Indie Corner: Zenith

The popularity of the Fabled action-RPG’s (see what I did there?) might be on the decline, but perhaps Zenith can be a fresh start?

“Zenith” (dev. Infinigon) is a not-so-classic high-fantasy action-RPG. It promises an over-the-top story, silly (main) characters, light RPG elements, and fast gameplay. It is also a pure console port. Shame! Shame! Shame!*

(* starting from this moment, whenever I review a console port, I will go ‘walk of atonement’ on the developer’s hiney)

When I first booted up Zenith, I was pleasantly surprised by the light-hearted atmosphere of the game. No dark, brooding design, gone are the cries of despair and agony, but hello happy-go-lucky soundtrack and sound effects! So far so good! The first minutes of gameplay revealed that the story would revolve around a mage called Argus, who is more or less the gaming equivalent of Rincewind. The story also vaguely resembles the Discworld stories, but it is clear from the start that it will not use the same subtle humor or narrative gravity.

The world of Zenith is a blend of cartoony high-fantasy, Steampunk, and ‘modern’ devices. In this world, the humans are at war with the elves, and both try to gain the upper hand over the other by hunting down magical items of great power. Of course, these are hidden in dark dungeons, and they are protected by Evil Things that don’t go ‘Boing’ in the night, but tear down the entire neighborhood. So far so good, you might say. But then we get a splash of scatological humor, very bad puns, and spiders that sing in barbershop quartets. Yes. Barbershop quartets. *sigh*

The dialogues and cutscenes might start off as quite funny and fresh, but they quickly get stale. If you play the same notes all over again, you get a very boring melody. Even though the cutscenes are shown by using the in-game engine – somewhat we have grown used to by now – they still feel quite ‘mechanical’. The AI once or twice shows hiccups, and you can clearly see that certain characters have to reach certain locations in order for the next part of the dialogue to show. Concerning the dialogue, it is simply too modern to ‘fit’ in the world that Zenith is located in.

On the level of game mechanics, Zenith is not very innovative. Your character has 3 types of attacks, which are linked to the three major mouse buttons. There are slots for armor and utilities, as well as for mana potions and health potions. You run/roll around/block monsters – which are either ridiculously easy to defeat, or way too overpowered – and then attack them until they die. You then proceed by looting their corpses, and move on to the next group of creepers. Simple, effective, perhaps even a bit dull? As I mentioned before, the gameplay feels very familiar, especially because it is more or less the same as any other generic RPG. Too bad, because there was quite some potential here.

Concerning the customization of the game, there is only one thing that needs to be said: there is not a lot to be done. The graphics can be adjusted according to your specs, but they still look rather ‘dated’. Additionally, you CANNOT CHANGE THE KEYBINDING. For people who do not have a ‘qwerty’ keyboard or do not want to play by using a controller, there is simply nothing else to be done than changing the keyboard setting on your system, which can easily be done in Windows 10. This is laziness, and it’s not even about the ‘azerty’ / ‘qwerty’ issue. If you release a game on Windows, then please have the decency to adjust it a bit so people who like to play games on a pc do not feel neglected. That is all I ask.

Zenith could have been a far better game if the developer had spent more time on a proper port to PC, better dialogue, more innovative game mechanics, and a more interesting story. Sadly, it is a game that can provide you with quite some fun for a while, before you discard it and play something more engaging. This one might get easily overlooked, and I’m not sure whether that is a shame or not.

Final Score: 2/5