When I was asked to review R.A.W. my mind was flooded with fond memories of Stone Cold Steve Austin and Degeneration X. Unfortunately our editor-in-chief quickly crushed my dreams of a re-branded WWF and Monday Night RAW game franchise and replaced them with Realms of Ancient War, your basic hack ‘n slash, loot farming dungeon crawler. Now, days that I don’t enjoy a good old fashioned action-RPG are few and far between, with a look much like that of one of my favourites of all time (Diablo) and despite the misleading title, I was excited to try R.A.W.
Immediately upon starting the game you have the option of choosing one of three would be heroes, a warrior, rogue or mage. Problems start rather early though with one of the most aggravating lack of features is that of a world or mini-map. To make matters worse there’s absolutely no camera control to give you any sense of direction. The game does however; provide you with an arrow attached to your player marker pointing vaguely in the direction in which you need to go.
Controls are clumsy at best and much of what you would expect. Abilities are bound to X,Y,A & B with the option to have two customizable sets of abilities interchangeable with the right thumbstick. The left and right triggers provide potion control for refilling your HP or Mana. Finally, the left and right bumpers are used to interact with various elements of the game, NPC’s or merchants for example. Unfortunately that’s about where the customization ends. There is no stat application or character customization. To go along with the lack of customization is an extremely archaic design of skills; you are awarded one point per level to spend on skills of your choosing with more becoming available after level 10 and so on. There is no skill tree’s, just three levels of power per ability.
Dying in R.A.W. is a rather unique experience, when playing solo you collect ‘soulstones’ which are essentially life stones. Soulstones are random drops and you are able to carry a maximum of 9 at any given time, when you die soulstones are removed and when depleted you are forced to restart your current ‘stage’. On the other hand in co-op when your partner dies all you’re required to do is survive for 5 seconds before your fellow player is auto-revived. Although the game is basically meant to be played multi-player it seems silly to pretty much punish solo players with a life limit.
The environments themselves are aesthetically pleasing, albeit extremely linear. There is basically no deviating from your given path for the purpose of exploration or loot farming. All the while on your quest you’ll be constantly stopped by text dialogue boxes as there is no voice acting included in the game. I felt more like I was playing Super Nintendo and not Xbox 360 with all the ‘Press A to Continue’ dialogue boxes engulfing my entire experience. Don’t get me wrong I know how to read and I don’t mind reading, but in the middle of battle or doing something else they pop up and it’s just annoying. Not to mention it makes it difficult to get into the lore and story being told, I found myself quickly ignoring it and press A repeatedly to move on so I could continue my quest.
Overall Realms of Ancient War feels like a game from 1997 save for better graphics. If you’re a diehard action-RPG fan and have to get your hands on any offering in the genre, then you might play this game. Cheesy story and bad voice acting (in cinematic) make for an unpleasant experience, even when playing couch co-op with a buddy I felt myself wanting to play anything else. Save your $15 for something else.
