So, from one fairly unknown game to another - Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy.
I finished it just over a week ago. I was going to finish Gears of War, but, meh. Yeah, sorry, I'm the one person who doesn't think Gears of War is the mutt's nuts. So sue me. Or yosumi! That one's just for therealpidge, if you're reading (^_^)
I was going to play Blue Dragon or Earth Defence Force 3 for 360, but they'd both disappeared from my local 2nd hand game shop! So much for getting them cheap, I thought.
So, Sphinx. I bought Sphinx a couple of years back when my wife and I went to Tokyo and I found some import games in Akihabara. That must seem weird to people not in Japan, importing Western games! I played Sphinx a little at the time I bought it, but bigger games came along that left Sphinx to get dusty. It was on Gamecube, PS2 and Xbox. I got the Xbox version and I decided to play it on my 360 this time, just to see how robust the backwards compatibility emulator is. It plays like it should, nice 'n' smooth, although the attract sequence video (not the sound, strangely) is stuttery and it froze on the title screen once. Otherwise, it plays great, in fact I'm wondering if the emu isn't enhancing the graphics a bit. I remember it looked - surprisingly for such a little known game - rather good on Xbox when I tried it out 2 years ago. I just tried out it out on original flavour Xbox again and it's still good, but I think the 360 rezzes the graphics up (ooh, how technical!). The textures are really detailed, the landscapes and SFX are beautiful and dramatic, bursting with rich colours.
The 360 really brings the colours and textures out, so play it on 360 rather than an old gen system if you can. It's pretty sad when a 4 year old game looks better than Phantasy Star Universe on 360. Man alive that was a lazy PS2 port... *sigh* Suffice to say, this game looks pretty damn good, especially when you consider its age. The developers weren't even at the "We've squeezed everything out the machine because we're at the end of its life cycle" stage!
Like Kya Dark Lineage (see my last blog entry), this is a game that isn't perfect, but deserves to be better recognised. It's a sort of Diet Zelda. The game switches between the titular 2 characters. The meat of the game belongs to Sphinx and his Zelda-like sections, with interludes starring Tutankahmen, who has been turned into a mummy. These bits are just explore and puzzle sections. These sections are interesting because seeing as you are a mummy, you can't die as you're already (un)dead! If you fail or (literally) fall, you just reappear at a checkpoint. The Mummy's bits actually play on this immortality. Many of the puzzles revolve around burning, electrifying or flattening The Mummy and using the Mummy in that state somewhere else.
I like how the music changes depending on what state The Mummy is in, especially the light swing jazz music (think of the music in the movie The Mask) when The Mummy runs around on fire.
There's one bit that's much more frustrating than the rest of the game where you have to get past these mechanical eyes. If they see you, doors close. To get by them, you can go invisible, but only when you stand still. Not only is the timing hard as the eyes swing to and fro, but I swear I've been caught lots of times just because the fucker wouldn't cloak when I told him to! Much swearing and scaring my wife was involved at that point. I probably got a few ulcers from that. Phew.
Sphinx's bits are fairly good, nothing to spooge over (except those beautiful fantasy Egyptian landscapes and colourful skies!), but they're OK. There are towns, people to meet and do things for, places to go, places you can't go yet because you don't have the correct doodad - it's Zelda, just not quite as well developed - but then I don't think Eurocom has Nintendo's clout to make a proper Zelda. The only game that I've played that's given Zelda a run for its money is Okami. Combat certainly pails in comparison to Zelda. It's not crap, but there's no lock on, and the shield isn't as responsive, so I rarely used it. There are less attacks, too, although this game is more about puzzles than combat. You do seem to collect a lot of things that only get used once, which is a shame. The camera gets stuck in places, but less than Kya Dark Lineage.
Sphinx doesn't have much of a character. He has no lines in cutscenes nor does he emote all that much.
This is as about as much emotion as you'll get out of How-do-I-poop-when-I've-got-a-tail-where-my-bum-should-be Sphinx.
The Mummy is a better character. I particularly like when he winks and says, "Hey!" at the camera (^_^).
Speaking of, er... speaking, this game is crying out for a little cartoony voice acting. For all the graphical splendour and fairly atmospheric music this game brings, it's quite jarring that all the dialogue is text only. Maybe the devco forgot to hire voice actors...?
The developers, Eurocom, must have cared a lot about the game considering the effort they put into creating this fantasy Egyptian world. It seems like they thought the characters had legs enough for a series, because once you beat the fairly easy final boss, you get an ending that, while not a big cliffhanger, doesn't resolve everything, either. It's quite an annoying ending because it's quite short and one character does something that I think is meant to be a joke but just ends up making you feel that part of the game story was a waste of time. I'm trying hard not to write any spoilers, but... well, you'll know when you see it. Anyway, despite its faults, it is a satisfying game and I certainly would be happy to hear that an improved sequel is in the works. Unfortunately no one talks about Sphinx these days. If you're looking for a decent game in between those big A-listers like God of War 2 and ooh, Mass Effect, I recommend Sphinx, you might be pleasantly surprised!
I don't wanna know what's going on in this pic, but it sure looks rude! (>_<);
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