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Publisher: City Interactive
Developer: City Interactive
Genre: Adventure
Release Date:Nov 3, 2009 (more)
Description:
Released about a year and a half ago, Chronicles of Mystery: The Scorpio Ritual was a solid adventure game that had some good puzzles and fun areas to visit. Now City Interactive is launching the follow-up to that title with Chronicles of Mystery: The Tree of Life. The Tree of Life puts players back in the globe-trotting shoes of heroine Sylvie Leroux as she embarks on an adventure around the world, visiting a variety of exotic locations in search of the Tree of Life, which is capable of granting eternal life. The game has the basics of the adventure game genre down, meaning that point-and-click fans won’t feel lost on this quest. Unfortunately, the game does little to capitalize on what made its predecessor work, offering up a fragmented story, weak dialogue and sub-par puzzles.
The Tree of Life begins with Sylvie going to France to take over for another archeologist who passed away under odd circumstances. However, before he died, he was working on a chest once owned by Ponce De Leon, the explorer whose life’s work was the search for the Fountain of Youth. Sylvie opens the chest, discovering a map that could lead to the whereabouts of the fabled fountain. Her journey then takes her to a variety of different locations, including Venice, Egypt, and eventually South America in her quest of discovery.
The game starts off with an interesting premise and an intriguing variety of settings, but unfortunately loses steam fairly quickly. Characters are introduced and more pieces are revealed, but few mysteries are actually solved as you go, and as a result the plot simply becomes far too convoluted the further you get into it. The game seems to drop potentially important elements as if it had holes in its pockets; characters and story elements are alone frequently causing confusion and frustrating would-be adventurers. The characters don’t really act in believable ways, even Sylvie, removing you from the story even further.
To further complicate matters, characters and their dialogue aren’t nearly as compelling or important as you’d want them to be. While speaking with NPCs will net you important info and clues (as in any number of adventure titles), there is a lot of pointless dialogue to slog through. The game’s translation isn’t really tops either (the game was originally in Polish), which can make some of the character’s even harder to grasp. Couple this with the fact that most of the game’s story is told through dialogue, and you’ve got a problem.
The game’s puzzles are presented in a logical fashion and make sense when you complete them. However, getting to that point is difficult as the game offers very little in the way of Giúp when it comes to solving them. Sylvie isn’t very responsive about the puzzles when you investigate them and gives you little to work with, requiring you to simply try anything you can think of in order to progress.
The game does a decent job with the basic features of the point and click adventure genre, however. The game controls easily enough, and you’re given a robust inventory and plenty of items to use in your quest. Unfortunately, the exploration element leaves something to be desired, as you won’t really be allowed to get too far in any of the various locations throughout the game.
Graphically, the game is hit and miss. The 2D pre-rendered environments look solid, but the character models are bizarrely animated, waving their arms around maniacally even while delivering fairly mundane dialogue. These actions are looped too, making it pretty weird looking for long dialogue chains.
The game’s sound is the best part of the experience. The soundtrack is solidly done, keeping with the mood and themes of the game. The voice acting is surprisingly great, even considering what the actors had to work with script-wise.
Chronicles of Mystery: The Tree of Life could’ve benefited from the game’s various exotic locations and interesting “Fountain of Youth” premise. Unfortunately, the weak script and lacking puzzles make this an adventure that is ultimately hard to recommend.
System Requirements :
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Processor : Intel Pentium IV at 2.0 Ghz
Video Card : 64 MB VRAM – DirectX 9.0 compatible (Nvidia GeForce or ATI Radeon Card)
Memory : 512 MB RAM
Hard Disk : 4 GB of free Hard Drive Space
Operating System : Microsoft Windows XP / Windows Vista
Sound Card : DirectX compatible
Direct X : 9.0c
Controls : Keyboard & Mouse
Installation : DVD-ROM Drive