First impressions - Folklore

First impressions – Folklore (Ps3)

 

There are times when I look at games and think – do I REALLY want to pay nearly $100 for a game?  Is it really worth the cost of a review to buy something that I may, or may not like?

One of the biggest problems, for me anyway is that not only do I have to find the money to review games, but the time – which doubles my ‘investment’.  The game may cost $80 and give me four hours of entertainment and testing (and beyond), but at the same time I’m also worth far more than $20 an hour, in my opinion.

Folklore is one of the games that this reasoning has applied to.  It LOOKS stunning – and its had some pretty solid reviews to date.  But there’s solid and then there’s stellar, and I have to say, though Folklore won the best of E3 in 2007, the game feels like its lacking….something.  Whether that something is the depth of understanding that hasn’t been applied to the mish mash of folklore – the forced ‘Irish’ feel to everything, right down to a really odd rendition of Danny Boy that pauses in all the wrong places, or the fact that there were spelling mistakes out the wazzoo, I’m not sure, but I did feel that the game was missing….something.

Its the elusive something that I can’t put my finger on that, for me, made the game less than perfect.  Currently in the ‘played it trade it’ section of our local games stores for between $10 and $30 off (depending on the store you visit), still couldn’t justify me shelling out an hour’s worth of work for it, so we rented it.  And to be honest, so far, I’m glad we did.
Folklore is an anachronism – it is a ‘thriller/ghost story/RPG’ style game that doesn’t sit – comfortably – in any of the genres.  The fantasy setting of the Fairie world is garishly beautiful and the artwork, cut scenes and comic book sequences are fairly stunning, but there’s something about the game that just doesn’t sit right with me.

We start out watching a video sequence where a boat is refusing to go any closer to sure, and Ellen, the narrator (ish) is talking about needing to go there – whilst the boat captain claims that if they get any closer they’ll die.  Its a raging, stormy night, and she’s dressed in the outfit you see her in on the front page, and yet she still dives overboard.  We then cut to Keats – a down on his luck reporter who, again, to be quite honest, is a whiny piece  of annoyance that looks for the catch in eeeeverything.   This scepticism doesn’t stop him from going to Doolin, the village the girl was also heading for.  And there they meet….

Having completed a chapter as both Ellen and Keats, I found myself wishing the whiny little girl would throw herself off of something and be reunited with her mother that way – and that Keats would remove his head from his backside and accept that he was having a very severe nervous breakdown – rather than torture myself through trying to actually empathise with them, I gave in after an hour.

Collecting ‘powers’ in the game basically comprises of catching souls – you kill the creatures containing the souls, you lock onto them and you flip the controller.  Catch a ‘new’ soul, and you’ll find yourself able to use that creature when next you battle.  Collect more than one soul at a time and your xp ramps up.  What they use XP for I didn’t find out, but it seemed fairly important.

Folklore takes a mix of Irish legend, overdoses on Pan’s Labrynth style monsters and personalities, and finally gives it a shake and tips it out in your lap.  So far I’m not impressed.