Isle of Cursed Prophet (Icon64) $6.99 USD (digital) / £7.99 - £39.99 (physical)
Game title: Isle of Cursed Prophet
Game description: You play the role of Oliver Taylor, a broken man since the death of his wife Madelin 5 years ago. Desperate to bring his beloved back from the grave, Oliver has been studying ancient documents and comes across the Book of the Dead and the spells contained within that purport to summon the dead. The book makes reference to a spiritual place, the Isle of Prophets, where such a spell will work on one night of the year and tonight happens to be that night. As you get dropped off on the Isle, the game switches to a top down view with the graphics reminiscent of a classic Nintendo style RPG. However, the gameplay on offer here is more of an exploration and collection game where you need to find item X to open item Y that in turn will give us access to item Z. So how does Oliver go about bringing his wife back from the dead? Well this requires Oliver to explore every inch of the sizeable island and trying to interact with everything in sight. The isle contains quite a good number of cottages and buildings, some of which are locked and requires you to find the right key. You will come across ground level hatches, graves and wooden gates that require specific items to interact with, such as a crowbar for the hatches, a shovel for the graves and a hammer for the gates. Killing enemy creatures will allow you to accumulate points and for every 500 points you collect your maximum heart (i.e. health) counter increases by one. At times, the enemies you eliminate will also drop hearts that allow you to replenish your heart count and as such we can see that taking on re-spawning enemies becomes an essential means to sustain Oliver through his mission. In addition to locating items that interact with the game world, Oliver will need to locate 32 jade stones and 4 elemental stones in order to complete the game. But be aware that the elemental stones requires something special before they can be picked up. Once you collected all of the requisite items, you need to decipher the cryptic clues to figure out where around the island you need to place the stones.
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Production - 91%
91%
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Fun - 97%
97%
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Depth - 96%
96%
Summary
The Isle of the Cursed Prophet kicks things off with a highly atmospheric introduction scene showing Oliver driving at night towards the docks so that he can catch the charter boat that will take him to The Isle of Prophet. The quality of the graphics and music within these cuts scenes are very high and do a fabulous job in creating a somewhat mysterious and determined tone of the task ahead.
The overall presentation on offer is fabulous and while the Cursed Prophet looks likes its going to be a Zelda like game, the reality is that this is a casual exploration game requiring to search everything in order to open up the game. It is this gradual unravelling nature of its gameplay that really draws you into The Isle of Cursed Prophet. The game requires constant back-tracking of areas you have already visited but this is far from being a chore as you are constantly rewarded for doing so. Being able to access a previous locked up area because you finally found that elusive item on the opposite side of the island brings with it a whole lot of anticipation as you look forward to seeing what the new areas is going to offer you.
One of the most pleasing aspects of The Isle of Cursed Prophet is its intuative control mechanism . The joystick button acts as a broad action function and the outcome of its use is automatically determined based on what objects you are interacting with and the items you have collected. No need to cycle through inventory and guess what you need to do, if you have already found the item you need then a simple click opens up the game further. Simple but brilliant.
Great production values, game design and story telling that blend so well together to provide a highly engaging and rewarding gameplay experience. This is a smash hit!
Overall
95%User Review
( votes)Pros
- Cinematic introduction
- High quality ‘NES’ like graphics
- Intuitive controls
- Unravelling gameplay
- Casual place
Cons
- Some may find the lack of initial guidance off putting
- Respawning grass
Video Link Included
