If it isn't obvious from watching it, trust me.
Spend a minute with this game and it's plain as day.
From compasses to
heart containers.
Spin attacks to tiny shields.
Finding things to holding those things over your head.
This is just
Zelda without the Zelda.
So if you like Zelda, but you hate Zelda...this is the game for you.
Freaking weirdo.
So this thing's based on an animated movie from 1998.
Quest For Camelot.
No one went to see that movie in 1998, and
neither did I.
So I can't speak to how much it sucks.
What I can tell you is that...this game is actually kind of
ambitious for a licensed game.
It's a Zelda clone, for f*ck's sake.
That's at least something, right?
But as you're playing it, even though it's okay, it just makes you want to play Zelda.
Which is basically the same
thing, only better.
And bigger.
And freaking, it's Zelda.
This is a licensed game with the worst sound effects ever.
So you play as Kayley.
And Kayley is trying to save Camelot.
I have no idea why.
I've heard Camelot is a silly place,
and besides, it's only a model.
And of course, she does that by pretending to be Link.
Again, not a bad idea, but the
game is just so bland in design and execution, it ends up feeling like a Link to the Sh*t.
I mean, it's not like there's not a lot of walking around in Zelda.
But in Zelda, that's acceptable.
There's so much
to do, it's almost impossible to be bored.
But Quest For Camelot has all the walking around, without all the stuff to
do.
Which means, for the most part, you're just walking around.
Repetitive fetch quests, vague directions, eliminate
the enemies to open the door.
The game plays okay, in a functional sense.
It's just designed so poorly, there's no reason to bother with the
gameplay.
You need a fairy just to cure you of boredom.
And you know, I'm not usually so anal about sound, because...a lot of times, I'm listening
to music or podcasts
instead.
But the music in this game...holy crap, this is some of the most godawful music you'll
come across in a video
game.
For starters, it's...just not good.
But it also just repeats.
And then it repeats.
And holy crap, those sound effects!
Now, to its credit, the game actually looks pretty good.
The sprites are alright, the colors...exist.
It's not a bad
looking game, by any means.
But the presentation is so thin, and so lazy...it's just stunning.
You get these
impossibly long stretches of scrolling text, and then these hideous still shots that make
me glad I've never seen the
film.
If the movie looks as bad as these do, my freaking head would explode.
I'm a huge Zelda fan, and not just for the franchise.
The gameplay itself, and the specific design...any game that
does that well is usually a game I'm fond of.
This is a game that's, like, the Zelda cliffnotes edition.
It plays like
someone who watched Link from across the room, scribbled down some notes and then filled
in the bubbles.
It's
definitely refreshing to see a licensed game try something like this, but Quest For Camelot
really doesn't pull it
off.
It's not awful, it's just uninspired and dull.
Two things Zelda never is.
Thanks to our pal Dylan from Hattiesburg, Mississippi for sending it in.
And helping me fall asleep.
I was wired on Cherry Coke.
I needed that.