➤ Adventure Time: The Secret of the Nameless Kingdom, review 🎮

Even those who might not call themselves a fan of cartoons, or didn't have Cartoon Network as a favorite channel, will surely have heard of the Adventure Time TV series once in their life. On the air since 2010, she has been able to conquer a good slice of aficionados thanks to her particular style out of every box and the bizarre stories in which Finn, a teenage boy, and his best friend Jake, a dog with magical powers like that. to be able to enlarge, shrink or transform into numerous forms, they live in the post-apocalyptic land of Ooo. Developed by the popular software house WayForward, already author of a thousand games among which we mention only the tie-ins of the Ninja Turtles, the remake of Duck Tales, Despicable Me and Spongebob, thanks to the renewed Cartoon Network license they were able to get their hands on Adventure Time giving a follow up to the adventure already released last year.

Like any video game conversion of a television or film success, the developers are faced with the fateful crossroads: to please in everything and for all the fans, or to create something new and innovative to expand the experience and background of the original series? The new Adventure Time: The Secret of the Nameless Kingdom is a game mostly balanced on this second category, looking for new spaces in which to move, new narrative plots but with an adventurous gameplay very similar to the cartoon. From the first game screen it is clear what his sources of inspiration are. The typical bird's eye view, the hearts in the upper left to remind us how much energy we have, a small sword in hand and many bushes to cut to look for hidden items. What does it remind you of? The not so young and retrogaming enthusiasts will jump from the chair, it's The Legend of Zelda. In all respects, in a form poised between homage and shameless plagiarism. Plagiarism that would not even be such a negative factor, given the many strengths of the Nintendo saga, even if the sense of deja vu and the general flaws of Adventure Time soon make us regret the original from which it takes hands down. Adventure Time is an action adventure with role-playing elements, designed with a cartoon style that vaguely recalls the 80s thanks to the large pixels of the character and the bright colors of the textures, just hinted at and very simple even if the whole background is high definition like most of today's headlines. The style is well suited to a cartoonish conversion, with uniform colors without the many shades and marked tones that recall the television original. Probably drawing the entire game in high resolution would have been more pleasant and satisfying for our tired retinas, now used to everything and the opposite of everything.

The protagonists of Adventure Time are back, with a Zelda-style adventure bordering on plagiarism!

The weight of the burden on the shoulders

When cloning a masterpiece, the risk of crossing the threshold that separates the realization of good ideas from a general sense of ridicule is very thin. It would be like creating a FIAT that looks like a Ferrari, then discovering that the heart of a diesel Panda beats inside a sparkling body. To each his own, one would think. But what is Adventure Time, aside from a shameless clone of The Legend of Zelda from the NES? The sense of familiarity that the game gives is obviously a positive factor. The Nintendo title does not come to mind only for the design of the game interface or for the visual and movement settings, but also for many other details. Many monsters and enemies, the look of the dungeons, the scrolling of the map and even some sound motifs are borrowed from one of the most famous sagas in the history of video games, but not with a style and ways to pay homage but almost with the clear intent to do a copy-paste of everything that identifies the reference title, but without ever going further to find some alternative solution, news or some intuition.

Adventure Time: The Secret of the Nameless Kingdom is also a title of 2014, or eras and centuries after the release of those first Zelda, in which certain game mechanics and a particular use of the directional cross certainly did not hinder its spread and success. . Nowadays some solutions appear at least out of place, think for example of the scrolling of the pages when our character switches from one screen to the other of the map, or the use of the Xbox 360 pad to make the protagonist move in just 8 directions instead of in three-dimensional space. Adventure Time is a good video game that, however, curls up on itself, in an involutionary spiral, swallowed up by the weight and the Nintendo burden that it constantly carries around. Those who have never tried The Legend of Zelda might find many interesting ideas in the WayForward game, but on the contrary, those who know him will only compare everything they see and experience with the original, the engine of inspiration that moves. the whole cabin. The Adventure Time map is large, the enemies are well characterized, the dungeons are nice, but all of this obviously remains inaccessible and unapproachable to what the original The Legend of Zelda proposed. These inevitable comparisons only detract from Adventure Time, paradoxically obtaining an effect opposite to that expected. The title almost never manages to completely capture the player's attention, except in rare moments when the interactions between the protagonist (who must save three princesses lost in as many temples) and non-player characters are really nice and funny.

Xbox 360 achievements

As per tradition, this Adventure Time: The Secret of the Nameless Kingdom also unlocks gamers the canonical 1000 points, through 35 fairly easy goals to achieve with the natural progression of the game. Most are obtained by simply progressing through the adventure and completing bosses and dungeons. Some objectives are tougher, such as the one that needs to collect all the objects that exist in the game, or complete it without purchasing armor and sword upgrades. In certain situations, extreme.

Comparisons inevitable

Given the necessary premises, Adventure Time is a game that is all in all pleasant, well built, at times engaging and with flashes of comedy to be enjoyed. Its real problem is the equation between expectations and what it actually proposes to the player, who cannot be fed a clone of Zelda and then not make the slightest effort to improve at least the too "vintage" aspects of a game. perfect, but in the 80s. The taste that remains in the mouth is that of a mere copy paste that was not successful, with some winning ideas developed not well, an ideal view for this type of games (but with a decidedly avoidable loading scrolling nowadays), the way to move, move and interact with characters (perfect for a cross and eight-way mindset, much less with a modern joypad in hand). In conclusion, this title is an interminable sequence of good opportunities, almost all betrayed by the shadow of a master whose shoulders are too big for anyone and a game-making mentality that would need some improvement and adaptation in 2014.

Comment

Tested version Xbox 360 Price 39,99 € Resources4Gaming.com

5.8

Readers (3)

6.0

Your vote

The latest title inspired by the Adventure Time series certainly manages to pass some pleasant hours lying on the sofa, but "pad in hand" we can safely define The Secret of the Nameless Kingdom as a mediocre action RPG that takes the best of the settings of Zelda, but without understanding its essence, level design and gameplay. A game recommended above all and only to fans of the TV series, for everyone else you can always recover an old NES and play with the original Zelda.