Orphen: Scion Of Sorcery

Ok…so its one of the PS2 release titles, and for some reason no one has reviewed it. After playing this monstrosity I can completely understand why! Lets check out where this action/adventure rpg took a wrong turn. I don’t know about you…but when I thought of the PS2, I didn’t think of DC graphics. Ok ok ok, so they aren’t THAT bad…but at first glance they are damn close! The intro scene is lacking to say the most. It starts you out in a boat filled with lots of nothing! Paying barely any attention to the background. Hey, at least you can rotate the screen 360 degrees to check out every little missed detail! The character models are actually done fairly well, and the special effects are just that…special. Though the game does raise the bar, its hardly the leap you’d expect from your next gen PS2.

Absolutely TERRIBLE! If you ever rent this game you will know just how bad the sound is! The music isn’t all that bad, but its definitely nothing to be admired! The sound FX are done well but get annoying after awhile. Now that I’ve stated the good…on with the evil! The voice overs for this game are some of the worst I’ve ever heard! Granted the entire game is voiced dialog (no text)…but where the hell did they find these actors??? I mean ,”HAND OF PYRO!!!” gimme a break! Lame Lame Lame voice acting.

Well…they never said it was gonna be easy! But this is probably one of the easiest games I’ve played. Gameplay is pretty good…no random encounters, you can actually dodge some badies before fighting them. The game starts out just easy as hell…you can use one button to blow away your opponents and advance to the next stage, though later in the game you’re skills will be deathly needed! The game goes from “mommy” level to “I AM THE LAW” all in about 30 seconds from each other. fluidity is pretty good and some attacks rely on button timing. Lots of jumping in this one, but you can rotate the screen 360 so to find the right angle. Some puzzles, but most could be figured out by a promising 3 year old. Battle mode is weird, you can cast all you want and your life is fully replenished after every battle…kinda limits the need for potions and such, which you will find all over the place! Overall good, but inconsistent gameplay.

Oh! This games got everything a Hardcore Idiot would ever want! Terrible sound, iffy graphics and inconsistent gameplay! Fun for about 45 seconds and easy as hell for about 5 hours…oh, did I mention you can beat this game in under 6 hours? Well…you can beat this game in under 6 hours!! I would like to point out that I really loved the idea for this game…after finishing it I would have to say that the idea is the most unique thing I’ve seen in awhile….ok, back to reality! 6 hours of gameplay and this one will sit on your shelf for the rest of eternity! If you’re just curious as hell to see how bad this game really is…rent it, but I warn you! don’t buy until you’ve tried it.