It seems like the only games that rake in big sales anymore are sequels and big-name franchises. Truly wonderful games like Beyond Good and Evil, Psychonauts, and Ico are left to languish, while Madden and the like continue to wallow in giant stacks of cash. Sadly, Folklore is one of those terrific games that most people will probably never play. This is a unique, fun, captivating game that all RPG fans should seriously consider for their next game purchase. That is of course, unless you hate fun. You don't hate fun, do you?

Only in Video Games are Letters from Dead Mothers Completely Normal

   As the story opens we meet Ellen, a young woman who has just received a letter from her dead mother. Ellen's mother has been gone for seventeen years, but this note tells her they can meet again if Ellen finds her in the Village of Doolin on the day of the Celtic holiday Samhain. Ellen, having never played a Silent Hill game, decides it would be a great idea to show up at a mysterious village full of suspicious strangers and eerie fog. Yeah, there's a smart girl.

   Ellen isn't the only one interested in the case though, as Keats, a reporter for an occult magazine, gets a desperate phone call from a mysterious woman. The voice on the line tells him that Faerys are coming to kill her, and he must hurry to Doolin in order to save her life.

   The strangers both arrive in the mysterious town just in time to see a woman Ellen believes to be her mother fall off a cliff to her death. She and Keats head off to their rooms despondent, but things aren't as hopeless as they seem. And why should they be, with a young, attractive, single member of the opposite sex staying only a few doors down the hall?! Sadly, this isn't what happens at all. Instead, that night, they are visited in their sleep by mysterious strangers who promise to take them through a special portal in the town's ruins to the Netherworld. Ellen believes this will allow her to speak with her mother before she is lost forever, and Keats follows her simply because he believes it will give him a good lead story for the magazine.

Yes, This is What They Call Good Storytelling

Punch, Stab, Shoot, Kill in All Your Favorite Ways

   The gameplay of Folklore is that of an action RPG. At the start of the game each character is given two "Folks," - basically malcontent residents of the Netherworld who long to injure and kill any living thing that dares come near. Ellen and Keats can't hurt the Folks by themselves, but they can use other Folks to do their bidding. Really, these people should be sitting in the Netherworld White House. You assign your Folks to the controller's face buttons, and a simple press of the button summons forth a creature to slash, shoot, or bombard your enemy. Some Folks have quick, agile attacks that can be used in a combo by continually tapping the button, while others have more devastating maneuvers that take a moment to charge up. Whenever you successfully attack an enemy its spirit, or "Id," flies up for a moment to show you that you are dealing damage. Once a creature is weakened, you can absorb their Id by holding the R1 button and flicking the controller upward quickly. You will draw their soul into you, and gain their powers. That's right, you are the Highlander, and there can be only one.

   This method of fighting by proxy is quite fun, and your collection of two Folks will quickly grow to well over fifty as you explore. Some Folks also have certain elemental affinities and can only be hurt by the opposing element, and some baddies are only vulnerable to one specific creature. Thus, you can't simply load up with your biggest, fastest attacks and burn through the game; it takes more strategy than that. Thankfully, you can switch your allies in and out on the fly, and a quick tap of the L2 button allows you to cycle through your palette and reallocate your Folks in a flash. It's a quite intuitive and rewarding system, and after a while you'll find yourself scouring each level from top to bottom looking to round out your collection. It's like Pokemon, but instead of cute fuzzy animals, you collect the souls of creepy dead things.

Stop Yanking My Ball and Chain!

   There is one area where the gameplay stumbles, and it stumbles hard. Every level must be played through as both Ellen and Keats, so it is impossible to finish the game with only one character. You are allowed to select which character you want to use at the beginning of each chapter, but ultimately both characters must finish the first five chapters before they can meet up to complete the game. You can tackle these early missions in whatever order you choose, but the only way to do it and make any sense of the story whatsoever is to switch back and forth between Ellen and Keats at every opportunity. This wouldn't be a big deal, except that both characters go through the levels in the same order, share most of the same cutscenes, and heretically, fight the exact same bosses. Now then, I'm no expert on the realm of the dead, but I have to assume, if you kill something there, especially something as big as a boss, shouldn't it stay dead for at least 10 to 12 hours, and not just come back to attack the other player with the exact same attack patterns and weaknesses as before?

   I could never understand why the developers decided to include this weird mechanic, seeing as how the game they created was terrific in every other way. Surely someone had to realize this was a bad idea. Something so lovingly crafted to be unique and intriguing shouldn't be dragged down by such an elementary oversight as repeating levels. Shoot, even if they'd shuffled the order into which each character explored each world I would have been okay with it, but as it stands now I just can't understand what they were thinking. Sadly, the game can become quite boring the second time through each level, as you already know exactly where to go and how to beat the boss. The story may fill out a bit as you go, but it's hard not to think that the developers used this gimmick to simply expand the game's length, and that is truly unfortunate.

It's Hauntingly Beautiful

   The realm of the game is simply enchanting, and every scene draws you in and makes you feel like you're standing right there. The village of Doolin serves as the game's hub, where you find your missions and piece together the mysteries of Ellen's past. The atmosphere of the village is meant to make you feel uncomfortable, you know that this is a place of secrets and lies, and the whole place lies still at all times, even at the height of the day. The old stone buildings and overgrown yards make you believe that this is not a place where outsiders should tread, and that suspicious eyes are following your every move.

   The Netherworld, on the other hand, is as full of life as a New Jersey mall on a Saturday (or any day of the week, really) - except that this is undead life, of course. Ok, you are right, they are hardly any different at all. Each level is a different reflection of the life after death, as humans have constructed them over the generations. Some realms are cheerful and beautiful, like the Faery Realm and the Forgotten Kingdom, while others are harsh and barren, such as Warcadia and Hellrealm. Each realm has its own denizens and its own story, and they also have their own unique Folks. Warcadia features man-like creatures that attack with bayonets, firearms, and artillery, while the Forgotten Kingdom is an underwater world populated with critters that resemble crabs, fish, and seals. The Netherworld realms are beautifully and lovingly created, where life and death swirl about each other, a delicate system that must rely on the intervention of outsiders such as Ellen to keep the balance.

   The game is never creepy or scary, but you are constantly bombarded by a sense of wonderment and unease. There is always something at the edge of your mind that makes you wonder if anything you're doing is actually helping the Netherworld, or whether all these poor souls would have been happier if you had never come. The emotions this game is able to elicit with its sad-faced denizens and slowly dying landscape is truly amazing. You'll find yourself worrying about these people, commiserating with them, wishing you could promise them that it's all going to be fine. But you can't, you don't know what's going to happen any more than they do, and it tears at your heart.

There There, You Big Softie!

   When telling the story, the title takes a very unique track in revealing its mysteries. While some scenes feature full-motion animation and voice acting, and others utilize the traditional two-character dialogue boxes, the game features interesting, comic-book style cutscenes as well. These scenes consist of a series of panels with semi-static characters delivering their lines in dialogue boxes, much like you'd see in those famous ink publications the kids seem to enjoy so much these days. It's a great way to move the story, and allows characters to jump from present tense to flash backs to new locales quickly and effectively. What would be disorienting and confusing in a traditional cutscene works perfectly in this medium. Yeah, you have to read the speech boxes and identify who is talking, but c'mon, if you're smarter than a trout you should be fine. Besides, reading is good for you, and now when your parents yell at you for playing too many video games you can tell them that you're reading and they'll have to be nice to you. It's one of those universal laws like gravity or the fact that the light always turns red just as you're about to drive through.

   The only real graphical hiccup is that when you change Folks, the game will freeze for a few seconds. The first few times it happens you may jump a little, thinking the game has broken, but everything will be fine. This really only becomes an issue when you are switching all your attacks around trying to figure out how to harm a certain enemy. Personally, I took these breaks as an opportunity to gather myself and plan my attack, but I know a lot of people will see them as horrible graphical glitches. To those people I say, don't get so worked up, you can surely give three seconds of your life to let a game process new animations and prepare you for an otherwise lag-free experience.

The Irish Must Be a Very Dour People

   On top of the visuals, the game also creates a hauntingly appropriate musical score. Your time spent in the world of the living is punctuated with sporadic piano scales and sad, longing violin music that makes you feel sad and ill at ease. The world of the dead is a quieter place, with silence being lazily broken by the sound of peaceful air bubbles, or shattered by explosion of an incoming mortar. This is a title that never wants to let your nerves settle, and that will keep you roped in both visually and audibly throughout.

   On top of stunning visuals and music the game also comes through with what is perhaps the best use of SixAxis controls to date. As mentioned previously, you capture new Folks by flicking the controller, but that's not the only way to do it. Larger Folks and bosses won't part with their Ids so easily, so the game introduces a number of ways to wrench their souls from them. Sometimes you have to wave the controller from side to side, forcibly smashing their Id into the ground, other times you must shake the controller, fighting a fervent tug-of-war with a creature that can feel its very being slipping away. Still other instances will task you with balancing a foe's Id upright as it attempts to lean away from your power. It is truly one of the most fun and imaginative uses of the PS3 controller yet, and there is an incredible feeling of satisfaction in finally overtaking a creature that has been fighting you tooth and nail. These enemies are fighting for their very being, and the complex Id removal procedures really give you a sense that even in the throes of death, they are defiant. God, if this is what dentists feel like it would finally explain why there are more DDS signs in my neighborhood than there are cockroaches...

If This is What Death is Like, Sign Me Up! Wait, Maybe I Should Think About It...

   Folklore is the type of game that grabs you from the first moment and refuses to let go. It's original story, mood-setting graphics and music, and creative controls create a game that simply must be experienced. Truly, the game's only fault is the repetitive nature of playing each level twice through. If only this had been fixed, this may have been a perfect game. As it stands however, anyone with a fondness for action-RPGs or a good murder mystery should pick up this title. Do your part to help keep Folklore from becoming another gem lost in a sea of mediocre "blockbusters" and crappy sequels.

       ... Brad