Page Chronica Game Sample - Playstation 3

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Published on ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjaYLX6MZMo



Category:
Let's Play
Duration: 32:44
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Action starts at 4:44

Page Chronica is an interesting action/platforming/spelling title by fledgling Singaporean game developer "Red Hare Studios", whose first successful full production game was "Dynasty Online" released in February 2012. Page Chronica marks their first PSN title and can be purchased in the U.S. and Europe for $10.99/€10.99. Red Hare Studios' basic influences are Final Fantasy, Warcraft, and the melting pot ideology, working on games that they think will interest people worldwide.

In the game, you play as Topez, a "young" apprentice librarian and respectable magician (who is only a few eons old) who resides in a special library known as the "Infinite Palace", where all the dreams that ever were or will ever be are stored within towering stacks of ancient tomes. Her master, Morpheous (Lord of Dreams and Master of Stories), has assigned her the new task of protecting the Palace while he is away, but she is terminally bored and soon stumbles upon a foreboding, sealed book that she is dying to read. Like a classic fairy tale tragedy, she uses her power over words and opens the book, unleashing a menacing creature known as "The Big Bad" (quite clever). "The Big Bad" is now traveling through lesser stories in pursuit of the right book that will grant unimaginable power, and Topez has to stop the cloud and fix the mess she has made before her master returns.

The gameplay is basic 2D side-scrolling action with 3D polygon graphics and simple stage puzzles, but with one main twist: players have to form words to really get anywhere in the game. You see, players must use Topez's "Power Over Words" to grant her magical powers and supplemental abilities. All you have to do is open up your "Word Capture" and grab letters to form words. During this time, things slow down (but not your actual time) and it must be used strategically, especially during boss battles. The length of the word, letters you use, and type of letter determines the power of your basic abilities, the amount you get, and their duration. Sparkly letters can be grabbed to make "Special Words" which give you a powerful fireball and longer lasting supplemental abilities.

Letters that are harder to make words with such as "Z, X, and Q" give you more points and more powerful shots that are good if you aren't rushing to make Special Words. Words of at least three letters give you the ability to run faster and double jump, and words can be as long as five letters in length. If you make three spelling errors, you'll be penalized and lose a good bit of health. There are various goodies and helpful items to pick-up through the game, and you'll want to be accustomed to making longer, trickier words more quickly as you progress to get the most powerful attacks, supplemental skills, and best score possible (kinda like Scrabble).

While this sounds fun on the surface, the spelling aspect is a novel feature that you'll either like or hate. The concept of spelling words just to gain access to basic abilities the player should start with can seem like a huge turnoff, and contrary to how it looks, this game was not exactly designed with younger players in mind. The game takes its difficulty cues from ball-busting titles like the old NES "Ninja Gaiden" and "Mega Man" games (with rough platforming segments, a "Reverse-Sonic" time limit, and a strict time limit for bosses), and the team doesn't even like the game being compared to "Edutainment" titles, even though the five-letter word limit is rather rudimentary, some "bad words" are omitted from the game's recognition and it accepts some terms that aren't real words.

The game also has relatively long load times and framerate inconsistencies for such a simple game, though the graphics are reasonable I guess (even though the introductory illustrations and game world look almost completely separate... it looks like a decent Dreamcast game at a higher resolution), the music is pretty good, and it has a neat 2-player co-op mode. The game gets a little more balanced as you progress and get new abilities as well, which makes replaying stages and getting better ranks kinda fun. I like Red Hare Studios' design philosophy and hope to see more games from them in the future.

This is a video of the game in action, going through the first stage. Enjoy.







Tags:
Page
Chronica
Red
Hare
Studios
Playstation
Three
Network
PS3
PSN
Sony