The Tenth Line is a unique game combining platforming, action RPG, and turn-based RPG.
The story takes place in a universe where humans, beasts, and dragons coexist. The princess of Easania is pursued by a strange cult, but by chance encounters two brothers, a kobold and a dragon, who, upon the promise of a handsome reward, agree to escort the young lady to safety. During their adventure, the three companions will, despite themselves, fulfill, one by one, the steps of the prophecy of the 10 lines leading to the end of their world.
Why is The Tenth Line unique? Besides its original universe, its gameplay also stands out from "classic" games.
• Outside of combat, it's a platform game. You run and jump to reach the end of the scene. Much like in Trine, you'll have to move the three characters and use their unique abilities to help them all reach the end, because you only move on to the next one if all three are at the end. You can only play one character at a time; the others stay put. The princess is the average character: she walks and jumps "normally" and can push certain obstacles. The kobold is the fast character: she walks quickly, jumps far but not high, and can throw stones to reach out-of-reach objects. And finally, the dragon is the slow character: she walks slowly, jumps (actually teleports) high but not far, and can use her breath (fire, ice, poison, or force) to interact with certain elements.
During these platforming phases, you collect stars (experience) to level up. Only the character you collect them with gains experience, not the others.
• In the stages, you'll encounter enemies that you'll have to fight. Combat takes the form of a turn-based RPG. For each character, you choose which attack/skill to use and on which enemy(s) to use it. When everything is decided, you begin the attack phase, during which you press the corresponding buttons for each character to launch their attacks. It's more tactical than it sounds, because certain attacks destabilize enemies, allowing other characters' attacks to do more damage. The order and timing of your attacks are therefore important and can make all the difference. When everyone has attacked, it's the enemies' turn. They also attack in different orders, with different attacks (physical, ranged, or magical), and your characters can dodge/defend only once. Then it starts all over again until you win or lose. Instead of attacking, you can also rest to recover some health points (this is the only way to regain health in combat).
• The character progression system is also special. While they level up in a fairly traditional way, to improve them you have to use found/earned items and skill points (obtained by leveling up) on a chessboard. Each square corresponds to a stat (attack, defense, HP and SP), and each item has its own stat, value, "path" and "cost". If an item and the chosen square have the same stat, the assigned value is doubled. The goal is to maximize these values to improve the character as much as possible while creating a path between the source (where we start placing items) and the different active or passive skills we will use in combat. Besides that, items are also used to improve characters' weapons through training. They are not used in combat or in platforming phases; items are only used to improve our characters and their weapons. It may seem complicated, but it's actually simple to understand and well explained in the game.
So, this is an excellent game. Original, beautiful to look at and listen to, interesting to play, and with a very engaging story. Brilliant.
BUT...unfortunately, flawless games are rare. And unfortunately, this one, drawing on the mechanics of platformers and RPGs, combines THE biggest flaw (in my opinion) of each style it borrows.
• First, a big problem with the platform: having to start over at the beginning of the level each time you fall into a hole (only the character who falls returns to the beginning). This isn't a problem when you only have one character to move. But when you have 3...including a particularly slow one... This leads to having to do the same path over and over again, often having to move a character again at the end of the level to unlock access for the character. In the first levels it's okay, they're quite short and there are no traps or things to do. But in the last ones...it's really heavy and frustrating. We waste a lot of time stupidly, and knowing that saving necessarily reunites all 3 characters at the save point (always at the beginning of the board)... and that reloading the game makes the enemies on the board reappear... we prefer to finish it and save at the next one rather than having to go through everything again the next time we play the game.
• Second, a big problem with RPGs: a see-saw difficulty. In a board, we'll encounter weak enemies, others that are tougher but not very dangerous... and others who will be (without knowing it before facing them) horribly tough and will take you down in two turns. We only have the 3 main characters, with 2 "assists," and as I said, we only defend ourselves once, for 3-4 seconds. On the other side, there can be up to 12 enemies at a time... (and when one enemy dies, another often arrives to replace it. We can have a lot of them to fight in a single fight). If they are strong by default, the 3 in front attack physically, and the other 9 throw physical and magical projectiles... We can defend ourselves for 3-4 seconds, but when we are attacked for 8 seconds by guys who knock us down in 3 hits, we can't block/dodge everything and we end up in two shakes of a lamb's tail without being able to do anything.
Now we take this problem, and we add it to the fact that when we lose a fight, all the characters present in that fight are sent back to the beginning of the board... and the enemy, of course, is still waiting for us, just as strong in the same place. That... that took away a lot of the fun of the game for me. So yes, there are several difficulty levels, I could have made the game easier by lowering it. But there's only one difficulty level with the post-game content; the others don't unlock it, and it's the sawtooth one.
This also applies to some bosses. You clear the board with your hand in your pants, no difficulty against the enemies encountered, then you reach the boss and... you get cut open before taking a quarter of his health. For your information, the boss isn't alone; he also has an army with him. On the plus side, you can restart the boss fight directly; you're not sent back to the last save point (unless you want to be). So, while The Tenth Line is objectively very good, interesting, and well-crafted, a large part of my enjoyment of the game was devoured by the chaotic difficulty and the repetitiveness of having to move my entire team across the board for the seventh time.
Recommend
