Gauntlet Seven Sorrows Review Rating: 3,3/5 867 votes

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Sometimes you just want to lean back in your chair, slice through a few hundred cliche fantasy-novel monsters, and let your mind wander. Luckily for you, Gauntlet--the grand-pappy of evil-horde-clearing hack-n-slash--is happy to oblige. Not much has changed since the old days. You still make your way through levels, looting treasure chests and dropping undead soldiers by the dozen. You still hunt down and destroy 'generators,' the odd little shanties that spit out said creatures. It's a simple formula, but one that still has the power to hold me in a mesmerized stupor, emphasis on stupor. Sure, a modem twist shows up here and there. Seven Sorrows baits you with a role-playing-game-style character development system, but the game's short length (easily clocking in under six hours) makes leveling up unrewarding. The attacks held back as 'unlockable' are essential to enjoying the game's bone-thin combat. And for a game named after its bosses (the 'Seven Sorrows'), the boss fights sure are uninspired. We also noticed major lag issues online--hopefully Midway will work out the kinks.

Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows Review. First of all, this game features only four characters, but they have different innate strategies dependig on what type of gamer you are. Hit-them-with-magic-from-a-distance is the wizard. Gauntlet Seven Sorrows Review. Can Seven Sorrows capture the brilliance of a bygone era? Whilst waiting for Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows to load, I casually glanced at my desktop calendar,.

I'm surprised I had so much fun with such a derivative game. No, Seven Sorrows' story isn't anything special, nor are its graphics all that impressive. The action-RPG and puzzle elements reek of simplicity. Hacking and slashing, though responsive, take on a familiar tune (sure, you can make use of the purchasable combos, but banging on one button works just as well). And yet I found slogging through generic levels and destroying monster generators enjoyable, even soothing. Add in the multiplayer, which is practically a necessity against some bosses (and a pain with everyone confined to one screen), and you'll find it tough not to have some familiar, if fleeting, fun.

In so many ways, Sorrows barely scrapes by: The pathetic story is little more than a voice over still pictures (leftover storyboards, perhaps?), the levels are predictable switch-flippers, and the plain graphics and muted effects are shrug-worthy. But against all this mediocrity, the engaging combat system (ranged attacks, special moves, melee combos) stands out; it's great for button mashers and finesse players alike, even if the enemies rarely require any variation in tactics. And like all Gauntlet games, Sorrows' short-lived fun multiplies with the number of players. It doesn't entourage cooperation in any interesting way, and lag screws up the game online, but with friends on the same console it periodically reminds you why this was once a great franchise.

I am a HUGE fan of the Gauntlet series by Midway. I raced home with this newest version, eager to re-immerse myself in the Gauntlet universe. We finished the entire game in FOUR HOURS.I'm not saying this to say we're Game Gods. I'm saying this because we were in utter shock that the game is so short, so boring, and so completely unlike the previous games that we loved. I can't even imagine how the company that created the previous, fantastic Gauntlet games could be responsible for this release.

Maybe they lost their good programmers and were under contract to release a new Gauntlet by X date, so they had their newbie coders kick this out? I am just horrified at how poor this game was.First, you get a choice of four charaters, of course - the elf, warrior, mage or valkyrie. However, you don't get to choose their color!

I know it's a small thing, but I was ticked at that to start.Your character has 3 main attacks plus 1 long-range attack - so the elf gets 3 sword swings plus his bow attack. In addition, there are combo attacks and d-button super attacks that you can pay to unlock over time. You then move from map to map, bashing away at enemies, killing the enemy generators and finding keys for doors.

That part of the gameplay is similar to previous games. You can't shoot your friends in the back of the head, which my fellow gamers appreciated greatly. I was notorious for standing in the back area as the elf and just letting the arrows fly.Really, the huge issue is the game's shortness. If it was 3-4 times longer, at least, it would seem perhaps worth playing. But I really found its entire layout much less interesting than the previous Gauntlet. In the previous one, you had a central area from where you could go out to various worlds, each with its own theme, going back and forth as you wished. In this one it's just a straight line, and while there are some thematic elements, it came across as a dungeon crawl that just plodding on for a few hours, then stopped.Also, in the previous games, when you got character upgrades it was really exciting.

You clearly saw the change and it was something fun to pay attention to. In this one when you get weapon and armor upgrades, you can barely tell. We would even stare at our characters before doing an upgrade, and it was hard to see anything had even changed.The vocals really didn't impress me much. Part of the problem is that they would tell you 'elf needs food' when the elf still had a ways to go - but then they would tell you 'starving' and 'has died' right on top of each other. So you were always being harassed about needing food, but never when you really needed to know. Also, with death being able to be slain with a mana blast, you pretty much were able to kill off death in.2 seconds any time you opened a chest. So Death was barely announcing his presence before he vanished again.The graphics were good.

There were many spots that looked walkable that you were magically blocked from going into, which was a bit annoying. If an area isn't open, don't put a wide open door pointing to it:)I just don't know what went wrong here. I am extremely disappointed. City of fools game.

Challenges

Be sure to rent this game first, to see if it's something you would enjoy more than a day or two.