The Starship Damrey (Nintendo 3DS) Review

Basically, The Starship Damrey is meant to be rather like old text-based adventures where the mind is fed morsels of information and then the imagination is left to run wild, increasing the immersion and building the atmosphere without any requirement for lavish visuals and over-the-top elements tacked on for show. However, in this day and age, even in eShop format, something extra was needed to justify the release of The Starship Damrey and unfortunately the extras gameplay elements included almost spoil the whole adventure.

Upon waking up, the player finds that 1.) movement is restricted due to being trapped in some sort of capsule (a Cold Sleep case on the Starship Damrey, as it turns out), and 2.) memories of aspects such as name, reason for being locked away, and anything else of importance, are missing thanks to an untimely bout of amnesia. Typical, right?

This old school suspense horror title leaves pretty much everything up to the user in terms of figuring out the next step, digging up vital information, and breaking free of the current confines. Hints? No. Tutorials? Ha! Explanations? *shakes head* This is purely in the hands of players, giving full responsibility to them in order to create a greater sense of involvement in the story.

Visually and aurally, The Starship Damrey is sparse, with awkward voiceovers from time-to-time, the odd clank and bang in the sound effects department, and some early 1990s-esque PC-like CG cut-scenes at various junctures. Unlike point-and-click adventures of this ilk, the D-Pad is used for moving around rather than the stylus on the touch-screen (main character trapped in pod? Simple: access external bots to roam around and solve puzzles!), and sadly it gets extremely frustrating.

Having to trundle along long maze-like corridors, constantly pausing the action to refer to a map so as to avoid getting lost in the identikit locations, is boring enough, but when trying to access doors on either side, trying to find the correct spot to stop in before turning and facing them is a case of trial and error due to the square-by-square movement pattern, as opposed to smooth, continuous travel. This then results in - more often than not - thinking the correct turning point has been reached, actually turning, and finding the robot is facing the door's side access panel rather than the main point of entry. Turn, reposition, turn again and finally go through the door. It is not too annoying to start with, and thankfully the game only lasts about two or three hours, but it is far too clunky a system and will put many off very quickly.

Analysing the environment, scouring surroundings for little bugs to exterminate and items to check out for background details related to the crew, and so on, is equally frustrating. First off, the Circle Pad is used to poor effect, with only a small viewing arc permitted from any one place, meaning repositioning is constantly required (stop, turn, move forward one block, turn again, scour, realise the area of interest is out of view, turn again, move…rinse and repeat to the point of wanting to throw the 3DS on the floor), and then - to add insult to injury - despite being close to an item of interest, sometimes the game simply wants to cause more pain, not allowing for investigation to take place until in exactly the correct spot and a little closer than before.

Annoyances such as these really mar the game too much and spoil what starts off as an intriguing adventure, with moderately engaging puzzles (the game is limited in scope, so conundrums are not overly taxing, but pleasing nonetheless) and some interesting back-story (although, again, the short nature of proceedings prevents the story being fleshed out as much as it should have for the concept at hand).

Originally being part of a planned retail series with other games has clearly hampered what could have been a very tasty prospect if more time and attention had been paid to it, with an expanded scenario and some more care given to the controls. As it is, sadly The Starship Damrey misses the mark overall, with only fans of older, extremely basic text adventures likely to pay it any attention. For that audience alone there is enough here to keep plodding along for a few hours to reach the credits and somewhat stimulating conclusion to the story. Anyone else should look elsewhere on eShop.