Asguaard is a single player RPG from a developer called Aldorlea Games, released on the PC. Aldorlea exclusively develops 2D role-playing and adventure games, clearly inspired by a traditional, but perhaps dated, style of Dragon Quest, or the earliest entries in the Chrono or Final Fantasy series. Unfortunately, most of the similarities to those heralded influences don’t extend past the apparent attempts to copy them.
The basic pitch of Asguaard’s story is that someone has opened “Pandora’s Box” and the world of Asguaard is being threatened by several plagues that have ensued. In order to destroy Pandora’s Box and stop the plagues, dwarfs and fairies, the native inhabitants of Asguaard, have summoned two humans to save their world, because, “only humans have souls.”
It’s not the most riveting setup I’ve seen, and throughout the execution of the plot, you’re treated to a heavy dose of cliches (your character starts the game with – you guessed it! – amnesia), but the general premise had the potential to birth a compelling story.
From the start of the game you’re exposed to the often repeated offense of poor dialogue, and cliché story elements. The hero (who by default is called Glen, but you can choose his name) starts out wandering in the mountains before he collapses and is found by a village of dwarfs. You’re then witness to an awkward cutscene where inarticulate dwarfs try to explain to an unintelligent hero that he’s been “summoned” to another world. It’s a two minute scene that could have been communicated in two sentences.
Everything in this scene, and all the dialogue after, makes it clear this isn’t the work a professional writer, or even an experienced amateur. I say this with as much caution and respect as possible, but at times the phrasing of some dialogue is so weird and confusing, it makes me think English isn’t even the first language of whoever wrote this game.
There’s also the villains. Oh, the villains. Asguaard has some of the most painfully trite, and outright silly antagonists I’ve ever witnessed, such as “Bone Breaker” who I assume intentionally speaks like a buffoon, but unintentionally has some of his dialogue misspelled. Do you remember the bad guys from the original Power Rangers show? Yeah, the villains in this game are like that, but worse.
