8.5 Sound-9 Control-8 Challenge-7.5 Story-6.5
Level Design-7.5 Frustration-8 Fun-8 Originality-6
Overall Score-8
+
Animal transformations with different abilities
Diverse world
Zelda-style gameplay (find items or animal forms to proceed to new areas, look for orange that work like heart pieces)
Challenging bosses overall (some with multiple patterns)
Some interesting puzzles
Save on the fly
-
Some easy and tedious bosses (flail knight, giant skull)
Puzzles are simple overall
Some scripted events trigger through unintuitive actions
Bird form is almost useless
GUI is a little primitive (you can only carry one apple/grape item though the stock in town is endless, leads to backtracking)
Last part of the game feels rushed with 4 bosses in a row
Story (exposition) is almost non-existent and NPCs act more like instructors and plot devices than actual people (though this is very common for the time)
You have to be human to trigger certain events that don’t require talking (like reaching oranges from trees - when trying it as an animal you get a textbox of gibberish)
Some backtracking (lake area, fetching items)
Cliffhanger ending (dialogue stops in the middle of a sentence just as you're about to find out something)
Level Design-7.5 Frustration-8 Fun-8 Originality-6
Overall Score-8
+
Animal transformations with different abilities
Diverse world
Zelda-style gameplay (find items or animal forms to proceed to new areas, look for orange that work like heart pieces)
Challenging bosses overall (some with multiple patterns)
Some interesting puzzles
Save on the fly
-
Some easy and tedious bosses (flail knight, giant skull)
Puzzles are simple overall
Some scripted events trigger through unintuitive actions
Bird form is almost useless
GUI is a little primitive (you can only carry one apple/grape item though the stock in town is endless, leads to backtracking)
Last part of the game feels rushed with 4 bosses in a row
Story (exposition) is almost non-existent and NPCs act more like instructors and plot devices than actual people (though this is very common for the time)
You have to be human to trigger certain events that don’t require talking (like reaching oranges from trees - when trying it as an animal you get a textbox of gibberish)
Some backtracking (lake area, fetching items)
Cliffhanger ending (dialogue stops in the middle of a sentence just as you're about to find out something)
