Avalanche is interactive fan fiction with surprisingly crisp production values. Its biggest flaw is that the interface is a bit clunky, not unlike the game it's based on (FFVII). FYI, it's WASD for movement, right shift and right ctrl to attack, spacebar to jump and confirm menu selections.
For a Final Fantasy fan still yearning for Aerith's sweet touch, despite 11 years of cosplay, spin-offs, bad CG anime and relentless forum posting, this is a must-play. It's a 300MB download, just so you're warned.
We've seen tactics, RPG addendums, and shooters based off this IP; now comes a brawler, more Final Fight than Fantasy. Combat consists of mixing up the shift button with the control button, spicing it up with a bit of jumping and a few strategic considerations with items. Most of what you're getting with your 300MB is lots of well done art assets making good use of a middleware engine I somehow hadn't heard of. Great lighting effects. This is a one-man show btw.
What's interesting to me is that the gameplay is basically repetition in order to show off more data, more story, more character interaction. It's the formula that made the FF franchise so fantastically, financially functional. That this was made by a fan calls into question the underlying psychology, nay, neurology that makes the commercialization of content possible with such gusto. Is the content presented here a commercial calling card for this developer's skills? And is it mere coincidence that "leveling-up" involves spending currency to gain new abilities and augment stats?
As you dig into the game, it opens up to be more Diablo-esque than the closed-narrative hallways of the series, perhaps an unavoidable side-effect of it being made by a Gaijin. The contrast of the function-over-form dungeon design with the hyper-stylized content forming the game's centerpiece echoes deeper into this theme of assets overcoming gameplay, and people eating it up like chocolate-fried hot dogs.
N.B.: If you're looking for Avalanche, the charming, web-based climbing game, it's here.
