Friday, 28 July 2017

Quest for Camelot - Game Boy Color - Review




In 1998 Warner Brothers released their feature-length animation ‘Quest for Camelot’. The film set in Arthurian England, was reportedly plagued with internal conflicts during its production and was met with widely negative reviews upon its release. The troubled film failed to make a splash in the box office too going on to lose a whopping 40 million dollars for the studio. I guess it turned out to be less of a Quest for Camelot and more of a Quest to lose-a-lot then? (Sorry.) Despite this, later that year a video game adaptation was released for the Game Boy Color courtesy of French developer, Titus (yes, the ‘oh, no, not Titus,’ Titus). 

 The game plays as top-down, action-adventure title with some light RPG elements. And when I say light I mean light. You could probably float balloons with the RPG elements in this game. The player takes on the role of the film’s plucky protagonist, Kayleigh. Kayleigh is the daughter of one of the Knights of the Roundtable, the recently slain Sir Lionel. His dastardly killer is a power hungry knight named Ruber. Ruber is hell bent on taking Camelot for his own by stealing the legendary sword Excalibur and slaying King Arthur. It’s up to Kayleigh to take revenge for her father and put an end to Ruber’s evil plot.
 
The game takes place over eight different locations each containing a handful of fetch quests and light puzzles to complete as well as a variety of creatures and cronies to batter.

Throughout the adventure items can be collected to help Kayleigh progress. As well as acquiring a sword and shield early on she can also find tools such as a shovel which she can use to dig for money, hearts and other goodies, a grappling hook to help her reach certain areas, a slingshot to shoot coins at baddies, a compass which is actually more of a map but points out the location of enemies and items, a snorkel to allow her to swim through water, and a feather which allows her to jump across gaps. Heart containers are also dotted throughout the game to increase her life bar by one.

Extra sword techniques can be learnt as well. The first of these allows Kayleigh to perform a spinning attack by holding down the attack button for a short while before releasing. The second is a charging attack which is performed by double tapping a direction and then pressing the attack button.
If there was such a thing as Zelda clone bingo then I think it’s safe to say we’d have a full house by now. Quest for Camelot is admirably blatant in its plagiarism. But they do say if you’re going to steal then steal from the best I suppose… 

Sadly, the comparisons to the Legend of Zelda are only skin deep in this instance. Rather than being a big connected world to explore the game is essentially played through confined, maze like levels. Within these levels, specific tasks must be completed to progress. The first these sets the tone for the game perfectly. A blacksmith asks you to recover his five lost hens which are scattered around the map and in return he’ll give you a sword. 

And so, without any means of defending yourself against the many patrolling knights in the area you must search every nook and cranny of the map to find the five hens. Most of the hens are positioned as awkwardly as possible throughout the maze like layout and to make matters worse there are caves which act as warp points sending any possible sense of direction you may have had straight out of the window. It’s shamelessly tedious and the fact that it’s the first thing you have to do in the game is very telling. 

After reuniting the blacksmith with his hens you make your way to the sword master who asks you use your newly acquired weapon to rid the area of the patrolling knights. This means backtracking around the same area again, searching for all of the knights to dispatch. Once again you’ll have to search every nook and cranny of the map and with no way of seeing how many knights are left this quickly becomes an exercise in boredom and frustration.

At this point I felt the game wasn’t really up for playing. I felt like kid being fobbed off by his irritable uncle who was surprised at how quickly they’d completed the ‘walk around the table a hundred times’ game, and so had now suggested doing it going round the other way. 

Mercifully, the combat in the game is at least moderately fun. Enemies take numerous hits and bounce away satisfyingly when struck. Sadly the hit detection is very hit or miss, (see what I did there?) and as result it’s easy to find yourself taking unavoidable damage in the process. The A.I leaves a lot to be desired too as enemies will wander aimlessly and unpredictably until attacked.
One of the light RPG elements I talked about comes into to play as your sword will level up after killing a certain number of enemies, dealing more damage with each successive level, which at least gives the combat some sense of worth. 

Later levels do attempt to vary the gameplay somewhat but they never stray far from the tedium of the first quest. Whether it’s reuniting a dog with its lost owner, finding keys to open locked doors, or searching for dragon eggs,  the game always feels like it’s doing its best to stall your progress as much as possible. 

Occasionally the game will at least try to break up the monotony with something a bit different. One level has you digging up clues in order to find the location of an item. Another has you riding a sled down a mountain, dodging trees as you go. There’s even an overhead shooter section which sees you on the back of a two-headed dragon. Even these minor distractions fail to deliver anything close to enjoyable gameplay though.

At the end of each stage is a boss encounter and whilst these are fairly quick and easy to deal with early on they quickly become a further bane of frustration. Towards the end of the game the bosses’ health bars become almost comical as you chip away one pixel at a time. It becomes a Herculean effort to just endure the boredom as you attack and move away, attack and move away for the hundredth time. Mercifully most can be trapped in corner somewhere allowing you to simply mash away at the attack button to whittle them down a bit faster. Fun times. 

If there’s one area where the game does shine (if only a little) it’s graphically. The sprites are large and nicely drawn, and the backgrounds are varied and well detailed. The game takes you through a wide variety of locations including lush green woodland, cold grey castles, snow covered mountains, and even to the skies above Camelot. It’s certainly not a bad looking game by any means and makes good use of the GBC’s colour palette.

Sadly the music has been given far less attention as the short irritating loops throughout the game begin to grate on the ears all too quickly. 

Overall Quest for Camelot is frustratingly dull game. It looks okay and for the most part controls well but it’s clear that Titus just didn’t understand what makes a game like this fun. From start to finish the game is an absolute chore to play and without any kind of satisfying conclusion it ends up feeling completely unrewarding. I’d have to recommend you leave this Zelda clone well alone.

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