[XBOX] Azurik: Rize of Perathia

[blueshogun96]

[XBOX] Azurik: Rize of Perathia [Only On Xbox!]

Those of you that know me well enough know I talk about this game a lot. And now I'm free to have my own thread about it! This is one of the few Xbox games made by Adrenium, an Amaze Entertainment studio and was published by Microsoft. This game received mixed reviews from both fans and other reviewers.

Perathia is an ancient world that harnesses the power of 6 elemental forces based on technology from the ancient deluvians. Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Life... and Death. Each elemental force is controlled within a large "Disc" and has a "Guardian". The Earth disc is green, Air disc is Yellow, Fire disc is red, Water disc is blue, Life disc is white and gold, and the death disc is black and purple. These discs are protected by the "Lore gaurdians". At the time there were three. Eldwin, the leader of the lore guardians. Full of wisdom and power, he was the eldest man in Perathia. Balthazar, a middle aged man who's selfish ambitions for ultimate power led him to fall under the death guardian's control. Azurik, the youngest of the lore guardians with a desire to do nothing but good deeds. Generations ago, the Death disc was stolen, and remained missing ever since. No one has ever been able to find the Death disc. One day, after getting into a fight with Azurik over "who's better than who", Balthazar goes home grumbling to himself how he should be #1. He gets so mad that he strikes the wall and discovers the death disc in his house! Then the death guardian comes to him saying, "What is it that you want?". Balthazar awnsered saying "Ultimate power!". Then the death guardian says, "Then do as I say and you shall have it. Help me steal the rest of the elemental discs!". Later that evening, Eldwin and Azurik catch Balthazar stealing the Air disc. Eldwin immediately realizes that he is possessed by the death guardian. Eldwin yells, "Balthazar, I will not allow this!". Balthazar says, "Stay out of my way, old man!". The two of them get go at it using their powers. Eventually, Balthazar goes after Azurik with a devastating blast, but Eldwin jumps in the way saving Azurik's life and sacrificing his own. Then the elemental discs shatter and then the pieces scatter all over the world and Balthazar leaves. Then Azurik hears Eldwin's voice saying, "The prophecy is in motion. You must recover the peices of the elemental discs or Perathia will die and decay. Restore the honor of the lore gaurdians, restore the discs, restore Perathia...". And so the great journey begins.

System: Microsoft Xbox (Debug and Retail) on a standard non-stereo sound TV (NTSC). That's all I've got.

Gameplay: 10/10
Ahh, excellent gameplay! The previous Xbox controller design would more than likely ruin the gameplay itself because they were so big, ugly, and uncomfortable. But with the later models you'll feel at ease. The controlls are easy to learn and use with a little practice, that's all it takes. There are different combos, you just have to learn to use them as they are very effective for certain combat situations.

The level design was rather brilliant. I like how when you think that you're finished with one area, you'll find out that there's a whole new area to explore later on. Never a dull moment! There are alot of puzzles to complete for each level such as finding the right keys, enabling the switches, fixing machines and putting together a song that unlocks doors, etc. While the majority are quite challenging, a few were dead obvious and one or two were painfully hard, but still entertaining. The levels are V-E-R-Y large and often take a long time to complete. It's an estimated virtual 4,000 acres of land to roam. Plus since the game is completely non-linear, you can go where ever you want as long as you meet the requirements to go there (such as having enough disc fragments). Sometimes you might get lost in all of this big world though... This game is also VERY long, so don't expect to beat it in a day. I've had this game for years and still haven't beaten it yet (getting close now)!

Your weapon is called the Axion. You can use your elemental powers (Earth, Air, Fire and Water) with your Axion for increased power. You can combine elements to make new powers (i.e. Water + Fire = steam, Air + Earth = sand storm, Air + Water + Earth = Ice, etc.) and as you upgrade your powers, they become stronger.

Another great feature of this game (that everyone takes for granted), NO LOADTIMES or LOADING SCREENS!!! There's only one load screen and that is just before you get ingame, and often you don't even see it because the game loads so0o0o0o0o0o0o0o fast! Which is amazing considering the size of each level which is rather massive.

In general, there's nothing I really disliked about the gameplay at all. It just felt rock solid.

Sound/Audio: 10/10
Superb audio! This game features a great soundtrack that makes you feel one with the game. I can't go a whole day without singing some of the songs from this game because it was so great. The sound effects were all great too. There are alot of unique sound effects used in this game. For instance, when striking an enemy with your axion, you will get a different sound effect from one enemy to the next so you don't just hear the same "bam bam" noise for every enemy you fight. I don't see anyways the audio could be improved.

Graphics\Visuals: 9/10
This game has some great graphics, but could have been a lot better. The design of the characters was done rather well. The makers of this game have a tendancy to mix hi-res with low-res textures. Some of their textures looked really great, and others just looked ugly. As for lighting, the game was well lit, but uses per-vertex lighting, which doesn't look very good in some scenes. The clip distance is rather far, allowing you to see almost everything over the horizion.

For it's time, it had some of the most advanced graphics features used. Azurik was the first Xbox game to use full scene antialiasing (take that Halo!). The polygon counts often reach or even exceed 300,000 on average. The framerates are rather steady but occasionally, you'll get a breif drop in frame rates either due to the scene complexity, or a rather expensive graphics technique. One thing you might notice is that when swimming, you'll notice that the wake will dramatically reduce your framerate smoothness and other water effects such as a waterfall. This is due to the number of polygons used to simulate the foam at the base of the waterfall which was rather high.

Replay value: 9.5/10
I'll leave this one up to you. When replaying the game, it might not be as challenging once you've figured out all of the secrets and puzzles. I tried replaying this game and I still enjoyed every bit of it.

Overall: 9.6/10
This was a truly excellent game that so many overlooked. Such a great original concept. Too bad they scratched the sequel If I had the money, I'd buy the rights to the game and make it my own self! I'd recommend this game to anyone even if you do hate Xbox. This made my whole Xbox experience worth it. Whenever I think of Xbox or even the GeForce 3, this great game comes to mind. And once again, it's [Only on Xbox!]

Click below for some screens and trailers
Xbox.com | Product Detail - Azurik®: Rise of Perathia®

I hope you enjoyed my review!

[Master Chief]

Nice review man! But 2001...that seems like ages ago. I'd go crazy today if I had to play a game with old graphics like that after playing Xbox 360 or PS3.

[Cid Highwind]

Really?

Well perhaps I'm a bit like that as well, but then again, if a game doesn't have great graphics, there has to be something to make up for it. Recent games have good graphics to cover up their other shortcomings. Once the flashy stuff looks dated, it's when you look at what's really important. I enjoyed playing some NES and Gameboy games today again. Classic stuff that never gets old

If I had an Xbox, I'd have checked it out Blueshogun. But to be honest, it sounds a bit generic to me, both in design and graphics, as in story, but then again, I haven't played it. A shame it's an Xbox exclusive, because of that, I never heard of it until you talked about it at the forums.

[BigIg]

Hmm.. I've actually been meaning to try that game ever since I saw a video of it in, I think, Halo, but I never got around to it. I don't have my old Xbox anymore, and I don't think its supported on back-compat on 360.

[blueshogun96]

Originally Posted by BigIg

I don't think its supported on back-compat on 360.

Yeah, and it's the #1 reason why I refuse to let my Xbox1 go besides the fact that I like Xbox1 better than 360. I've been wanting to upload some of the soundtrack the other day, but the files were too large The music is awesome, but what really sucks is that both of my Xbox1's started to have problems around the same time. I guess it's Gods way of punishing me for bad mouthing the 360 so much.