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Folklore

Role Playing Game
Releases: 10.09.07
Game Republic
SCEA
ESRB: Teen

Folklore

The first good reason to buy the PS3

by Sarah Schutz

This review is a bit late in coming mostly because I never felt like my time spent with the game was completely done. I wasn’t ready to leave it quite yet (and so it remains in my PS3). While I am genuinely surprised this game hasn’t gotten more attention, I’m not all that surprised. Let me explain . . .

Folklore is truly immersive and gut-wrenchingly beautiful, but not in the same way so many games are realistically beautiful. This game is like entering the world of Where the Wild Things Are and you just can’t wait to see more of it. Folklore truly succeeds in imagining and creating another world. You alternately play as two characters, Ellen and Keats, who are both drawn to the small town of Doolin in the hope of solving their lives’ own mysteries. Through their own encounters with murder and death and the tragedies of those in Doolin, they each separately find their way to the Netherworld and traverse the faery realm in search of the dead in order to solve their own real-world mysteries and, along the way, further understand the mysteries of Doolin and this Netherword as well. In the Netherworld Ellen and Keats become acquainted with various “folks” whose souls each become a part of their strategic “weapon” repertoire once they are able to defeat each of them. Ellen and Keats don’t engage in fighting, but use each of the collected folks to fight for them. Every folk is armed with unique capabilities that make it particularly usefully in defeating other folks or folklores, the main boss battles of the games. Folks can be assigned to one of the four controller buttons to use when fighting, so you will need to change button assignments often as your needs for the many folks change frequently. Pages of a faery realm folklore book found throughout the netherworld provide helpful tips for defeating folks and folklores throughout the game.

In true JRPG form, the pacing of the game is a bit tedious and with two characters traversing the same worlds and fighting the same folks over and over, the gameplay can get a bit repetitive, but for me, exploring the world and experimenting with my different folk weaponry never got old. The visually stunning Netherworld experiments with the PS3 graphics in ways that have not yet been explored yet. The game takes next generation in a new direction and, getting back to my initial point, a direction not many gamers are yet recognizing. It doesn’t share the same type of beauty as your Halos, Half-lifes or Call of Dutys (which are beautiful in their own right). A friend recently asked me when I thought video games would become completely photo-realistic. While I don’t doubt that that will happen sometime soon, I wondered who decided that this should be the direction of games? Why are game companies so insistent on replicating life? Aren’t video games a form of escapism? Don’t we want to be swept into worlds we can only imagine? While I enjoy my share of games that are more reminiscent of our world, it’s refreshing to see a game that allows us to imagine more colorful worlds with their own environments, creatures and rich histories so different from our own. Folklore is one of only a few games on next generation systems that imagines a next generation world.

Colorful, immersive world and compelling story

Pacing is a bit slow and gameplay can be repetitive.

hmmm

i can see why the lower ratings from much of the gaming community. my huge problem was with the camera angles in the game. but, when seconds are precious i don't like having to mash trigger to get a sight lock on a target. Another thing was that it totally reminded me of a cross between Kameo and Pokemon. Kameo in controls and pokemon in the whole gotta catch em all then battle vibe of the game. i did like how they integrated sixasis...it was a happy addition to the game and not a burden. thank god for the map screen... at a few points i got so assbackwards from randomly owning monsters that was the only way i got get my bearing. i agree totally with the review though, sweet ass graphics, great storyline, and innovative play. I'm playing through with keats right now....still got some left, then gonna go back to ellen, once thats over downloading quests will begin.

#1 - h00k3rb00tz - 03/23/2008 - 23:42

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