Product Description

Baroque is a dark action-RPG featuring twisted and tormented characters presented in a disturbing world of pain and suffering

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9503 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Rising Star
• Released on: 2008-08-29
• Rating: To Be Announced
• Platform: Nintendo Wii
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

Manufacturer's Description
Baroque is a dark action-RPG featuring twisted and tormented characters presented in a disturbing world of pain and suffering. After a cataclysmic event, the world and its inhabitants are warped into a nightmare only you can solve. Battle merciless foes as you travel ever deeper into the shifting Neuro Tower in search of absolution.

Customer Reviews

Fun, but doesn't hold your hand.
Baroque is a Rogue-Like. I know after reading this, half of you have already navigated away from the page. Those of you who remain are either into Rogue-Likes, or have no idea what one is.

There's no definite rule, but a in a Rogue-Like you will die. A lot. Each level of a dungeon is randomised, in both architecture, and Enemy and Item quantity and position. Every level you (re)visit isn't completely different, because they all have a theme (Fire, Water, Warehouses, etc), and have similar rooms, with different entrances, and sizes. Gameplay is the essence Rogue-Likes, allowing you to eat, throw, and combine items to sometimes surprising and humorous effect.

Whilst Baroque lacks the near infinite depth of gameplay a traditional PC Rogue-Like provides, it is a good effort for a Console RL. The concept of dying over and over, actually makes sense: Each time you die, the characters scattered about the game reveal more of the story and history of the world you inhabit. You may start off each time at Level 1 experience, with no weapons or items (though there are ways for items to follow you to the next life), but it keeps the enemies fresh. You'll fear the weak, lowly flying robot-fish (yes, really), each time you die, as much as the slug-like arachnid women, or the floating, armed tombstones.

You might have guessed that the enemies, are not your regular fair. It's like they saw that everyone else had soldiers, or birds, or dinosaurs, and decided to mix it up a bit. There are dolls with bloated, metal heads; thieves shaped like red, inverted question marks that are oh so annoying as they steal an item from you, and bounce off happily into the darkness; bound, headless men, hanging from the ceiling with a metal hook for a leg; and Tortoises that roll around on the sides of their shell, striking at you from one orifice or another, spawning little babies. These antagonists are worth the price, alone!

As you descend down the levels, you'll find weapons, armour, and items at your disposal. The swords get bigger, and more ridiculous looking, ranging from the stick-like "Junk" to enormous cleavers, or "Twin" blades. Each provides a slightly nuanced fighting style, that's not too deep, but then all you'll be doing is hacking and slashing. The Armour comes in the form of coats, some equipped to deal with certain damages better: Rubber, helps against Electric attacks, for example. Complimenting the armour of your choice are Wings. These add a bonus to your defence, allowing you to ignore some types of attack (poison, lust, confusion, etc.).

There are many items in the game world, and can be broken down into a few categories. There's food, to help you regain health and vitality (sometimes at the expense of the other), but pay attention to the description: it might be rotten. Bones are an interesting idea; generalised and varied. Bones may be eaten for a small gain in health and vitality, as well as any effects it may posses, or thrown. The effect depends on the bone, and could invincibility, or double experience points for a short period of time. They could well be detrimental to your health if swallowed (I'll never swallow a "Boom", ever again), but make excellent ranged weapons.

Parasites seem to work as enhancements to either yourself or an item of your choosing. They allow for anything from increased speed, to dealing fire damage. Though you can only 'inject' one at a time in that item. Brands, are permanent upgrades, though supply slightly more unique abilities: I've seen one that made me belch fire for the first 10 seconds on any level; another gave me extra life before dying.

Disks can be set up, or down. Like traps, they're triggered as you (or anyone else) walks on them. If it's facing up, it's original effect is applied: giving you health e.g. Facing down, and the effect is generally reversed: that same disk would actually suck life from me. There are many effects, from warping you to another part of the level, hazing you with a Lust spell (which lets you see every item and enemy as a member of the opposite sex), or lethargy (Slowing your actions to a crawl). I'll leave the rest of the items to your finding!

Despite being originally released on the DreamCast, the game suits the Wii well. The graphics are improved, and there's a nice film-grain over everything, and dream-like blur to objects in the distance. The sound is a bit repetitive, but the Music suits the mood well, providing an industrial-electronic soundtrack. The controls take some getting used to, working less than brilliant on both Wiimote and Nunchuck, or Classic Controller, but are serviceable.

I can't say the game is particularly repetitive, because that's the point of a Rogue-Like. It may lack the varying environments of contemporary RPGs, but I'd prefer to restart from scratch (at level 1) any time, over a random-encounter featured in other RPGs.

I don't know half of what's going on in the game, and I've died many times, but I love it. It reminds me of Planescape: Torment mixed with Ultima Underworld.

If you love Rogue-Likes, or want to start off on a particularly 'friendly' one, choose this. If you prefer the focused story of Final Fantasy, than this is not the RPG for you. But, the price is right, and it'll give you hours of fun, if you give it a chance, and get into the spirit of it.

A strange game... but somehow cool!
Well I guess you love this game or you hate it.
Its a remake of the old Sega-Saturn game Baoque, some sort of dungeon-crawler.
Take Azure Dreams an mix it up with Silent Hill, David Lynch, and some weird end time Manga and this is what you would probably get.

Dont get me wrong, THIS GAME IS NOT BAD. I enjoyed every minute of it, but sometimes it can totally "piss you off".
Death and rebirth take a large role in this game, so there are often times your character has to die so you are able to proceed.
The Story is very, very strange but awesome too. I guess you have to see it by yourself.
Some people may dislike this game because you have to go through the same dungeon over and over again (well its just changes its shape).
Just give it a chance and you will see what a fine gem this game is.
If you have £9.99, like RPG's and dont know what to do, BUY IT!
Its a budget game but its worth every cent.

Unimpressed
My initial impression of this game was pretty good - the controls are instinctive and the look of the game is unusual and original.

Once I got past the first few hours of gameplay, however, I completely lost interest. This game is just far too repetitive. There is very little variety between each randomly-generated area, and a very limited number of types of enemy and strategies for fighting them.

And once you have done each full run of the dungeon, you have to start again, with only a few small, enigmatic differences from the previous time, and perhaps a few items that you have transferred.

In my opinion, the only redeeming features of this game are its visual aspect and soundtrack, but the whole game seems to me to be based on a flawed concept.