Elf


Title           Elf
Category        Platform
Publisher  	Ocean
Programmers 	Nirvana Systems
Players         1
Compatibility   A500
HD Installable  No
Submission      Chris Burns

Review
   You know that a game's gonna be played for laughs when the arch enemy
you have to face is called "Necrilous the Not-very-nice".  And so it
proves - you take the part of Cornelius the Elf (hence the title) who must
rescue his love Elisa from the clutches of the said Necrilous. Oh, and you
have to traverse 7 pretty big levels of forests, mines, ruined castles,
mountains, swamps and finally a two stage dark Fortress, to do it!

Standard stuff so far, but Elf manages to be a bit different. The
creatures you meet on screen are divided into two types; Goodies (like
fluffy rabbits, gnomes etc.) and Baddies (soldiers and, well ... monsters
:-).  Killing Baddies is good and will boost your score and energy but
killing Goodies will cause a Boo! or a Hiss! to appear on screen and will
effect your end of game rating (see below).

Cornelius is armed with just a ring, which fires energy bolts and must
interact and trade with the various people he meets along the way in order
to progress.  Progressing is mostly just a matter of, for example, picking
up some birdseed, giving it to a bird, picking up a feather from it,
giving that to an Indian, who gives you something else, etc.  That is
about as difficult as the 'puzzles' get.  It really isn't too difficult
most of the time to figure out what to do with everything you pick up.
The trickiest thing is to figure out when interacting, is whether to
attack the person with whatever you're holding, bribe them with it or
simply give them it.  The fact that you could do any of these with pretty
much anything you pick up shows you just how serious this game is!!

When you finish the game or when you die, you're given a score and also a
rating which ranges from "Very Nice" to "Hell Spawn" depending on how well
you've behaved in the game.  I usually seem to get a "Pleasant" rating - I
don't know how many Goodies you need to kill to get a "Hell Spawn"
rating!!! :-)  BTW, the death scene, if you fail in your mission, is very
good!! One of the best I've seen.

Overall, Elf is your standard platformer but there's a lot of neat
scenarios, the graphics and sound are very good and - hey! it's very
enjoyable to play!  It's not terribly difficult but it should keep you
occupied for a while.  You might even come back to it; definitely worth a
look.








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