“Once upon a time in a kingdom faraway….” is how all good faery tales start and “Ceville” is no different. Set in the faerytale kingdom Faeryanis and bursting with characters you would associate with your typical childrens faerytale (although maybe not with quite the same characteristics and personalities !) , this is where the comparison ends. “Ceville” is not a story of good versus evil but rather a slightly lesser evil against a psychopathic villain ! The game takes its title from the main character “Ceville” ,the ruler of Faeyanis, who is overthrown by a citizens revolution instigated by his former right hand man Basilius. Unbeknown to the general public of Faeryanis, Basilius’ true intentions are much worse then Ceville’s and he intends to plunge the kingdom into darkness. Ceville is a traditional point and click adventure from developer Realmforge and publisher Kalypso media. With some publishers having to tighten their belts at the moment, It’s great to see Kalypso having picked up this title. With the exception of Jack Keane on hard copy and Tell tale with their downloadable episodic adventures, there really hasn’t been much on the market to fill this sort of cartoon style , comedic romp recently.
At the moment you take control of Ceville, the mob are storming your castle in order to depose you , with the castle guards switching allegiance your first task is to escape the castle and recruit support to challenge your right to the crown. The kingdom is a melting pot of races and cultures including environmental activist Elves and materialistic Dwarves whose representatives are due to sit on a council to elect the new ruler. Naturally, as all adventure games dictate, they are all predisposed and you’ll have to help them on their way before they can attend the council. Kalypso have introduced many modern day concepts into a faerytale setting reminiscent of the likes of the “Shrek” movies - for example not long into the game you will have to interupt a Faery hosting a self-help meeting for villains trying to turn “good” .In reality Ceville’s brand of humour more than matches Shrek and will appeal to a broad audience with references to modern day culture blending with the parodying of faery tales .
The characters are a diverse lot and you have the opportunity to play as three – Ceville, Lilly and Ambrosius and a lot of the times in the same scenes. This gives a good comparison in their personalities. Unaware of Basilius’ intentions and with the memory of Ceville’s rule, other NPC’s are not always forthcoming in their assistance and Ceville’s wit and sarcasm certainly doesn’t help his cause. Lilly ,on the other hand , is a bit precocious but knows when to hold her tongue and has a friendly tone when conversing . Ambrosius is pompous and smug , not the brightest spark and tends to spend more time admiring himself. Each character delivers their own unique talents and with them being so over the top it really adds to the fun.
Usually I’m not the biggest fan of the dialogue tree but with Ceville I’m prepared to make an exception – It is so masterly done ! When the characters are together there are the polite questioning from Lilly and the curt, sarcastic remarks from Ceville having digs at quite a few present day celebrities as well as fantasy figures from books and movies etc. and to be honest , although it wasn’t necessary I played out all the dialogue as it was just so funny.
The voice acting too was excellent seeming to nail the personalities perfectly and the ambient sound as well as the music score complimented the graphics perfectly.
The environment is beautifully drawn with many scenes containing small independent animations and the colour palette extensive using a shock of colours to enliven each scene. Once you realise your objective in the council hall you will have access to a “hotspot map” this will allow you to jump between the town to such places as a dwarf mine , elvin forest and graveyard in fact, your environment becomes impressively large.
Controls are simple. Travelling around Faeryanis is easy – a double click of your mouse sends your character running or one click on a scene gateway will transport you instantly. Press the spacebar to reveal all action hotspots on screen. Your inventory can be displayed along the bottom of the screen.
The puzzles are all inventory based some a bit more complex then others and there is a lot of “working together” between the characters ie. Passing items for the other character to perform a task. I did enjoy this feature of the game -eg. Lilly and Ceville having to pass items between them for Ceville to break out of jail . The puzzles arent overly difficult but because you’re constantly working towards goals, sometimes small, and using the items you seem to be busy all the time!
Personally I loved Ceville. Kalypso and Realmforge should be commended for delivering such a high quality first adventure game. It offers a simple and intuitive interface, wonderfully bright inviting graphics and an amusing storyline. My only problem with the game was the loading times were longer than expected from the initial start up and including hotspot jumping on the map. I would recommend you complete everything possible in the current screen before flitting to the next because if you do omit something and have to go back it is quite a time waster. I don’t know the reasoning behind the long load up times although the game autosaves every five minutes and considering you have unlimited saveslots perhaps it’s a build up of these.
Although the game has an ending the story doesn’t seem quite finished so hopefully there will be a follow up !
