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The Forgotten Tale by Adriel Gabriel Oliveira

Ceamonks890 7 8 9 8
Christian 8 8 9 9
DJ Full 8 7 9 7
Dutchy 8 6 7 6
Gerty 7 8 8 7
Jay 8 6 9 9
Jose 7 8 8 9
Josey 9 8 9 10
Larabiker301 7 9 9 8
manarch2 7 8 9 9
MichaelP 8 8 9 8
mugs 8 6 8 8
NightShadow 6 6 8 7
Nina Croft 8 8 9 8
Phil 9 8 9 9
Ruben 8 7 9 9
Ryan 8 8 9 9
totizedger 7 8 8 8
young Lara Croft 8 9 9 9
 
release date: 11-Jan-2014
# of downloads: 135

average rating: 8.04
review count: 19
 
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file size: 163.00 MB
file type: TR4
class: Fantasy/Surreal
 


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Reviewer's comments
"Lara, seen here assuming the role of a Persian princess, has been kidnapped by the King, and so she has to successfully escape. The storyline is nicely carried through by the various cutscenes and FMV sequences, although I found the dialogue a bit much for my taste. There are no weapons, so rather than shooting everything that moves, the best bet would be to avoid them. The surroundings are very pleasingly put together and attractive, and the hazy fog lying across the sands did give it a warm and relaxing atmosphere. The quest for the three stars in the second level provided some entertainment, as did the various traps and puzzles. Recommended for something a bit different." - Ryan (01-Jan-2018)
"This wasn't so bad to be honest. It all starts with a promising intro some decent voice acting excluding the one doing the voice for the princess which was very good. The first level have the weakest gameplay where you have to run around a lot in a big area, the dark area which i didn't like very much. The highlight must be remembering the platforms from the other room which i found fun. The second level is the best one where a highlight may be the search for the three golden stars, you can get lost pretty easy but if you manage to find the right way to them then you will surely enjoy it very much. I also felt that this was one of the best areas atmospherewise as i felt alone and all those remains from people who didn't make it added to this feeling. Sadly i must say that once you get to the city area everything goes downhill from there with big areas and lots of running around from one place to another which wasn't as exciting as it could have been.. The texturing isn't the best i've seen but decent enough. There are no secrets in this levelset which would have spiced things up a bit. The ending was very abrupt which was a pity. I recommended it especially for those who really like fairytale/fantasy levels, i really hope that they make a sequel to this adventure continuing where we left off." - totizedger (19-Aug-2015)
"A nice fairy tale adventure where Lara is the princess. I liked the textures that are used in here although they could use some TLC. And of course I got hopelessly lost wandering around the place. But I got there in the end. You also get clues and although I did understand them it took some doing to get the three stars. Glad I was out of the canyon and into a small city. As Lara doesn't have any guns the few enemies you meet, you have to avoid them. That luckily was not so hard to do. Have fun, as I had fun for sure." - Gerty (21-Jul-2015)
"This is actually a very enjoyable two part adventure that is even more recommended than the scores seem to indicate for two main reasons: 1) the fact that it explores a genre that is rarely explored and 2) the fact that it tries to tell a story and succeeds rather well in doing so. Both Levels are about an hour long and as the Princess has no weapons there are only few enemies you can easily avoid. Sadly there are also no secrets either though. Progression is generally quite clear, often well supported with camera hints and the tasks are at least reasonably varied to not get too repetitive or boring. There is a passage with a lot of darkness in part 1 that I did not like and part 2 starts a little slow, but those are minor gripes. I probably enjoyed the canyon passage with the quest for the three stars the most, as finding your way around here was an interesting challenge to master. All in all, 2 hours of relaxing but entertaining raiding through rather uncommon ground - what more can you ask for?" - MichaelP (14-Jun-2015)
"There are minor glitches, boxy environments and eye-hurting texturing impolishments here and there, but the majority of map looks solid, sometimes turning into plainly beautiful, and the final city segment matches the atmosphere of Topaz levels from KAP with its huge Arabian architecture. The feeling of escaping princess getting closer and closer to freedom is progressing correctly from narrow palace corridors, through more spacious gardens and subsequent semi-open canyons, until the final run towards the desert sun, all concluded by a self-made movie cutscene. There is too much switch-to-switch in the beginning, and if You choose the wrong order You need to backtrack more than once, but the nice mood sustains the will to press all levers and this part is not hard enough to become too frustrating. If You come through this prologue, a whole new world opens in front of Your eyes, just like in Alladdin, and the final city zone also resembles market platforming of the related classic 2D game, and the feeling is sustained via long, generic music themes looping all the time and changing depending on the location. Nonetheless it won't work standalone - local sound usage should be applied as well, and it's totally absent except from nice dialogue application. The secrets are missing as well and such a mysterious scenery should contain a lot of them. SUMMARY: This level is really unique but many little things don't work here so it doesn't feel as epic as it could. Anyway it shouldn't be forgotten as the title says - for if You can read between imperfections, You will enjoy its potential and have a nice Arabian adventure. Recommended." - DJ Full (14-Oct-2014)
"Rather interesting level which follows a story of a young Babylonian princess trying to escape the enemies who plot against her. Her goal is to escape the royal palace, go through water and canyon, reach the city and meet a friend who will help her hide in the desert. The storyline is pretty well realized and realistic, although there are some minor downsides to it. Due to the storyline you won't have weapons and compass and the only action moment of the game is escaping the knights seeking to kill the young princess. The main accent in the game is put on puzzles, which are quite well elaborated and thought of. The first level involves exploration and backtracking through the palace, climbing, swimming and going through trapped hallways and jump sequences. The second level is much longer and larger, comprising the lake area with wheels which need to be activated, exploration of a canyon with climbing and jumping as a main part of the gameplay, until you reach the city. Jumping across high ledges and balconies in the city can be pretty hard at times. Once you reach the area with four cages to be lifted, the puzzle element is back as a grand finale. The overall geometry is nicely built, much better in the second level than in the first. Both levels are well decorated and nice looking. The atmosphere is also as realistic as it can be, lighting is also nicely applied and textures almost perfect, although there are mistakes in this area as well. There are a couple of buggy ladders and rope jumps, but these can be easily solved. The gameplay is fluent and easy to finish, the level is looking very beautiful and I highly recommend this levelset to anyone. Maybe it is not a Hall-of-Famer, but there are definitely some great moments to be seen and puzzles to be solved. Despite the downsides, these two builders have proven to have talent and skills for level building. I am expecting quite a few hall-of-famers from them in the future." - Nina Croft (18-Aug-2014)
"Really a big effort from this builders to make all that new objects and textures, taking good care of the atmosphere, fmvs, sounds and effects. Environment is pretty good and there are several puzzles worth to solve, but often the gameplay is too nonlinear and I had to run kilometers and kilometers to get the items I needed 'cause sometimes you can miss something and there's no clues or camera targets to show you where to go. Recommended anyway." - Jose (22-Jun-2014)
"I've never understood why some builders deprive their playing audience of the compass. It makes things unnecessarily difficult for someone writing a walkthrough, not to mention those who use them. If the purpose is to thwart cheating, that simply doesn't work. The game "knows" where true N is, and in this case all I had to do was pull up into a window at the very beginning and type in the magic word to get unlimited everything. Not that this gave me much of an advantage here, mind you, as the enemies are few (making weaponry and medipacks much less of an issue), the lighting is impeccable (no flares necessary), and you don't have any weapons anyway in the second level. Both levels are inordinately beautiful and have been crafted with great care. However, I soon grew bored with the interminable FMVs at the start of the first level, which I assume were inserted to establish some sort of "story line" (which to me has little or no value in a custom level), as the dialogue was difficult to make out and didn't tell me anything of interest in any event. The background music at the beginning was annoying as well, so I turned it off. But as gameplay progressed I found myself becoming increasingly hooked, particularly in the sprawling and complex second level. My total playing time was just under three hours, and I was helped a great deal by Nina Croft's excellent walkthrough. Except for the minor shortcomings noted above, I found this to be an engrossing and visually appealing raid that deserves high recommendations." - Phil (08-Mar-2014)
"Level 1: The Palace- We begin this level with an interesting introduction with good use of lighting, texturing, camera angles and decent voice acting where the narrator(who is revealed to be the princess we'll be controlling in this adventure), explains her backstory and how she came to be in the position she's currently in, as she seeks to reclaim her rightful throne upon hearing her former home has fallen into disrepair while spending several years prior under the guise of a peasant on the streets and sets off to do something about it. Once the necessary backstory's been covered, you can just run off to the bed in front of you and begin the proper adventure. Anyway, we begin the level with more exposition, eventually ending with the gruesome murder of an oracle by the tyrant king himself, upon discovering Kiara(the princess) is still alive and threatening to ruin his plans for the throne completely, rallying his men and getting ready to hunt Kiara down. Now, you'd expect this level to ramp up in difficulty without any weapons to defend ourselves with, right? Unfortunately though, this is not the case. As Kiara can just run about the palace like nobody's business, solving some cleverly-designed puzzles and collecting keys and other important items needed to progress, without so much as a whisper from an approaching attacker(outside of one room later in the level.) While disappointing, the effective use of lighting and music helps add a lot to the atmosphere that Gabriel Croft is trying to convey and the gameplay sections involving a lot of platforming to reach a few crystals needed to open a door in the latter half of the level, serve as the main highlights. However, not everything is perfect. You'll quickly find that you have to backtrack constantly between areas you've already visited, just to find out which key goes in which keyhole and therefore, started to grate on my patience after a while. Many of the textures and objects(while well-chosen) can often seem to feel out of place in a level that's supposed to take place during the Persian era(such as Thief 2 Mechanist stain-glass window textures in one room or modern day clocks/cabinets, to name but a few.) And I noticed several objects were lacking the appropriate level of lighting for the respective room in many cases. Overall, not a bad level, but definitely feels lacking in many areas. Level 2: Running Against Time- We now begin Adriel's portion of the levelset and boy, does it get off to a good start with some beautiful visuals, fun platforming and (at first) simple to solve tasks. Unfortunately, the overall quality of the level begins to take a dip once you've reached the canyon and doesn't necessarily recover much after that. Now, my main problem with this section of the level is a tedious search for three stars upon retrieving a dagger at the bottom of the canyon, which are needed in order to progress. After spending four hours trying to figure out where the mysterious third star was located to no avail, I was tempted to simply give up and stop reviewing this levelset altogether(as not even the well-written walkthrough was much help). Thankfully, there happened to be a spare savegame lying around online, but it ended up having me skip a good portion of the level. Now, I hate to say this, but if the star searching aspect in the canyon section had been eradicated from the level entirely, I perhaps would have felt a lot more satisfied upon completing the game and not be launching so much criticism towards this problem as a whole. But I digress. Outside of the aforementioned problem however, this is still a very well-designed level with appropriate use of texturing, object placement, music, lighting and sound to create an effective atmosphere as a whole. The ending to the game helps set up a sequel in the foreseeable future. So I hope that if Adriel and Gabriel Croft ever decide to go back to this storyline, that they take the feedback from this release into account, as there is a ton of untapped potential just waiting to be unearthed, given a bit more polish." - Ceamonks890 (13-Feb-2014)
"Well for one, I'll start by thanking the authors for this adventure. It took me a while to finish it but it was worthwhile. Now, this level had its moments and then, it had its imperfections. Such as: boring puzzle mechanics--3 star puzzle wasn't very satisfying as it had me climbing up and down a mountain which the textures made me get lost along with the absence of shadows which would allow me to see what was actual footing or not, texture mistakes--some textures could have been fixed or replaced, and the fog, maybe if the fog had a better distance, it would've been less of an annoyance but still add to the atmosphere. That was about all I could find but after all that, the level was okay. It was fun to be a person escaping from an entire city. But...one note on future adventures...please no monotonous puzzle solving...--Overall...a good level nonetheless with excellent aesthetics and eye widening scenery and atmosphere. Time-6-7hrs, Difficulty-Gameplay-Easy-Puzzle Solving-Medium,Secrets-0/0,Recommend-Unless you're very impatient which then, you should still try your hand at this very well played adventure." - Larabiker301 (26-Jan-2014)
"First, the good things: the game is a feast for the eyes, with lovely sceneries, beautifully decorated palaces and unusual, interesting objects. The light is also excellent, except at the part where it is purposefully absent, or when Lara reaches areas that she was not supposed to reach. I would remark, too, that we can expect some kindnesses from the authors: one example is the matches put in a room where there is an invisible moving block; or the letters that reveal the crowbar and the stars. Puzzles and gameplay are very good. My favorite puzzle was the smart one of the colored floor tiles that in reality show the safe path of another room; and I enjoyed very much the passing by the moving fire tongues. I also loved the search for those 3 crystals, at the end of the Palace part; and the poles' jumps necessary to catch the blue crystal were easily done. The sequence of actions in the lovely water wheels' area was very entertaining too, although some backtrack was necessary. I loved specially the key and bucket part. And now, the drawbacks: no compass and no weapons, but enemies, yes! I don't approve it at all; if there are enemies, some weapon is necessary, and if the map is a vast one, the compass is mandatory. I also missed some camera hints: what happens, for example, when a knight is put at its appointed place? Well, a door far below, that seemingly needed a key, is opened, but this is not obvious at all. And what happens when the 3 stars are placed in their niches? I lost some time, in a boring area, looking for what had happened, and the solution was so near. By the way, all that part of the canyon was very boring: enormous map, difficult ups and downs, very difficult orientation without compass, too much similarities among separate areas. And there were also another irritating sequences: that terrible slide with a rolling ball; the spiky bags and other spikes in a pitch black area. (After this ordeal, we deserved at least a shortcut, but no: the passage by spiky things had to be done twice.); the use of six switches under the attack of soldiers that cannot be harmed; too many backtracks; and a multiplicity of moving chains... I also would point out that the introduction of the game was too long and slow for my taste. I thought sometimes that the computer was stuck! And continuous music is certainly irritating, even when it is good and discreet as in this game. Finally, there were some very difficult actions, like grabbing a pole and reaching a wooden platform, in the city part. Without the forum people, I would never have finished the game. Now, the resume: PLAY IT!" - Josey (22-Jan-2014)
"I very much enjoyed this oriental tale inspired by Prince of Persia. My complaint would be about the 3 star puzzle, which was a bit hard to accomplish, because of the textured walls and almost no dark corners to differentiate depth made the descent towards the bottom floor almost impossible. Other than that the atmosphere is very beautiful and authentic, this level was enjoyable and I would recommend it to anyone patient enough to play a level in which you control a Lara/Princess with no weapons." - young Lara Croft (19-Jan-2014)
"Lara as a princess of Persia makes for an interesting and somewhat exotic raid, albeit of the largely sandy variety. This is split into two sections, the first being set in a palace, with quite simple and straightforward gameplay and the second, much longer part, taking place in deserts, caves and towns, involving a great deal of exploration (I found obtaining three stars far and away the most challenging aspect) and a greater degree of skill from the player. The overall look of the game is slightly hazy, which I found quite effective in creating a suitable 'hot' atmosphere. Enemies are few and far between and require 'Lara' to avoid them as there is no weaponry available. There are cutscenes at the beginning and end of the game, but varying sound levels between the two voiceover providers made it very difficult to get the sense out of them. Overall, I enjoyed the game a lot and commend the builders for trying something a little bit different." - Jay (18-Jan-2014)
"The Palace (6-8-8-8): The fantastic intro really draws you in the setting and I actually was a bit disappointed that the quality of this level didn't quite met my expectations after this intro. Granted, the visual quality of this level is quite good, with good texturing/lighting and overall a great atmosphere. I think it would have been better if the builder had divided the walls equally so that some textures wouldn't look compressed or stretched towards the adjacent ones, and sometimes the choice of textures is a bit eclectic, some textures didn't really fit to the setting. Also, the architecture of the hallways is a bit too rectangular and there are only few really atmospheric areas. On the other side, I found the lighting to be rather fine, the night atmosphere was quite well executed and I generally enjoyed the modern feel of this level. The gameplay wasn't so enjoyable here, there are some interesting puzzles in here but most of the time you're running from one side of the palace to another, and for me that kind of backtracking was really tedious. It felt like a rather mediocre compilation of tasks which are placed somewhere within the map. Towards the end, the gameplay gets better, with a not all too challenging trap gauntlet and a rather fun quest for three crystals. 45 minutes.
Running Against Time (8-8-9-9): I found this to be the better level of the two. The setting is at least as atmospheric than the first one, but this time it doesn't feel as boxy anymore and I found some areas to be really impressive. The builder seems to enjoy building grand-scale areas and I think in this level he actually made a large improvement over his other levels. The texture problems of the first level are still existent, and the canyons look a bit wallpapered, but it's not a very large problem in this level because the looks are rather strong here. The backtracking in this level is not quite as prominent as in the first level, but there are still parts where you might be pretty lost, especially the quest for the three stars in the canyon, and sometimes there are a few rather boring sequences. I liked the creative usage of pushable/movable rocks in this level and there's a good dose of elaborate puzzles in this level. Unlike the first level, I think the gameplay gets a little bit less inspired towards the end, with a vast (but still impressive) city area to explore for several items which wasn't very exciting, and the end felt a bit abrupt, but from what I understood in the final FMV (the music is way too loud here!) there might be a continuation someaday, because the main quest of the story hasn't been solved yet. 60 minutes.
Summary: Although the two levels are rather uneven in many regards, they are rather unified as a game. I could imagine the gameplay to be more gripping, not only in the first level, and the textures could have sometimes been placed with more care, but overall this has left me with good impressions because each level is an improvement over the respective builder's other levels. Spent 1:45 hours in here and found no secrets - maybe there could be a few in the next game? Anyway, recommended for the looks and some fun tasks." - manarch2 (17-Jan-2014)
"A very nice story and level. At some points I really didn't much like the hazy/foggy atmosphere as it made everything the same color. At points where the true colors came back I liked it more. Noticed a lot of faulty texturing. There are some points in the level where you think you are stuck as you can't find a way to proceed, but then an almost illegal jump is what's required, taking all your health. No way to check the health before the jump (no weapons), so try first and die, reload, take a medipack jump and almost die. Lara's running animation had a strange appearance on my PC, like she was running against a strong head wind, seen it before in a level we tested (I think Daffy's). He changed it, so it must have been the running animation. With some enemies and weapons (looking for pickups) it would have been even nicer. Then you could have at least gotten some ammo/secrets at the end of the dead end crawlspaces. My belief is that the level should have properly tested. Turned the background music way down as it became a bit too much at the end. It was fun, sometimes a bit frustrating, but certainly a must play." - Dutchy (17-Jan-2014)
"This tale is a story about a Princess who decides it's time to vacate the palace she's being held in. Gabriel Croft leads us through the Palace itself and Adriel takes over once the Princess makes it to the city and surrounding canyons. There are no enemies in this game - which is a major flaw in my opinion. The Princess can go about the job of finding keys, switches, and puzzling basically unattended. That certainly makes our job easier, but I think Gabriel's level would have been more exciting with a few fights thrown in. Or maybe the guards were at lunch. Who knows. Despite the low level of difficulty here I had lots of fun exploring the palace. Yes, there are some major texture flaws in this game that could have been easily fixed and I did encounter a peculiar camera wave - don't ask me to explain - but maybe had something to do with the lighting or FMV. It was pretty distracting though. I find lighting and fog like that pretty annoying anyway, but I get the reasons it's used. Adriel's level centers mainly around finding 3 stars in a very deep canyon. And if I scaled those rocks once, I scaled them a hundred times. Here's where the frustration will set in if you experience any at all. The third star is a bear to find. In my quest to cover the entire place before "crying uncle" I discovered a way to by-pass the use of the stars entirely and proceed to the end of the game. Once the canyons are mastered you arrive in the city. Here you'll find some guards who did finish their lunch, but with no weapons at her (or their, for that matter) disposal the Princess must simply evade them and that's pretty easy to do (some you don't have to trigger at all). You need to find a key and the access to the lower part of the canyon. One of the things I think is worth mentioning here is the use of lengthy dialogue. If it's more than a word or two I would include a transcript in the read-me file. I have no idea what the ending conversation was about - undying love, no doubt. All-in-all, a very entertaining raid!" - Mugs (16-Jan-2014)
"This is surely a very good level, but it's also imperfect. There are a lot of things that I've enjoyed very much and some a little bit less. For example, I have to admit that this is one of the best palace that I've ever played: the graphic is very cool but there are a lot of textures mistakes. A lot of them are placed bad and sometimes I found them inappropriate with the place that the princess is exploring. There are some nice puzzles, but they're very, very easy and sometime boring. For example the death floor puzzle in the Palace level was soooo annoying. And I found also boring push the armor up in the vertical room to the upper floor using raising blocks. By the way the story is pretty, well done, but It could has been improved a little bit more. The dubbing isn't very nice...but I've enjoyed the princess voice. The atmosphere is good, mysterious and fascinating. The two levels are very different, about the style of the two author and I think that this is a less point for the rating...but don't care a lot. The second level is better than the first. So, play this level because it's a good adventure, that it could has been a little bit longer and better about the gameplay and the puzzles. The authors have still a lot to learn but they're on the right way. And, please, next time put SECRETS. Stefano." - NightShadow (15-Jan-2014)
"Lara looks really great in a short (very short!) - white dress. Particularly when she's crawling. And she is wearing her hair open.... (The palace 7-8-9-9); Inspired atmospherically by Prince of Persia the game starts in a palace with wonderfully created Arabic design, the specific combination of lightning with a kind of fog creates an individual scenery. These wonderful places and gardens could have been used more. So it's a pity that the player has to do a lot of running to and fro between these places just for a few items - he has to visit these places a bit too often especially as the puzzles - at least in the in the first part of this first level - are quite obvious. There are no real hard tasks to perform for this extremely beautiful Lara wearing no weapons during the whole game. In the middle of this first part the scenery changes. It seems like there were put things together that were not meant to be part of one game. Textures are no more set that carefully, but gameplay is becoming more and more interesting. Lara's search for some crystals is quite entertaining. All in all an ambitious work, some parts that don't really fit in the whole scenery could have been left out. (Running against time 9-8-9-9); gameplay is a bit more demanding than in the first part. The central area is a very deep valley in which Lara has to collect three stars what takes a lot of searching in very huge area designed in a quite realistic, well done desert environment. Gameplay is more creative than in the first part, distances may be a bit long while searching and visiting the same places several times until Lara finally gets out of this dusty area. But this level finds no end. Lara finds herself in a large, very well designed oriental city - huge areas seem to be a speciality of these talented builders. It takes some time to get oriented here as Lara can't hold on a moment being chased by guards that she only can avoid without any weapons. There's no more that much to do in this well created a bit foggy desert environment but things aren't always easy to find. So a white hole in a white wall easily can be missed in a large area with enemies in your neck. It's a great game all in all, but somehow I was glad when it finally was finished - some areas are - how to say - a bit oversized. Highly recommended for people with time and patience....." - Christian (15-Jan-2014)
"A beautiful game and a beautiful story put together by these two builders from Brazil. Playable for everybody who has a little patience to wander around and find the right path to continue . I personally care very little about whether Lara talks in pefect English,Polish or any other language as long as the plot is revealed. And who of us would really stop at every corner to examine all the misfit textures in this world of woe ? As Lara (is it Lara?) has no weapons in this game the gameplay concentrates rather on exploring than slaughtering.After the final escape from the city the player is rewarded for his efforts for helping the princess . A highly enjoyable TRLE adventure." - Ruben (15-Jan-2014)