The story of The Awakening adventure game begins in a dystopian future. The main character - an anthropomorphic animal soldier called "Feroz" ("Big Bad Wolf" in English) sets out to pulverize mutants with a shotgun. Your mission is to find the precise terminals to activate the "Icarus protocol".

Once this is done, the outcome of the story will be shown. The game is a 2Mb cartridge, only available for MSX2 computers with 128 KB of RAM and FMPAC sound. At the beginning of the game, you are able to choose some options like changing the frequency between MSX Japanese and Western models.

You start the game in Zone 136, exploring a huge map of more than 200 screens. Traversing over a land surrounded by metal and concrete in a world that belongs to mutants. It is an actionpacked game with the killing of many zombies in the process while avoiding zones full of radiation. You will have to pay attention to the alarms of the Geiger counter and move fast, because most areas are toxic.

Playing The Awakening, my first thoughts of this top-down run 'n gun, shoot 'em up feels very much like a Zelda type of game. However, it has so much action and very few strategic items, that I would define it as a hybrid of action and RPG. Enemies appear on land as well as in the air and can provide quite a challenge. There are several details that make this game much better than one can expect at first impression, like the blinking red colour mass which appears flashing on the screen border when colliding with an enemy, or the speed of movement between the screens, it's as if this flip screen game is scrolling - almost!

Is The Awakening gameplay difficult? No I don't think so, it's quite easy to get into from the beginning. When I analyze it though, one phrase comes to mind to best describe it "passage of time". At first, shooting the undead is quite simple, but as time goes by, the difficulty increases and losing lives becomes much more regular. If you repeatedly touch the enemies, your shield level will decrease and you'll be exposed to the dangers much more quickly. The game features a messaging system to control the way we can manage our way through the screens - sentences like "I can't cross the river, the water is contaminated" will appear on the screen to inform you, and this provides just that little extra scope within the gameplay.

The gameplay and background story may seem kind of "cliché", but I have to inform readers that it works fine for me.

The presentation is excellent and the screens look fabulous. The HUD showing score, shield and geiger modules is very polished, and is surrounded by what looks like a mottled ornament. Very nice indeed. The huge sprites are also very pleasing, as is the speed of movement between screens - a testament to the coding skills on display.

I enjoyed the constant colour changes of the screens, and the colours depict the radiated environment quite well. As is usual with Oniric Factor games, we can see in every graphic aspect of the game a well balanced use of the colour, avoiding strident tones and showing nice chromatic combination results. The use of the MSX2 colour palette is streets ahead of the games from the original 8-bit commercial era.

Bullets fired from your shotgun travel the length of the screen offering the opportunity to shoot long range at your enemy. The physical edition, has a very impressive cover. It catches the spirit of the feeling experienced by the player within the gameplay.

The game is accompanied by some piano-based melodies. Although these are nice, I didn't think they fitted the game very well. The Awakening demands much shooting and advancing immediately through the screens to kill enemies. This can be tricky as enemies may appear right on top of you when you have flipped to the next screen.

Enemy characters seem to be the odd sprites out. Perhaps they could have been improved slightly by being larger sprites.

The Awakening is an enjoyable game, technically impeccable, but with some aspects that I feel don't fit quite right, maybe because I feel that it is a hybrid RPG game and not a full RPG gaming experience. Once again though, Oniric Factor have developed yet another cool physical released cart game for the MSX platform. The game has been coded well, I had very few dislikes while playing the game. It's a well planned out game concept, possibly a little too simplistic but one that you will no doubt enjoy playing.

With 200 screens, the staying power is strong and the gameplay fast and entertaining. The graphics are detailed and colourful in their own way, each background screen provides a lovely visual experience from start to finish of this dystopian futuristic world.