Lock's Quest may have its share of problems but when it is all said and done it is a very enjoyable and addicting game
The game kicks off on an apparently peaceful village located on the shore. There a young boy named Lock is doing his usual daily tasks, as his grandfather ordered him to do so, when all of a sudden he comes across a man named Isaac that is seriously injured and being attacked by an army of robots called "Clockworks" as Lock decides to help Isaac little does he know he is about to enter an 100-day journey that will change his life forever.
Lock finds out Isaac is an archineer, an important position on the Kingdom's army, archineers basically build defenses to protect targets from the incoming enemies. The Clockworks are the work of a mad man called Dr. Agony – thought to be defeated on an ancient war - who used to be Agonius the most skilled of all the archineers, but that suddenly turned evil when he discovered his power to build robots and give them life using source, which is a very valuable asset on the world where the game takes place.
This world now full of war and destruction holds many secrets and mysteries that will be unveiled little by little as you advance in your quest. While the storyline is far from a masterpiece it is good enough to keep you playing and highly interested on what may be behind this big war as the script has been carefully written to leave the player with many doubts and questions concerning the main characters' actions.
As good as the storyline is it won't be the only reason why you will play the game. On Lock's Quest what you basically do is to protect one or various targets scattered across the map from the Clockwork army, and each one of the battles has two different stages. First there is the building process where you build walls, turrets and traps to stop enemies from reaching their target. To build all you need to do is that the options on the menu, select the structure you want and drag it to the screen, by using the L and R buttons you can rotate it to make sure it will be facing the right direction.
The controls work perfectly during this stage of the battle and it makes building a fast and engaging activity as you can do, redo and undo things just by tapping an option on the menu carefully placed on the right side of the screen.
Due to the large variety of enemies, traps and turrets it takes a lot of strategy to be victorious on the battles even though the game's level of challenge is not very high – for those who want more challenge there is a hard mode to be unlocked after you finish the game. Turrets can hit a single target, hit many of them at the same time, poison the enemy, and slow them down; Traps can freeze them, explode, electrify underground foes; and some clockworks can make magic, attack physically, dig tunnels beneath your walls, fly, become invisible or even heal. There are also "helpers" which increase a certain status of your nearby walls and turrets.
In order to unlock new turrets and traps lock will collect scrap left by enemies, once you have enough pieces to form a new weapon the game will let you know, redirecting you a creative build mode where you will gather the pieces that form the weapon in order to assemble it successfully.
After you spend all your source building defenses it will be time to start the battle, once you do enemy waves will start entering the map and heading straight towards their goal. On the battlefield you will move Lock by using the touch screen and pointing at the place he should go while you can check other areas of the map using the D-pad. As an archineer you can use three basic strategies, defend, attack or mix both of them. Lock has the power to fix damaged walls and turrets, which will allow you to simply stay protected behind the walls while fixing them but on some stages it may be a good idea to get out of your fortress and face enemies.
If you feel like fixing a wall all you need to do is touch it and Lock will head straight to it to fix the damage, unfortunately in some cases, when there are enemies between Lock and the wall, the character will get stuck behind an enemy and won't be able to reach it, the best solution is to guide Lock little by little around the enemies so that you can get to the wall. On easier stages this shortcoming will not bother you but on later battles when there is little to no time to lose getting stuck behind an enemy may cause your wall to be destroyed as every little second matters on harder battles.
When battling enemies Lock has a bunch of special attacks to use besides his usual punching the enemy, once your power gauge is filled you can unleash a vast variety of skills such as attacking enemies with lightning, poisoning them or even fixing all your walls automatically. As you perform these attacks or fix walls you will have to perform some actions on the screen. For example, when Lock fixes a highly damaged wall you will need to flip a switch that will appear on the bottom of the screen from right to left and vice versa so that he fixes them faster, the same goes for special attacks where you will get to tap a big button, the more you tap it the more effective your skill will be. This adds some more action to the already action packed battles of the game.
Mastering building and battling may seem slightly complicated but the game is fair when it comes to its learning curve as the levels get gradually harder, making your experience much more enjoyable. Between battles there are some RPG-like sections where Lock walks through cities, villages and other places giving you the opportunity to talk to people and know more about the storyline of the game, those sections are nice as they take you away from the battles for a while but truth is they could be much deeper as there is usually little to do on towns, the developers could have added some sidequests or shops to improve your armory.
The game presentation is very ambitious and successful, from the graphics and scenarios that look really good to the metal-themed menus and sound effects. The most impressive area of the game is definitely its impressive cutscenes that posses a very original and incredible art direction, only matched by a couple of other DS games. The "orchestrated" soundtrack is also brilliant as it gives an epic mood to the game and its awesome plot that happens on a sort of medieval setting.
Lock's Quest may have its share of shortcomings but when it is all said and done it is a very enjoyable and addicting game, from its engaging build mode that uses very smart control options to the thrilling battles with its minor control issues. The difficulty is fair and some of the more advanced battles against bosses or powerful armies will make you restart them time and time again until you successfully find a strategy to deal with a specific kind of enemy formation. Lock's Quest is an ambitious title that should be given a try by those who appreciate an original strategy game.