Specifically the ones for NbtT.
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2012
- Messages
- 640
- Reaction score
- 353
- First Language
- English
- Primarily Uses
- RMMV
Archived Let's Plays/Reviews, Part 1
Daydreamer
Paradise Blue
Playtesting Northwall (my game)
Mana Aeliria
Dammerung: Requiem For Tomorrow
Linus
Casia
Quincy and Amber
Nothing But The Third
Go To SLEEP
Black Cat's Story
Daydreamer
Daydreamer - Part 1 (my RGSS3 player crashed after about 4 minutes, so you can skip to 4:30 in part 1)
Daydreamer - Part 2
Daydreamer - Part 3
Review for Daydreamer (spoilers)
Daydreamer starts out very similar to Chrono Trigger, which I only mention because it occurred to me quite strongly. While the game actually opens up in a dream sequence, a young man then wakes up in bed, is greeted by his mom, and is reminded to go visit the carnival. That's where the similarity stops, but I felt it was worth mentioning.
Anyway, onto the actual game and not my silly digressions - Daydreamer is the story of a young man named whatever you want to call him, but Nicolas or Nick, since that's the default game, is what I ended up going with. After I died 3 times from falling boulders in an abandoned cottage, Nick met a friend named either Lyla, Lily, or Lili at the carnival. Her name when she spoke was Lyla, but Nick kept referring to her as Lily, so I'm not really sure which it's supposed to be. Lyla is an archaeologist who's back in town for the carnival, and she wants to show Nick an abandoned mineshaft she discovered outside of town.
The rest of the demo is basically puzzle-solving trying to figure out how to get deeper into the mine. Also, you die. A lot. From just about everything you can interact with. Hey, a suit of armor! Dead. Hey, a skeleton. I walked out of the room and came back. Dead. Hey, a leather bag. Dead.
Now, if you ever happened to play any of the old Sierra quest games - King's Quest or Quest For Glory or something - you're probably familiar with this kind of gameplay. This is a style of game that really caters to the people who enjoy trial and error, and the almost comical repetition of being killed by every damn thing you come into contact with. If you don't like going back and trying things again, you will feel frustrated, but I expect a lot of people who played the old DOS puzzle games are going to get a real kick out of this, because it's the sort of game you just don't see any more.
Another parallel it draws to the older puzzle games is the difficulty and somewhat obscure nature of the clues to the puzzles. Rest assured, there is no hand-holding, quest journal, or any instruction on what you're supposed to do to solve each area - this is a game that the explorers want to play, the people who want to fiddle with everything and figure out how it works (while dying over and over).
I'd really like to give you an example of what I mean, but frankly, I think you'll enjoy it a lot more if you just give the game a try yourself. This is a game that would've fit right into the era where the word "walkthrough" was akin to blasphemy. I think the RM community would really enjoy it. I will only mention one little hint - if you're American, don't forget that the rest of the world writes their dates as day/month, not month/day.
The music in the game is beautiful. I really like the first piano notes of the title screen, and pretty much every other piece of music that happens - although the town music is a wee bit on the loud side compared to the rest of the game's tracks. Of course, the game also knows when it's better not to have music - the soundscape of dripping water in a cave when exploring the mine and trying to figure out its puzzles really lends to a much better atmosphere than a musical track probably would have. The only music is just an ambient track, which lends nicely to the area.
The environments and backgrounds are all pretty beautiful, actually - I'm really surprised that no feedback has been left for this game given how detailed a lot of the maps are. The only quibble I have with it is that the sunshafts are not stuck to the map, they move around with the screen. It looks really unnatural and is actually distracting at times.
Actually, I thought the demo was ultimately pretty well-polished, with one major flaw - there's a litany of language errors scattered throughout. My favorites were "a bookshelf crapped full of books" and "a bottle of whine." I saw that DrInferno listed Greek as a first language, however, so I really don't mind letting spelling errors and such slide - none of them were so egregious that I couldn't enjoy the game. Perhaps before a final product is released, bringing on-board an editor to clean up the text would be a great boon.
The only other annoyance was that so many of the objects that you can examine are very "exactly what it says on the tin." What I mean is, you can walk up to a mirror on a drawer, and when you examine it, you get the message, "It's a mirror on a drawer." Or a toilet gets, "A toilet." A pot of flowers gets, "It's a pot of flowers." I think making everything interactable in a puzzle/adventure game is a good idea, because it teaches the player that you might be able to find clues anywhere in the environment - but after so many objects gave me no useful, interesting, or important information, I started to feel like I should stop examining everything and instead just try and figure out what's important by what its graphic was.
All in all, though, I really liked the demo. It took me about an hour to do my first time through, though as with all puzzle games, once you know what to do, it could probably be accomplished in much less time. It's a really charming throwback to the "difficulty" and style of older exploration games, and I can think of at least one person on here I plan to message to see if she'll give it a go, too. If you happened to play Limbo, on Steam, I think you'll have an idea of the kind of game Daydreamer is.
Really looking forward to more of the game being released so I can get killed a thousand more ways while trying to wrap my head around some pretty cryptic clues.
Daydreamer - Part 2
Daydreamer - Part 3
Review for Daydreamer (spoilers)
Daydreamer starts out very similar to Chrono Trigger, which I only mention because it occurred to me quite strongly. While the game actually opens up in a dream sequence, a young man then wakes up in bed, is greeted by his mom, and is reminded to go visit the carnival. That's where the similarity stops, but I felt it was worth mentioning.
Anyway, onto the actual game and not my silly digressions - Daydreamer is the story of a young man named whatever you want to call him, but Nicolas or Nick, since that's the default game, is what I ended up going with. After I died 3 times from falling boulders in an abandoned cottage, Nick met a friend named either Lyla, Lily, or Lili at the carnival. Her name when she spoke was Lyla, but Nick kept referring to her as Lily, so I'm not really sure which it's supposed to be. Lyla is an archaeologist who's back in town for the carnival, and she wants to show Nick an abandoned mineshaft she discovered outside of town.
The rest of the demo is basically puzzle-solving trying to figure out how to get deeper into the mine. Also, you die. A lot. From just about everything you can interact with. Hey, a suit of armor! Dead. Hey, a skeleton. I walked out of the room and came back. Dead. Hey, a leather bag. Dead.
Now, if you ever happened to play any of the old Sierra quest games - King's Quest or Quest For Glory or something - you're probably familiar with this kind of gameplay. This is a style of game that really caters to the people who enjoy trial and error, and the almost comical repetition of being killed by every damn thing you come into contact with. If you don't like going back and trying things again, you will feel frustrated, but I expect a lot of people who played the old DOS puzzle games are going to get a real kick out of this, because it's the sort of game you just don't see any more.
Another parallel it draws to the older puzzle games is the difficulty and somewhat obscure nature of the clues to the puzzles. Rest assured, there is no hand-holding, quest journal, or any instruction on what you're supposed to do to solve each area - this is a game that the explorers want to play, the people who want to fiddle with everything and figure out how it works (while dying over and over).
I'd really like to give you an example of what I mean, but frankly, I think you'll enjoy it a lot more if you just give the game a try yourself. This is a game that would've fit right into the era where the word "walkthrough" was akin to blasphemy. I think the RM community would really enjoy it. I will only mention one little hint - if you're American, don't forget that the rest of the world writes their dates as day/month, not month/day.
The music in the game is beautiful. I really like the first piano notes of the title screen, and pretty much every other piece of music that happens - although the town music is a wee bit on the loud side compared to the rest of the game's tracks. Of course, the game also knows when it's better not to have music - the soundscape of dripping water in a cave when exploring the mine and trying to figure out its puzzles really lends to a much better atmosphere than a musical track probably would have. The only music is just an ambient track, which lends nicely to the area.
The environments and backgrounds are all pretty beautiful, actually - I'm really surprised that no feedback has been left for this game given how detailed a lot of the maps are. The only quibble I have with it is that the sunshafts are not stuck to the map, they move around with the screen. It looks really unnatural and is actually distracting at times.
Actually, I thought the demo was ultimately pretty well-polished, with one major flaw - there's a litany of language errors scattered throughout. My favorites were "a bookshelf crapped full of books" and "a bottle of whine." I saw that DrInferno listed Greek as a first language, however, so I really don't mind letting spelling errors and such slide - none of them were so egregious that I couldn't enjoy the game. Perhaps before a final product is released, bringing on-board an editor to clean up the text would be a great boon.
The only other annoyance was that so many of the objects that you can examine are very "exactly what it says on the tin." What I mean is, you can walk up to a mirror on a drawer, and when you examine it, you get the message, "It's a mirror on a drawer." Or a toilet gets, "A toilet." A pot of flowers gets, "It's a pot of flowers." I think making everything interactable in a puzzle/adventure game is a good idea, because it teaches the player that you might be able to find clues anywhere in the environment - but after so many objects gave me no useful, interesting, or important information, I started to feel like I should stop examining everything and instead just try and figure out what's important by what its graphic was.
All in all, though, I really liked the demo. It took me about an hour to do my first time through, though as with all puzzle games, once you know what to do, it could probably be accomplished in much less time. It's a really charming throwback to the "difficulty" and style of older exploration games, and I can think of at least one person on here I plan to message to see if she'll give it a go, too. If you happened to play Limbo, on Steam, I think you'll have an idea of the kind of game Daydreamer is.
Really looking forward to more of the game being released so I can get killed a thousand more ways while trying to wrap my head around some pretty cryptic clues.
Paradise Blue
Paradise Blue
Review for Paradise Blue
OK... Before I share my thoughts on Paradise Blue, I feel like I need to mention a few things. They will seem off-topic or unrelated to Paradise Blue, but stay with me - it's relevant.
Sometimes games I really enjoyed when I was young don't resonate with me as I get older. I have fond memories of playing them, and may even tell people I really loved the game - but then when I pick it back up and try again, I start to wonder where all the magic went. I had this issue after trying to play Final Fantasy IV and VI within the last year or two. I still really enjoy playing FF6 for the most part, but it's hard not to notice that the battles become extremely repetitive and grindy before too long. There are really only a few characters that are fun to use, too, despite the large cast. And actually, even though I've beaten it a couple times, the last time I played it, I pretty much stopped after getting the airship in the World of Ruin. I realized the rest of the game was basically going to be grinding dungeons to reassemble my party. Cool the first time - annoying doing it again.
FF4 was a total snoozefest when I tried to play it again. Now, I played it a lot - I remember getting up at like 6 AM to play it before heading out to catch the school bus. I remember beating Zeromus during one of these early-morning sessions. I still love a lot of the music (especially the Town of Monsters). But man - Cecil and Kain take zero damage, and they really only get ONE attack. And Rydia? Not terribly useful when you first get her. Edward? Garbage. Tellah, Palom, Porom? Somewhat more useful (especially with Twin magic), but Cecil really just seems to carry along a group of people who would never make it on their own. Yang? Sweet, I can punch or I can kick for less damage.
I had never played Final Fantasy 1 or 2 when I was young - I was playing Mario, Zelda, Super Dodge Ball... I think FF4 might've been my first real RPG, and the SNES was really sort of the golden age of gaming for me. I loved all the RPGs on that system. Some of them still hold up pretty well for replay value today, I think. So when I picked up Final Fantasy Origins on the PSX one day, I thought it would be pretty cool to try out FF1 and FF2 and see where the series all started.
I don't think I made it more than an hour into either one. The weird "limb" system in FF2 was just bizarre, the battles were extremely repetitive (because, really, you were just going to spam "fight" over and over). FF1 was really brutal, in-particular, because mages had "spell slots" and not magic. At low levels, you could cast ONE spell before you had to go back to the inn or use items. This meant you'd never make it through a dungeon without spending lots of time grinding first. And grinding doing nothing but selecting fight.
I did give Final Fantasy 5 and Final Fantasy Tactics a try (everybody I know loves the **** out of Tactics, and I did enjoy Shining Force 2 on the Genesis), and neither one grew on me. I really don't care for job systems in games, but I feel like I may be in the minority here when it comes to that sort of thing.
The other thing I want to touch on, and thank you for bearing with me here, is that I never used any of the older versions of RPG Maker. I used the first one on the PSX, played through Gobli's Adventure or whatever the hell it was, dicked about with my own 5-minute game... Then never really touched it again. I didn't pick it back up until Ace.
So I have no idea what kinds of limitations RPG Maker 2003 had. I have no idea what you could customize, what you couldn't, what you could do for maps, what you couldn't... I mean, I really don't know what's something I can laud for great design or pick on for being flawed when it comes to the system's limitations.
Alright, still with me? Let's talk about Paradise Blue.
You're probably wondering why I talked so much about the old Final Fantasy games. Clearly, the creator of Paradise Blue played and loved the Final Fantasy series. There's a font that comes with the game that comes from FF6. There are sprites like Bagan and the chocobo from FF4. The battle screens and character models look like they were taken from FF1. Actually, the game feels a LOT like how I remember FF1 feeling. The items are all using icons and names that look just like they came from FF4. There's a job system that seems akin to FF5, but feels more like the party creation in FF1. There's a healing effect that's the potion animation from FF6, using the sound effect from Chrono Trigger. I didn't get to it, but the screenshots of "Ancangers" look a hell of a lot like Magitek armor from FF6.
So all those things I mentioned that caused me to really be unable to play the older games I really liked when I was young? They're all here in spades. I have a special grievance with the maps, too, because they're all HUGE, one screen, and very repetitive. I only played, really, the cave and the beach, and I usually make a point of going, "Where am I SUPPOSED to go? That way? OK, I'm going everywhere that's not that way." I'm used to game makers hiding treasure chests and optional goodies down all the paths you're not supposed to take. But both maps were filled with the same environment over and over - "OK, I'm running along a beach with some cliffs. I got the chest here, now I'm... Running along a beach with some cliffs." I started to have no idea where I was and was just generally running in a direction. I have no idea how much I may have actually missed because I couldn't figure out how to explore the map - I just started picking random directions and seeing what would happen, because it was far too large and lacking in good landmarks to have any idea where I was going.
It was mentioned to me, before I gave this game a try, that it's not a grindy game - there are enemies on the world map and they don't respawn once you beat them. Well, cool, I can avoid random encounters - except the only abilities I start with are, basically, "Fight" and... Well, fight. Maybe the black mage had a useful ability in "Fire," but really, I was just going to spam fight. You gain access to more skills by fighting battles, where you get a second experience currency called ABP, which levels up your currently chosen class. The first level is 10 ABP, and an average battle seemed to award about 5-10 ABP. Alright, cool, I can get on board with that. The second level? 90 ABP. I can only imagine it starts really skyrocketing, and I don't know if enemies started giving more ABP later, but it sure looked right away that if I wanted to do anything except "Fight," I was going to have to do a LOT of grinding and not avoid enemies.
And even if I did level up, it appeared that I could basically have one ability equipped at any given time, plus a passive ability. So let's say my monk learned, I don't know, "Jump." I couldn't have Kick and Jump equipped, I had to pick which one I wanted. The spell abilities at least picked up a bit of variety, such that a white mage or a black mage could learn more than one thing to do, but man... I really was not interested in sinking in the grind time to do so.
If the game had a great story, I could maybe look past all the system faults, but I honestly was really lost from the get-go. I watched the intro and all the cutscenes, but it just piled a ton of information on all at once. Lots of names of people and places were thrown at me right off the bat, and since they're all made up, I really had no way of keeping track of what the hell any of these people were talking about. Is Christine an enemy, or someone I'm talking to? What's this about killing a king? Wait, are we assassins? No? Wait, you said something about a stone, too? In your room? But it's in the cave? Do you have a room? Oh God, now you're telling me about classes and this menu is enormous and I... I don't know what I'm looking at here. OK, I can access this from the skill menu, but... I don't... Seem to have a skill menu? Or... Ah, man, forget it. I'll just run around until something interesting happens.
Now, I wouldn't have known this going in, since, like I said, I never used the 2k/3 engine or anything, but I'm guessing all the graphics for the game are basically custom-created. The 8-bit style seems quite deliberate, and if that's the case, then that IS impressive to custom create an entire graphical set (even if so many objects, sounds, and sprites are ripped straight from Final Fantasy. That honestly did bother me, though).
So... I don't know - maybe the game was really great when it came out. Maybe there are people who played it and have very fond memories of it in the same way that I did about FF4 and FF6, or about the original Legend of Zelda or something. But the grinding, the jobs, the lack of abilities, the lack of interesting combat, the confusing and repetitive maps, the confusing dialogue... I just couldn't quite find the magic that I used to be able to.
Review for Paradise Blue
OK... Before I share my thoughts on Paradise Blue, I feel like I need to mention a few things. They will seem off-topic or unrelated to Paradise Blue, but stay with me - it's relevant.
Sometimes games I really enjoyed when I was young don't resonate with me as I get older. I have fond memories of playing them, and may even tell people I really loved the game - but then when I pick it back up and try again, I start to wonder where all the magic went. I had this issue after trying to play Final Fantasy IV and VI within the last year or two. I still really enjoy playing FF6 for the most part, but it's hard not to notice that the battles become extremely repetitive and grindy before too long. There are really only a few characters that are fun to use, too, despite the large cast. And actually, even though I've beaten it a couple times, the last time I played it, I pretty much stopped after getting the airship in the World of Ruin. I realized the rest of the game was basically going to be grinding dungeons to reassemble my party. Cool the first time - annoying doing it again.
FF4 was a total snoozefest when I tried to play it again. Now, I played it a lot - I remember getting up at like 6 AM to play it before heading out to catch the school bus. I remember beating Zeromus during one of these early-morning sessions. I still love a lot of the music (especially the Town of Monsters). But man - Cecil and Kain take zero damage, and they really only get ONE attack. And Rydia? Not terribly useful when you first get her. Edward? Garbage. Tellah, Palom, Porom? Somewhat more useful (especially with Twin magic), but Cecil really just seems to carry along a group of people who would never make it on their own. Yang? Sweet, I can punch or I can kick for less damage.
I had never played Final Fantasy 1 or 2 when I was young - I was playing Mario, Zelda, Super Dodge Ball... I think FF4 might've been my first real RPG, and the SNES was really sort of the golden age of gaming for me. I loved all the RPGs on that system. Some of them still hold up pretty well for replay value today, I think. So when I picked up Final Fantasy Origins on the PSX one day, I thought it would be pretty cool to try out FF1 and FF2 and see where the series all started.
I don't think I made it more than an hour into either one. The weird "limb" system in FF2 was just bizarre, the battles were extremely repetitive (because, really, you were just going to spam "fight" over and over). FF1 was really brutal, in-particular, because mages had "spell slots" and not magic. At low levels, you could cast ONE spell before you had to go back to the inn or use items. This meant you'd never make it through a dungeon without spending lots of time grinding first. And grinding doing nothing but selecting fight.
I did give Final Fantasy 5 and Final Fantasy Tactics a try (everybody I know loves the **** out of Tactics, and I did enjoy Shining Force 2 on the Genesis), and neither one grew on me. I really don't care for job systems in games, but I feel like I may be in the minority here when it comes to that sort of thing.
The other thing I want to touch on, and thank you for bearing with me here, is that I never used any of the older versions of RPG Maker. I used the first one on the PSX, played through Gobli's Adventure or whatever the hell it was, dicked about with my own 5-minute game... Then never really touched it again. I didn't pick it back up until Ace.
So I have no idea what kinds of limitations RPG Maker 2003 had. I have no idea what you could customize, what you couldn't, what you could do for maps, what you couldn't... I mean, I really don't know what's something I can laud for great design or pick on for being flawed when it comes to the system's limitations.
Alright, still with me? Let's talk about Paradise Blue.
You're probably wondering why I talked so much about the old Final Fantasy games. Clearly, the creator of Paradise Blue played and loved the Final Fantasy series. There's a font that comes with the game that comes from FF6. There are sprites like Bagan and the chocobo from FF4. The battle screens and character models look like they were taken from FF1. Actually, the game feels a LOT like how I remember FF1 feeling. The items are all using icons and names that look just like they came from FF4. There's a job system that seems akin to FF5, but feels more like the party creation in FF1. There's a healing effect that's the potion animation from FF6, using the sound effect from Chrono Trigger. I didn't get to it, but the screenshots of "Ancangers" look a hell of a lot like Magitek armor from FF6.
So all those things I mentioned that caused me to really be unable to play the older games I really liked when I was young? They're all here in spades. I have a special grievance with the maps, too, because they're all HUGE, one screen, and very repetitive. I only played, really, the cave and the beach, and I usually make a point of going, "Where am I SUPPOSED to go? That way? OK, I'm going everywhere that's not that way." I'm used to game makers hiding treasure chests and optional goodies down all the paths you're not supposed to take. But both maps were filled with the same environment over and over - "OK, I'm running along a beach with some cliffs. I got the chest here, now I'm... Running along a beach with some cliffs." I started to have no idea where I was and was just generally running in a direction. I have no idea how much I may have actually missed because I couldn't figure out how to explore the map - I just started picking random directions and seeing what would happen, because it was far too large and lacking in good landmarks to have any idea where I was going.
It was mentioned to me, before I gave this game a try, that it's not a grindy game - there are enemies on the world map and they don't respawn once you beat them. Well, cool, I can avoid random encounters - except the only abilities I start with are, basically, "Fight" and... Well, fight. Maybe the black mage had a useful ability in "Fire," but really, I was just going to spam fight. You gain access to more skills by fighting battles, where you get a second experience currency called ABP, which levels up your currently chosen class. The first level is 10 ABP, and an average battle seemed to award about 5-10 ABP. Alright, cool, I can get on board with that. The second level? 90 ABP. I can only imagine it starts really skyrocketing, and I don't know if enemies started giving more ABP later, but it sure looked right away that if I wanted to do anything except "Fight," I was going to have to do a LOT of grinding and not avoid enemies.
And even if I did level up, it appeared that I could basically have one ability equipped at any given time, plus a passive ability. So let's say my monk learned, I don't know, "Jump." I couldn't have Kick and Jump equipped, I had to pick which one I wanted. The spell abilities at least picked up a bit of variety, such that a white mage or a black mage could learn more than one thing to do, but man... I really was not interested in sinking in the grind time to do so.
If the game had a great story, I could maybe look past all the system faults, but I honestly was really lost from the get-go. I watched the intro and all the cutscenes, but it just piled a ton of information on all at once. Lots of names of people and places were thrown at me right off the bat, and since they're all made up, I really had no way of keeping track of what the hell any of these people were talking about. Is Christine an enemy, or someone I'm talking to? What's this about killing a king? Wait, are we assassins? No? Wait, you said something about a stone, too? In your room? But it's in the cave? Do you have a room? Oh God, now you're telling me about classes and this menu is enormous and I... I don't know what I'm looking at here. OK, I can access this from the skill menu, but... I don't... Seem to have a skill menu? Or... Ah, man, forget it. I'll just run around until something interesting happens.
Now, I wouldn't have known this going in, since, like I said, I never used the 2k/3 engine or anything, but I'm guessing all the graphics for the game are basically custom-created. The 8-bit style seems quite deliberate, and if that's the case, then that IS impressive to custom create an entire graphical set (even if so many objects, sounds, and sprites are ripped straight from Final Fantasy. That honestly did bother me, though).
So... I don't know - maybe the game was really great when it came out. Maybe there are people who played it and have very fond memories of it in the same way that I did about FF4 and FF6, or about the original Legend of Zelda or something. But the grinding, the jobs, the lack of abilities, the lack of interesting combat, the confusing and repetitive maps, the confusing dialogue... I just couldn't quite find the magic that I used to be able to.
Playtesting Northwall (my game)
Playtesting Northwall - Part 1
Playtesting Northwall - Part 2
Playtesting Northwall - Part 3
Playtesting Northwall - Part 4
Thoughts
- Celandine is a little hard to kill. Admittedly, I was doing the fight the hard way, but he doesn't take enough magic damage and, since he heals himself once, has a bit much HP.
- Some of the dialogue needs to be cleaned up and improved. Notably, the opening conversation between Ben and Rick; the entire post-Belzar conversation; and the cave gabs.
- The desert conversation is a lot of talking. It might be more interesting with some "flashback" visuals to accompany the "voice over" from Suven.
- The Silth soldiers use potions a lot. After checking on their behavior, it's at the same rating as their other 4 abilities, so this appears to have just been bad luck. Nonetheless, lowered the likelihood that soldiers will use potion.
- There needs to be more accessories.
- The spider battle is very boring and could use a bit more complexity to make it interesting.
- The werewolf battle is also pretty straightforward and could use an interesting mechanic or two.
- The Flarus enemies might need a slight experience boost to ensure people who've been completing puzzles and fighting random encounters will be level 9 for Belzar. The player should not have to go out of their way to grind.
- The damage items - flash powder, ice stones, thunder stones - could maybe use a tweak to be more interesting or useful.
- Carnivorous Plants in the forest are really rough enemies if they're the first thing you encounter at level 3 with no TP. Perhaps change the encounter tables so you don't run into them in the first and/or second screen.
- Why is Tilana staying with the group after West Silth? There should be a promise of a cure to her curse so there's some reason for her to stick around.
- Nobody ever told Tilana why they were going to Flarus.
- Everyone seems to love Maestro.
- The Ruby in the Belzar fight wasn't working right. It should've been applying a 30% MAT buff to Belzar, while allowing him the use of Twin Flames and Meteor. This was due to an error in the battle's eventing, and has been fixed internally.
- The encounter rate in the forest seems a little high.
- The party should get a recover all after the campfire scene.
Playtesting Northwall - Part 2
Playtesting Northwall - Part 3
Playtesting Northwall - Part 4
Thoughts
- Celandine is a little hard to kill. Admittedly, I was doing the fight the hard way, but he doesn't take enough magic damage and, since he heals himself once, has a bit much HP.
- Some of the dialogue needs to be cleaned up and improved. Notably, the opening conversation between Ben and Rick; the entire post-Belzar conversation; and the cave gabs.
- The desert conversation is a lot of talking. It might be more interesting with some "flashback" visuals to accompany the "voice over" from Suven.
- The Silth soldiers use potions a lot. After checking on their behavior, it's at the same rating as their other 4 abilities, so this appears to have just been bad luck. Nonetheless, lowered the likelihood that soldiers will use potion.
- There needs to be more accessories.
- The spider battle is very boring and could use a bit more complexity to make it interesting.
- The werewolf battle is also pretty straightforward and could use an interesting mechanic or two.
- The Flarus enemies might need a slight experience boost to ensure people who've been completing puzzles and fighting random encounters will be level 9 for Belzar. The player should not have to go out of their way to grind.
- The damage items - flash powder, ice stones, thunder stones - could maybe use a tweak to be more interesting or useful.
- Carnivorous Plants in the forest are really rough enemies if they're the first thing you encounter at level 3 with no TP. Perhaps change the encounter tables so you don't run into them in the first and/or second screen.
- Why is Tilana staying with the group after West Silth? There should be a promise of a cure to her curse so there's some reason for her to stick around.
- Nobody ever told Tilana why they were going to Flarus.
- Everyone seems to love Maestro.
- The Ruby in the Belzar fight wasn't working right. It should've been applying a 30% MAT buff to Belzar, while allowing him the use of Twin Flames and Meteor. This was due to an error in the battle's eventing, and has been fixed internally.
- The encounter rate in the forest seems a little high.
- The party should get a recover all after the campfire scene.
Mana Aeliria
Mana Aeliria - Part 1
Mana Aeliria - Part 2
Mana Aeliria - Part 3
Mana Aeliria - Part 4
Review for Mana Aeliria
So... Mana Aeliria's pretty impressive. I began my LP with the comment that I've never used RMXP before, so I wasn't sure what kind of limitations it had and what you could do with it (scripting, custom stuff, etc.). I often make that comment because sometimes I have to just let things slide due to a maker's limitation, but also because sometimes I'm just very impressed with what someone has done within the constraints of any particular engine.
Mana Aeliria has so much custom work done to it that it's easy to forget you're playing an RM game, and even so, you probably won't be all that aware of which maker it was made in. You do move in tile fashion, but every single map is parallaxed with a lot of digitally painted backdrops, for example.
I don't know what comes default in terms of sound effects, sprites, animations, what-have-you when it comes to RMXP, but all the character portraits and facesets certainly seem custom-done. The water often looks much more impressive than what I'm used to seeing in RM. The fire effects were holy **** levels of good. The battle animations, the cutscenes... Everything in this game is beautiful, and I commented several times in my LP that I actually would love to see just how many artists were used in the development of this game, because it doesn't seem like something that only one person could tackle - not without a lot of time, anyway.
In fact, let me touch on the battle animations really quick. Those of you who follow my LP thread and reviews know that one of my most-repeated criticisms is the sense that I'm simply spamming whatever my highest-damage ability is most of the time. In the case of Mana Aeliria, that's still true - but Shadow Flash and Aero Wind just look so incredible in their execution that I really didn't mind that I was just using the same ability over and over. It also breaks the standard RM mold of "step forward, do a thing, some damage happens," and goes along the animated battler lines of actually moving to the target and hitting them. There's just a strong sense of actually connecting with your blows and feeling the damage they do.
I will note that every ability I used continued to do ticks of damage after the animation was over, which was a bit jarring. Shadow Flash, for example, does an additional 3 ticks of damage by the time Zane is jumping back to his default position. It's a bit strange.
Combat flows pretty fluidly, though. It's almost easy to forget that you're operating on the standard "pick your actions, then everyone takes their turn" system because everything moves pretty quickly. That it moves quickly is good, too, because there will be times you're going to need to spam guard to get your MP back up. Unfortunately, guard only restores 2% of your HP and 2% of your MP, to the point that you often will spend 4-5 turns using guard just to have enough MP to use a single ability again, then repeating that process. At this stage in the game, I think it would be pretty powerful for guard to heal more than it does (since often it heals about as much damage as an enemy is going to dish out), but I'd love to see more MP recovery on guard. Perhaps it's balanced for later play, though, and it just seems really low at the beginning levels.
By the way, the menu and combat tutorial really needs an optional, "I already know these things" choice. For someone who's never played an RPG before, it's probably pretty helpful. But someone with even basic knowledge of any RPGs, not just RM ones, are probably going to be sitting there going, "Yeah... I know. I get it." I think Over Limits (or Over Drives? They're referred to as both), ELE Boosts, and the gem collection are the only things worth mentioning that are not common to every other RPG.
Also, there's voice acting. A lot of it, not just the moves the characters use in the battle. The voice cast actually is pretty impressively large, to the point that either the team had access to a lot of friends who were willing to work for free, or this game has a much larger budget than I thought. For the most part, the voice acting is pretty good, either way. I remarked in my LP that it felt like watching Adult Swim anime, and I think that's still true.
Some of the characters' recording quality stood out to me in a bad way, though. Zane, Evelyn, and Luna sound very clean. Marcus and the ninja guards, however, sound like they aren't recording in a properly sound-proofed area. I don't expect studio-quality sound, really, but you can do some home treatment to take out a lot of that reverb or remove the necessity for using noise removal tools in, say, Audacity, which makes the sound seem a bit warped. I don't think it will be noticeable to the average player, but I'm also a voice actor, so it's something I'm always trying to improve upon, myself. It's ultimately pretty minor - especially when you have music playing that will cover up the mild issue - but it stands out when compared to the main characters.
On that note, I think Luna's father could use some re-recording. I don't know if the actor has access to a pop filter for his microphone, but either he doesn't, or he's speaking way too close to the mic. He's getting a lot of plosives when he speaks, even on things that really shouldn't be producing them - listen especially to his hard B's and P's, and you can hear his breath hitting the diaphragm in the mic too hard. I also think it's a little too obvious that it's a younger guy doing an older guy's voice, it really reminds the player that you're listening to a voice actor, and not a character. Luna seems like she could be pretty young, so I don't think her father has to necessarily sound so grandfatherly or rickety - even someone who sounds middle-aged would be a lot more believable. I know he's referred to as "Elder," but I think it would be better if his voice sounded more natural and less forced.
Otherwise, I'm actually impressed with the level of quality for the voice acting in the game. It's hard to get people shouting out all their attacks in battle without it sounding cheesy, but so far, the actors have done a good job of it. They also have a good grasp on delivering the lines so that the player is drawn into the story rather than brought out of it.
Normally, I'm really big on music, too, but I have to admit, for the hour and a half that I was playing the demo, I was focused on checking out other aspects, so you'll have to forgive me for not delivering an in-depth review of the music. It has a very oriental/"ninja" feel to it when experiencing Zane's scenes, which I really enjoyed - but otherwise, I don't think anything caught my ear as, "I gotta' come back and listen to this later." Again, it's not because it was bad - as far as I recall, I actually thought the music was well-produced and well-chosen for each scene - it's just that my mind was elsewhere during my playthrough.
Overall, though, I'm seriously impressed with Mana Aeliria. If this game is not intended to be commercial, then I think everyone's going to be getting a hell of a deal on playing it, because I think it's certainly on a commercial level of quality in all departments. The combat is a bit simplistic, but I also only played to level 3 and fought some of the most basic enemies and the first boss, so it's far too early to pass any real judgement on it - but either way, like I said, the animations and flow are so slick that what would otherwise be ho-hum in many other games is still very cool in this one.
This is something I definitely want to keep an eye on, and if anyone else gets a chance, pick it up and give it a run, yourself.
Mana Aeliria - Part 2
Mana Aeliria - Part 3
Mana Aeliria - Part 4
Review for Mana Aeliria
So... Mana Aeliria's pretty impressive. I began my LP with the comment that I've never used RMXP before, so I wasn't sure what kind of limitations it had and what you could do with it (scripting, custom stuff, etc.). I often make that comment because sometimes I have to just let things slide due to a maker's limitation, but also because sometimes I'm just very impressed with what someone has done within the constraints of any particular engine.
Mana Aeliria has so much custom work done to it that it's easy to forget you're playing an RM game, and even so, you probably won't be all that aware of which maker it was made in. You do move in tile fashion, but every single map is parallaxed with a lot of digitally painted backdrops, for example.
I don't know what comes default in terms of sound effects, sprites, animations, what-have-you when it comes to RMXP, but all the character portraits and facesets certainly seem custom-done. The water often looks much more impressive than what I'm used to seeing in RM. The fire effects were holy **** levels of good. The battle animations, the cutscenes... Everything in this game is beautiful, and I commented several times in my LP that I actually would love to see just how many artists were used in the development of this game, because it doesn't seem like something that only one person could tackle - not without a lot of time, anyway.
In fact, let me touch on the battle animations really quick. Those of you who follow my LP thread and reviews know that one of my most-repeated criticisms is the sense that I'm simply spamming whatever my highest-damage ability is most of the time. In the case of Mana Aeliria, that's still true - but Shadow Flash and Aero Wind just look so incredible in their execution that I really didn't mind that I was just using the same ability over and over. It also breaks the standard RM mold of "step forward, do a thing, some damage happens," and goes along the animated battler lines of actually moving to the target and hitting them. There's just a strong sense of actually connecting with your blows and feeling the damage they do.
I will note that every ability I used continued to do ticks of damage after the animation was over, which was a bit jarring. Shadow Flash, for example, does an additional 3 ticks of damage by the time Zane is jumping back to his default position. It's a bit strange.
Combat flows pretty fluidly, though. It's almost easy to forget that you're operating on the standard "pick your actions, then everyone takes their turn" system because everything moves pretty quickly. That it moves quickly is good, too, because there will be times you're going to need to spam guard to get your MP back up. Unfortunately, guard only restores 2% of your HP and 2% of your MP, to the point that you often will spend 4-5 turns using guard just to have enough MP to use a single ability again, then repeating that process. At this stage in the game, I think it would be pretty powerful for guard to heal more than it does (since often it heals about as much damage as an enemy is going to dish out), but I'd love to see more MP recovery on guard. Perhaps it's balanced for later play, though, and it just seems really low at the beginning levels.
By the way, the menu and combat tutorial really needs an optional, "I already know these things" choice. For someone who's never played an RPG before, it's probably pretty helpful. But someone with even basic knowledge of any RPGs, not just RM ones, are probably going to be sitting there going, "Yeah... I know. I get it." I think Over Limits (or Over Drives? They're referred to as both), ELE Boosts, and the gem collection are the only things worth mentioning that are not common to every other RPG.
Also, there's voice acting. A lot of it, not just the moves the characters use in the battle. The voice cast actually is pretty impressively large, to the point that either the team had access to a lot of friends who were willing to work for free, or this game has a much larger budget than I thought. For the most part, the voice acting is pretty good, either way. I remarked in my LP that it felt like watching Adult Swim anime, and I think that's still true.
Some of the characters' recording quality stood out to me in a bad way, though. Zane, Evelyn, and Luna sound very clean. Marcus and the ninja guards, however, sound like they aren't recording in a properly sound-proofed area. I don't expect studio-quality sound, really, but you can do some home treatment to take out a lot of that reverb or remove the necessity for using noise removal tools in, say, Audacity, which makes the sound seem a bit warped. I don't think it will be noticeable to the average player, but I'm also a voice actor, so it's something I'm always trying to improve upon, myself. It's ultimately pretty minor - especially when you have music playing that will cover up the mild issue - but it stands out when compared to the main characters.
On that note, I think Luna's father could use some re-recording. I don't know if the actor has access to a pop filter for his microphone, but either he doesn't, or he's speaking way too close to the mic. He's getting a lot of plosives when he speaks, even on things that really shouldn't be producing them - listen especially to his hard B's and P's, and you can hear his breath hitting the diaphragm in the mic too hard. I also think it's a little too obvious that it's a younger guy doing an older guy's voice, it really reminds the player that you're listening to a voice actor, and not a character. Luna seems like she could be pretty young, so I don't think her father has to necessarily sound so grandfatherly or rickety - even someone who sounds middle-aged would be a lot more believable. I know he's referred to as "Elder," but I think it would be better if his voice sounded more natural and less forced.
Otherwise, I'm actually impressed with the level of quality for the voice acting in the game. It's hard to get people shouting out all their attacks in battle without it sounding cheesy, but so far, the actors have done a good job of it. They also have a good grasp on delivering the lines so that the player is drawn into the story rather than brought out of it.
Normally, I'm really big on music, too, but I have to admit, for the hour and a half that I was playing the demo, I was focused on checking out other aspects, so you'll have to forgive me for not delivering an in-depth review of the music. It has a very oriental/"ninja" feel to it when experiencing Zane's scenes, which I really enjoyed - but otherwise, I don't think anything caught my ear as, "I gotta' come back and listen to this later." Again, it's not because it was bad - as far as I recall, I actually thought the music was well-produced and well-chosen for each scene - it's just that my mind was elsewhere during my playthrough.
Overall, though, I'm seriously impressed with Mana Aeliria. If this game is not intended to be commercial, then I think everyone's going to be getting a hell of a deal on playing it, because I think it's certainly on a commercial level of quality in all departments. The combat is a bit simplistic, but I also only played to level 3 and fought some of the most basic enemies and the first boss, so it's far too early to pass any real judgement on it - but either way, like I said, the animations and flow are so slick that what would otherwise be ho-hum in many other games is still very cool in this one.
This is something I definitely want to keep an eye on, and if anyone else gets a chance, pick it up and give it a run, yourself.
Dammerung: Requiem For Tomorrow
Dammerung: Requiem For Tomorrow - Part 1
Dammerung: Requiem For Tomorrow - Part 2
Dammerung: Requiem For Tomorrow - Part 3
Review for Dammerung: Requiem For Tomorrow
There was one prominent note I was given before I started playing this game - talk to everyone multiple times until you notice they're repeating themselves. I was given a second note, but it's irrelevant to the review.
My guess would be that I got that note because that's really the game's greatest strength and is probably the aspect the creator spent the most time working on. The entire NPC population has evolving dialogue that reacts to the story at hand - talk to some miners, they tell you about some scary stuff. Set off an explosion, they all ask about the explosion. It's not just story-important characters who change their dialogue up to help move the story along. Almost everybody you can talk to will react to the world around them.
So that's actually pretty cool. That is a level of detail and care that most games don't go into. Admittedly, if you aren't interested in the minutiae of the day-to-day life of what are, effectively, a bunch of random citizens and workers that are not otherwise important to the story, it's a detail you're going to skip quickly. But if you're interested in exploring a world, it should be right up your alley.
I didn't really get a chance to play with it that much, but there's also a fame system. Presumably, as you complete sidequests/"bounties," you also gain a reputation, and everyone will react to you differently depending on your reputation. This seems to imply that every NPC will have page after page of complex dialogue options that are all hinged on various switches and variables, and that's a pretty impressive amount of work to sink into conversations.
So honestly, I'm pretty impressed with the wide variety of dialogue options you get with everyone in the game, and moreso with what the game looks like it unfolds into as a result.
However, as I mentioned, I didn't really get a chance to get that far into it, because the rest of the game is missing some serious polish.
The maps are quite large and extremely bare. They could probably be cut down by about 70% and still serve the same purpose - or, if it's absolutely important to give the sense of sprawl or depth, then a lot more work needs to be put into making the maps more interesting. Since hardly anything in the world can be interacted with, save for the occasional bookshelf, really, I'm going to start cruising through a lot of the background without any regard to something that is not an NPC, since they're the ones with the interesting interaction (sort of - I'll get to that in a second). And if what I'm cruising through all looks the same, I'm going to start zoning out and basically ignoring the fact that the game even has maps.
There are some mapping areas that further pull me out of the experience - for example, the bottoms of tables appear to have no legs, there are some cobblestone tiles that stand out as clearly contrasting, and I came across a wall that had no wall, leading east out of town. It was just a ceiling tile that came to an abrupt end.
I'd like to think I'm really not that critical of art and map assets, but the level of blandness in the maps is kind of jarring, and serves to remind me that I'm playing a game made with autotiles.
Speaking of art assets, and I'm only going to briefly address this because the creator has already mentioned he's aware of the issue in his game thread... Holy ****, the faces. They are... Absolutely frightening. I think an exorcist needs to be called in to Pleroma. Or maybe there just needs to be less in-breeding. Yowza.
Now, as impressed as I am with the volume of dialogue, the quality is hit and miss. I didn't see any glaring spelling or grammar errors - not that it was perfect, of course - but some of the dialogue seemed kind of... Off. I'm not entirely sure if it's a deliberate choice or it's just me, but the game's men are misogynistically overbearing at times, and none of the women seem to have an issue with it. At first I was kind of surprised to see that the main character, an orphan who hardened herself working in the mines and eventually worked her way up to assistant foreman, was a woman. Not that I found it unbelievable, but that most games don't usually go that route. It was actually kind of refreshing - "hey, a strong woman who's not strong because she's motherly or some ****."
But then she just casually accepts all the various creepy-looking dudes calling out, "Hey, girl." I have the feeling if they could've been patting her ass and wolf-whistling at her as she walked by, they would have, and she just accepts it all with a smile and a flirtatious wink. It's sort of unsettling, really - and it's not just her, literally every female character I came across seemed to express the same kind of attitude and sentiment.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for free sexuality and female characters being able to express themselves in any way, shape, or form - especially in a video game where the rules of the real world don't have to apply. Clearly, Pleroma is not a patriarchy, with many of the miners, a presumably physically demanding job, being women. There's no slight against them for being women, no accusations of being weak, no one complaining that "they're working under a woman" or anything like that. Even the priestesses at Kassandria's temple, who openly sleep with pretty much anyone who asks (because that's how you recover your HP/MP), are not slut-shamed or considered inferior. The priests fill the same role, so it's not like it's only the women who are treated with this open sexuality.
It's just that there are a lot of side comments that reflect a more male-dominant, female-submissive atmosphere that neither gender questions that is a little offputting after being presented with this presumably gender-equal society.
Some of the characters don't seem nearly as emotionally affected as they ought to be, either, and I think that's a combination of eventing, music, and dialogue. When Mitzi effectively sacrifices herself to try and seal in the witch Magdalene, there's no sense of loss or caring or even that Sofie even really notices. The two of them start running out, but when Mitzi stays back to blow up the tunnels, Sofie pretty casually strolls out. She doesn't seem nearly as upset about the indifference to the whole affair the mayor takes on, either - I think this would be the equivalent to watching a movie or TV show and calling the actors "wooden." It seems so much more like script-reading than real emotion.
The equipment system is a little confusing, primarily because all the numbers are the same hue. When you go to increase your attack, it's not readily obvious that your attack is being increased (by having the number be green or, if it's decreased, red, or whatever you want to do). The shift in stats kind of blends into the background, so much so that I didn't even notice that raising my attack power by 20 actually just raised my damage from 2-4 to 2-5. I was extremely disappointed when I tripled my attack power, only to do the exact same damage I had been doing before. I had the same issue with defense - I raised my defense by 20, tripling my default 10, but I didn't notice a difference.
Also, the first battle I encountered - not even outside town, in a dungeon, or in any atmosphere that suggested I would be getting into a battle - almost gave me a game over. I had no special skills, I had no items, and the guard command appeared to do absolutely nothing - so it was literally "attack" or "escape." I often missed or did 0-2 damage, while the mouldy slime in the cellar was doing 20-25 damage to me per hit. I picked up new armor and a new ring, but when I came back, it was a repeat of the first battle - I just had better luck with misses and hits and damage and all.
Even after I picked up a party, despite completing all the sidequests I was able to find in town, I never received any more money or useful items. So I ventured out of town, unable to upgrade any of my equipment, and eventually was led back to the starting town's "bounty board." I was informed by the game that completing early bounties would be easier than completing later bounties, so I figured the very first bounty I encountered could be completed by my starting party of 3 members.
However, I was wrong - one character did 0 damage, but having access to no items, special skills, or any commands other than fight, had no option except to just keep telling him to futilely whack away at an enemy that would not take damage. The escape option was not around this time, so, over an agonizingly repetitious and slow battle, I was eventually whittled down in an inevitable defeat that I didn't feel like I could've done anything more to prepare for.
In short, the game feels very raw and still "early development." It kind of feels like a first pass of a rough draft of a game, where I've only come upon it as all the various dialogue intricacies have been introduced. There doesn't seem to really BE a combat system yet, and the story doesn't feel particularly engaging, mostly because all the characters kind of treat every situation the same - they have the same level of emotion to deciding to be a stripper in a pub out of boredom (that's really a thing that happens, by the way) as they do to possibly setting a powerful demon-witch free.
I'd be very curious to see where the game ends up finishing with all the detail given to the NPCs. However, I think future builds need to have a lot of that attention to detail spread around to other aspects of the game.
Dammerung: Requiem For Tomorrow - Part 2
Dammerung: Requiem For Tomorrow - Part 3
Review for Dammerung: Requiem For Tomorrow
There was one prominent note I was given before I started playing this game - talk to everyone multiple times until you notice they're repeating themselves. I was given a second note, but it's irrelevant to the review.
My guess would be that I got that note because that's really the game's greatest strength and is probably the aspect the creator spent the most time working on. The entire NPC population has evolving dialogue that reacts to the story at hand - talk to some miners, they tell you about some scary stuff. Set off an explosion, they all ask about the explosion. It's not just story-important characters who change their dialogue up to help move the story along. Almost everybody you can talk to will react to the world around them.
So that's actually pretty cool. That is a level of detail and care that most games don't go into. Admittedly, if you aren't interested in the minutiae of the day-to-day life of what are, effectively, a bunch of random citizens and workers that are not otherwise important to the story, it's a detail you're going to skip quickly. But if you're interested in exploring a world, it should be right up your alley.
I didn't really get a chance to play with it that much, but there's also a fame system. Presumably, as you complete sidequests/"bounties," you also gain a reputation, and everyone will react to you differently depending on your reputation. This seems to imply that every NPC will have page after page of complex dialogue options that are all hinged on various switches and variables, and that's a pretty impressive amount of work to sink into conversations.
So honestly, I'm pretty impressed with the wide variety of dialogue options you get with everyone in the game, and moreso with what the game looks like it unfolds into as a result.
However, as I mentioned, I didn't really get a chance to get that far into it, because the rest of the game is missing some serious polish.
The maps are quite large and extremely bare. They could probably be cut down by about 70% and still serve the same purpose - or, if it's absolutely important to give the sense of sprawl or depth, then a lot more work needs to be put into making the maps more interesting. Since hardly anything in the world can be interacted with, save for the occasional bookshelf, really, I'm going to start cruising through a lot of the background without any regard to something that is not an NPC, since they're the ones with the interesting interaction (sort of - I'll get to that in a second). And if what I'm cruising through all looks the same, I'm going to start zoning out and basically ignoring the fact that the game even has maps.
There are some mapping areas that further pull me out of the experience - for example, the bottoms of tables appear to have no legs, there are some cobblestone tiles that stand out as clearly contrasting, and I came across a wall that had no wall, leading east out of town. It was just a ceiling tile that came to an abrupt end.
I'd like to think I'm really not that critical of art and map assets, but the level of blandness in the maps is kind of jarring, and serves to remind me that I'm playing a game made with autotiles.
Speaking of art assets, and I'm only going to briefly address this because the creator has already mentioned he's aware of the issue in his game thread... Holy ****, the faces. They are... Absolutely frightening. I think an exorcist needs to be called in to Pleroma. Or maybe there just needs to be less in-breeding. Yowza.
Now, as impressed as I am with the volume of dialogue, the quality is hit and miss. I didn't see any glaring spelling or grammar errors - not that it was perfect, of course - but some of the dialogue seemed kind of... Off. I'm not entirely sure if it's a deliberate choice or it's just me, but the game's men are misogynistically overbearing at times, and none of the women seem to have an issue with it. At first I was kind of surprised to see that the main character, an orphan who hardened herself working in the mines and eventually worked her way up to assistant foreman, was a woman. Not that I found it unbelievable, but that most games don't usually go that route. It was actually kind of refreshing - "hey, a strong woman who's not strong because she's motherly or some ****."
But then she just casually accepts all the various creepy-looking dudes calling out, "Hey, girl." I have the feeling if they could've been patting her ass and wolf-whistling at her as she walked by, they would have, and she just accepts it all with a smile and a flirtatious wink. It's sort of unsettling, really - and it's not just her, literally every female character I came across seemed to express the same kind of attitude and sentiment.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for free sexuality and female characters being able to express themselves in any way, shape, or form - especially in a video game where the rules of the real world don't have to apply. Clearly, Pleroma is not a patriarchy, with many of the miners, a presumably physically demanding job, being women. There's no slight against them for being women, no accusations of being weak, no one complaining that "they're working under a woman" or anything like that. Even the priestesses at Kassandria's temple, who openly sleep with pretty much anyone who asks (because that's how you recover your HP/MP), are not slut-shamed or considered inferior. The priests fill the same role, so it's not like it's only the women who are treated with this open sexuality.
It's just that there are a lot of side comments that reflect a more male-dominant, female-submissive atmosphere that neither gender questions that is a little offputting after being presented with this presumably gender-equal society.
Some of the characters don't seem nearly as emotionally affected as they ought to be, either, and I think that's a combination of eventing, music, and dialogue. When Mitzi effectively sacrifices herself to try and seal in the witch Magdalene, there's no sense of loss or caring or even that Sofie even really notices. The two of them start running out, but when Mitzi stays back to blow up the tunnels, Sofie pretty casually strolls out. She doesn't seem nearly as upset about the indifference to the whole affair the mayor takes on, either - I think this would be the equivalent to watching a movie or TV show and calling the actors "wooden." It seems so much more like script-reading than real emotion.
The equipment system is a little confusing, primarily because all the numbers are the same hue. When you go to increase your attack, it's not readily obvious that your attack is being increased (by having the number be green or, if it's decreased, red, or whatever you want to do). The shift in stats kind of blends into the background, so much so that I didn't even notice that raising my attack power by 20 actually just raised my damage from 2-4 to 2-5. I was extremely disappointed when I tripled my attack power, only to do the exact same damage I had been doing before. I had the same issue with defense - I raised my defense by 20, tripling my default 10, but I didn't notice a difference.
Also, the first battle I encountered - not even outside town, in a dungeon, or in any atmosphere that suggested I would be getting into a battle - almost gave me a game over. I had no special skills, I had no items, and the guard command appeared to do absolutely nothing - so it was literally "attack" or "escape." I often missed or did 0-2 damage, while the mouldy slime in the cellar was doing 20-25 damage to me per hit. I picked up new armor and a new ring, but when I came back, it was a repeat of the first battle - I just had better luck with misses and hits and damage and all.
Even after I picked up a party, despite completing all the sidequests I was able to find in town, I never received any more money or useful items. So I ventured out of town, unable to upgrade any of my equipment, and eventually was led back to the starting town's "bounty board." I was informed by the game that completing early bounties would be easier than completing later bounties, so I figured the very first bounty I encountered could be completed by my starting party of 3 members.
However, I was wrong - one character did 0 damage, but having access to no items, special skills, or any commands other than fight, had no option except to just keep telling him to futilely whack away at an enemy that would not take damage. The escape option was not around this time, so, over an agonizingly repetitious and slow battle, I was eventually whittled down in an inevitable defeat that I didn't feel like I could've done anything more to prepare for.
In short, the game feels very raw and still "early development." It kind of feels like a first pass of a rough draft of a game, where I've only come upon it as all the various dialogue intricacies have been introduced. There doesn't seem to really BE a combat system yet, and the story doesn't feel particularly engaging, mostly because all the characters kind of treat every situation the same - they have the same level of emotion to deciding to be a stripper in a pub out of boredom (that's really a thing that happens, by the way) as they do to possibly setting a powerful demon-witch free.
I'd be very curious to see where the game ends up finishing with all the detail given to the NPCs. However, I think future builds need to have a lot of that attention to detail spread around to other aspects of the game.
Linus
Linus - Part 1
Linus - Part 2
Linus - Part 3
Linus - Part 4
Linus - Part 5
Linus - Part 6
Linus - Part 7
Review for Linus
Linus does not have a publicly available demo as of the time of this writing, and it came with some notes from the creator before I got started. Most important among them:
Anyway, the battles are pretty minimal and since it's clear there's a lot of work expected to be done on them still, I will go ahead and leave the commentary for them out of the review.
It's too bad the music is all placeholder as well, as I actually really liked it - even if it's placeholder, it certainly fits all the scenes extremely well. I'm looking forward to seeing what the original compositions do to change the mood and/or atmosphere of the game.
There's not exactly a whole lot of exploration to do, either - at least in the sense that it doesn't reward you with unique items or present you with puzzles to solve or anything. For the most part, exploration is just to admire the maps or perhaps find a few "odds and ends" NPCs to talk to to learn a little bit more about the story or the characters.
So... A lot of the things I would normally talk about in a review are not the point of Linus. This means I pretty much only have two major categories to go on: art and story.
Thankfully, these categories do not disappoint. Even if there's Fire Emblem edits currently acting as placeholders (a series I have not actually played, so I can't tell the difference, anyway) for busts and portraits, the whole game has an amazing level of custom design. It looks like every single map is parallaxed, and the amount of detail put into all the scenes is pretty impressive. It doesn't look like maps made with an RM engine - it looks like professional, studio-drawn maps you would've seen from something like Chrono Trigger.
There's a lot of extra sprite animations, too, which are always neat to see. I thought the "stab a dude through the throat" and "impale a dude from behind" ones were particularly good. Any time you see two sprites combined into a single spriteset and come off successfully done, it's a treat. Simpler things like Rousseau holding up the letter to read are cool, though.
The game has an extremely washed-out, hazy feel to its presentation, but it matches up with the gritty atmosphere quite well. There's a lot of grey-scale tinting, and the game is pretty perpetually played with a black ring around the borders of the screen, on top of the fog overlay. Since the majority of the demo takes place in the forest, too, there are a lot of earth tones - greens, browns, and reds - that lend to the raw nature of the artwork and setting.
In short, the game feels "gloomy" a lot of the time. This is actually a style I personally enjoy, too, so it was easier for me to get on board. I commented towards the end of my LP that "I would love if the story goes as dark as it's suggesting it's about to," because I was concerned that it would pull its punches and sort of "Hollywood" things up a bit. So, imagine my surprise when it really is as dark as it sets itself up to be. It's rare I play games that approach stories with this level of seriousness, without ever deviating to make fourth-wall-breaking jokes or provide some kind of comic relief, and it's actually extremely refreshing to see a story that takes itself so seriously.
Eugene, Vinz, and Andre are three scouts for the Summerland military, led by General Bastoche and ultimately serving the King Uriah. They are waging a losing and pretty one-sided war with the Greylanders, whose empress has demanded both Bastoche and Uriah's heads with promises of clemency and peace in return. The game opens following a particularly devastating battle, where the main characters begin to realize that this war is futile, and there is only one possible outcome if they stick by their military - death for all, without a noble cause to sacrifice themselves for. This is not a heroic last stand, it's an absolute slaughter.
So the three scouts make plans to desert. Along the way, there is a lot of political intrigue, double-crossing, backstabbing (sometimes literally), and a general sense that you never really know who you can trust and who's on whose side. While some of the surprises are foreshadowed strongly enough that you'll see them coming, it never feels cheap or Shyamalanian.
I don't want to talk too much more about the actual story, because, you know... Spoilers. But it's honestly extremely well-written. I think it helps that the game is presented as a visual novel, too - some of the subtleties of the plot and the characterization are things you wouldn't be able to get away with using the shorter cutscenes of a typical RPG. You really need these longer conversations and more detailed minutiae to truly take in everything the story has to offer. Not being distracted by crazy boss fights, min/maxing with your equipment, or inventory management, is also pretty key to making sure you're focused on the story at hand.
I don't think this story would work as a typical RPG, and perhaps that's the best evidence that the game's developers really know what they're doing. They made a deliberate choice to make a visual novel and they're using that format to great effect. It's not just a lot of cutscenes, it's a lot of important cutscenes to learn about the characters, the setting, the circumstances... Everything.
I'm still not sure that visual novels, as a genre, are really a thing I will end up getting much into - but I have to say, as an initial foray into the format, I'm pretty impressed. Linus has one of the best stories I've seen in a game so far - not just an RM game, but in any game - and it's a shame I don't get to see this caliber of plot more often.
With the whole team working on it, I'm extremely curious to see what the fully fleshed out battle system, custom music, custom busts and character portraits, and all the replacements for the various placeholders or "things that need to be taken care of later" will end up being. I think this is a game whose completion I will look forward to more than most games I get my hands on.
Linus - Part 2
Linus - Part 3
Linus - Part 4
Linus - Part 5
Linus - Part 6
Linus - Part 7
Review for Linus
Linus does not have a publicly available demo as of the time of this writing, and it came with some notes from the creator before I got started. Most important among them:
The game is also intended to be more visual novel than RPG, which is something I haven't really delved too much into. I start to feel a little exhausted pressing enter to progress dialogue through cutscenes if I'm not given the occasional break to "play a game," as it were, so visual novels are not exactly my forte.
Anyway, the battles are pretty minimal and since it's clear there's a lot of work expected to be done on them still, I will go ahead and leave the commentary for them out of the review.
It's too bad the music is all placeholder as well, as I actually really liked it - even if it's placeholder, it certainly fits all the scenes extremely well. I'm looking forward to seeing what the original compositions do to change the mood and/or atmosphere of the game.
There's not exactly a whole lot of exploration to do, either - at least in the sense that it doesn't reward you with unique items or present you with puzzles to solve or anything. For the most part, exploration is just to admire the maps or perhaps find a few "odds and ends" NPCs to talk to to learn a little bit more about the story or the characters.
So... A lot of the things I would normally talk about in a review are not the point of Linus. This means I pretty much only have two major categories to go on: art and story.
Thankfully, these categories do not disappoint. Even if there's Fire Emblem edits currently acting as placeholders (a series I have not actually played, so I can't tell the difference, anyway) for busts and portraits, the whole game has an amazing level of custom design. It looks like every single map is parallaxed, and the amount of detail put into all the scenes is pretty impressive. It doesn't look like maps made with an RM engine - it looks like professional, studio-drawn maps you would've seen from something like Chrono Trigger.
There's a lot of extra sprite animations, too, which are always neat to see. I thought the "stab a dude through the throat" and "impale a dude from behind" ones were particularly good. Any time you see two sprites combined into a single spriteset and come off successfully done, it's a treat. Simpler things like Rousseau holding up the letter to read are cool, though.
The game has an extremely washed-out, hazy feel to its presentation, but it matches up with the gritty atmosphere quite well. There's a lot of grey-scale tinting, and the game is pretty perpetually played with a black ring around the borders of the screen, on top of the fog overlay. Since the majority of the demo takes place in the forest, too, there are a lot of earth tones - greens, browns, and reds - that lend to the raw nature of the artwork and setting.
In short, the game feels "gloomy" a lot of the time. This is actually a style I personally enjoy, too, so it was easier for me to get on board. I commented towards the end of my LP that "I would love if the story goes as dark as it's suggesting it's about to," because I was concerned that it would pull its punches and sort of "Hollywood" things up a bit. So, imagine my surprise when it really is as dark as it sets itself up to be. It's rare I play games that approach stories with this level of seriousness, without ever deviating to make fourth-wall-breaking jokes or provide some kind of comic relief, and it's actually extremely refreshing to see a story that takes itself so seriously.
Eugene, Vinz, and Andre are three scouts for the Summerland military, led by General Bastoche and ultimately serving the King Uriah. They are waging a losing and pretty one-sided war with the Greylanders, whose empress has demanded both Bastoche and Uriah's heads with promises of clemency and peace in return. The game opens following a particularly devastating battle, where the main characters begin to realize that this war is futile, and there is only one possible outcome if they stick by their military - death for all, without a noble cause to sacrifice themselves for. This is not a heroic last stand, it's an absolute slaughter.
So the three scouts make plans to desert. Along the way, there is a lot of political intrigue, double-crossing, backstabbing (sometimes literally), and a general sense that you never really know who you can trust and who's on whose side. While some of the surprises are foreshadowed strongly enough that you'll see them coming, it never feels cheap or Shyamalanian.
I don't want to talk too much more about the actual story, because, you know... Spoilers. But it's honestly extremely well-written. I think it helps that the game is presented as a visual novel, too - some of the subtleties of the plot and the characterization are things you wouldn't be able to get away with using the shorter cutscenes of a typical RPG. You really need these longer conversations and more detailed minutiae to truly take in everything the story has to offer. Not being distracted by crazy boss fights, min/maxing with your equipment, or inventory management, is also pretty key to making sure you're focused on the story at hand.
I don't think this story would work as a typical RPG, and perhaps that's the best evidence that the game's developers really know what they're doing. They made a deliberate choice to make a visual novel and they're using that format to great effect. It's not just a lot of cutscenes, it's a lot of important cutscenes to learn about the characters, the setting, the circumstances... Everything.
I'm still not sure that visual novels, as a genre, are really a thing I will end up getting much into - but I have to say, as an initial foray into the format, I'm pretty impressed. Linus has one of the best stories I've seen in a game so far - not just an RM game, but in any game - and it's a shame I don't get to see this caliber of plot more often.
With the whole team working on it, I'm extremely curious to see what the fully fleshed out battle system, custom music, custom busts and character portraits, and all the replacements for the various placeholders or "things that need to be taken care of later" will end up being. I think this is a game whose completion I will look forward to more than most games I get my hands on.
Casia
Casia - Part 1
Casia - Part 2
Casia - Part 3
Casia - Part 4
Review for Casia
As those of you who saw the video may have noticed, I had a guest commentator for this particular Let's Play. However, this review will be solely my own thoughts, and in they in no way are a representation of hers (except where they may coincidentally be in agreement).
I've not really played too much of the "open world" genre. The most well-known sort of game in that vein, to my knowledge, would be something like the Elder Scrolls series, but perhaps sandbox style games, such as Grand Theft Auto, or things like Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, or the Sims (maybe?) could fall into the same genre. I've never played a 16-bit open world game before, though, so I wasn't exactly sure what sort of expectations I should've been setting for myself before starting in on it.
From the game's description, it looked like a big draw was that there were a lot of possible party members that were all achievable via side quests, so I was expecting some kind of main storyline with a significantly larger amount of side content to do than usual. I saw there was a hunger/thirst system, which I wasn't terribly sold on, as well as some mini games, which can often be a fun little distraction.
I really dug the music at the intro, and for the most part, I enjoyed the music throughout the hour or so that I played the game. I never used RPG Maker XP, but I only recognized one track as being RTP (and it was a jukebox track in a pub, so...). Otherwise, I thought it fit whatever atmosphere it needed to be - the town was light and bouncy, the church was appropriately organ-y, the haunted forest was tense and unsettling, etc.
The atmosphere - the sound effects and the mapping - was well-done, too. Often I encounter RPG Maker games with pretty symmetrical and blocky maps where it wouldn't make sense, but the natural environments for Casia are suitably natural. Which is to say, they're suitably random and somewhat chaotic. The town feels like a town, with a sort of "built where there was room" architecture. The beach has some nifty shallows and sandbars. I felt the maps not only served their purpose, but did it with a flair that's above and beyond the average expectations you would see in a typical RPG Maker game.
I assume the portraits were also, for the most part, custom-made - if not, I hadn't seen most of them before. They even came with their own facial expressions, which is always a plus for anyone who's able to create custom artwork. They're also skillfully done and fit in with the general anime aesthetic of the RTP, which is something that can be hard to accomplish depending on any given artist's style, so it was pleasing to the eye that the custom portraits didn't become distracting or look out of place.
Casia also has a custom time and weather system, which I suppose is nice - I didn't really play long enough to get much out of it, other than the random shifts to the scenery like sun, clouds, and rain, but they're a nice touch. It also looks like certain maps were set up to take advantage of the day/night system, such as the graveyard and haunted forest, or the butterfly quest offering up special butterflies if you go out hunting at night. Being able to display the time and day at any point with the D key was also appreciated.
Overall, I feel like Casia is a good-looking game with some interesting features - but the lack of a primary storyline and, especially, a very engaging combat system was ultimately a bit too much of a barrier for me to progress beyond the first hour of gameplay.
You start with no equipment, very little money, no skills, and with little enough health that the first battles are actually pretty dangerous - and if you happen to do some exploring in this open world, completely suicidal. Everything except the very first enemy I encountered was far too difficult to try and dispatch, even after putting together some basic armor and a weapon. When I tried to explore anywhere except the starting town, I was blocked in all directions by a lack of something to do or by combat that was too difficult. I tried looking up a few other peoples' playthroughs to see if perhaps there was something I was missing, and the solution seemed to be grinding. Grinding should, in this reviewer's opinion, be an optional thing a player can do if they want to make the game easier - it should not be required. And I must admit, I did not see any possible way to get through the opening of the game without grinding.
Even the first boss you encounter really just comes down to sheer luck - there are 4 bees and a hive, and the hive routinely heals more than twice the amount of damage you are capable of dealing to all 5 enemies. What this ends up meaning is that whether or not you defeat the hive just comes down to random luck - if the hive decides not to take a turn, or to randomly use its single-target heal on something that isn't the hive. That's not particularly challenging or engaging, it's just really boring and frustrating.
Beyond the first few enemies, as I started finding ways to complete some side quests, it became apparent that combat was to be avoided at all costs. The second enemy type I encountered was capable of dealing more than half my health in a single turn (more than even the potions I was given could heal through), required several attacks per enemy to defeat, and were inescapable. Adding onto that only a single skill that uses up almost the entirety of my SP (the game's MP equivalent) with no other options for anything to do, and battle feels like an exercise in hopeless futility.
Perhaps the game's open world-ness is also a draw for some players that just isn't really for me, as well. I like having side quests, but it didn't take too long before I was left wondering, "What exactly am I doing?" I had no idea what I was doing to make my character grow, to change or affect the world - I was just sort of randomly wandering and looking for menial tasks to do. And leveling up didn't provide much of a satisfaction for doing these little fetch quests - there's not even a notification that you did level when you do. No sound effect, no congratulatory message, nothing. Effectively, I just felt like I wasn't being provided any motivation to actually do anything - and because of how likely it was that everything in the world would kill me with no hope of fighting back, I was actually discouraged from trying things.
If the combat was designed to be more engaging through better enemy balance and a greater range of skills to use at an early point (or perhaps, at the very least, a second party member that could be picked up in the starting town through one of the many side quests), then I might be interested in continuing the game more. Unfortunately, I had to set down the great-sounding, good-looking game because the meat of the gameplay was just not enough to keep me hooked or looking to come back.
Casia - Part 2
Casia - Part 3
Casia - Part 4
Review for Casia
As those of you who saw the video may have noticed, I had a guest commentator for this particular Let's Play. However, this review will be solely my own thoughts, and in they in no way are a representation of hers (except where they may coincidentally be in agreement).
I've not really played too much of the "open world" genre. The most well-known sort of game in that vein, to my knowledge, would be something like the Elder Scrolls series, but perhaps sandbox style games, such as Grand Theft Auto, or things like Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, or the Sims (maybe?) could fall into the same genre. I've never played a 16-bit open world game before, though, so I wasn't exactly sure what sort of expectations I should've been setting for myself before starting in on it.
From the game's description, it looked like a big draw was that there were a lot of possible party members that were all achievable via side quests, so I was expecting some kind of main storyline with a significantly larger amount of side content to do than usual. I saw there was a hunger/thirst system, which I wasn't terribly sold on, as well as some mini games, which can often be a fun little distraction.
I really dug the music at the intro, and for the most part, I enjoyed the music throughout the hour or so that I played the game. I never used RPG Maker XP, but I only recognized one track as being RTP (and it was a jukebox track in a pub, so...). Otherwise, I thought it fit whatever atmosphere it needed to be - the town was light and bouncy, the church was appropriately organ-y, the haunted forest was tense and unsettling, etc.
The atmosphere - the sound effects and the mapping - was well-done, too. Often I encounter RPG Maker games with pretty symmetrical and blocky maps where it wouldn't make sense, but the natural environments for Casia are suitably natural. Which is to say, they're suitably random and somewhat chaotic. The town feels like a town, with a sort of "built where there was room" architecture. The beach has some nifty shallows and sandbars. I felt the maps not only served their purpose, but did it with a flair that's above and beyond the average expectations you would see in a typical RPG Maker game.
I assume the portraits were also, for the most part, custom-made - if not, I hadn't seen most of them before. They even came with their own facial expressions, which is always a plus for anyone who's able to create custom artwork. They're also skillfully done and fit in with the general anime aesthetic of the RTP, which is something that can be hard to accomplish depending on any given artist's style, so it was pleasing to the eye that the custom portraits didn't become distracting or look out of place.
Casia also has a custom time and weather system, which I suppose is nice - I didn't really play long enough to get much out of it, other than the random shifts to the scenery like sun, clouds, and rain, but they're a nice touch. It also looks like certain maps were set up to take advantage of the day/night system, such as the graveyard and haunted forest, or the butterfly quest offering up special butterflies if you go out hunting at night. Being able to display the time and day at any point with the D key was also appreciated.
Overall, I feel like Casia is a good-looking game with some interesting features - but the lack of a primary storyline and, especially, a very engaging combat system was ultimately a bit too much of a barrier for me to progress beyond the first hour of gameplay.
You start with no equipment, very little money, no skills, and with little enough health that the first battles are actually pretty dangerous - and if you happen to do some exploring in this open world, completely suicidal. Everything except the very first enemy I encountered was far too difficult to try and dispatch, even after putting together some basic armor and a weapon. When I tried to explore anywhere except the starting town, I was blocked in all directions by a lack of something to do or by combat that was too difficult. I tried looking up a few other peoples' playthroughs to see if perhaps there was something I was missing, and the solution seemed to be grinding. Grinding should, in this reviewer's opinion, be an optional thing a player can do if they want to make the game easier - it should not be required. And I must admit, I did not see any possible way to get through the opening of the game without grinding.
Even the first boss you encounter really just comes down to sheer luck - there are 4 bees and a hive, and the hive routinely heals more than twice the amount of damage you are capable of dealing to all 5 enemies. What this ends up meaning is that whether or not you defeat the hive just comes down to random luck - if the hive decides not to take a turn, or to randomly use its single-target heal on something that isn't the hive. That's not particularly challenging or engaging, it's just really boring and frustrating.
Beyond the first few enemies, as I started finding ways to complete some side quests, it became apparent that combat was to be avoided at all costs. The second enemy type I encountered was capable of dealing more than half my health in a single turn (more than even the potions I was given could heal through), required several attacks per enemy to defeat, and were inescapable. Adding onto that only a single skill that uses up almost the entirety of my SP (the game's MP equivalent) with no other options for anything to do, and battle feels like an exercise in hopeless futility.
Perhaps the game's open world-ness is also a draw for some players that just isn't really for me, as well. I like having side quests, but it didn't take too long before I was left wondering, "What exactly am I doing?" I had no idea what I was doing to make my character grow, to change or affect the world - I was just sort of randomly wandering and looking for menial tasks to do. And leveling up didn't provide much of a satisfaction for doing these little fetch quests - there's not even a notification that you did level when you do. No sound effect, no congratulatory message, nothing. Effectively, I just felt like I wasn't being provided any motivation to actually do anything - and because of how likely it was that everything in the world would kill me with no hope of fighting back, I was actually discouraged from trying things.
If the combat was designed to be more engaging through better enemy balance and a greater range of skills to use at an early point (or perhaps, at the very least, a second party member that could be picked up in the starting town through one of the many side quests), then I might be interested in continuing the game more. Unfortunately, I had to set down the great-sounding, good-looking game because the meat of the gameplay was just not enough to keep me hooked or looking to come back.
Quincy and Amber
Quincy and Amber
Review
So Quincy and Amber is a demo of the game that's only about 15 minutes long. At the end, the player is told there will be 500% more puzzles and "an actual storyline," so I'm just going to assume that the dialogue and story is placeholder and isn't really designed for much comment. There's no combat, items, or databasing to discuss, and there are only two pieces of music, one of which is part of the RTP.
What there is, however, are some small but well-detailed maps set in a forested location, a pleasant background piece of music, and, at the heart of the game, a cooperative puzzle. Anyone who played Portal 2 will be very familiar with the basic idea at each screen - get both players from the start to the finish. In fact, even even the primary mechanic of each puzzle, which is that one person stands on a button which lowers a wall for another person to pass through so that they can, in turn, stand on a button to lower the appropriate wall for the other person, plays quite similarly to some of the more basic puzzles in Portal 2, as well.
The puzzles are pretty simple, but they work well for a two-player environment - most of the time, the pattern for who needs to stand where and in what order is generally pretty obvious, but this is what would presumably be the beginning of the game, so it's a good introduction to the way the rest of the game would probably play out. If the two-person dynamic expanded to something more complex, it would be a lot of fun for two players - but potentially a little schizophrenic for a single person trying to control both if they have to do two different things at the same time. I'd be curious to see where the rest of the puzzles in the game would go.
Being able to control two characters simultaneously is a very cool feature that I haven't seen in any other RM games, so I was pleased to see that it worked out so well. I never felt like it was just a gimmicky one-player game, it played and genuinely controlled like it was ready for two players.
There were a couple small issues. At the title screen, the game is called "Quincy and Esther," even though the actual download is called Quincy and Amber and, in game, the little sister is named Amber. Presumably Esther was an earlier name that was changed, but it's strange to see it emblazoned across the opening menu. The other thing is, on the docks puzzle, the single-square dock pieces make it look as if the character is walking in front of a backdrop of docks instead of actually on the planks. It's a little odd.
Other than that, there really isn't too much to say - it's a fun little demo that won't take much time to play through, and for what it is, it's well-executed. Both my partner and I were interested in having more puzzles to play through and will certainly be checking back in with the game as it continues its development.
Review
So Quincy and Amber is a demo of the game that's only about 15 minutes long. At the end, the player is told there will be 500% more puzzles and "an actual storyline," so I'm just going to assume that the dialogue and story is placeholder and isn't really designed for much comment. There's no combat, items, or databasing to discuss, and there are only two pieces of music, one of which is part of the RTP.
What there is, however, are some small but well-detailed maps set in a forested location, a pleasant background piece of music, and, at the heart of the game, a cooperative puzzle. Anyone who played Portal 2 will be very familiar with the basic idea at each screen - get both players from the start to the finish. In fact, even even the primary mechanic of each puzzle, which is that one person stands on a button which lowers a wall for another person to pass through so that they can, in turn, stand on a button to lower the appropriate wall for the other person, plays quite similarly to some of the more basic puzzles in Portal 2, as well.
The puzzles are pretty simple, but they work well for a two-player environment - most of the time, the pattern for who needs to stand where and in what order is generally pretty obvious, but this is what would presumably be the beginning of the game, so it's a good introduction to the way the rest of the game would probably play out. If the two-person dynamic expanded to something more complex, it would be a lot of fun for two players - but potentially a little schizophrenic for a single person trying to control both if they have to do two different things at the same time. I'd be curious to see where the rest of the puzzles in the game would go.
Being able to control two characters simultaneously is a very cool feature that I haven't seen in any other RM games, so I was pleased to see that it worked out so well. I never felt like it was just a gimmicky one-player game, it played and genuinely controlled like it was ready for two players.
There were a couple small issues. At the title screen, the game is called "Quincy and Esther," even though the actual download is called Quincy and Amber and, in game, the little sister is named Amber. Presumably Esther was an earlier name that was changed, but it's strange to see it emblazoned across the opening menu. The other thing is, on the docks puzzle, the single-square dock pieces make it look as if the character is walking in front of a backdrop of docks instead of actually on the planks. It's a little odd.
Other than that, there really isn't too much to say - it's a fun little demo that won't take much time to play through, and for what it is, it's well-executed. Both my partner and I were interested in having more puzzles to play through and will certainly be checking back in with the game as it continues its development.
Nothing But The Third
Nothing But The Third - Part 1
Nothing But The Third - Part 2
Nothing But The Third - Part 3
Review
I had tried out Casia's other game, Casia, in a previous Let's Play, and it didn't quite draw me in. While it had some interesting concepts to it - going open world is certainly ambitious for an RPG Maker game - ultimately the lack of direction and issues with the combat caused me to be unable to get too far into it.
Casia suggested I try out a more "traditional" - which I take to mean "linear" - RPG called Nothing But The Third. I read a bit about the game in the forum thread for it, and I found the idea of the whole game taking place within various districts of a city good. Most RPGs are pretty world-spanning, so keeping the location relatively small is different in an interesting way. It also suggested that the plot would probably be intricate without being too convoluted.
The game starts out with the whole town basically being drugged into party-mode. I actually made jokes about everyone being high, but that's the actual term used in the game - everyone gets high for three days and parties, with a couple of exceptions. The two exceptions don't know why they're immune to the mind-altering fog, but they and their friend (the third wheel of the group, hence the name, "Nothing But The Third") decide to try and find out. As the investigation begins, they also discover that monsters have attacked one of the districts of the town, so clearly something dangerous is afoot.
As with Casia, I unfortunately didn't get too terribly far into the game because the combat is a bit repetitive and feels very unbalanced. Almost every enemy you encounter is far beyond your level of power and you don't start with any means of acquiring equipment, money, or skills to try and deal with them. You do start with 4 skills for each character, which is great, but they're unfortunately tied to the default TP system, which effectively means the only time you get to use them is if your character is taking so much damage that they're about to die, anyway. As a result, pretty much every battle tends to just be an attack-spamming mash fest where the enemies clearly have the advantage thanks to poisons (which you don't really have the ability to remove at that stage in the game), stuns, magical attacks, much higher health pools, and multiple attacks in a turn.
Almost every battle I encountered was an immediate game over until I happened to stumble across what I assume is the "correct" area I was supposed to go to for the story, but even the easiest enemies (rats and spiders) were capable of reducing my party to pathetically weakened states with a single attack. The first boss I encountered was so incredibly powerful compared to what I was, that even if I had more money to stock up on supplies, I would never have beaten him. I didn't even find a location to upgrade my equipment to do more damage - and leveling up didn't seem to provide me with any new skills.
I must admit, I really don't have a whole lot to say about the game - I didn't get much time to really explore or interact with much before I was punished severely for doing either. As with Casia, it seems like something that would've required a lot of grinding that I just don't have the time or the motivation to invest in.
Nothing But The Third - Part 2
Nothing But The Third - Part 3
Review
I had tried out Casia's other game, Casia, in a previous Let's Play, and it didn't quite draw me in. While it had some interesting concepts to it - going open world is certainly ambitious for an RPG Maker game - ultimately the lack of direction and issues with the combat caused me to be unable to get too far into it.
Casia suggested I try out a more "traditional" - which I take to mean "linear" - RPG called Nothing But The Third. I read a bit about the game in the forum thread for it, and I found the idea of the whole game taking place within various districts of a city good. Most RPGs are pretty world-spanning, so keeping the location relatively small is different in an interesting way. It also suggested that the plot would probably be intricate without being too convoluted.
The game starts out with the whole town basically being drugged into party-mode. I actually made jokes about everyone being high, but that's the actual term used in the game - everyone gets high for three days and parties, with a couple of exceptions. The two exceptions don't know why they're immune to the mind-altering fog, but they and their friend (the third wheel of the group, hence the name, "Nothing But The Third") decide to try and find out. As the investigation begins, they also discover that monsters have attacked one of the districts of the town, so clearly something dangerous is afoot.
As with Casia, I unfortunately didn't get too terribly far into the game because the combat is a bit repetitive and feels very unbalanced. Almost every enemy you encounter is far beyond your level of power and you don't start with any means of acquiring equipment, money, or skills to try and deal with them. You do start with 4 skills for each character, which is great, but they're unfortunately tied to the default TP system, which effectively means the only time you get to use them is if your character is taking so much damage that they're about to die, anyway. As a result, pretty much every battle tends to just be an attack-spamming mash fest where the enemies clearly have the advantage thanks to poisons (which you don't really have the ability to remove at that stage in the game), stuns, magical attacks, much higher health pools, and multiple attacks in a turn.
Almost every battle I encountered was an immediate game over until I happened to stumble across what I assume is the "correct" area I was supposed to go to for the story, but even the easiest enemies (rats and spiders) were capable of reducing my party to pathetically weakened states with a single attack. The first boss I encountered was so incredibly powerful compared to what I was, that even if I had more money to stock up on supplies, I would never have beaten him. I didn't even find a location to upgrade my equipment to do more damage - and leveling up didn't seem to provide me with any new skills.
I must admit, I really don't have a whole lot to say about the game - I didn't get much time to really explore or interact with much before I was punished severely for doing either. As with Casia, it seems like something that would've required a lot of grinding that I just don't have the time or the motivation to invest in.
Go To SLEEP
Go To SLEEP - Part 1
Go To SLEEP - Part 2
Review
Go To SLEEP is a horror/mystery game about a detective named Carolina who decides to be the next in a long line of ill-fated detectives to try and investigate a mysterious mansion in town where a number of victims have been murdered by Jeff the Killer. The introduction establishes that a lot of detectives have tried to solve this particular mystery, but one at a time, they all died. I was left a bit puzzled as to why they continued sending single detectives in to their deaths, but the game has a bit of a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement of this in the intro, too. It seems to be, "Because it would be scarier if you're alone, just roll with it." Which... You know, cool, I'll do that.
The gameplay pretty much consists of exploring the mansion trying to figure out what to do next - it's not really laid out in a manner that you stumble across a number of clues and have to figure out how to fit them all together, it's much more linear. However, you're not really told what you need to do next, so it's more like you're just kind of randomly wandering until you stumble across the next spot you're supposed to be in. Then again, I'm not entirely sure how much of the game was designed to be a mystery so much as it was designed to be horror. There's a warning at the beginning that pretty blatantly states, "There will be jumpscares and pictures," so I'm guessing that's really the focus of the game.
Admittedly, I didn't get very far into it. Since Talal's first language isn't English, I was willing to give a pass on spelling and grammar issues, but there are issues with almost every other aspect of the game. The mapping's very odd in places, such that the walls don't look like walls - they look like autotiles that were improperly placed. There's a lack of music or ambient sound effects much of the game, so there's a lot of silence broken by the occasional looping sound of someone screaming or crying. Both of them get irritating very quickly, especially the crying one. When you search for sound effects online, you'll often come across sound banks that want you to purchase their sound files - and they prevent you from just using the free samples by having a voice say "preview" over them. Well, you could pretty clearly hear "preview" looped over and over in the crying one, so that really killed the atmosphere and added to the annoyance factor.
As I mentioned, as well, I really felt like I was just randomly wandering around until I stumbled across the right answer. I got a key - that's great, but I passed by about 5 or 6 locked doors in relatively nondescript hallways. I had no clue as to which door used the key, so it was just running into every door until eventually one of them unlocked.
Some of the story decisions are really bizarre as well, the most egregious of which being that the main character decides that going to sleep literally minutes after discovering a fresh murder is probably a good idea. I mean, I'm willing to cut protagonists in horror stories a little bit of slack for doing stupid things for the sake of getting a scare for the audience, but there's only so much suspension of disbelief I can muster. Carolina was really just begging to be killed throughout the entire section that I played.
I don't generally play horror games, so I'm not sure how it stacks up against others of its ilk in the RPG Maker universe - but it seems like a very rough version of a game that could use a lot of cleanup, polish, playtesting, organization... In short, it just feels like the first pass, not a finished product.
Go To SLEEP - Part 2
Review
Go To SLEEP is a horror/mystery game about a detective named Carolina who decides to be the next in a long line of ill-fated detectives to try and investigate a mysterious mansion in town where a number of victims have been murdered by Jeff the Killer. The introduction establishes that a lot of detectives have tried to solve this particular mystery, but one at a time, they all died. I was left a bit puzzled as to why they continued sending single detectives in to their deaths, but the game has a bit of a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement of this in the intro, too. It seems to be, "Because it would be scarier if you're alone, just roll with it." Which... You know, cool, I'll do that.
The gameplay pretty much consists of exploring the mansion trying to figure out what to do next - it's not really laid out in a manner that you stumble across a number of clues and have to figure out how to fit them all together, it's much more linear. However, you're not really told what you need to do next, so it's more like you're just kind of randomly wandering until you stumble across the next spot you're supposed to be in. Then again, I'm not entirely sure how much of the game was designed to be a mystery so much as it was designed to be horror. There's a warning at the beginning that pretty blatantly states, "There will be jumpscares and pictures," so I'm guessing that's really the focus of the game.
Admittedly, I didn't get very far into it. Since Talal's first language isn't English, I was willing to give a pass on spelling and grammar issues, but there are issues with almost every other aspect of the game. The mapping's very odd in places, such that the walls don't look like walls - they look like autotiles that were improperly placed. There's a lack of music or ambient sound effects much of the game, so there's a lot of silence broken by the occasional looping sound of someone screaming or crying. Both of them get irritating very quickly, especially the crying one. When you search for sound effects online, you'll often come across sound banks that want you to purchase their sound files - and they prevent you from just using the free samples by having a voice say "preview" over them. Well, you could pretty clearly hear "preview" looped over and over in the crying one, so that really killed the atmosphere and added to the annoyance factor.
As I mentioned, as well, I really felt like I was just randomly wandering around until I stumbled across the right answer. I got a key - that's great, but I passed by about 5 or 6 locked doors in relatively nondescript hallways. I had no clue as to which door used the key, so it was just running into every door until eventually one of them unlocked.
Some of the story decisions are really bizarre as well, the most egregious of which being that the main character decides that going to sleep literally minutes after discovering a fresh murder is probably a good idea. I mean, I'm willing to cut protagonists in horror stories a little bit of slack for doing stupid things for the sake of getting a scare for the audience, but there's only so much suspension of disbelief I can muster. Carolina was really just begging to be killed throughout the entire section that I played.
I don't generally play horror games, so I'm not sure how it stacks up against others of its ilk in the RPG Maker universe - but it seems like a very rough version of a game that could use a lot of cleanup, polish, playtesting, organization... In short, it just feels like the first pass, not a finished product.
Black Cat's Story
Black Cat's Story, Part 1
Black Cat's Story, Part 2
Black Cat's Story, Part 3
Black Cat's Story, Part 4
Black Cat's Story, Part 5
Black Cat's Story, Part 6
Black Cat's Story (Again), Part 1
Black Cat's Story (Again), Part 2
Black Cat's Story (Again), Part 3
Black Cat's Story (Again), Part 4
Review (spoilers)
I'm not really sure what I should consider "good" and "bad" in itzkreator's Black Cat's Story. Even the fact that I can't tell what's clever and what's just poor design? I don't know if THAT'S good or bad. It's sort of like watching Snakes On A Plane - you know they knew it was going to be ridiculous, and it ends up being kind of shoddy, but it's so tongue-in-cheek about it that you don't know if you should be laughing along with them or just shaking your head.
For example, there's a lot of spelling and grammar issues, but it's hard to tell if they're intentional or not. The main character refers to himself in the third person, and often characters give a pretty nonchalant "Ok" as a response to people telling them things. "My name is Black Cat." "Ok." It's funny because it pokes fun at characters just walking around talking to random people in video games, like that really would be the answer you'd get in real life - "That's nice. Why do I care?" So you think, "Alright, they're intentionally making the dialogue sort of awkward and stilted." But then you see them using "your" instead of "you're," and you think, "... I mean, was THAT on purpose?"
The art style is in the same vein - on the one hand, the fact that everything is produced from scratch and still tiles well and functions correctly is kind of impressive. I didn't recognize a single bit of RTP in the game, and I'm sure custom-creating all the graphics, tiles, animations, etc. was quite pain-staking and arduous. On the other hand, it... You know, looks like it was made in Paint. A lot of the characters have a weird sort of "sickly undead ragdoll" kind of vibe to them - it almost looks like they're creepy stuffed animals at times.
The thread for the game suggests that all the "shoddy" qualities are very much done with a nudge and a wink to them. I don't have any doubts that the creator was maybe aiming for a sort of, "It's so bad, it's good" sense to the game, and I will admit, I found it humorous to play through. It feels like a joke that the player's in on, but you have to be sort of willing to be on board with it.
I think a good example of what sort of game you should expect when you sit to play is that one of the bosses is a gigantic water-dwelling dick tentacle. I mean, it's not straight-up CALLED "the gigantic dick tentacle," but... I mean, that's what it is. Its special move is to "spew forth vile sludge." And just... I don't know, look at it. Tell me you see something different.
One thing that's a bit easier to talk about is the actual mechanics of the game, because they play like a pretty standard RPG Maker game. You spam attack through most of the battles, you start with no special skills or equipment or interesting items or anything like that. While I will give it good marks for not throwing absurdly difficult enemies at you from the get-go - which seems to be a more and more prevalent thing the more I play RPG Maker games - I can't say the combat's particularly engaging, either. In fact, by the time I did gain a few levels and put on some equipment, the battles were more of an annoying interruption than any kind of challenge or thought-provoking process. The battle system is about as simplistic as a game gets, so if you're looking for something that will challenge you or appeal to you more strategically-minded folks, this probably isn't for you.
However, the look and feel of the battles is not to be understated. The music is all very 8-bit, but to my knowledge, is also original (or, at least, not ripped from something commercial). The enemies look surprisingly good, considering the Paint-style graphics of the rest of the game, as do the battle animations. If the mechanics were more engaging or involved than "spam attack 99% of the time," I think it would be a good surprise twist for the game.
My playthrough of the version 0.5 demo was unfortunately cut short by what I believe is a bug - at one point in the game, you discover your character can fly. For no apparent reason, mind you, it's literally, "We're in a dangerous situation. What are we gonna' do? Oh, yeah, by the way, I can fly," and then your whole party rockets away. You can use this flying mechanic to visit old areas, but once I did, I found myself trapped and unable to get back to where I was supposed to be. I don't 100% know for sure if I just couldn't find the path again, but I was pretty well stuck and decided to give it a rest there.
I'm not exactly sure what to think of the game - I mean, it's... Bad. But it knows it's bad, and that makes it funny and entertaining. I think it's worth a look, at the very least - you just might find yourself laughing along with itzkreator at the absurdity of it all.
EDIT: So I had another go of the game, after itzkreator released a new version that fixed the fly bug I encountered on my first go-around. I decided to start again from the beginning and catch up to where I had left off, and I noticed a few changes here and there - the combat had some more messages included, Brown Dog's Loud Bark ability was improved and more useful, and the enemies had health bars displayed above them, which I liked.
I got to see more of the game and ultimately played for about 2 hours or so, picking up what I assume is the last party member. I don't know how close I got to the end of the game before deciding to set it down, but I have somewhat conflicting feelings about it.
The humor of the game continued along at a nice pace - no more giant waving dick tentacles, but Black Cat's homicidal sociopathy was still plenty entertaining. His solution of, "Shoot first, shoot some more, shoot again, then try to ask questions when everyone's dead" never gets old. Yellow Duck's enabling was also a good contrast to Brown Dog's role of being the straight man amongst it all. Truly, I enjoyed seeing most of the scenes play out in their bizarre way.
I must admit, however, that the combat is a bit too bland for me to really drive to finish the game. I'm not sure how the ability damage is calculated, but it seemed like most abilities were no better to use than the basic attack command. The usual status effect trope common to many RPGs was present with a lot of Yellow Duck's abilities - no need to confuse or sleep most enemies except bosses, who would probably be immune to it anyway. Even the damage abilities seemed to do less than just a standard attack, such that I found the best option much of the time to just spam attack and occasionally heal. This is alright for a short period of time, but as I'm reaching what appears to be the higher levels of the game and as I'm broaching the 2 hour mark, it just makes me go, "OK, I'm ready for the game to be over." Or, at least, to start just escaping from every single battle I get into.
I thought the idea of the last party member was interesting, as well - he has a permanent poison effect that you have to frequently counteract, but he also seems to have some of the best abilities in the game. It seems like you have to work to keep him alive, but it will be worth the effort - unfortunately, the actual effects and damage of his skills seemed to very much not be worth the trouble and I just felt annoyed trying to keep him going.
So while I did play the game for awhile and would be curious to see how it ends, ultimately the actual battle mechanics left me wanting more to be able to make it that last stretch. Which is too bad, really, since the oddball "so bad it's good" humor feels like it could almost be worth it.
Black Cat's Story, Part 2
Black Cat's Story, Part 3
Black Cat's Story, Part 4
Black Cat's Story, Part 5
Black Cat's Story, Part 6
Black Cat's Story (Again), Part 1
Black Cat's Story (Again), Part 2
Black Cat's Story (Again), Part 3
Black Cat's Story (Again), Part 4
Review (spoilers)
I'm not really sure what I should consider "good" and "bad" in itzkreator's Black Cat's Story. Even the fact that I can't tell what's clever and what's just poor design? I don't know if THAT'S good or bad. It's sort of like watching Snakes On A Plane - you know they knew it was going to be ridiculous, and it ends up being kind of shoddy, but it's so tongue-in-cheek about it that you don't know if you should be laughing along with them or just shaking your head.
For example, there's a lot of spelling and grammar issues, but it's hard to tell if they're intentional or not. The main character refers to himself in the third person, and often characters give a pretty nonchalant "Ok" as a response to people telling them things. "My name is Black Cat." "Ok." It's funny because it pokes fun at characters just walking around talking to random people in video games, like that really would be the answer you'd get in real life - "That's nice. Why do I care?" So you think, "Alright, they're intentionally making the dialogue sort of awkward and stilted." But then you see them using "your" instead of "you're," and you think, "... I mean, was THAT on purpose?"
The art style is in the same vein - on the one hand, the fact that everything is produced from scratch and still tiles well and functions correctly is kind of impressive. I didn't recognize a single bit of RTP in the game, and I'm sure custom-creating all the graphics, tiles, animations, etc. was quite pain-staking and arduous. On the other hand, it... You know, looks like it was made in Paint. A lot of the characters have a weird sort of "sickly undead ragdoll" kind of vibe to them - it almost looks like they're creepy stuffed animals at times.
The thread for the game suggests that all the "shoddy" qualities are very much done with a nudge and a wink to them. I don't have any doubts that the creator was maybe aiming for a sort of, "It's so bad, it's good" sense to the game, and I will admit, I found it humorous to play through. It feels like a joke that the player's in on, but you have to be sort of willing to be on board with it.
I think a good example of what sort of game you should expect when you sit to play is that one of the bosses is a gigantic water-dwelling dick tentacle. I mean, it's not straight-up CALLED "the gigantic dick tentacle," but... I mean, that's what it is. Its special move is to "spew forth vile sludge." And just... I don't know, look at it. Tell me you see something different.
One thing that's a bit easier to talk about is the actual mechanics of the game, because they play like a pretty standard RPG Maker game. You spam attack through most of the battles, you start with no special skills or equipment or interesting items or anything like that. While I will give it good marks for not throwing absurdly difficult enemies at you from the get-go - which seems to be a more and more prevalent thing the more I play RPG Maker games - I can't say the combat's particularly engaging, either. In fact, by the time I did gain a few levels and put on some equipment, the battles were more of an annoying interruption than any kind of challenge or thought-provoking process. The battle system is about as simplistic as a game gets, so if you're looking for something that will challenge you or appeal to you more strategically-minded folks, this probably isn't for you.
However, the look and feel of the battles is not to be understated. The music is all very 8-bit, but to my knowledge, is also original (or, at least, not ripped from something commercial). The enemies look surprisingly good, considering the Paint-style graphics of the rest of the game, as do the battle animations. If the mechanics were more engaging or involved than "spam attack 99% of the time," I think it would be a good surprise twist for the game.
My playthrough of the version 0.5 demo was unfortunately cut short by what I believe is a bug - at one point in the game, you discover your character can fly. For no apparent reason, mind you, it's literally, "We're in a dangerous situation. What are we gonna' do? Oh, yeah, by the way, I can fly," and then your whole party rockets away. You can use this flying mechanic to visit old areas, but once I did, I found myself trapped and unable to get back to where I was supposed to be. I don't 100% know for sure if I just couldn't find the path again, but I was pretty well stuck and decided to give it a rest there.
I'm not exactly sure what to think of the game - I mean, it's... Bad. But it knows it's bad, and that makes it funny and entertaining. I think it's worth a look, at the very least - you just might find yourself laughing along with itzkreator at the absurdity of it all.
EDIT: So I had another go of the game, after itzkreator released a new version that fixed the fly bug I encountered on my first go-around. I decided to start again from the beginning and catch up to where I had left off, and I noticed a few changes here and there - the combat had some more messages included, Brown Dog's Loud Bark ability was improved and more useful, and the enemies had health bars displayed above them, which I liked.
I got to see more of the game and ultimately played for about 2 hours or so, picking up what I assume is the last party member. I don't know how close I got to the end of the game before deciding to set it down, but I have somewhat conflicting feelings about it.
The humor of the game continued along at a nice pace - no more giant waving dick tentacles, but Black Cat's homicidal sociopathy was still plenty entertaining. His solution of, "Shoot first, shoot some more, shoot again, then try to ask questions when everyone's dead" never gets old. Yellow Duck's enabling was also a good contrast to Brown Dog's role of being the straight man amongst it all. Truly, I enjoyed seeing most of the scenes play out in their bizarre way.
I must admit, however, that the combat is a bit too bland for me to really drive to finish the game. I'm not sure how the ability damage is calculated, but it seemed like most abilities were no better to use than the basic attack command. The usual status effect trope common to many RPGs was present with a lot of Yellow Duck's abilities - no need to confuse or sleep most enemies except bosses, who would probably be immune to it anyway. Even the damage abilities seemed to do less than just a standard attack, such that I found the best option much of the time to just spam attack and occasionally heal. This is alright for a short period of time, but as I'm reaching what appears to be the higher levels of the game and as I'm broaching the 2 hour mark, it just makes me go, "OK, I'm ready for the game to be over." Or, at least, to start just escaping from every single battle I get into.
I thought the idea of the last party member was interesting, as well - he has a permanent poison effect that you have to frequently counteract, but he also seems to have some of the best abilities in the game. It seems like you have to work to keep him alive, but it will be worth the effort - unfortunately, the actual effects and damage of his skills seemed to very much not be worth the trouble and I just felt annoyed trying to keep him going.
So while I did play the game for awhile and would be curious to see how it ends, ultimately the actual battle mechanics left me wanting more to be able to make it that last stretch. Which is too bad, really, since the oddball "so bad it's good" humor feels like it could almost be worth it.
Last edited by a moderator:
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2012
- Messages
- 640
- Reaction score
- 353
- First Language
- English
- Primarily Uses
- RMMV
itzkreator requested that I try his game again with the updated version, so I decided to go ahead and give it another go. Videos below, additional remarks have been added to the review post:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Last edited by a moderator:
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2012
- Messages
- 640
- Reaction score
- 353
- First Language
- English
- Primarily Uses
- RMMV
Let's Try Melody of the Dragons / Dragon Song, by kaleemmcintyre. There are 11 videos in this Let's Try, so I'm just posting a link to the playlist.
Last edited by a moderator:
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2012
- Messages
- 640
- Reaction score
- 353
- First Language
- English
- Primarily Uses
- RMMV
So... Just discovered Twitch will helpfully export my videos to Youtube in 15 minute segments. Saves me a lot of trouble and lets me stream a lot more easily.
I also went back through my thread and put all the videos into spoiler tags so that each page will load much more easily.
Finally, I did a playthrough of Finding Chibi, which was made by Chibi for the Indie Game In A Week contest. So I got that going for me. Which is nice. So here you go!
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
I also went back through my thread and put all the videos into spoiler tags so that each page will load much more easily.
Finally, I did a playthrough of Finding Chibi, which was made by Chibi for the Indie Game In A Week contest. So I got that going for me. Which is nice. So here you go!
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2012
- Messages
- 640
- Reaction score
- 353
- First Language
- English
- Primarily Uses
- RMMV
Let's Try for Storms of April. I'm relatively certain I reached a point where I was unable to continue due to a transfer event not working or existing, so I may pick it back up again down the line.
Playlist for Parts 1-11.
Playlist for Parts 1-11.
Last edited by a moderator:
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2012
- Messages
- 640
- Reaction score
- 353
- First Language
- English
- Primarily Uses
- RMMV
The rest of my Let's Try for Storms of April has been uploaded - I've collapsed the videos into a playlist since it's 11 videos.
Thanks to everyone who came and sat in this afternoon! Really enjoyed the atmosphere of having chat participating as much as it did today.
EDIT: Also did a Let's Try for Eremidia: Dungeon! Playlist can be found here.
Thanks to everyone who came and sat in this afternoon! Really enjoyed the atmosphere of having chat participating as much as it did today.
EDIT: Also did a Let's Try for Eremidia: Dungeon! Playlist can be found here.
Last edited by a moderator:
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2013
- Messages
- 1,317
- Reaction score
- 818
- First Language
- English
Mind trying out my game, Demon Hunter? 
It has over 2200 downloads and has about 6 different Let's Plays.
Would love to see some more! The link is in my signature!
It has over 2200 downloads and has about 6 different Let's Plays.Would love to see some more! The link is in my signature!
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2014
- Messages
- 1,721
- Reaction score
- 1,200
- First Language
- Greek
- Primarily Uses
- RMVXA
Could you take my game's demo for a spin?http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/34387-immortal-sinsprologuedemo-out/page-1
Last edited by a moderator:
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2012
- Messages
- 640
- Reaction score
- 353
- First Language
- English
- Primarily Uses
- RMMV
Started playing Demon Hunter over on RPGMakerTV's stream. You can see the first hour at this playlist. Special thanks to Ms. Littlefish, Chiakster, and Mortetorment for providing additional voice acting and game commentary on stream.
Planning to continue my playthrough at 6 PM CST on Thursday this week, barring any other schedule conflicts. Keep an eye on the RPGMaker TV thread to be up to date on the stream schedule.
Planning to continue my playthrough at 6 PM CST on Thursday this week, barring any other schedule conflicts. Keep an eye on the RPGMaker TV thread to be up to date on the stream schedule.
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2013
- Messages
- 1,317
- Reaction score
- 818
- First Language
- English
Your Let's Plays are amazing...I love you guys voice acted all the the actual roles of the character's dialogue.
You have a new fan! ^_^
You have a new fan! ^_^
Last edited by a moderator:
Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 1)
Latest Threads
-
-
Fixed GALV Projectiles or QABS | Your opinion | Evented ABS (2 Viewers)
- Started by KotoYama
- Replies: 0
-
-
Latest Posts
Latest Profile Posts
Holy stink, where have I been? Well, I started my temporary job this week. So less time to spend on game design...
Cartoonier cloud cover that better fits the art style, as well as (slightly) improved blending/fading... fading clouds when there are larger patterns is still somewhat abrupt for some reason.
