Reviewed: November 6, 2006
Reviewed by: Jason Porter
Publisher
DreamCatcher
Developer
Mayhem Studios
Released: October 2, 2006
Genre: Turn-based RPG
Players: 1
ESRB: Teen
3
3
5
3
3.5
System Requirements
Screenshots (Click Image for Gallery)
Placing you in the abnormally busty body of Agavaen the red-headed thief, Neverend follows X's saga in a mix of straightforward RPG elements and some of the more open-ended exploration aspects of the less-popular adventure game genre. With odd dialogue and very little plot or character development, it's hard to figure out why everyone does what they do, but the basic idea is that Agavaen is blamed by the leader of a band of thieves for the fact that two other thieves stole the group's treasure. Why? Well, she's a woman, so... obviously... it's, uh, somehow her fault! Agavaen kills him in battle, and from there, the saga begins.
Neverend features:
- Battle your way through legions of challenging enemies as you quickly choose your strategies with the unique and powerful combat system.
- Create numerous devastating spells with the custom rune system.
- Uncover distinct storylines based on how you play the game.
- 3 levels of difficulty to suit your playing style.
- Build a powerful character with experience points gained through battle and by successfully completing your quests. Purchase rare armor upgrades and potions with gold that you collect along the way.
- Arm yourself with powerful weapons and magical spells as you are confronted by enemies who will do everything they can to prevent you from completing your quests.
Controls are awful in Neverend. The game uses a WASD keyboard control scheme so basic it barely allows for diagonal movement. In addition, the camera angle is fixed, so there's no rotating or lowering the camera to get a better perspective on where Agavaen's headed. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that most areas of the game consist of open land with no paths or directional indicators to speak of.
On one hand, it can be kind of fun exploring the game's various regions searching for treasure chests (it kind of has a Diablo feel to it). On the other hand, when you're ready to advance the story you might find yourself stuck for longer than you really want to be. It is quite easy to get lost in Neverend, but not in the way that the game's developers probably intended.
It might not be so bad getting lost in repetitive fantasy landscapes if it weren't for the fact that Neverend also has a terribly archaic and clunky random map battle system. At any given moment while wandering hopelessly through the woods looking for some way to advance the story, the words PREPARE TO FIGHT may appear on screen, at which point the game segues to battle.
Battles are as simple as picking an action in turn (stronger attacks count down more slowly), while opponents do the same. And... that's really about all there is to it. Its too simple to really hold any interest for long, but at least it's intuitive. Frustratingly enough, there doesn't seem to be much of a throttle on the relative strength of the enemies Agavaen encounters during these random battles. For instance, at level 2, she might be able to handle a wolf with less than half of her HP without much trouble... but four of them? By herself? Come on. And some of the enemies you run the risk of crossing are just ridiculously overpowered for when they appear in-game.
If there is anything original about Neverend, I have not yet found it. Everything is standard fare from the RPGs of yesteryear. Magic spells are learned from scrolls found in various places, and bound for use via a clunky main menu subsystem that has players combining various elemental items in order to synthesize a preset number of a given spell. The game takes its equipment storage and placement system from the old Diablo games.
Between the lackluster story, nearly nonexistent character development and wholly unoriginal gameplay (that manages to be clunky and awkward despite having years of precedents from which to draw its mechanics), Neverend can really only be described as an unfortunate flop.
If there is one thing about Neverend that is even more annoying to deal with than the meat of the game itself, it's the graphics. Since when do people cast four shadows at once, all of equal length and intensity, in the four cardinal directions at all times? Since never, you say? Not so in the wacky world of Neverend. On top of that, most character models are unconvincing at best, and the animation, while occasionally passable, gets downright atrocious at times.
It's hard to describe just how embarrassingly dated everything looks in this game. The overall quality is that of a mid-budget game from six or seven years ago, and some of the more complicated interactions (for example, having a character scoop up a handful of gold coins from a treasure chest and toss them in the air) just look downright silly.
Even if the developers absolutely had to use the graphics they chose to use for some reason, they certainly could have directed the scenes more carefully, so that the game looked more like a finished product and less like an undergraduate programmer's mid-term class project.
Fortunately, the battle screen looks somewhat more well put together. Shadows stay where they're supposed to and jaggies are kept to a reasonable minimum considering the generally dated graphics. Special effects are sparse, but at least they can be seen. The user interface is designed clearly enough that you won't accidentally do something you didn't mean to.
Overall, though, the best thing about Neverend's graphics is probably the hand-drawn title and loading screens, featuring whimsical, at least somewhat properly proportioned art deco-ish female figures, and a pretty enchanted forest backdrop. If the developers had decided to forgo whatever awful engine they used for Neverend and just went with a 2D game instead, it probably would still have turned out better looking than it did.
I've never much cared for grunts and huffs in lieu of actual voice acting, unless they are done very carefully and very well (as in the more recent Legend of Zelda games). I'd prefer to either read all the dialogue and have no voice acting, or have full-on voice acting to complement the sound effects. At the very least, having characters say actual words, as opposed to unintelligible grunts, would have been nice. Whatever the exact reason, the human sounds of Neverend really rub me the wrong way.
Other than that, the sounds of Neverend aren't too bad, actually. The music can get repetitive and isn't particularly evocative of strong feelings, but it can also be pretty good at points. It has a very strong classic fantasy vibe to it, with heroic string fanfares and lush Celtic sounds. The sound effects match up pretty well with their associated actions, when they happen at all. Unfortunately, many of the actions one might expect to be associated with a sound effect (for example, equipping an item) are not.
If you have the astronomical amount of patience required to play this game without giving up in frustration, you might find that is has a lot of playtime to offer. I really couldn't say, though, since I kept dying over and over again before I could really get anywhere. Taking into consideration just how difficult it is to get into this game, my final judgment is that Neverend is a poor value at any price (doubly so at the MSRP of $29.99). Stick with Neverwinter Nights, Diablo, The Elder Scrolls or any one of the dozens of other superb RPG series out there (across various systems) instead.
Playing Neverend, all I really wanted was for the game to not live up to its name and die a quick, merciful death. From the miserable graphics to the flat yet somehow wildly unbalanced combat, there are a host of flaws in Neverend that drag down the parts of it that are at least average (the sound, for instance). The net result is a game that is boring, difficult (due to poor design) and repetitive. Sorry, adventurers-- you'll want to look elsewhere for your epic fantasy fix.