Customer Reviews

Fading Shadows - PSP

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3 star:		(1)
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Traveling through a fantastical world to save the kingdom on the brink of ruin. The fate of the world rests on one boy. Better get that marble rolling. Huh? Fading Shadows is more than Marble Madness with a story born from watching too many 80's fantasy flicks. The story is there as an excuse for the fantasy themed graphical environments you will be rolling through on your way to save the world.

Early levels are simple and give you time to get a grasp of the controls without too much fear of losing your marbles. Before long you are changing between three marble types - metal, glass and wood to solve various puzzles. Metal rusts in water, glass floats in water and breaks easily while wood burns up quickly if your not careful around fire. The switching plates that alter your marble's composition have a dual purpose also acting as check points in difficult and lengthy levels you will soon encounter.

The levels themselves have various shards scattered about and collecting 10 will net you an extra marble. Death is frequent in this game and you will want to collect as many as possible for use in the later levels and choose to restart if you die early in a level. This game is hard and the difficulty ramps up very quick after the initial levels. This is not a game for those who get frustrated easily or have little patience.

This game suffers like many other PSP games when it comes to the camera and controlling your momentum. The R and L buttons rotate the camera, but only in 90 degree increments making it hard to get the precise angle you want for optimal control and sometimes obscures the marble. Struggling to precisely control your momemtum can lead to many deaths by rolling of angled ledges of doom or missing that critical elevator.

Positives:

+ Lots of levels
+ Great graphics and environments
+ Fun puzzles

Negatives:

- Stiff camera controls
- Steep learning curve
- Longer levels will try your patience

Buy or skip? Because of the low price this is a worthwhile purchase even for casual play. Note that this game is also available on PSN and can be downloaded directly to your PSP.

it is ok and I might just give it to my son, he might like it more than me. Thanks