Sign of the Dead

Intro

"Sign of the Dead" was created as part of the Swap in the Middle with You 3 event. An event where a developer would create the first half of a game and then hand the project over to another developer to finish it. In the case of "Sign of the Dead" it first began life in the hands of CrazyBabi while the ending was put together by Seiromem. Which means the bulk of the frustration I experienced with this game is probably Seiromen's fault.

Most Frustrating Aspect of this Project

The most frustrating aspect of this game when I played through it was that there are several missing animation and audio files for the game's final battle with the Justicar.



Seriously, this fight got interrupted at least half a dozen times because an animation or audio file was missing. It got to the point I was actually ranting about how I just wanted to fight. Though, I'm guessing the main driver behind the missing files was that the game included so many files with similar names like Thunder1.png through Tunder4.png.

There are also missing files for the fight with the old guard captain as well. Though at least in that fight I only had to stop and mess around with copying a file and changing the copies name twice.

Story

You play as Orelle, a holy knight in training, that is on the verge of failing out of school. In order to avoid this she will need to take on quests. Though the way this is presented to the players makes me wonder if someone was trying to spoof the setup for an adult movie.



Or maybe I'm just reading way to much into that bit about earning 'extra credit'. At any rate our journey to earn extra credit quickly reveals that Orelle is a necromancer, a group that is frequently hunted by holy knights in a bid to free the kingdom from dark magic. Although Orelle swears she and her friends are a different kind of necromancer since they shape their minions from the parts of monsters instead of scavenging graveyards.

A difference that really doesn't matter that much to those in charge. Even if she uses her powers to protect the living and to fight the good fight. She's still tapping into the forbidden powers of darkness and needs to be put to death for her sins. A position that most seem to agree with. At least until it comes out that the kingdom is being ruled by angels that are willing to use their divine powers to enslave the living. This causes one of the holy knights to switch sides and sets us up for a confrontation with the angels that have been running the kingdom for years now. Who will come out on top in this battle? Well that's for the player to decide.

Gameplay

A lot of the battles in this game are pretty easy with the only meaningful threats coming from a few of the bosses that can force the player to rely on rather cheap tactics. At least if you consider inflicting negative status conditions like poison and then playing defensively so your enemy can slowly lose health over time to be cheap.

Thankfully battles against trash enemies allow the player to stay offensively oriented so you can quickly tear your way through your enemies. Albeit you'll probably get tired of fighting those pretty quickly since this game features touch encounters, but the narrow dungeon halls make avoiding enemies extremely difficult.



Though you will probably want to farm enough fights to get up to level 16 or so. That way you'll have enough MP for Orelle to spam her healing spell in tough fights. This is because Orelle has a passive ability to regenerate 10 percent of her maximum MP every turn and at level 16 she'll have around 1,000 MP. This also means during fights with trash mobs she can spam offensive spells as well. Though you'll definitely want to have around a 1,000 MP so you can have her be a dedicated healer during boss battles. I suppose you could get around that by using potions to restore her MP, but you can almost entirely avoid using items at the level mentioned.

On the other hand the upgrade system for your minions seems rather useless. This is because it requires access to parts that are seemingly impossible to find in the first two dungeons and the final dungeon is impossible to leave. As a result the only upgrades you'll be able to afford is the one for raising your maximum mp.



And while having more MP isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's rather disappointing that I can't increase their offensive and defensive stats as well. As a result I'm questioning why this system even exists if the player wasn't going to be allowed to fully exploit it. Though I suppose if that option had been open to me I would have pushed my minions to potentially absurd levels if I had the chance.

Graphics

Graphically speaking the game largely relies on the RTP for RPG Maker MV, but does include a few custom graphics as well.



Music

As far as I can tell the game relies entirely on the RTP for this aspect of the game. There isn't anything inherently wrong with this, but it does mean there is little to discuss here. After all, there aren't a weird instances of music being used inappropriately to discuss. Which oddly enough means the developers have a leg up over the team that made "Eureka Seven Vol. 1: The New Wave" for the PS2. That game really loved to spam ominous music at the weirdest times.

Minor Issues

The game features a few instances where text is cut off. A good example of this can be found in the ending epilogue but it pops up elsewhere as well.



And I found one instance of being able to pass through an object that should be impassable.



Conclusion

On the plus side the basics feel pretty solid for the most part. Though the inclusion of the witchcraft system kind of battles me considering a lot of the boosts are impossible to create because the items needed to make them are impossible to find, but those missing file issues are so irritating that I find it impossible to not hold it against this game. I know it's a minor issue in this engine in comparison to others since the game doesn't hard close when one of these issues pops up, but needing to stop and create the needed files for the game gets old fast. And you'll need to do this over a dozen times in this game. With most of it centered around a single fight. So while I think this game is worth playing. I really hope one of the developers adds the missing files so the final boss fight doesn't include so many annoying interruptions.