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The Legend of Alon D'ar Preview

Stormfront Studios' upcoming RPG, The Legend of Alon D'ar, is both a return to Dungeons and Dragons-style role-playing and a game that aspires to revitalize some of console RPGs' dated gameplay contrivances.

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Just as Japanese RPGs have yet to enjoy the same level of success on PCs as they do on consoles, so have non-Japanese RPGs in a well-documented struggle in making the cut with console gamers. Stormfront Studios' upcoming Legend of Alon D'ar hopes to be one of the few non-Japanese developed titles that has a shot in breaking Japan's Disney-like monopoly on console RPGs. Legend of Alon D'ar, produced by Mattel Interactive, lets you and up to three other friends journey across a living medieval world, slaying fiendish monsters, interacting with helpless townsfolk, and generally living the life of the role-playing stereotype.

Legend of Alon D'ar's storyline is completely original, and it has no basis in any sort of preexisting fantasy universe. The plot is the work of professional writer Christy Marx, who has written for both television and comics. While Mattel is keeping much of the story details under wraps, it has revealed that the game takes place in your typical world filled with fantastical beasts and magic users. You will be given a choice to play as one of four different characters who has set out on an epic adventure in a vast gameworld. While that sounds like nothing new, plot development is handled in a unique manner. The narrative is told through a series of "critical path quests," which direct the progression of the storyline. While the beginning and ending of Legend of Alon D'ar are predetermined, Mattel promises that there are tons of planned side quests and digression, which make the game feel less linear than it really is.

Stormfront Studios intends to shake up some other old console RPGs rules as well. Gone are the typical stereotypes of brawny but magicless swordsmen, as well as puny but magically powerful magicians. In Legend of Alon D'ar, you can wield your sword and spellbook simultaneously and develop your character from four different base characters at your discretion. Also new is the addition of multiplayer parties. While most console RPGs are solo experiences (Secret of Mana for the SNES and Armada on the DC being notable exceptions), Legend of Alon D'ar allows for the PS2's multitap peripheral for four-player sword and sorcery hijinks. If real players aren't present, the game features advanced party AI to control your other character; however, you'll have the option to tinker with the party's behavior yourself to get optimum control.

Battles are handled in a unique manner in Legend of Alon D'ar. Like Chrono Trigger, there are no random enemy encounters; instead, you'll see enemies sneak up on you in scripted events or initiate combat when you're too close to them. The transition between battle and normal exploration is handled smoothly, without noticeable load time or a scene fade out. Your characters simply draw their weapons, and combat begins. Mattel describes the engine as something altogether unique to the role-playing genre. While combat is conducted in real time, you'll issue commands to your character (and your party if you play without friends). Stormfront's planned battle system is surprisingly complex; a basic swordsman has literally dozens of variations on a single sword stroke, and each one delivers a slightly different type of attack. Even though you might be overwhelmed by your options, combat should be an exciting affair, because in addition to fighting your enemy, you must battle the clock to plan a strategy and get your orders out before the bad guys are on top of your party. Legend of Alon D'ar doesn't give you time to scrounge through your inventory or read arcane spell explanations in the middle of a fight; the longer you're idle with the control pad, the more vulnerable your party becomes. This may not sound difficult when your team is small and your enemies are weak, but battles have the potential to become exceedingly complicated when a large party is confronted with up to a dozen aggressors in a single battle.

Stormfront likens Legend of Alon D'ar's gameworld to a living environment. In response to many gamers' growing distaste for the sterile computer-generated backgrounds popular in Square's RPGs, Legend of Alon D'ar features tons of detailed animations and interactions in the surrounding 3D landscapes. As you journey across the expansive maps, you'll see flocks of birds overhead, wind rustling the trees, and small animals in the undergrowth of wild grass. Architecture in Legend of Alon D'ar is similarly ambitious - it features a wide variety of medieval staples, from old stone castles to rustic villages with dozens of inhabitants.

Getting down to the nuts and bolts of the graphics, you can expect Legend of Alon D'ar to be a unique visual experience, thanks primarily to the roaming, omnipresent camera that intuitively shifts to ideal viewing positions during combat and exploration. Mattel explains that for character animation, Legend of Alon D'ar uses an advanced skeletal animation system, which was borrowed from Pool of Radiance, a PC RPG, for realistic movement and environment interaction. Stormfront opted for skeletal animation (typically used in first-person shooters), since it lets them create a wide variety of animations for a single character with only slight modifications to an existing model. The game also has some advanced graphical features, like full radiosity and 3D particle effects for realistic lighting effects in battles.

Despite Legend of Alon D'ar's many planned innovations to the aging role-playing mechanics, Stormfront has a decidedly rough road ahead. RPG development is simply not about creating a unique battle simulator nor about linking together a series of visceral panoramic vistas - rather, the successful role-playing games to date have been the ones that focus on character development and pacing a compelling plot. If Mattel and Stormfront entertain serious intentions of dethroning the Japanese as console RPG kings, they'll do well to keep the story and character their primary focus in Legend of Alon D'ar. Considering the work they've shown so far, the rest of the game should no doubt fall into place. Look for Legend of Alon D'ar on PlayStation 2 consoles by summer of 2001.

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