I’m not lying when I say that the puzzle and challenge genre is one of my favorite genres as it tests both my skills as a player and my ingenuity. Luckily I had the opportunity to try a new title of this genre developed by a Spanish studio. Road To Devadatta is the new adventure (and the first) from the Alicante studio open closebased on an adventure with influences from Buddhist mythology.
I have to say that I’ve wanted to try it since I found out about its existence as the progress shown looked very good. Once tested, these are the conclusions I was able to draw from it.
The story focuses on the mystical journey he must travel helloour avatar, after the disappearance of his Uncle Robertwho raised him in his childhood. With this premise, we embark on a journey full of unanswered questions, where we will discover and traverse small temples, labyrinths and paths full of traps.
Although I won’t go too deep into the story, I must emphasize that you are constantly immersed in a world full of Buddhist references that provide you with knowledge and clues to solve the various tests. Alo, in order to find out his uncle’s whereabouts, he must embark on a journey to purify his soul and worship Devadatta, cousin and nemesis of the Buddha who was banished to the underworld. This will have serious consequences for you, including the possibility of losing your life.
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The story is divided into three chapters and as you can imagine this course will not be easy as we will have to face great challenges that will test our qualities as players. Not so much mechanical qualities, because within the limits of what fits, the controls and the game systems are quite simple, but they will test our intellectual abilities when it comes to solving the challenges.
From the beginning of Robert’s house you face the first challenges, which in some way hint, everything you will find sooner or later as the story progresses. In short; a path full of challenges that may test your patience. This journey is full of challenges, challenges and puzzles as well as dark creatures that will try to hunt you down. Once you’ve covered the path, you’ll have to face the temple to find a way out.
The highlight of this title is without a doubt the various tests. First of all, say that they pleasantly surprised me, as they are not repetitive at all and are quite original. If we analyze them a little more closely we see that they all have the same pattern, they are easy to solve but not very intuitive. Therefore, the player has to spend more time solving the challenge and not so much solving it themselves. This results in the length of the game time being more balanced with the time of the story being much shorter.
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It’s what we’re looking for in this type of genre to be honest, we want to rack our brains and our patience is constantly being questioned. To make it a little clearer without giving too much away, I’ll give an example. Most of the challenges are never repeated, which is greatly appreciated. While there are some that are duplicated, their resolution is based on a different pattern. For example, during the course you will come across different levers that you have to pull to get from one side to the other. Each lever has a different solution and different game systems. Therefore, this challenge replay goes unnoticed by the player pondering which system and move is more feasible to emerge victorious.
To make solving and examining the challenges easier, each object or possible solution is highlighted in the background. To browse objects, the title has a simple interface with few features; investigate, catch, drop, run and jump. Each of them has a greater importance than the others depending on the challenge that needs to be completed.
Finally, I would like to highlight the great setting, full of references to Buddhist culture, very well elaborated, reflecting a great research work on the history of Devadatta and on this ancient culture. The only negative point in this regard is that sometimes these references are shown very simply or repetitively. The fact that these are introduced by the small notes scattered around the map or by simple texts can lead to players losing track of the story a bit, which is a shame because it is noticeable that a great narrative work is done here.
If you’re looking for an Indiana Jones-style adventure, full of challenges and mysteries that will keep your head in check, Road To Devadatta is a title you should definitely try.
