PHOENOTOPIA AWAKENING WEAPONS FREE

There are dozens of NPCs to talk to, many of whom won’t offer much of consequence. Like the dry desert air here might parch a traveller’s throat, so too did Atai Town leave me thirsty for a more condensed and less busy environment. While the opening dungeon and town are manageable, the next segment of the game, a desert settlement called Atai Town, is sprawling and filled to the brim with places to go and people to see. It’s vital that you acquire as many food items as possible and cook them whenever you can. To assist you with these challenges, Phoenotopia has an interesting cooking mechanic whereby most consumable items you pick up can be roasted over a fire to improve their effectiveness. The boss of the first dungeon, a giant slime, represents a formidable foe that took me almost a dozen attempts to overcome. Gail’s basic attacks feel delayed, and most enemies take multiple hits to bring them down. You’ll also come across Energy Gems and Heart Pieces (lawsuit pending) that bolster your stamina and health it’s not an exaggeration to say that scavenging for these stat boosts is a necessity.Ĭombat doesn’t feel great here. Many of these reward you with coins that can be spent on mini-games, items, and equipment. While exploring dungeons and caverns, you’ll come across orbs and other objects that need to be collected to progress, but there are scores of treasures to find, too. Having to rely so heavily on evasion while recharging your meter is less fun and more cumbersome.

Unfortunately, the inclusion of a stamina mechanic is a definite hindrance here enemies pack a mean punch, and it’s easy to become surrounded by them. In addition to sprinting and jumping, Gail has a basic attack and a charged attack that both consume portions of her stamina bar. After reaching the forest where you’ll retrieve Nana’s children, Phoenotopia’s game mechanics become more pronounced: platforming and verticality are emphasized here, and blue books that function as save points start to dot your path (although not as frequently as they maybe should). Doing so leads to an overworld area where enemies pop up periodically by walking into them, you enter a small area with enemies to battle, much like the encounters in Zelda II.

PHOENOTOPIA AWAKENING WEAPONS FREE

However, the downside is that there are so many people to talk to and rooms to explore, even in the opening town, that the beginning of the game feels a little overwhelming.Īfter picking up a wooden bat in a nearby warehouse by solving a simple moving-block puzzle, Gail is free to exit stage right.

It’s apparent early on that you need to talk to people and explore thoroughly to make progress, and in that way it’s much like an RPG. After exploring a little bit and talking to a few NPCs, a character named Nana tasks you with rounding up the kids who’ve gone outside the village to play. Pink-haired protagonist Gail leaps out of bed and leaves her room, one of many in a large house. The story takes place centuries after a great war decimates the earth and humankind has to rebuild the world and itself. The inclusion of a stamina meter, a muddled sense of direction, and a frustrating difficulty curve make Phoenotopia an acquired taste, and so it certainly has that in common with the infamous Zelda sequel. Whereas Link’s second outing on the NES was fairly linear, at least on the surface, Phoenotopia is filled with treasures and grinding to be done. It mixes an overworld with smaller towns, caverns, dungeons and the like, and there’s no shortage of activities to do and color to enjoy. Phoenotopia: Awakening isn’t the first game to try its hand at improving on and building on the foundation of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

Phoenotopia awakening weapons