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Review

Vocal opposition

by Nathan Grayson (November 3rd, 2010 at 5:27 am)

Don’t know about you, but when I play games, I occasionally get frustrated. And by frustrated, I mean “orders of magnitude more upset than any sane human being should over an elaborate series of 1s and 0s.” So I get loud. I curse, shout, and speak in tongues not of this world. Controllers break. Millions die.

Square Enix’s latest iThing game, Voice Fantasy, operates on a similar principle. Thing is, Square wisely decided to put the incoherent babbling at the start of the game – probably so you wouldn’t end up with a cast of characters with names like “COCK HELL BALLS FUCK” and “GO GET SODOMIZED BY A BALROG.”

It’s actually a really neat idea in theory. You just hold down a big, red, “if you can’t see this, you are an eyeless mole creature” button, make whatever type of sound you please, and then the game whips up a character based on your groans, moans, and wails. More specifically, the game measures your variations in pitch, loudness, and – though it’s not explicitly stated – word/sentence structure, and then picks your character’s class, stats, and special ability. Some of it intuitively makes sense; for instance, if you speak in tones so low that you’ve been (rightly) accused of being Satan’s mortal vessel, then Voice Fantasy will pop out some form of hideous monster. Meanwhile, shouting like, well, a Podgamer auteur who probably has anger issues yields a burly melee class, while whispering gets you some form of squishy magician.

So far, so good, right? Problem is, that’s all there is to it. Literally. That’s the only bit of interactivity in the entire game. After your manly, sensual voice gives birth to a bouncing baby fantasy stereotype, your hero charges out the door and takes on a series of monsters, culminating in a showdown with the big, tough Demon King. And you watch. It’s all auto-attack, and boy howdy can your AI-controlled character make some stupid decisions. I suppose it’s kind of like being a parent, only parents at least get to walk away with the satisfaction that they’ve managed to psychologically scar their children for life.

The game’s three modes – single match, tag match, and of course, Demon King – add some variety to the proceedings, but after witnessing a few battles, the only entertainment you’ll derive from watching your the game will be listening to the iPhone play back hilariously distorted versions of the initial phrase you shouted. Granted, it is pretty darn funny – and surprisingly detailed, with the pitch and speed of your phrase being altered based on whether your character’s attacking normally, scoring a critical hit, or dying. On many occasions, the death sounds especially had me, well, dying. Again, however, goofy voices are only funny for so long, and they certainly don’t make up for the fact that you have no control whatsoever.

That isn’t to say it’s not fun to experiment with different tones, pitches, and phrases in hopes of whipping up a character capable of going toe-to-toe with the Demon King and not coming out of it composed entirely of two toes. It’s just more of a novelty than anything else, as Square made the mystifying decision to release an idea – not, you know, a game. On top of that, they’re charging £1.79/€2,39/$2.99 for what’s essentially nothing more than a “gee whiz” tech demo, and with the mountain of full-sized games available for 59p – or hell, free – I can’t rightly recommend you pay the asking price. If a full game based around this idea eventually comes out, I can see myself singing a different tune. (Hopefully one that spawns a level 60 mage.) But until then, Voice Fantasy’s practically worthy of its own entry in our compendium of App Store-related highway robbery. So yeah. Skip this one and don’t look back.

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