Sunsong

Hi again RMN! Welcome to a new review! Today its time for Sunsong. I played this game some time ago, and as I promised, here is its review.

Graphics (3/5):
This game does not invest a lot in its graphics, but use resources very wisely. I liked the graphics enough to withstand the evergreen tones from start to end. The choice of green palette has its issues, as some enemies and places tend to mingle with their environment. Some flashy effects have colors different than green… so I wondered if that was done on purpose to give a hope of color at the end of the game.

Gameplay (4/5):
The instructions are clear: dungeon A, dungeon B, final dungeon. Each place is very different from each other, with its own systems, threats and so on. Even being simple, the game is always clear in what you have to do and how to do it. I enjoyed it and it’s a good balance of light entertainment and challenge. The game has a New Game+, that is very nice as probably some players won’t fully understand the game until they have beaten it once. Even after everything is at 100% the final boss is still challenging so this New Game+ feature really adds something to the game. It’s a little long game (3+ hours first run) for its intended purpose.

System (4/5):
I usually don’t like jobs or classes, but Sunsong’s system is very interesting and diverse for such a short game. A lot of effort was put on it. The lack of guidance makes it difficult at first, but after its clear how the classes work and interconnect it becomes easy. Being a little excited about it I got all my characters to level 10 for all classes, then choose a suitable team. The system has a pair of bugs (Monks HP=1 and a pseudo level cap) and it’s not very clear the elemental affinities of some enemies; so that deduces this aspect's score.

Effects (3/5):
The music was nice. Not suffocating at all… I still remember some tunes after a month without playing it. Some animations are nice but map events could have been more silk and less tower-to-zeppelin like.

Plot (1/5):
This is void. Even for a short game, the plot is very weak. The world is almost unoccupied and the few inhabitants would not be able to survive even a week. Someone lives on a inaccessible place… how did he got there in the first place? The mision is to defeat an evil vampire, fine. He’ll let you to roam around the world, get stronger enough, get the Sunsong, then go and defeat him with the vampire-killing weapons that he has been enough kind to store in his castle just for you to use. There is no protagonist/s to identify with or to care about. Except for the drunk joker man everybody seem dead. This area could had had a lot more of work. This is the worst point of the game.

Final score (3.5/5):
Math says it’s 3, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoyed this game. I really liked it and could see the effort of its developer and, later on, his good will to improve his work and to receive criticism. In a forum, Gamesfreak13563 asks how would Sunsong’s players change it… Well, I would work in a real world and story, take this game strengths and make a sequel. That would something worth to see! Thank you for making this game and allowing this review.