David Wide(Music for your soul)
Arunderan Final
written and tested by: Ronny
What do you need heroes for? Exactly, to defeat evil dragons, fair princesses with large bust sizes, steal the staff from the hands of nasty wizards and all sorts of other stuff.
But what do you do when all this can be considered done? Exactly, you simply send your subordinate heroes into battle against enemy warriors. But then it's stupid when you've shipped the last load of heroes and now, for nothing, an evil mage has been cheated out of his monthly maiden and has turned the entire nation into sheep as punishment.
Well, it didn't turn out to be the entire nation after all, at least "nimble Stan" managed to get away without wool around his ears in the hero training camp. Now it's up to him to save the sweaters on four legs.
Ok, that's the intro done and now welcome to the new game by Reiner Prokein (Rumbeard the pirate). After more than 2.5 years of development, it has now seen the light of day: a role-playing game for young and old.
Yes, that's right, even younger gamers can enjoy Arunderan, as there is no blood or other splatter effects, but witty dialogs and funny NPCs have found their way into the game.
As befits a role-playing game of the shallow kind, defeated enemies (also called "stunt sprites" in the game ;D) give you experience points and therefore more and more life and mana points as the game progresses. Quests (i.e. "tasks") follow the same pattern as enemies: they should be completed.
For very young beginners who have never even come into contact with a game like "Zelda" (no comparison), the game directory contains a more or less comprehensive walkthrough in English and German.
It is clear that Arunderen cannot compete graphically with the glossy commercial projects of recent years, but somehow you are still drawn into a spell that makes the comic-like presentation look acceptable throughout. It does look strange when a character is holding a sword, but the hand remains stubbornly instead of powerfully clutching the hilt, but after a few minutes of play, this is no longer noticeable.
The music remains discreetly in the background and even the umpteenth repetition doesn't seem annoying, yet the choice of instruments is somewhat inappropriate, as one would expect a fantasy and medieval flair rather than soft drums.
Probably the most entertaining part (besides the dialogs ;D) is the voice output, which always takes place when you start a conversation. himself makes you smile, especially when you flirt with the fairy, for example.
If you're tired of all those RPG Maker games and perhaps fell in love with Rumbeard's graphic style back in the day - or if you simply have the 80 MB free on your hard disk - you should put Arunderan on your hard disk. Hours of fun (reading) are guaranteed.