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Legend of the Lost Ark vs. Pepsi Ranger
Legend of the Lost Ark
TheExcaliburSoft
Download: 74 KB
V.S.
Pepsi Ranger
Review # 13 for Pepsi Ranger
Them's Fightin' Words
    Often times, a man decides to take an adventure. Every once in awhile that man will take a journey into the forest. Sometimes that journey into the forest will lead to a battle with a giant blue slime. And sometimes that giant blue slime will give that man a Hard Vest. Legend of the Lost Ark is that man's adventure, and that man is named Leon. What Leon discovers is minimal, but what the player discovers is even less. Thus, the adventure begins...and ends in about the same place. Behold, the fate of the adventure is at hand, or just off to the side of a hand. Who really knows? This is how adventures are supposed to begin, darn it.

Okay, that really didn't explain a lot. But neither does this game. When the "About Line" on the game's title selection states "a very short demo," it's not kidding. The whole game essentially follows Leon through two sections of the Lukia Forest, a small island continent with one town and the forest he emerged from, and the lone town with no name or residents or purpose to speak of. Nothing more. That however does not mean it's a total washout. After all, there are some nice graphics to admire if nothing else. The thing that impressed me the most about the graphic eye candy is the look of Leon's walkabout animation. It uses the traditional RPG big head, little body style that passes off as a neat camera trick to simulate a partial bird's eye view of things. The enemy slimes (not the big one) also have a very smooth gelatin appearance that I found to be most impressive. The character of Waltz the Magician looks nice and Halloween like. The only true graphic disappointment I found was the familiar looking forest battle background, that may look really nice, but I'm sure I've seen it before. If I'm just imagining things, then the background is incredible, but if it's ripped...well, it still looks pretty good. That's about all I can do to praise the quality of this game.

There are a lot of bad things to say about this game, but mostly because it is nowhere near finished. As I sort of hinted in the story description, there is no story to enjoy yet. The hero enters the forest, apparently already in the middle of his big adventure, and spends a few minutes fighting slimes until he can emerge unscathed. This of course makes him ready to enter the town with the closed houses, missing residents, and a sign that doesn't have anything written on it yet. Even the character of Waltz is a big disappointment because Leon meets him just in time for him to request his assistance in fighting the blue slime. Without revealing much of a purpose, Waltz joins the party so that he can actually fight the slime, and then leaves after the fight is over, stating, "Thanks for helping me back there. Well, I'm off..." in which Leon counters with, "Yeah, see ya next time...well, I should be going too then." And that's it. There is literally no dialogue following that exchange for the rest of the game. Don't get me wrong, the woods look good, and the town has exceptionally big houses and shops, but they don't tell a story at all. Neither do the characters for that matter. It's simply a game about fighting slimes in the forest and calling it an adventure. Now, that doesn't mean there isn't something better on the way, but this early demo is strictly a battle engine demo because that's all there is to do. There aren't even any treasure boxes to make it feel like an adventure. Just a man, the earth, and his will to drive his sword through living embodiments of gelatin. Hopefully a longer installment will show that this game has some promise.
Final Scores
Graphics: 8/10.0
As I said before, the graphics are great. The characters are shaded in the right places, and possess the right proportions for a traditional RPG walkabout and battle graphic style. The fact that the hero looks kinda like Indiana Jones makes the Lost Ark reference work pretty well too. All in all, the author is on the right track, but those battle backgrounds need to look a little more original. I'm not going to take points off for that because I'm not certain they are ripped, but even if they are, they fit the look, so who cares
Storyline: 1/10.0
I would say something grand about the story if there was anything to say. But, because this game has nothing in the form of story, then nothing is all I'll say about it. However, there are a couple lines of dialogue, so at least this category can generate a score higher than zero. I expect a future version will have something much more impressive to offer.
Gameplay: 5/10.0
Even though this game doesn't have anything to offer right now, the gameplay is still somewhat acceptable. The battles are way too frequent, but the author was kind enough to put a save point before the big fight with the blue slime (which wasn't that hard), so it's better than bad. Finding items along the way would have been nicer (even though enemies drop stuff from time to time), but since there is no need to use anything yet, I don't have a big problem with the lack of stuff available.
Music: 3/10.0
Umm...heard it all before. I'm not even going to try to pinpoint what source the music is ripped from because it's the same stuff that most ripped music comes from. The only real annoyance in the music category is that the victory music continues on into the map traveling part of the game (even into the town), and only switches during battle, which is not that awesome to begin with. If you decide to play this game, turning down the volume would not be an offensive gesture.
Overall Grade: F
Final Thoughts
    Right now this game has so little to offer that it's not worth the time, but the character graphics are at the very least good enough to learn something from, so it's worth downloading for educational purposes. I will admit that I look forward to see what becomes of this game in the future, so hopefully there is a lot of promise in store for it.  



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