THE MOST FORGETTABLE RPG IN HISTOR... WHAT WAS I SAYING?
Also for: iPhone, iPad
My Random Games initiative is like a ceremony I do once in a while, where I pour myself a cup of coffee, sit down by my desktop and let the MobyGames
database select a random game from video game history for me to play.
Rimelands: Hammer of Thor would have made perfect sense as such a game
- totally unknown, ugly as sin, dated as hell and unappealing in almost every
other way. Even its mother would shun it. Only a God of Random would select it
for a playthrough.
But that's not true for me. No, I actually bought Rimelands of my own
volition. I can't remember what possessed me to do that, but I can guess. When
I had recently bought the Switch, I seem to remember buying a lot of highly
discounted games at random to quickly expand my library. What if I ran out of
games to play in the middle of my vacation? Perish the thought.
Rimelands is an isometric and turn-based role-playing game, which is in my ballpark. It must have come very cheap. So, really, it makes sense
that I purchased it, when you think about it.
Luckily, the game (from Finnish studio Crescent Moon Games) isn't as
bad as it looks. I can't say I regret playing it, spending only 5 hours to
beat it, which must be some kind of "bottom" record when it comes to
time-investment in RPG:s. For me personally, I think only the very first
Ultima rates lower in that regard. I also didn't die a single time,
which is more of a testiment to Rimelands low difficulty rather than my skill
as a tactical RPG:er. It is probably the easiest RPG I've ever played.
In Rimelands, you control a female orphan by the surname Cristo, with a first name of your own choosing.
As a child you witnessed the death of your own family at the hands of robbers,
who all wore clothes with a strange symbol stitched to them. Ever since,
you've been raised by your grandmother, Morgana, in the frozen North (the
world map is an ice-aged version of Scandinavia).
One day, twenty years later, you witness a few grave robbers sneak into an old
vault. Curious about their business there, you sneak in after to spy on them,
just as they get their hands on a pair of Jotunn bracers. The bracers bear
markings of the same strange symbol your family's murderers wore. Because of
that connection, you get obsessed with the bracers, and decide you want them at any cost. So you give chase to the robbers, with a certain grudge against their leader, Gallante.
And that's how this pocket-sized RPG starts.
I've rarely come across a game so unremarkable. I wonder if it consists only
of prefab Unity engine assets? I might one day in the far-off future remember some isolated moment from
it and think: "What was the title of that game I don't know if I played or merely dreamt?" The game world
consists of dungeons, the outdoors and a couple of settlements, but they all look
the same, and the unchanging music make them all give off the same frozen
vibe.
The soundtrack is atmospheric in its chilliness, but totally devoid of a
distinct melody. The graphics have that mobile-friendly aesthetic that sucks
out all detail from its low-polygonal 3D models. They are perfect for the
handheld format, but I always play my Switch docked. Looking at Rimelands' visuals in docked mode feels like attending a church
sermon - that's how boring they are. Every location looks the same, and the
playing field is actually grid-based with no diagonal movement.
That's correct, you can only move in four directions. How ancient and
simplified isn't that? Even in
Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday (1990) on the Amiga you could
move diagonally in combat. Not here, nope, that's too advanced. Not that I mind, it's just a matter of adapting to
the culture of the fictionalized universe. It didn't take me too long - I grew up in a world of tiles.
Let me reaffirm that playing the game isn't dull. The story is short and
to-the-point, and the turn-based combat is very basic and passable. It
utilizes dice rolls with different icons to signify combat values. When you
attack someone you roll a number of dice according to your attack value. Every
die can result in a skull, two skulls, a blocking shield or a missing "X". In
your attack phase you want to roll skulls. In your defend phase you want to
roll shields. If an attacker rolls more skulls than the defender's shields,
it's a hit.
You can sacrifice one point of mana every combat round to re-roll misses. You can also spend mana to utilize a
few fun, obtainable special powers. The special powers lie hidden in three
different skill trees that you unlock with increasing character levels.
It is my kind of basic. I have a soft spot for skill trees. They always
tempt me with their obscure possibilites that's not always apparent at a
glance. I opted for a melee barbarian build for my playthrough, and spent a
lot of points and equipment upgrading my number of physical attack- and
defense dice. I never regretted that choice. The other stats are magic and
ranged combat. I suppose they must be just about as viable.
The game contains much loot, and it's hard to miss it, because the game is
also extremely narrow and linear. I counted only one short optional area, and
a handful of sidequests that mostly took place along the main route.
Every zone is basically a winding path with just a couple of offshoots,
leading to optional encounters and loot. And post-game came with a totally new area in the Finnish part of the map. It's probably exclusive to the more
recent Switch release. I didn't explore it.
What else do you want to forget about? Let's mention the crafting. You
occasionally find blueprints for powerful equipment, which you can craft by
combining three different resources. Unfortunately, once you've dismantled
enough equipment in a store - which is expensive - to get enough materials for
crafting the thing, you've often found something even better. So you often find that
you don't need the blueprint any longer.
Apart from that, I don't have much to add. The story saw a twist or two - or maybe I dreamt them - and the final boss gave me a little trouble. Not that he hurt me too badly, I just didn't understand how to
stop the guy from insta-healing my attacks, but I figured it out as I was down
to my last healing flask. I then made short work of the guy. That's how
powerful my character had become.
It's not like you have to grind to become OP. With no respawning enemies, it just happens naturally over the
course of the main quest - especially if you specialize in one single skill
tree. Rimelands is like a fireworks display. You fire it off, you gawk and you
forget why you felt the need to light the fuse. Was there a story? Oh yeah, it
involved the Norse gods somehow. Could've fooled me, but the title kinda gave
'em away anyway.
What little investment the story has potential to muster gets lost in the drab
visuals and the distanced perspective. The dialogue is predetermined, and doesn't
establish a lot of personality to any character, and they don't even have portraits. It
took me quite some time before I got a clear facial representation of my Cristo-heroine in one of the cutscenes. I also didn't get a clear look at grandma Morgana until the game was almost over.
My fast-food junkie need to reach the end of the game without caring came from
the weirdly simple-but-addictive gameplay loop. The skilltree must have been a
placeholder story, and the loot must have acted as placeholder character
dialogue. Or maybe the game just caught me in a good mood, who knows? It's a
hard game to recommend, but as I already mentioned - I don't regret playing
it.
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