A show of promise overshadowed by tons of glitches.
When I first starting getting familiar with Troll and I, it really seemed to have promise. The unique setting and story (Scandinavia shortly after World War II, creepy rich guy teaming up with a poacher, trolls, etc.) piqued my interest. After actually getting my hands on the game though, boy oh boy, there are tons of problems here.
Troll and I is an action adventure game that focuses on a teenager named Otto who, through a series of unfortunate events, comes across a mythical troll. In this action adventure game, players control Otto and the troll through the wilderness while collecting various items, crafting weapons and fighting monsters.
Controls are serviceable, but on screen prompts are sometimes hard to get to initialize. You’ll be picking up lots of items throughout your time with the game, but even something as simple as that can be pretty annoying if you’re not directly on the items that you want to pick up. Once you have control of the troll, there really isn’t any reason to control as Otto in combat. The troll can pretty much destroy enemies in just a few hits. Outside of combat, it’s typically easier to control the troll through the environment however, the troll’s body can obstruct the camera. Not only that, but you need to control Otto to solve certain puzzles.
The visuals aren’t anything to write home about here. The character models and environments are kind of low-poly, but they get the job done. Where some of the real problems start with Troll and I come with the framerate. As soon as you view the opening cinematic of the game, the framerate constantly stutters and never really gets better. The constant hiccups even persist into the gameplay and and sometimes effect controls. For example, the first section of the game has players searching through a forest hunting for boar. After quick crafting a spear, you have to take aim and throw. With the jittery framerate, it can be difficult to place the cursor right where you need to, which was really frustrating.
The framerate issues are just the tip of the iceberg. Troll and I is full of tons of glitches, some of which that make it impossible to progress any further into the game. I had to restart the game from the beginning a few times early on in my experience. I was trying to have Otto hurdle onto a small ledge by pressing the B button. After moving forward, the game went to a loading screen and never came back out. After restarting the game, the autosave had me picking up play in a smoky screen where I could do absolutely nothing. Other fun problems like falling through mountains, clipping through the environment and broken quick-time events are just a few other things I came across.
Troll and I is a glitchy mess that really needs to be taken in for a lot more testing. The only real saving grace here is the music, which is actually very well done. It's a pretty ambitious title when it comes down to it, however that isn't a good enough excuse for the short comings here. Unless there are some MAJOR changes with patches in the future, it's best to steer clear.
Final Score: 1.5
No comments:
Post a Comment