Retro Review - The Immortal

It's been a long time since I made a Retro Review of a game of this genre, RPGs are quite extensive games which are invested quite a lot of time, but generally they are quite entertaining games, as long as you like this kind of games, I grew up playing many games of this style, but this in particular was the last RPG I have played to date, about 2 weeks ago I finished playing it and I had written most of the Retro Review, but it was not finished yet due to external issues (procrastination), after more than two weeks, I finally finished writing it. This game in particular has a very similar gameplay to another game of which I also did a Retro Review several months ago (Light Crusader), a fairly classic and quite old game, which I am very sure that many people will find it outdated, but for a person like me, who likes retro games, this is a gem.

Today's Retro Review is about: The Immortal.

The Immortal presents us with a medieval world, where magic, fantasy and creatures of all kinds are part of everyday life. The protagonist of this game is a magician who must save his master, who was kidnapped by a powerful dragon, so to save him we must go into the depths of a dungeon, which will have the typical and dangerous creatures of a medieval world. In addition, we must be very careful because the place will be full of deadly traps, which will kill us instantly. Although this plot looks quite simple, as we advance in the game, small parts of the story will be revealed, thus forming a game with a much deeper story than we might think.

This game is quite old and that can be noticed very easily in its graphic aspect, which "transpires" the retro style for each of its huge pixels, so it is a style that I really like. In The Immortal, dark colors predominate, as well as blacks, grayscales and browns, all dark shades to represent a dungeon in the best possible way.

The Immortal, despite having simple graphics, is able to create with its logical limitations, a really successful atmosphere of a medieval world, and taking into account the large number of years that this game has, although perhaps it has aged a bit over the years, it still maintains the aesthetics of an old game which personally, calls my attention. This game presents an isometric view (i.e. view from above), just like games like the Diablo saga, in this way, we can have a broader view of the scenario in which we are going to move.

The scenarios are quite repetitive, too much, and this is a rather negative aspect in this game, as it could get bored of always being the same scenario with black and brown colors (although some various shades of colors, most present this type of dark colors). The little that varies is in the design of the characters, which are fine, but they are very basic and common. Even so, I am still very impressed by this type of graphics, especially that of the characters, the scenarios are even more noticeable with the passing of the years.

The soundtrack of The Immortal transmits "darkness, danger, gloom and gloomy things", despite its great sound limitation of the Mega Drive, but still sounds very good for a very retro game. They manage to create a rather gloomy atmosphere in which we must be constantly alert to the enemies with whom we are going to fight. Similarly, the sound effects manage to create even more of a gloomy atmosphere, and in a way, lets us know that we are in a very dangerous place, in which we can die very easily if we make a mistake. Although some melodies a little repetitive, and that's a little boring.

The Immortal OST Playlist

The Immortal is an isometric view game, as I mentioned before, an RPG and certain aspects of action, very similar to Light Crusader, but without the elements of the platform genre, in this aspect it is much simpler. I have to say that this game is not for everyone, I think you have to really like this kind of games to appreciate the gameplay or style of The Immortal, as it is a fairly slow game, with a lot of text, but a lot of text, so it is quite understandable that many people will not like it, it is acceptable, even I had a hard time playing it because of these aspects and at some points I got bored of repeating certain things.

On the stage we can see our enemies, which we can attack from a distance with our magic and eliminate them easily, but if we can not do that, when we approach the enemy or he towards us, the perspective will change completely and will show us a screen where only our character and the enemy will be, in a kind of "Pokemon battle" in real time, which is to dodge enemy attacks and attack with our character, with one button we attack and with another we dodge, only physical attacks, no magic, magic can only be used when we are in the isometric view, it is simple, and perhaps a little boring, especially because this "battle screen" is only a black background, but perhaps what draws much attention is that it is quite graphic when showing us how we eliminate the enemy, as we can decapitate him or simply remove the skull cap or cut his stomach leaving his intestines on the floor.

The control over our character is very easy and has a fairly accurate level of response, so there will be no problem at the time of learning the mechanics of this game. Logically, being in a dungeon, there will be many traps that will hinder our rescue mission, they are scattered throughout the map, and although they are not so difficult, some must be overcome with great agility. Similarly, there are many puzzles to solve, but in this case, their difficulty is a little higher, in many of them I despaired and looked for the solution on the internet.

The Immortal is a game quite difficult to recommend, I would only recommend it to those who have already played games of this style and really like it, because it is a game that has aged quite a lot, although it still has its successes and its aspects to highlight, it really becomes a difficult game in which some people can enjoy.