http://www.mazesoffate.com/Mazes of Fate was recently released for the Game Boy Advance, and may look like simple shovelware, but it's actually a pretty nice fleshed out title.
I decided to give it a try, so I asked the publisher to send one my way (lol, journalist). It arrived last night.
The game starts out with a weenie story, typical stuff - Gods gave humans happiness, humans got greedy and started praying to other stuff and forgetting about the temples, all hell breaks loose. Hero comes forth and vindicates, evil people get upper hand again... where will another hero come forth to save them in this time of need?
In the start, you are given three default classes - Mage, Rogue, Warrior - but you can create a custom character too. You use one of the three default skins, and from there you can decide how to arrange your stats and skills. Voila.
The game seems to just take a piece from various games, and it's all good. I like it. The game has its own overworld map, albeit small, and you can enter different towns, caves and dungeons.
Each town has its own little overworld map too. When you enter houses, the game takes a page from Shining in the Darkness, with a still image, and you pick from various hotspots to talk to people and examine stuff. As you explore each town and talk to the residents, you'll be given various quests to accomplish, and you'll need to finish them to continue with the game, since they're all kinda interwoven? I guess. Like, before you can join the Thieves Guild to find out where the Lord's lost son is, you have to defeat the Shadow Brotherhood over at the Thieves Cave the guild leader has just marked on your map. Meanwhile, you're still looking for that lost cargo the Guard Captain told you to find.
When you complete a quest, you earn bonus EXP along with some money (Crowns). You can also learn various skills (basically a +1 to that skill) for a 100 Crowns from certain people, but it's not endless, you can only do it once, so I'd say it is worth it.
So you enter the Thieves Cave, and you're thrust into a first person perspective, like old PC games of yore, I'd guess Dungeons and Dragons, Might and Magic... stuff like that? Phantasy Star 1. Shining in the Darkness, Shining in the Holy Ark... am I close? Watch the videos and decide. There's even a tiny little map in the corner, along with a huge Automap that is available in the options menu if you get really lost.
Like the game suggests, it is a real-time game, as you walk around you'll see sprites crawling around that will attack you from all sides, so you have to be aware. You tap the A button and a menu pops up, Attack/Magic/Item, like Phantasy Star, and other menu based games. It's still real-time though, so you can't really sit there and take your time in deciding.
As you explore the dungeons or defeat enemies, they will drop items that just sit there on the floor, and can easily be picked up with the press of the B (then A), button. You can also drop items from your satchel onto the gameworld, either to trap an enemy, trigger a switch, or open a treasure chest (keys, lockpicks). For example, there are push plates that do something when you step on them, but go back up when you get off. What to do? Simple, drop one of those rocks you picked up near the entrance on it. Now a secret passage is opened. There are also hidden switches that open hallways, you can find these by searching each of the many walls, or upgrade your "Search" skill, at which your character will mention that there's something nearby to your right, or in front of you.
The game starts out with just you, but during the course of the game you'll come across like 5 or so people who are willing to join your party. These are basically different classed people, right now I have a thief, but I'm sure I will come across a Knight, Mage... Rogue, and such. You can only have 3 people at once, so you have to choose wisely on who you want, or you can just re-recruit them when you want. I'm not too sure at this point. Heck, you could probably just Solo the entire game if you're that dedicated. EXP is shared across the team, so the less people, the better.
The music is kinda ear-grating, typical MIDI sounding stuff, but it's ok. Doesn't bother me. Your call.
I'd say this game is fairly straightforward, not exactly a dungeon crawler, I believe the dungeons are static, so it's kinda like a portable Shining in the Darkness, which is pretty nice. This game has been in development for about 3 years? And it shows, it's a very good title, I'd say if you're interested you should go try and find it, online or off. Apparently they are already in the making of a DS sequel, along with Wii developement.
