Mystery Man Zero

Griever plays Mystery Man Zero:

Gameplay: 8/10

MMZ has a very traditional style of gameplay. Walk around, find keys, pull switches, solve puzzles and kill things, all the traditional aspects of an RPG are in here. Fortunately, each of these pieces has been put together pretty damn well, thus stopping MMZ from being "just another traditional role-playing game".

For instance, the balance of the battles you'll encounter borders on perfect; the battles never let you rest on your laurels whilst, at the same time, never being so frustratingly difficult you want to smash something. The sense of balance is especially true for the boss battles, where the tension and excitement created more than make up for any frustration you could have if you ever died. This is the true sign of a challenging game, a game that is passable but requires you to think; making things difficult for the sake of it never really ends up being fun in the long term.

The implementation of an encounter system that lets you choose when to fight enemies is also something I enjoyed. It allows you to separate grinding and exploring out from one another and also lets you decide the balance between treasure hunting and searching for enemy drops. It's an incredibly simple system that, because of its implementation, makes the levelling a lot more fun than it would've been with random encounters. Admittedly, it probably won't be for everyone, especially not traditionalists, but I thought it worked well.

One negative thing I would say about the gameplay is that there is still a lack of truly thought provoking level design. Although I have no problem with the basic “get this, open that, fight boss” principle of dungeon design, I still think that this game could benefit from something extra. I said this about the first demo and it is still true now.

Characters: 9/10

The range of character archetypes present (the characters range from the genetic product of an alien planet to a flamboyant, bisexual(?) club owner) and their oft-hilarious dialogue is reason enough to play through this game; even if you do get sick of the gameplay itself. I was always waiting for the next cutscene just because I knew it would be entertaining. I have to say that it isn’t often a game makes me want to see cutscenes for entertainment, usually the cutscenes are there for closure of storyline arcs and the gameplay is where the entertainment is, but in this game I would say that the characters add to the entertainment just as much as the gameplay itself does.

They do have shortcomings, though. Although most of the characters are very entertaining to watch, a lot of them seem very shallow. This might be because the game is still in the early stages of development, though, because although shallowness seems to prevail throughout this demo, there are flashes of depth towards the end I hope will lead to something more in future releases.

Still, as the priority for any game developer is to keep the player entertained, and since I felt the characters in MMZ managed to play a big part in this game’s entertainment value, I find it hard to fault the characters for any perceived shortcomings.


Storyline: 8/10

In the first demo of MMZ everything seemed very obvious, but with the addition of more characters I can actually see deeper storylines building around the cliché frameworks put in place (even if all the frameworks are kinda cheesy).

Many traditional role-playing games rely on a central storyline that each character plays his or her own part in. Each character generally has a reason to join the party and it is these reasons that usually make up the most interesting areas of the story. Why, exactly, does the ninja want to go and kill the big, bad, western dragon sat on top of the hill? However, MMZ does not rely on this principle, as it knots several, so-called cliché storylines together and lets the conflict between the party members become the focus. That each storyline itself isn’t very impressive (save home town planet, piece together a crystal, defeat the evil demo) doesn’t matter because it is never what you are looking out for; what you are looking out for is how these goals come to blows with each other and how that effects the dynamic of the party.

Graphics/Mapping: 8/10

MMZ has a very consistent graphical style and is therefore in direct contrast with Yeaster’s other project, Vanity. I prefer the consistent look, but I was slightly disappointed Yester didn’t take the comic-book style used in Vanity’s cutscenes and blend it with the consistent graphical style seen in MMZ. I think the resultant cutscenes would’ve been better than those seen in either of the two separately. Despite this, the style used in MMZ isn’t bad, and I really enjoyed the graphics used throughout.

One graphical point I really enjoyed was the conversion of the RM2K3 DBS into a front-view system. It made the system seem slightly less buggy (despite the fact the bugs are obviously coded into RM2K3 directly) and also made following what was going on a more… interesting endeavour. I thought it was very well done, although it did make seeing who I was using healing items on slightly more difficult than it should be..

Music/Sounds: 8/10

The sound effects are well used, and I really liked the use of voiceovers in the battle sequences (even if they were only yelps/squeals/shouts etc). I kinda wish more custom sounds had been used throughout the rest of the game, though, as restricting them to the battle sequences makes some of the cutscenes seem like a bit of a let down.

The music, on the other hand, has improved since the first demo. Although the game does still exhibit a few, dull pieces, the majority of the music fits where it is supposed to go and is neither annoying nor boring.

Overall: 9/10

This demo left me wanting to play more, and I can’t think of a better compliment than this. I do think, though, that since the demo leaves the party in a state of unresolved, internal conflict, that the next release is going to be really important for how well this game does in the long run.