Churning out four titles in just under 4 years, the new masters of interactive storytelling loom finally close the cycle of adventures of the Analander with the expected Sorcery! Part 4: The Crown of Kings. Based on the homonymous series of game books written by Steve Jackson between 1983 and 1985 and known under the title of Sortilegio, this epic four-part adventure saw us on the trail of the legendary Crown of the Kings, magical artifact able to bend everything and everyone to the will of its owner. After traversing hills, mysterious cities, and wastelands, the player's avatar, Analander, has finally arrived at the Mampang fortress. Only one obstacle stands between him and the Crown: the perfidious Archmage, with all his armies, all his magic and all his deceptions.
Version tested: PC
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Sorcery! 3
The end of the adventure
Once again Sorcery! picks up exactly where the previous episode left off. Players who have completed the Baklands Traverse in Sorcery! 3 can in fact import their character with a simple cloud save system, also working between different platforms. Even the audiovisual setting and the game system are exactly the same as seen in previous episodes, to reinforce the idea that maybe Sorcery! it should be seen as a single title, divided into 4 parts. Again we find ourselves with the representation of our avatar as a pawn on a map, accompanied by the omnipresent descriptions that illustrate every landscape, every event and every character. Once again it is amazing how the Inkle developers have managed to translating the concept of a book-game into a videogame, transforming pages and pages of narration into small blocks of description, which accompany every action of the gamer. If it is true that the first two episodes of the series were quite faithful to Jackson's books, starting from the third chapter we saw a massive re-adaptation with numerous portions written from scratch, albeit with style and quality almost indistinguishable from the original ones. Also thanks to this enormous amount of material to draw from, the third Sorcery! had presented itself as a kind of book-game open world, which allowed the player to proceed in any direction as he pleased, rather than channeling him along an obligatory path interspersed with choices or crossroads. Sorcery! Part 4 takes up this very successful setting of the third episode, albeit in a more moderate way.
The toughest challenge
La less relevance of the open world element however, it is not a turnaround by Inkle, but a more or less obligatory choice given the more restricted setting and the narrative need to close all the plots left open. The fourth episode of the series is logically the one most projected towards the finale, with the tower of the Archmage, the ultimate destination of our wanderings, always in plain sight, yet unreachable until we have revealed all its secrets. Sorcery! 4 is the most narrative chapter of the series, the one with the most evocative descriptions and the most beautiful locations, but it is also the most challenging chapter. Keeping our presence hidden from the Archmage, while facing the traps and mysteries of the fortress is a real undertaking, exacerbated by a small novelty. With a narrative device, as soon as we cross the threshold of the fortress we will be deprived of the ability to rewind past decisions, which until now had always been the equivalent of cheating a game-book by going back a few pages. From that moment on, every death or failure will bring the player back to a specific point in the adventure, canceling all progress made. While this may seem overly punitive, especially when dying from truly stupid mistakes, the atmosphere and the immersion gain a lot. The meaning is obvious: we are in the final battle, stop joking, now it gets serious, every decision counts. So here is that we will find ourselves exploiting every single spell of our book of spells, including those inaccessible in previous episodes, coming to understand unwritten mechanics such as counter-spells and the secrets of the mysterious ZED, the last spell described in the library. The swindlestones are back again, dice with which to gamble with various NPCs, as well as the now classic combat in which to choose attacks and parries by anticipating the opponents starting from the descriptions of their behavior. Sorcery! Part 4 is a bit of a summa of everything dealt with in previous episodes, the final test to find out if the player is truly worthy of the Crown of Kings. The only real novelty is the introduction of disguises, which will allow us to modify the interactions with NPCs and to experiment with different approaches in some situations.
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Not everyone can play Sorcery! Part 4
Against the limits of Sorcery! Part 4 are the same as in the previous episodes. Even with all the playful additions, it is still a game-book: we will spend most of the time reading descriptions and dialogues. It is clear that it is therefore a title not suitable for die-hard fans of the action, with two aggravating potentials. The first is that the game is only available in English. Given the product's niche appeal, Inkle's scarce availability, and the huge amount of title text, it's unlikely that Sorcery! can ever be translated into Spanish, cutting out all those people who are not familiar with the English language. The second caveat is instead aimed at all those who have not played the previous episodes of the series. While it is perfectly possible to start a game of Sorcery! Part 4 without importing the character from the previous chapters, throwing yourself into this challenge without that baggage of knowledge, background, characters that you can bring with you only after having lived the adventure in its entirety means not only losing many goodies and references, but also make puzzles and obstacles even more difficult. If we really wanted to nitpick, we could say that in the past Inkle had accustomed us all too well to being amazed by each new episode: first with the idea of adapting a book-game into a video game with Sorcery, then with the major map and adventure extension with Sorcery! 2, finally with Sorcery's open world! 3. This time there is nothing really relevant news, leaving those who expected a new revolution a bit disappointed. But that's okay too. Without upsetting anything, Sorcery! Part 4 collects the best of all previous episodes, distills it and serves it to us, accompanying it with the most compelling and exciting storyline seen so far.
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Sorcery! (episodes 1 and 2) Verdict 8.5 / 10 Sorcery's crowning glory! Comment The Analander quest is finally over, and with it Inkle's mission to adapt Steve Jackson's game books in a particular format and make them accessible to a different audience, made up of nostalgics, but also of new and savvy fan. Sorcery! Part 4 fails to surprise as the third episode did last year from the point of view of mechanics, but it more than compensates for it with the most beautiful and intense narrative climax. It's the Sorcery! more beautiful to read and the most difficult to play, the final test of everything we have learned in four years of adventures. For this reason more than as an episode in itself, Sorcery! Part 4 should be seen as the conclusion of a single great game, started as a mobile title by an unrecognized English developer, and grown to demonstrate the playful potential of video games. Sorcery! it is not just an interactive book, it is a book that extends not in one, but in all the directions that the gamer wants to explore. It's a book, too, where choices really matter, and they really do have consequences. Yes, with Sorcery! Inkle has finally fulfilled the broken promise of TellTale and associates. Pros and cons ✓ The most compelling storytelling of the entire series
✓ It is the most challenging episode
✓ Worthy conclusion to an epic saga x Only for those who chew English well
x Not very accessible to those who have not played the previous episodes
x Open world downsized compared to Sorcery! 3
