World of Aden: Entomorph - Plague of the Darkfall

The Good
I hate bugs – I don’t care how little or innocent they may seem – they give me the creeps! I definitely wouldn’t enjoy spending my life as one and neither would the characters in this game.

Your quest is to rid the world of a horrible plague which is transforming all human life into ugly, filthy, slimy, multi-legged insects. In this medieval fantasy, you won’t find gallons of Raid or the Orkin man to help you. You must squash them all with only your brawn and a bit of magic. You will be meeting and battling mosquitoes, bees, grubs, beetles, ants and spiders, as well as some really bizarre partially morphed, half-human/half-insect creatures. Get into their hives and nests – kill their queens – steal their life giving nectars and ultimately free the world of Aden of insects forever.

First of all, Entomorph does not rely on AD&D rules, so the spells and weapons you might be expecting are not there, but neither are the restrictions (such as object weight). You will be fist fighting in martial-arts fashion, casting spells, as well as drinking specialized restorative and enhancing potions. There are a total of 22 spells to cast from your spell book, and their intensity (and overall impact) can be varied by using more or less mana.

You gain experience as you fight, but mostly by evolving into – you guessed it – a bug! By drinking some royal jelly (the strongest, purist nectar left behind when you destroy the Queens), you will make 3 metamorphosis from human to a fully developed praying mantis like insect, complete with pinchers. The transformation really takes a toll on your character and is depicted in all its grotesqueness with a really cool animation, followed by a narration describing it. (Gave me the willy-nillies!)

The 3D isometric graphics and top-down view felt very familiar and comfortable to me, and reminded me of the Ultima games in many respects. Your character is centered in the screen all the time and your stats and life force can be seen clearly on-screen. Movement can be handled with the mouse or the keyboard. Clicking on a door opens it and moves you inside, the roof disappearing to expose the interior. Sometimes the mouse response was sluggish, so I found using the keyboard better for moving around the game screen.

There are many barrels and jars to open in the interactive environment, caves and underground caverns to explore and a good amount of area to cover. Parchments need to be read in order to find out what is going on. And you’ll be collecting and working with exotic plant life – flowers, vegetables, bushes, trees etc. – as part of the story. Teleporters are used to gain access to areas you cannot reach on foot (or did not know existed). The teleporters themselves are an integral part of the puzzle-solving aspects of the game.

The 30 save game slots were plenty and included a screenshot of your location. The music was good and added the right feelings to the overall game atmosphere. But the voice acting wasn’t so hot, especially that of the narrator, whose voice was a bit corny.

Talking to NPCs develops the story and offers you new challenges and problems to solve. Most of the puzzles are related to objects you find while playing (i.e. reassembling a “Great Machine”).

The Bad
Entomorph is very linear so the game must be played in a certain order. Most of the time you’ll be wandering around wondering what to do next with no clues whatsoever in the game itself to help you.

Some of the puzzles were illogically perplexing, making me scratch my head without any clue why what I just did worked (or didn’t work). I found it necessary to use a walkthrough several times for that reason. Mostly I found that it was just a matter of finding all of the pieces (and/or talking to the right “people”), but even then I never learned the whys and wherefores on many of them.

The correct voices are very important in graphical fantasies like this one, I think. They need to have the proper inflections, pronunciations and tone as well as be appropriate for the character they represent. Improving the voice acting in Entomorph would have made a big difference in the game overall.

The Bottom Line
This is a decidedly different role player and an enjoyable game. The game play is simple and even those not familiar with the RPG genre can play it. It has enough adventuring to keep you interested. Although the puzzle-solving aspects and voice acting needed improvement, overall I’d rate this game a solid Honorable Mention. It won’t take you too long to complete it, but it is not too short either. And ... you get to annihilate lots of nasty bugs!