|
Review
St Francis Folly is a decent level that contains almost as many annoyances as it does moments of genius. Like Vilcabamba and the Lost Valley before it, the proceedings are split into two distinct sections. The first has you trying to get yourself out of a room of large pillars. The second has you going in the opposite direction (namely down) with the objective of opening a multi-locked door.
Following on from Larson’s shock pressence at the end of the previous stage, we now get the Pierre person he spoke off turning up to play silly beggers. His appearance between the pillars is the first of many throughout the Greek levels on TR1. Not many rival this first one for quality though. It is realistically handled and more than a little creepy. One minute you believe you are alone in the place and the next you see a flash of grey from the back of Pierre's jacket. As if that wasn't enough to shake you up, once the shootout is over you have to spend two or three minutes running round that room just convincing yourself that for the time being Pierre isn't there anymore. Great stuff.
Unfortunately the same praise cannot be heaped upon his second appearance in this level, which to be frank is nothing short of nonsensical. You have to wince at the way Pierre seemingly runs into thin air once the bullet holes in him have become too much to take. At least with the pillar confrontation there were enough exits for you to believe he escaped without using a magic spell. And why doesn't he fear the tiger placed down there at the bottom with him? The Pierre you see in TRC would have run a 1000 miles at the sight of a beast like that! Furthermore, why doesn't the tiger attack him? God knows. Maybe I'm just moaning for moaning's sake? I don't know. Well moaning is not the right word. Questioning probably sums up my intent better.
- - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Sidenote - This is for James Bond boffins. Does anybody think that Pierre's jacket looks exactly like the ones worn by Zorin's mine workers in "A view to a kill". First one to agree wins a hug. (Handshake if you're male)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Most of this level is centred around four challenges left behind by Francis and his buddies before they passed away. Completing the four challenges earns you the right to borrow the four keys needed to open the end of level exit guarded by Pierre and his pet tiger. The quality of these individual tests are varied but on the whole quite high. Two of them even stand out to the point of being superb. You can probably guess which ones I mean. They are Damocles and Thor.
The Damocles test has you walking through a room with swords hanging from the ceiling. When you walk underneath a sword, it falls down and either kills you or nearly kills you. It's a simple idea but one that excels for three reasons…
a) The concept is never regurgitated in later games
b) The swords only fall down on your way back across the room. This lowers your guard and fine-tunes the tension perfectly.
c) The swords have the mystic power to swing towards you as they come down. This stops the whole room-crossing task from being too easy. In fact it makes the difficulty setting perfect.
Thor is a combination of small ideas put together in no particular order. If anyone knows what the hell that electric ball thing is supposed to be though please tell me. As much as I like its ambiguity, there seems to be no apparent way of avoiding its attentions when both entering and leaving this section. I thought the panels on the floor might hold the key to a safe passage but they do not seem to do anything. These days I am resigned to just run-jumping through as fast as I can, accepting the fact that I am going to lose at least a centimetre of energy.
The giant hammer is a much more straightforward booby. It is a wonderful device to encounter for the first time, and can even ensnare the vets if they're off guard. Wonderful TR moment.
The other two tasks I have not mentioned so far are ones of which I can't remember the names. These are not as good, though. One involves bypassing the dreaded and much over-used boulder thingymajig. The other has you swimming and pulling switches within the air time limit. This is largely over-used too. However, in defence of the latter, I suppose I could argue that it had not been done before - Unless you count the voluntary underwater section from Vilcabamba, but not everyone will bother with that. There is also some nice wallpaper at the starting point of the Francis water test. Coupled with its debatable originality victory, I will just about award third place to it among the gods ahead of whoever did the boulder thing. ("Atlas?")
There is not much else to talk about on this level aside from Pierre and the test rooms. The music is nicely paced and the graphics are squeaky clean. I think I will finish though by mentioning the coolness factor of the exit door. Those four sliding swords are so cool aren't they? I was convinced there was a huge boss lurking behind there for ages. 8/10
^Top |
