Stonekeep: Bones of the Ancestors Reviews

Interplay’s Stonekeep: Bones of the Ancestors has been available as a WiiWare title for several weeks now, but since its release wasn’t accompanied by an announcement and the reviews have been few and far between, it hasn’t even made a blip on my radar. As such, I thought I’d bring you a round-up of all the online critiques I’ve tracked down to date.

Diehard GameFan gives it a “Bad Game!” rating:

Much like the levitate spell in the game, Stonekeep: Bones of the Ancestors is something that starts with a little flash, then raises your hopes high, but ultimately the crash of reality (onto the Keep’s floor which kills you) sets in.

NintendoLife gives it a 3/10:

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a game more difficult to complete than Stonekeep. Not because its design is devilishly clever or because it has fantastic AI, but simply because it is a pain to play. The game suffers from frequent slowdown, a nonexistent plot and motion controls that are completely sanctimonious. Even if a better control scheme were available, the computer you are reading this on can probably play the original 1995 release, which has no right to perform and play so much better than this port.

PixlBit gives it a 1.5/5:

I eventually gave up on Stonekeep because I was sick of dying. Sure there are frequent save points so you never lose tons of progress, but playing the game just wasn’t fun upon realizing how much of an impediment the controls become. I would’ve much rather seen Alpine Studios focus on the RPG elements and make more interesting quests, rather than work in the convoluted and awkward gesture system for attacking and spell casting. While you may be eager to jump back into a game that conjures memories of your youth, Stonekeep is not the way to do it.

GameCola gives it a 1… out of 10?

The game is such a far cry from the Stonekeep I remember that it makes me question my sanity. What went wrong? Clearly, this shouldn’t have happened. Interplay could have had this one in the bag. The game is already made! Not too many people even know it exists. Oh, and it happens to be a pretty damn good game, too. Why didn’t you just port the game over? Throw on some motion cursor controls, and call it a day. Hell, even Mad Dog McCree made the jump to Wii. Instead, you decide to WHORE OUT the name Stonekeep to some 3- bit clusterfuck of a company.

What a disaster.

And GAMINGtruth also gives it a 1/10:

Avoid this game. It doesn’t work, it is terrible, it is ugly, it is utter crap. I don’t care that is a redoing of a game from 1995, I’m sure the one from then is light-years better. Interplay, I want my Clayfighters for WiiWare, not this monstrosity. For USD $5, you are better off buying a pen and piece of paper and drawing some dogs mating. If after that, you still want to play Stonekeep, you can use the pen to stab your eyes out, because trust me you will want to.