All Browser Games
Restless Realms Review
Introduction
Restless Realms is a free to play Pole Plying Game that is entirely browser based without any need for downloads. The registration process is simple and you choose what type of character to play, either warrior, wizard or cleric and you can also choose to be male or female. The type of character chosen will affect how the game unfolds, warriors will obviously be fighting a lot and wizards will use magic etc.
Explanation
The game screen is split into various sections, with the bottom left showing your character with their weapons and armour and any other held items. THis includes information such as your level and experience points gained and how many you need to reach the next level. The interface is very intuitive (I think it's Ajax) as you can simply drag and drop equipment from your inventory, shown at the bottom middle of the screen, onto your character. Different weapons can be bought from the shops in the main town and you can also use weapons that you take from enemies after you manager to kill them in combat. There are restrictions on weapons and armour as you have to be a certain level and character type to use them, but as you gain experience you can use better weapons and armour.
On the bottom right of the screen is a message window that pops up with information such as when characters level up and if you are doing something wrong.
The main panel is at the centre of the screen and this shows you a map of the immediate area and if you move into a location that contains enemies it shows you a depiction of them with relevant information. There are many types of enemies ranging from easy meat such as rats and slime to more troublesome foes such as Guardians (look like Ents) and there are bosses that can take quite a beat of beating. You can face up to four enemies at a time and you can choose which one you want to fight first by clicking on them and a cross hair will show who you are aiming at. There are a variety of different attacks you can launch and as you raise through the levels you can train up to learn new attacks in the main town.
Your character has mana as well as hit points and most of the special attacks use up mana so you can't simply keep using these as you will eventually use up all your mana. More mana can be found in the form of potions that can be bought or looted from enemy corpses and from time to time you'll find fountains that you can drink from to replenish your hit points and mana. Usually these are handily placed just before you meet a boss and you also get all your hit points and mana replaced when you level up.
Skulkrin_Bait the Warrior
Combat is turn based, just click the type of attack you want to use and the interface slickly displays how much damage you inflict on the enemy and their remaining hit points and mana. Some attacks will affect more than one enemy at a time which can by handy but you also need to keep an eye on your own hit points as each turn the enemy will be hitting you back. If you're fighting four enemies that can be four (or more) lots of damage so you need to be careful. You can drink potions during combat to replenish your life force but as you do that the enemy will get a free attack on you. You can't simple use any attack whenever you want, but some attacks take a certain number of turns to replenish before they can be used again so you do need to think a bit about what attack to use and when.
Combat ends if you die or if you kill all the enemies when you get a chance to loot their gold and equipment and you also get some experience points too. If you die then you lose a bunch of experience and have to start the level again - each location on the main map leads to a level that includes a map of around 60 locations in the form of a dungeon that you can move around. It's very intuitive and can be picked up very quickly without the need to even read any instructions but there are instructions if you need them.
That's pretty much it, there are quests that you can take on in the main town that generally involve killing certain enemies, collecting certain items and will reward you with more experience points and gold etc.
While the game is free to play, you have a limited number of Adventure Points that means you can only do a certain number of adventures until you need to wait - or you can donate money to the game creators and get some additional Adventure Points.
Verdict
Overall Restless Realms is probably one of the slickest browser games I have ever played with very good graphics and a good variety of enemies to fight and equipment to use and discover. It's certainly a good way to spend a couple of hours and the game does suck you in initially as you want to complete each of the quests and visit all the locations on the map, that involves getting the level 20 which takes a few days. Ultimately though the game is a bit too simple and easy and doesn't have enough depth to keep you interested for more than a couple of weeks but the game is having new features and locations inroduced that may change this.
There isn't enough interaction with other players in my opinion for an online game - a player versus player option would be great as would the ability to join with others to form advernturing parties. You do get a leaderboard showing the top ranked players for a variety of categories that is quite interesting if you can get onto it but other than that interaction is lacking.
Ratings
Presentation - 85% Nice graphics, well laid out. Reliability - 88% seems to work on all browsers with no major bugs and no downtime. My only minor gripe is it seems to freeze up occasionally but that could be my computer! Ease of Use 91% - Very simple to get into with an intuitive interface. Interaction - 25% It might as well be a standalone game as there's almost no interaction with other players. Overall 72% - very slick and worth giving a go if only for a few days gameplay.Tips
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- Test tip 2
