Annnnd, I'm back. With game reviews! And a winning attitude!
But, all y'all probably only care about the game reviews, soooooo....
Unknown Designation
Doomed lovers, rogue A.I.'s and space adventures -- oh my!
What I Liked:
One of UD's greatest assets is its strong characterization and sense of place. The setting is cleverly established, the central characters have distinct personalities, and the use of full-character busts with several emotionally varied faces helped tell the story.
The various sci-fi narrative hooks (an intergalactic neural network, disposable clones, etc.) are concisely explained, drawing players into the tale without dropping a wall of text on their heads. Complimenting the interesting premise is a multitude of very well designed maps. The game's locales are far more varied than I was expecting from a sci-fi outing, which generated plenty of anticipation about where the story would go next.
UD's combat is seriously deep -- you have options on top of options on top of options, all up ins. Additionally, you have your choice of 3 different equipment sets, each of which offers up different skill sets AND play-styles.
Finally, the game's intro and outro are incredibly well down, the former making excellent use of the scrolling map feature and the latter an exercise in gracefully executed subtlety.
What I Didn't Like:
The story felt rushed (which is completely understandable given this contest's month-long dev period and hour time limit on gameplay), and I don't feel like I picked up on the entire narrative. I got the main story just fine, but I was unclear on some of the sub-plot elements/side details, perhaps because I missed a single pertinent text bubble. Also, there were a few (but only a few) minor grammatical mistakes.
In terms of telling the story, a few elements were
crying out to be shown, rather than told. For example: we're told the pods on the main character's ship contain her clones, but they appear empty (even the open ones), or we're told the main character's hair is a mess upon her exiting her pod (in another character's voice, which -- granted -- is a nice way to do this) but her bust sprite sports ever the fearless mane.
Finally, the mixture of RTP sprites and highly detailed fantasy assets felt a bit jarring. Perhaps this could be alleviated slightly by having the enemies only be high fantasy assets, instead of some fantasy and some regular ol' RTP characters. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to fight the enemies or dodge them, as they appeared on the map (which you get brownie points for, since random battles. are. the. worst.) but they never pursued me. Also, combat was pretty easy, which seriously under-serves the crazy deep system of buffs/counterbuffs and specialty attacks the game offers.
Score: 4/5
Peace Of Mind
The game that finally made me accept I'm not winning this contest.
What I Liked:
Uh... everything. Review over. Go play it, seriously. Now. Dude, why are you still reading this?
If you're still here (because you just have a real problem with authority), Peace of Mind is amazing. From the humorous yet still in-theme options on the opening menu, the game starts strong and doesn't let up. The use of real-time combat is amazing for an RPG Maker game, and the world is full of cool effects -- from something as simple as picking up a piece of paper to chatting with a demon, PoM makes full use of sights, sounds and special effects to tell its tale. Also, the only game this year to feature floating ennui!
The writing is the best I've seen so far in this contest (and if you've read any of my reviews, you know I've seen a lot of quality prose). The main character is interesting, sure, but the high point of the game's story is its downright clever deconstructions of the RPG genre (and to some degree, video games as well).
Finally, the psyche combat is phenomenal. When the game first shifted back to turn-based combat, I was disappointed: why ruin a good thing? The answer, of course, is to give you
AN EVEN BETTER THING. Traditional RPG combat is supplanted here by a conversation system, where you gradually make your case and attempt to verbally convince your opponent to back down. It's a clever premise, made absolutely shining with custom art assets and a fully revamped menu UI.
What I Didn't Like:
The fact I didn't make this game.
For real, though, there are a few small issues. Melee combat isn't especially deep, and can be frustrating when you're low on health and have no real way to avoid taking minor damage from each encounter.
Also, the game's lack of save points isn't ideal. Perhaps they're around and I just missed them, but the first time I died I had to start over from my first save about 5 minutes into the game. Granted this game is good enough that I powered through to see the ending, which should give you an idea of its quality.
That's it -- that's all the bad things I have to say about this entry.
Score: 5/5