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Product summary
There's some magic to this fantasy puzzle adventure, but a few frustrations break the spell.
Specifications: ESRB: Everyone ; Genre: Puzzle ; Number of players: 1-2 Players See full specs
Gamespot editors' review
- Reviewed on: 09/12/2008
- Released on: 07/03/2008
Somewhere between Marble Madness and Myst there is Fading Shadows. In it, you must roll a sphere through a fantasy world, solving puzzles and avoiding hazards all the while. It's a fresh combination of tried-and-true gaming elements that, when it works, is very absorbing. Unfortunately, a few significant issues prevent Fading Shadows from being the magical adventure it could have been.
The game tells its tale through a series of images unaccompanied by any text or narration. The admittedly lovely artwork isn't capable of telling the story on its own, so if understanding why you're rolling an orb through a fantastical world is important to you, you'd best read the manual. Fortunately, understanding that the kingdom is on the brink of ruin and that all hope rests on a young boy whose coming was foretold ages ago isn't necessary to enjoy the game. Nor is wrapping your head around the idea that said boy's soul has been encased in a protective sphere that you must guide to the Castle of Heaven to save the land.
Don't expect to encounter Master Gardal or any of his vile minions on your journey, though. There are no enemies to contend with, nor friends to aid you on your quest. This is a pleasantly solitary adventure--just you, the orb, and the environmental puzzles and hazards provided by each of the game's levels. In navigating those hazards, you don't actually control the orb itself. Instead, you control a pillar of light that the orb follows around. You can focus the light into a beam of scorching intensity or diffuse it to a gentle glow. The more focused the beam, the stronger its pull on the orb will be; if the beam is fully focused, the orb will follow it directly and rapidly, while a less intense beam will exert a gentler pull on the orb, or no pull at all. It's an unusual control scheme that takes a little time to get used to, but it soon starts to feel natural. It comes into play in many of the game's puzzles and hazards, and it works well, most of the time.
There's a kind of rock-paper-scissors aspect to the game in that the orb can assume three different states. The orb begins in a metallic state, in which it can withstand even the most focused beam and can be made to jump with a blast from the beam. However, it rusts quickly in water. At any time, you can push the triangle button to turn the orb to glass. A glass orb will not rust in water but will be quickly shattered by a focused beam or a long fall. Lastly, there are platforms in many levels that will transmute the orb into wood, in which state it can float in water but will be burned if the beam of light is too focused. These simple elements provide the building blocks for the bulk of the game's puzzles, which are usually intricate enough to make you stop and think, but reasonable enough so as not to utterly frustrate you. It's about figuring out how the pieces fit together, and you can take as much time as you want to work out what needs to be done in a given level.
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