Archview #55: Forever Kingdom

 It certainly is... different.

 Forever Kingdom is a third-person action-adventure game made by the same people that made the Dark Souls/Demon's Souls games, and it also serves as a prequel to Evergrace. You are to follow the adventures of Darius, Ruyan and Faena(Who came up with these names?) who are cursed with the Soul Bind during the game's opening cinematic. The story is very bland and very, very bad, I want to believe that some of it's coherence got lost in the translation.
 The Soul Bind curse is how the villain saw fit to punish these three friends for meddling in his affairs. It just means that if one of them feels pain, all three of them do, if one of them dies, all three of them die. It's just a way to explain why they share one life bar, but seriously, what kind of punishment is it? Why not kill them or something worse? The storyline at it's finest, ladies and gentlemen.

 During the game you must handle all three characters at the same time, while you are in direct control of one of them, the CPU will take over the other two. You can swap characters at will, regardless, even when unattended, the AI is not too dumb . That means that they will block almost 98% of every enemy attack, and only attack when it's 98% certain that their attack won't put them in harm's way. Basically, they won't be too much of a burden. You use the X button to attack, and the three other facebuttons are used to execute Palmira Attacks with each character. Palmira Attacks are the game's magic, and instead of running on MP, they run on stocks, which can be recharged by dealing or taking damage.
 Movement feels very clunky and slow. Attacks are very deliberate, and there's a noticeable delay before the attack actually goes off. Weapons have different combos and are used differently by each characters. Ruyan and Feana can perform up to 2-hit combos, while Darius gets and extended three hit combo. Performing the combos actually require timing, so if you mash X you will get nothing. The game also has a couple of puzzles, and some can be mind numbingly obtuse, so you might want a guide close by.

 There are a couple of RPG elements, but instead of leveling up each character, it's the equipment pieces that alter your stats. Said equipment can be enhanced at the shop. A neat touch is that every equipment piece reflects on the character model, but the really cool armor comes late in the game, and the early armors look a bit silly. The game offers a decent challenge, while not too hard, if you run out of Revive Gems, which later in the game can't be bought and only found, you will have to restart from your last save. The game also loves to have booby-trapped chests, and in the early game, it means instant death. You also have to keep an eye out for what armor you are wearing, as getting hit by a weakness will deal massive damage. You've also got to be quick on your feet, as money dropped by enemies disappears very quickly.
 The presentation is awful. I hate when people say "X Game looks like a Console Y game", since they exaggerate, however the CG cutscenes do look like PS1 CG cutscenes, complete with the awkward character models and even more awkward animations. Character models are very basic, with armors lacking detail, which is a shame since the official art is pretty cool. However... the stages are very colorful and inviting, while the characters and enemies are hideous, the stages feel full of life, and are a joy to look at. The music is a bit of an acquired taste, it's very unique, and I found it quite fitting. The indoors music, however, will get irritating pretty fast, as it loops way too frequently. Oh, and the voice acting... In the 55 games I've reviewed in my blog, I hadn't heard worse before. Cheers, Forever Kingdom, you posses the worst voice-acting I've had to endure this year, even worse than Dynasty Warriors 2. I went there.

 Forever Kingdom is not a good game. It's very flawed, and the best way to describe it as a whole is 'awkward'. Yet, despite all that, I never got bored. I wasn't having a lot of fun mind you, but I wasn't bored. So yeah, despite all it's flaws, despite not having a lot going for it... I still had a bit of fun, enough as to award it a...
 5 out of 10.