Folklore for PlayStation 3 Reviews by Gamers

boring and slow....get passed the slow pase of the story and you can deal with it for a while....but the fighting gets old fast......just slow and boring

This game is creative, I'll give it that. But the actual play is slow and over-saturated with comic-book like still images instead of cut scenes.

Visually amazing. They really pushed the PS3 with the graphics that do move. Yet it's just not worth the time when GameFly has so many better games to spend that time on...

This game starts off great. It feels fresh and innovative and I was genuinely excited to be playing it. However, I soon grew bored. I like the idea of being able to play as one of two characters. But if you don't keep switching between the two and you go too far with one or the other, the story becomes muddled and hard to follow. Therefore you have to play each level twice in a row. The developers have tried to make sure that this doesn't become monotinous, but it does. I realized today that I haven't played Folklore or even thought about it in about a month. I guess it's time to send it back!

Amazing graphics, lots of colorful backgrounds, but the action seems a little slow and repetitive.

The game is great, don't get me wrong. The story is compeling, the characters are in depth and the combat system is one of the best for the action rpg genre but most of the extras are not available until the last hour of gameplay or so. There just doesn't seem to be a reason to buy this game, which is a shame because it is a great game but it seems like there couldv'e been something added like an additional ending or bonuses after finishing the game to help complete the title. Maybe there will be some downloadable data later that gives more then just a new quest.

Ok, so you can use 2 different characters in the game..i used the male character keats..I got to the last chapter and the game said to complete the last level I have to use the female character..i never played the female character so i would have to go through the game again, using the female character, needless to say i sent the game back..its a good game but im not going to go through the whole game again..i thought it was kind of a rip off not letting me complete game with male character keats..just a warning when you get the game..be the female character if you want to complete it quick and move on

the game over all is above ok...but not that great. I like the fact that you can actually capture your enemies' soul and use it at your diposal...yeah and i might agree on the part that the story is longer than the actual fighting in the game ,but it's tolerable. The only thing i hate is the camera thing... is hard to focus on your enemy even how many times i press the L1 or the R3 there parts of the game that you can't hardly see the enemy especially when they're coming from behind or you're too close to the wall/s with the enemy in front...but over all the game's a keeper there are some flaws,but like i said it's tolerable...

this game is great... if you like comic books. and when i say that i mean READING COMING BOOKS instead of playing a VIDEO GAME. i played this game for 20 minutes and had all but fast forwarded myself through a comic book ported to a video game. the 'comic book' sections of this game comprise over what seems like 80% of the thing... not sure what angle their going for but it ruined it for me. the little bit of combat i participated in as well was weak. there are WAY too many other good games out right now to make a leukwarm (at best) game like this even worth playing.

When I first heard about this game I was kind of hyped for it, but then... I played the first demo. I wasn't impressed at all, but I gave it a shot anyway and was very pleasantly surprised. This is by far the most fun I've had with an action/adventure RPG in a long time.

The story is far and away one of the best I've ever seen in a game. Best I can describe it is a supernatural murdery mystery. However watch out for some spotty translations that sometimes lead to a bit of confusion, but never really detract from the game. The characters have a great deal of depth to them, and the "comic book" cutscenes really work well. Graphics are solid, albeit not groundbreaking, but the design and the mood the game presents is incredible. Between the visuals and the (excellent) music it really draws you into the Tim Burton-esque fantasy world that is Folklore.

The gameplay is basically hack'n'slash, but you can collect over 100 different "folks" with different attack abilities. There's alot of judging elemental weakness with your foes, though you'll get picture book pages that'll spell things out a bit. The SIXAXIS control is subtle, and probably one of the best I've seen yet, once you defeat an enemy you can suck out their essence by tugging the controller upwards. Some more advanced enemies or minibosses require a number of slightly different techniques such as tilting from side to side or pulling up when the folk flashes a different color.

All in all, this game is definitely on the quirky side, and I can see why reviews are mixed. However it's one of the most polished, original experiences I've seen in a game for quite some time, and I've got to recommend a long rent at least to put it through it's paces.

There's a reason why the Sony consoles have been the king of RPG's for 10 years now, and Folklore only adds to that tradition. I can't say much about the story without giving it away, but I will say that you basically get to meet the dead. But you do get to play as two characters: Ellen and Keats. Word of warning however, you MUST play the game as both characters. It's not an option but a requirement.

With that being said, i'll quickly say that the game looks great (though doesn't exactly push the PS3 hardware) and sounds amazing. In an odd choice, they limited the voice acting and instead adopted a comic-book style of narrative for most of the game. It works and is something different, but voice acting still would have been better since what little of it there is was done exceptionally well.

Controls for the game are fairly good as well. You have to play some parts of the game with fixed camera angles, but when in battle you can move it around. The Sixaxis is also used to capture the different creatures, called folks, and that works very well. Navigating the menus is also a breeze, and there's a button dedicated soley to selecting what folk you want, which is also easy to do. The characters themselves control just fine, too.

You get two characters and both are actually quite different, which is good and bad. Keats is the easier one to use, but his side of the game is more difficult. His attacks aren't delayed and he is able to recover his magic fully in a few seconds. He also has a powered-up state as well. Ellen is the total opposite. Her quest would be a breeze with Keats, but she is slower to evade, lacks the power-up state, takes longer to get her magic back and there's usually delays with her attacks. While Keats uses the folks as an extension of himself, Ellen summons to whole thing which puts her out of harms way, but also makes it more difficult to attack repeatedly.

If you like action/rpg's, then give this one a try.

Don't get me wrong: this is a good game. The story is pretty fluid, needing to use the monsters weaknesses and strengths to get by was really well done, i just thought that the most irritating aspect of this game was what was supposed to be one of it's main selling points: playing the two different storyline's. What could have been a nice shift in game play was actually for me a very monotonous and irritating experience. The stories between the two players didn't really differentiate until Chapter 4 when you had to choose between the Folklore or the Swamp of Oblivion, and then you were stuck with the decision you made, believe me. Okay, well two things really; wrestling with the spirits (id) of your dispatched enemy made for some Ghostbuster-like fun, great use of the SixAxis but perhaps more irritating than Lair. I literally spent two minutes wrestling just trying to suck one of them up - !#%$!! Don't get me wrong, this a bad game does not make however, I just had maybe too high of an expectation which caused me to be let down too easily. Try it out for yourself, I gave it an 8.0, it truly is a good game. If even just to check out the different monsters abilities which really makes playing Folklore worthwhile.

Gilded is the only word I can think of to describe this game. At the outset of Folklore, I was ensnared by the Pokemon-esque capture aspect. After a few levels I realized the lack of luster in the mid-dungeon investigative sections. Actions such as opening doors or sleeping are almost never animated and are plagued by all too frequent loading times. And as time went by, I became bored with the main draw of Folklore, the capturing of Folk. Each level's new bestiary boasts creatures with essentially the same functions as the ones before. This is Folklore's biggest setback. It's definitely, however, worth at least a playthrough.

On top of everything the Sixaxis features on this game are as a great as they were shown in videos. It adds an innovating touch to the gameplay. You do things like shake the controlling to weaken your opponents' essence; Turn it left and right to slam your enemies in the same direction. The only thing that bored me a little was that too much of the game was concentrated on video. The art direction was very cool, dark fantasy-like. But they could've made the videos interactive so the players could feel something.
I just felt that they relied too much on the story to lure players in. The gameplay is much better.

The story and plot of the game really draws you into it and the characters throughout the game are sweet. The only thing that really suck about this game is you have to play it as Ellen before you can beat as Keats. I started off on Keats profile/story line or whatever and I get to the very last stage and find out I can't continue his part till I finish Ellens part. So I never even got to see the conclusion to the awesome storyline... boo!

I read all the other reviews carefully, and a definitely disagree. The story was kind of cheesy and the game play is pretty repitative. KILL THE MONSTER AND CAPTURE ITS SOUL. Its fun to play with the whole six axis thing, but everything else wasn't too fun. People have different taste in games like these so you should definitely try it. DO NOT buy this game unless you have played it before and you think its worth buying. Trust me i was about to make that mistake, but luckily i didn't.

I'll start by saying that this is one of the most beautiful games I have played. Not only the graphics, but the music is very appropriate and does a good job of setting the tone and mood of the game.

You play as Ellen and Keats, who travel to the mysterious town of Doolin (a town where people can supposedly meet the dead) for their own personal reasons. Before long, they are traveling into the Netherworld and unraveling mysteries of the town's past.

You are forced to play through a series of chapters as both Ellen and Keats. In these chapters, you must travel to the same zones and fight the same bosses. While there is a sense of redundancy in this, each character plays slightly differently, has different ability, and encounters different enemies. I think that there could have been more done to cut back on the feeling of redundancy a bit more, however they do a good job of making up for it through the story telling.

Each character experiences different sides of the same story. There is little overlap in what is uncovered and experiencing one characters side does not give the player the whole picture of what was going on. For that reason, I would recommend going back and forth with the characters instead of playing through all of one character's chapters and then switching to the other.

The action is fun. Constantly gaining new abilities and facing new enemies keeps things fresh. The variety of different folk with similar attack types allows the player to become attached to particular folk and adopt a play style that best fits them.

My biggest gripe is the pauses that occur when you switch out your preset abilities. Abilities are mapped to the 4 face buttons and a menu is brought up by hitting L2 which allows you to make swaps. Every time you do this, however, you're looking at a 1-5 second mini freeze. It becomes increasingly annoying later in the game when you find yourself having to switch abilities more often.

The game when actually fighting isn't to bad but WAY WAY to much dialog and story. You spend ALOT of time running around figuring where to go next and reading alot of dialog. I didnt put near as much time into the game as maybe I should but everytime I had time to play I found myself playing WARHAWK!

It's really sad to see the poor reception that unique games (Okami, Psychonauts, Ico) like this receive. Folklore is a fantastic game and one of the most imaginative games I've played in a long time. It really surprises me that anyone would give this game a score below 7. I think a majority of reviews, regardless the source, provide concrete evidence to justify their rating. I mean, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I feel people are overly harsh in order to just see something fail. Here's why this game deserves no less than a 7 even from the most unimpressed of reviewers:

Pros:
Strategic and customizable game play
Two playable characters who have different id's and abilities
Impressive graphics that really fit a fairytale world
Fantastic level and character design, plus some of the most fluid animation I've seen. Just amazing presentation overall
7 unique, and gorgeous realms that actually are actually inspired by actual folklore
Over 100 Id's (all upgradeable through specific objectives), plus future downloadable id's, costumes, and quest
Strong frame rate w/ no tearing nor next-gen shadowing problems
A game that finally uses the sixaxis motion controls in a fun and immersive way
30 hrs. of game play
A dungeon creation mode that unlocks bonuses

Cons:
The voice acting and dialogue could of been much better for Ellen and Keats
There is quite a bit of backtracking
A slight delay after changing id's (I don't find this to be a issue)
Some Id's are very similar to others
You must play through the same realms with both characters to finish the game (I recommend you play both characters back to back).
Soul collecting can be tedious for certain id's

This has nothing to do with the console war that fan boys have declared. This game is worth the time regardless of the system it's on. Please, don't listen to the 5.0 nay sayers and at least rent this game.

This was the Game that propelled me to buy a PS3 and I must say I'm a little disappointed. The actual gameplay, once you are in the "Realms" is fine, although very linear and very straightforward. And while the whole changing Folk idea and using them as weapons was a very brilliant idea and really is what makes this game interesting, a bit more thought should have gone into implementation instead of just mapping the Folks to buttons constantly...and I mean constantly.

Other than the actual fighting through the different Realms which are all rather beautiful and look great in HD, the game is rather bland. The developers chose to tell the story in 3 ways. The first is the standard Cut-Scene, which I always preferred, but seemed the one that was the least used. The second was dialog bubbles between characters. This was ok..but it was bland. Lastly they used a fancy Comic Book kinda cut-scene. I don't know. Maybe it was too artsy for me, but I just didn't like it. I feel a game that is for a system like the PS3 should do more than jump frames in a comic book.

Overall the actual GAMEPLAY when you are playing the true game is ok, not great. The more you play the more interesting it'll get. You get interested in figuring out different combinations of Folks to use to take down bigger, stronger Folks. You'll never get lost though, that's for sure.

A definite rental, but I wouldn't recommend laying out $60 on it.

The game starts rather slow, and it is somewhat confusing why you have 2 characters. You will find that they overlap environments with differences only in their viewpoint on the same storyline.

If you are looking for any kind of technical-challenging game, this is not it. Gameplay is very slow and the combat system has lots of bugs. The camera doesn't follow you, you have to reset it everytime the enemy moves around you and it is very difficult to keep "locked" onto even a single target.

They spread out your abilities nicely which is the only thing that kept me playing. Often, it either doesn't matter what abilities you use (although some are vastly superior to others in power) or you are very limited to specific ones due to enemies being very difficult to use short range abilities on.

I'm basically going to play this until the weekend is up and send it back. It's been hard playing this when I have a freshly purchased copy of God of War II sitting next to my playstation.

When I started this game, I was ready for your typical RPG game. Boy was I shocked. The game starts off a little slow but then it picks up with a quickness and never lets go.

If you are into graphics, then this game is for you. If you are into storylines, then this game is for you. If you want something a little different from your run of the mill Action/RPG games, then this game is for you.

The only two downfalls I can come up with is the silly use of the control where you have to jerk your controller to capture a soul... it seems like they were just looking for a reason to make it "interactive". The other is that you have to play some levels twice as different characters. I could have done without that because there is really no change between the two characters.. down to the cut scenes.

I say give this game a try if you are looking for something new and interesting.

It's really hard to classify this game, it is very just barely an RPG and very linear. The only tangent to this are various side quests. If you are a person who considers linearity to be a bad quality for a game then this may not suit you, but it hasn't bothered me at all in this game yet.

I can say this has the best visuals by far for PS3, Heavenly Sword is a close second. But you know about that already. What people haven't mentioned is the sound. The musical score is phenomenal and fits the plot and scenery like a glove to give you a mysterious and ghostly feel. Sound effects are pretty well mastered during gameplay and there is a great mix of cut scenes and storyboard/comic book interaction to progress the story.

The gameplay is fairly unique in being able to acquire the abilities of monsters (folk) that you defeat and then can level up atk power and mp cost reduction thru different tasks or consuming items for improvement.

I feel the story is the biggest strength of this title next to the visually stunning effects and environments. The story is split between two characters, a young girl and a man who is a reporter. The setting is very mysterious and keeps you wanting to figure out more of the story. Each character is looking for answers along with other characters in the town. By collecting mementos of the dead and asking questions of the living, you are able to travel to different netherworlds to investigate the souls of the dead to provide answers for the living in the town of Doolin and gaining a piece of your puzzle in the process. The Netherworlds have problems of their own as the living have stopped traveling to their realms and folklores are materializing threatening their existence.

This game is very intriguing and fun. If you like murder mysteries and great visuals/sounds/gameplay, then you should at least rent this game. I may not buy this, at least not right away, but I'll definitely be renting this for quite some time.