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Engaging boss battles that you can attempt after finishing your chores

  • Muninn
  • 05/27/2013 08:09 PM
  • 1299 views
Illusions of Loyalty is an RPGMaker VX Ace game created by Aegix_Drakan.

Summary
Following the execution of his brother, Bruce, for the participation in a rebellion against his home country of Styx, Julius Logan is asked to prove his loyalty to Styx by assassinating the queen of the neighboring nation who has been secretly funding the rebellions in Styx, pinning blame on enemy nation Gaius and provoking the neutral nation into openly allying with Styx in the war.

Story: Simple
Illusions of Loyalty does not possess a particularly involved story. The above summary is all revealed in the very beginning of the game, and will not significantly change from that point until after the defeat of the final boss. This is fair enough, and the game at least made an attempt at having gameplay that was engaging enough that it could afford to go without introducing new plot developments.


Playing through the game, I was initially expecting that this segment of my review would complain about the lack of motive behind Bruce's rebellion; after all, this is the event which drives the rest of the plot, and to have the only mention of the reasons for this event to be a comment about "A few flimsy ideals" struck me as rather lazy. This was addressed (thematically, at least) in the epilogue, so it became a non-concern. Indeed, now I'm disappointed that Aegix_Drakan decided not to make this a more involved story. Not because the game needed a story of that sort, but because his handling of this particular aspect was quite good and I'd like to see what he does for something more complex.

With motives being properly addressed eventually within the game, my only real complaint against the story in Illusions of Loyalty would be the characters. They would seem to be soldiers, except when their mission from the queen is apparently something that they can refuse. They're experienced, except when the group's tracker warns Julius that something is following them and Julius dismisses the tracker as imagining things.

Presentation: A few hiccups
Graphically, there's nothing particularly outstanding about Illusions of Loyalty. There were a few instances where I could see from one interior map to another, and at least one location where a small bit of carpet led into a dresser.


Musically, there were a few occasions in which I really liked the soundtrack for the game, primarily the party-recruiting scene in the beginning and the final boss battle. Unfortunately, the non-final-boss battles all used the same fight music, which got repetitions after awhile.

Gameplay: Highly Variable
Illusions of Loyalty has three difficulty settings. Moving down from the highest to the middle level, the player gains the ability to purchase items that boost each of their stats by 2 points. On the lowest level, the player can still make these purchases, but also benefits from doubled experience gain. I played on the middle difficulty, but did not need to purchase the stat boosts until the final boss fight.

There are two battle stats of note in Illusions of Loyalty. The first is SP, which is used for all special attacks and regenerates at a rate of 10 points per turn. This stat carries over between battles, has a fixed maximum of 100, and regenerates completely after staying in an Inn. The other stat, Aggression, starts out with a low value in each battle, increasing after using 1st tier skills or being damaged. Aggression is used to fuel 2nd- and 3rd-tier special attacks.

Battles typically consist of choosing attacks based on both the current situation in battle and how much SP or aggression your party members have. Many RPGs fall into the trap of giving the characters no abilities at low levels, but Illusions of Loyalty defies this by starting each character out with two skills at each of the three skill tiers. These skills are also quite well balanced, with almost every skill being something that the player will find useful in at least one situation during the game.

Unfortunately, there are no additional skills gained by leveling up; as a result, random battles feel very repetitious. This combines with a the random battle's high encounter rate, lack of enemy diversity, and lack of threat to make the random battles the low point of the game.


Boss battles generally avoid the problems with the random battles. Each boss has different skills, attack phases, or other unique challenges. Aside from the final boss, where I had to prepare by grinding two levels up to lv.10 and purchasing two sets of skill-up items, each boss was challenging at the level it was first encountered while still being beatable.

Final Verdict: Some excellent moments, spaced a bit too far apart
If I hadn't been playing this game with the intent to write a review, I would have definitely quit during the forest section between the first and second bosses. This game has some excellent ideas for the battle system, but the excellency only shows when the player is being challenged with new situations. The high encounter rate and low enemy diversity ensures that players will have many more fights in which they're repeating what they've done earlier than fights in which they're being challenged with new things.


Say 'hi' to these guys for me. You'll be seeing them a lot.

Posts

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Thanks for the review. I'm taking all of this (or have already taken it) into consideration as I work on my after-contest update. I'll try to get all the major kinks sorted out and fixed as soon as I'm allowed to update it again.

:) Thank you for the constructive criticism, it's much appreciated.

Oh, and by the way, if you'd like, PM me any specific plot points or character points you enjoyed or want me to explore further. I'll take it into consideration for the next game I have planned (I'm not quite sure what to do with it...)

EDIT:
Just a heads up, the updated version of my game no longer has random battles, and there are more story scenes. :)
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