REVENANT

                 Reviewed by Stefan Herber

Yet another "Diablo" clone although it promised to be so much
more. I doubt I would ever complain too much if a game was an
"Ultima" clone or a "Monkey Island" clone as long as they showed
some originality; but what is it that is driving developer after
developer to clone what has to be the most overrated game of the
last five years?

"Revenant" is more intriguing than most however - you start off in
Hell and are then brought back to the earth because only you can
defeat the latest evil about to beset the planet and turn everyone
into spawns of the devil. You know nothing about yourself and have
to complete a series of missions to get clues.  Eventually all is
revealed - although I can't pretend I understood the ending. Of
course you start off with basic weapons and magic but by slaying
monsters large and small money and experience builds up. As the
equipment you pick up in missions is always far superior to the
stuff you can buy you soon have so much money you can't believe
it. (Weakness 1). Equally from an attack point of view experience
allows you to learn extra moves from a Japanese instructor. Alas
due to what must have been a bug I could never progress past move
no.5. Not that it mattered mind you. As with all these games magic
takes a very back seat - apart from healing spells you can get by
quite well without it.  Again I never got very far but found the
invisibility spell very helpful. The most difficult encounters are
strangely the early end of sequence monsters - by the end with the
defensive spells you have it all becomes very easy.

I suppose it's quite diverting; in the best RPGs you actually feel
for your character but it's very hard to have sympathy for your
pregenerated character - he's a boor and a bully and whoever decided
to act the lines should in future seek employment elsewhere. But
there's one simple reason I find it impossible to recommend...

The loading times. It was stated by one member of the web forum
that you need a Pentium 1000 and 2000Mb of RAM to run this smoothly.
I doubt that's an overstatement. The game takes ages to load when
entering a shop or a new area and has a habit of pausing to reload
in the middle of a battle. Loading times (I timed them) on my very
far from slouchy system were an average of 2 minutes each. So - a
visit to the town to see the armourer, blacksmith, alchemist,
grocer and perhaps visit the pub involves about 20 minutes of
loading alone (the game reloads every time you enter or exit a
location.) Lazy programming? You bet. It also has my other pet
hate - monster reincarnation.

So - avoid.









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