SCO said:
Ok i played Azrael's Tear (with a walkthrough - i just wanted to see the story).
The place is full of horrible death traps and obtuse (well, not really, but they are unforgiving) puzzles as expected. I saw many ways to fuck up too - block rooms having to backtrack.
It's one of the weirdest narratives i ever saw (definitely in top 5 weird endings)
A mix of religiosity and egotism/stupidity (the ending makes no sense considering the situation - certain species death: 150 people do not a gene pool make - but who knows).
BTW using Byzantium as a long forgotten race was very weird - couldn't they have used Minoic civilization or something? Something more distant and unknown.
Liked that the main "villain" wasn't even present in the game. Cool backstabbings and secrets. Multiple solutions to some puzzles.
Good art directions, hampered by horrible 16 bit graphics even in the best (software) resolution - the rich tones of the caves didn't mix well with the pixelization - system shock looks better now, especially after it's resolution patch.
Did you play through the other endings at least once, to find the identities of spider/fly? Not that they aren't overly obvious.
It's not a game that suits a walkthrough - the deathtraps and difficulty are a large part of the charm and challenge.
It also ruins one of the neater twists I've come across in an adventure game: the part where you get the grailstone by falling to your death (no real indication that this is what to do - you basically just have to go 'well, the stone is supposed to heal folks, here goes'), the ending/death sequence starts up and just as it would normally segway back into the 'main menu' screen the 'new lifesigns detected...health increasing...' message comes up on the display.
The religiousity of the plot didn't faze me, even as an atheist - holy grail is a fairly stock fantasy setting, and I thought the grailstones were a nice take on it (basically, the setting is that the grail's powers come from an artifical minieral created by an old civilisation found in a deep excavation - as well as invulnerability, the minerall also can be used for genetic manipulation and mutation). I'd also like the 'adventure game with very limited FP shooting' mechanic to be used more widely - it had potential beyond that story, even if that game itself didn't make the most of it.
My take on the genetics: contrary to Mass Effect, 150 people would be a sub-optimum but nonetheless possible breeding population. It would mean you'd eventually get some serious birth defects and mutations, and you MIGHT end up with a sterilty problem, but you'd still have a decent shot. Evolution works when you have an isolated gene pocket and changing environment - sometimes the mutations just work out the right way and you don't get mass sterility (c/f modern housecats are estimated to have had an original genetic base of as few as 7 self-domesticating wild ccats).
They also aren't the only pocket of humanity left - there's the other escapee with a stone out there, presumably building forces.
Art-wise it's undeniably ugly. Early 3D, and it shows.
I wouldn't recommend it to folks picking up games now, certainly not if they're not adventure game fans and are going to skip the puzzles/deathtraps (which ARE the game, after all). But it was an interesting direction that I'd like to see attempted again.