Review: 'Baroque' won't appeal to most
Most people won't like ''Baroque.'' It will appeal to a very small audience of (probably) hardcore gamers, most likely those who played the original game on the Saturn.
I don't think I'm part of that small audience. I found ''Baroque'' confusing and frustrating, but as I researched it I discovered it's not because it's poorly made - it's the type of game it is, a subgenre called ''roguelike'' that uses a lot of randomly generated content.
''Baroque'' is a role-playing game, but the story is buried inside hours of dungeon crawling (repetitious killing of monsters). It's really easy to play the game and feel like you've missed a large part of the story.
You play as a boy with no memory who is told to enter a tower. He starts at the top and proceeds downward from one randomly generated level to another. Levels consist of small rooms connected by hallways.
Killing enemies - called metabeings - will help him level up, but the kicker is that he has to die. You can't get the full story without him dying, and many times. And when you die, you lose all the items you've collected and reset to level one outside the tower.
Each time you die, however, you experience new cut scenes that reveal more of the story. And when you re-enter the tower, it's completely different. Ultimately, the goal isn't to level the character as high as he can go, it's to survive enough of the tower to unlock its secrets.
While I enjoyed running around and killing things, I struggled to comprehend what exactly I was striving for, as the game doesn't really tell you. Additionally, the poor, fuzzy quality of the graphics hurt my eyes.
I don't think the vast majority of people will like or even understand ''Baroque.'' A small number of gamers who are really into ''roguelike'' games probably will love it. If you don't know if you're in that group, you probably should rent it first.
Personally, I'm going to stick to more traditional role-playing games.
Reach Aimee Green at (402) 473-7326 or Aimee.Green@lee.net.
BAROQUE
Atlus, for PlayStation 2 (also for Wii)
Rated: Teen
Cost: $39.99
Score: 6.5/10
Scores based on an evaluation of gameplay (4 points), visuals (2), sound (2) and replayability/value (2).