Review 17: Azurik: The Rise Of Perathia (XBOX)

And now, for one of the most underrated games of all time. Azurik was released for the original Xbox as a launch title, and when it was released, it didn't get many good reviews. Most reviewers thought the environment was horrible, the controls were clunky (etc.). However, if you dive deeper into this game, you will find that it's not so bad after all.


Story: 7/10 


The story is a little original, if not cliche. In the land of Perathia, there are six Realms: the Water Realm, the Earth Realm, the Fire Realm, the Air Realm, the Life Realm and the Death Realm. Six corresponding disks bring balance to all of these realms. The Death Disk, though, had been lost a long time ago, but still everything is fine. Guardians protect the land from enemies as well as the disks, keeping the peace.


The story starts when you, a young guardian named Azurik, are training. Another guardian, named Balthazar, challenges you to a fight and nearly kills you. It should be noted here that Balthazar is greedy, and strives for power. However, the Master, Eldwin, stops him. Bitter, Balthazar breaks a wall of the training room and finds the Death Disc. He brings it to his home, and there, the Guardian of the Death Disc possesses him.


Later, Azurik and Eldwin are on top of a tower where the Discs are located. Suddenly, Balthazar, influenced by the Death Guardian, kills Eldwin and breaks all of the disks into pieces, scattering them all over the realm. After this event, the balance of Perathia has been shattered. Now Azurik must locate all of the Disk fragments, stop Balthazar and bring the balance back to Perathia.


I've got to admit, this sounds like something you'd hear in your regular 1995 RPG. However, some bits are original enough, which is why I'm giving it a higher rating.


Gameplay: 9/10


Now onto the gameplay. This is where it gets interesting. Your weapon in this game is the Axiom, a staff which can harness the powers of Earth, Water, Fire and Air, which are each collected at different points in the game. It can also mix these powers to create new elements: Acid, Lava, Whirlwind and a shield are just a few of these things. I think the team was being really creative here, as there are a lot of combinations that can be made with four starting points. 


The Axiom will have to be used a lot, though, as it's a big world out there! The main thing you'll have to be doing in this game is exploring. You can visit all six realms mentioned above, as well as a "hub" where a small town, which seems to be the only living spot for humanoids such as Azurik, is located. But 6 realms means that they're all going to be small, right? Wrong. Every realm save for those of Life and Death have at least 4 separate areas, each with their own style: for example, the Water Realm has an area with an Ice theme, one with a Stormy theme, and 2 with a normal grassy and stony theme. These areas are large in themselves, as well, so it'll take a long, long, long time trying to find all of the Disk Fragments. But I guess that's just part of the challenge, too, and in some ways I actually like it. 


And then there are the enemies. The pesky, pesky enemies. Especially in the Air Realm, where most of the time there isn't much space not to get knocked down, the enemies will be lots of trouble in this game. There are Blaze Sentinels which shoot fire at you, a problem if there are other pesky enemies around you, Harvesters, which come in packs, and Golems, big lugs that take a lot of time to kill. Worse, every time you die, every single enemy regenerates too, and although that may not sound like a problem, trust me, it is. Most times, the enemies swarm up on you, and you'll probably get hit at least once in the scuffle, even if you're a good player. 


Finally, there are the puzzles and mini-games. There are a variety of them in this game, including a mini-game at the beginning where you must move the control stick to put out a fire before parts of it reform, various parts of the game where you must find a few "keys" to unlock new sections of a realm, a puzzle at the end of the game where you must move an elevator to multiple places to get to the final boss, and more. Not all of these are welcome, though; the Elevator puzzle is confusing and would probably take a long time to figure out, and one mini-game at the very end of the Life Realm, in which you use a cannon to try to shoot the cores out of 20 satellites while avoiding yellow trails, is considered by many to be the hardest part of the game. 


All in all, I very much enjoyed the gameplay of Azurik. It's creative, fun, and it'll take a long time before you get through everything, although it could have gone without some of the enemy placements and puzzles.


Graphics: 10/10


This game's graphics were absolutely stunning for its time. Azurik was one of the first game to ever use anti-aliasing, which made sure that the models or environments didn't look strange. On top of that, the Xbox's hardware made the graphics be able to look their finest, even without HD. The water in the Water Realm has the exact same color you would find in a regular lake, and the waves are very realistic as well. In the Ice area of the Water Realm, Azurik even has steam coming out of his mouth! The team did very well in making good graphics especially for the early 2000s, whether they were the environments or the smaller things that made the background all that more appealing.


Music: 9/10 


For the most part, Azurik used composed music directly from an orchestra. Although I don't really listen to that type of music, I have to say, the composers definitely put everything in place. The theme for the Earth Realm is very straightforward and down to earth (no pun intended) like a rock, the song for when you're fighting in the Fire Realm sound intense and random, like fire, one of the Air Realm themes sounds heavenly like clouds, and one of the themes for the stormy part of the water realm sounds unsettled, just like a real storm. Even though I didn't really listen to many of the themes when playing through the game, they still sounded good in the background, and made the game much more enjoyable than if there had been no music at all.


Replay Value: 7/10 


The length of this game has different responses: For some people, such as me, it's good because it means I can keep on playing as long as I want and even if I complete it, I'll still probably be surprised at some other point of playing it again, because I will have forgotten it. For some people, though, they're turned off by the length, and they wouldn't want to have to go through all that trouble just to complete one game. Personally, I think that to reward the players, they should have made a menu for all of the hidden cheat codes in the game (yes, there are some), maybe have made an Endless Battle mode to fight every enemy until you die, or at least have had a "New Game +" type of mode where you started with all of your elements. But that's just me. I don't think most people would be compelled to play this game with the same thing again, mainly because of its length, which is why I'm giving it a lower rating.




Overall: 8/10


There are definitely some things that they could have done better with this game, but when it comes down to it, this game really is great. The gameplay is creative and fun for the most part, the music is good, and the graphics are just stunning. I find it a shame that no sequel has been released yet, but it's probably because of most of the other reviewers who have rated it so low. Well, I'm reviewing this game too, and I have something to say: This game is amazing.