It's time to save the magic in Xanth. What is the prize? Only five hours of entertainment.

User Rating: 6.6 | Companions of Xanth PC
By Guuthulhu | Review Date:
You play the game as Dug, a boy with no interest in computer games and as mundane as mundane could be. There's nothing to do but sit at home before your computer while a rainstorm rages outside. Eventually a friend will give you a call with an interesting proposition for you-a bet. If you play this game he bought and hate it, you get his motorcycle. If you like it, he gets a date with your girlfriend, Pia. Once you actually start playing the game Edsel sent you, Companions of Xanth, the actual game begins. You are sucked into the magical pun-tastic world of Xanth. In this world you are competing against another mundane like yourself in a wager between the demon E(a/r)th and X(a/n)th. Unknown to both players, they are competing for the preservation of magic in Xanth. If the demon E(a/r)th wins, all magic will be removed from Xanth. The story is pretty black and white and there's very little depth. You're running around the countryside searching for the prize and perform quests for locals just because you're a nice guy and it's the only way to progress. It's point-and-click interface is what I've come to love about Legend Entertainment. It's simple, listing only actions relevant to the object you wish to manipulate. It is also versatile enough to automatically select the typical action associated with the object. In this case, you need only double-click the object to perform most actions. The game is riddled with puzzles that are too easy if you're a piers Anthony fan or even the slightest bit logical enough to sift through all the puns. There are also logic puzzles that must be solved later in the game (match sticks, blocks, and pentominos) as well as a missing-letter-world-jumble about the world of Xanth. I would have expected the puzzles to be much more difficult. The game has a first-person perspective like the majority of Legend's adventure games. The colours are bright and vivid adding to the "fantasy world" feeling of Xanth. Some of the cut-scenes involve pixelated live-video of the other characters set atop the regular colourful scenic backgrounds ,but the detail is very poor. To go with the pretty environments, the game features a full soundtrack which is quite pleasant and fits the various areas quite well. It has few sound-effects, but they too are nicely done. The most flavor lies in the voice acting even though it's abysmal. The quality of acting isn't consistent. Some characters are spot on, while others seem not to have gotten the hang of it. The box-art of Nada Naga and the interesting concept of the game are what sold it for me I had no previous knowledge of Piers Anthony or the world of Xanth, but It didn't take me too long to get sucked in and it at least entertained me. It was a disappointment to finish it in under five hours. The game has few areas to explore The gameplay is wonderful but the puzzles may be too easy for those who have no problems with such things. The voice actors could have done a much better job, but still add to the nice flavour of the game. . Aside from all that, playing the game-within-a-game-within-a-game isn't too bad, but my biggest disappointment is the ending. After you've done the last thing regarding the prize-poof, it's back to Mundania for you with the wonderful messages of typical "you did it" mediocrity. Plus, there is no final resolution with Edsel, which I would have liked since he's the one who got you into that whole adventure to begin with. What happens after that is pretty cheesily predictable and left me feeling as if I had wasted those hours of my life. It's not a bad adaptation of the 16th book in the Xanth series, Demons Don't Dream. It's worth playing for a change from the typical fantasy settings, for fans, or something to keep your children occupied. Just don'te expect too much from it.

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