Words Worth is a Classic Dungeon Crawler made by the now-defunct ELF Corporation first seen on the PC-98 in 1993, a once Juggernaut in the Eroge World, was brought to its knees in 2015 when it was forced to declare bankruptcy. Talking about the story of ELF and the marks it left in the hentai games industry would take an essay to do so, so let's leave it at that, and talk about the game at hand here.
Story: God had created the world with Light and Shadow completing each other, maintaining the balance of events. The Tribe of Light are humans, living on the surface; the Tribe of Shadow has many different creatures, who dwell underground. To sustain peace and harmony between the tribes, a huge stone tablet called Words Worth was erected.
But one day, someone has shattered the tablet. Both Tribes blamed each other and began a bloody war that has been raging for a hundred years. Finally, the king of the Shadow Tribe sends his son, the brave Warrior Prince Astral, to find out what really happened to the tablets, and to restore peace in the world.
Gameplay: As previously said, Words Worth is primarily a first-person dungeon crawler RPG. Even though there are a few "friendly" areas, such as a town where the hero can rest and buy supplies, most of the game is spent in dungeon-like, maze-like areas (with an auto-map feature). There is no party in the game: Astral has to face the enemies alone.
The style of the game will put you in mind of Doom, or more acutely perhaps The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, You'll usually be in first-person mode, clicking the mouse to swing your weapon at the baddies. Despite Astral being royalty, you can cast no magic nor use any special powers. When outside dungeons you're usually in towns resupplying and talking to people.
As you wander around, you meet various other characters, some of whom you get to fight and some of whom you get to kill and some of whom you get to screw.
But it's not only rose and glooms, one of the main flaws of this game is the lighting. Some of the levels are really dark, and the lack of a brightness control or gamma correction feature makes it impossible to see where you’re going.
There is a map, but you can’t have it open while you move around, leading to an awkward process of move a step, open map, turn, move another step, etc. The redeeming feature of the map is that you can click on a map square and Astral will walk there on autopilot, stopping only when he runs into someone to talk to or kill.
Overall: All in all, it’s a good game, a great game for its time, and well worth the time it takes to complete if you're into some good old dungeon crawling.
Note: F95 holds the Remake of the game released in 2004 for the Windows XP, it may have some compatibility problems with modern windows, and it may need to be booted on a VM, your mileage may vary. DMM released a Windows 10 Port of this game in 2017, but as of note, it's only in Japanese.
Story: God had created the world with Light and Shadow completing each other, maintaining the balance of events. The Tribe of Light are humans, living on the surface; the Tribe of Shadow has many different creatures, who dwell underground. To sustain peace and harmony between the tribes, a huge stone tablet called Words Worth was erected.
But one day, someone has shattered the tablet. Both Tribes blamed each other and began a bloody war that has been raging for a hundred years. Finally, the king of the Shadow Tribe sends his son, the brave Warrior Prince Astral, to find out what really happened to the tablets, and to restore peace in the world.
Gameplay: As previously said, Words Worth is primarily a first-person dungeon crawler RPG. Even though there are a few "friendly" areas, such as a town where the hero can rest and buy supplies, most of the game is spent in dungeon-like, maze-like areas (with an auto-map feature). There is no party in the game: Astral has to face the enemies alone.
The style of the game will put you in mind of Doom, or more acutely perhaps The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, You'll usually be in first-person mode, clicking the mouse to swing your weapon at the baddies. Despite Astral being royalty, you can cast no magic nor use any special powers. When outside dungeons you're usually in towns resupplying and talking to people.
As you wander around, you meet various other characters, some of whom you get to fight and some of whom you get to kill and some of whom you get to screw.
But it's not only rose and glooms, one of the main flaws of this game is the lighting. Some of the levels are really dark, and the lack of a brightness control or gamma correction feature makes it impossible to see where you’re going.
There is a map, but you can’t have it open while you move around, leading to an awkward process of move a step, open map, turn, move another step, etc. The redeeming feature of the map is that you can click on a map square and Astral will walk there on autopilot, stopping only when he runs into someone to talk to or kill.
Overall: All in all, it’s a good game, a great game for its time, and well worth the time it takes to complete if you're into some good old dungeon crawling.
Note: F95 holds the Remake of the game released in 2004 for the Windows XP, it may have some compatibility problems with modern windows, and it may need to be booted on a VM, your mileage may vary. DMM released a Windows 10 Port of this game in 2017, but as of note, it's only in Japanese.