23rd December 2008, 9:44 PM
#1
Quite an accomplishment, given how extremely low my expectations were!
First, disclaimers -- 1) I've only beaten three levels, though the first boss (the scarecrow). I will finish it, for sure, probably pretty quickly, but that's all I've played so far. 2) I haven't played or have barely played most of the modern hack and slash beat 'em ups this is styled after -- Onimusha (never played any), Ninja Gaiden (only played the original Xbox one, and even then just for a few minutes), God of War (don't have either, but I have played through the demo of God of War II, anyway... awesome stuff!), etc. As a Gauntlet fan, I'm mostly comparing this to the Gauntlet games, not those.
As a huge Gauntlet Legends and Dark Legacy fan, I'd been very interested in Seven Sorrows ever since it was announced. I was never sure if it was really what I wanted (it seemed to be largely ignoring the style of Legends/Dark Legacy for something neweven in the early Romero/Sawyer version -- initally more RPG-ish, later more modern hack and slash beat 'em up ish), but at least with J.E. Sawyer at the helm I knew it would almost certainly be good... until the reports of internal discord began to come out and he and John Romero left the project, the PC version was canceled, and the alarm bells started ringing loud. By the time it came out I wasn't exactly surprised to see how bad it was. Saddened, but not surprised. Anyway, having finally seen a cheap copy, I got it even though I knew I would almost certainly dislike it. But it's Gauntlet, so I had to have it anyway... I'd never have paid full price for it, but for cheap, I couldn't resist.
The question on my mind was, would I hate it so much that I'd think the $6 were wasted, or would I find some minimum level of fun somewhere that saved it and gave it value...
Sadly, I think it's even worse than my lowest expectations. This game is just miserable, particularly for Gauntlet fans.
Yes, fulfilling my expectations (and worst fears), Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows (PS2/Xbox, I got it for PS2) is a miserable, horrible game. If I were scoring it, the only question is, does it get a 20%, or drop into the teens... yeah, I hate it that much. Minimal challenge, no puzzles worth the word ("kill all the enemies" is about as far as it goes), no hidden areas, no items and no inventory (yes, it's a "modern" Gauntlet game with NO POWER-UPS), no shops or items to buy (the only thing you can do with your money is spend it on new combo moves, which you won't really need anyway -- and you should have them all quickly, leaving you with nothing to do with the cash you get for the rest of the game), no keys (well, there are keys, but only as items you get by killing everyone in a room or opening a chest (which doesn't require keys anymore, just pushing a button on the gamepad) and is used in that room or the next room and then forgotten about), no potions (thus no inventory management of any type, unlike any other Gauntlet game; just watch your magic meter, that's it), no secret characters to unlock (unlike every version of Legends and Dark Legacy, which all have many unlockable characters), a completely linear quest instead of the varied and at least somewhat non-linear design of every previous Gauntlet and particularly all the ones since Gauntlet IV on the Genesis (letting you choose the order you played the worlds, branching paths in levels, multiple routes through levels, etc... And I don't think I need to mention that there is of course no overworld or hub world here, simply a linear mission path to fight through), a removal of the effectiveness of the ranged weapons that define Gauntlet, making it into yet another beat 'em up button mashing tedium-fest (you do have a ranged attack, but it uses magic meter power and is nearly useless. In Gauntlet? What?)... this game does everything wrong and nothing right. Abysmal.
Oh yeah, and the story isn't good. In short, the story is that a king of a great kingdom or empire or somesuch was jealous of the immortal heroes who defended the land, so he listened to his six advisers, who convinced him to bind the heroes to a magical tree. He soon felt sorry for what he did and tried to repent by freeing the heroes, who must save the land and kill the six evil councilors, aka bosses. The heroes themselves never speak in the cutscenes; only the king does, telling the backstory. Sure, it's loosely based on J.E. Sawyer's original plot concept, I believe, but it's a simplistic, weak version of it. The story and cutscenes are pretty much irrelevant. The titular "Seven Sorrows" aren't anything interesting, they are simply that the king did what he did and the six advisers (now evil bosses) who convinced him to do it.
Here's another problem. Unlike in all previous Gauntlet games, you have lives in this game. Die and you respawn from the last checkpoint; die in a bossfight and you respawn in the fight exactly as it was, with the boss still at whatever amount of health it was at when you died. In Easy you have infinite lives, too; in Normal you have limited lives, but they give you so many that actually getting game over seems difficult... the first boss was admittedly a bit challenging, unlike anything in the levels, but I didn't run out of lives, and he eventually went down. Once I get better at blocking boss attacks (that's the key to bossfights, mashing an attack button until they're about to hit, when you switch to block until they've attacked), I should die even less against future bosses. This whole system, of course, is completely un-Gauntlet. No previous Gauntlet game has multiple lives! You have health, and when it runs out you die and start from your last save. Want more health? Level up more, get a higher health max, and go find (or buy, in some versions of the games) the health to fill up to your new maximum. That's how Gauntlet works. Not like this.
So, you hack and slash your way along the path, using mostly melee attacks as I said. You could use combos, but just mashing X (or Square, for enemies with shields) works just as well, so why bother? There are still generators, but again, they messed things up more than I thought it was possible to mess up a Gauntlet game. Really, it's very, very simple: In Gauntlet, all enemies either are special enemies that appear in preset locations (bosses and minibosses, archers and bombadiers, suicide soldiers, etc), or spawn from generators. No exceptions. This game ignores that. Instead, enemies infinitely spawn, running in from off the screen. I really can't describe how angry this made me when I realized that yes, you can't kill all the enemies and cannot clear the level by killing all the generators. Backtrack through a level, as you occasionally have to, and you will still be being attacked by a constant stream of annoying enemies you'll have to fight. This is really annoying and is horrible, horrible design, particularly for "Gauntlet"! As a result of this, there are fewer generators than ever before in this game. Oddly, the generators that there are are way tough and take a lot of hits to take down, for some reason... so they even messed that up. Great. But more important is the brokenness of NOT HAVING ALL ENEMIES COME FROM GENERATORS IN A GAUNTLET GAME. Generators define Gauntlet and by partially ignoring that in favor of "more enemies to hit X and mash, even if you've killed the generators here already", the team took several of the many steps towards destroying Gauntlet and its legacy that they did in designing this game. This is NOT the way Gauntlet works.
Oh, I could say the same about the awful, linear, puzzle-free level designs, but I think I already did... finding hidden areas and solving the puzzles was always one of the many fun things about Gauntlet. Indeed, the great, at times complex level designs of Gauntlet Legends and Dark Legacy are some of my favorite things about the games. So many of the levels in those games are so memorable, and have so many brilliant area designs, hidden switches to find, and more. Going from that to this is a real shock to the system, in a really bad way. This time, you either simply have to kill all the enemies in the room to get the key that lets you in to the next area, or hold down R1 to make the flashing wheel turn a drawbridge or wheel to lower a gate or whatnot. When it's so pathetic, easy, and obvious, why even bother? And why in the world do I need to hit R1 to do this stuff (it also is what opens chests)? Why can't I just use X? More awful design, more bad implementation, sadly.
Overall, the whole game has only 16 levels, the fewest of any Gauntlet game ever by a significant margin. The one with the next fewest was the original Gauntlet Legends, which had 26 levels, though that did count four of the six bosses as levels of their own while Seven Sorrows has its six bosses at the ends of levels. Even so, it's a lot less levels, and the levels are utterly linear. Where the old Gauntlet levels were mazes or Legends and Dark Legacy's levels were full of hidden switches to find and alternate routes and hidden areas, this one's levels are simple point-to-point exercises in bad level design. As a huge fan of Legends and Dark Legacy, this is one of the worst things you could possibly do to Gauntlet... along with everything else in this list. In total it takes about 5-6 hours to beat Seven Sorrows. I've only beaten three or four levels, but going by that, that sounds about right. I forget how long Legends took, but it was at least 15 hours for sure, probably more. 20 hours, maybe? Dark Legacy (with 55+ levels) took me 30-35 hours to finish the first time. Those games then have huge amounts of replay value -- getting your character up to the maximum level of 99, finding all of the hidden characters and unlocking them in the bonus levels, etc. Seven Sorrows has NOTHING TO UNLOCK! It's shocking, really. I knew the game was awful, but... no unlockables? No hidden characters? Wha... It's depressing how broken and pathetic this game is. So overall, with only a few levels, no puzzles or challenges to delay you, no overworld area or backtracking option to let you choose which levels you want to play or replay, etc, it makes sense that it's so pitifully short.
Really, the hardest thing for me will be continuing playing it all the way to the end... I'm sure I will, if just to say I've finished it, but it's really not fun.
As for good points... uh... erm... oh. The graphics are nice, far better than any previous Gauntlet. It really does look pretty good... very Lord of the Rings-clone-ey, but good. The music is solid too; the best thing about the game is probably the Gauntlet music remix theme that plays in the main menu. Good stuff... but if any game proves the fact that good graphics and sound do not make a good game, this is it. The good graphics, sound, and art design do not come even close to making up for all of the game's crippling flaws, not even remotely. And anyway, the graphics may not have been great, but I loved the art styles and designs in Gauntlet Legend and Dark Legacy... :) But anyway.
Oh, and like almost all Gauntlet games, it has 4-player multiplayer (with a multitap, if you're playing on PS2) and has online play. But um... why would you actually want to play this thing online? Why would you actually want to play this game again... I do have a modem so at some point I will see if I can hook this thing up (this is the first PS2 game I own with online play), but I highly doubt anyone's playing it anymore, if you can even still access the service at all.
It's so sad to see something like this happen to such a great series... :bummed:
Quite an accomplishment, given how extremely low my expectations were!
First, disclaimers -- 1) I've only beaten three levels, though the first boss (the scarecrow). I will finish it, for sure, probably pretty quickly, but that's all I've played so far. 2) I haven't played or have barely played most of the modern hack and slash beat 'em ups this is styled after -- Onimusha (never played any), Ninja Gaiden (only played the original Xbox one, and even then just for a few minutes), God of War (don't have either, but I have played through the demo of God of War II, anyway... awesome stuff!), etc. As a Gauntlet fan, I'm mostly comparing this to the Gauntlet games, not those.
As a huge Gauntlet Legends and Dark Legacy fan, I'd been very interested in Seven Sorrows ever since it was announced. I was never sure if it was really what I wanted (it seemed to be largely ignoring the style of Legends/Dark Legacy for something neweven in the early Romero/Sawyer version -- initally more RPG-ish, later more modern hack and slash beat 'em up ish), but at least with J.E. Sawyer at the helm I knew it would almost certainly be good... until the reports of internal discord began to come out and he and John Romero left the project, the PC version was canceled, and the alarm bells started ringing loud. By the time it came out I wasn't exactly surprised to see how bad it was. Saddened, but not surprised. Anyway, having finally seen a cheap copy, I got it even though I knew I would almost certainly dislike it. But it's Gauntlet, so I had to have it anyway... I'd never have paid full price for it, but for cheap, I couldn't resist.
The question on my mind was, would I hate it so much that I'd think the $6 were wasted, or would I find some minimum level of fun somewhere that saved it and gave it value...
Sadly, I think it's even worse than my lowest expectations. This game is just miserable, particularly for Gauntlet fans.
Yes, fulfilling my expectations (and worst fears), Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows (PS2/Xbox, I got it for PS2) is a miserable, horrible game. If I were scoring it, the only question is, does it get a 20%, or drop into the teens... yeah, I hate it that much. Minimal challenge, no puzzles worth the word ("kill all the enemies" is about as far as it goes), no hidden areas, no items and no inventory (yes, it's a "modern" Gauntlet game with NO POWER-UPS), no shops or items to buy (the only thing you can do with your money is spend it on new combo moves, which you won't really need anyway -- and you should have them all quickly, leaving you with nothing to do with the cash you get for the rest of the game), no keys (well, there are keys, but only as items you get by killing everyone in a room or opening a chest (which doesn't require keys anymore, just pushing a button on the gamepad) and is used in that room or the next room and then forgotten about), no potions (thus no inventory management of any type, unlike any other Gauntlet game; just watch your magic meter, that's it), no secret characters to unlock (unlike every version of Legends and Dark Legacy, which all have many unlockable characters), a completely linear quest instead of the varied and at least somewhat non-linear design of every previous Gauntlet and particularly all the ones since Gauntlet IV on the Genesis (letting you choose the order you played the worlds, branching paths in levels, multiple routes through levels, etc... And I don't think I need to mention that there is of course no overworld or hub world here, simply a linear mission path to fight through), a removal of the effectiveness of the ranged weapons that define Gauntlet, making it into yet another beat 'em up button mashing tedium-fest (you do have a ranged attack, but it uses magic meter power and is nearly useless. In Gauntlet? What?)... this game does everything wrong and nothing right. Abysmal.
Oh yeah, and the story isn't good. In short, the story is that a king of a great kingdom or empire or somesuch was jealous of the immortal heroes who defended the land, so he listened to his six advisers, who convinced him to bind the heroes to a magical tree. He soon felt sorry for what he did and tried to repent by freeing the heroes, who must save the land and kill the six evil councilors, aka bosses. The heroes themselves never speak in the cutscenes; only the king does, telling the backstory. Sure, it's loosely based on J.E. Sawyer's original plot concept, I believe, but it's a simplistic, weak version of it. The story and cutscenes are pretty much irrelevant. The titular "Seven Sorrows" aren't anything interesting, they are simply that the king did what he did and the six advisers (now evil bosses) who convinced him to do it.
Here's another problem. Unlike in all previous Gauntlet games, you have lives in this game. Die and you respawn from the last checkpoint; die in a bossfight and you respawn in the fight exactly as it was, with the boss still at whatever amount of health it was at when you died. In Easy you have infinite lives, too; in Normal you have limited lives, but they give you so many that actually getting game over seems difficult... the first boss was admittedly a bit challenging, unlike anything in the levels, but I didn't run out of lives, and he eventually went down. Once I get better at blocking boss attacks (that's the key to bossfights, mashing an attack button until they're about to hit, when you switch to block until they've attacked), I should die even less against future bosses. This whole system, of course, is completely un-Gauntlet. No previous Gauntlet game has multiple lives! You have health, and when it runs out you die and start from your last save. Want more health? Level up more, get a higher health max, and go find (or buy, in some versions of the games) the health to fill up to your new maximum. That's how Gauntlet works. Not like this.
So, you hack and slash your way along the path, using mostly melee attacks as I said. You could use combos, but just mashing X (or Square, for enemies with shields) works just as well, so why bother? There are still generators, but again, they messed things up more than I thought it was possible to mess up a Gauntlet game. Really, it's very, very simple: In Gauntlet, all enemies either are special enemies that appear in preset locations (bosses and minibosses, archers and bombadiers, suicide soldiers, etc), or spawn from generators. No exceptions. This game ignores that. Instead, enemies infinitely spawn, running in from off the screen. I really can't describe how angry this made me when I realized that yes, you can't kill all the enemies and cannot clear the level by killing all the generators. Backtrack through a level, as you occasionally have to, and you will still be being attacked by a constant stream of annoying enemies you'll have to fight. This is really annoying and is horrible, horrible design, particularly for "Gauntlet"! As a result of this, there are fewer generators than ever before in this game. Oddly, the generators that there are are way tough and take a lot of hits to take down, for some reason... so they even messed that up. Great. But more important is the brokenness of NOT HAVING ALL ENEMIES COME FROM GENERATORS IN A GAUNTLET GAME. Generators define Gauntlet and by partially ignoring that in favor of "more enemies to hit X and mash, even if you've killed the generators here already", the team took several of the many steps towards destroying Gauntlet and its legacy that they did in designing this game. This is NOT the way Gauntlet works.
Oh, I could say the same about the awful, linear, puzzle-free level designs, but I think I already did... finding hidden areas and solving the puzzles was always one of the many fun things about Gauntlet. Indeed, the great, at times complex level designs of Gauntlet Legends and Dark Legacy are some of my favorite things about the games. So many of the levels in those games are so memorable, and have so many brilliant area designs, hidden switches to find, and more. Going from that to this is a real shock to the system, in a really bad way. This time, you either simply have to kill all the enemies in the room to get the key that lets you in to the next area, or hold down R1 to make the flashing wheel turn a drawbridge or wheel to lower a gate or whatnot. When it's so pathetic, easy, and obvious, why even bother? And why in the world do I need to hit R1 to do this stuff (it also is what opens chests)? Why can't I just use X? More awful design, more bad implementation, sadly.
Overall, the whole game has only 16 levels, the fewest of any Gauntlet game ever by a significant margin. The one with the next fewest was the original Gauntlet Legends, which had 26 levels, though that did count four of the six bosses as levels of their own while Seven Sorrows has its six bosses at the ends of levels. Even so, it's a lot less levels, and the levels are utterly linear. Where the old Gauntlet levels were mazes or Legends and Dark Legacy's levels were full of hidden switches to find and alternate routes and hidden areas, this one's levels are simple point-to-point exercises in bad level design. As a huge fan of Legends and Dark Legacy, this is one of the worst things you could possibly do to Gauntlet... along with everything else in this list. In total it takes about 5-6 hours to beat Seven Sorrows. I've only beaten three or four levels, but going by that, that sounds about right. I forget how long Legends took, but it was at least 15 hours for sure, probably more. 20 hours, maybe? Dark Legacy (with 55+ levels) took me 30-35 hours to finish the first time. Those games then have huge amounts of replay value -- getting your character up to the maximum level of 99, finding all of the hidden characters and unlocking them in the bonus levels, etc. Seven Sorrows has NOTHING TO UNLOCK! It's shocking, really. I knew the game was awful, but... no unlockables? No hidden characters? Wha... It's depressing how broken and pathetic this game is. So overall, with only a few levels, no puzzles or challenges to delay you, no overworld area or backtracking option to let you choose which levels you want to play or replay, etc, it makes sense that it's so pitifully short.
Really, the hardest thing for me will be continuing playing it all the way to the end... I'm sure I will, if just to say I've finished it, but it's really not fun.
As for good points... uh... erm... oh. The graphics are nice, far better than any previous Gauntlet. It really does look pretty good... very Lord of the Rings-clone-ey, but good. The music is solid too; the best thing about the game is probably the Gauntlet music remix theme that plays in the main menu. Good stuff... but if any game proves the fact that good graphics and sound do not make a good game, this is it. The good graphics, sound, and art design do not come even close to making up for all of the game's crippling flaws, not even remotely. And anyway, the graphics may not have been great, but I loved the art styles and designs in Gauntlet Legend and Dark Legacy... :) But anyway.
Oh, and like almost all Gauntlet games, it has 4-player multiplayer (with a multitap, if you're playing on PS2) and has online play. But um... why would you actually want to play this thing online? Why would you actually want to play this game again... I do have a modem so at some point I will see if I can hook this thing up (this is the first PS2 game I own with online play), but I highly doubt anyone's playing it anymore, if you can even still access the service at all.
It's so sad to see something like this happen to such a great series... :bummed: