Every screen looks the same from the beginning of an episode to the end. The graphics are good (especially in the forest and the swamp) but every screen is made up of identical platforms and walls. You were trying to complete a mission for an NPC and you could find diary entries and stuff which would trigger cutscenes.

In Flashback it didn't feel like you were just trying to get to the end of the level.

It's just running around, climbing ladders, shooting monsters, finding keys/bridge passes/bombs to get past a barrier and make it to the end. The levels are split into screens like in Flashback but each screen has jumps and puzzles and fights that you've already seen elsewhere. But in Blackthorne you don't even really connect with the player character and his story.

It would have been nice if when you think back on the game you could remember a certain character like Fallout's Harold the ghoul. At the end of each 'episode' there's a different looking NPC who says about twenty words instead. I wouldn't even call them characters because they all use the same sprite and none of them have more than about eight words to say about how much they hate Sarlac. Sometimes you can save them or help them fight an orc or get a hint from them. They are basically an alternative to having health and weapons just lying on the ground. There are a few NPC good guys around but they don't have much purpose. There's backstory but not much happens during the game. So obviously the story isn't that fleshed out either. someone tells you 'Go find in the forest', there's a repeat of the intro scene of Sarlac telling the orcs to go kick some behind but with different text, and you're suddenly in the first forest level. In Blackthorne you get to the last screen of one episode. It lacks the cutscenes of Flashback and particularly Out of this World that immersed the player in the game world.

This game wants to be an 'athletic platformer' like Flashback and Out of this World but it doesn't quite measure up.

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