Unepic (Wii U) Second Opinion Review

Less famous is Maze of Galious, yet that classic MSX/NES game has produced its own pedigree. First, the fantastic La-Mulana paid direct homage to it with a playable area called "The Maze of Galious." Still, while it pays homage, La-Mulana is more its own creation. It is, if anything, a significant evolution of those old NES-style Metroid games, incorporating more environmental puzzles, switches, and more exploration than Sakamoto's original masterpiece could hope to (if talking Super Metroid, though, that is obviously a different story!).

Then there's Unepic from Francisco Tellez de Meneses et al in Barcelona. Unepic cleaves closer to Galious than any other game, not just with homages (though it has several) but in terms of gameplay and level design as well. Right from the off, it looks like a prototypical NES Metroidvania. Rooms are sliced neatly into several layers, a cross-section of numerous flat, horizontal, floating platforms connected by ladders, á la Mappy Land or Milon's Secret Castle. No angled floors here!

Despite being a modern game, originally released 2011, Unepic looks like a NES game faithfully remastered in HD. The main character sprite, for instance, has no face! It's just a blotch of fleshy colour, and most of the rest of the characters in the game are the same - from bats to orcs to skeletons, though an occassional eye-shaped blotch can be seen here and there. It's low-tech in an HD engine.

That's not to say it's without charm, however, as there's something vital in the sprites and platforms, like reading the Epic of Gilgamesh or Beowulf. Unepic has a handle on a sort of primal video game essence. Accept the sprites as representations, forgive it for not being a 3D polygonal fully texture-mapped title with alpha particles and triga-flexel dithering light layers, and it's not bad to look at. Stumpy grey goblins, blobby green orcs, clattering skeletons, wizards with particle effects...

Wait, particle effects? Yes, Unepic does indeed have some modern graphical effects. Lighting, shadows, and particle clouds are among the most obvious. They look quite nice, too. The dynamic shadows, especially, lend something to the dungeon spelunking.

This is all good, because there's about 15 hours worth of Unepic to play. That's a lot of room-by-room grinding, which is the main activity in the game. Yes, there's exploration and some forgettable puzzling, puzzling that mostly consists of MMO-style loot grinding (pick up 100 golden essences, bring back 20 Gorb-horns from the dangerous Gorbs that infest the hallways, and so on), but walking through each room and killing the monsters between the character and the exit is the main draw.

It's not a bad draw, honestly. There will be numerous exits, and that means exploration will take time and thought. "Was it this way or that? Where was the shop in the catacombs? Oh, this is where the leeches are." The game makes good use of said knowledge as well, often asking players to remember past locations and return to them (forgetful gamers fear not; the game also provides a cheat scroll - the Scroll of Augary - to help figure out where to go).

Levelling-up the main character with all his skills along the way adds a bundle of OCD fuel to the game's fire. Unepic allows near complete customisation of a character's skills. Want to be a Bow and Sword kind of guy? Go for it. Prefer Maces, Axes, and Polearms? Okay. How about Healing with some Alteration and a smattering of Necromancy? Right on!

However, it's not a great draw, either. Due to the repetitive nature of the combat and the exploration, Unepic will feel like it's overstayed its welcome by about the five or so hours mark. In effect, "Go home, Unepic, because everyone is tired of walking through drab hallways bashing drab monsters. It was fun for awhile, but now it's done."

It's a problem exacerbated by the horrendous voice acting and dialogue. There's another modern sensibility that's found its way into the game. The main character is about as likable as a serial killer. At one point he waxes eloquent on the opportunity to kill a puppy. At another he asks a shopkeeper if she wants to knock boots, "you know, 'get busy'" (dear reader, please provide the leering voice here). Admittedly, after 15 hours, the character will grow on the gamer, yet it feels like mold growing on a damp wall.

Worse, it's a problem complicated by the lack of character abilities. That is, Metroid kept the game fresh by introducing new abilities throughout. First Samus is walking, then she's morphing into a ball and rolling through tiny passages, then she's firing missles, then she's space jumping, and now swimming through lava, and then going back to all those old areas to do all these new great things! Unepic, on the other hand, is walking through a corridor, swinging one's sword (or mace, or axe, or casting fireball, or shooting a bow, or...) for 15 hours.