Game Title: Town of Illustive
Engine: RPG Maker VX Ace
Status at review: In progress (Episode 1 complete out of unknown)


Background:
Made by the same developer that made Future Helper and the Seven Towers, most notable for it's infamy during the Nugget Crash Course, I was curious about this game. It's been a little over one-and-a-half years since that event. How much has this developer grown since then?
This game is the first episode of a series of games that centers on the titular town of Illustive, and it's secrets. Perhaps this is supposed to compete with Apon the Brow of Tomorrow Clear? I'm probably reading too much into this!


Graphics:
Unless Janet's room is supposed to be an actual dorm room, I don't have too many comments about the graphics in this game.


Audio:
As is my want, I looked in the music directory before playing the game. There wasn't anything in there that I enjoyed, but there also wasn't anything in there that I would never want to hear again.


Story:
The game begins as the protagonist, Janet, is surrounded by malevolent spirits that kill anyone foolish enough to trespass on their property. Janet scolds herself for getting herself into this situation, then tries to figure out how she got in it in the first place. Cue the flashback sequence.
The game re-introduces Janet as a transfer student of Matsumori High Fallica High School. One day, when class is coming to a close, her teacher makes an announcement that school will be closed for a month. He cannot, or refuses to, give any explanation for this, and this causes some students to come up with the crazy theory that something bad might happen to the school. The class president sneaks up behind our protagonist, and brings up the story of a girl that went missing some time ago. There is some talk that school is closed because of this student, and the circumstances surrounding her disappearance, but it's purely conjecture.
Later on, the class president gets the class together and suggests they go to the town of Illustive. The town where the student went missing. Apparently, he wants the scoop of what happened there, and a good majority of students want go along with this investigative initiative. The president starts delineating teams. While it's not specified which people go with Janet, her team is assigned to explore a creepy mansion.


Playing the game:
The game gave me an error about a disposed bitmap, and automatically closed. Re-opening the executable seemed to fix it. As a side-note, I was able to get this error more consistently with the use of resetting the game via F12.
Maybe it's just me, but there seems to be an insane number of cut scenes in the first ten minutes of the game. Do you want players to play the game, or watch it?
Okay, so, there's four people, they are locked in a mansion, and an there was a splash screen that specifies that there are four survivors left. Not usually a good sign!
There's no way to avoid the sequences where people get killed, is there? Not sure what to make of that.
Darigaaz, that plot twist where it's reveled that was telegraphed so hard, it wasn't even funny.


General Observations:
Call me crazy, but these characters have a very similar personality. Okay, Janet is a bit more stoic than the others. Otherwise, they feel like carbon copies of each other. I doubt this was intentional, so let's chalk it up to time constraints.
I think the build-up to being locked in the mansion could use some work. It doesn't necessarily need to be moments of danger and/or urgency, but something more interactive. Though, I must admit that thoughts of the opening of Final Fantasy X were in my head while playing this game.
Considering the gameplay, and the descriptions of what the characters are doing, this isn't really as-so-much RPG, as the game is tagged/advertised as. I would place it as a visual novel/adventure.
There's quite a number of lines that have spelling and grammar mistakes. Don't worry, it's nowhere near the level that was observed with Future Helper and the Seven Towers. In fact, it's quite bearable!


Summary:
The lack of interactivity during key plot points bring this episode down, in my humble opinion. However, being a maker of a series in my own right, I understand that certain things need to be done in order to preserve continuity. In light of that, and that the other games in the series are not yet released, I am disinclined to give the first episode of the Town of Illusive series a rating.


BOTTOM LINE: N/A