EvilQuest Review AND GIVEAWAY - You Are the BAD Guy

Have you ever played Dungeons and Dragons, or any other pen and paper RPG for that matter, and chosen Chaotic Evil as your alignment assuming it'd be fun to be evil, but then had trouble actually playing the game in proper character? Galvis, the absolute antihero of EvilQuest, doesn't have that issue whatsoever. From the beginning of the game, killing your fellow prisoner despite promising to help him go free just because he snored at night, EvilQuest gives you what it promised.

EvilQuest reminds me a lot of one of my favorite video games - The Secret of Mana. You move around with buttons to attack, cast your selected spell and use your selected item, explore temples and dungeons and the lot, level up (although in EQ you level up your own stats instead of your weapons and magic), pick up money and treasures, then purchase new spells and goodies. Just like SNES era games, you'll be tempted to avoid enemies and go for bosses, but it's not a good idea at all! Grinding for levels is a necessity, especially if you play on normal or hard difficulties. I actually switched from normal to easy at one of the bosses because I hadn't leveled up my health/defense enough and would die in two or three hits.

Guess what elements protect the seal. Go ahead, guess.

The story itself is very simple in the exact opposite of classic SNES era RPGs - you want to destroy the world, and to do so you must find the Chaos Axe, destroy the seals that prevents travel between Earth and the heavens and kill God. The game starts off rather slow until you start getting magic and your charge orb, which allows you to charge up your attack and shoot like Link! There's always a good sense of humor to be found, though. Some of my favorites include what seems perfect for mocking a particular scene from the Final Fantasy series - a girl asks if you want to see her dance, and your only choices are "No" or "Hell no!" Another occurs any time you stop at an inn but say "no" to sleeping - "Have a nice day, thanks for letting me live!" is their reply. Galvis doesn't even hesitate to mock you, the player - when coming across a stinky drunk you're asked if you should "kick him painfully in the stomach"; if you say no, Galvis replies "Pathetic!"

Fire 2 never looked so cool!

Aside from the humor, the game shines in three major areas:

• Boss battles - all rather creative and almost all very challenging, requiring actual strategy rather than just button-mashing. Even the first boss is a good 3 times your size at least!
• Magic - spells start off simply enough by shooting a beam but quickly turn into a flamethrower, dancing shadows and tidal waves!
• Badassery - as soon as you get your armor back, you look like a badass. In fact, I think he looks a lot like Kain from Final Fantasy IV, and he was my favorite badass RPG character for a LONG time. Your spells make you feel badass, your weapons are pretty badass and once you get a special item about 75% of the way in you become a MAJOR badass! If you're going to be evil, you'd may as well feel badass while you do it. And yes, I used the word "badass" 7 times here if you include saying it in this sentence.

All in all, if you're nostalgic, want to be really evil for a few hours, don't mind being patient while battling and level grinding and have a dollar to spare (or two dollars for PC), EvilQuest may be for you!

Oh, and if the game sounds good to you, do the developer a favor and go vote for it on Steam! Maybe we'll get EvilQuest 2 after the first one is Greenlit!

The Giveaway!

Chaosoft has been kind enough to agree to give away a copy of EvilQuest to one lucky winner on PC! Complete as much as you want in the Rafflecopter below; the more of them you do, the more entries you'll get and the better your odds of winning!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I was granted a copy for review.

Available for: XBLIG (reviewed), PC

Website: http://www.chaosoftgames.com

Price (at time of writing): $1 for XBLIG, $1.99 for PC (Desura or Indievania)

Developed by: Chaosoft