Nintendo DS

Tao's Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal

Tao’s Adventure: Curse of the Demon Sea is a fun, while primitive turn based RPG that has enough uniqueness to it that it will hold your attention for many solid hours.

Tao’s Adventure has a lot of unrecognized potential and hopefully there will be a game soon that will capitalize on this game’s innovations. It overuses the air-spells (where you manually cast your own), but manages to maintain an interesting story, decent gameplay, sound, and graphics. The game is pretty average and I’d personally hold out for something better if you’re in the RPG market.

Tao’s Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal at first presents itself as a typical RPG, complete with the requisite dungeon crawls, conversations with villagers, magic spells and turn-based combats. As a new “touch,” it also almost exclusively utilizes the DS’s touch-screen capabilities for navigation and interaction. Using the DS’s unique touch-screen system would seem like a good idea (why else is it there), but in practice, for this game at least, the actual experience is less than desirable.

Tao's Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal is a simplistic dungeon crawl that is hampered by a plodding pace and frustrating controls.

Suivant la voie des RPG relativement moyens initiée par Lost Magic, Tao's Adventure : Curse Of The Demon Seal surnage un tantinet grâce à ses quelques idées de gameplay et son ambiance générale. Car, si l'aventure est au départ entraînante, elle a vite tendance à s'affaisser dans les salles identiques de la Tour des Monstres pour ne pas en ressortir très en forme. Si seulement le titre s'était montré un peu plus dynamique et surtout mieux construit, il aurait pu créer une petite surprise. Ce n'est malheureusement pas le cas. La disette de RPG de grande envergure sur DS continue....

The DS gets another touch-screen friendly RPG, but are the features worth a purchase?

Gott sei Dank könnt ihr magische Zauber mit eurem Stylus wirken - dazu aktiviert ihr den Magiebildschirm und nutzt den Touchscreen. Im Unterschied zu Lost Magic wird das Spielgeschehen hier kurz angehalten, damit beim Zaubern keine Hektik aufkommt. Dank Monsterhalsband stehen euch später auch Ungeheuer hilfreich zur Seite, was besonders in den höheren Etagen des Turmes zwingend notwendig ist. Auf Dauer wird das Spielkonzept allerdings eintönig: Monster erledigen, im Dorf neues Zubehör besorgen, weitere Monster erledigen, die nächste Etage erklimmen. RPG-Einsteiger können einen Blick riskieren!

Putziges, aber leider hoffnungslos verfahrenes Einsteiger-Rollenspiel mit "Pokémon"-Touch.

There's no denying that in the past year, the Nintendo DS has seen a variety of unique games covering just about every genre... and even making up a few of its own. Still, one genre that seems to be conspicuously absent on the popular handheld is the classic RPG. Konami is hoping to fill that void with its latest DS title, Tao's Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal.

The dungeon crawl: A type of role playing adventure in which the character fights through an extensive labyrinth, killing monsters and looting treasure. The term often carries a negative connotation because they often lack depth. I could find no better term to describe this game. I originally picked up a copy of Tao: Curse of the Demon Seal curious if its unique magic system could spice things up. 20 hours and 30 levels of dungeon later, I regret that decision.

It¹s coming to something when I can barely bring myself to pick up a video game to review. There¹s supposed to be some pleasure in their deconstruction, whether in a positive way or negative. But in the case of Tao¹s Adventure ­ Curse Of The Demon Seal, there¹s nothing there to keep coming back to.

Though I really like RPGs, I found this game unrewarding. The user interface is very unwieldy and slow, the story is very minimal, the magic system is awkward and flawed, and the actual battles are ludicrously easy. The game itself was monotonous after a while too, with every level seeming similar to the previous one. Though I didn't hate playing this game, afterwards I thought it was very forgettable. Novice RPG's may want to consider this one for a rental, since it isn't as sprawling or intimidating as some other RPG's, but there isn't much else in this game that's worthy of recommendation.

Returning to town also has another function: saving the game. Instead of saving anywhere, you’ll have to – that’s right – use a spell to teleport to the inn, where Tao can record his progress. In most DS games this isn’t a problem, since closing the DS will pause play. But not here – the game just keeps running even with the system closed. We also had a couple of crashes after closing the DS, then attempting to talk to an NPC later on, making regular saves that much more important.

Get past the many issues and you’ll find a decent 3D graphics engine and some neat character and monster designs. Collected monsters can even be battled in a multiplayer game, which presupposes that more than one person in a group of friends was duped into following Tao on his adventure.

The overall design may not be too original, but it does have some interesting aspects.

It’s hard to comprehend just how big of a train-wreck Tao’s Adventure: Curse of the Demon Seal is without playing it. The screens look decent enough; even the gameplay details look OK on paper. Casting spells with the stylus was one of the most obvious uses of the touch-screen and was eagerly awaited upon after the DS was revealed. After spending, well, more like wasting some time with this game, it’s clear that people will still be waiting for a good touch-screen spell-casting mechanic because there isn’t anything in this game worth a look.

Aside from the magic system the only other redeeming quality of Tao's Adventure is some of the later spell effects are visually impressive (especially meteor) and many of the Monster Tower's maze-like floors are well designed, lending themselves to multiple pathways and secrets. The game isn't afraid to get difficult, especially towards the last few floors and it definitely commits to a traditional RPG length, clocking in at around 30 hours to beat. When the Nintendo DS was announced I remember thinking, "games for that will either be incredibly inventive or poorly designed, clumsy garbage." While several games have come out that fall into the former category, Tao's Adventure: Curse of the Demon seal falls squarely into the latter. There may not be a wealth of choices when it comes to traditional RPGs on the DS but that doesn't mean you should have to settle for this.