Harbingers of Woe

[Matseb2611]

Apologies for yet another post so soon, but the game has been updated to v1.1.

Changes in this version include:

- Finally fixed the save game bug in Hard-bitten difficulty. Restore Shrines should now let saving.
- Restore Shrines can now revive enemies for grinding purposes on Hardochistic difficulty.
- Included Fonts folder in RTP-inclusive version.
- Fixed a few passability errors
 

Cheers.

 

[Labyrinthine]

Here are some brief impressions after trying the game.

The setting is great. Playing as the four horsemen is a good idea, and the mapping with it's color-scheme and details support the premise well. Does this game have an original soundtrack? I hadn't heard these pieces before, so it was refreshing, and the music mostly fits well. The battle theme could be a bit more dark though, to be more suitable with the setting, but that's just my personal opinion.

There are two problems that were my main gripes after trying this game. First of all, the personality traits of the horsemen are not well enough defined. They all sound kind of the same, and the snarky tone of the dialogue- in my opinion- is not serving the general atmosphere too well. The dialogue sounds too "modern" against the setting.

Another issue comes with the skills: There are a bunch of skills immediately assigned to each horsemen. Of course, it makes sense that these guys- the Four Horsemen- are quite powerful from the beginning, but there's simply too many skills to pick from at the start. It would possibly be better to introduce some of these skills later, as rewards from exp or some other mechanic, so that the player could adjust to the new skills and learn to use them as they come. The difficulty level in the easiest setting is too hard... although, it says "hard" in the difficulty-select screen too, so... : -D

I like the way you've handled the battles in general, and the battle system works really well. Is this a system you created yourself? if so, great work, even though i prefer bigger enemy sprites. This feels original, however and that's the most important thing. Also, very nice work with the battle backgrounds.

To be honest, i'm not exactly a fan of dungeon crawler genre, which is probably the main reason why i lacked the interest to play it through further. For the fans of the genre, this is probably a good enough game.

These are very brief impressions after playing through a couple of bosses, and should not be viewed as a review.

 

[Matseb2611]

Thanks for the feedback, Labyrinthine. There I was thinking this game was getting forgotten and ignored.

In the soundtrack, the main theme (in main menu) and all 3 battle themes were custom-made by Scythuz. All the other tracks mostly come from resource packs and ReStaff releases.

The battle system uses Galv's Animated Battlers script (to allow the use of animated battlers) coupled with Yanfly's Battle Engine script, and the rest of the mechanics, like constantly regenerating energy and all was mostly my idea.

Both points you've raised are good and fair. In regard to characterization, I admit I stuck the plot and character development way on the background so to concentrate more on the dungeon crawler aspect of the game. It's the first proper dungeon crawler I've made. Usually I tend to make story-driven games. Perhaps for the next one I'll flesh out characters a bit more.

In regard to skills, I'll make a mental note of that for my future projects. I know that feeling when you get overwhelmed with too many skills and not knowing what each one does.

And yeah, the hard difficulty was intentional.

Thanks again for checking out the game.

 

[Luiishu535]

Just finished playing this game and thought it was overall great! Here is why:

• The game is clearly a pure dungeon crawler and that's where its focus is at. The fact that there weren't that much character development in terms of plot/story enhanced the experienced. The game didn't try to be anything else but a dungeon crawler, which I think is good. The game starts very fast, giving the player enough information on what's going and what the goal is.
• Everything felt fast paced. There's not many stops in the game, between its gameplay and cutscenes for example. 
• For a short game (took a little over 2 hours to beat for me), it definitely felt meaty. It ultimately felt like there was a lot to experiment, without the game being a 50+-hour epic.
• The demonic setting was nice and coherent throughout the game. Music was overall very nice to listen to and did were used well in order to enhance the atmosphere. I'm listening to the music of the game right now in fact as I'm typing this!
• Graphics felt nice and fitting. I like how the enemies shared the same graphics as the encounters! Battlers were animated really well too and felt overall polished.
• Achievements felt very nice and I like how they reward the player in-game. It was fun hunting the achievements down and it was definitely worth it too! I think I got most of the achievements, except for Hidden Treasure 6.
• Battles were challenging and fun. I felt that a good strategy for the most part was the key to success. I played on the Hard-bitten difficulty. The game was pretty tough, but not "rip your hair out tough", which is a pretty good thing, I suppose.
• The visible encounters were well-implemented. Most of them were hard to avoid or almost impossible to avoid, just like some encounters were slower and easier to trick. I think this is a good thing, since most games (especially in RM) that I see that use visible encounters are usually too passive. The enemies are just walking around and about on the maps, without providing a real threat or reason to fight unless I had to grind for a boss. I feel like the encounters in this game did provide a threat and a reason to fight back.
• The game has a level 10 cap, which prevents players from grinding to victory. I think this is overall a good thing since it forces the players to adapt to the game and become more skilled. 
• Enemies never felt under or overpowered. Nice!
• The different difficulty settings are just a great addition overall; it gives the game replay-ability and  attracts a larger group of players. I also like how the difficulty settings change/disable some mechanics of the game, like saving.
• The game didn't feel too linear due to the amount of optional content that is provided to the player. Said optional content didn't stray too far away from the main plot as well. Me like!
• You play as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse; need I say more?

A small error I found: after fighting Marchosias, a period is missing in this sentence: "You show promise, and for that I other you my help". The period should be after "help". I think you wrote a period, but it was accidentally cut-off due to the disposition of the dialogue.

Overall, I thought this was a good experience. It was short and sweet, while still providing reasons replay the game (perhaps the game even has different achievements depending on what difficulty modes you beat.

The fact that you play as the Four Horsemen is a good enough reason in itself to play this game.



Good job on this, bro! I might head over to RMN and make a review out of this to give it some more exposure. Exposure as it deserves.

 

[Matseb2611]

Thank you for playing through the game, man! Great to hear you've enjoyed it. You are indeed right. I thought long story-heavy cutscenes would hinder this game since it's mostly focused on challenging battles and dungeon crawling. And yep, you're also right about the level cap. Didn't want the game to be winnable through grinding. Did you find any bosses to be unusually hard or did the difficulty feel consistent more or less?

Good find on that full stop coming off the edge of the text box.

Awesome, glad you like the music. Three of the metal/rock battle tracks (Infernal Skirmishes, Infernal Disorder, and Infernal Collapse), as well as the title screen theme, were custom-made by Scythuz. The others were from ReStaff and store packs.

And cool, thank you for the review on RMN. I don't go there much these days, but I'll check it when it's up.

 

[Luiishu535]

I thought most bosses were pretty well-balanced. The final boss felt a bit weak compared to the rest though. One thing I also noted; at the start of the game, each characters starts out with like 8 or something skills. Together, that means that the player has to go through and learn 32 skills from the get-go. I personally think that this is the equivalent of a wall of text intro. I think this would've been smoother if the horsemen learned some of the skills later on, therefore giving the player time and room to learn the skills efficiently before moving on to new territories. I understand that the horsemen are experienced and strong, I just think this was simply too much info to take in so early.

 

[Matseb2611]

Yeah, you're not the first to say about too many skills at the start, and I certainly agree. It can be too overwhelming seeing so many skills at once. It's something I'll try to keep to moderation in the future projects.

 

[Demiqas]

Game freezes for ~3 seconds about every ~7 seconds. I don't have this issue with any other RPG maker game so it's nothing on my side.

 

[Matseb2611]

Heya. That's strange. Does this happen only in-game or does it happen on the title screen and game menu too? Maybe the file was corrupted when downloading? I don't see why it would do this honestly since the game doesn't use all that many scripts.

 

[Demiqas]

I redownloaded it and it's working properly now ^^

 

[Matseb2611]

Ah excellent. Yeah, must've been some error whilst downloading.