Black Ball releases its first of a series of comic book style horror adventure called Chaos Gateway. The marketplace hasn’t seen many novels that you can choose the way the dialogue plays. But is there a place for this type of genre on Xbox? Continue reading to find out.
Chaos Gateway is mainly a visual novel with small game play elements that effect how the story plays out. The story starts with two friends with powers, Michael and David, just escaped a city full of madness that happened from bizarre events. The majority of the plot is set in a military bunker where you try to discover the mysteries within and meet interesting characters. The characters are fairly interesting for the most part, but it takes a while to actually connect with them. This can also be said for the story as well. It starts off slow and doesn’t really catch your interest till close to the end where it takes off. Even with the story becoming more interesting it ends when you really would want it to continue on. Since this is a series it is almost forgiveable, but it should really have an ending.
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Chaos Gateway’s presentation is extremely well done with some intense character drawings and soundtrack. It is a shame that all the visuals in the game are stationary, because the art is fantastic. The only animation was in the beginning with small effects of leaves falling across the screen. It would have enhanced the experience with some sort of animation throughout the game not only in the beginning. This overall leaves you wanting more and lacks on enticing you to view the beautiful artwork, instead just makes you focus solely on the story.
The gameplay aspect of Chaos Gateway is very minimal to a few button presses and something along the lines of a QTE (quick time event) from using a power you are brought to a mini game where you must press A at the process moment where the arrow meets. This is a nice distraction at first, but later on you just want to read the story and not be sidetracked by minor annoyances. You do also get the options to journey around on your own which adds to the player’s ability to get involved. But once you have visited a certain place a couple of times you are greeted with the same screen. The same screen dilemma happened for me at the beginning of the game and at the end with the same exact screen from the beginning. This minor annoyance did influence me to just repeatedly skip the text screens until I ran into the following story text.
An option that I really enjoyed was the ability to save at any time during the story, so I can just return at my liking. This game could have really benefited on a portable side where you can take it to go and read whenever; just like any novel you would read. One fault I came across with the saving is that it doesn’t auto save when you finish the game so if you don’t save often you will start back from where you left off. This is definitely a minor annoyance since you did just finish the game. It offers an award system and gallery for when you reach a certain part of the game, but I couldn’t see due to it not saving.
For the price point of Chaos Gateway at 240 :MSPoints:, it’s hard to recommend for being a short 1-2 hour experience depending on how fast you read. It is a visually pleasing game with the anime style artwork and soundtrack, but for the price you either need to be an avid reader or a gamer who wants something different from gaming. Overall, Chaos Gateway isn’t a bad game it just really isn’t a game at all.
You can download the trial or purchase the full version from the Xbox Marketplace.
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