SILVIERA'S REVIEW REQUESTS

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Game: Lost Land Ruin: Volume 1

I'll start this review off by saying there is an unavoidable game breaking bug right in the first 5 minutes of play. It's an easy fix if you have rm2k3 handy, but in its current state this game is not playable for those who don't have a copy of the program. My score will not reflect this bug, as I am assuming the author will fix it shortly, but until then this warning will remain here.

Battle System- 2/5
Combat is very traditional without any extras thrown in. Since each party member tends to have a very limited skill list battles will be dull for the most part as you spend far too much time mashing the attack button. There's a pretty big problem with balance that tends to rear its ugly head during most boss fights. A lot of them are capable of using devastating multi-target attacks that your party just can't deal with unless you do an obscene amount of grinding or are just plain lucky. No character has healing abilities, and the only form of healing comes through consumable single target items available in shops. Unfortunately bosses tend to deal more damage than can be recovered with items at any given point of the game, and unless your agility is extremely high you'll find yourself dead quick if the boss decides to use his good attack twice in a row. It's a situation you'll probably find yourself in far too often, as the regular encounters tend to be incredibly easy so you usually won't be grinding at all until you get stuck.

Storyline- 3/5
Long ago, an alien planet known as Gaia came from space and merged with Earth in order to acquire an energy necessary to its survival. Eventually the Gaians realized this fusion was destined to doom both worlds, and thus they fled into the deepest reaches of space. But not before leaving a devastating scar that would ruin Earth forever. I'm going to ignore the fact this plot is torn from Final Fantasy 9 verbatim, because after the painful intro the story veers off in an entirely new direction. The story picks up as a member of a rebellion awakens a mysterious being who will supposedly be able to save Earth from its deterioration. Unfortunately, he has lost his memory and has no idea how to fix anything. Along the way you'll be fighting against the government and uncovering strange conspiracies, and overall the whole tale is rather interesting. It is occasionally marred by spelling mistakes and the odd bit of unnatural dialogue, but even with that the script is entertaining enough to keep you playing.

Characters- 3/5
Aside from the aforementioned savior, the party is comprised of an overeager member of the rebellion, a mostly silent robot, and a convicted criminal with unclear motives. Most of the story revolves around the first two characters, though the criminal gets a bit of extra development as well. The villains are a little more unique than your standard black wizard or evil overlord, even though their motivations are rather predictable. Most characters have some twist involving their background, but if you've been paying any attention to the storyline you'll see everything coming a mile away. I found myself attached to at least the main character before the story came to an end.

Level Design- 3/5
I don't really have a lot to say about this category. Dungeons are mostly unremarkable with a few very easy puzzles thrown in. The town design is extremely simplistic but not distracting. Overall I never found myself interested by any given location, but I never felt compelled to rush through any area out of disgust ether.

Graphics- 4/5
I appreciated the graphical selection in this game quite a bit. The author obviously took a great deal of care in selecting maps to represent a world on the brink of destruction, and there's never a green field of flowers that randomly appears and breaks you free from immersion. There's some minor inconsistency concerning the battler graphics, but other than that I liked the look of this game.

Music/Sound- 3/5
Entirely rips here, though they are drawn from a large variety of sources. I've played a ridiculous number of games so I recognized everything, but I think the selection here is large enough that most people won't be annoyed by it as much as I was (except probably the FF7 song). Each song is chosen with the correct mood in mind, so no major complaints in this category.

Random stuff I liked-
RM-305. I do not know why, it just clicked somehow.

Random stuff I hated-
Bugs, bugs, bugs. This game is full of bugs from beginning to end, from slight annoyances to things that will break your game.

Nei's battler doesn't match up her with map sprite at all.

Final Thoughts-
An interesting adventure that is bogged down by numerous bugs and occasionally poor balance. There is a sequel on the way, so it is at least worth keeping an eye on.

Overall Score 2/5

-And here's the bug report for the developer. Hopefully this makes up somewhat for me giving you two low scores in a row.

In the very first room the player gains control, if you attempt to exit rather than search around the scene outside will be played again. Thankfully this doesn't break the game, but it needs fixing. The secret passage you find in this room cannot be entered, because it is an event set to Below Hero up against an impassable tile, meaning you can't progress any further. I'm shocked no one has mentioned this in your comments as it has a lot of downloads.

Returning to the Inn after escaping the sewers will yet again play those intro scenes. And in this case it breaks plenty of things.

This game allows you to save anywhere, which is confusing as it also employs save points in numerous locations.

The path to the refugee base only activates by a single tile, despite most of the north side of the map being open space (not to mention the tile due North of the scene telling you to go there is not the one that activates). This happens again in the Desert just after you gain your 3rd party member, and several other times throughout the game.

An NPC informs you that robots improve their hp through firearms and armor, but this never actually occurs. The only time your robot's hp ever gets upgraded is when downloading new programs.

In the NW corner of the refugee camp, the person inside randomly becomes covered in blood the moment you talk to them. Definitely needs a fixed graphic.

If you rest at the inn in the refugee camp a 2nd time, the screen never exits cinematic mode, which makes it impossible to see the exit.

In the interiors of the 2nd town you can walk on top of many many things you should not be able to, this also occurs in various other points of the game including the data castle and the last town.

When returning to the rebel base the scene in which your party looks over the carnage can end up breaking the game. This happens if you trigger it with anything except the center tile, because the main character will attempt to walk over a party member and thus freeze all movement.

In the Arc Base you can walk out onto the black part of the map.

After rescueing Nei, the game will not progress unless the NPC's variable is set to exactly 3. The problem here is that any time you talk to a party member it is incremented by 1, and if you happen to talk to any party member twice before returning to Vicks the variable will hit 4+ and the player will be stuck forever.

When accessing the boat from the Refuge area, if you choose to go to the Abandoned Cavern then returning home will take you to the abandoned rebel base rather than back to the refuge area. You can also decide to go directly to the rebel base from the boat, except when you arrive the boat has suddenly vanished.

After the events where Mack recovers his memory, the game never leaves cinematic mode, this occurs again within the station shortly after.

One of the temple exits has no teleport event.

There are many situations throughout the game where Vicks will not accept a Blueprint to build a new weapon, including the very last time he asks you to bring blueprints to him.

Talking to the president prior to the final boss room will destroy the mist effect in that room.

The cinematic mode doesn't function properly in the final scene, only half of it is properly displayed.

Several skills have no description at all, including everything Nei ever learns.

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Now that the bug report is out of the way, a bit of advice for future projects. I must stress these are only my opinions.

You should really list in the description whether an item is effecting more than just attack/defense. Especially when several items have the exact same defensive values but differ in other categories.

Nei seemed severely underpowered compared to the rest of the party. Even when hitting an enemy with weaknesses a gun skill was almost always far more effective, and there were many cases where spells would do 0 damage. The one saving grace here was the Burn status effect, which almost seemed broken in how effective it was on bosses.

The Master Computer boss is horribly cheap. He can repair himself for far more damage than your party can inflict, and since MP totals are so low in this game even a high leveled party can barely damage him for half as fast as he repairs. If he decides to use this ability often this fight drags on forever. (and another bug I just remembered, his name gets cut off as Master Compute in the fight itself, making it one word should fix that).

The Tech Armor boss in the prison needs some serious rebalancing. He's a big jump from the boss in the previous area, and since you give the player no opportunity to level or buy items between the two bosses they can trap themselves in an unwinnable situation very easily.
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Phew...that was a lot. Good luck with your future projects and I hope my feedback was at least somewhat useful.
Yeah, there was some unbalance issues that many people were addressing. (I may not change the things on the Tech Armor, I'll add a shop in the dungeon before you fight him that way it makes things a little more fair.)

I'll do a check on the Master Computer battle, (i recall someone mentioning this a while back...) And I'll be sure to check the errors on the game as well, thanks for the review. At least I got a better score for this one than PR, the game was designed for the sci-fi contest a long while back, but I didn't make it time so some stuff may seem a bit rushed. XD

Thanks for the review though! :D

Oh yeah, did you get the good ending or the bad ending?
Judging by how the last few scenes played out, I think I got the bad ending. Maybe I'll shoot for the good one if I find time to play through it again after you've updated it.
Alright, I'll fix this game up a bit and update it within' the week. Thanks again for the feedback. :D
I'm going to hire Silviera to bug test every game I make ever.
Game: Secrets of the Light

Battle System- 3/5
Very traditional combat here, using the RPG Maker 2000 core mechanics. You can select your party at the start of the game, constructing a party of 4 out of possible physical attackers and 4 mage types. I went with the tried and true party of Knight, Ninja, Priest, and Wizard. There are a few interesting classes thrown in such as an AI controlled Berserker and a Beast Master that learns attacks from enemies, but I never ended up experimenting with them. The early part of the game is superbly balanced and quite challenging. Your party levels quickly and each level grants a significant power boost, and in some ways a lot of the game feels like you're playing an old RPG on fast forward.

Things kind of fall apart in the latter half of the game. Enemies start throwing out high damage multi target spells that will easily wipe out your party in two hits. You'll pretty much have to keep leveling until your priest learns a multi target heal in order to counter the sudden hike in difficulty (and if you have no priest, good luck to you). Unfortunately for me, this involved a little over an hour of nonstop grinding in what had been up to this point an incredibly fast paced adventure. After getting this healing spell I went from having no chance in most encounters to being able to live through anything with ease. Around this point my Knight and Ninja had pretty much lost all ability to deal damage, as they were completely outclassed by my Wizard and even my Priest's incredibly powerful skills. They spent the rest of the game tossing out mp pots while they watched the mages decimate everything.

Storyline/Characters- 3/5
Four silent heroes are called to destroy an evil overlord, but before they can reach him they'll have to collect a set of elemental stones. It doesn't get more cliche than this, but fortunately the game doesn't spend a lot of time dwelling on the story and just throws you right into the gameplay. It doesn't even attempt to try and explain who the heroes are or where they come from, the game actually begins with you on the world map standing in front of the first dungeon, with a town at your back should you wish to resupply. One thing I really enjoyed here is that throughout the adventure the villain is actively working against the heroes, even while they're still in single digit levels. He doesn't just sit in his ivory tower waiting until your party is powerful enough to take him down with ease. On top of that the other characters in the world are actively working against the villain, there are even entire towns devoted to bringing him down. It goes a long way to make a cliche world a lot more lifelike.

Level Design- 2/5
Definitely a weak aspect of the game, and at some points you'll get the feeling the creator is mocking the player with the limitations of the game maker. You'll encounter forests full of diagonal paths despite the fact you can only move in 4 directions. You'll also encounter mazes that utilize nothing but pillars which obscure your view of both the hero and the maze itself. The standard dungeons tend to be extremely square which makes a lot of the maps look completely unnatural, particularly the caves. Much like the battle system things start to slow down a lot in the last half of the game. In particular the final area is especially frustrating, and just prior to entering the last boss's castle you'll be forced to run through 6 elemental towers in a row in order to break a barrier. It makes the last stretch of the game drag on far longer than it needs to and ends up breaking the dramatic tension that builds during that final trip to the boss's lair.

Graphics- 2/5
Mostly RTP here, along with a few popular edits. There's a bit too much palette swapping going on with the enemies. Overall the creator didn't seem to put much effort into this category, which is fine considering the rest of the design choices.

Music/Sound- 3/5
A mix of RTP and various popular 8 bit era songs. Since it's such an old school adventure everything fits pretty well here, though the sound quality tends to be on the low side.

Random stuff I liked-
At one point in your adventure your way is blocked by an NPC who refuses to help you out of selfish reasons. The way around this objective is to drag the king off his throne and to have him order his subject to help you. Later in the game this same king grabs a sword and helps you storm the villain's lair.

Eventually you encounter a second group of '4 heroes' and give them a thoroughly savage beating.

Random stuff I hated-
The ending. It's pretty monologue heavy for a game that is so light on storyline, and tends to ramble on about characters you haven't seen enough to be even remotely attached to. The worst part is the text speed slows to a crawl during this segment.

Crazy coincidences-
I named one of my party members Shade, which also happens to be the name of the main villain. This resulted in frequent humorous scenes. Halfway through the game I determined this hero had taken up the sword because he was sick of being blamed for everything that was wrong with the world.

Final Thoughts-
I get the feeling this is the kind of game Enterbrain expected people to make with RPG Maker in the first place. Even though it is a simple adventure it's also pretty fun, at least until the last half of the game sets in.

Overall Score 2.5/5
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Some extra notes for the developer-

Super haste is described as raising attack and speed, but it actually heals and raises attack.

Super slow is described as lowering the speed and attack power of enemies, but actually lowers speed and intelligence.
After playing through Ascendence, I find myself unable to say anything that hasn't already been said elsewhere, especially since there's not a whole lot of time spent doing anything but reading slow text.

When you release the next version I will play through that, and at that time I should be able to give the game a fair review.
Happy
Devil's in the details
5367
post=92404
After playing through Ascendence, I find myself unable to say anything that hasn't already been said elsewhere, especially since there's not a whole lot of time spent doing anything but reading slow text.

When you release the next version I will play through that, and at that time I should be able to give the game a fair review.

Yeah, figured out as much. Thanks for playing tho! (I didn't expect to get 2 new reviews right after suggesting Asc for you in this topic, either...)
Thanks a lot, Silviera! I wasn't expecting higher than a 2 out of 5, so this is a surprise. I couldn't agree more with the contents of the review, however. I'll fix the skills, and I'm glad you didn't encounter any bugs besides those. The Shade bit was pretty interesting, heheh.
It looks like you're actually running out of games to review. Well, I've done some slight revisions to Omnisia based on your review (shouldn't be too difficult to figure out where to go now; several puzzles have better hints, too). If you ever get the time, I'd appreciate if you could finish up at least the final dungeon.
Sure, I'll take another shot at Omnisia after I finish Rhukaat.
Game: Rhukaat: Broken Chain Plus

Battle System- 2/5
Definitely a weak point in this game. The core of this lies with the fact that the battles are just too easy. You actually spend several levels without any skills to use period, but that doesn't matter because every enemy goes down swiftly from a few normal attacks. HP is on the high side and you'll probably go through entire dungeons without having to heal. When you finally do get abilities they have ridiculously low costs compared to your mp pool, in particular healing which is practically free. Ability lists are on the small side, so through the entire game you probably won't be doing much more than using attack and one or two skills per character. The fourth party member who joins you also tends to be rather useless in combat.

There is one difficult fight in the game, and it comes right before the final boss. You fight two extremely strong opponents, one who uses powerful spells and another who is capable of paralyzing the entire party. It comes out of nowhere and will likely force you to spend some time grinding in a game which you have probably been blowing through up to this point. It's worth noting that while fighting the final boss I took no damage at all. The boss spent several turns attempting to debuff my party with single target debuffs (and failing I might add), and buffing itself. Your experience may vary, but for me the boss died before performing a single offensive manuever.

Storyline- 3/5
A rather generic quest about an order of paladins fighting to take down a group of evil black mages. There is some crystal collection involved here but it never really becomes the focus of the story. Instead of actively seeking them out you sort of just stumble across them, and the villains acquire most of them off screen. Most of the game is spent fighting actively against the mages, though for the most part nothing is accomplished until the finale. The script is on the light side and you won't spend a lot of time reading. It felt as though the author was rushing the conclusion at the very end, as a lot of pivotal events occur without much buildup. Before you know it you're fighting against the final boss. Overall I felt the story was on the average side. The writing was actually of a very high quality, though I'm disappointed there wasn't a more interesting plot to go along with it.

Characters- 2/5
This category ends up faltering a bit. The two main characters are paladins from the order mentioned previously. They appear to have a bit of a rivalry at the start of the game, but this is never expanded on and pretty much falls through entirely a few hours into it. Overall the cast seems underdevloped; a few of the characters get almost no development period. The worst part is easily the fourth character who joins at the end of the game just to fill a party slot before the final boss. The villain is on the stereotypical side, and though there is a small plot twist involving a few characters it never really has any impact on anything. When it came down to it I just didn't care about any of these people.

Level Design- 4/5
You'll be spending a lot of your time walking through small dungeons in this game. Most of them are quite well put together, if simple in design. You usually don't spend much time in one area before rapidly moving on to the next. The towns are a bit on the weak side as they usually consist of nothing more than identical buildings pasted next to each other. Although the mapping is weak in that regard, most towns have a few small subquests you can accomplish to gain a bit of extra loot or items. The dungeons have no real puzzles to speak of. Nothing more complicated than a switch puzzle here or there. One feature I liked is the world map was done away with completely. You instead find yourself traveling through various forests and valleys in search of the next town. It helps give the world a nice cohesive feeling, and makes traveling from one point to another a lot more interesting. It's actually difficult for me to pinpoint just what I liked so much about this category, but regardless I found myself enjoying the level design more than in most games.

Graphics- 3/5
Mostly RTP here, though everything is well put together. As far as I could tell all the battlers were taken from a single artist, which gives the game a nice consistent feel.

Music/Sound- 3/5
Mostly rips from various popular games here, though it wasn't as recognizable as some RM games tend to be. Everything is placed well enough but overall also forgetable.

Random stuff I liked-
Nothing in particular I haven't already mentioned.

Random stuff I hated-
At one point you are asked to clear out a castle full of monsters. This entire dungeon consists of the same encounter over and over again, specifically a single easy enemy that happened to be present in groups in an earlier dungeon. It felt like a gigantic waste of time.

Final Thoughts-
This is a game with no glaring problems whatsoever. It doesn't do much to rise above the competition either, but if you need a solid title to kill a few hours it's worth the download. There's a sequel on the way, and if the author has improved it's definitely worth keeping watch for it.

Overall Score 3/5

Some extra notes for the developer-

You can walk on top of every shop counter. This was the only bug I encountered.

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That took a bit longer than I wanted to get that review out. Next up is a revision of Omnisia, though since I'm planning to release my own project on the 31st this month I'll be saving that playthrough for September.
Yay! Thanks for the feedback. ^_^
Hey do you mind reviewing Lucadia? It's a short demo and my first game. I would really appreciate feedback. Thanks.
http://rpgmaker.net/games/1232/
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