Too Many Games - A Series - Adventure Manager
Game - Adventure Manager
Release Date - 4th December 2014
Genre - Casual Indie RPG Simulator
Developer - Vigilant Addiction Studios
Publisher - BBEW BBEW, LLC
Price - £3.99
"Adventure Manager" story is that an evil ilusionist by the name of Miraj has killed your parents (whom are the King and Queen) and now rules the lands known as the "Kingdom of Adventuria". You, as the sole heir to the throne, take it upon yourself to hire adventurers to complete adventures to regain the loyalty of the various races in the realm. This is to all lead up to uniting the kingdoms against Miraj.
This is very similar to the older versions of Final Fantasy and its turn based strategy mode where each character/monster takes turns in a set order (e.g. Warrior - Monster - Warrior - Warrior - Monster -Warrior - Repeat). The only options for the combat is for you to decide to attack, defend, flee or use a special ability. Apart from that, you have no real control over the battles. The concept is for strategic combat where you use what you have to your advantage and hope that your characters can land the hit by themselves. I don't mind this at all as it does make you think out each option.
As mentioned in the brief description of the story, you get to hire adventurers. You can do this through several cities that are unlocked after the first tutorial dungeon. Each city is based around a different race and will have different classes available to hire and unlock in the future. Each race has different stats and attributes that will help you craft your perfect team. I ended up having a Human Warrior, Giant Barbarian, Elven Archer and a Dark Elf Cleric and found a slight synergy that made me become able to cause heavy damage whilst taunting the enemy and healing my team from damage.
Do I like this game? Surprisingly yes. Its not the most prettiest game in the world and has some very simplistic mechanics to how its works, but it becomes rather addictive especially for those who love some loot hoarding. I recommend playing dungeons on hard difficulty due to looting higher tier gear and making the game more interesting and keeping you on the edge of your seat to avoid losing a member of your team. Another nice feature is the use of the story character "Jester" whom rhymes nearly every sentence and makes the game not take itself seriously. For a game of this graphical level (Pixel Graphics), they have to use some form of medium to make the game appealing to an audience and I think the use of loot hoarding, thought based combat and silly conversations make their game a bit more interesting.
However, This game will not be for everyone. Even though I like it as I write this, I can imagine it getting very boring, very soon. Loot hoarding can only get you so far and I think that there isn't enough for this game to survive. It's still a £3.99 game however and you can't really argue with what you get.
Anyway, that's all from me this week. I'll see you sexy gamers next week for another addition of Too Many Games where I'll be looking at Age of Empires II: HD Edition.
