It's a short-lived experience but however Orcs & Elves has a well balanced and fast paced RPG game design that's....
Game Title: Orcs & Elves
Platform: Nintendo DS
Developer: id Software, Fountainhead Entertainment
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Genre: Fantasy Role Playing Game
Age Rating: PEGI: 12+, ESRB: T for Teen
Release Date: March 13th 2007 (US), March 16th 2007 (UK)
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Game Score: 7.5/10
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Summery:
It's a short-lived experience but however Orcs & Elves has a well balanced and fast paced RPG game design that's both accessible and fun.
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It's incredible to see that the mobile phones are capable of gaming as they do exist some games that are actually impressive. Id software did an RPG version of it's popular Doom games as well as it's lesser known but well received mobile title that is Orcs & Elves, which is ported to the Nintendo DS a year later. For it's translation from mobile phone to the DS it's impressive in spite of it's overall length.
You play as an Elven warrior named Elli who is accompanied by a magical talking wand named Ellon. He is tasked with the goal of travelling towards the mountain of Zharrkarag where a tribe of dwarves have been overrun by a massive load of evil Orcs and all that remain of them are their spirits. You dive into Dwarfen territory to find out the source of the problem, but eventually you learn about the true evil behind the assault and also the death of the dwarves king named Brahm. It's a simple plot but however the characters are interesting by the Dwarfen spirit's dialogue being spoken in ghostly text and also sticking to the old English language which is refreshing for them and each spirit you meet later on in the game has some personality to them. As for your talking wand Ellon, he has a cheeky but proud personality as he served Elli's father and also tends to insult the bad guys pretty much which is amusing.
Orcs & Elves takes place in First Person where the game plays like a classic dungeon crawler much like the Eye of the Beholder series. In the dungeons you'll spend the entire game looking for gold and treasure, enemies to kill, secrets areas to discover and of course earning EXP and Gold from monsters which can level up your character. One of the key features of the game is that it focuses on turn based combat even though the game is in First person. Everything you do such as moving, using potions, attacking enemies and so on all use up one turn and each enemy you face in the game will use it's turn as well.
You control your Character using the control interface on the Touch Screen or by using the DS face controls. The D-pad moves your character and using the L or R strafes and since it is turn based your movement is grid based. You use the A button to use your current weapon and also you can use the X Button to cycle between your available weapons. You can use the Y button to skip your turn which actually helps to let the enemies get close to you and finally the Select button brings up the Map for the bottom screen. You can also use the icons on the touch screen to touch the equipment you want to use, activate the map or repair your armour. In my opinion the DS face controls work better but using the Touch screen controls is a nice mechanic.
What's impressive about Orcs & Elves is how well each dungeon is designed. You wonder around each of the games varied dungeons where you'll have enemies to fight against and also you'll need to find some treasure and items lying around that will be a variety of different potions and ales as well as ammo for other weapons that you can use when you're in danger. If you explore hard enough through the levels and have the map activated on the bottom screen, you'll find secrets with hidden and rare items inside. Should you eliminate all enemies and find all the hidden secrets of each level, you'll get a bonus amount of EXP for 100% completion which is helpful for easier level ups.
You'll have a few puzzles to solve such as talking to the spirits which can give you the code to open locked doors, getting through walls that can crush you before you can deactivate them and moving boulders out of your path. Each of these environments are well paced and they are well designed for the main purpose of the game.
Once you go through the dungeon you'll discover a Fire portal which takes you to the Dragon's Lair which is guarded by the Mighty Dragon Gaya who in which has a shop allowing you to buy weapons, rings and potions. You start out with your basic sword and armour as well as your talking wand but eventually as you progress further into the game you'll eventually gain better weapons like a Flaming Sword, a Vorpal Sword which gives the power of lighting, powerful crossbows, phoenix eggs that are like explosive bombs, a dragons breath which can burn enemies, a powerful hammer named Abraxas which crush enemies and can target enemies that surround you. and finally the scroll which can petrify monsters.
Eventually your magic wand will gain new spells and become more powerful as you advance through the game. It will grant you 4 spells that are Lighting and Fire which are powerful against some types of enemies and there is Stun which can stop enemies for a few turns and the last spell is Force which can shove enemies out of your way. Most of the spells are useful but sometimes you won't end up using most of your other arsenal you have until later portions of the game where you need to use a scroll or a long range weapon to knock down a boulder for you to safely move on. Be careful though as you'll also have a rat that will try to steal some of your stuff such as gold or in one segment of the game your wand. At the end of most dungeons there will be a quick boss battle which takes several hits and few potions to be put down but there's not much strategy needed for them.
The main issue with the game is that the overall game's length is about 6 hours which is incredibly short when you just scratch the surface of the games main content, however searching for secrets and defeating all enemies in each dungeon can extend it to nearly 7 to 8 hours of gameplay from start to finish. You're actually are better playing it on the harder difficulty settings which does provide more of a reasonable challenge then the default Normal. This is because it takes longer to beat since you need to spend time grinding and thankfully the respawning enemies on Nightmare will happily help with that since their corpses that you don't destroy will come back to life to attack you again. Yes, I actually managed to beat Nightmare mode on Orcs & Elves and I was Level 35 when I finished it and it's a great achievement for me.
While the gameplay of Orcs & Elves has been translated well from the mobile, the graphics have been improved well from it too. The enemy and weapons sprites as well as the ghostly 3d models of the dwarfs are impressive. The environments as already stated are well designed to the whole medieval setting and the animations for the ghostly dwarfs texts are impressive with the way that the words animate.
As for the soundtrack it's mostly heard on the main menu and at the games background story rather then the gameplay. Still it's decent orchestral music and the sound effects for the monsters and weapons are impressive.
For a Mobile Phone game it's impressive for it to translate it nicely to the handheld. It's a short-lived experience but however Orcs & Elves has a well balanced and fast paced RPG game design that's both accessible and fun. If you can get at a cheaper price rather then full price then this game is worth it but however you will be disappointed at it's overall length.
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The Good Points:
1. An excellent translation from mobile to the DS
2. Nice control interface and turn based combat
3. The Dungeons are nice and are well designed
The Bad Points:
1. It's very short.
2. No music during the gameplay
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Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
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