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All the King's horses, and all the King's Aces...
Marrend- 08/09/2014 05:58 PM
- 348 views
Game Title: The King's Aces
Engine: RPG Maker VX Ace
Status at review: Complete
Background:
I seem to recall playing this between it's initial release during the VX Ace Nugget Crash Course and now. Which isn't saying much, considering how much time has passed between those two time-stamps. So, doing this review is equal parts refresher of why I might have put it down and a trip back to when VX Ace was a relatively new engine.
Graphics/Audio:
Go figure, the game pretty much exclusively uses RTP with it's graphics and audio with minimal exceptions. In respect to music, I couldn't help but to notice when it changed, or, rather, failed to change. Technicalities about how it could occur aside, it made the experience a bit more dissonant than it probably should have.
Story:
When a murder of a prominent political figure occurs at a nearby abbey, who are you gonna call?Ghostbusters The King's Aces!
Well, okay, that's probably over-simplifying it to the nth degree, but, it gets the point across.
Playing the game:
The game's focus is solving the mystery behind the murder of the Lorekeeper. One might think that investigating the crime scene to uncover clues would be part of the gameplay. It isn't. How clues are obtained in this game are by interrogating certain NPCs, and various conversation options during the interrogation.
When the game decides to throw combat into the mix, one may eventually discover that Tobias is the one-and-only way to recover HP, and revival of dead/unconscious characters does not exist. That's not to say that fights are necessarily "hard" per say. It's just that one must keep a vigilant eye on the party's status.
Underneath the hide-tag lie notes/observations about my gaming experiences. They may be rather stream-of-consciousness in nature, and potentially contain story-spoilers.
What? I can't run? That... that could have been why I never finished this game, right there.
Hrm. A bit of mystery, here. So, the guy was poisoned, it kinda sounds like. I guess we'll see when we get back to the castle.
I guess I can run in the temple, but not in town. Odd.
Great. Now that I've talked to the guy that the Lorekeepr hired, the menu's been disabled! No more saving!? DEEEERRRRP!
Sure enough, the event disables Menu access, Save access, and Formation access. Not that "Save" and "Formation" would be available outside of the menu, but that seems beside the point.
Do I seriously have to marathon the rest of this game, or do I go into that event, and remove the lines where it disables the menu and saving? I'm very tempted to do the latter, let me tell you what!
Uh, yeah, I'm totally removing those lines. Among other things, I was curious about why there wasn't music in-town anymore, and my general lack of understanding why those things got locked in the first place.
Oh man, was this the event where part of the podcast was Liberty hating on creatures that spammed area-of-effect sleep/paralyze/stun skills? That's kinda what's happening to me with theses Man-Eating plants.
Being able to dash in this forest would be nice, too.
Well, seeing as the music from the dungeon is still playing, that pretty much solidifies my theory about how it changes.
Yep, that song's still playing in town.
Huh. The event with Natalie in the inn is still active, I see.
Annnnd, going to the pub makes the screen go black, apparently.
Oh, good, the caterpillar effect is gone. I never liked those damn things.
"Crash Course 2012" written on the ocean. Cute. Veeeery cute.
So, I'm in an arena, now. Great. I guess that means fighting is actually a thing for this game?
Oh. I, uh, guess I have to fight the Chimera "for real" now?
Yeah, Game Over if I loose this time. Not much I can do against Paralyze Breath, though.
Was there supposed to be something I can buy in town at some point? I may only have 82 Gold, but, I still have my initial equipment, and item drops aren't happening. Also, I don't recall being able to actually rest at the inn. Not that such a thing would help, as Mal and Lando are both at 1 HP each after Natalie's event.
Gee, I'm glad I can access the menu to recover those two after freeing Tobias. If I left those lines of code in, I would probably quit in frustration right here. If not before.
Tobias' Paralyze works! Didn't think it would, to be honest.
Out of prison, but Mel's KOed. Also, it kinda sounds like there's two tracks running simultaneously after getting out of prison?
Okaaaay, so, I can't revive Mel. At all. There's no abilities on my characters that do it, and the Inn is blocked off even if it did function as a recovery point.
I can get into, and out of, the cellar. Once out of the cellar, I can't get back in. Interesting, to say the least.
On a lark, I used CTRL+move to get past the guy blocking the Inn. Of course, it was still the same events as before. Including the last bit of Natalie's event that I mentioned. Hrm. I might not be at a totally unwinnable state, but, things are likely going to be a lot tougher than they probably should be.
I did a bit of delving in regards to when menu and save access would return if I left those lines in that Pub event alone. Apparently, menu access might return in the cellar dungeon, but I've yet to see a place where it save access returns. By no means am I going over these events with a fine tooth comb, though.
General Observations:
There are issues in the dialog involving homonyms (ie: the use of "your" when it should be "you're") and more general misspellings of words.
Summary:
I consider my gaming experience abnormal, as I went into the editor and removed lines from an event that locked out the menu (thus, the ability to recover outside of combat) and the ability to save. Under normal circumstances, however, such locks would make the game ultimately unplayable.
BOTTOM LINE: N/A
Engine: RPG Maker VX Ace
Status at review: Complete
Background:
I seem to recall playing this between it's initial release during the VX Ace Nugget Crash Course and now. Which isn't saying much, considering how much time has passed between those two time-stamps. So, doing this review is equal parts refresher of why I might have put it down and a trip back to when VX Ace was a relatively new engine.
Graphics/Audio:
Go figure, the game pretty much exclusively uses RTP with it's graphics and audio with minimal exceptions. In respect to music, I couldn't help but to notice when it changed, or, rather, failed to change. Technicalities about how it could occur aside, it made the experience a bit more dissonant than it probably should have.
Story:
When a murder of a prominent political figure occurs at a nearby abbey, who are you gonna call?
Well, okay, that's probably over-simplifying it to the nth degree, but, it gets the point across.
Playing the game:
The game's focus is solving the mystery behind the murder of the Lorekeeper. One might think that investigating the crime scene to uncover clues would be part of the gameplay. It isn't. How clues are obtained in this game are by interrogating certain NPCs, and various conversation options during the interrogation.
When the game decides to throw combat into the mix, one may eventually discover that Tobias is the one-and-only way to recover HP, and revival of dead/unconscious characters does not exist. That's not to say that fights are necessarily "hard" per say. It's just that one must keep a vigilant eye on the party's status.
Underneath the hide-tag lie notes/observations about my gaming experiences. They may be rather stream-of-consciousness in nature, and potentially contain story-spoilers.
What? I can't run? That... that could have been why I never finished this game, right there.
Hrm. A bit of mystery, here. So, the guy was poisoned, it kinda sounds like. I guess we'll see when we get back to the castle.
I guess I can run in the temple, but not in town. Odd.
Great. Now that I've talked to the guy that the Lorekeepr hired, the menu's been disabled! No more saving!? DEEEERRRRP!
Sure enough, the event disables Menu access, Save access, and Formation access. Not that "Save" and "Formation" would be available outside of the menu, but that seems beside the point.
Do I seriously have to marathon the rest of this game, or do I go into that event, and remove the lines where it disables the menu and saving? I'm very tempted to do the latter, let me tell you what!
Uh, yeah, I'm totally removing those lines. Among other things, I was curious about why there wasn't music in-town anymore, and my general lack of understanding why those things got locked in the first place.
Oh man, was this the event where part of the podcast was Liberty hating on creatures that spammed area-of-effect sleep/paralyze/stun skills? That's kinda what's happening to me with theses Man-Eating plants.
Being able to dash in this forest would be nice, too.
Well, seeing as the music from the dungeon is still playing, that pretty much solidifies my theory about how it changes.
Yep, that song's still playing in town.
Huh. The event with Natalie in the inn is still active, I see.
Annnnd, going to the pub makes the screen go black, apparently.
Oh, good, the caterpillar effect is gone. I never liked those damn things.
"Crash Course 2012" written on the ocean. Cute. Veeeery cute.
So, I'm in an arena, now. Great. I guess that means fighting is actually a thing for this game?
Oh. I, uh, guess I have to fight the Chimera "for real" now?
Yeah, Game Over if I loose this time. Not much I can do against Paralyze Breath, though.
Was there supposed to be something I can buy in town at some point? I may only have 82 Gold, but, I still have my initial equipment, and item drops aren't happening. Also, I don't recall being able to actually rest at the inn. Not that such a thing would help, as Mal and Lando are both at 1 HP each after Natalie's event.
Gee, I'm glad I can access the menu to recover those two after freeing Tobias. If I left those lines of code in, I would probably quit in frustration right here. If not before.
Tobias' Paralyze works! Didn't think it would, to be honest.
Out of prison, but Mel's KOed. Also, it kinda sounds like there's two tracks running simultaneously after getting out of prison?
Okaaaay, so, I can't revive Mel. At all. There's no abilities on my characters that do it, and the Inn is blocked off even if it did function as a recovery point.
I can get into, and out of, the cellar. Once out of the cellar, I can't get back in. Interesting, to say the least.
On a lark, I used CTRL+move to get past the guy blocking the Inn. Of course, it was still the same events as before. Including the last bit of Natalie's event that I mentioned. Hrm. I might not be at a totally unwinnable state, but, things are likely going to be a lot tougher than they probably should be.
I did a bit of delving in regards to when menu and save access would return if I left those lines in that Pub event alone. Apparently, menu access might return in the cellar dungeon, but I've yet to see a place where it save access returns. By no means am I going over these events with a fine tooth comb, though.
General Observations:
There are issues in the dialog involving homonyms (ie: the use of "your" when it should be "you're") and more general misspellings of words.
Summary:
I consider my gaming experience abnormal, as I went into the editor and removed lines from an event that locked out the menu (thus, the ability to recover outside of combat) and the ability to save. Under normal circumstances, however, such locks would make the game ultimately unplayable.
BOTTOM LINE: N/A
