Believe it or not, even RPG aficionados such as me get tired of slaying dragons and rescuing princesses. Most of the time this means we have to give a WW2 shooter or something similar a spin, but sometimes there comes a game that strays away from the tried RPG formula to sate our tastes while at the same time giving us a chance to have a break from standard fare role playing. And more often than not these games appear pretty much out of the blue, and leave us all speechless. Folklore might not be the most advertised PS3 title on the market, but it sure fits the tag when it comes to unconventional fantasy gaming.

Pixies

The world of Folklore, and mostly the game as well are full of dualism. Take a look at the story for example. Two strangers get drawn to a small Irish town named Doolin, each with his own agenda. Ellen, a pretty young woman is there because of a letter she received from her long dead mother. Keats, the editor of an occult magazine on the other hand gets a telephone distress call, so he decides to investigate. When the two meet they have no idea how tangled up their lives will become. It doesn’t take long however before both Ellen and Keats discover that Doolin is much more than just a small rural town – it is also the crossway between this world and the Netherworld, where dead spirits and fairy folk live. Talking to the spirits of the dead also ends up being the gist of the story, as Ellen and Keats try to uncover the mystery behind several connected tragedies that happened in Doolin several years ago.

The interesting thing is that players get to play as both Ellen and Keats, switching between them between chapters. Each of their storylines is completely stand alone, so you can play through the entire game as Ellen and only give Keats a try after finishing her part of the story. Or, should you want to experience every chapter in its fullness you can first play it with Ellen and then with Keats (or vice versa). At first the differences between the two seem only cosmetic, but it soon becomes clear that each story complements the other and that there are plenty of subtle changes and additional story elements to warrant playing through the game with both.

Different stories are not the only reason you should play the game with both characters though. Almost immediately after reaching Doolin, Ellen is greeted by spirits at the local pub, and she is soon whisked away to the Netherworld. Keats, being the inquisitive type of guy follows and ends up absorbing some of the power that Ellen receives when entering the Netherworld. As a result he, much like Ellen gains the ability to travel to the different parts of the Netherworld, but only under two conditions. It must be pitch black outside and they have to have a memento of a dead person so that the portal to the realm where the spirit they seek resides opens.

Interviewing dead people serves as one of the main ways to push the story forward. Like with the rest of the game meeting a dead person requires two steps. The first one takes time during the day in Doolin. Players will hunt around for clues as to what happened 16 years ago, interrogating villagers and searching houses. In Doolin Ellen and Keats have no special powers, so they have to rely on their brains instead of their brawn. All of this changes during the night however. With the right memento in hand both of the protagonists can visit the local henge where they get a tip about where the next Netherworld portal will open. After that it is only a matter of walking there and hoping for the best. After all, while Doolin looks like a sleeping Irish town the secrets it hides on the other side of the fence can be pretty dangerous…

Collecting spirits

Traveling to other realms is not the only ability Ellen and Keats gained on their first trip. Because of Ellen’s heritage (which we gradually uncover during the course of the game) she is apparently destined to visit the different Netherworld realms and work her way to the local Folklores. These huge beasts are powerful memories of the dead spirits we seek, so it goes without saying that sooner or later a battle will ensue. And it is pretty clear that without help neither Ellen nor Keats would stand a chance. This is where their spirit absorbing powers come into play. Whenever one of them downs a magical creature (which covers more or less all of the Netherworld inhabitants) they get the chance to pull out the stunned creature’s spirit. This is mostly accomplished by pressing the R2 button and then jerking the controller back, literally reeling the spirit out of the body. Stronger creatures require some extra work in form of timed reels or slamming the spirit into the ground by moving the controller left and right in a circular motion. All of these approaches are little more than gimmicks, but they work well and don’t deteriorate the gameplay experience in any way.

But why would Ellen and Keats want to collect the spirits of fallen foes you ask? To absorb their powers of course! Or rather, to gain the ability to summon the fallen creature in combat. And yet again the game takes two noticeably different approaches depending on who you are playing as. Ellen’s summons are usually long lasting, so you’ll often have as many as 4 (one for each face button) creatures summoned at the same time. Keep in mind that these creatures aren’t governed by an AI, but instead follow a set series of moves before disappearing. A WW2 soldier spirit will fire of 5 rounds straight ahead for example, so it is up to Ellen to make sure he is positioned well. Keats’ is on the other hand a more standard brawler, so even though he usually summons the same creatures, his attacks usually don’t last more than a second or two, so playing as him resembles a typical 3rd person action game (think God of War with a twist).

As if having up to 4 spirits bound to the face buttons wasn’t enough the game lets you switch any of them on the fly by pressing the L2 button. The database of captured spirits is nicely organized, but unfortunately the game has a very annoying flaw here. Every time you change one of the creatures bound to a button and return to the game there is a second or two long pause as the game loads the needed assets into memory. It’s not a game breaker, but having to wait 2 seconds during combat becomes annoying real fast, especially in boss battles where you usually try to figure out which spirits to use for maximum effect.

It should be clear by now that combat in Folklore is pretty far away from what you see in a typical RPG. There are some things that are more standard fare however. Gaining experience is one of them, but even here the game pulls of an interesting stunt. Each captured spirit yields experience, but reeling in more than one at the same time results in extra points, so taking care of several creatures before capturing spirits is encouraged. The trick here is that most enemies only stay stunned for 5 seconds or so before regaining consciousness. Even worse, most of them can only be knocked out once, since they usually die by the time you do enough damage for a second knockout.  This carefully balanced risk/reward system makes combat a lot more tactical that it might seem at first, especially since capturing enough spirits of the same kind unlocks extra abilities for that creature (usually more powerful attacks or longer summon time). On the other hand taking the risk and potentially losing spirits will make your character stronger due to the higher experience yield.

The brothers Grimm would be proud

You should have probably realized by now that Doolin and the neighboring Nether realms aren’t exactly standard fare locations. Doolin, even though it is based in our world has a certain surreal feel to it, probably because it is half empty with ruins located all over the place. But that is nothing compared to how the realms look. I’m not sure whether it is because of the over-exposed look of the realms or the very bizarre art direction, which manages to look realistic and completely cartoon-like at the same time, but when traveling “abroad” Folklore definitely has a very interesting and unique look.

That's even before you start meeting the Netherworld creatures. Imagine if you somehow managed to cram every single Anime monster (I’m speaking My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away and the likes here) into a single game. And when you had them all in there you’d go and to the same for every western inspired monster you ever saw. Are you catching my drift? The bestiary of Folklore is filled with literally every single creature you could think of, and then about a dozen more you could never even dream of. Even without resorting to the online features of Folklore you can spend well over 15 hours in the story mode of the game, going well past 20 should you decide to capture every possible creature in the game world. It doesn’t end there however – despite the lack of any multiplayer features you can still go online and download custom dungeons, as well as upload yours (Created in the dungeon editor portion of the game). These dungeons are fairly generic, but it’s still a nice feature that will help keep the game alive for a while longer.

As mentioned (and apparent from the screenshots) the game sports a very surreal look, which is part thanks to the pretty advanced rendering engine. The polygon counts are pretty high, and the animations and effects don’t really have any weaknesses. Things are not perfect however – every in-game location is broken up into small sections, and you’ll be staring at a 3 second loading screen everytime you travel between two sections. Considering the game (optionally) takes up a few gigabytes of space on the hard drive these frequent loading screens take just a bit too long for comfort. The game locations are incredibly linear, especially considering how open-ended they appear to be. At least the sound manages to be spot on, with melancholy tunes playing in the backgrounds and pretty good (although sometimes over the top) voiceovers during the cinematics.

Speaking of the cinematics it is worth pointing out that the game has a very unique story-telling approach. Next to the pre-rendered videos (which look stunning by the way) you’ll be seeing in-engine cutscenes from time to time. Most of the time you’ll be watching comic book inserts however, which are all rendered live with the help of the graphics engine. The action is frozen and instead of speaking out loud characters have speech bubbles over their heads, but due to some interesting (but hardly noticeable) camera movement the scenes look much better than what a regular comic book looks like.

Conclusion

Folklore plays like a good Agatha Christie novel mixed with a considerable amount of fantasy. The story will keep you on your toes until the very end, and the number of unique monsters you can control offers some pretty diverse gameplay approaches. Unfortunately the frequent loadings, sometimes awkward camera (fixed angle in some places and completely free in others) and very linear Netherworld realms end up making a severe dent in this otherwise incredibly original and enjoyable action RPG.