Review of The Griffon Legend by syn9, 2005
Written by Lachie Dazdarian(October, 2005)
Yes, yet another review of The Griffon Legend. You must be thinking now something in the line of "Does The World Need Another Review Of The Griffon Legend?". But bare with me. Why it should be odd that some game gets reviewed more than 1 or 2 times? Think about all the movies that have been reviewed over 1000 times. Now when we think about the size of our community 3-4 reviews of one game shouldn't be something strange especially if we are talking about an excellent game as The Griffon Legend is. Anyway, I really want to run this game through the "VPlanet grinder".
For those who don't know(really?) The Griffon Legend is an excellent action RPG of a smaller size with excellent graphics and great music. The best FreeBASIC game released so far(September, 2005).
Graphics
The Griffon Legend's graphics are a strange mixture of very detailed and excellent sprites and tiles and few surprisingly poor and/or poorly composed tiles. I was mostly impressed with the style and the skill displayed by syn9 having in mind that this was his first serious 2D project. What I especially liked were the graphics outside the castles(trees, grass, etc.) and, what you can't see from the screenshots, the animations in sprites. The movement of the main character and other "small" enemy characters is very skillfully and realistically animated, as well as the attack animations. 
The Griffon Legend also features chain-like animations with the boss enemies which are very cool but this feature alone wouldn't mean much if the graphics that make it, and the rest of it in general, weren't excellent. It's important to mention that The Griffon Legend doesn't feature any death animations. When you kill an enemy it simply disappears. I didn't really miss this feature much except with the boss enemies but when it comes to scoring the graphics I have to take this into consideration. The place where this "flaw" is most obvious is in the moment when you kill the end boss. There is no a single moment between the last blow you inflict on the end boss and the outro. The same thing happens when you die. The program simply kicks you back to main menu. The menu graphics and the design of the game submenu is, however, flawless. The main menu and the screens outside the castles feature a very cool fog effect which shows the benefits of using 32-bit graphics so well. I should say that the number of different tiles in the game is relatively small but works for a game of this size. One thing I really didn't like relates to the foreground layer. On most places where foreground tiles are used if you walk into a foreground tile from the side and slightly below it part of your character's body will end being covered by it while the bottom of his body won't because the tile under that is a part of the same wall or pillar belongs to the background layer. A similar thing happens with the status bars placed below the main character(as well as with the ones below the enemy characters). All this really ruins the illusion which foreground tiles suppose to create.
The game's screen resolution is 320*240 and it's nice to know that there are programmers still interested to work in such resolutions. I'm not alone! Anyway, if the game featured death animations and some "ugly" tiles didn't happen The Griffon Legend would get 5 in this section very easily despite the doubtful foreground layer. The graphics in this game might be better than in some other games which I scored with 4 too but those games featured a more coherent and balanced style. Syn9 shows so much skill and ability that the presence of these flaws puzzles me.
Sound/Music
This section was missed in the Josiah Tobin's review and that was the main reason for me to do this review. Why? The Griffon Legend features brilliant music. Maybe a bit too strong word but I don't know how else to describe it. Since I own a PC with a sound card for a quite short time I can't say I'm much of an expert in this department. But comparing The Griffon Legend with all the other games featuring digital music I've played so far it's music is right in the top with the music from Star Control 2. Anyway, maybe it's not so smart to compare music from different games. What's important is that the music in The Griffon Legend fits the gameplay like a glove and highly enhances the play experience. Right from the menu music(more of a humming) you'll sense the high quality. During the game 4 music tracks exchange except with the boss battles where a special boss track accompanies it. While they are all excellent I should point out "Spiders In The Willow Trees" and "Dreaming Awake"(intro and the outro music) as true gems. David Turner, the guy behind the music, is obviously talented. Anyone who has him making the music for his or her game is blessed.
The sound effects are very good but I can't say excellent. None of them seems out of place but you kinda feel there should be more of them. Some blood squish, hurt, foot-step, distant humming or breathing sounds would be cool. Just try to play the game without the music and you'll know what I'm talking about. Also, one sound effect is incorrectly used. Every time you change a scene you hear a door opening sound while a door is not between all the locations. A bit silly mistake. Anyway, if you were not able to play the game with the music your are missing the BEST aspect of this game beside gameplay.
Gameplay
The gameplay is rather straightforward and entirely based on action with some simplified but notable RPG elements. The Griffon Legend doesn't feature scrolling which means the game world is consisted of single-screen rooms. 
You can avoid most of the enemies in this game but it is imperative that you kill as many of them possible in order to level up and on some screens to receive a key which is necessary to unlock certain doors in the game. Every time you revisit a location the enemies are revived(doesn't apply on bosses, of course). From time to time you will have to beat an boss enemy which always leaves something behind crucial for the progress in the game. It's interesting to point out that some enemies that are a boss in the first part of the game are nothing but regular enemies later in the game.
Placed below your character are three bars representing health, attack and magic. When you attack an enemy(you character attacks by leaping forward and flipping with his blade out) your attack meter completely depletes and then slowly recharges. The strength of you attack depends on the attack meter. The way spells are used it very similar to this. Later in the game when you beat the first boss you will receive a crystal and by using this crystal you can and should find 4 spells: spinning blade, ice whirl, falling rocks and fire. The spells are used by accessing the submenu(press CTRL) and aiming them toward one of the enemies. The game pauses during this procedure. Each spell has it's own "energy" meter and after using a spell it's meter also completely depletes and you can't use that spell until it recharges to full. 
Also, every time you use a spell the main character's spell meter depletes and if you use another spell before it recharges to full that spell will be less powerful. By killing enemies you gain experience points and when you accumulate enough of them you level up. By leveling up your attack and shield strength increase as well as the speed of attack/magic meter recharging and your maximum hit points. Spread all around the game are flasks which recharge your health and there are two better shields, swords and armors to find. But the best shield, armor and sword is protected by a secret boss which kinda looks silly(bat-cat?) and I was only able to kill it by cheating(really difficult). It really doesn't pay off to beat it.
The game features enough different enemies and bosses with different attack features/patterns to make this game very entertaining to play and not boring above all. While the battles require more than mindless sword swinging they are in the same time very simple and not frustrating. The spells add a lot to the gameplay in the sense of strategizing and making better results in crowded battles. It is very obvious that this game was heavily tested and it paid off. While in some battles, especially with the bosses, we can spot the flaws in the gameplay it's enough excellent to get a perfect score. Requiring more would be unreasonable. A note: You can use the "rock" spell to destroy some of the obstacles in the game(red spikes). This reminds me. The Griffon Legend could really use a better documentation.
Story
The story is somewhat original but not very deep. In a nutshell it's about griffons versus dragons and you play the role of a griffon knight. 
I guess it's more original than humans versus evil [insert race name]. The story is well written despite the few mistakes I've noticed but nothing more than that. The story is presented in a form of passing text placed on the orange foggy sky both in the intro and the outro. No cinematics. This game probably doesn't need more but giving The Griffon Legend a higher score in this section wouldn't be fair to game developers who put a lot of time and effort in the story and story development.
Replay value
My least favorite section in the VPlanet's reviewing system. A very difficult section to score and often not terribly relevant. As with most RPGs it's always interested to give the game one more spin after you finish it applying the experience gathered from before but you will probably be more motivated to re-explore the game world using a save game position where you are near the battle with the end boss. Playing the game all over, with a so weak character, I didn't find very appealing. This game simply didn't do it for me in the sense of "playing it over and over". If the game had some bloodbath/practice mode where you would play for score with a time limit or something similar that would be another thing.
Challenge
Not a very difficult game but most freeware RPGs aren't. 
Of course, being an action game too The Griffon Legend requires more than patience which is not the case in great deal of freeware RPGs featuring turn-based battles. There will be quite few screens in the game where you will be victorious only after several tries and leveling up is required to be successful as the game progresses. This game feels more difficult than it really is. The way majority of the boss battles failed to play interesting(especially with the end boss) is another reason for this score.
Fun factor
The Griffon Legend really excels in being fun and entertaining and despite all the flaws I've mentioned it succeeds in emulating a professional design and leaves you with good memories of it. Yes, it's not the longest game out there but I think this shows in the total score. If you haven't played The Griffon Legend yet SHAME ON YOU!
Total Score
27/35
Good: Excellent gameplay and graphics. Great music.
Bad: Relatively short game(around 2 hours of play time). Few flaws that could have been easily avoided.