2002 - Zanzarah: Das verborgene Portal
Game: Zanzarah - Das verborgene Portal (Zanzarah - The Hidden Portal)
Entwickler: Funatics Software
Plattform: PC
Genre: Action-RPG
Release:
2002
Tirili & Titila
Zanzarah war - nach Catan und Cultures - meine dritte Zusammenarbeit mit Funatics Software. Das es übrigens - nachdem es von Daedalic 2015 technisch etwas aufgemöbelt worden war - auch heute noch auf Steam zu kaufen gibt (für 7,99 € - bzw. aktuell im Wintersale für 79 Cent). Auf Metacritic kam der Kampf der Elfen, der vom Spielprinzip her ein wenig an Pokemon erinnert, immerhin auf einen User Score von 8.3 - das ist schon recht beachtlich. Ursprünglich war - aufgrund der guten Kritik - eine Erweiterung geplant, die aber nie fertig gestellt wurde. Fragt mich nicht warum, ich weiß es auch nicht. (Thomas oder Lars, wenn ihr das hier zufällig lesen solltet: Klärt uns doch mal auf). International kam das Game unter dem Titel "Zanzarah: The Hidden Portal" auf den Markt, als Publisher fungierte wieder THQ.
Die Musik zu Zanzarah
Die Musik zu Zanzarah haben wir damals zu dritt gemacht: Von Karina Gretere (die auch die Voicings in den Songs gemacht hat) stammen die Tracks "Titlte Theme", "Battle Theme" und "Endeva", von mir "Dunmore", "Monagham" und "Tiralin", dazu noch die beiden Kurztracks zu "Sieg" und "Niederlage". Von Karina stammt übrigens auch das Main Theme aus "Die Siedler 7: Path to a Kingdom", hört mal rein. Aber das nur nebenbei. Dritter im Bunde war Lars Hammer, der in erster Linie das Sounddesign gemacht hatte, der aber - wenn ich mich recht erinnere - auch einen Track zum Game beigesteuert hatte.
Die Vorgabe war "Fantasy", "Irisch", woran wir uns dann auch alle recht eng gehalten haben. Besonders die Vocals von Karina gaben dem Soundtrack - der fast überall gute Noten bekam - einen ganz eigenständigen Klang.
Darum geht es in Zanzarah
"Amy's 18th birthday set in motion the start of a series of adventures. An unknown stranger enters her London house, leaving behind a curious casket in her attic. In it, she discovers a magical rune that teleports her to a magical land created by fairies: Zanzarah. In Zanzarah, the unknown stranger reveals himself a goblin. The goblin requests help from Amy, who he believes is the prophesied Fairy Master whose duty it is to save Zanzarah, as the land is now ravaged by wild fairies, pixies, and shadow elves. Amy, now a stranger in a strange land with the help and advise from the local elves, dwarves, owls, and goblins, must attempt to become a Fairy Master by obtaining and training fairies, dueling and defeating wild fairies and their masters along the way. To ultimately fulfill her destiny to save Zanzarah!
In Zanzarah: The Hidden Portal, play the role of Amy and help her become a Fairy Master. To do this, the player must obtain and train a fairy. With the help of the local inhabitants of Zanzarah, Amy will explore the land in third-person perspective in search for different types of fairies to defeat and capture, while helping the people of Zanzarah along the way.
Fairy Combat
When Amy obtains her first fairy, she will have to train it and make it stronger to face the various wild fairies that constantly attack travelers. Fairy combat, which may be considered the primary gameplay element of this game, either occurs when Amy is attacked by a wild fairy or enters into a duel with when challenged by other Fairy Masters. Combat occurs is first-person perspective, where the player directly controls the movement of a selected fairy. In combat, the fairy may fly (jump) and attack with spells. When a fairy is weakened enough and the player obtains a magical sphere, the player may opt to capture the fairy. Depending on the element of a fairy, some fairies may be stronger or weaker when facing an opposing element. For example, a Water fairy will sustain additional damage and suffer less damage from Fire fairies, but are weaker when facing of Air fairies.
Winning an encounter or duel may randomly reward the player with fairy coins (used to purchase various beneficial items) or a dropped item. Fairies that have entered and survived combat will also gain experience and may level up, obtaining new spell levels as well as stronger attributes. A player may only carry five fairies at a time, all of which may be summoned and switched at will during combat. Additional captured or obtained fairies will be sent to Amy's London house.
Fairy Character Sheet
Role-playing character development only occurs with fairies. Fairies have several attributes such as Hit Points, Mana Points, Jump Ability, etc. Fairies attack in combat using spells. Spells come in two variations: offensive spells and passive spells. Offensive spells are used to attack the opponent while passive spells are automatically active. Spells may be purchased and equipped to fairies. As fairies come in different types and elements, only specific spells may be assigned to a specific type of fairy. For example, nature spells may only be used by Nature Fairies. Additionally, fairies have spells levels and will have to gain experience in order to equip more powerful spells.
In total, there are 77 fairies the player may capture and level-up, consisting of the following elemental types: Air, Water, Fire, Stone, Energy, Psi, Chaos, Metal, Darkness, and Light. Additionally, certain fairies when reaching a particular level may evolve to a stronger type of fairy if the player wishes to do so. Other fairies may evolve to a stronger type of fairy by combining the fairy with specific items."
In Zanzarah: The Hidden Portal, play the role of Amy and help her become a Fairy Master. To do this, the player must obtain and train a fairy. With the help of the local inhabitants of Zanzarah, Amy will explore the land in third-person perspective in search for different types of fairies to defeat and capture, while helping the people of Zanzarah along the way.
Fairy Combat
When Amy obtains her first fairy, she will have to train it and make it stronger to face the various wild fairies that constantly attack travelers. Fairy combat, which may be considered the primary gameplay element of this game, either occurs when Amy is attacked by a wild fairy or enters into a duel with when challenged by other Fairy Masters. Combat occurs is first-person perspective, where the player directly controls the movement of a selected fairy. In combat, the fairy may fly (jump) and attack with spells. When a fairy is weakened enough and the player obtains a magical sphere, the player may opt to capture the fairy. Depending on the element of a fairy, some fairies may be stronger or weaker when facing an opposing element. For example, a Water fairy will sustain additional damage and suffer less damage from Fire fairies, but are weaker when facing of Air fairies.
Winning an encounter or duel may randomly reward the player with fairy coins (used to purchase various beneficial items) or a dropped item. Fairies that have entered and survived combat will also gain experience and may level up, obtaining new spell levels as well as stronger attributes. A player may only carry five fairies at a time, all of which may be summoned and switched at will during combat. Additional captured or obtained fairies will be sent to Amy's London house.
Fairy Character Sheet
Role-playing character development only occurs with fairies. Fairies have several attributes such as Hit Points, Mana Points, Jump Ability, etc. Fairies attack in combat using spells. Spells come in two variations: offensive spells and passive spells. Offensive spells are used to attack the opponent while passive spells are automatically active. Spells may be purchased and equipped to fairies. As fairies come in different types and elements, only specific spells may be assigned to a specific type of fairy. For example, nature spells may only be used by Nature Fairies. Additionally, fairies have spells levels and will have to gain experience in order to equip more powerful spells.
In total, there are 77 fairies the player may capture and level-up, consisting of the following elemental types: Air, Water, Fire, Stone, Energy, Psi, Chaos, Metal, Darkness, and Light. Additionally, certain fairies when reaching a particular level may evolve to a stronger type of fairy if the player wishes to do so. Other fairies may evolve to a stronger type of fairy by combining the fairy with specific items."
Quelle: Mobygames (https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/zanzarah-the-hidden-portal)
So urteilte damals die Presse
"At last! A gaming company has managed to create a successful game that I, as an avid female gamer, am sincerely proud to say I play and enjoy. And that game is the brilliant and gratifying Zanzarah." -
WomenGamers.com, März 2003, 95%
"This game tries and finally manages to attract the player so that he cannot leave the computer. Superb and detailed graphics, lovely music, a coherent and interesting story on one side and gameplay originality on the other side proove this. Zanzarah shows us that the lack of originality other titles are suffering today is not due to the lack of inspiration or financial reasons but the laziness of the producers that preffer to build on previously successful aspects trying to alwys improve then in order to attain perfection.." - ComputerGames.ro, August 2002, 92%
"Zanzarah is a great game. The only things “wrong” with it would be the story and the main character. The story is pretty generic and so is Amy. She doesn’t look very different than most females and doesn’t have much of a personality either. Regardless, the game is very good play for PC gamers who want a good action adventure game. It’s like Pokemon in 3D without Pokemon!." - PGNx Media, Juli 2002
- 92%
"I've always been a real sucker for fairy stories and when I read the pre-release, media hype on Zanzarah - words like dwarves, elves, goblins, misty swamp etc. jumped right out at me and caught my interest so much so, that I disregarded the more detailed description of the game, which of course explained that it was a role playing quest/adventure hybrid.." - Just Adventure, Januar 2003, 91%
"Wenn man als Feensammler der Frage nach der unbesiegbaren Konstellation nachgeht oder besonders wertvolle Exemplare sein eigen nennen will, sollte man sich schleunigst zum verborgenen Portal aufmachen. Dass die zu lösenden Rätsel nicht gerade Gehirnakrobatik erfordern, muss nicht unbedingt nachteilig sein. So wird auch Anfängern genügend Motivation geboten, durch Übung zum Feenmeister zu werden." - GamesMania, Juni 2002, 89%
Hier geht es zum kompletten Review:
"Think Pokemon. Now replace Pokemon with fairies, pokeballs with magic spheres, and the main character with a girl named Amy from London who is the figure of a heroic prophecy. There, now you have Zanzarah. Ok, granted, this isn't a pokemon remake. But it's very close. That doesn't mean it is merely a remake though. Read on and you'll understand." - Just RPG, Februar 2003, 83%
"Zanzarah - Das verborgene Portal schafft es, den Spieler an den Monitor zu fesseln. Immer wieder ertappt man sich dabei, nur noch die eine Feen haben zu wollen oder vielleicht noch schnell zwei Level zu trainieren, damit aus Tadana Aquana wird. Das Prinzip, das schon bei Pokémon wunderbar funktioniert, fesselt auch den Feensammler. Hinzu kommt die Kombination aus Adventure und Ego-Shooter, die Zanzarah einzigartige machen. Wären nicht ein paar Stellen, an denen der Schwierigkeitsgrad extrem unausgeglichen ist, die Hüpfeinlagen von Amy weniger frustrierend und würden die Goodies in einigen Levels nicht ständig in den Abgrund fallen, hätte Amy noch ein paar Punkte mehr sammeln können. Aber auch so spielt sie ganz oben mit und sowohl Jäger als auch Sammler werden ihre Freude haben!" - 4Players, Mai 2002, 83%
Hier geht es um zum kompletten Review:
"Bei Zanzarah hat Funatics im Kleinen einiges vermasselt. Die Grafik ist wunderschön und stimmig; die Aufgaben machen viel Spaß. Allerdings sind die Kämpfe für Shooter-Fans zu simpel. Adventurefreunden wird´s dagegen schnell zu hektisch. Außerdem nervt es mich gewaltig, dass ich mich nach jedem Laden vom letzten Rücksetzpunkt vorarbeiten muss. Die unbrauchbare Karte gehört den Entwickler um die Ohren gehauen. Trotzdem freue ich mich jedes mal, wenn ich eine neue Fee gefangen habe. Wer ausreichend Geduld mitbringt, wird Zanzarah mögen." - GameStar, Mai 2002, 75%
"Die einen sagen Zanzarah sei ein Ego-Shooter mit ein bisschen Adventure drin. Die anderen nennen es "Pokémon für Erwachsene". Eigenartig, dieses Spiel." - PC Games, Mai 2002, 74%
Hier geht es zum kompletten Review:
Zanzarah Soundtrack
Zanzarah Lets Play
Links