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An interesting game, best with coop but does have single player. Its a simple RPG where there's preset class roles (warrior, assassin, guardian, archer) however you can (and are encouraged to) switch between classes (your skill configurations are saved per class). So there's no skill-point incentive to stick with a single class for the whole game (a good thing). The RPG element allows you to equip up to three active skills and three passive skills, skill slots are progressively unlocked.

The actual game play itself takes place in arenas or maps where you try to solve puzzles (which the game claim's, change depending on the number of players you have in coop) while fighting monsters, mini-bosses, and bosses that spawn.

It sounds simple, but its one of those games that makes you really hate your friends but most of all, needs serious tweaking...

Orb control:
There's a critical floating orb which you use to solve the puzzles, but share control of it with your coop friends (call it to your location via the space bar, you have to make it hit map items), so this can get aggravating when your friends and you clash for control of the orb. Precise control of the orb is needed to solve most of the puzzles as the things you are trying to hit are fairly small and you need to hit some of them from across the map. However there are no indicators to the path the orb will take or exactly where it will land, you have to do it all by eye which grows more and more difficult as the puzzles become more difficult. I cannot tell you how many times I died at a healing alter, getting overwhelmed by mobs (they block you from moving) and missing the damn alter, over and over (you are given no slack, it needs to pass directly over the altar). Even simple control over the ball is difficult when the objects you need to hit as so small and even more so when the orb is on the other side of the map.

Classes are easy to misplay and are too easy to horde:
Second, its easy to botch playing a class. For example, I played with one friend who, for a large part of the game played solely the archer and spammed 3dmg arrows (even the weakest of monsters have 50hp) and occasionally used an ultimate (30 aoe damage). Despite his claims that he was actually helping, turns out after demanding (post many requests) to switch to a different class, that he was actually doing nothing (supposed to charge the arrows which then do upwards of 30-50 damage which puts the archer class on par with the other classes for damage output). (You can imagine how aggravating the whole game was having to carry and pleading to change class (after we failed over and over) at the same time while trying to cooperatively solve puzzles.)

Lots of repetition:
Third, there's a high amount of repetition. For every puzzle, you get a skill point for solving the puzzle, another point for solving it within a certain time, and another for completing some challenge (e.g. don't take damage, or kill the boss within 8 seconds, or touch this thing over here, etc); you can replay a puzzle to reattempt the other skill points. There's a LOT of replaying the maps just because you die (they are linear so it gets old, fast) and then there's replaying to get skill points that'd be really helpful in killing some boss that you are stuck on... Sooooo much repetition (beginning of the game is easy, but it gets progressively harder). It's like Mario, you die -> restart the level, except that you and your coop mates have to replay the level which leaves waaaay too much room for constant screw ups when replaying.


Level of Cooperation and Coordination required is too high:
The amount of cooperation and coordination needed to solve some of the puzzles is a little too much considering 'ping' is not taken into account (my coop buddy was on the other side of the country, using a university dorm connection (unreliable)). For example there's a puzzle where you need to 'bounce' the orb down a long narrow hall without it touching the walls (player stands on each side, you call the ball back and forth while running down the length of it, too early or too late and the orb hits the wall) this was impossible to do on P2P with crappy pings.


No 'this is you' indicator:
There's just an indicator whose color is the corresponding color to the class you are playing (warrior, assassin, guardian, archer) but considering how frequently you swap classes, its all too often I find myself looking at a character (which I had played recently) but was not currently controlling while my character was else where being slaughtered (I do consider myself rather adapt at following my character in battles).




Bottom line, pick it up if its in the bargain bin but for serious play (more than 1 hour+ sessions) with friends it needs some serious tweaking (indicators: class, your character, orb path; slack given for orb triggers; mid puzzle save points; etc) before it becomes viable.

Nice write up Bunni. Sounds interesting if it reaches a more "palatable" price point for some very casual touch and go gaming breaks.

It's worth the $15 IMO but it is also obviously a $15 title. I need to get some co-op action going in this one as it's a bit boring to play solo. It'd be nice if you could directly take control of the orb and then move it.

The absolutely best game evar!! I played it like a guitar in '69!