My, my, how Choice Of / Hosted Games have grown!
Not that there's anything wrong with their usual titles lacking both audio and visuals, but it's nice to see at least some of their text-based adventures blossoming out into those realms. Trial of the Demon Hunter not only has intermittent colour illustrations, but 34 minutes of music as well!
Both are of pretty decent quality: the images are a tad photo-shoppy at times, and the music clearly created with the aid of synths and hardly boasting of the highest production qualities. But a couple of welcome and by-and-largely appropriate additions just the same (though I could've done with fewer modernisms in the music, like the infrequent faux bass guitar and occasional funky-arsed drums)!
The biggest criticism I would make of the soundtrack, though, is that the single 34-minute track is an extremely dynamic one, which jumps around all manner of moods for its duration. The problem here, obviously, is that you might find yourself fighting to the tune of soothing piano-and-choral music, or enjoy a quiet, peaceful moment to the tune of thundering battle music! But it's clearly baby-steps where the Choice Of engine is concerned, and I applaud the author for his ambition just the same. Now to get that darn music to shift its tone every time the action does; or find a single, lengthy piece which somehow suits the tone throughout...
The writing, overall, is rather good (a nice balance between modern language and a wee bit of the ye-olde), with the level of agency more than sufficiently generous. I certainly enjoyed the game on the whole, and look forward to the next two "books" in the trilogy. (Which I've already bought, thanks partly to a distinct lack of information on the Store pages: I bought the third game in the series, only to be informed upon start-up that it was just that! Luckily, they were all on sale at the same time; and even more fortuitously, I've enjoyed the first game, and therefore would have bought the other two eventually anyway.)
Definitely recommended to anyone in search of a slightly darker sword-and-sorcery tale in interactive fiction form. Oh, and one final cool touch: there is plenty of nice background "lore" for those wanting it, but the option to ignore it if you just wanna leap straight into the storyline, thanks to that information being presented as a kind of Appendix. Nicely done!
Verdict: 8/10.
UNFORTUNATE UPDATE: I have just completed - or rather, given up on - the second book in this series, Captive of Fortune, which is regrettably broken to the point of testing even MY patience. Given that the story contained in THIS game is anything but standalone, this unfortunately renders this episode a less tantalising proposition, knowing that it's all downhill from here. Consequently, I feel I should lower this instalment's rating slightly; though it's still well-and-truly recommended to anyone for whom a lack of closure isn't a deal breaker. Shame, though.
Revised Verdict: 7/10.
(PS If you enjoyed this review, feel free to check out my two Curator pages: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/9284586-ReviewsJustfortheHELLofit/
http://store.steampowered.com/curator/10868048-Truly-Horrible-Horror-Games/?appid=398210
Cheers!)
