Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure

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Description

Somewhere in the universe, there is a beautiful planet called Twinsun. It is populated by four different races, which have been living in peace and prosperity, until a mad scientist Dr. Funfrock of the Quetch (human-like) race used his newly invented cloning and teleporting techniques to create an army of fearsome soldiers and become the planet's dictator. Twinsun's inhabitants have not lost hope, placing their faith in the old legend about the benevolent goddess Sendell who would save the world. However, Dr. Funfrock totalitarian regime forbade displaying any images of the goddess and her worship.

A young Quetch named Twinsen was just a regular fellow until he had a dream, which surprisingly involved the outlawed goddess. It seems that Dr. Funfrock was no stranger to mind control; in his opinion, even dreaming of the goddess was illegal, and he promptly ordered to put the perpetrator in prison. Now the unlikely hero must find a way to escape and eventually save his planet from the clutches of its insane ruler.

Little Big Adventure (Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure in the US) is primarily an adventure game with strong action elements. As usually in adventure games, the hero must talk to other characters, and collect and use objects. However, not all the problems have to be solved with dialogue and item manipulation. The player can activate four different behavior modes for Twinsen: Normal, Aggressive, Athletic, and Discreet. The first is used for peaceful exploration and conversations; Aggressive mode allows Twinsen to punch and kick other characters; Athletic mode must be applied when it becomes necessary to run quickly and jump; Discreet effectively puts Twinsen in a stealth mode, making it possible to sneak by hostile character unnoticed. While activation of a particular mode is often required to solve a problem, many situations can be dealt with in different ways.

The game universe is rendered with characters in full 3D, while the environment uses isometric graphic tiles. The CD version (which was released earlier than the floppy one) features pre-rendered animated cutscenes, audio music and speech; all these features are absent from the floppy disk version.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Alternate Titles

• "双子星传奇" -- Simplified Chinese spelling
• "Little Big Adventure: Twinsen's Adventure" -- Japanese title
• "Little Big Adventure (Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure)" -- GOG.com release title
• "Little Big Adventure" -- European title
• "LBA" -- Common abbreviation

Part of the Following Groups

• Console Generation Exclusive: PlayStation
• EA Classics releases
• Games with officially released source code
• Green Pepper releases
• Little Big Adventures series
• Sound engine: AIL/Miles Sound System

User Reviews

Why don't play something strange instead of the usual stuff?	DOS	micnictic (391)
An entertaining fairytale, consistent in its presentation and storytelling.	DOS	Joakim Kihlman (275)
So good, it might even make you start liking the French	DOS	Jim Newland (60)
Beautiful, Nostalgic, Epic, Accessible	DOS	Tom White (14)
a very good game!	DOS	maor mor (3)
Relentless: The Greatest Adventure	DOS	zach sims (2)

Critic Reviews

Gamezilla	DOS	Jan 08, 2001	95 out of 100	95
Adventure Europe	DOS	Apr 06, 2006	92 out of 100	92
Score	DOS	Jan, 1995	90 out of 100	90
Génération 4	DOS	May, 1995	89 out of 100	89
PC Fun (French)	DOS	Nov, 1994	17 out of 20	85
Power Play	DOS	Nov, 1994	85 out of 100	85
Adventure Classic Gaming	DOS	Feb 19, 1998		80
GameTrip.net	DOS	Feb 13, 2008	8 out of 10	80
PC Format (UK)	DOS	Dec, 1994	64 out of 100	64
Pocket Gamer UK	Android	Apr 01, 2014	6 out of 10	60

Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
Free today on GOG	5	Pseudo_Intellectual (64072) Nov 08, 2014
Little big adventure	9	silent @ss&sin (2) Jul 19, 2008

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Little Big Adventure appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Development

Originally, this game was was meant to be made for the SNES, with the use of the Super FX chip. Also, in early previews, the was mention of Twinsen being able to drive vehicles. The final version of the game lack this feature but it is included in the sequel.

LBAWin

It is not easy to get to run this game on modern PC's. For different reasons the game has its difficulties with DosBox. The best way to play it would be LBAWin, a Windows port created by a former Adeline programmer. It requires the original DOS disc to play and can be downloaded here.

Technology

The programmers used some tricks in this game: The game's soundtrack is made of both redbook audio and midi syntesizer. The video mode is SVGA for most of the game, but if you zoom, the game uses standard VGA.

Awards

• Computer Gaming World
  • May 1995 (Issue #130) – Adventure of the Year
• GameStar (Germany)
  • Issue 12/1999 - #71 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking

Information also contributed by Mark Ennis and micnictic

Related Web Sites

• Encyclopedia Twinsunica (An in-depth encyclopedia about the universe of Little Big Adventure.)
• LbaWin (The official Windows port of the game)
• Little Big Adventure - Hebrew translation (Hebrew translation project.)
• The Magic Ball Network (Probably the biggest fansite for the game with an active community and quite a lot of content.)
• Walkthroughs (several solutions posted on the Spoiler Centre)