Oh,
how I wanted to like Toren. A mystical tale of a child's journey, writ
magically upon a climb up a great, crumbling tower, to do battle with the
world-sundering dragon at the top? That, as they say, is my huckleberry. And it
is wonderful at times, and so very beautiful, and the story it tells is
captivating. While that goes a long way, it's not enough on its own, and there
are too many flaws that keep Toren from nailing its ambition.
The
most obvious problem is the camera, which is clearly designed to frame the
action in cinematic splendor. But Toren too often trades practicality for
visual sweep, and while that sometimes resulted in impressive perspectives of
the Moonchild, as she purposefully strode this way or that, it also meant it
was sometimes impossible for me to see what she was actually striding
toward—and, more specifically, what ledge she was about to fall off of. Believe
me, when it comes to climbing a tower filled with broken staircases and
terraces, that's a problem.
Lack
of control
The
developer's recommendation that a controller be used to play should not be
taken lightly. I powered through Toren with a mouse and keyboard, then
tried it with the controller, and the difference was night and day. But neither
is perfect; in several instances I found myself suddenly steering the Moonchild
in an unintended direction, because the camera angle had suddenly changed. In
one particular area, the view shifted 180 degrees immediately after she passed
through a doorway, and because I was too slow to react, she turned around and
marched through it again in the opposite direction. Indulging a bit of fleeting
cruelty,
I just kept pressing forward, trapping the Moonchild in a ridiculous
doorway back-and-forth, as though she'd been caught between two teleport traps
in some other game. The ‘dream sequences’ can be frustrating for the same
reason, and even silly: I had to trace patterns on the ground with a magical
sand, but even though Toren is fairly forgiving about the required degree of
precision, I still sometimes felt like a monkey copying a Picasso by throwing
poop at the wall.
Taken
together, the camera and the controls make navigating Toren a hassle, and
that's a shame because on the whole, it doesn't fall into the trap of locking
its raison d'être behind punishing gameplay that's out of the reach of
thumb-clunkers like me. There are no crazy stunt-jump sequences or obtuse
puzzles; once or twice I was unsure about which direction to go, but again,
that was more a matter of not being able to see my environment very well than
because the situation was genuinely confusing.
Most
of my time was spent wandering through relatively small, linear areas,
punctuated by bits of easy jumping and occasional spots of climbing walls or
hiding behind objects to avoid strong winds—the bare minimum required to keep
me engaged while I followed Toren's tale, in other words. Normally that would
be fine, because games like this are meant to be finished, and I quite often
enjoy minimally interactive experiences like, say, Dear Esther or Kentucky
Route Zero. But when I feel like a game is making things harder than they
should be—especially when those things are clearly not supposed to be hard—it's
frustrating.
I
loved Toren's overall aesthetic. It's filled with bizarre, colorful environments
lifted straight off the covers of softcover fantasy novels from the 1970s, and
I stopped several times to enjoy the sights (and grab some screens) while I
played. But it sometimes suffered from up-close viewing. The characters are
relatively primitive, with stiff animations and flat expressions, and there are
small clipping errors all over the place, as hands and feet slide into or
through supposedly solid objects. They're minor problems, certainly not enough
to ruin its overall beauty, but still an ever-present reminder that I wasn't
playing a highly-polished production. There were moments that were absolutely
sublime, though. One early-game sequence, seen through a telescope, was a
breathtaking bit of visual poetry, and perfectly executed.
Toren
isn't a very long game, but even so it took me longer than it probably should
have—as in, to the very end of the game—to get a grip on the story it was
telling. But unlike so many other games, it wasn't a letdown once I did. The
final battle was overly repetitive and drawn-out, but the payoff was
worthwhile: touching, tragic, and illuminating. And that made me sadder that
the game itself wasn't better. Toren could have been a memorable interactive
fable, but the frustrating camera and controls undermine the story, leaving it
a good idea, but lacking as a whole experience.
Need To Know
Play
it on Dual-core
CPU, 4GB RAM, Nvidia GTX 500 series GPU, Windows 7 or newer
Copy protection Steam
Expect to pay $10 / £7
Release date Out now
Developer Swordtales
Publisher Versus Evil
Multiplayer None
Link http://toren-game.com/
Source : PC Gamer
Copy protection Steam
Expect to pay $10 / £7
Release date Out now
Developer Swordtales
Publisher Versus Evil
Multiplayer None
Link http://toren-game.com/
Source : PC Gamer
ConversionConversion EmoticonEmoticon