Zan Zarah: The Hidden Portal - Gameplay

Gameplay

The overall gameplay in ZanZarah: The Hidden Portal is a simple example of the genre. Following the tradition of Pokémon series, the game process is divided into battle and exploration phases. In the exploration phase, the player navigates Amy through the world of ZanZarah. The freedom of movement is limited by many obstacles, such as prickly bushes, huge boulders, enemies, doors or elevators one has to find keys for, etc. In the classic adventure style, Amy explores the environment, solves various puzzles, gathers items and interacts with NPCs. Another aspect of non-battle phase is RPG-like healing, restoring magic powers, assigning spells to the fairies and rearranging the fairy "deck" Amy has with her on her travels.

Traveling via the global map is impossible, but Amy can use magical teleportation runes to shift to virtually any key location - provided, of course, she has already found the corresponding rune. One rune can even teleport her back to London where all fairies she captured but not added to her "deck" stay. It is nearly impossible for Amy to die in ZanZarah (apart from falling from a cliff, drowning in a swamp, and jumping into a river of lava) and even if she "dies", she resumes her journey at the entrance to the location with all the inventory and fairy statistics she had prior to her "death".

The battle phase begins when Amy is attacked by a wild fairy or challenged to a fairy duel and ends when all enemies or her own fairies are defeated. In the latter case, Amy "dies" and respawns at the entrance to the location in the condition she was prior to the battle. While in the battle phase, the player navigates one fairy out of Amy's "deck" through a dueling arena (of which there are dozens of layouts) in a first-person shooter style. Each fairy has two offence-defense pairs of spells which it can switch any time. To actually shoot at an enemy with an offensive spell, the player must hold down the left mouse button to accumulate some charge rather than just tap it. It is important to have some knowledge of arena layouts and a good timing to pull off the most deadly attacks.