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OFFICIAL REVIEW THREAD:DRAGOON LEGENDS REVIEWED
Posts
VideoWizard
2842
VideoWizard
View playlists
CloseWell, Dragon Kingdoms V has never had a review done for it. I believe one started for it but never finished.
demondestiny
889
Whenever you can you can review the demo of Demon Destiny 1. It contains no errors and is pretty short. Heres the link,
http://www.rpgmaker.net/games/141/downloads/
http://www.rpgmaker.net/games/141/downloads/
BIRDIE GREW WINGS TODAY
At only 15 Minutes long, The Mirror Lied is still the best RMXP game I've ever played!
The Mirror Lied, by Kan "Reives" Gao is a COMPLETE RMXP game. It is graphically polished, brilliantly stylish, broodingly atmospheric, has an original score, and is fun, engaging, and thought provoking. In short: there is NO EXCUSE for not having played this. None WHATSOEVER. It takes just fifteen minutes of your life and it will use those fifteen minutes to not just consummately entertain and completely engross you, but will teach you some things about game design! How much better of a deal can you ask for?
This game is ART and as a result I am going to do everything I can to make this the most artful review I have ever written.
Premise/Story/Dialog/Execution:
In any other game, the writing that appears in The Mirror Lied would be only passable, and barely at that. Not only is the dialog sparse and unembellished and the object descriptions (which you'll be seeing a lot of) brief and cursory, but the game is plagued by several errors of usage with the English language, mostly relating to pluralization (a full sink is referred to as a "collection of water", a drawer is described as being full of "oversized clothings" and a potted plant is described as "a decorative foliage") which combined with the lack of characterization or explanation would have been a serious problem for other games.
Not so with The Mirror Lied.
Why? First off, the game's completely brilliant and deceptively simple premise. There is not much I can say about a game only fifteen minutes long without spoiling it. The safest thing I can say is this: the protagonist in the Mirror Lied is a little girl, with no face, in a world that is not at all what it seems. Absolutely nothing is explained, at least not in a way that spells things out for the player. The game is essentially a mystery, where the joy is in the player's discovering and unraveling of its small in scope but densely packed secrets.
I want to say more, to really over-analyze the game and get at some of the depth inside it, and that is what SPOILER TAGS are for. If you have not played the game before DO NOT READ THIS SHIT IT WILL RUIN THE GMAE FOR YOU:
The game's sparse dialog works for it because every conversation with Birdie is incredibly ominous and intentionally vague. I can't take off points for Birdie's dialog being indistinguishable, in voice, from the text of the computer messages, because that made me wonder if they were the same entity. It got to the point where I was wondering if even the curiously childlike English mistakes were intentional, that is how complete of a mindfuck this game is.
In spite of Reives' (perhaps at least half-ironic?) assertion that this game does not belong to the horror genre, HE IS LYING. It is perhaps the creepiest, spookiest complete RPG Maker game I have ever played. It upstaged Backstage. It unraveled The Longing Ribbon. I don't know if there's a higher complement I can pay. There is no blood, no gore, no monsters, no "survival horror elements", just a word that is every bit as disconcerting and nonsensical as your most poignant nightmares, or the grimmest of fairy tales.
Story Score: 4/5 (8/10)
Graphics/Sound:
This entire game takes place in a house. An ordinary house, convincingly rendered. The house has two bedrooms, one upstairs, and one downstairs, and two bathrooms, adjoining the bedrooms on the first and second floor. There is a computer room and lounge on the first floor too, a dining room, and a living room. There is a drawer in the dining room; the first time you examine it is locked. Then, right before your eyes, it disappears. You wonder if it was ever there. With the dresser gone, you can examine the painting behind it. Someone has written umbers on it. In the basement, there is a boiler, a secret office behind a locked door additionally blocked off by a table, and a mysterious panel with three switches. One of the switches is stuck. It is carved with a mysterious note: "Wait for me. 3:26."
THE HOUSE IS ALIVE.
At first, it is a sunny day outside the house. But the sunlight streaming in through the windows is just enough to remind you how dim it is inside the house, in comparison, the best use of lighting effects ever in any RM game. When it is night time, it is moonlight streaking in.
THE HOUSE IS ALIVE.
On the living room table is a music box (sometimes there is a phone there, and sometimes it isn't. It moves, you see. The phone is moving again! haha. Like it has a mind of its own.) which, when you open it, sounds just like a music box. Childlike...innocent...but with dark and haunting undertones. (It is the ONLY track of music the game uses, composed by Reives himself, and it is absolutely fantastic.) You can shut the box, or leave it open, a relatively meaningless decision, just like the ability to dress Leah in three colors: tawny, midnight black, or blood red. If you leave the music box on, it continues to play the supremely creepy tones throughout the entire house...and when you leave it alone, the music continues to play...when you move into other rooms, it gets softer.
THE HOUSE IS ALIVE.
Everything in the house can be interacted with. Every light switch can be flicked on and off. Every drawer can be rifled through. The plants can be watered and sometimes THEY GROW. The toilets can be flushed. The piano can be played. The computer used. The phone (IT RINGS SOMETIMES) answered, if you make it in time. Some of these things are crucial to advance the game. Some of them don't matter at all. The house is the most fully realized and convincing environment in any RM game ever. THE. HOUSE. IS. ALIVE.
If you play this alone and think about what it is doing, you will be haunted.
From the totally slick animated menu screen and the chilling, Dark City-esque intro to the brilliantly ambiguous ending, every graphic, every sound, ever description....perfect. Some little details I didn't notice until I watched my girlfriend replay the game before reviewing ...at some point, as somewhere outside the microcosm of the house, Birdie flew over Europe, and approached Africa, the continents on the world map in the lounge vanished one by one.
A triumph of atmosphere, hyperbole be damned.
Presentation Score: 5.0/5.0 AKA 10/10 AKA 100% AKA A++
Gameplay
This game made me obsessive compulsive. For some reason I needed to have a full bucket on me and have all three sinks filled with water, at all times, before doing anything. The puzzles are clever. The puzzles themselves were like what you'd find in a any text adventure, point and click third person LucasArts style adventure game, or any modern game like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, or, for the indie scene, Backstage...only better. What at first I thought were game breaking glitches weren't; this phenomenon was nicely lampshaded by the clever title screen changing to say "Yes, I know about this glitch." the first time that I quit on it, trapped in a burning house I'd set fire to myself.
It does not have any battles. Few of the puzzles were truly deep, complex, or involving. And it is very short. That is why it did not receive a perfect score. BUT...
The gameplay approaches the INEFFABLE at times, requiring you to use dream logic to defeat the game's puzzles. In short, this is a game in which the correct choice, when you have set the house on fire, is to go back to bed amidst the flames. Brilliant.
Gameplay Score: 4/5 (8 out of 10)
The Mirror Lied is the ultimate triumph of atmosphere, presentation, and polish supporting a strong premise. It is truly different than any other games. It is emotionally and cognitively involving. It is my favorite RMXP game. IT IS THE "KILLER APP" RMXP COULD HAVE USED 2 YEARS AGO. In short...while, I have said this before, and I will say it again, I will never again say it with this much feeling: WHY AREN'T YOU PLAYING IT RIGHT FUCKING NOW?
Final Score (NOT AN AVERAGE): 4.5/5 Stars (9/10)
PS. I seem to have suddenly (and temporarily?) forgotten how to submit reviews on the site? Either that or a button dissappeared. Staaaaffffff? ???
At only 15 Minutes long, The Mirror Lied is still the best RMXP game I've ever played!
The Mirror Lied, by Kan "Reives" Gao is a COMPLETE RMXP game. It is graphically polished, brilliantly stylish, broodingly atmospheric, has an original score, and is fun, engaging, and thought provoking. In short: there is NO EXCUSE for not having played this. None WHATSOEVER. It takes just fifteen minutes of your life and it will use those fifteen minutes to not just consummately entertain and completely engross you, but will teach you some things about game design! How much better of a deal can you ask for?
This game is ART and as a result I am going to do everything I can to make this the most artful review I have ever written.
Premise/Story/Dialog/Execution:
In any other game, the writing that appears in The Mirror Lied would be only passable, and barely at that. Not only is the dialog sparse and unembellished and the object descriptions (which you'll be seeing a lot of) brief and cursory, but the game is plagued by several errors of usage with the English language, mostly relating to pluralization (a full sink is referred to as a "collection of water", a drawer is described as being full of "oversized clothings" and a potted plant is described as "a decorative foliage") which combined with the lack of characterization or explanation would have been a serious problem for other games.
Not so with The Mirror Lied.
Why? First off, the game's completely brilliant and deceptively simple premise. There is not much I can say about a game only fifteen minutes long without spoiling it. The safest thing I can say is this: the protagonist in the Mirror Lied is a little girl, with no face, in a world that is not at all what it seems. Absolutely nothing is explained, at least not in a way that spells things out for the player. The game is essentially a mystery, where the joy is in the player's discovering and unraveling of its small in scope but densely packed secrets.
I want to say more, to really over-analyze the game and get at some of the depth inside it, and that is what SPOILER TAGS are for. If you have not played the game before DO NOT READ THIS SHIT IT WILL RUIN THE GMAE FOR YOU:
It eventually becomes apparent that the house is a kind of illusion, a phantasmal construct that is serving as a temporal prison to keep Leah (which I kept thinking is, similar to and to a Japanese speaker indistinguishable from the sound of Rhea, as in the witch!) off the playing field and out of the game. It is a fantasy world for her, a return to childhood, a mental labyrinth, forever delaying her action like the 1001 tales of Scheherazade. She was originally an agent- of some mysterious government organization? of a powerful force for good? for evil?- of some group or faction that is out to stop birdie, who is a curiously childlike metaphor for the apocalypse, the angel of death, what have you, from flying over the world and making it dissapear, continent by continent. But birdie has imprisoned her in this weird twilight place, this empty house, this childhood doll's house, and you have to help her escape...but then Revies' wonderfully ambiguous ending makes you wonder if even that interpretation is true, or just some kind of subjective spin you put on this brilliantly chimeric rorshak blot of a game!
The game's sparse dialog works for it because every conversation with Birdie is incredibly ominous and intentionally vague. I can't take off points for Birdie's dialog being indistinguishable, in voice, from the text of the computer messages, because that made me wonder if they were the same entity. It got to the point where I was wondering if even the curiously childlike English mistakes were intentional, that is how complete of a mindfuck this game is.
In spite of Reives' (perhaps at least half-ironic?) assertion that this game does not belong to the horror genre, HE IS LYING. It is perhaps the creepiest, spookiest complete RPG Maker game I have ever played. It upstaged Backstage. It unraveled The Longing Ribbon. I don't know if there's a higher complement I can pay. There is no blood, no gore, no monsters, no "survival horror elements", just a word that is every bit as disconcerting and nonsensical as your most poignant nightmares, or the grimmest of fairy tales.
Story Score: 4/5 (8/10)
Graphics/Sound:
This entire game takes place in a house. An ordinary house, convincingly rendered. The house has two bedrooms, one upstairs, and one downstairs, and two bathrooms, adjoining the bedrooms on the first and second floor. There is a computer room and lounge on the first floor too, a dining room, and a living room. There is a drawer in the dining room; the first time you examine it is locked. Then, right before your eyes, it disappears. You wonder if it was ever there. With the dresser gone, you can examine the painting behind it. Someone has written umbers on it. In the basement, there is a boiler, a secret office behind a locked door additionally blocked off by a table, and a mysterious panel with three switches. One of the switches is stuck. It is carved with a mysterious note: "Wait for me. 3:26."
THE HOUSE IS ALIVE.
At first, it is a sunny day outside the house. But the sunlight streaming in through the windows is just enough to remind you how dim it is inside the house, in comparison, the best use of lighting effects ever in any RM game. When it is night time, it is moonlight streaking in.
THE HOUSE IS ALIVE.
On the living room table is a music box (sometimes there is a phone there, and sometimes it isn't. It moves, you see. The phone is moving again! haha. Like it has a mind of its own.) which, when you open it, sounds just like a music box. Childlike...innocent...but with dark and haunting undertones. (It is the ONLY track of music the game uses, composed by Reives himself, and it is absolutely fantastic.) You can shut the box, or leave it open, a relatively meaningless decision, just like the ability to dress Leah in three colors: tawny, midnight black, or blood red. If you leave the music box on, it continues to play the supremely creepy tones throughout the entire house...and when you leave it alone, the music continues to play...when you move into other rooms, it gets softer.
THE HOUSE IS ALIVE.
Everything in the house can be interacted with. Every light switch can be flicked on and off. Every drawer can be rifled through. The plants can be watered and sometimes THEY GROW. The toilets can be flushed. The piano can be played. The computer used. The phone (IT RINGS SOMETIMES) answered, if you make it in time. Some of these things are crucial to advance the game. Some of them don't matter at all. The house is the most fully realized and convincing environment in any RM game ever. THE. HOUSE. IS. ALIVE.
If you play this alone and think about what it is doing, you will be haunted.
From the totally slick animated menu screen and the chilling, Dark City-esque intro to the brilliantly ambiguous ending, every graphic, every sound, ever description....perfect. Some little details I didn't notice until I watched my girlfriend replay the game before reviewing ...at some point, as somewhere outside the microcosm of the house, Birdie flew over Europe, and approached Africa, the continents on the world map in the lounge vanished one by one.
A triumph of atmosphere, hyperbole be damned.
Presentation Score: 5.0/5.0 AKA 10/10 AKA 100% AKA A++
Gameplay
This game made me obsessive compulsive. For some reason I needed to have a full bucket on me and have all three sinks filled with water, at all times, before doing anything. The puzzles are clever. The puzzles themselves were like what you'd find in a any text adventure, point and click third person LucasArts style adventure game, or any modern game like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, or, for the indie scene, Backstage...only better. What at first I thought were game breaking glitches weren't; this phenomenon was nicely lampshaded by the clever title screen changing to say "Yes, I know about this glitch." the first time that I quit on it, trapped in a burning house I'd set fire to myself.
It does not have any battles. Few of the puzzles were truly deep, complex, or involving. And it is very short. That is why it did not receive a perfect score. BUT...
The gameplay approaches the INEFFABLE at times, requiring you to use dream logic to defeat the game's puzzles. In short, this is a game in which the correct choice, when you have set the house on fire, is to go back to bed amidst the flames. Brilliant.
Gameplay Score: 4/5 (8 out of 10)
The Mirror Lied is the ultimate triumph of atmosphere, presentation, and polish supporting a strong premise. It is truly different than any other games. It is emotionally and cognitively involving. It is my favorite RMXP game. IT IS THE "KILLER APP" RMXP COULD HAVE USED 2 YEARS AGO. In short...while, I have said this before, and I will say it again, I will never again say it with this much feeling: WHY AREN'T YOU PLAYING IT RIGHT FUCKING NOW?
Final Score (NOT AN AVERAGE): 4.5/5 Stars (9/10)
PS. I seem to have suddenly (and temporarily?) forgotten how to submit reviews on the site? Either that or a button dissappeared. Staaaaffffff? ???
Yeaster
6164
A review of Vanity will be appreciated if you ever feeling like doing it or have the time.
http://www.rpgmaker.net/games/534/
http://www.rpgmaker.net/games/534/
Blind
2262
Off Topic: Have you played/heard of the German Horror project TAUT, Max? It sounds eerily similar to the "The Mirror Lied", based on your striking description. You might enjoy it, given your seeming interest in games of that variety. 8]
Off Topic: Have you played/heard of the German Horror project TAUT, Max? It sounds eerily similar to the "The Mirror Lied", based on your striking description. You might enjoy it, given your seeming interest in games of that variety. 8]
I will check this out. A link would be the shortcut to my success.
Someone should review my pieces of shyte.
I need something more constructive that "it sucks", though.
Pimp
Last Day
1873
And maybe, just maybe a suggestion as to which one I should continue to work on, and which ones I should leave to rot.
Hey bro. I already gave you a constructive critique of 1873. Pimp is not my cuppa. I will check into Last Day, though.
First/last warning, Max: stop with the all caps horseshit.
First and last? How draconic! :)
Seriously, though, how does this harm anyone? I mean, one, functionally it serves the same purpose as bold or an exclamation point (i.e. emphasis) , and I don't see where on the site rules it OR either of those are forbidden. Secondly, I am making an effort to use it more sparingly lately. Third, it is not used un-ironically. I mean, it's not just I'm like "yelling is cool"; the use of all caps with everything MAGE DUEL related is tongue in cheek, and same with this thread title, like lol my review thread is "soooooo much better than Rose's". Whatever, your site, I'm not pitching a fit. It's just something I'm deeply in the habit of doing.
A review of Vanity will be appreciated if you ever feeling like doing it or have the time.
I will put this on either the Backlog or the Backburner once I decide where to put it.
Right now I am simultaneously playing Zero Reality: Path to a Shattered World AND Beyond Eden: Chronicles of Nod (we LOVE our colons, don't we RMN?) and I have come to a frustrating standstill in both of them simultaneously.
I will attempt to advance one more time in each before giving up. (Demicrusaius has already given me a pointer on how to get further into his game, unfortunately this isn't applicable for ZR: PtaSW because the problem I have relates to one particularly frustrating, unfair, and gruelingly difficult battle.)
I will attempt to advance one more time in each before giving up. (Demicrusaius has already given me a pointer on how to get further into his game, unfortunately this isn't applicable for ZR: PtaSW because the problem I have relates to one particularly frustrating, unfair, and gruelingly difficult battle.)
When Leo has to fight those three fucking guards BY HIMSELF in the engine car of the train. For some reason at this point in the game I have only two healing tonics and they heal me for only 50 HP, whereas the guards dish out AT LEAST 65+ damage each turn and take two to three uses of Rising Phoenix or whatever to drop, which I can only use three times without having to pop an innanium shard and take another turn of getting beaten down....basically, it is unwinnable and I have no idea why a fight would be this unwinnable this early in the game if not for SERIOUS GAME BALANCE FLAWS.
It is EXTRAORDINARILY FRUSTRATING and has single-handedly caused a 40% drop in my enjoyment of the game. After my second try-and-fail, I stopped playing. If I try and fail a third time, that's strike three and I'll just review the game from there.
Sorry to sound so angry, dude I just....am. Probably because I was enjoying the game VERY MUCH before this.
It is EXTRAORDINARILY FRUSTRATING and has single-handedly caused a 40% drop in my enjoyment of the game. After my second try-and-fail, I stopped playing. If I try and fail a third time, that's strike three and I'll just review the game from there.
Sorry to sound so angry, dude I just....am. Probably because I was enjoying the game VERY MUCH before this.
Yes, the game balance for the first demo sucked ass and trust me, it's been made known (and I fixed it, a LOT, don't worry).
Well, that battle has been beaten before, but if it's not possible at that point and you really want to play, why not just open the game up in the editor and crank down the stats of the guards or something (I also suggest increasing the amount that Tonics heal for)? I'm very willing to take whatever hit the review would give for this.
Well, that battle has been beaten before, but if it's not possible at that point and you really want to play, why not just open the game up in the editor and crank down the stats of the guards or something (I also suggest increasing the amount that Tonics heal for)? I'm very willing to take whatever hit the review would give for this.
Yes, I will probably cheat, but I will cheat very moderately (I HATE CHEATING, even in RM games) and yes it will take off at least a star. But I do want to know where the story is going enough to bother to cheat, so that in and of itself you can count as a victory. But I will cheat very little and if I have to cheat again I really will quit playing and review it from there. Also, expect to hear a LOT of harping about balance in the final review. That's just like...what I do. (The EMDE2! review has a lot of it.)
Well, if it makes you feel better, it's not really a cheat, it's what I eventually did in the game itself to help balance it out.
-Increase how much Tonics heal for.
-Decrease how much Innaniums cost.
-Raise Bruce's attack by a little bit.
And remember that running away is sometimes the best option.
-Increase how much Tonics heal for.
-Decrease how much Innaniums cost.
-Raise Bruce's attack by a little bit.
And remember that running away is sometimes the best option.
