RPG Time The Legend of Wright Review: paper, pen and fantasy

Play RPG Time: The Legend of Wright it means having a beautiful smile on your face perpetually. An expression derived from the satisfaction, joy and surprise that only productions so gifted with inventiveness and creativity are able to convey, staging a variety of situations, narrative and playful, always intriguing and at times even brilliant. On the other hand, in the fictitious context of the game, its substance is born from the mind of a ten-year-old child, Kenta, volcanic and sometimes rambling as the naivety of childhood allows. The young man is the creator, game master, screenwriter, but also a craftsman, because his hands are as effective as his brain: his skills as a craftsman allow him to create colorful characters and worlds with paper and everyday objects, perfect support of the adventure of the hero who gives the game its name.

Kenta is the personification of DeskWorks, the development team, which took nine years to complete what, attention, is not a role-playing game, as the title suggests, but an adventure, which mixes playful elements of various genres to create a bizarre formula but always compelling. You never know what Kenta can pull out of her vivid imagination, and it is certainly this, the pleasure of the unexpected, the best of the many qualities of the product; even net of the basicity and simplicity with which you often find them implemented.

A tribute to Japanese RPGs

Let RPG Time: The Legend of Wright be a heartfelt tribute to the JRPGs it is evident from the very first moments of the game, when the notebook on which the whole adventure is drawn, with a beautiful and original style that vaguely recalls that of the most classic Dragon Quests, opens to tell the premises of the story: a lone hero, Wright, must save a sweet princess, Lay, by a very powerful demon called Deathgawd (by the way, here’s our review of Dragon Quest 11 Echoes of a Lost Age). To do this, he will have to travel through caves and forests, mountains and villages, encountering delightfully crafted characters.

To build the imaginary of the game, DeskWorks does not limit itself to drawing on the more generic fantasy, but allows itself a whole series of thematic deviations that often elicit applause, both for their weirdness and for the way in which they are proposed. For example, after having explored the length and breadth of a damp ravine, Wright finds himself trapped in a video game that calls to pilot a tank. To escape, he must literally destroy the vehicle from the inside. Well, this is such an absurd gimmick that it goes around and becomes brilliant, and we’re just talking about the first of the many that mark the approximately eight hours needed to complete the game and make them, in their own way, unforgettable. Between mazes to cross exactly as they were the ones we find in puzzle magazines, stomachs of huge demons that become themed escape rooms, even sidescrolling shooter sessions, which are very reminiscent of the analogous ones of Super Mario Land, there really is something for everyone. Indeed, there is also space for a serial miniseries that constitutes a sort of spin-off of the main events, eventually re-connecting to them when they are about to come to an end.

A little bit of adventure, a little bit of a walk

Characteristic at the base of the entire playful recipe of RPG Time: The Legend of Wright, as much as the more classic one, as a graphic adventure, in which to interact with people and objects to understand what to do, as well as the strangest one, which is very high rhythms and threshold of attention, is extreme simplicity. It is clear that in such a context, that focuses more on the variety than on the depth of certain solutions, usability and immediate understanding are the way to go; it is different, however, to proceed without ever having the feeling of being challenged, and to see the game over (which in any case leads back to the moment immediately preceding the departure) only in some moments of trial and errorwhose failure immediately sends Wright into the world of most.

Little Kenta, who is always generous with advice, or even explains in detail what to do. It is, after all, a venial sin, for a production that wants to be first and foremost an ode to creativity and nostalgia for the good old days, when our imagination was enough to do the most, in our childish adventures; having said that, it is still a perceptible limitation of the gameplay. If a greater intensity of experience had been added to the irresistible artistic direction and his particular graphic style, to the very classic but effective soundtrack and to the multiple, overwhelming playful and narrative ideas, we would be talking about a absolutely essential game.