Azuran Tales: Trials

Genre: Action-Platformer

Players: 1

.

Review:

Azuran Tales is an Action-Platformer that has you fighting through enemies in a medieval fantasy dungeon with 3D visuals and 2D gameplay. This is me trying to not say anything negative about the game in the first paragraph.

This game’s graphics look decent but not fantastic, with a pretty generic fantasy game look to them, and repetitive sound clips of the main character. In itself, this is underwhelming, but it’s outrageous given the game’s absurd 2.5GB file size – there’s nothing here that justifies this massive size, especially when multiple games manage to have a much better presentation with less space.

As for the gameplay, this game fails both with the platforming and the combat.

In the combat, hit detection is terrible, with enemies giving little indication when you do connect with an attack. It’s such a crap shoot to try and hit an enemy that I quickly found the best strategy for fighting enemies was to run though them while swinging away, making sure to walk to the side opposite where they were attacking. At that point, it just boils down to mindless button-mashing.

As for the platforming, what’s here is uninspired and frustrating. Jumps that seem like they should be doable aren’t, and the game for some reason decides that only some ledges are climbable, and your character will always try to climb those ones. This leads to absurd situations where your character is forced to mount ledges that he could easily just jump over, while being unable to get onto a ledge just because your feet can’t quite clear it.

If there’s an upside to Azuran Tales, I strain to think of it. The game uses up a lot of space in your memory for mediocre graphics and a forgettable presentation, the combat is terrible, the platforming is terrible. I hesitate to give this game a failing grade only because it is at least playable, even though it’s a joyless affair. Don’t buy this game.

tl;dr – Azuran Tales is an Action-Platformer that has you fighting through a medieval fantasy dungeon, combining terrible combat with awful platforming, and while the graphics are passable, they don’t justify the 2.5GB file size. Do not buy this game.

Grade: D-

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}