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A Journey That Needs to End

Preface: As a reviewer, I have certain principles which I take very seriously, because I think that games, their developers and their players deserve a fair, well-founded opinion. One of these self-imposed rules is that I only review games which I have actually finished, as that seems to me the only way to ensure I can judge a game as the complete experience it should be.
This review is the exception to that rule. I hope I manage to make clear why I wrote this review despite not having played the game in its entirety.




Dimensional Warriors by Mah_Boi is an RPG with comedy elements created with RPG Maker VX. It follows the (mis)adventures of (anti)hero Edgar, his best friend Fred and, later on, some more party members. Just on the very day Edgar finally finishes his training as a swordsman and embarks on his first adventure to get away from his obnoxious family, it happens: Before he and Fred can even cross the river in front of their village, they are teleported into a strange world by an unknown power. A mysterious old man who is just as wise as he is annoying then reveals to them they have been trapped in a dimension between dimensions. The only way to re-open a portal to their own world is to travel into other dimensions to destroy the seals created by a time-and-space-altering villain with the threatening name Herman.



Death is just another adventure. Except that you're not dead yet, Edgar.


The Good (Positive qualities that justify an increase of score):
- The basic idea of travelling between worlds to find a way back home may not be extremely original, but it works well enough as a reason to allow the player to explore many different settings. Combat consists of standard round-based RPG battles with a few minor twists. The most notable aspect is the ability to change classes, which the party gains in the second dungeon. Allowing every character to freely choose one of many professions which also influence stats, skills and equippable gear is a nice touch. The sheer amount of classes is slightly confusing however, and since the party is already quite well-rounded, there rarely is a reason to actually use this feature, even in situations where the game explicitly recommends it.
- While all graphics used in Dimensional Warriors are from the RTP, all music has been composed by the creator. While amateurish, some of these pieces are actually quite nice to listen to...



Yes. There is a class called "Emo" in this game.


The Bad (Minor issues and nuisances that usually only decrease the score if they come in large numbers):
- Unfortunately, many of the soundtracks created for this game are not very good. They often consist of very few notes and are exceedingly repetitive, so after a while they just become annoying to listen to.
- The game's mapping is not exactly terrible, but definitely subpar. Areas tend to be very rectangular, weirdly constructed and unpleasant to traverse. For example, the town in the island dimension is so cluttered with trees and rocks it becomes more annoying to navigate than some dungeons. Also, in Edgar's home dimension, at one point my path was blocked for about half a minute by a butterfly which I could not move past.
- The humour in Dimensional Warriors is very much a matter of taste. Lots of fourth wall breaking, parodies of typical RPG tropes and other absurdities are constantly thrown at the player. While there are a few instances where it is actually quite witty or amusing, most of the time it is just childish. When Edgar's little sister babbles about Facebook despite living in a pseudo-medieval world or the protagonist starts talking in emoticons, most players will do little but roll their eyes.



And here is an impression of what the dungeons look like - just that they are about ten thousand times as large.


The Ugly (Major problems or very frustrating aspects that lead to a decrease of score):
- Despite having the class changing ability mentioned above, the battle system suffers from a severe lack of depth. Characters acquire new skills very slowly, enemies and their abilities are unoriginal and battles are too easy and repetitive in general. In short, combat adds little to this game.
- As bad as I feel for saying this: The level design in Dimensional Warriors is outright horrible. When I entered the first dungeon, I quickly had to see it was an utterly gargantuan forest map with lots of long paths and little to see except trees, random encounters and loads of treasure chests - not a good start. After I beat the first boss, I made my way to the second dungeon, hoping for something more interesting. But it was just the same, only in a different environment. And the third one, too, consisted only of hundreds of confusing paths, some open space and treasure chests. This was when I gave up.
No sense of direction. No challenges. No puzzles. No variety. Hardly anything to interact with besides treasure chests. Only randomly running around in truly enormous areas, fighting enemies and picking up items. That's it. These dungeons are neither fun to beat nor to look at, they feel just plain frustrating and pointless.
There is absolutely no excuse for such poor dungeon design, and no matter how the game and the story may continue, I simply cannot imagine it would be worth enduring this - especially since most of the game seems to consist of these "dungeons", and there are a whole lot of them.



Conclusion:
The concept behind Dimensional Warriors was not bad in principle. Unfortunately, design-wise it was taken straight into the wrong direction entirely. If you don't mind a game where uninspired dungeons with nothing new to discover form 90% of the gameplay, then it might not be just as bad for you. But in general, this game is tedious and no fun to play - which is sad, because it has the potential to be better.