[XerxesLetifer]

As the only mention of Theresia I could find on this site was here:
http://www.adventuregamers.com/forum...ad.php?t=23556
I just thought I'd offer a few words.

Since I will be focusing more on gameplay, an overview of for the game can be found here:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/ds/home/944894.html

I requested (and received) Theresia for Christmas, and am finding it to be a wonderful experience. While I have not finished it yet, I can say that it behaves very much like an Adventure Game. Yes, you have a life bar, and there are numerous life-threatening situations, but these involve traps, rather than monsters.

Apparently, somebody set up the environment with thousands of traps which shoot needles or knives at you if you touch the wrong thing. Or the right thing. Or something that seems neutral at first glance. There are numerous 2x4 pieces of wood lying around which you can use to prod things to see if they are dangerous, reducing your risk.

Fortunately, using the eye icon will reveal most traps, so as long as you do not start touching everything immediately you can get through with minimal injury. The eye icon is also useful for finding vials of health elixir scattered throughout the environment.

While the overall tone is a creepy "horror", that is about all for the "survival" part of the game.

Most of the gameplay involves wandering from room to room in a 3D grid-based movement pattern (much like the Orcs & Elves RPG) until you encounter an interactive hotspot, which puts you in a static 2D perspective (a bit like the examining and item collecting from Trace Memory / Another Code). From there, it is very much like an inventory-based Adventure Game.

You will search the scene for clues and items, which you can combine for use on the environment. You will pick up keys and manipulate switches, which will open up new areas to explore. And all the while you will find diary pages to reveal bits of the backstory.

I am not yet half-finished with the game, but it has managed to maintain its creepy atmosphere to this point. Wandering from location to location can be get a bit tedious at times, but not so much that I dread having to backtrack to other areas.

There is a built-in hint system, in the form of a pendant carried in your inventory. Holding onto it will help you focus on what you need to do next. The hints range from useful to pointless, but they did help me a couple of times.

The 3D graphics are not the best I have seen for the DS, but they are effective. The 2D scenes offer much more detail and contribute the most to the overall sense of abandonment and decay.

The audio is minimal, but effectively used. There are occasional musical cues, but no constant background theme. Sound effects appear when appropriate, and still manage to be jarring, even when you know they are coming.

Despite the health management aspect (which almost seems like it was an afterthought), I would definitely consider this to be an Adventure Game. I will provide further updates after finishing the game.

[MikeLXXXVIII]

Nice explanation review over the basics of the game so far
Been thinking about importing this game due to its originality.
Looking forward to hear about the rest when you get to finish it!

[XerxesLetifer]

Theresia places you in the role of an 18 year old girl who wakes to find herself alone in a decaying underground prison with no memory of who she is or what she is doing there. Through exploration of the labyrinthine corridors and tunnels of the prison, you slowly uncover fragments of the girl's memory and reveal the events which led to her current predicament.

The game is described on some sites as a Survival Horror, but apart from the puzzle solving you will find no resemblance to something like Resident Evil. There are weapons to be found, but there is no combat and the weapons are used solely for puzzle solving. The character is given a health bar, and there are elixirs you can pick up to restore lost health.

Obviously, the presence of a health bar implies the possibility of character death. While there are several places where death is immediate, there are far more opportunities to merely sustain injury. Many surfaces and objects available for examination are infested with traps to shoot needles, knives, or bits of jagged metal at the character, resulting in a splatter of blood across the screen and a decrease in the level of the health bar. Enough injuries such as this will, of course, result in death, but there are sufficient numbers of health elixirs to be found, and you will quickly learn to avoid such traps in the first place.

Beyond the possibility of injury and death, there is nothing else to identify this is Survival Horror. Gameplay is, for the most part, a traditional first-person Adventure Game with inventory-based puzzle solving.

Exploration uses a 3D grid based movement scheme (much like the Orcs & Elves RPG) during which you will come across hotspots which put you in a static 2D perspective (much like the examination and item collection from Trace Memory / Another Code).

In the 2D scenes, you will search for clues and items, which you can combine for use on the environment. You will pick up keys and manipulate switches, enabling you to open doors to other areas to explore. And from time to time you will find scraps of paper revealing bits of the backstory and restoring portions of the character's memory.

Interaction with the environment is simple. There is an eye icon for examination (and locating traps), and a hand icon for touching/grabbing items (and injuring yourself on traps). Your inventory is stored in a scrolling column on the right side of the screen for easy access, and a map of the current floor is displayed on the upper screen of the DS. While a combination of button and stylus control is the most efficient, it is possible to play entirely using one or the other.

A hint system is incorporated in the form of a small pendant worn by the character. Using this item will focus her thoughts and remind you of what you should be doing next. The information provided by using the pendant is dependent on location. It can only be used in the 2D scenes (the only time you have access to your inventory), and only tells you what to do in that room. It could be that you needed only to locate a health elixir, and after finding it use of the pendant will tell you only that there is nothing left to do.

The game does drag in places when you have to backtrack to rooms you have already visited, as the grid-based movement is a bit slow. A detailed look at the map is available in the 2D scenes, allowing you to highlight rooms you have already explored along with a few notes about what you did, or could do, in that location. Unfortunately, there is no option (that I could find) to let you look at levels of the building apart from the one on which you are currently located. Fortunately, the amount backtracking between levels is minimal.

The story is mainly told through flashbacks whenever the character comes across diary fragments scattered throughout the building (not always in chronological order). Each piece is collected in your inventory and can be reviewed whenever you wish. At the end of the story, a summary of the events leading up to the beginning of the game is available from the Main Menu. The storyline is interesting and the explanation of the initial amnesia of the character is explained satisfactorily.

Puzzles largely consist of "use key on door", but there are several which require you to combine inventory items or use information gained from careful examination of the environment. The ease of such puzzles is largely dependent on your own experience with this kind of puzzle solving, but nothing seemed counterintuitive upon completion. The standard strategy of "look at everything you can, pick up everything you can" is very appropriate for this game.

Graphically, the 3D scenes leave a lot to be desired. They function well enough, but are by no means the best I have seen on the DS. The 2D scenes are much more detailed, and give a greater impression of the disrepair and decay of the abandoned environment.

The music is well used, with certain musical cues being triggered by specific events, and a background theme which repeats but rarely becomes tiresome. Environmental sound effects are simple but effective, and some are able to remain jarring, even when anticipated.

There are a few errors in the text in some places, and it is not always easy to determine whether these are translation errors or problems with the displaying of the text.

At the time of this review, I have finished approximately half of the game. There are two stories to play through, with the second only being available after completion of the first. My latest savegame indicates over 12 hours of gameplay (over the course of about a month) for the first story, but that includes a lot of lost wandering (eventually requiring one consultation of a walkthrough) and a few reloads from earlier savegames due to death. I consider the game to be money well spent for the first story alone, and I am excited to have a second story to play through. But, as I do not anticipate any glaring changes in gameplay, I feel confident basing this review on what I have completed so far.

Summary
Good: Story, 2D graphics, sound effects, challenging (but not frustrating) puzzles, consistently creepy atmosphere

Bad: 3D graphics, movement while in 3D, a few text errors, some required backtracking

[AndreaDraco83]

Seems interesting... unless, of course, all the combat is stashed in the second story

I really hope not, and I'm waiting your final-final opinion on the game: even if solitary exploration isn't exactly my favorite type of gameplay, the story seems intriguing enough to convince me buying it!

[XerxesLetifer]

I just finished Theresia and wanted to offer a few more words in addition to my original review in post #3 of this thread.

The second story of the game places you in the role of a young man who wakes to find himself alone in an abandoned building with no memory of who he is or what he is doing there. Through exploration of the labyrinthine hallways and tunnels of the building, you slowly uncover fragments of his memory and reveal the events which led to his current predicament.

Yes, the second story begins very much the same as the first story. And, of course, the actual gameplay is the same as the first story. And the environment is just as likely to shoot spikes at you for touching the wrong thing as the first story. Unfortunately, these were not enough to equal the quality of the first story.

One major difference was that the tone of the story was much less dark overall. While the first managed to convey an ever increasing sense of horror with each new revelation, the second never gets beyond creepily mysterious. This is reflected visually, as the environments of the first were dominated by blues and purples, while the second featured mainly browns and yellows.

Another difference is the scope of each story. The first story revealed events nationally and how they came into play locally. The second story never strays far from the currently abandoned building.

The gameplay of the second story has been tightened a bit, but I am not sure this is necessarily a good thing. While the first story might require you to make your way through multiple floors of the building to reach your next objective, only to make you travel all the way back again, the second story tends to give you a set of rooms to explore, and once you have completed everything, you are able to move to the next set. This does eliminate much of the backtracking I had complained about in the first part of the review, but it also eliminates a lot of the immersion the backtracking provided.

Maybe it was just that there were fewer rooms to explore before moving on, but the puzzles seemed less difficult in the second story (though I did consult a walkthrough twice on the second story, while I only checked once on the first). As a result, I completed the second story in just over 8 hours, as opposed to the 12 hours it took for the first. (Again, this was over the course of several days, playing a bit each day. I have read other reviews in which the game was completed entirely in one session over the course of a day. Your experience may vary.)

Finally, the ending of the second story was not as satisfying, nor was the explanation for the amnesia and for why the environment was so dangerous.

It is not that the second story was unenjoyable, it just failed to live up to the expectations created by the first. Perhaps it would have been better if the second story had come first, but that would have ruined the big reveal in the first. But if the second story had been left out all together, I still would have been satisfied and wanting more, and would not have felt that they had left anything out.

Overall, this is a unique game, and could turn out to be a hidden treasure, largely undiscovered by the "twitch gamers" and "gotta-catch-em-alls", and will hopefully find a place with those who enjoy slowly uncovering a story while pondering over their next action.

[Mikekelly]

WoW !!!! Long posts! I enjoyed this game - it is a horror adventure game with a great story and plot.

I've played a few good DS adventure games and this one really stands out!