|
TABERNACLE
|
By Wishmoo
|
|
Crappernacle.
|
|
PRESENTATION
|
|
Graphics
These are some really bi-polar graphics. The dungeons are blocky, uninteresting, repetitive pieces of shit that look like
they were thrown together in about five minutes. The towns, on the other hand, are filled with so many little details that
they look like they belong in another game entirely, and, damn, I wish I was playing that game instead of Tabernacle. There's
a really excellent effect when a treasure chest opens during the intro, except the treasure chest itself is a two-colour,
pixellated piece of MS-Paint crap with half the resolution of everything else in the room. The custom battle animations are
great, but almost every monster is taken from FF6. The grove with the butterflies is beautiful, but the giant tree is
hideous. And on and on and on. These certainly aren't *bad* graphics, but half of them are half-assed, which makes them
quater-assed graphics or something.
Music & Sound Effects
It's either original music, or non-game music. The original stuff is decent, but, like most RM2k games, it's all understated
and melancholy (the non-original music includes Leonard Cohen and Metallica, also). Since this is light-hearted game that
revolves around item fetch quests and breaks the 4th wall pretty frequently, the ponderous, meandering soundtrack doesn't
fit, and just serves to remind you how ponderous and meandering the game itself is. Props for including the chicken dance,
though.
Originality
It's almost entirely original, except the monsters, which are the most over-used, clichéd rips possible.
Extra stuff
There are plenty of little events that occur: You can sit in on an auction; a man loses his keys to an alligator; you can see
performing chickens; you can play hide & seek; a girl looks for her cat; there's a fire eater... You get the idea. This is
all well and good, but none of it actually accomplishes anything. For example, when the man says "I've lost my keys", I
expected that it would lead to a sidequest where I found them and got some kind of reward. Instead, it's the setup for what I
think is meant to be a joke, where an alligator eats them. That's it. It offers no payoff in terms of gameplay or
storyline, it's just there. This might sound like nitpicking, but there are tons of these things, and they serve no
purpose other than to waste time while you search for the only NPC in town who is actually useful. The high/lowpoint is the
auction, which you sit through in its entirety, but never have the option to bid on anything. NOW THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT!
|
|
STORYLINE & CHARACTERS
|
|
Storyline
The intro was very long and I stopped paying attention after 5 minutes. This isn't because I have a short attention span, but
because I have better things in my life to pay attention to.
From what I can tell, the fabric of the universe is coming undone, and there's a magic Tabernacle something something five
elements something something without love there is no truth something something. Someone breaks the royal family's bloodline,
which makes a tear in the universe open, and Princess Willow's castle falls apart. I think. I'd revisit it, but I don't care.
Princess Willow goes through a magic portal while her castle is falling apart, and then comes back out again in the future,
when she's been trained as a warrior by an immortal guy called Fee. After escaping the ruined castle, they set out on the
biggest adventure of their lives. What awaits them? Powerful monsters? Mysterious dungeons? Evil villains? Horrors beyond
imagining?
No. They go and look for a fucking watering can.
I can accept stuff like this in Zelda. Zelda is a puzzle-oriented game in which you must acquire and use various items in
different ways to succeed. It also doesn't suck, which is helpful. In Tabernacle, though, the watering can is just another
item that the game decides when you can and can't use - it may as well be a key, or a crystal, or the pendant worn by the
girl who pilots magitek armour. "But crystals are such a cliché, shouldn't you be happy that it's a watering can?". No,
because it makes the quest itself hopelessly vague. Using a spade, seeds and a watering can to grow a plant in a specific
location so you can make a magic rainbow appear and take you to the cloud castle is not exactly intuitive, and it's really
easy to get hopelessly lost in terms of what you're meant to be doing next.
The biggest problem with all this, though, is that finding mundane objects (in a quarry - even the dungeon is ordinary
and dull) and using them to plant a tree just isn't very interesting. There's no reason to care about anything that
happens, and nothing seems to be at stake, despite the tear in the fabric of the universe. It does get better at the
end of the demo, when you finally reach the cloud place and things start happening, but... it's the end of the demo.
Characters
Willow doesn't really do anything character-wise, but she's on her own personal journey, so she'll develop later on. Fee,
being immortal, has already got some vestiges of personality - he's a decent all-knowing mentor figure who acts as a guide
and protector throughout. That's it, though, because there's no time to stop and chat when you've got a watering can to find!
Since it doesn't fit anywhere else, I'll bring up here how frequently the game breaks with its own reality. Everything from Cayjun cooking to Chinese philosophy to Dune is referenced by name.
Cut Scenes
The intro is well choreographed and has a lot of excellent picture and event effects... at the start. Then it becomes a
series of long conversations between characters we haven't been properly introduced to, in which they cram all sorts of
exposition down your throat until you stop caring and read the TV guide because Nip/Tuck is back on.
We don't need to know at least half of the crap they bring up during the intro. There is a tear in the fabric of the universe
because the royal line has been broken, and Willow has to fix things with the help of Fee the immortal. Who did it, how they
did it, why they did it, what an immortal is, how the Tabernacle works... there's no reason for it all to be brought up
before the game even starts - especially since, as this is the beginning the game, they have no real context. Why not relate
this stuff later on, in segments, during our thrilling search for a watering can?
Originality
This is certainly an original storyline, it just isn't a very interesting one.
Script
Technically, it's perfect, but it's also really boring. There are a lot of pauses, characters say "..." all the time, and
it's all very formal and flat. There are occasional pieces of humour, like the chicken dance man and some of Fee's asides,
but the majority is stuff like:
"So many books. (pause) Are these the sacred Chronicles? (really long pause) Written by you... an Immortal... (another
really long pause)."
What I wouldn't give for "Son of a submariner!".
|
|
GAMEPLAY
|
|
Event Programming
It's all default, but there aren't any bugs.
Fun Factor
Tabernacle is just flat-out boring. It's linear, slow-paced, vague, repetitive and lacks any kind of excitement in terms of
its storyline or gameplay. Unless looking for a watering can in a quarry full of inane random encounters with FF6 monsters is
your thing, in which case you should probably kill yourself.
Combat
Fucking horrible. There are too many encounters, you have no skills*, and the only battle that's anything other than a
spacebar fest is the gargoyle boss, who you can only hit when he's vulnerable. Even newbie games usually bother to include
spells.
*OK, there is a spell available. I only just worked out how to get it by looking in the event editor for something
else entirely. If this had been a hidden, special spell, then, fine - but it's the only spell available (I think), and the
way you find it is stupidly obscure. Blargh.
Dungeons
The only saving grace of the dungeon in Tabernacle is that it has NPCs in it to break up the monotony - that's it. You trudge
around identical passage after identical passage until you accidentally stumble across the place you're meant to be going.
It's also filled with tons of really repetitive random encounters that are 1% challenge and 99% annoyance, and a puzzle that
was a really, really bad idea (see below).
Puzzles & Minigames
Oh boy.
There's one puzzle in the dungeon, and it's a doozy. There are 12 pillars, and each one corresponds to a different zodiac
sign. You have to press the signs in the right order to open the door. What order? Luckily, you're provided with helpful
clues like this:
Ruled by VENUS or MERCURY
Two are of EARTH; two are of AIR
Put your HOUSES in order ...
OF COURSE, I UNDERSTAND PERFECTLY NOW!
Riddle me this: Precisely what percentage of people play RM2k games and know enough about astrology to make any kind
of sense out of that riddle? And precisely what percentage of those people would be masochistic enough to play that far into
Tabernacle in the first place?
|
|
OVERALL
|
|
|
It isn't that it's necessarily bad, but it's horribly, horribly boring. The fact reality is falling apart and you spend the entire demo looking for a watering can neatly sums the whole experience up.
|
|
|
