Today was to be a big
day for Lydia. After years of scrimping and saving, she managed
to save enough money to fulfill her lifelong
dream of becoming a student in the famous Dragonvale Academy of Magic.
Her closest childhood friend, Celeste – already a student in the
academy – was to meet her by the fountain on her first morning, but
– to her surprise – Celeste is nowhere to be found. The mystery only
deepens once she enters the academy and realizes that it has been
deserted.
Now Lydia – along with some unexpected help – must solve the mystery
of the deserted academy.

Keepsake is a third person
point ’n’ click fantasy adventure.
If magic and dragons are your thing, then Keepsake must go onto your “most
wanted” list.

The first character you
will meet is Mustavio, a merchant who hangs around the woods outside
the academy, selling his goods to the students.
Mustavio will greet you and provide a small tutorial (in the most
annoying voice you’ve ever heard in an adventure game). This
tutorial is a very good idea, since it can help out beginner adventurers,
saving them the time to figure out how things work. Once the tutorial
ends, the game begins by presenting the first puzzle: how to open
the academy doors.

The puzzles are for the
most part of the mechanical and logical type – levers,
buttons, gears, intricate locks, they are all here. The level
of the puzzles
is moderate and is certainly higher
than what we are used to nowadays, but without being too brain
taxing. Inventory is limited to a few specific items. This is
something that
you know up front, since all the items that can be acquired are
shown grayed out in the inventory from the beginning. As soon
as you collect
one of those items, it appears in the inventory in color. Same
applies to books and notes as well as cut-scenes. A very unique
interface
indeed.

The uniqueness of the
interface also spreads to how Lydia walks/runs and how the
dialogues and the saves work. One click of the mouse
button moves Lydia. If the point clicked is near her, she will
walk to it. If it’s far from her, she will run. Not
a bad idea, but I still prefer the “single-click to
walk / double-click to run” method. During dialogues
there are two buttons available, one to skip and (finally)
one to pause. A very important conversation is taking place
in the game and the
telephone decides “hey,
perfect time for me to ring”? No problem. Just hit the
pause button. An excellent idea that should be implemented
in every adventure
game.

The save system is
very weird and inflexible and takes some getting used to. Every
time
you save, a new save-place is automatically created.
Loading can only be done from the main menu and quitting from
within the game takes you directly to Windows. So if you’re
playing and want to load an earlier save, you have to quit and
restart the
game. Also, if you are playing an earlier save and decide to
save, newer saves will be overwritten! I really don’t know
what’s
going on lately with the saving systems. After the awful save
system of 80
Days we
are presented with another new idea that doesn’t
work too good and causes unnecessary grief. What was wrong with
the good old “Enter a filename” multi-save/multi-load
systems and why developers feel the need to innovate in that
area is beyond
me.

As expected, Keepsake is
not reliant on characters or dialogue – after
all, the academy is deserted. To alleviate Lydia’s loneliness,
Zak appears early in the game to be her companion. Zak is a talking
wolf who claims that he once was a dragon but some students used
a shape-shifting potion on him. Zak is afraid of heights, ghosts
and several other things, which puts a shadow of a doubt over his
claims. Is he really a dragon? Or is there something he is hiding?
One more mystery for Lydia to solve.

Visually Keepsake is stunning
with some of the most gorgeous graphics and effects I have ever
seen in an adventure game. Just seeing the water effect in the
flowing river made my jaw slam on the floor. Words cannot describe
the game’s beauty. You will
have to experience it yourself, but for now just feast your
eyes on the accompanying screenshots. The characters don’t
follow in the same quality though, as they appear rough and slightly
blocky, especially in contrast to the superb backgrounds. The music
is also beautiful and ties in to the fantasy and mystical atmosphere
and the voice-acting is about average – with the exception
of Mustavio, who is downright horrible. 

In a nutshell, Keepsake can be described in three words: Syberia meets Myst! If you loved
both of those games then you are in for
a treat. If not, consider this game a no-no, unless you love everything
fantasy related. Of course, this comparison is only used to give
an idea of what one should expect, since the game stands perfectly
on its own, and in no case does it try to imitate those titles. Overall,
Keepsake is a beautiful and slightly challenging adventure game that
will appeal to all fantasy aficionados, eye-candy lovers, 3rd person
p’n’c fans and will also capture some of the mechanical/logical
oriented crowd. Certainly a game to look forward to. So, what are
you waiting for? Take your spell book off the bookcase, grab your
staff and prepare your dragon for a fantasy flight to Dragonvale!