Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows, is the newest in the long running series of Gauntlet games. The original Gauntlet was an arcade classic, and is one of the first dungeon crawlers I can remember seeing, and Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows, follows in that same vein. You can play as four different characters: the Warrior, the Valkyrie, the Wizard, and the Elf. Each has a different strength and weakness. For example, the warrior has the strongest attack, but is weak in magic, while the wizard is the opposite.

He controls are very simplistic. A few different physical attacks can be combined to make combos, a ranged attack, and a magic attack. This has pretty much been the standard control setup since Gauntlet first debuted. The graphics have gotten much better though.

Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows, looks fantastic. The character models look really great. Unfortunately in order to play the game you need to be zoomed out fairly far from the action. This allows you to see where you need to go, but prevents you from really being able to see the detail in the characters and the enemies. This is a common problem in Gauntlet games though and isn’t really unexpected. The enemies also look good, with the normal assortment of small animal enemies and larger fighters. They come equipped with a variety of weapons and armaments, including shields. The majority of enemies are easy to defeat and only really dangerous in numbers, but the enemies with shields make things much more difficult. It is very difficult to get an attack through to a shield bearing enemy. This makes it much easier for the enemies to bring their numbers to bear on you.

As you progress through the game you come across upgrades that increase the strength of your weapons or the defense of your armor. These alter the look of your character and get suitably more impressive as you progress further into the game. The enemies also seem to get increasingly tougher as you go on. This matches the increases gained through the new armor and weapons leading to an odd equilibrium existing in the game. The difficulty never really seems to increase and your damage and defense never seem to get worse, making the entire game feel more or less the same. The upgrades are all completely linear as well. I would have liked to see a wider variety in weapons and armor that worked better or worse in different situations.

In addition to the weapon and armor upgrades, you can also buy new combos using gold that you collect throughout the levels. These are fairly simple combos, but most of them end up feeling bland. They don’t really add any effectiveness in combat, and don’t really seem to accomplish much that can’t be done by just rapidly pressing the attack button. The only exception to this is that some of them are useful for getting past the enemies’ shields. In addition, the skills get bought up very early on, leaving nothing else to upgrade. Overall, Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows, feels rather sparse. While it looks more realistic than the previous entry, Dark Legacy, it fails to really add anything new and loses a lot of what made the previous game so great. Seven Sorrows has 4 characters; Dark Legacy had over a dozen. Seven Sorrows lets you upgrade your armor and buy new moves; Dark Legacy let you buy stat increases and a whole host of other useful items that you could use in the next level. These items are completely missing from Seven Sorrows. You only ever use your regular weapons and potions. Dark Legacy had a decent leveling system with added bonuses like getting a familiar that added an extra shot. It feels like Seven Sorrows abandoned all of the things that made the previous Gauntlet so great in exchange for more realistic graphics. Graphics are important, but they can’t make up for thin gameplay.

Making a sequel is a tricky business. People demand everything they loved and more. Give them less, and things are guaranteed to get ugly.