endeavor
Classic metroidvania makes a comeback in this expansive, multi-ending platformer/adventure game from Zillix. When your father finally dies, leaving you with the knowledge of an ancient family treasure, you set out in search of it unaffected by the taunts and hatred of your fellow dwarves. But an unexpected tumble drops you into a whole new world of possibilities. Will you be the hero, or will you bring the darkness? More importantly, who can you trust if not yourself?
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My impressions of the game:
I was getting tired of the game, kind of losing track of what I had to do.. a treasure? what's that voice? what's that shrine? I've killed a couple of living things to test the new ability and thought it was weird, so I stopped doing that.
After I got to the lava filled scenario I just got tired of the game and turned back, to check if there was something interesting in the beginning.. and THERE'S THE FREAKING TREASURE CHEST! I really loved this turn of events.. made the game feel alive.
Awesome game, just my type, but I have a problem.
I've beaten the game once (I didn't kill any animals, got all gems inc the extra one) and I got a bad ending. I now realize that you do not need to collect any gems to climb the wall to the west, just the grip gloves, boots, parachute, and plenty of stamina. Unfortunately, I seem to be unable to jump high enough to reach one ledge that I could reach the first time around. (It's near the second dude, the one who comments on your "amazing gloves".) Is there another jump fruit or upgrade that I could have missed?
I played this on Newgrounds. Went through once. There's one thing I seriously have to point out.
If there's a super-powerful evil deity sealed away down below, and he's a known deceiver, and an oblivious person could easily be coaxed by him into returning him to full power and thereby dooming the world, DON'T @#$*%ING KEEP IT A SECRET UNTIL AFTER THE PERSON YOU'RE WATCHING OVER HAS ALREADY MET HIM AND MOST LIKELY DONE HIS BIDDING WITHOUT KNOWING ANY BETTER! Sheesh.
Cool!
There is definitely a good ending and a bad ending.
To get the good ending you have to
make sure you do NOT collect all the gems. You still need the power ups though. Go all the way to the east to the wall that goes up forever.
When it seems like you can't climb any further
You have to make some faith leaps using the parachute. Keep moving west with the parachute and vines/ropes until you reach your home. You can figure it out from there.
[Spoiler tags fixed. You need to replace the word "example" with your own words that you want to appear under a spoiler, like this: <spoiler>All this text is between two spoiler tags.</spoiler> I hope that helps. -Jay]
alright, played through both endings. Questions, though, cause I'm not going to play it again.
What does the guy who wants you to kill things tell you?
What does the mushroom guy need/want?
What's the "secret gem"?
Can you get that blocked off fruit in the fire zone?
When riding the light up, you can float up and around the final platform with the parachute. The guy said "wait, you don't have any blood on your hands...there's your house." Is this related to me not killing anything?
Played through all three endings, starting with the worst to the best...(because I somehow naively started playing that way...XD)
The 2nd and 3rd playthrough was definitely a lot faster, though occasionally, I still got lost...mini map as a power up would have helped.
Game plot was a bit lacking at first, but by the last playthrough, it actually felt nice to have a simple plot.
Controls can be a bit frustrating at some point, as some spots are a bit hard to reach for unless you press the right buttons together.
I've also had several close calls while trying to get back to the village via the giant wall in the west. During the 2nd playthrough, I kept on missing one of the ropes, and end up at the bottom of the cliff each time. I decided to do the 10 lives sacrifice first as a result.
3rd playthrough was slightly better, though I still have the occasional scare.
BTW, has anyone tried reaching the tiger sleeping in the snow cave?
Does that have any significance, or was that just something that was there?
Was a pretty good game, I would say. Worth the try for all three endings.
I played this game a couple days ago. It's a very nice exploration game.
I played through and collected all but one of the gems. The diety seemed evil, so I went back to the beginning village without getting the last gem. Now I got the good ending the first time around, and I'll have to get the bad endings on the replays.
I got one person's description of the endings
from that site:
"1. Collect All Gems: You helped Malor regain his power (AKA you helped the bad guy)
2. Collect No Gems/Kill Souls: You defeated Malor, but you have became evil for taking souls
3. Collect No Gems or Souls: ...you win [against] Malor, happy ending."
Note that (as I found out):
The first of those happens if you collect all the gems, whether or not you killed 10 animals. (I killed 19 - mostly talking creatures - including all the dwarves and the guy that taught me the up-Z ability.) This means that it still calls you "hero" in the end sequence, even though you killed a lot of people.
This made my palms sweat and my feet tingle from the virtual heights-- I really got into it. But there's no way I'm going for another ending.
There's an extra gem. I left one alone in the water, after getting the "just one more" warning, so I wouldn't help the nice-sounding-but-obviously-evil dude all the way, then sort of accidentally picked up another gem in the cave by the hand, which completed that quest.
I get a very strong sense of Shadow of the Colossus from this game. The stamina gauge mechanic paired with the plot to
inadvertently help a demon
made it a pretty obvious source of inspiration.
The levels were pretty varied, and the experience goes by pretty quickly so it doesn't drag on. The ending was a little predictable (at least the bad one was) but the game is pretty solid otherwise. I felt like it was a good way to spend an hour!
JIGuest- answers to some of your questions:
What does the guy who wants you to kill things tell you? - He teaches you to teleport using your lightning power. This takes you back to the place where you started so you can grab the sword and get one of the bad endings.
What does the mushroom guy need/want? -He wants... a mushroom. There was one in the starting area that you probably grabbed without realizing it (I did the first time I played). If you have it in your inventory, it will disappear automatically when you talk to that guy and an endurance fruit will appear behind him.
Can you get that blocked off fruit in the fire zone? - No.
This was really cool, but I was annoyed because
About 3/4s of the way through I caught on - I never killed anything for the guy, and once the light started tormenting me, I stopped collecting crystals. Except, apparently there were two left, and not only that, I accidentally landed on one. And THEN apparently you don't need to collect every crystal to complete it. I guess I should have done it again to see the bad ending anyway, but I really wish I hadn't accidentally gotten it the first time :(
My annoyance was not based on gameplay in any way so I advise strongly against NOT READING this in case you want to be surprised (and you should want to, it's well done).
The first time I played this it didn't get to me... It took another try later that day and I got completely caught by it.
The first time I got the really, really bad ending but I couldn't help it - MALOR was so nice to me and helped me when the other dwarves told me to "Jump off a cliff" literaly. Later I went on a murderous rampage of every creature I could find - even the kind talking ones... but took the long way up with the cliffs and ropes. And on my third playthrough I was the real hero, even without taking the fruit of youth...
I love this game.
@Jiguest, concerning the "extra crystal," and to anyone who feels they finished the gem quest early:
One of the gems in the ocean is actually a pearl for a side quest. There's a woman outside of the ice shrine that is looking for it. It is not part of the regular gem quest, which is why if you leave it and collect all of the other gems, that quest WILL be completed! So be careful.
I really liked this, once it decided to stop crashing my browser. The backtracking can be tedious but there's a lot of neat places to explore and the multiple endings are a nice touch.
Founded1992 was looking for a specific item.
Information for obtaining the Parachute follows below.
The Parachute is stashed in an Egyptian tomb along with one of the crystals. It's underground, in the area where one bug is telling you to trust your instincts, and the other is telling you to trust no-one.
You'll need to pick from many routes to crawl and fall down along. One of them will leads you into an Egyptian tomb. More info on the correct route follows.
It's one of the leftmost routes. There will be a part where you'll have many options, and only the one to the left will lead you to the ankh crystal and the parachute.
Enjoy!
@ensoul while you are correct in what you say regarding the "extra gem", you've missed something:
There are 11 gems total, of which only 10 are needed to free MALOR.
Regarding endings:
I was hoping for an "extra good" ending with 0 gems, 0 kills, and declining the fruit of youth. No such luck. I guess I could try skipping the lightning too, but I doubt there's anything there.
I really enjoyed this game. But I couldn't help but notice that the menu music was suspiciously similar to Mass Effect's menu music... in fact, they're almost the same.
Yeah, I don't think I missed one of the two at the beginning though, since it's impossible to get out of the first area without them. The first time I played through, I was able to climb the wall when I went back down to explore after riding the light up ("Beam me up, Scotty!" :P)
I guess I'll just keep trying everything.
I'm extremely annoyed by this game:
several parts of the game's mechanics and plot were ripped directly from Shadow of the Colossus. This isn't unique game making and story telling, this comes across strongly as plagiarism.
I understand that a lot of indie developers are die-hard gamers with the know-how to express their love for specific titles through smaller titles of their own, but for me, this went beyond a compliment and straight to theft. The creator of this game took the time to dress up the external details just enough to throw off the average casual gamer, but for those of us who respect specific titles that made us fall in love with specific genres, this is insulting. The creator went as far as to refer to the endurance mechanic as "unique" on ArmorGames. It was unique in the original game, not here.
I also wanted to note that this game has been entered in a contest that encourages the developer to get someone to buy their game. If this game is bought, any form, by another, that would be taking the insult even further. Making money off of someone else's hard work is disgusting.
Yeah, I don't think I missed one of the two at the beginning though, since it's impossible to get out of the first area without them. The first time I played through, I was able to climb the wall when I went back down to explore after riding the light up ("Beam me up, Scotty!" :P)
I guess I'll just keep trying everything. Where was the guy who wanted the mushrooms again?
@Crowcaller: Generally plagiarism is only objected to in academic and journalistic contexts. Art and video games both seem to encourage borrowing. I'll admit that presenting the endurance mechanic as unique is kind of shady, but it's mostly marketing speak.
I'm not very familiar with SotC, so I'm not sure what plot similarities exist other than
The seemingly benevolent, supernatural ally turns against you.
Could you elaborate?
@G.P.: "Generally plagiarism is only objected to in academic and journalistic contexts. Art and video games both seem to encourage borrowing."
Wow, that is SO VERY UNTRUE. Although in art and game circles, it tends to be called "copyright violation" rather than "plagiarism." If you're going to "borrow" someone's work and make money off it, you'd better borrow from something in the public domain. Which, when it comes to video games, is nothing.
@ G.P.
Let me give it a shot. I'm going to give a synopsis of both stories.
Endeavor:
You are on a quest to obtain the power necessary to reach the chest hidden by an ancestor to earn it's reward. In your quest, you fall from your home, and land in a mystery world.
In the mystery world, you are promised by the deity Malor that if you collect the gems and help him restore his power, he will help you in your quest to go back home.
Over the course of this quest, you will become more powerful, and you have the potential to go back home on your own power and not have to rely on the deity, so long as you don't collect enough of the gems.
In the end, no matter which path you take, you go home, get the chest, and find out that Malor is evil incarnate, and was using you to gain his power back so he can rule the world with darkness, despair, and of course the lamentations of all living creatures. Unless you didn't collect the gems, in which case he tries to convince you to collect them for you and promises you power if you do so.
Shadow of the Colossus
You come to the forbidden land on your recognizance. You bring the physical remains of a woman with you. Is she your sister, a lover, a friend, or something else entirely different?
The God of the temple you enter, Dormin, makes a promise with you. Destroy the guardians of the land, each represented by a statue, and he will bring her back to life. You set off on this quest, destroying the guardians, and slowly things change. The women starts to look more alive, and almost glows, while your body turns gray and light dims when it touches you.
At the end, with the last guardian destroyed, the truth is revealed. Dormin did hold up his end of the bargain, the girl does come back to life. But while you were killing the guardians, each of their deaths were corrupting you with portions of Dormin's "essence", until finally you are a viable enough host for Dormin to be able to take a physical form again.
Congratulations hero.
That's not the entire story of SotC, but enough to hopefully see where others are coming from on this game.
I think more attention needs to be directed at the sleeping beast, which looks likes a cat you probably should have encountered in the beginning of the game.
Is it something that the maker intentionally left as a joke or something?
Because I found all gems, all eight skills, all the quests as far as I know, but I still can't get to it.
@Ultio:
The lightning seems to target whatever you're closest to. I used jump and parachute to hold myself up while I was blasting the upper blocks with lightning. Stop blasting before you hit the ground so you don't take out the floor. Sometimes you need to do it twice in a row quickly to get a block, but it works.
@Ultio
You can do this to reach the 2 fruits
destroy boxes to make a path to fruits but don't destroy boxes in last row
you can do this by first jumping near the boxes and then at your max height press "X" for parachut and "Z" for lighting at same time.
stop pressing Z when you land to avoid destroying the lowest row.
do this sometimes and voila you have your path.
@Carny Asada: You wouldn't have the concept of "genres" or "mechanics" in video games if they didn't encourage borrowing. They call them metroidvania and rougelike for a reason. Alos, many games feature the mechanics of collecting items, bullet time, etc.
This isn't an unlicensed sequel to SotC. It doesn't share anything of importance with that game except for a few archetypes and a "you can't hang onto things forever" mechanic.
----
Thanks for the info @jigcommenter.
Dwarf wants tiger! Okay, that was a silly little spoof, but really, is the napping feline just a tease? Oh well.
I finished! I'm pleased with myself, I'm pretty sure I got the all-good ending (thanks to everybody here -- I was a confused little dwarf for the first partial game).
@Ultio, the only way I know to get a map is to take print-screen shots everywhere, and then put them together in an image editor. This is such a huge world, with such a small bit of it showing at once, that this seems like a pretty tedious task. Now if you could do movie capture of the screen, then use image knitting software to merge it all together, that would be cool (though probably hard, with the dwarf always in the picture, and the background the way it is). So I don't know. I'm much less interested in a map, now that I have solved it.
Finally finished (well, finally came back to it and finished), and I have to say I really liked it. Note: the author says that a second or third playthrough goes faster, and I found that to be very true, especially...
...if the first time through you collected gems; on the second and third playthroughs, I just avoided the gems and things therefore went much faster.
I also really liked the variation in the endings, in particular
what the villagers say when you return; for those who don't want to play through to other endings, while I forget one of them, in the other two...
if you get back via destroying ten souls, they grovel and beg you not to kill them too; if you get back via climbing, they say things like "I underestimated you" and "I kinda missed you", which actually felt pretty good.
Incidentally, I don't think this is a Shadow of the Colossus ripoff at all. Granted, I haven't played SotC, but based on the description from jigcommenter above, it really doesn't seem like anything was "borrowed" except a very broad motif that SotC was very likely not the first game to explore. There's a line between "plagiarism" and "drawing inspiration", and I think this falls, if anywhere, into the latter category.
I very much enjoyed this game. Got two of the endings on my own, now after reading this site I want to go back and get the third one.
I definitely got a Shadow of the Colossus vibe too. That's a good thing - it's one of my favorite games ever. As for plagiarism, IAAL but I have to be pretty familiar with IP law for my work, and as far as I can tell this game is fine. If the author copied specific images or text there would be a problem. But he didn't. There's a plot where a bad guy is trying to trick you into doing his work, an endurance gauge, and powering up through fruit, but all of these show up in lots of other games. And I'm pretty sure that Tomb Raider had an endurance gauge for climbing before Shadow of the Beast did, and wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't the first either.
@ JIGuest
You should be able to see the gloves from the bottom of the cave section (west of the starting area), but you can't get to them from there.
Go to the bottom of the sea and head west from there. You'll come up through an air pocket into the caves from the east. After you get the gloves, you can climb out through the cave or go back through the sea.
Hi! Fun game. I don't like platform games generally because I'm not coordinated enough with finger taps to get what I need to get... luckily have a kid who is. ;)
Couple questions if anyone can help:
How do you...
Get a sword or weapon to kill the creatures for souls?
Once you've collected all the gems, is there a way to get the "good ending" without starting over from the beginning?
Thanks :)
@G.P. but more generally,
It seems there's a lot of talk back and forth about how, specifically, I feel this game has crossed the line in mirroring SOTC. Allow me to elaborate:
- The design of the "temple" where Malor is has a lot of the same thematic elements as the temple in SOTC. Pillars, altar, shaft of light - the whole thing.
-The way Malor's voice seems to be booming down on you from on high, cryptically leading you to your next objective - identical to SOTC. Even the structure of his hints is the same.
- The way the crystals you've already collected allow you to teleport back to the places you got them from - this is exactly the same mechanic used in SOTC.
- Not only do you have an endurance bar for holding onto ledges/swimming, but you collect fruit off of strategically placed trees to increase this gauge - the mechanic and the structure of the visual are identical to SOTC.
- The "impossible eternal cliff" you have to climb is an identical concept found in SOTC.
- The special gadget you get that uses a beam of light to point directly to the location of the nearest crystal - same as Wanda's sword in SOTC.
- The way Malor encourages you not to think twice about collecting the crystals for him.
- The way when your character falls from high off the ground, he is momentarily stunned depending on the height of the drop.
- There's a series of pillars in one segment that seem to have been connected together to form an ancient bridge - a big element in the landscape of SOTC.
I picked up on a lot of this within the early portions of the game. SotC was a monumental event in gaming, and if you haven't played it, please take the time to do so. Its amazing what the developer accomplished given last-gen technology, and the story and visuals are incredibly memorable. I'm not at all confused or perplexed as to why any indie developer would want to use SotC as an inspiration, but credit should be given where credit is due. Perhaps plagiarism isn't present here, and perhaps no illegal actions were taken, but I still feel that the developer borrowed far too much of SotC to go without mentioning it - even once!
A developer could create a platformer where you jump on enemies heads, and eat power-ups you collect from boxes you bash your head into, but its completely different when the enemies behave just like koopas and the power-ups are mushrooms that pop out of boxes labelled with a question mark.
See what I'm getting at?
@ Tahnan
I think i remember ending quotes.
You were right about if you beam up and if you climb up, but if you climb up w/o getting fruit of youth they don't change from beginning of game. "Go jump off a cliff", "You can't climb that", etc. if you beamed up w/ malor, it's stuff like "I hope you're happy", and "go back where you came from".
Hope tags work...
@Crow Calling
A lot of your perceived similarities are largely because you're looking at it with an aim to compare it to SotC. Take, for example, your opinion on how MALOR's voice seems to be booming from above... There is no evidence to support this opinion and you only believe it to be projected that way because you've played SotC and know what it -should- sound like, then. Your mind is making the connection, the connection does not exist of its own accord.
For example, I perceived the voice as a whisper during my playthroughs of endeavor.
The visuals of the temple also exist in many games, not just Shadow of the Colossus. I seem to remember Link's sword in The Ocarina of Time being found in a temple with pillars and an altar with a beam of light. It is not a theme that is exclusive to Shadow of the Colossus, and therefore an argument that it was plagarised from SotC is without base, as SotC likely "plagarised" the visuals itself.
The beam of light pointing to an objective is also not an exclusive innovation of SotC, and is invalid as a claim of plagarism for the same reasons.
As for the bridge of fallen pillars, I just played through endeavor twice and cannot picture what you speak of. The graphics in endeavor are fairly ambiguous... for example, I saw the tiger / whatever it is in the snow area as a pile of bones.
All in all, plagarism is far, far too strong a word. Developers borrow from other games, certain genres have constant themes and though there are some paralells, the developer of endeavor does not seem to be using them as a means of profiting off the work of others, merely as using several mechanics proven successful in several games to create a work that stands alone as its own creation.
@JIGuest
Endeavor was entered into the Ludum Dare October challenge, which is a contest that encourages developers to make a title and get it sold. This game should never be purchased by anyone.
I realize there are archetypes in gaming, some of which have spawned from other, more successful games, and some of which simply came from popular culture. I realize that there are games out there that share concepts with endeavor (probably thousands), but for the life of me, I can't find any other game that shares so many concepts concurrently as is evident between Endeavor and Shadow of the Colossus.
Actually, I can think of at least 2 others, and they both took the time to state "This game is inspired by Shadow of the Colossus" or something along those lines, and they weren't entered into a contest that encourages you to make a profit off of your game, either.
My problem with this situation isn't as much that this game borrows heavily from a title I have a lot of appreciation for, but rather, that the developer hasn't taken the time to make that clear, and in fact has made statements that encourage others to think of this game's mechanics as unique, when in fact, there may be little that is truly unique about this title.
Shadow of the Colossus probably took a couple years to be developed, and Endeavor's creator took a lot of what made it great, and slapped it together in a month. Perhaps each concept individually should be disregarded, but all those concepts wrapped together still feels like plagiarism.
is SotC a free game, or do u have to buy it? I was reading through all the comments and it seems like a great game, but if i have to buy it i dont really think its worth it.
on a side note, i noticed that a lot of people are named JIGuest. This cant be the same person, so is this what pops up when u comment anonymously? because this is an anonymous comment itself, and i was wondering if my name is JIGuest, because i put my name as Anonymous. Thanks.
@Jiguest
Thank you i have read every comment here and i say that everyone else is just b**ching because they have nothing better to do and its not plagerism of SotC
@crowcaller
1. the "brige" idea makes no sense because the pillars zig zag
2. there are similaritys and differences in every game your pretty much making assumtions about plagerism because you are looking for every thing that is even remotly similar
I mean you dont see people b**ching about those thousands of match 3 games that are exactly the same with maybe 1 difference so why are you getting on the developers back about your "assumptions"
3. thousands of games have arrows that point to your objective are you going to go stage a protest saying their game is a rip off of SotC too?
@everyone
can someone please tell me what the extra words are at the end if you get the good ending without the fruit of youth because there are a few extra words
What in the world is the deal with that... well it looks like a spray bottle that's bubbling, that's the best way I can think to describe it. It's on the floor of the jungle at the far right side of the world below. Whatever it is, it can be collected as a soul with the ray gun thing. It doesn't talk and best I can tell it isn't an item you can get. What is its purpose?
I just played this game, and I would like to address the plagiarism issue.
I of course am talking about the striking similarities between this game and the Lord of the Rings. First of all, there's a dwarf. Sound familiar? There were dwarves all over LotR. This is blatant theft of Tolkien's ideas (he was, of course, the person who invented dwarves). And the dwarf is on a quest. Just like in LotR! There's even a volcano. Not to mention an unseen evil power with a corrupting influence (Malor is pretty much a carbon copy of Sauron).
I think it's just disgusting that the creator of this game didn't give any credit to Tolkien at all!
All sarcasm aside, I really loved the game. 5/5
@iknow
After getting the good ending w/o the fruit of eternal youth on Kongregate, and then doing the same with it here on JIG, The only difference I was able to find was that when you got the fruit the people who picked on you in the beginning said "I underestimated you", "you look… different" and "I... kind of missed you". See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9I6DjB2fS0
okay, I've never played SotC and I don't plan on it because I heard a review (Zero Punctuation, escapistmagazine.com) And the whole concept of Climbing giant colossi to hit a weak point the size of a grape while they try to shake you off and the whole resurrecting your dead wife/sister/best friend Never took to me. This game however hasn't really taken to me either.
Now onto the full rant:
[spoiler]This game has a main quest (Most games out in this age do) which is Get the important magic miguffin to slay evil bad guy or something to that effect. This is the most common quest.
This game has a stamina bar, ANOTHER COMMON THING IN A PROPER GAME IS SOME FORM OF Health, Mana, or Fatigue.
This game has no system of Death so instead of dying and losing a life you're stunned, this is once more common in games that have no death for the main character.
An objective arrow, Common in every game with a plot that isn't free roam wait no even THOSE have quest arrows!
This game has an evil [/spoiler]
Stop focusing on a single game and saying it was plagiarized from that game I can name a series this game takes from. Silent Hill. There's a main quest to get out of the town by using a "magic" thing to kill the evil god that keeps popping up in all four of the main games. There is no death in Silent Hill for the main character. Just getting a game over screen and being placed back at the beginning of the level. There's a stamina bar there for how long you can run. There's an objective arrow on the freakin minimap for christ's sake. Is this game stealing from Silent Hill? HELL NO!
Re: copyright/plagiarism.
An idea cannot be copyrighted. In the case of games, software, literature, music, etc. the only thing that can be expressly forbidden is the actual thing. In the case of music or literature, it is defined by concrete amounts of a thing. In terms of software it is the actual code. Things inspired by, similar to, or using similar themes or imagery are not violations. If you think this is similar, or unoriginal, that's just your opinion and there is no rule or even reason this person can't make a game that is akin to another. Perhaps before you go getting extremely upset you should do a little research on what copyright and plagiarism actually entail.
Not to mention you're way behind the social acceptance of the gains of elaborative and community oriented cultural creation. But, perhaps you side with copyright term extending Disney, or the sample litigating RIAA. Apparently money is all that matters to you.
I think it's a nice, cute game. Well executed, but nothing to worry about in any real long term sense. Neither unique nor inventive, and carrying no real artistic, philosophical or ideological weight to speak of.
Really fun :) Sad that I helped out the bad guy, though. I want to see the other endings, but a total run through would be a pain :C
As far as SotC, I do see many similarities, and it is the first game I thought of, but I don't think it's enough to be a rip off. However, I wholeheartedly agree that the author SHOULD have said something about it inspiring their work, if only for the popularity of SotC and it's fans to not get upset. Not saying anything, and calling the stamina bar unique is a bit presumptuous, and I agree that it makes it frustrating that they entered it in the contest. (Anyone who has played Dark Cloud knows my hate for the thirst bar, basically the same thing). And on the storyline
1 In Bard's Tale you are trying to save the princess who ends up being the evil one and those you have been fighting are the good guys, except for the monsters and that *GRAH* Bugbear
2 In Ocarina of Time, Ganon can't open the temple, so you end up doing it for him
3 In Legend of Legaia, when you save the underground city by freezing the lava, you stop the windmills in another city and put them in danger, then by clearing THAT mist, you endanger ANOTHER town that was safer IN the mist
Aside from the contest, it would have never even crossed my mind as being a problem (i.e. free flash only), but then again there are judges for a reason (and I'm sure at least one of them has played SotC).
Also, similarities you may have missed:
1 killing innocent creatures (lizards!)
2 parachute (special item in SotC)
3 and lastly, the big guys (Malus #16) power over lightning (though it was only the final colossus that had this power, but as a 'piece' of the Dormin, he is the biggest and I feel the biggest part :D)
However, I also agree with the other side, as LOTS of games use the temple with scattered light setting (most Zelda games, many Final Fantasy games, Jak and Daxter, and Ico; SotC's pre/sequel depending on how you look at it), but Endeavor isn't quite close enough for me to think theft. It's more like a tribute that didn't get the credit it should have. Maybe Zillix thought they put something in the credits or it totally slipped their mind, but it's little more than just rude. Some important differences are
1 Different endings vs SotC only had the one
2 Doing this for yourself vs killing for your lady whom you love, i.e. in Endeavor you realize the guy is bad, and can choose to comply or not for yourself, but in SotC you can quickly see the changes in Wanderer/Wanda, but he has exiled himself by going to the forbidden lands of Dormin, and thus can't leave if he wanted to and would have eventually been killed by the leader and his buddies that show up near the end
3 In this, you can go wherever you like whenever you like, though you may not get very far without certain items, but you could explore anywhere in SotC at the start but could only kill the next Colossus on the list
4 Maybe most importantly, ambiance. This is much too cheerful looking for me to think of it as a rip off.
Finally, I am a super Team Ico fan. If you haven't played, it IS worth buying (especially) since I've seen it at Gamestop for $8, as well as Ico. I believe there is a special pack coming out when Trico/The Last Guardian comes out of the first two. There are many similarities beyween the two, but I would never buy this over SotC. This is a lovely little tributeish game, but SotC is so much more. It's beautiful, huge, and Mr. Bucket Lizard scares the crap out of me every time (or Kuromori #8 if you're a fan! :D).
@Rolan Fair don't rely on the review. It's hard to describe the feeling of satasfaction and nerdy pride when you ride your horse towards a dragon so big one wing fits on the screen, leaping off, snagging it's fur, climbing it's back, and taking out it's weak points before it dives down under the sand (Phalanx #13).
Some things I've noticed:
10-Soul Ending:
I'd killed 19 creatures by the time I got to him. I had NOT gotten all the gems; I needed the 2 from the volcano and maybe one other. He wouldn't help me. So I killed MALOR and was evil.
When you make it back up top, does what the people say have to do with what ending you're getting?
I mean, whether you've killed or not.
And what is the power-up inside the lightning in the volcano?
One set of lightning gives you the ability to destroy. What do the others give you
What "mushroom guy"? I found the mushroom, but not the guy.
Here's a FULL map from author Zillix on NG
I have done a Let's Play of this game, with all three endings if anyone is interested.
As for my opinions of this game, I think this was well worth the Game of the Year for casual gameplay. The free-roaming nature and a plot that spells itself out over time.
I did not find it a chore to complete the game three times. I enjoyed seeing everthing there was to see. It may be because I love Half Life and its way of storytelling, but then again I just may like Metroidvanias that much.
Man, after reading the whole page, I still didn't get a full picture of that White beast/Cat/Moving pile of bones/yeti thingy, which is probably completely not accessible.I mean why did he put it there?
On top of that I don't understand why people are not interested in that! Doesn't such a thing make you wonder: Why is it there?
@nerdypants December 31, 2010 8:41 PM
One thing first for the record; Tolkien only invented the plural form of dwarf: dwarves. As for who invented the original concept I have no clue. Also, in nay EVERY RPG you are on a quest, so that's just a stupid point. Another stupid point; the volcano. There are volcanoes in Warcraft 3, are you going to say that they ripped off Tolkien for using something that appears in nature? And how on Earth is Malor a carbon copy of Sauron? Malor: 'Kind' spirit who wants you to get him/her gems to help him/her send you back home and will also benefit themself. Sauron: Evil creator of the One Ring to Rule Them All and ruler of Mordor trying to dominate the world under his rule from the gaze of his eye and is just blatantly evil. So now all I have to say is "Similarities? I think not" to a point of course.
I personaly love this game but I really didnt want to play it for the other two endings.I DID discover a way to cover the entire map while not collecting a single gem.
Simply get the gem finder after getting the pearl and basicly run around to all of the gems,while not grabbing any unless needed.ANother way is to simply just grab EVERYTHING but ignore the Lava Golem gem in the volcano(Big human shaped thing wiht a gem in its centre=golem).By going ot the gems and not taking them,I back track all my steps,and I can grab anything I need
I found this so meaningful. Here's my take on the version I played (get all the gems and powedr-ups and kill everyone)
You were taunted, told to go die, told you could never do it, then you found someone who helped you become powerful. you went back and exacted revenge on everyone who ever teased you, called you names, told you you'd never make it, or just plain ignored you. suddenly, you are alone. you have destroyed everyone who was ever mean to you, even indirectly, and now you are alone. you have power, but what is power with nothing to do, no one to talk to, no one, even to tease you. nothing. a world full of nothing.
@anonymoose It's probably too late for anyone to read this, but in case it ever comes up: There's probably no one person who invented dwarfs. Lots of cultures around the world have myths about small creatures with magical powers who live in caves or forests or under mountains. I think the closest forerunner of modern, Tolkien-esque are probably the svartálfar from Norse oral tradition. They looked like short, gruff humans, lived under mountains, mined precious metals, and made magical weapons and items (although the word "dwarf" also existed at the time, and may or may not have referred to a separate race of beings who were similar to the svartalf).
I just beat the game a second time and
Climbed back up to town without getting the fruit of youth and everyone was still bitchy :/ so I guess I could try to get the fruit to see what they say
.
It's really not hard to go back through as once you know your way around it's pretty fast. I did it in an hour and a half with plenty of lolly-gagging.
I played this game twice and got a bad ending both times.
The first time:
I collected all the gems and MALOR took over everything and made everything all bad (i guess, they did'nt make it very clear)
Seccond time:
I got the lightning power and killed 10 creatures so that alien guy would tell me how to teleport. Then I teleported back to where I started, got the sword in the treauser chest, and destroyed MALOR. But apperently I "destroyed the darkness but became it" when I killed those 10 creatures. So I'm not really sure if that's a good ending or a bad one.
So, can someone tell me how to get a good ending please?
I love this game and a few years ago I played a game with the same art style on newgrounds... I can't remember the name but I do know that it was about some girl, there were day/night cycles, and you could get power ups like higher jumping, speed and such. It's been bugging me to find this game, and I really want to! Can anyone please help?
This was an extremely fun game to play and I managed to get all 3 endings, each one you play through the game the same way until the end.
The first ending is the good ending, to get it, don't collect any of the gems or do the ten souls trade, you have to climb the endless cliff (Tip: tap X a few times to fly farther while gliding) Ending two is bad, you have to collect all the gems then ascend to the world above. The third one is also bad, you get it by collecting no gems, but using the 10 souls deal to get back up, I hope this helps!
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Walkthrough Guide
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Endeavor Maps
World Map
Altar
Caves
Cliff Base
Clifftop
Coast
Floating Island
Home
Labyrinth
Mountain
Pillars
Swamp
Undersea
Volcano
Posted by: Max | January 3, 2011 12:52 AM