Hack and slash. And hack. And slash. In the same vein as the Dynasty Warrior series, as long as you don’t mind seeing how fast or how much you can push the X button while playing a game, you won’t mind N3.
You play as 7 different characters, each with their own unique part of the story. You have a little freedom but it’s built in a heirarchy so it usually comes down to a choice of one or two at a time. Each character reveals progressively deeper pieces to the story, which is a great approach.
There can be so many enemies on screen at once, it’s actually fairly impressive. A cutscene will display goblins pouring over a hill and you think, “oh, just a cinematic”, then when it goes back to gameplay there really are a ton of goblins in front of you.
Characters have anywhere from 3 to 6 levels in their story lines, but there are only about 6 actual stages they all share. The battlefields begin to feel repetitive even though they are played from different vantage points on both the light and the dark side.
The one flaw I see is that it doesn’t feel like a continual story. When you play as Vigkvagk you help the castle walls be destroyed. Playing as others you save the castle walls. The story is different depending on who you are, but I guess that’s not much unlike history. But on top of that it’s not a light and dark “campaign”, there are only 2 dark characters, so the story gets sporadic, consequently slightly removing you.
Each character has their own set of combos and more are accessible as you gain higher levels by killing enemies. Nine is the max level for each character, but playing through the game without grinding levels any more than necessary, I finished each story at or around level 6.
There is a ranking system based on your time spent, enemies killed, guards that survived, etc. There’s an achievement for obtaining an “A” ranking minimum, the second highest only to the “S” and you receive various items and equipment for obtaining a rank. The higher the better.
The save system is ridiculous. Make sure if you play you keep a save file for all 7 characters. The final stage and resolution of the plot requires that a specific one of your characters be level 9 and you must go to that stage select screen. Plus if you plan on getting that achievement for getting all characters to 9 and you want to go back to them later you have to do that. If you start from the character select screen they will be at level 1 and on their first stage with no items. I found this out the hard way.
I wouldn’t consider myself a connoisseur of the genre, but the action is fast, objectives move quickly and with the variety of play on the characters it gave me enough staying power to see the game through to the end. Not to get all achievements necessarily, but to finish all stages with every character.
Action/3-D Hack n’ Slash
Characters 9/10
Fun 10/20
Graphics 7/10
Level Variety 8/20
Music 3/5
Play Control 8/10
Replayability 5/20
Sound 3/5
Overall Score 53/100