The Dink Network

Echoes of the Ancients

September 18th, 2016
v1.00
Score : 8.5 good
knights.gif
Deverax
Peasant He/Him
 
Probably the first thing one notices with this D-mod is the mass amount of new graphics, so let's start with those ;
Most of it looks very nice and add a whole new feel to the environment. The vast details also make exploring quite enjoyable and rewarding since there are plenty of items scattered around that will boost your combat performance. Unfortunately tho, there are a few (mostly plant related) graphics that looked a bit out of place to me. I just got a feeling with some of them (either due to their style/model or color) don't really fit too well in a Dink game. But whatever, most of them are very nicely done so I'm not going to complain too much about it.
Speaking of graphics, there are also plenty of new monsters to fight : some of them are completely new and some are modified version of already existing ones. There is a small thing that I didn't like too much, and that is the lack of corpse graphics. As in, when some creatures die, they don't leave a corpse, instead they just explode with blood . It's fine for some enemies to do that, but to have so many of them do it, I just found it a bit lacking. Also, another minor thing is that some enemies are placed in areas you would not expect to see them, kind of like they don't really belong there. I'll give the example with the floating skull monster, I just didn't think that nice, vast foresty areas are a fitting place to have such enemies. I think that having them populate some underground areas or the old temples would be much more fitting.

With monsters to fight, comes gameplay, so let's talk about that. To me, combat is a 10/10 spot on. Enemies are squishy, they would die in few hits, but they would also hit you for quite a bit if you're not careful. Usually, there is also plenty of them on one screen, so that makes things even more interesting.
When it comes to the quest itself, I think things could've been done slightly differently. Running around collecting all the different keys and meeting various kings that would just create portals to random places where you need to go did become a wee bit tedious after some time. Maybe some variety would've been nice, but oh well. At least the animation when you pick up items (such as keys) is nice.
Aside from combat, a thing I liked is the humor, which is quite nice. There were some jokes that caught me off guard so that's always a plus. There were some scenarios that I felt like were maybe a bit forced.

And now finally, the music and sounds in general which honestly, I don't think is this Dmod's strong point.
The first thing I noticed is the lack of attack sound effects with your fist. As in, there is no sound when you attack and there is no sound when you hit something/someone. Luckily, that's not the case with any swords (that I spend the most of time fighting with) so it was only for the early game that this was an issue. One issue still remained through the whole game, unfortunately, and that is that no monsters (except, I think, the Bonca) made any sound when hit. Obviously, non of this is game breaking or anything, but it did seem a little bit unusual for a Dink game.
The only complain about music is that I feel like there should be more screens that "trigger" the music to play. There were multiple times where I would be wandering around exploring or fighting in complete silence.

That's basically all I have for this Dmod.
There are some things that I wasn't really a fan of, but nonetheless, it is quite enjoyable and I would definitely recommend checking out