Cool
This game is realy cool
Reviews for "Cardinal Quest"
3/5, 6/10
A Rogue-like in Flash - neat idea, not so great execution. To be honest, I've always adored this genre and I really appreciate projects trying to run such games on new platforms or create new possibilities ('Powder' is an excellent example). However, despite my love for Rogue-likes, I can't fully enjoy this game because of some annoying issues:
- to begin with, there isn't much customisation in the game. The we-know-better-what-you-want-to-wear system and too few items to choose from make every character option pretty much the same at higher levels. Not to mention it can get very frustrating by selling your favourite items. Yeah, thanks for deleting my +2 speed gloves and giving me +2 attack/defence ones instead, when I'm trying to create a rogue basing solely on fastness.
- Knight is actually the hardest to play at the beginning. While wizard can use the hit-and-run tactic and rogue can outrun every enemy, using deadly backstabs, warrior has to face them without any sophisticated methods, losing precious life points. Berserk doesn't help very much either.
- Some monsters are too hard to kill for melee fighters without any good spells (like speed, haste, sleep, berserk, freeze or polymorph), while magic users can easily kill them with two fireballs, shadowwalk and a teleport. A good example would be the minotaur.
- Every class can use every spell and every item. After a while, it doesn't really matter if you've started as a rogue - a few +spirit items, some deadly spells and voila, you're a wizard.
- No custom characters. I wish I could just distribute points between statistics myself and choose a starting spell on my own. Such option could be available after completing the game - if your goal is to ensure that players want to play again, I don't see any better options.
- Additional life. Come on, the rules are simple - you die, you lose! (Unless you have some kind of powerful artefact, of course.)
- Not much of a balance. Of course, I'm aware that all Rogue-likes base on randomness, but finding some spell at the beginning can make the game way too easy. Imagine having sleep, freeze and an extra shadowwalk while playing a rogue on the first floor. These things can happen.
- The coins seem to be useless. I was hoping for some kind of shop, to be honest.
- Well, it misses all these little things that make Rogue-likes climatic. Hunger, pets, darkness, various scrolls, having to identify items and so on. I understand that this is just a Flash game, but I do miss them in spite of all. I agree with some previous reviews: it's too simplified, which makes it a bit boring; especially for all these veterans that used to spend hours on such RPGs back in the old days.
To sum up, I really appreciate that you've made a Rogue-like game in Flash and I've enjoyed playing it for a while, but if you ever decide to make a sequel - make it much more complicated, as weird as it sounds. I'm sure a lot of people would enjoy this little RPG, if only it had many more possibilities.
Very good game, but better with a saving system...
Very nicely made retro RPG, with a big variety of items, spells and monsters. Very hard, but still possible to win, since I finished it as the Thief, the hardest character to play. The key to victory when playing as any character is to use spells and items at the right moment and avoid rushing into fights headlessly, unless you are the Fighter with good equipments and facing a single foe.
I noticed two defaults into this game however : a total absence of saving system, what is annoying due to the time needed to reach the final room, and a merely useless money system, where I can earn money when collecting useless equipments, but this money is never used afterwards.
A few tips for beginners :
- Fully explore each floor before heading to the stairs, to collect enough equipments and gain enough battle experience to make sure you can survive the next rooms. Use the map if you want to check unvisited parts.
- If you get outnumbered, don't enter any unexplored room when fleeing or you have high risks to get circled by even more enemies and ensure you death.
- Magic Mirror spell is mostly useful for the Fighter, since the mirror image can only use standard attacks, what the Fighter excels for.
- Attacking while using Shadow Walk results on a backstab, that never misses and deals more damage. You can neglect you attack if you master this skill. However, if an enemy runs into you, the spell is dissolved.
- After a tough fight, don't hesitate to skip turns to regenerate your spells and be prepared if another fight occurs.
It's fun...the first few minutes
It is a good game, but it gets a bit boring, and the fact that if you die you have to start all over again doesn't really help, I would love to see a save function then. Also not being able to choose which stats are to improve kinda sucks, and I would like to see some kind of shop, to get rid of useless stuff (at that moment) without destroying it, which erases it forever ( I think ). Farther it was a good game.
Too simplified
It's a decent game, and it obviously had a lot of work put into it, but it just feels like you took the regular roguelike formula but instead of improving on it or adding to it you just dumbed it down to a huge degree to the point where it's just kinda boring. Everything's automated, there's no inventory management, you can't choose your stats or make anything but the default build, there's no customization...
All you really do is walk around in the dungeon running into enemies and casting the occasional spell. It just feels empty and boring.