There’s a show on TV right now called Pushing Daisies in which the main character talks to dead people to help solve the mysteries surrounding their deaths. Folklore follows a similar premise by having you visit the netherworld to unravel a mystery in the village of Doolin. In Folklore you follow the story and play as two different characters with intertwining paths. Ellen is a distressed young woman drawn to the Village of Doolin by a mysterious letter from her dead mother.
Keats is a reporter at a sci-fi magazine who receives a frantic phone call from a woman at the Village of Doolin. Both arrive to find a woman dead on the cliffs of the town, and murder is in the air. It’s their job to get to the bottom of the crime as well as discover what exactly happened in the village 17 years ago in the Village’s past.
The game itself is broken up into two parts. The first has your character walking around town, talking to townsfolk and looking for clues. The second has your character transported to the land of the dead to talk to a character from village who has since been deceased to fill in a piece of the puzzle. Each one of these sections make up a chapter of the game, and each chapter is played by each character. Cut scenes are played out in a pseudo comic book style look with a mix of frames and real rendered 3d graphics with popup text. This was sort of a disappointment to me as there are a few cut scenes that are actually rendered really well with complete voice overs, while the graphic novel style cut scenes seemed more low budget. With all the touts of Blu-Ray and the space it provides, not having the voice overs in these other cut scenes seems sort of silly. Especially when a huge epic RPG like Mass Effect or even Oblivion has every line of dialog voiced.
The meat of Folkore comes in the netherworld where your job is to defeat Folks and a Folkore, which is the big boss. To capture a Folk you must use appropriate attacks against the Folk to release its id, then lock on and use the SIXAXIS controls to pull the Folk in. Every Folk in the game has a native power, whether that’s a physical attack, a fire attack, water attack, etc. Once a Folk is captured, you can map it to one of the face buttons on the controller creating palettes of attacks that are easily saved, loaded and swapped via the L2 button. It feels very much like Kameo on the Xbox 360, but instead of turning into the different forms you simply summon them. Recapturing ids from the same Folks upgrades their attack power, combos, and other various aspects.
Every chapter in Folkore takes you to a different level of the underworld, each with it’s own distinct look, setting and Folks. Everyone of these are absolutely gorgeous from the Fairy Forrest, to the Underwater City and even a Warzone of the dead. The Folk in each zone are all very relative to what is going on around it. The Forrest Folk all are based on animals, while the Warcadia Folk are all little soldiers that shoot, bomb, dash and fight. The creature design really is top notch in the game, with a lot of creatures taking on an almost Tim Burton feel. At the end of the world is a giant Folklore. These bosses usually need to be brought down in stages, utilizing all the Folks you’ve acquired from trekking through the world.
The game is fairly slow paced and doesn’t really extend on the RPG elements much above the leveling up and experience. There’s no customization to be done with each level to your character, though there are side quests available in each chapter which yields unique items. This isn’t to say it’s a bad thing, I just want to make sure people understand this game is not an RPG, it’s an Adventure game.
All that being said, Folklore has some annoying problems. The first is the fact that as you are given the choice to play as each character before each chapter starts, you still have to play the same chapter over again with the other character. While you are playing through a different perspective, you are still given the same level layout, (mostly) the same Folks, and even the same Boss to fight. Even the cut scenes are identical in which both characters are in. I understand what the developers tried to do by extending the story from two different viewpoints, but the execution just didn’t pull me in. I think it’s akin to when you play a game, you get deep into a level make it all the way to the end boss and then die and realize you forgot to save only to have to replay through the whole level again. I know 9 times out of 10 I’d immediately turn off my system, but in Folkore this sort of method is forced upon you. Luckily you don’t have to do the characters in alternating chapters, and you can play with one character up to a certain point and the do the other chapters with the other character. This breaks up the monotony of it a little bit.
Another big problem is the level design and load times. The levels themselves are very linear, and provide very little “off the path” areas. The individual areas in each level are incredibly small and going from area to area provides a short 5-10 second load time. The problem with this is there is a lot of backtracking through the levels, and sometimes I found I was staring at the little loading screen more than actually playing the game.
Finally the use of the SIXAXIS in the game feels really forced. While pulling the ids with a little jerk of the controller is no big deal, the bigger Folks and Folklore add in mini-games to this where timing, waving, and a mix of them are all brought into play.
All that being said, there’s something about the game that keeps drawing me back in. Just when I think I’m bored of playing, just when I thought I’ve sucked my last id the game offers some new plot twist or a new Folk becomes available. Folklore combines gorgeous visuals with a unique story and some really greatgame play making it a game that separates itself from a lot of other titles out there. Folklore isn’t for everybody, but if you can get past a few minor annoyances it will make a decent addition to your gaming library.
Score: 3.5 out of 5
