Game Reviews

It sucks to start this review off on such a negative note, but Iyar Chronicle is one of the dullest, most generic RPG’s I have ever played in terms of story, featuring a cast of characters that are so unlikeable and annoying that I had a hard time playing through the entire game, and it’s one of the shortest RPG’s ever.Your main character is Crais, an angsty mercenary whose snarky comments and secret past of sorrow and rage belies a heart of gold. Cliché #1. Broke and drunk, he is given a ray of salvation when a mysterious super cheerful and optimistic girl in pink and red named Sophie offers him a job. Cliché #2. This job is to go with her to collect seven (although once or twice the game accidentally says six) gems but she can’t tell him what they are for or why they are doing it. The game is then just going through the dungeons to get the gems. Cliché #3. Along the way you meet four more women that will join your team, all of which are “quirky but cute” in some way. Cliché #4. You will also encounter two shadowy individuals – one a Black Knight who seems to be testing you as much as he antagonizes you and the other a strange evil warlock in white who holds the secrets to your main character’s shattered past . Clichés #5, 6, 7 and 8. The warlock also has a bad ass warrior girl who is also strongly connected to your past and yet you don’t recognize her until the penultimate (second to last, not second biggest) battle in the game. Cliché #9. As well, right before you get the last gem, your benefactor puts herself in harm’s way for you and at that moment your main character learns to care about others again and open up his heart to the five women who have accompanied him on this quest. Cliché #10.

That my friends, is the plot of Iyar Chronicle. There is nothing original about it. It is the most generic and dull story I have encountered in years. It is the personification of a paint by numbers story. I didn’t even start to get interested in the game until eight hours in when I encountered Timon, who was the only likeable character in the game and even then she’s a stalking obsessed polearm carrying berserker who is prone to fits of rage. And that’s the MOST LIKEABLE CHARACTER.