Supreme League of Patriots – Episode 1, 2, and 3 Review
I’m not sure if I’ve ever played a superhero in an adventure game before. I enjoyed the ride and would come back for more.
It is hero time, dear readers. So bleach your favorite superhero suit and step into the shoes of The Purple Patriot. Supreme League of Patriots is a humorous point-and-click adventure being released in episodes. In a switch, the first three episodes are out now, having been released all at once.
Episode 1 opens with you playing Kyle Keever, a nice guy with some bumbling tendencies. He lives with his best friend, Mel.
He wants to try out for a Superhero reality show. Unfortunately for Kyle, he washes his uniform the night before his audition and his red, white, and blue suit is now purple.
The episode consists of getting Kyle onto the game show and convincing the judges to let him advance to the next round. The puzzles focus on completing three superhero tasks to prove Kyle is worthy of moving on. Along the way, Kyle hits his head more than a few times, and doing so turns him permanently into The Purple Patriot.
Kyle is a casual, feel-good guy who likes to help people. The Purple Patriot persona is bigoted and opinionated. A lot of the humor and conflict throughout the game arises from The Purple Patriot trying to good things in the worst ways possible.
The second episode focuses on getting licensed by the State of New York to act as a Superhero. To accomplish this, The Purple Patriot needs a hideout, a superhero car and some other items.
The third episode represents The Purple Patriot’s first mission, which starts with foiling a bank robbery but turns into something much greater. You’ll play The Purple Patriot most of the time, but occasionally you’ll step into the shoes of Mel while The Patriot is incapacitated.
The game includes a colorful cast of characters and I found myself enjoying the variety and creativity displayed by the cast. The voice acting felt rough at first, and the delivery seemed slow and arduous.
However, the characters grew on me and by the time I started Episode 2, I felt the quality had gone up a notch. I’m not sure if this was due to my familiarity with the characters or the fact that the writing and delivery had improved. Episode 1 is the weakest of the bunch, but stick with it because the game does get better.
Supreme League of Patriots is a humor game at its core. It covers everything from adventure game tropes to immigration, game shows and political humor. There are even some moments of slapstick humor. Unfortunately, the game misses more than it hits on these counts.
The developer has tried to touch on everything under the sun; consequently, a lot of the humor feels forced. At one point, the game jokes about adventure games and how the best puzzles should be integrated into the plot rather than being completely unrelated. Unfortunately, the developer seems to have forgotten this relative to the game’s dialog.
Most of the humorous pieces are written strictly to act as arguments between Mel and The Purple Patriot; they have no bearing on the game. Also, the humor is often delivered through very lengthy conversations; I think one-liners might have been much more effective. I smiled to myself a few times while playing this game, but more often, I groaned or ignored the humor altogether.
The visuals have a comic style slightly reminiscent of Sam and Max. The backgrounds work really well and help to set the mood of the game. The characters are equally quirky and often entertaining.
In the past, I’ve complained about games being too retro, but that is not a problem here. I love the style. A lot of locations, such as Kyle’s apartment, the Superhero bar and the police station, are used throughout all three episodes. I didn’t mind this, though, because there is always plenty to explore.
The puzzles can be frustrating at times. This is most prominent during the intro of Episode 1. For example, you have an address on a piece of paper and you need a map.
*Spoiler*
The obvious choice is to enter the address into a computer and get the map. This is indeed the solution, but you must execute it multiple times before the map becomes available.
Further, the dialog delivered with the first few clicks will lead you to believe that entering the address into the computer is the wrong action. This dynamic shows up multiple times throughout Episode 1, but I didn’t notice it as a problem in the other two episodes.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever played a superhero in an adventure game before. I was cautiously excited about it, and I’m glad I took the chance. I enjoyed the ride and would come back for more. Go pick this up now so we can get a Season 2.
+ Great Artwork and puzzle design + Zany characters to interact with and play – Humor often falls flat and game never really finds the sweet spot |
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PC Recommended:
OS: Windows XP, Vista, 7 or 8
Processor: 2 GHz (Dual Core)
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: AMD or Nvidia with 512MB VRAM
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Hard Drive: 4 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible
Mac Recommended:
OS: OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) or newer
Processor: Intel 2 GHz (Dual Core)
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: AMD or Nvidia with 512MB VRAM
Hard Drive: 4 GB available space
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