Remember the good(?) ol’ Gauntlet from distant 1985? If you don’t, well, imagine that time where games weren’t plagued with things like plot, complex mechanics, and RPG-style upgrade systems. Done? Now imagine a title which was even simpler than that. Basically, Gauntlet, and the rest of the entries in this now semi-forgotten franchise, are known for being the distilled essence of the term “turn off your brain and just have fun” in its purest form. It’s mindless D&D-themed action for you and your buddies, and while not great by any means, most of them were fun. Not all are worthy of your time, though, and Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows for the PlayStation 2 might be one of the instalments that’s best avoided.
The task is simple: go from here to there and cut everything that stands in your way in half. You can cut everything that stands in your way (in half) with a small variety of combos, with more added to your arsenal as levels are gained, and there are a few mana-using abilities available that deal AoE damage and so on. Simple stuff. Is that all there is to do? Well, there’s the occasional “mission objective” like a key that needs to be found or a switch that needs to be flipped, but as a whole this is… well, a Gauntlet game. In other words, scattered all over the map there are spawn points where enemies… err, spawn in endless waves and the hero or heroine must destroy these to stop them.
It’s possible to pick amongst a small cast of hero archetypes, like a warrior, an elf, which is a warrior with pointy ears, a Valkyrie, which a warrior too, but pretty, and… well you get what this is trying to say. There’s so little difference between the available options that one can simply select the one who fits their personal taste, as there is almost zero tactical reason to choose one over the other. After doing so, you must turn off your brain, and hack and slash till the end of the world – preferably with three more friends of yours.
That’s it basically, there’s nothing else to say about the game. Oh, sure, there are a couple of additional buttons to press that let one block, do a few special moves and so on, but 90% of the experience is about mashing the attack button, and occasionally munching some chicken if low on health. Unlike the very first Gauntlet duology there’s none of that feeling of survival you got from trying to keep a constantly diminishing health meter. Now, it would be nice if the levels had branching paths, additional challenges, etc, but it’s important to note that making maps a bit more complex than a straight line wouldn’t make this that much more enjoyable.
At the end of the day this is all about combat and it is so mind-numbingly simplistic that it all gets boring way too soon, making the five or so hours it takes to reach the end feel like an eternity. As a final comment, if you are curious enough to try this forgotten relic out, make sure to play with a bunch of friends – and that means friends with which you share the same room. Playing this online is meaningless. This is about having fun by being silly with your pals, screaming at each other, and using the loading screens to munch a slice of pizza and wash it down with beer. Lots of beer if you want to remain motivated enough to continue with this borefest.
