Silverfall, created by Monte Cristo Games and published by Atari, is an action RPG that has a lot going for it. Strong character development, lots of skills, both for your class as well as your race, some decent voice acting, and a whole lot of great ideas. It is a game that manages to beat out some of its more well-known competitors in the RPG market, most notably Dungeon Siege 2. Some poor implementation of those ideas manage to muddy the waters a bit, but all in all, Silverfall is a fun game that keeps you click-click-clicking away for 25-35 hours of enemy killing, item upgrading, NPC finding fun.
Character creation is a breeze. There are four races to choose from; human, elf, troll, and goblin. Each has their own stereotypical role. Trolls make the best hand-to-hand fighters, elves the best magicians (and archers), goblins get the nod for technology, and human are the can-do-anything type. Your standard allotments of faces, hair, size, etc are available for customization. Pick your favorite hairstyle and away you go.
The storyline of Silverfall is pretty straightforward. Your home city, Silverfall, on a kingdom known as Nelwë, is attacked by an evil force, known as the Order of Nothingness, and you and the other survivors are forced to flee, but for some reason, it is up to you and you alone to discover who it was and how to destroy them to allow you to rebuild your beautiful and peaceful city. You travel from locale to locale, picking up parts of the story, side-quests and companions along the way.
In 2001, a game called Arcanum was released. One of the best things about the game was the juxtaposition of magic and technology. In order to use one or the other with any decent ability, you had to choose which side you would follow. Substitute magic with nature, and you have an interesting decision to make in Silverfall. There are quests that, if you take and complete them, push you to one side or the other. Some items require a particular rating in either nature or technology, and you can't use them if you aren't strong enough in that rating. Once you have made that decision, you have to be very careful not to complete quests that push it the other way, as the quests tend to push and pull that rating around pretty quickly.
I have noticed that many reviewers have lauded the cel-shaded graphics present in the world, and for the most part, they are good, but I can't help but point out how sloppily done the character animations are. The world is masterfully done, as are the enemy animations, but your characters appear as if they were cut out of a magazine and plunked down into the game world. If there is any one place where animations should be smooth and solid, it's the person you will be staring at for the duration of the game, shouldn't it?
I should mention here, as I haven't mentioned it in the past, that I only review games in the release version, not patched. As of the writing of this review, Silverfall was up to version 1.16, and I'm sure that many of the bugs and glitches have been fixed. Be aware that version 1.16 is upward of 95 Megabytes large. But my comments pertain to the release version of the game.
Besides the character animations, I did experience one complete crash to desktop. No warning, no error message, just poof, and I'm staring at my background image. But, as much as I like my background, my intent was to play Silverfall. One reboot later, and I'm back in the game. Amazingly, all my items, including the ones I had acquired since saving last, were still in my possession. Whew! Well, if the game is a little unstable, at least they make it easy to recover from crashes.
Pathfinding is a mixed bag. In most cases, it is spot on. Normally, if you can click on the spot you want to move to, even if it is a complex route, your character will move from point A to point B in the fastest possible route. However, sometimes, for no good reason, your companions will move in between you and your destination, forcing you to slowly move around your so-called friends in order to continue on your way.
My last bone to pick has to do with the camera. I'm not sure what it is about action-RPG's, but for some reason, they do not want to allow you to see both your surrounding area and the area in the direction you are heading. So, you are stuck with varying angles of sight, none of which let you see everything you need to. Speaking of camera angles, something to note is that while most mini-maps move themselves around based on where you are facing, this map stays stationary, and has an arrow pointing the direction you are facing. This is very hard to get used to, but eventually, you learn to appreciate which way is north, and it actually makes sense.
Ok, so why is this game better than Dungeon Siege 2? Because for the most part, you can actually see what you're doing, the magic animations are top-notch, and you never feel like you're stuck in a 10-foot high room with no windows. I really hope that the series of patches that were released cleaned up some of the bugginess of Silverfall, because under the weird little glitches is a pretty good game. If you were disappointed with Dungeon Siege 2, I'd pick up Silverfall to make up for it. If you want a revolutionary experience, I'd look elsewhere, but if you want 30 hours of hack and slash goodness, be sure to check out Silverfall.
System Requirements:
Windows XP
Intel Pentium 4 2.8 GHz or AMD Athlon XP +2800 higher (3GHz recommended)
512 MB RAM (1 GB recommended)
10 GB Hard Drive Space
DirectX 9.0c compatible graphics card with at least 128 MB RAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
"Silverfall (PC)" is on sale March 20, 2007 and is rated T. RPG.
