Title: Amida’s Path
Developer/Publisher: Collavier Corporation
Release Date: August 14, 2014
Price: $4.99
The DSiWare service is not completely dead yet, but the days when games like Shantae: Risky’s Revenge, The Lost Town: The Dust and Little Red Riding Hood’s Zombie BBQ came out for it are largely a sepia-toned memory now. What with the declining quality of the games coming out for it now and the fact that most developers have moved on to the Nintendo 3DS download service, it’s not entirely unexpected for Amida’s Path to have landed on the service with very little fanfare. Which is a shame actually, because despite a couple of issues, Amida’s Path is a diamond in the rough.
Story-wise, Amida’s Path has you purifying a town which demons frequently attack because this is the Heian period in Japan and demons abound. With up to three characters (you start with only one), you draw vertical lines to make connections between the five horizontal lines known as Amida’s Path (believe it: that’s where the game’s title comes from). Then you tap your characters to throw attacks across the lines. Your enemies do the same, so you also have to draw lines to divert their attacks away from you. The attacks, such as fireballs, move along every line in their path they come across, and you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to see that the gameplay can become very complex and challenging just a few fireballs in. Touching and holding the stylus on top of your character makes them use a special attack if they have the energy for it.
Presentation-wise, Amida’s Path is fine when it comes to menus and load times, but it suffers from a poor translation. There are grammatical errors in almost every piece of dialogue. It isn’t bad enough for the story to become lost in translation, but it does makes the production values feel low. In terms of sound, the effects are tinny and the music forgettable though not downright awful.
The art style of the game is great. The developers were far more creative with Amida’s Path than your average DSiWare game, and for a DSiWare title the visuals are a job well done.
Amida’s Path can be a little too difficult for someone looking for a casual game, seeing how complex the gameplay is, but it deserves points for being an original and unique release for the DSiWare service.
Overall Score: 8/10
