Goblin-driven arachnoids! What's going on?
The actual quests are fairly typical of any RPG. Searching dungeons for huge beasts that drop valuable treasure, taking part in fetching quests and killing beasts provides the bulk of the action. If you don’t want to go it alone, SilverFall implements a decent party system where you can join up with allies to take on the main adventure. There are a few small issues with the AI controlled party members following your orders at times, but there are also some neat additions which allow you to build a relationship with them and unlock new quests.
The fantasy setting is a familiar premise, but the blend of creatures that you meet, including mechanical dragons and goblin driven arachnoids, mixed in with some great animations and the game’s comic book visual style creates an impressive setting that managed to draw me in and keep me interested.
Click for larger imageThe user interface is easy to manage and equipping and switching between items, mapping weapons and abilities to keys quickly becomes second nature, although I did need to refer to the manual in order to get my head around the in-depth skill tree.
Despite the charming visual style and the excellent nature v technology concept, Silverfall can be irritating. Combat, although visually impressive, isn’t as smooth as I’d like and I had the occasional problem with making my character respond in the correct manner, which meant I had to keep clicking the left mouse button in order for him to respond. The 360 degree camera, which you need to use frequently in order to gain the correct perspective on the action, can be frustrating. If the camera reacted naturally to combat in the first place then there would be no need at all to include this function; more often that not, it doesn’t.
Click for larger imagePossibly my biggest irritation in Silverfall, which may not be an issue to some people - is the map system, which could have been implemented far better. Due to the frequent long treks in search of treasure it would have been nice to let us add markers or make notes on the map; as it stands, the only way point you see on the map is your active quest. As a result, I actually drew my own map so I could carry out multiple quests at a time. It certainly doesn’t ruin the gameplay, but implementing a decent map would have made it far more enjoyable.
