Official Review: Toren (Computer)

By Tom Bond, May 12, 2015 18 2

Release Date (NA): May 12, 2015
Publisher: Versus Evil
Developer: Swordtales
Genres: Puzzle, Platformer, Adventure
ESRB Rating: Teen
Also For: PlayStation 4
Single player

Local Multiplayer

Online Multiplayer

Co-operative

Toren brings poetry to life in an epic journey of growth, discovery and overcoming great hurdles. The rich, fantastical atmosphere in Toren is conveyed through colorful and highly-detailed environments. The main character ages from a mere infant to a young adolescent, creating new game mechanics and challenges for each learning experience and phase of her life.

Indie Extraordinaire

"Oooh! Pretty sharp thing!"

Toren is Brazilian indie studio's Swordtales' first game. It's supposed to be a puzzle platformer/adventure game, and I say supposed to because in the whopping 1 1/2 to 2 hours it takes to complete the game I didn't come across a single actual puzzle, nor did I really get a chance to actually explore...anywhere in the game, so I guess it'd be more accurate to just say "Platformer" and leave it at that.

The game starts out with a young girl holding a sword and looking pretty badass, giving me a pretty good first impression of the game. You come across an evil looking dragon mo-fo as you continue on the linear path you're given and you try your hand at messing it up...and you fail and die. Great start, eh? You awake anew as a baby, reborn again as the "Moonchild", and are instructed to find a particular sword and ascend the nasty tower known as "Toren" to defeat the evil dragon that your past selves have (seemingly) failed to do. As soon as I'm given free reign over the Moon Child I am instantly blasted with that "indie game" feel you get when playing a cheap indie game, and it's definitely present in the entire playthrough.

Cheap Indie Extraordinaire

This game feels cheap. Visually, it's disappointing. Unlike a lot of other cheap indie games, Swordtales went with a 3D style'd adventure game as opposed to 2D/8/16-bit styled, and the unfortunate side effect of choosing this style of visuals ends up making the game look like it was made in 2005, not 2015. The textures are a mess, with clipping textures everywhere, textures intersect and phase through each other in most of the game's world, the few models in the entire game have very little detail and almost kills the mood at times.

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Toren does have a few saving graces, the story is quite engaging and the lore you can find throughout the game is quite interesting; learning about the Moon Child's role and the past that sparked the current events of the world kept me going through most of the game. The audio setup, when not repetitive, is also quite enjoyable, and the few songs in the game are put together really well and really flesh out the lackluster environments. Unfortunately, neither of the two is enough to save this game from it's glaring and abundant flaws.

Verdict

What We Liked . . . Great story and lore The (small) amount of audio in the game is put together well

What We Didn't Like . . . Game in general is visually unappealing When the player has control of the camera, it's horrendous When the game has control of the camera, it's horrendous The "puzzles" are extremely simple There was no real exploration in the game as far as I could tell, everywhere was pretty linear Clunky controls, and even worse "combat" controls

2	Presentation The very beginning of the game is presented very well...but falls flat on it's face 10 minutes after the initial tutorial, with the rest of the game lagging behind the promising beginning.
2	Gameplay Toren's gameplay is extremely lackluster. The controls are clunky, the combat, while not very focused, is even worse, the camera controls are horrid, there are very few "puzzle" elements at all in the game, and seemingly no real "exploration" that isn't forced just kills the game.
1	Lasting Appeal I finished this game in approximately 100 minutes, and out of the 12 achievements you can unlock I missed 3 that only appear to be related to items you can pick up. This game has very little "lasting" appeal.
2 out of 10	Overall (not an average) I've been contemplating the best way to word this part of my review, and I just have to think being blunt and forward is the best way to go. This game is mediocre. It's a nice first try at a game, and the story of it is pretty great, but everything else falls so short I'm forced to simply say unless you're a big fan of indie games and you don't care about quality, don't bother playing this game.

Psionic Roshambo and chavosaur like this.

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18 comments

chavosaur
Thus answers the question, No it is not worth $10 ;O;

Helder Novais likes this.

May 12, 2015
Tom Bombadildo
I wanted to say "probably not" in the thread, but that would spoil the surprise of the review

chavosaur likes this.

May 12, 2015
Psionic Roshambo
You posted too many pics, now it's a lets play

I am kidding of course, I don't mind short games if they are arcade like and fun. But this doesn't seem like a Final Fight or After Burner II type game...

Pretty pictures though! Maybe the next game will be larger and they will use this one to fund the bigger game?

Helder Novais likes this.

May 12, 2015
sarkwalvein
Well, I knew you didn't like the game, but OMG those scores.

May 12, 2015
Reploid
2 points is not mediocre. Its fakeen horibal.

May 12, 2015
T-hug
Is 2/10 maybe a bit too harsh?

May 12, 2015
Tom Bombadildo
If you're ok with mediocrity, maybe. But it's not a good game, there's little that's actually good to warrant any higher score. This is a review, not a feelings party

But hey, opinions are opinions, you can buy the game if you want

May 12, 2015
Bimmel
I would've wished for a more detailed description of the combat system. It seems that is one of the "main parts" of the game? Or is it the jumping since you said platformer? The only thing that I read was how horrible the visuals are. ;-)

May 12, 2015
Nightwish
Tom: but mediocre is a synonym for average, and 2 is not an average grade, so there's something amiss.

May 13, 2015
Psionic Roshambo
me·di·o·cre
ˌmēdēˈōkər/
adjective

of only moderate quality; not very good.
"a mediocre actor"
synonyms:
ordinary, average, middling, middle-of-the-road, uninspired,undistinguished, indifferent, unexceptional, unexciting, unremarkable, run-of-the-mill, pedestrian, prosaic, lackluster, forgettable, amateur,amateurish;

Not sure but it seems like Tom used the word right to me? lol
May 13, 2015
Nathan Drake
"not very good" - I think giving a game a 2/10 is almost the very essence of that phrase.

May 13, 2015
sarkwalvein
The only phrase I can associate with 2/10 is "actually, there is a slim chance it could have been worse"

May 13, 2015
Maximilious
I was going to say "It looks like you need to update your PC"... But that's just how the game looks hahaha

May 13, 2015
RustInPeace
Just today I saw playthrough of the game and similar comments were said. More of a story/atmosphere trip than an actual video game. Someone in the video said something about a companion novel. That true? It felt like comedy because I laughed at how ridiculous it sounds. Not interested in it, but what about the PS4 version? Any different?

May 15, 2015
Hells Malice
GBAtemp reviews really need to ditch the point scores. They're a mediocre and arbitrary way of doing things.
Plus people focus on them instead of the actual review itself and take absolutely nothing from it other than potentially the authors bias.

May 22, 2015
FAST6191
"GBAtemp reviews really need to ditch the point scores. They're a mediocre and arbitrary way of doing things."

I am certainly no fan of scores (a complex opinion is not going to be accurately represented in a few numbers, scoring itself is an odd game -- see all "the 7 is average", "taking the middle path or extremes if the option is available/you use a points system that allows for it" and more besides, and they are not even all that useful as a point of comparison). However it is the way this review game is played and for where GBAtemp is at with it all the idea of rocking the boat too hard is not a great one, such a thing being the main reason I do not give scores of 6191, pi, e and all the other fun things to put in boxes when you need a number.

If people focus exclusively on the scores then that is their problem. I mainly hope that the Verdict part having a bunch of text in a fairly hard to miss fashion causes them to consider things, I know I have to pause when writing them to try to figure out what to put in there and from what I have seen from the others I am not alone.

May 23, 2015
pdensco
people are mad over here they are jeloused about not having there own review and commenting cold things to others reviews

May 24, 2015
Hells Malice

people are mad over here they are jeloused about not having there own review and commenting cold things to others reviews
Click to expand...

You must be 11, lol. No one gives a shit about things like that. Really anyone can make a review on anything these days. Just put it on youtube, video reviews are better anyway.

May 24, 2015