Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows Previews

A trio of hands-on previews for the Xbox version of Midway’s soon-to-be-released Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows have surfaced on the web. The first is at WorthPlaying:

Now, in old Gauntlet games, killing monsters consisted of hammering the “kill things” button and shooting death at your enemies. Seven Sorrows takes a new and more subtle approach, by installing a combo-oriented attack system that uses pretty much every button on the controller. You hit A to use Slash, a wide arc that can hit multiple movies. X triggers your Hack, an overhead slash that breaks through a blocking enemy’s guard. Y triggers your Launch, a move that throws the enemy into the air and can be used to initiate air-juggle combos. R lets you interact with environmental elements, while L lets you block and the left analog stick lets you dodge quickly away in the indicated direction. B triggers a magic-enhanced long range attack, and tapping the black button triggers a giant burst of magic that damages every enemy onscreen, and is the only move that can possibly damage Death. The right analog stick, of course, lets you move, and the D-Pad triggers some additional super moves. The moves triggered with the D-Pad, and the advanced combos you can do by using certain button presses in sequence, all have to be bought with the gold you find while exploring levels.

The second is at 1Up:

Of course, there are environmental hazards and mini-puzzles where you have to find keys/trigger switches that prevent the game from being that simplistic (plus, the right stick attack isn’t very strong — it knocks enemies down to clear space but doesn’t do much damage), but it’s nice to finally have an attack in a Gauntlet game that puts you in control of the masses of enemies around. In so many of the previous games (and earlier versions of Seven Sorrows), it’s always felt daunting to go up against the millions of clouds of enemies that you have to chip away at bit by bit. As it is now, the game retains the same you-against-a-million feel, but because of the combat variety it all feels much more under your control.

And the third is at TeamXbox:

The true departure for the series lies in the experience points that are earned for each kill. Under your character’s health are five green bars that, when filled, will result in the character leveling up. For each level that you earn, you are given one point to distribute to either increase your damage, maximum health, or mana recovery. There’s an interesting balancing issue that we found thanks to the enemy generators that populate each and every level. In order to level up our character all we had to do was camp out next to an enemy generator and take down wave after wave of evil henchmen. My elf archer had no problem becoming completely unstoppable after the first level; it should be interesting to see if Midway can find some way to balance the mechanic a bit more. That fact still withstanding the experience point system is a welcome change from the monotony of past games, as well as adding some nice customization to the formula.