Folklore Review – That’s all, folks

I don’t understand why there aren’t more games that borrow from Celtic mythology. Sure, you might conscript a kelpie or leanan sidhe in Shin Megami Tensei, but it’s often passed over for the mainstream mythos of the Norse gods. Until there’s a gritty action game starring Cú Chulnain eviscerating dudes with a giant barbed lance we’ll just have to make do with Folklore. Good thing that it’s a perfectly decent action RPG, even if it’s held back by its status as an early Playstation 3 title.

Folklore experiments with the idea of telling its story through the eyes of two different characters. At the beginning of the first five chapters, players must select between either a girl named Ellen or a paranormal investigator named Keats. Neither character is quite what they seem at first and the game explores their motivations and past as they investigate the spooky Doolin Village and attempt to solve a string of murders. This isn’t strictly an RPG with a “real-world” setting, though, as the pair’s sleuthing takes them to the supernatural setting of the Netherworld. Filled with all kinds of grotesque beasts and re-purposed Labyrinth puppets, the combination of the various Netherworld realms and small Irish village makes for an intriguing stage for the story.

The uniqueness of the setting is aided by some very strong art direction. Each chapter of the game takes Ellen and Keats to a different section of the Netherworld, which vary from a colourful fairytale forest to a twisted fantasy take on World War II. Although a few more locations would be welcome since Ellen and Keats have a tendency to cover the same ground, it’s exciting to explore both the depths of the ocean and the depths of hell. Folklore takes its inspiration from European folktales and sticks to it. Despite being handled by Sony’s Japan Studio, it’s not a game that feels particularly “Japanese” (outside of some of the “magical girl” costume designs, at least). The game excels at creating an unsettling atmosphere with some creepy character designs, haunting music and excellent environmental design for both the Netherworld realms and the real world. Unfortunately, Folklore looks a little too good at times, with the framerate dropping dramatically during the actual action RPG sequences, shattering the illusion of these fantasy worlds.

Combat is clunky, but at it least allows for some variation in how you approach battles. The enemy folks that Ellen and Keats encounter while exploring dungeons can be captured and mapped to each of the four face buttons. The key to capturing each folk is by exploiting its elemental weakness, which are all laid out in cute little picture books scattered around the Netherworld. This encourages players to constantly experiment with equipping new folks; although there are plenty of palette-swaps, the pair are constantly encountering new creatures to fight and capture. Although none of the boss fights are especially interesting since they often boil down to dodging predictable patterns and using the same set of folk, it’s definitely satisfying to struggle against the mid-level boss until finally figuring out their weakness, wrenching their soul from their body and using it to fight even stronger enemies. Actually capturing the folks can be a hassle, though, since it relies on that early Playstation 3 gimmick of “Sixaxis” motion controls. It’s simple enough to absorb your average folk’s soul with a simple flick of the controller, but stronger enemies require more elaborate movements like tilting from side to side and repeatedly shaking the controller, which can be incredibly frustrating when fighting multiple opponents. The battle system definitely has its fun moments, but they sure don’t come when you’re being shoved by monsters while desperately swinging the PS3 controller around.

Although they use many of the same folks in battle, the pair of protagonists have different playstyles with Ellen favouring ranged attacks while Keats can deal more damage in close-quarters combat by shifting into a demonic form. Despite this variation, neither of them feels quite right. Since every action involves summoning a beast to do the dirty work for you, the different folk don’t combo together and all of them draw from a pool of magic that restricts your actions too heavily. The amount of magic a folk uses and their strength varies as they level up, but the whole levelling system is something I mostly ignored as I found it unnecessarily complicated; each boost requires either using the folk enough, collecting items or having them defeat (but not absorb) a particular folk. It’s nice that the developers tried something different, but the sense of progression would be smoother with a more standard experience system that didn’t involve constantly dipping into menus to double-check the requirements. Besides, most folk are replaced by stronger varieties as the game progresses, so there’s never much reason to level them. The camera also prevents all of the ghostbusting from feeling as great as it could. Although the level layouts are simple, the camera has a tendency to get stuck on the edges of arenas; the camera can lock on to targets, but it unlocks itself from targets whenever Ellen or Keats gets hit, which gets frustrating.

The game’s structure of alternating between the two protagonists does an admiral job of presenting two perspectives on the plot, but it also messes with the pacing. Although you can pick which character to follow until the final few chapters, the story is paced in a way that assumes you’re switching characters every chapter until the storylines converge. As both of the characters’ chapters take place in the same settings, this means that you’ll be spending consecutive chapters in the same Netherworld locations; as beautiful as these landscapes are, the visual spectacle definitely wears off once you’re retreading the same ground. This need to effectively play through the game twice means that Folklore definitely drags, even though it’s quite a short RPG at around 15-20 hours depending on how many sidequests you tackle. The game is at its best when its examining the psychology behind Ellen and forcing her to question the reality she’s presented with, ditching the dual protagonist gimmick to focus on a single perspective might have helped the pacing. It’s difficult to explain why without getting deep into spoiler territory, but the game spends a long time building up mysteries that aren’t resolved in a satisfying manner. I liked that the ending kept things ambiguous, but the story leans a bit too heavily on using the supernatural elements to handwave important plot points. The presentation of the cutscenes also felt lacking, since they frequently switch to a cheap-looking comic book style without any voice acting – although given all the questionable Irish accents this might be a good thing!

Screenshots from Hardcore Gaming 101