I’ve never had to jump so many hurdles to review a game before. After BulkyPix stopped supporting Android with pre-release copies, I bought my own season pass to continue reviewing the Lone Wolf series. Then, in an effort to fix the bugs I had encountered when playing Act II, I uploaded my save data to Lone Wolf’s cloud service, uninstalled, and reinstalled it. As I hit the “Download from Cloud” button, I was told there was no data found. So, in the end, I had to play through Act I and II again in order to review Act III.
It was a hassle, but it proved enlightening, too. To make the most of it, I created a character with different skills and a focus on different attributes. I was impressed by the variation of Kai Powers I hadn’t previously used. Animal Companion, for example, proved useful in dealing additional, continuous damage, and I found Dexterity a far more useful stat than Strength.
Unfortunately, playing through again showed how unimportant story-related choices were. On my first playthrough, when I took Leandra with me at the end of Act I, it seemed like it would drastically alter the story. When I ditched her on my second play, it turned out the only difference it made were a few lines of unimportant dialogue. In the end, she still turned up again in the story at exactly the same point. Lone Wolf does an excellent job of creating the illusion of meaningful choice, but it’s shattered on additional experiences of the game.
Once I finally made my way back to Act III, I was met with disappointment. Unlike Act II, which introduced side-quests and Power Cube puzzles, The Shianti Halls had no new surprises. Like previous acts, I fought my way past the same enemies from Act I and II, cleared Power Cube puzzles, and made some choices.
In every act combat, has become more challenging, and Act III was almost enough to make me throw my phone across the room. Wave after wave of enemies would come at me, constantly dodging my attacks, made worse by the turn-timer that stopped me from executing my plans. I eventually dropped the difficulty to Easy, which was a more reasonable level of challenge.
Only one new enemy is introduced in Act III, but it’s more original than those of Act II. The Vordak was a tough opponent that only appeared a few times. It could temporarily drop my maximum health, mana and stamina to half and explode itself when close to death. Due to environmental traps in the Shianti Halls, battles filled with health-leeching poison added new twists to the mix, too.
Leandra is back and still as annoying as before, and only a couple of new characters were introduced. Two men who had been locked inside the ruins, surviving only by the powers of the Shianti crystals, were an interesting sub-plot. A second scenario involving a powerful wizard had potential, but was too closely tied to Joe Dever’s tabletop game, and not properly explored in the video game’s context.
I played through Act III on an older model of phone, and my frame-rate was awful as a result. The game stuttered and stumbled through battles (particularly those with background animations), which made responding to quick-time events a disaster. I never had these issues in Act I, and while present in Act II, they were not as game-breaking as in Act III. Obviously, if you’re playing on more recent technology, this is less like to be an issue for you.
The graphics and music are still solid, though greater variation would certainly bring a much needed fresh touch. Because Act III incorporated and reused so many elements from Act I and II, it felt stale. There was more back-tracking in this entry than the last two, and random battles were a constant annoyance. The Shianti Halls is by far the weakest entry in Lone Wolf’s story, but I hope the final fourth act with remind me why I was so impressed by Act I.
