In the fantasy world of Aventasia, a war is going on. We don't actually get to see the war, but we do hear a lot of talk about it and how the Army of Shadows is trying to breach the defenses of the Alliance of Free Races.
A gremlin archeologist MacGuffin has made a great discovery: a location of an ancient artefact that could surely change the war in one go. Obviously, the evil forces have heard of this as well and Munkus, the son of the evil queen Mortroga, captures the gremlin before he can pass the information to the archmage. Ivo, an elven princess, manages to free him, well sort of, and MacGuffin sends her to his abode to get a book leading to the artifact.
At the same time, a gnome Wilbur is thinking of adventures, when MacGuffin drops by, asking him to deliver an important ring to the archmage, then the archeologist is captured again. Wilbur, keen to be a hero, sets out to the human city and finds he has to become a mage before he can see the archmage. So does that and ends up freeing a smuggler Nate, and his friend Critter.
By the end of the 00s, the adventure genre had begun to show some signs of not being as dead as some had claimed. Telltale had already gotten to season 2 of Sam and Max and many indie devs were pushing out pixel games one after another. Graphically speaking, The Book of Unwritten Tales is one of the better-looking games to arrive on the scene at the time. And perhaps one of the more ambitious ones, with a decent length, multiple playable characters, a lot of puzzles, some requiring the characters to work together, and so on.
The game itself is a fantasy parody. It takes nothing too seriously and the humor comes from, mostly, gently poking fun at fantasy tropes, like chosen ones, magical artifacts, barely seen evil entities, all kinds of creatures, and so on. A good deal of how much you'll like the game hangs solely on whether you find the game funny or not. If this is the style of comedy you like, you might enjoy it more than some other people do.
That said, while I do find parts of the game fun, it does kind of stay out of its welcome towards the end. After reaching the shadow realms, the puzzles, as do the jokes, lose quite a bit of steam, turning the progression towards the anticlimactic story a bit of a chore. And then by the end, puzzles just aren't really as clever as the developers might have thought they were.
The Book of Unwritten Tales does have pretty solid production values though. The game looks absolutely fantastic and while the character models do leave some room for improvement, they are mostly pretty well done and animated. The voice acting is more than passable, but in some places, the English translation seems a bit iffy.
As such, The Book of Unwritten Tales might not offer anything new under the sun, but depending on your sense of comedy, it might offer an entertaining enough tale for at least one playthrough. And if you do like this, there's a sequel called The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 as well as a spinoff called The Critter Chronicles.
If you are so inclined, you can get the game from GOG and Steam. It's probably on other platforms as well.
Comments
Post a Comment