Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore
Boy, it sure is boring with all this peace!
My girl, this peace is what all true heroes strive for!
I just wonder what Daimur's up to!
Some time ago, Arzette, the princess of Faramore, and her father as well as a retinue of heroes defeated Daimur and imprisoned him in a book. But now he's escaped, and it's up to Arzette to stop him once more!
Any mention of this game would be incomplete without mention that its art style is designed to mimic the art style of the CD-i Zelda games (Link: The Faces of Evil, The Wand of Gamelon and Zelda's Adventure). In that regard, I think it succeeds, although as I cannot enjoy things on an ironic basis, I instead take these scenes as they are, which are... weird. Very weird. But not so weird as I can laugh at it.
Beyond that, though, this game is a pretty good Metroidvania, with some awful combat. As per usual, some paths are blocked off until you get the item you need to bypass it, but I think the game is pretty good at giving you not just the tool you need to proceed, but also some changes to core gameplay that help you along the way. Except the crow ability; I don't know what that was about. And some of the late-game abilities don't really change much, instead being almost entirely about allow you to play less of the game; streamlining, in other words.
The combat, on the other hand, was the most "push the button to do the thing" of this entire game, and while your sword does remain useful throughout the game it is no less tedious to engage in combat. The boss fights are not hard at all and I beat almost all of them on my first try.
The nice thing about this game is the way setbacks work. There are numerous challenging platformer and combat segments you have to fight through; you can die, of course, and you only have three hearts to start with, but there's no life system in place. It's just in losing your forward progress that death poses a challenge. I was more annoyed by some mosquitoes than I ever was by any boss.
Should you play this game? Sure. It's not a terrible way to spend several hours, and after putting in five hours of gaming the $20 price tag doesn't seem that daunting. And like You Want Those Games, Right? before it, it replicates a certain style to a T; anyone who has an interest in a particular art style (and the time it came from) should find something to love in this game as well.