Breath of the Familiar…
Embark on an epic action-adventure to save the Kingdom of Avantia from ruin. Overcome the dark magic that has corrupted the noble Beasts of the realm. Battle in the mythical world, tackling challenges through stunning landscapes and a plethora of side missions and objectives. Unlock new abilities and upgrades to successfully combat varied opponents. Based on the best-selling fantasy novels, Beast Quest comes to console for the first time ever, with a rich, progressive storyline, vibrant settings, and an excess of compelling challenges.
Beast Quest is a game based on a popular book series, it also received a mobile game in 2015 but luckily this isn’t a port of that. Clearly the game takes inspiration from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild with main character Tom’s armour looks much like Link’s tunic and the story about 4 beasts that have turned against the world sounds quite similar to the Divine Beasts that roam Hyrule. Only difference being that an evil wizard has turned them against the world, not Calamity Ganon.
Besides that, however…the games couldn’t be any more different from each other in terms of combat and quality. Beast Quest’s combat is more in tune with something like Dark Souls than Zelda, although not nearly as difficult. There are a number of platforming moments, but these will test your patience due to the unpredictable nature of input when jumping. The main questline should take you only a few hours, but the side quests will obviously keep you going for considerably longer…but still, it’s not as big a game as I would have hoped.
Visually, Beast Quest isn’t going to win any awards and looks dated by any comparisons to other RPGs. Character models and the world itself isn’t as detailed as you would have hoped for a game in 2018. Voice-acting is a mixed bag, while the soundtrack is actually pretty decent overall.
The Verdict
Beast Quest isn’t a terrible RPG, it’s just very average and doesn’t add anything new to the genre, instead it takes its story and gameplay from other franchises and doesn’t establish its own identity, which is unfortunate.