Rhiannon:
Curse of the Four Branches (originally titled Rhiannon:
Beyond the Mabinogion) is a first-person point-and-click adventure
game, the first game developed by Arberth Studios, an independent
developer based in rural West Wales. The heart of the development
team is very small, consisting of the husband and wife duo Noel and
Karen Bruton, and Karen’s brother Richard Lee. It is hard not to be
impressed when such a small team puts out such a big effort, and succeeds!

Rhiannon Sullivan is your
typical 15-year old girl: gushing into her diary, sporting a posse
of girlfriends, and crushing on cute boys. When her family moves to
the remote Welsh farmstead Ty Pryderi and undertakes to renovate the
ancient buildings, Rhiannon’s life becomes anything but typical.
Over the course of several weeks in her new home, she begins to hear
eerie noises and voices, which soon progresses into raging nightmares,
waking visions, and oppressive feelings. Her parents, Jen and Malcolm
Sullivan, at first dismiss her stories, attributing it to the isolation
of the farm and an overactive imagination. Nevertheless, as things
go from bad to worse, their concern becomes very real. Soon they are
calling in the cavalry – you!

You
play as Chris, a close friend of the Sullivan family, and you have
received a message requesting you to come and housesit while Jen and
Malcolm take Rhiannon on a vacation far away from Ty Pryderi. Your
job starts out mundane enough, with tasks like turning on the electricity,
lighting a fire for hot water, and leaving food out for the elusive
cat. Naturally, as anyone would in a house-sitting position, you begin
to explore the house and grounds. Soon you find yourself entangled
in the same dark plot that wreaked so much havoc on young Rhiannon
Sullivan.

As adventure games go,
Curse of the Four Branches sets a high
standard for storytelling: a modern tale steeped in ancient Welsh
mythology. As someone unfamiliar with the legends the game was inspired
by, I took pleasure in uncovering them for the first time, piece by
piece, throughout the game. The puzzles are fun and well designed,
ranging from deciphering the ancient writing to going on scavenger
hunts to find items pertaining to the plot. The game is neither too
easy nor too hard – giving you just the right amount of clues
to keep the game moving along. It has also piqued my interest in both
Welsh mythology and Ogam, the medieval alphabet used in the game,
which says a lot about the quality of storytelling.

The
closest thing to one-on-one character interaction in this game is
hearing the cat door flap back and forth when you enter the kitchen,
usually to find a “gift” in the form a dead mouse on the
floor. (Gosh, did I forget to feed the cat again?) Although usually
I find character interaction sorely missed, Curse of the
Four Branches manages to make up for it many times over.
Although intentionally lonely, the house and surrounding grounds really
feel “lived in”, creating a very immersive atmosphere
with a multitude of books, diaries, notes, letters, emails, voicemails,
and other evidence of life scattered throughout the game. This aspect
is where the game really shines, and I really enjoyed perusing all
things left behind by not only the Sullivan family, but by people
who have inhabited Ty Pryderi in times past.

So with top-notch story
and puzzles, where does the game go wrong? In my opinion, the game’s
imperfections lie in the interface and to a lesser extent, the graphics.
Thankfully, these flaws are not fatal to the enjoyment of the game.

The
biggest issue with the game lies in the interface, which seems clunky
and dated by today’s standards. Navigating the game is a slideshow
of fixed views as you click from place to place, with no animated
transitions between locations and no ability to pan or tilt the view.
It is somewhat difficult to adjust to, as you have no peripheral vision
or sense of how far you are moving. I often found myself going forward,
then turning left or right and completely missing the passageway I
was trying to reach. Although an annoyance, it did get better the
longer I played, as I started to create a mental map of the layout
of the house and environs. Cursor icons help you navigate, in order
to move forward, turn left or right, zoom in on objects of interest,
and so forth. Unfortunately, it’s not always obvious that certain
actions are possible, such as looking up in key areas, which is a
shortcoming of the lack of peripheral view. Additionally, some items
are only visible from a single viewpoint, making it easy to miss while
exploring. However, the game does have an option to enable a hot key,
which toggles visibility of the available hotspots at any given location.
Although not ideal, it does alleviate the problem.

The
graphics are primarily pre-rendered images, occasionally enhanced
by animations of water, fire, and other dynamic elements. There are
a few cut-scenes interspersed throughout the game as well. As someone
who knows a thing or two about 3D graphics, I could not help but notice
what I thought were glaring problems in the texturing or modeling.
You may see some blurry or strangely mirroring textures, for example.
However, I also know how much effort is involved in creating worlds
of this scope – suffice to say, a LOT of work. Considering that
primarily one person on the Arberth Studios team was responsible for
the graphics, I must concede on this point. Although there are graphical
shortcomings, the game as a whole does not suffer. I have a feeling
the time was much better spent making the environments filled with
all the paraphernalia that makes it feel more alive – rather
than spending too much time perfecting a few things (resulting in
an empty, lifeless world).

Overall, I fully recommend
this game on the merits of its worthwhile storytelling, puzzles, and
immersive environment. I look forward to seeing more great games come
out of Arberth Studios!

System Requirements:

• Windows 98/SE/ME/2000/XP/Vista
• Pentium III 450 MHz
  or better
• 128 MB RAM (512 MB recommended
  for XP/Vista)
• 1GB of free disk space
• SVGA Graphics card or
  better with 32-bit color
• DirectX 9 compatible
  sound card