Revenant Review

Leftovers make a mighty fine meal.

In some ancient time, you were a manly man. You were someone special, but you did something naughty. Then you died, were cast into hell and got a little too well cooked. Happily for you, some wizard came in and yanked you out of the underworld, thawed you out, and micro-waved you back to life. Now you stand among the living, a little worse for wear, without a memory, and looking slightly gray and tasteless. You also have to slay a cult of deranged, uh, cultists, and all of their pets. Why? To save a little girl and, ostensibly, a small island. Thems the breaks, huh?

You are Locke, the aforementioned reheated hero. You are a revenant, one who

has been resurrected. You are bound by a powerful spell to obey your rescuer,

rather than kill him and lick his blood off the floor (Mmmm, floor blood). Finally,

you have to succeed where an army has already failed by killing the cult, saving

the girl, regaining your lost identity, and enduring some savage load times.

Revenant is essentially Eidos

and Cinematix’s answer to Diablo. Though it adds a

little in the form of a neat combat system that really keeps the action going

nicely, the game, while certainly entertaining, is about as new and different

as the fourth night of Thanksgiving weekend turkey.

Basically, Cinematix took Diablo, added a lot of color to the graphics, made the characters and spells 3D, and implemented a kind of fighting-game style combat system. Are you as wowed by that as I am?

The entire game is played from an isometric perspective. In the side screen interface you have an inventory, a map, a scroll-book that records your spells, an outfitting screen with a 3D Locke all ready to get dressed up with heavy armor and a shinny battleaxe, and a bar at the bottom for quick items and spells. Both the side and top screens may be turned off to increase viewing range. Spells are cast by combining magical talismans that correspond to different features of the world such as Sky, Moon, and Life.

Locke can be controlled with the mouse, keyboard, or even a GamePad (this

game looks like an obvious pick for a PC to Playstation port), or a combination

of any. In combat, Revenant automatically points you at the closest enemy

and allows you to choose from several kinds of attacks: Hack, Slash, Block –

much like in a fighting game. There are even advanced combination moves that

are only available as you become more experienced. In fact, besides the inability

to duck or leap ten feet into the air, Revenant is quite reminiscent

of a fighting game, complete with a health meter for the foe you currently fight

and spells standing in for special moves.

The graphics should be duly noted as cool but aggravating. The backgrounds

are lush, colorful, and detailed representations of the City, Forest, Cave, and

Ancient Ruins locales you encounter. The characters are presented in 3D with just

enough detail missing to make Revenant seem more like Final

Fantasy 7 than, say, Nocturne.

A caveat of the game is that even though it is mostly presented in harmless

2D, the backgrounds incur some wicked load times. Typically the game loads the

areas in chunks, the size of which you can raise or lower. What this means is

that you might be happily walking or fighting, when out of the blue you cross

some invisible line and the game pauses for 2 minutes to load. You can disable

the chunk loading (they euphemistically call it ‘Pre-loading’), but then you

had better have a seriously fast SCSI hard drive to handle the constant drive

reading.

Still, the graphics are effective. The

spells are absolutely beautiful, conveyed through luscious 3D animations. Though

it would be nice if the game were not locked in 640×480 resolution, it’s not

a huge issue unless you’re playing on a very large monitor.

As far as sound goes, Revenant is certainty not impressive. When it

comes to voices, it’s downright annoying. At first, Locke sounds like his throat

was shredded while in Hell, although he eventually calms down to a slightly less

raspy British accent. The other characters are stereotyped both in personality

and voice, such as the Chinese mystic (on an isolated island in fantasy land?)

and a Chinese personal combat trainer (so cliché it hurts!). Eventually, you’ll

probably just wish Cinamatix had paid some real actors to do the voices, like

Volition did in Freespace 2.

All griping aside, Revenant is not at all a bad game. The fighting

system is fun, the graphics hold your attention, and if you can get past the

dumb plot, there is a fun game out there to experience. It even comes with a

full-featured level editor so you can make an entirely new scenario (or in this

case, ‘module’). Internet multiplayer is also supported, and there is definitely

enough here to keep you entertained for quite a while.

However, comparisons to that ‘other’ game abound. Revenant really just lacks the sort of intense atmosphere, reasonable story, sense of purpose, and fluidity of gameplay that we all fell in love with in Diablo. It is not a disappointing game per se, but one that will merely tide you over in the long wait for Diablo 2.

Revenant brings a few new things to the table, nukes the old ones in

the microwave, hauls them out with heavy oven mitts, and begs you to dig in.

Do so by all means – just be ready for the turkey to be a little bit dry this

time.