An ambitious title with some unfair difficulty
SEVEN: The Days Long Gone is a mish-mash of genres that deftly pulls many interesting gameplay mechanics never-seen-before in the isometric RPG genre. While it is - to some extent - as incredible to play as it sounds on paper, there are some glaring issues that need sorting out before this title can be propelled to the realms of greatness.
Seven casts you as a kleptomaniac crook known as Teriel, who finds himself assuming the role of the emporer’s newest undercover agent on the prison island of Peh. While Teriel is a thief - it isn’t necessarily his class, allowing a multitude of tempting paths and opportunities to progress through the game.
Seven’s gameplay is like nothing ever seen before in the isometric RPG genre. Acrobatic traversal of obstacles is everything in this game. Once you have gotten past the initial and rather jarring revelation of performing what is essentially parkour in an isometric viewport, Seven becomes very fun. While Seven definitely takes quite a number of leaves from the Prince of Persia and Assassin’s Creed franchises, it is certainly nowhere near as forgiving as these classic titles. You will fall - a lot - and sometimes it seems a little arbitrary as to what fall distance will actually kill you. Combat and stealth both draw a little from the Assassin’s Creed series, with automatic target locking transforming combat into a deathly and elaborate dance. Unfortunately, when numbers begin to favour the enemy, high-tailing it is inevitably the only option and another highlight of the sometimes unfair difficulty on offer from Seven.
Seven succeeds as an ambitious title that manages to mesh together some seriously disparate ideas into a cohesive hole, but it is not perfect by any standard. The game is unfortunately plagued with bugs, some of which are truly game-breaking. For instance, it is pretty hit and miss whether clicking on a fast-travel location will actually get you there, as half the time the game will announce that you haven’t unlocked the location yet, when you definitely have. On top of this, some buttons will occasionally stop working for no real reason. Most of these bugs can be ‘fixed’ by saving and reloading but they nevertheless remain as bugs.
Seven: The Days Long Gone definitely has its frustrating moments, but the execution of such an ambitious concept cannot be dismissed. If this game were to have its issues ironed out by patches in the future, then it could easily be mentioned among some of the other blockbuster titles released this year.