Amea is a free-to-play action adventure game. It plays much like the old Ghosts’ n Goblin game as it’s fully rendered in 2D and you can only move from left to right or vice versa. The fact that Amea is a free-to-play game on the internet does not necessarily mean it’s a game without any high quality production values. I was surprised to see that Amea looks and plays much like many platform games available on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade.

From the moment you start playing Amea, you may think the game is a happy sort of game. Amea (the main protagonist) is walking around a nice jungle-like environment along with some peaceful music. Players will then get into a wild shock when Amea finally wakes up. The peaceful place she was wandering around in was nothing but a dream as she wakes up in a dark room along with another character called Garrick.

It is then that you know that Amea won’t be the sort of happy game you thought it would be. Garrick explains to Amea that he too has no memory of what happened as both characters have amnesia and don’t know how they got stuck into this mysterious room in the first place. Garrick decides to go into town to explore more survivors while Amea is left alone to fend for herself.

It is here where your adventure begins as you have to find out how Amea got herself into this mess and why there are all these zombies and other nasty enemies around killing people. The first thing players will notice while playing Amea is the aforementioned high production values this game has to offer. With many free-to-play games, they feel budget as they may lack music, deep gameplay and voice -overs. I’m happy to report that Amea has everything you could want in a great high quality video game.

Not only does this game have great music and sound, but it also features some classy voice acting too. The voice of Amea perfectly fits the role of a girl that is both scared, yet mentally tough to fight her way out of this mess. At the start of the game, the man who voices the “mysterious voice” also does excellent work with his character.

Graphically, the 2D-style of visuals fits the mood and tone of the game really well. Since this is a dark and eerie place Amea is stuck in, the black shadows and scary looking bad guys fit well with the horror-like atmosphere this game trying to achieve. It succeeds excellently in doing this as it is far from the bright luscious place Amea was dreaming about at the very start of the game.

In terms of gameplay, Amea has a lot of tricks up her sleeve that will make other free-to-play games look inferior in comparison. Not only can she jump, but she can perform an evasive roll. The many zombies that she will face in the game come fast and there are many of them that will come all at once to attack her. She has a nifty sword and shield combination that can easily dispatch them. It’s great to see the developer actually animating a whole sword combo for her to execute. Normally only one sword attack sequence is animated in these types of games ala Ghosts’ n Goblins. Thankfully, this is not the case as she can attack and defend like Link can in Ocarina of Time. She can even run and jump executing a very deadly sword attack!

Although this is a classic side-scrolling action game, there are many paths that you can take that makes Amea more than just a linear left-to-right type of game. There are many doors and paths that you can take and you also have to find items to open doors to the next area. If you’ve ever played the old Castlevania games back in the ’80s and ’90s, you’ll know exactly the type of gameplay that Amea offers.

If there’s a thing annoying about Amea, is that enemies respawn even after you have killed them. I guess the developer wanted the player to realize that zombies never go away and will keep reappearing as they are already dead and can never “die” permanently. Still, I felt it was an annoying feature – especially when you are lost and trying to figure what where to go next…

Another feature that is slightly frustrating is that health packs aren’t that very useful in the game. Although they are quite easy to obtain, one health pack only recovers a small fraction of your health back. If you want to recover all of your health, be expected to use at least three or four health packs. The difficulty might also be too hard for beginners as the enemies get tougher as you go as they will have armor and shields too…

Despite some aspects of Amea being quite difficult, it is far from a disappointing game. Amea has an engaging storyline, high production values and fun gamplay. Above all else, it’s absolutely free-to-play. If you’re seeking to play a quality video game from any format and genre, look no further than Amea. It’s a game that many gamers should fun very entertaining to play.