Aztaka - Review @ GameBanshee

Brother None has reviewed the indie side-scrolling action/RPG, Aztaka, for GameBanshee. The article reveals a number of issues for a score of 6.9/10 but the hand-painted backdrops are described as enchanting, which may be enough to interest some:

The combat is a combination of jumping around and clicking as fast as you can to do a bunch of spear attacks. Each opponents warrants a slightly different approach, and some of them have an interesting set of attacks that you have to take into account. However, the range of enemies is very narrow; there's a dozen different enemy types at the most, and the fact that they become tougher later on does not help alleviate how boring it becomes to fight them over and over again. In fact, one of the later enemies, the Brute, isn't difficult at all, but he does take a long time to kill. For some reason the developers decided it'd be a good idea to have the player face half a dozen of them one after the other in one level, probably the most boring sequence in the entire game.

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More information.

andddd?. my disfavourite platform jumper strikes again, sold as rpg while it has absolutely ubernothing to do with the genre, isn't this going waaaaay beyond shameful?
the thing that makes me vomit is that another rpg dedicated site has actually reviewed it for ef's sake, just to say it is not a rpg at all. what about leaving it to its grim fate instead? will they review fifa 2010 too, just to say it's not a rpg?
ok, sorry, i'm off?.
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baron said:

andddd.... my disfavourite platform jumper strikes again, sold as rpg while it has absolutely ubernothing to do with the genre, isn't this going waaaaay beyond shameful?

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I replied to your complaint the first time you mentioned it. It has RPG elements. It has more RPG elements than BioShock, and has the same quality of RPG design though not in the same quantity as, say, Diablo or Titan's Quest.

The Watch covers hack 'n slashes. GB has indepth coverage of BioShock. This game is no less RPG than those titles. So what's the problem?

Did you even play the game?

A nicely explained review with no punches pulled.

Curently downloading the demo out of curiosity (894 MB)
http://aztaka.citeremis.com/?p=262

Citérémis forums
http://forums.citeremis.com/index.php

Another Aztaka (PC) review at Gamenorth (score 86)
http://gamenorth.ca/2009/05/25/review-aztaka-pc/

I think the audience is is smart enough to read see what they are interested in and ignore the rest. We've always taken an inclusive approach (aside from jRPGs), rather than trying to decide what is or isn't an RPG. I know some people find it threatening but one of the strengths of this genre is the diversity - it can bring people who love Gothic and people who love Avernum together to find common ground.

We all know Aztaka isn't an RPG but that doesn't mean the RPG elements don't make it interesting to our audience. For example, I really enjoyed NOLF2 because of the RPG elements - it made it just that bit better than a standard FPS.

I'm sure GameBanshee feels the same. On the other hand, I also value expression, so feel free to say we shouldn't cover this sort of thing and I'll free free to excercise my editorial stance as I see it.

baron said:

andddd.... my disfavourite platform jumper strikes again, sold as rpg while it has absolutely ubernothing to do with the genre, isn't this going waaaaay beyond shameful?
the thing that makes me vomit is that another rpg dedicated site has actually reviewed it for ef's sake, just to say it is not a rpg at all. what about leaving it to its grim fate instead? will they review fifa 2010 too, just to say it's not a rpg?
ok, sorry, i'm off....

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I don't consider myself a disagreeable fellow but I agree with Baron. It seems far to many folks (designers, publishers, marketing types?) like to bring the RPG folks into the fold when there's hardly any real RPG game-play. Elements yes, but game-play no. To me even though NOLF and Bioshock had some small RPG type elements, the game felt like an RPG. Curiously, neither game bragged about RPG elements and Bioshock went as far as to say THAT IT WAS NOT AN RPG.

Admittedly I have not played Aztaka and "I" have no interest in that type of game. But I too bristle, when I see a game that brags of RPG elements and it hardly seems like and RPG at all when I go to the web site.

Still, I thank you for reviewing these types of games because now I know what to stay away from.

Yea I know where you coming from , I couldn't find the RPG elements in Gothic 3.

*sniff*... What's that smell?

For what it's worth, I like the Watch's "big tent" policy of covering all or most games with RPG elements. There are plenty that I'm not interested in, but those are easy to skip -- and occasionally there's something that I wouldn't have thought I'd care for but turns out to be quite interesting. It'd be pretty boring if this place only did strictly old-school RPG's.

my current rant was not about rpgwatch itself.
but the way i see it, somebody who's covering ONE genre, would cut a fine figure if able to tell apples from pears.
"this platform is trying to sell a bunch of copies more than zero by inserting some stereotypical rpg-features in a time when rpgs or pseudorpgs are damn trendy in the industry" would be a fair statement.
while seeing it here, it makes me simply yell "aaaarrrggghhh" and that's it. seeing it on banshee or similar sites makes me vomit.
i dont think i have offended anybody personally by saying that.

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