SECRET SANTA 2010 RESULTS!

Super Desmo Bros

I suppose the only real thing I can review in a Super Mario Bros. X game is the level design, as most of us the other work (characters, physics, basic gameplay strategies) have already been covered by the engine. As I read, this project was based on the community game "Super RMN Bros", which, I admit, did not finish. I also had not played any Mario platformers in a while, which did prove a bit difficult at first, but thankfully, the game started off the player with some easy levels to get a grip on the learning curve.



Another thing to note about this game is that you can play as four characters: Mario, Luigi, Toad and Peach. I only really played with Mario and, for a little while, Toad. I didn't bother with the others much, as it seems the levels did not cater to using certain characters. There is a level where one must kick a shell FORWARD in order to advance, but Toad can only LIFT the shell over his head and throw it, making this very difficult. I think that level would have been impossible to complete with Toad - so your best bet is to stick with Mario.

However, I did feel much more comfortable with Toad's three-heart meter than Mario being downgraded from Fire Mario to Small Mario in one hit.

Before I forget, one thing I appreciated that I must point out is the abundance of extra lives in some of the levels. Just kick a shell and CLICK CLICK CLACK CLACK CLACK CLUCK CLUCK 1UP 2UP 5UP 1UP 2UP 2UP 5UP. Nice! I like to hear that sound! While dying in the regular levels was no problem, I found it very frustrating how easy it was to die in the Overworld, especially during the last few "worlds", which got VERY ridiculous with their obstacles, such as lining the entire room with lava! (I really don't want to go into that right now...) This wouldn't be a problem if you just started at the beginning of the said "world" but if you die in these spots, you have to start from the BEGINNING of the Overworld! No checkpoints whatsoever! This could be improved by making the 'trek' to some of the later levels not so long... or just adding in some blasted checkpoints!

The story is the same. Mario has to save Princess Peach from Bowser. Sure, Desmo could have changed this around a little, but that's the classic story and it's enough for me. The power-ups are... the power-ups: Fire Flower, Super Mushroom, Hammer Suit, to name some. The sounds are also very recognizable, as is the music - a mishmash of mostly Super Mario Bros 3, Super Mario World, Super Mario RPG and even some from New Super Mario Bros Wii. And the graphics come from almost every 2D Mario platformer. I would have appreciated more graphical consistency in some of the individual levels, though, as opposed to finding three different types of Goombas on one level. Some of the levels used the Mario visuals to achieve a nice aesthetic, while some just looked like one put three Mario games in a blender.

Now, the level design? I went in expecting some to be good and some to be bad. And, well, that's what I got. Some of them had some very interesting ideas, such as:



You cruise around in Bowser's flying cauldron and press Z to fire bullet bills at enemies. Sort of like a Mario shmup, eh? Too bad this part was so short. There was also a very nice level called "Familiar Road", comprised of near-remakes of the opening levels of Super Mario World, Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario Bros. It made you notice what this engine was capable of accomplishing.

And then, well, there was...



What the shit? And when you die there, you have to restart the entire level! Now that's some bullshit! I don't mind hard Mario levels but holy mother of Games, gimme a checkpoint in some of those stages! There were also some levels that were just too brief and some that obviously had not been playtested enough, especially coming down to the end.

And speaking of the end... I don't mean to spoil, but the princess offs you in the end. Not really sure what the creator was thinking when he did that. Maybe thought it would give the player a chuckle? The creator should have been more respectful to the player for finishing his game by giving him a better ending. Even the NES Ghostbusters ending text would have been better than that ending:


^ Better ending.

But, all in all, I had fun with most of the levels, even the retarded ones. There is obviously a lot of room for improvement and revision and there definitely could be a better ending, but this game was alright. I didn't curse at the screen too much (except that last "world" room) and it was a decent way to spend a couple of freetime hours.

Game Name: Epsiteria: The Holyword
Review Title: A journey through Epsiteria

This is the game I picked for the Secret Santa Review 2010! Event. This it not the kind of game I would willingly play in general, but I was open to any experience luck provided me, cause that was what random secret reviews is all about.

I want to start off by saying I did not finish the game, and I'm sorry for that. I really wanted to. I don't like reviewing games without finishing them. But there's a weird bug that made the UP arrow constantly pressed inside the game, forcing my party to move up and get me stuck at some point. It had happened to me once playing The Blue Contestant. It's probably an RM bug, and it's only fixed by restarting my computer. The thing is I was in the middle of a very big dungeon with a very complicated switch puzzle, and I had walked a very very very long and broad map to get there (twice). So I really don't want to do it again. I had played the game for 3h already, so I think I'm ok to write a review.

Epsiteria: The Holyword is a very traditional RPG made in RPGMaker VX, using RTP graphics, RTP music, default-ish systems and a somewhat generic story. I have to say, I didn't like this game very much. This is not my kind of game, and even within this kind of game, there's just not much attractiveness in Epsiteria. But I didn't hate the game either, it does have its strong points. I'll try not to make this review a witty bashful one, and focus on making it constructive.

Shall we?

Story
You start as Rylo, a young guy sent to Magic School by his parents as a family tradition. The thing is, he doesn't like Magic School, he'd rather spend his time on the Fight Club, beating other punks' asses. His parents are initially shocked by his decisions, but they eventually come around. In one of Rylo's fights, he ends up beating a guy too badly, and the guy dies after the fight (though it's not clear if Rylo actually killed him). Rylo gets arrested for that crime. He escapes from jail with a half-crazy magic teacher called Tilo. They soon learn that the king and the royal guard are under the influence of... something EVIL. And they must stop this evil before it takes over the world.
As you can see, Epsiteria's plot won't blow you away. It's very typical (I'm avoiding the word cliché, but... yeah). The good thing is, the game doesn't focus on story much. There aren't many dialogs, many plot events, or anything for that matter. The story won't pull you, but it won't push you from the game either. Some dialogs are actually mildly charming, especially in the beginning of the game.
What I recommend: Having few dialogs and cutscenes was actually a good thing. But it makes your game's story nothing more than an excuse to battle and explore. The thing is, there are just so many other cool premises you could use as excuses... like “find your lost sock”, or “brew a potion to heal your sick dog”, or “find the identity of your birth parents”. Any of those would have worked just fine. The lack of dialogs and cutscenes makes the viability of such premises even bigger. Anything but “save the world from evil just because”, ok?

Graphics
This game uses RMVX RTP. Maps are not hideous, but they lack detail and are somewhat weirdly constructed. No real sense of aesthetics here. Inside the battles, monster sprites are taken from various sources with no real style consistency, but it didn't bother me much. Well, graphics are just not very interesting, but they're ok.
What I recommend: Smaller maps with more detail. Cooler-looking monsters, maybe.

Sound and music
Defaultlike stuff going on here. Music is overall fitting, doesn't get annoying or repetitive.
What I recommend: Nothing really. Maybe a catchier battle theme?

Battles
Battles in this game are touch-based, which is good. Monsters are very easy to avoid, which is also good. The battles start very very easy, and they get more balanced with time, which is really good. The experience curve of the characters was also very balanced. I also like the fact that battles were turn-based (no ATB), and you could see monsters' HP bars onscreen all the time. I guess the only problem with battles was... they existed. I mean, no, not really. The problem with them is that they were mostly attack-button-mashing. Skills were seldom useful (apart from healing ones), and there were not many. I don't have a clear stand when it comes to battles, cause I don't like difficult or complicated battles, but when they're too straightforward, they bore me.
What I recommend: I don't know. I guess the only thing that makes me like battling and grinding is character customization.

Characters
There are 7 members in the party total, and you soon get to have them all. You can switch party members any time, Rylo being fixed. There are three kinds of characters: fighter, healer and offensive-magic user. The fact that they're not so different is good because you get to pick characters you sympathize with the most. Characters also gain experience even when they're not being used, meaning no one will ever get useless after some time out of the party.
There aren't many dialogs, and the very few attempts at character development fail, because they are all very bland and empty. With the possible exception of Rylo himself, who had some anger management issues going on.
What I recommend: If you're using RTP (meaning you can't make your characters graphically interesting) and you don't want to have many dialogs, have each character follow a stereotype: the angry one, the silent one, the witty one, the grumpy one, and whatever. That's not real character development, but it will make them all not look the same.

Pacing
Epsiteria has one major pacing problem: the maps are big. Huge. Gigantic. And empty. And there's no world map. So basically, if you want to go from A to B, you have to walk a lot. And if you want to go back from D to A (which may happen), you have to walk A LOT. Considering these walks happen on empty maps and are mostly eventless (apart from easily avoidable battles), it's just pointless and boring.
There is no real exploration in this game, as there are barely any hidden items and chests. Chests are extremely disappointing, because they almost never contain anything other than the cheapest healing items. Speaking of hidden items, there was a switch bug in the game that made me get infinite Redmists and Violetmists at some inn. I didn't use them, it felt like cheating. But yeah, there are no useful items anywhere in the game but shops. Shop items are well balanced and nicely paced.
There is just so much emptiness in this game. At the magic school, there is an entire floor full of classrooms. The corridor map is big, and each classroom takes up a full screen of space. All classrooms are completely empty but one. Still, a normal player would check all of them to see if he's missing something. He's not. There's just a lot of time wasting on empty maps.
The pacing of the story itself is ok, there are not many dialogs of cutscenes, but they are just frequent enough to make you not feel lost.
One thing I hated, and in a way made me quit the game: lack of save points. Inns were not that frequent. I hate rare save points. Hate hate hate.
The progression of battle difficulty was nice and balanced. But it was tricky because sometimes I felt like skipping battles, but enemies on the next area would be too hard. My fault though.
Overall, the game doesn't change much as you progress. Party characters are all thrown at you at the beginning, so you shouldn't expect to find new party member along the way. There are not many new items, not many story events (and the ones that happen aren't really interesting), and areas pretty much all look the same. So sometimes it feels like you're not progressing in the game, not going anywhere. I really don't know if I was 30%, 50% or 80% through the game.
I should also mention that there aren't many WAIT commands in the game, a mistake many games make. Transitions in this game are usually fast, which is great.
What I recommend: Smaller maps. Smaller maps. Smaller maps. Did I mention... smaller maps? It would make everything better.

Overall
This game is not technically horrible, it's got its flaws as well as its strong points, and there are many things about it which should be more common in traditional RPGs. The real problem with it is its utter lack of charm. Any of the flaws I mentioned could be easily forgiven if there was SOMETHING about the game that made me WANT to play it. But there was nothing. No inspiring story, no pretty graphics, no addictive systems, no appealing characters. I'm afraid I'll have to let this game fall into the “hey, I can make an RPG too!” category.
What I recommend: No one is ever good at everything, so take one particular aspect of the game (story, battles, custom systems or whatever) and really try to make your game stand out with it. There are just so many games around here (1102 at the moment to be exact), and there's got to be a reason why someone would play YOUR game, in detriment of any of those.

Star Rating: 1.5

Linus: Review

From the title, I half hoped it was going to be a peanuts fangame. How Lucy and Linus played hide and go seek on a cliff, and then were shown how to use the sword... and then go to war. It was not, but this is actually about a war between what I believe is 2 nations. One feels the Pale King needs to be removed from power, and the other fights to protect their land so they don't get taken over and enslaved. This isn't really about you fighting off evil soldiers from the evil empire who wants to take over the world.

By all accounts, this should have amounted to something that would be interesting to play. The graphics are well done, the music never feels out of place, people generally have their own personalities, and there are some good ideas around like randomly stumbling into an slave kid which causes a small optional cutscene to occur between them. It was not an important scene at all, but just shows a bit on their life and makes them feel more real, rather than an NPC with one line. The atmosphere feels dark enough, it's fairly well mapped, and your enemies are human and actually feel that way. But I can't help being bored by it.

I hate to say that, but I was really uninterested a fair amount of the time. I felt it was a bunch of name dropping and a ton of dialogue each time. By the time I was first able to save, I was overjoyed at the fact that I could exit out and go off and do something first. That actually resulted in a bug that I had to fix in a script for me to even play the game again, but that is for a later section.

Story & writing: 4/10
The majority of the demo is going to be you reading. The first part is silent, with zero control and it goes on with no user input. Then you get to Mr. Stares out the window (I couldn't remember any names, there were too many names thrown out there) and says that WAR IS BAD, except with a lot more dialogue. I wasn't particularly interested, I really just wanted to save at that point. They are all too wordy and talk too much. There was one quote in game where I wish they applied more often: "get to the point".



That being said, there were some good parts too. As mentioned before, you can stumble upon a slave kid, and a short cutscene occurs. This has no real impact on the story, but it shows the NPCs lives as something other than "event wandering around telling you to go west". On the other hand though, a lot of the NPCs are so chatty that it's rare to see them with only one message box (and believe me, that one message box will be filled). Most of them are simply just not interesting enough to be that long. There was also a private in the enemies army who was a coward and ran away. That guy was the best character. The villains also aren't ones that think of themselves as evil. They're crazy but they think it's for the best. Or that's what I get from it anyway.

Of course magic is chanted in LATIN.

Gameplay: 2/10
Next section please...

Oh, wait, there is gameplay! Just, very little of it. You can walk around, after long cutscenes. Then you can go into battle with characters. There's an ability command, item, defense, but there are no abilities, you have no use for items even during the boss battle. I saw some screenshots, and it seems like you're still using this group. They better learn some useful abilities or else this will make for a really bland battle system. It was great that you got to fight townspeople like bakers and pasta slingers though, so you feel like you are involved in slaying the townsfolk, not just *offscreen slashes*.
(I then looked in the database later and it said Plaza singer, not pasta slinger. I was saddened : <)

There are some rather fatal bugs though. I got one in the first area you are able to save, and then one in the courtyard (the both places I saved and then reloaded), both give you caterpillar script bugs and quit out.

At least from the prologue demo, you don't get a real sense of if the game is going to be a story with an occasional battle mixed in or if they're just trying to get the story out of the way so you can actually play. That the equipment was locked and no one had abilities meant either you were getting new characters to play as for most of the game, their equipment/abilities would be unlocked later, or battles will play so little a role that you'll be in for pleeenty of dialogue reading. And please fix that caterpillar script bug. :<

Music: 7/10

I didn't notice it, except for the pub music which had a nice vocal song. Although super relaxed for a night time pub. Otherwise, it was in the background enough for it to not be an issue. Although sometimes there seems to be no music at all, which I don't like.

Graphics: 8/10

Some RTP and RTP edits, though it all seems to work well. The courtyard is too big for it's emptiness, but otherwise it's pretty well used. This is one of the strongest points in the game. Aside from the bubbles for the characters at least, they looked too silly. Otherwise, I can find little to critique in this section.


Total score: 4 / 10
It is by all means good in a technical sense. It is well put together, and maybe the story just isn't for me. For war stories though, I think I'll stick with listening to my 82 year old coworker. I felt bad about this, but I have to be honest, I was bored. I sat there wondering what to even say since I couldn't remember much about it right after I just finished it. It may get better later on, I would hope so.

I Prefer the Outdoor Version

Hide and Seek is an odd case when it comes to RPG Maker games, because it is exclusively intended for two players. Playing it alone is pretty much pointless. Luckily, I was able to get a sibling to help me give this game a real play through.

As you might guess from the title, it involves hiding and seeking. One player hides somewhere on the map and the other player must seek them out. There are three different fields to play on with different sizes and themes. Each map is littered with thematically appropriate objects for the hider to hide behind. Tile passability can seem a bit strange, but it's ultimately for the best since it allows for so many hiding options. In each play, the game is over either when the seeker catches the hider or the hider reaches the angel near the beginning of the level.

Now, you might be wondering how exactly two people can play the same RPG Maker game at once. Well, the seeker controls the regular hero by the usual methods (arrow keys and enter). The hider, however, gets their own set of controls that are, shall we say, unfortunately placed. They use the number keys (not the number pad, mind you) to control the movement of an NPC on screen. 2, 3, 4, and 5 are their directional movement, 1 is used in place of enter (to activate the angel for victory), and 6 calls out a taunt. This setup generally works, but there are two problems with it. One is that of the movement controls; 3, 4, and 5 are left, down, and right, respectively, which makes using them to move around fairly simple. But 2 is up. This can make navigating a pain for the hider, since getting used to the controls with one hand can be tough (I found it easier to use both hands). The other problem is that RM's window still only follows the main hero around. So, when the hider is choosing a hiding spot, they must move the seeker around with them to see what they're doing, pick a spot, then move the seeker back to start. This is somewhat tedious, considering the length of the game vs. the time it takes to set up. Also, there's not very much the hider can do while they're being sought. They can press the taunt button (which does nothing aside from shouting a non-direction-specific taunt), but that's about it. It's only once their found that the fun starts.

In practice, the game actually works pretty well. The hider can move around off screen, but can't see what they're doing. Since the seeker must chase them down, they need only wait until the seeker is close enough to make their move. Then, it's pretty much a race to the angel at the start. If the hider is too far ahead of the seeker, they run the risk of colliding with an object that impedes their escape. The maps are set up in such a way that neither player really has an advantage over the other. Since both players move the same speed, it almost becomes a battle of wits.

This game shows a lot of potential. If the hider's controls were located more appropriately and the initial setup phase weren't such a chore, it could be a lot of fun…assuming you have someone to play it with. It could also afford to have a bit more variety in the maps available, but considering the likelihood of two people getting together to play it, it's probably the perfect size as-is.

All things considered, I give it a 2.5/5

Let me start by saying that I couldn't finish this game due to a certain boss I couldn't pass. It's a pity because this game has a lot of ideas that made it interesting to play. But on with the review!

STORY
The plot in Elements of Mikoria is pretty simple. It's the old 'save the world' with a twist. You begin as the Fox Goddess, Precia, whose power is stolen by lizard-people. She falls to the earth after losing a battle on an airship, only to land near the fox town of Azeri. Krystal and Emerald, young fox sisters who are currently fighting with their father, find the fox goddess and offer to help her return home. They join up with their father and head off. Yeah, it seems like a simple enough plot, but there's more mentioned in-game that makes it interesting.

The best part of the story is the characters. Their interaction with each other is interesting and there's a lot of behind-the-scene story going on. The two main characters are definitely Krystal and Emerald. Their relationship is well-defined and both have quite distinct characters. Hell, most of the characters I've met so far are pretty well crafted and I wish I'd been able to play more of the game to see how things turn out. This is definitely one of the better parts of this game.
3.5/5

DESIGN
Elements of Mikoria is designed as a side-scrolling platform game. Towns and houses are all one level, whilst dungeons have platforms you can jump up to from below. This presents a few problems - for example, jumping in a house (trying to get up a staircase) I somehow got stuck in a wall and had to reset. Your character will never turn to face up or down, even when it makes sense to do so (say, climbing stairs) - you will always be presented with a side-on view.
You will also want to save money a lot. Or kill a lot of monsters. Why? Because normal healing items cost you 500 each. That's double the cost of the first town armour! And don't think you have healing skills. No~ that'd be too easy! The item that heals 200 HP costs more than the one that heals 400HP. That there is pretty bad.
2.5/5

GAMEPLAY
This is where the game shows its true strength, though admittedly there are a few problems. I'm going to split this into two sections - maps and battles. You'll see why.

MAPS
As stated above, Elements of Mikoria is a side-scrolling platformer which means you need to jump from one platform to the other. Unfortunately you have to be at just the right spot to jump up to these higher platforms and the controls are a bit... ugh. To jump up you need to be in the right spot, then charge your magic (hold down and press Enter), then press the up button. You may then jump about three times your body in height. If you aren't in the exact right position you will just jump normally. Thankfully your magic charge isn't used up, so you can just reposition yourself.
Speaking of controls - pressing enter just by itself will make you jump OR allow you to change your on-map character. It's a neat feature, yes, and there for a reason but it should have been assigned to another button. The amount of times I'd meant to jump and changed character instead... then got hit by a monster.
Monsters are shown on-map and have little routes they stick to. Funnily enough near the spots you need to jump from.
You can interact with them in four different ways - sneak up for a back attack (touch their back), jump over them (Jump at the right time), attack them (touch!) or use magic then attack them (charge magic beforehand - down and enter - then press towards them and enter). HOWEVER! The controls are really fidgety for the magic attack and I was more likely to run into the monster than cast a spell on it, or cast the spell and miss the monster altogether. It's a pity because you really need to use this to make monster battles manageable.

BATTLES
The battle system is the DBS with a bit of editing. To begin with your characters have only a specific amount of MP (about 5-15) that they can spend on skills. Each character is assigned a specific element and start off with 2-3 skills each. Attacking normally will restore 1 MP. You have a skill that will double that, though, like MP regen. Later on you get the ability to 'lend' someone else your elemental strength at the cost of half your MP. This is called 'Invoking' and unfortunately it's broken to all hell - you're supposed to be able to combine elements to create new skills. Once a spell is used the invocation leaves and you can fight again... except it doesn't leave, your invoking character can't do anything for the rest of the battle, the other character loses the super invoke spell and the boss heals itself, then kills you both. Yeah.
Then there's limit breaks - which you weren't told about. It's a bit unnerving when your character suddenly loses all their skills/abilities (including defend/item/attack) and gets one command that you have to use even if the monster is almost dead. And don't talk to me about items.
Lastly, spell effects. If you managed to actually cast a spell on an enemy before engaging it in combat, depending on who used the spell you will get an automatic spell cast at the start of the battle. Each has a different effect and element and really help out when you're battling so that you get less damage and need less healing. Hence less items.

Don't get me wrong, though. I really like the battle system and platforming aspect of the game - it's fun to mess around with and isn't all bad. Most monsters stop just short of the place where you need to stand for jumping, there aren't that many around and apart from trying to cast spells on them, you'll hardly run into them by accident. The battles are pretty fast paced and the spells are nicely done - if you run out of MP you can just attack the enemy to regain it.
3/5

GRAPHICS
This is where Elements of Mikoria is severely let down. The game uses a combination of rips and RTP without even trying to get them to blend together. Let me just say I really like the world map. And the church in Azeri. It's a good example of how the style you were going for should be. I'd be quite happy if the rest of the maps were like this. But no.
The town mapping looks okay at first glance, but then you notice the roofs of the houses are cut off and oddly shaped. The inner maps are terribly bare and large and just not nice.
The character graphics are terrible. I could hardly make out what the character was supposed to be when I first saw the fox people. The animations are really choppy and in some cases (Precia for instance) really, really bad. When Precia runs you can see that half of her tail is cut off... The missing piece is floating in front of her face as if to taunt her like a carrot to a mule.
The facesets are incredibly hard to make out. They look like abstract art - and not the good kind.
The forest has vines that hang off the platforms that clearly don't mix well, and look like they were ripped from a PS game. The cave has - I think - a Mario backdrop and huge cave openings that look utterly ridiculous. I thought it was part of the background when I first saw one.
The battle animations are a lot better than the character sets (although Emerald's standby animation is really, really weird) and I don't see why you didn't use them as actual character sets instead. The monsters are mostly RTP, though they don't mix at all with the characters.
I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.
1/5

SOUND
The music was fine. Most of it suited the scenes and I don't think I'd heard most of it. There was one part of the game where you changed the music 3-4 times in as many minutes. It came off as choppy and really weird, where the sad song that you'd played twice in that time would have been fine for the whole scene. And that one time you had 'One Winged Angel'... It really pulled me out of your game and a serious scene became a bit of a laugh because of it (I was half expecting Sephiroth to pop up). Now, I'm not saying not to use VG music, but it's better not to use the really well-known songs. Still, the music mostly fit well.
3/5

SUMMARY
All in all, I did like Elements of Mikoria. I'm being pretty harsh in this review because I really would like to see this game become one of the greats. It's going to take a lot of time and effort on your part to do this but I really think it'd be worth it. It's got a lot of great ideas and tons of spirit, but it does need work. Especially in the graphics department. Here's a few things I noted down during my play-through:



FINAL VERDICT: I wouldn't recommend that anyone play this game yet. After something is done to fix the graphical and gameplay problems? Definitely!

2/5

Manos - The Hands of Fate

Review:
A man and woman appear at a mysterious Californian hotel. They just need a room for the night, to avoid the rain. Yet, this night will be filled with horrors.
To begin with you select which character to follow. The man uses sword abilities and is standard fighter fodder. The woman is your mage. Each of them have their own adventure, so the fact there's a multiple layered story in this game already gets extra props in my books.

Let's Break it Down!
Battles â€" 3/5
The skillsets were not wonderfully handled, but there was clearly a lot of thought put into it. So, no qualms except that Stun, Sleep and Paralize are status effects that should NOT be in a single character RPG. This is just a big flipping of the bird to the player. There are accessories that halt one or two status effects... however, it's just not enough.
There was one boss as the woman that especially grinded my gears. Using the water+sleep spell -sometimes- helped... but it was impossible to build a strategy around. Yet, the challenge was solid, perhaps more challenging than necessary though since spells are not learned in the usual way... you find them in treasure chests along the way (and you BETTER DO SO!)
My largest gripe with the battle system was that you had to upgrade your items, and search for power ups. Because even random encounters a few steps past a new spell could abuse you if you weren't ready immediately. This could have been a little more forgiving, I think.

Level Design â€" 2.5/5
While the level design is not terrible, it's not great either. In some places there were maps that really needed some work, just to avoid repetition. I did appreciate the save spots and little arrows to indicate doorways. It was a nice touch to maps that by the nature of the story were pretty random. Almost reminded me of Silent Hill with VX RTP graphics in a way.

Characters â€" 4/5
Probably the best or only stellar part of this game was the thought put into the parallel stories. Sometimes the dialogue lacked interest or seemed slightly off... however for the most part, I would say this is the most commendable aspect of this game.

Story â€" 4/5
Again, the dialogue and story going hand in hand here... I stick by the previous score for this. Though, there is little I can write here that wouldn't ruin your experience with the game. So, let's leave it at this.

Music and Sound - 2/5
Frankly, I would give this 0.5 or 1... however the music choices were incredible. The downside, and I am sad about this, really, the sound effects were not. After a while, I had no choice but to mute the game. The music is great, but the sounds were just so painfully loud. I'm sorry, but that just grinds my gears.

Final Score â€" 3/5
Hopefully some of you will give this a shot. The story is worth it, definitely. Just be ready for the challenge awaiting you.

Spike Lee's Twilight Zone by Strangeluv


Spike Lee's Twilight Zone is a game which I initially wasn't too keen on playing. Owing to the fact that I prefer plot over gameplay in RPGs-- this particular project, which features a collection of minigames with an insane storyline revolving around a psychotic version of filmmaker Spike Lee, didn't inspire too much hope in me. I am one of those crazy people who play RPGs mostly for the plot, and if the storyline of a game is nonexistant or lacking, I find myself having fewer reasons to continue playing. And so, I began playing this game thinking that I would lose every minigame due to my exceptionally horrid gaming skills, become frustrated, and ragequit. I ended up being wrong.

I look back on my time with the game and I can safely say that, despite many rage-inducing moments, I quite enjoyed it.

The game starts off with our four heroes playing in the rain. They are: Psyburn the asian boy who yells a lot, Spitz the anthropomorphic wolf fellow, Shotgun Girl who is a girl with a shotgun, and Sonic the Hedgehog (Yes. The former Sega Mascot). I was at first a bit apprehensive about the kind of humour the creator was going for. During the first cutscene, when our four main characters are introduced, I thought the game's comedy would delve too deeply into the Family Guy school of complete randomness = funny. I am not a big fan of that type of comedy, and feared the game's writing would go in this direction, but all of that was gone the moment Spike Lee made his appearance.

Strangeluv's Spike Lee is a wonderful creation. He is crude, maniacal and hilarious. I was delighted whenever he was on screen. Sure it went into a bit of random wackiness with the inclusion of cult-icon Freakazoid as an evil butler, but by that point the writing had won me over and I didn't care. All I wanted was to see more of Evil Spike Lee having his way with the four heroes. Speaking of said heroes, their characterization left a lot to be desired. This can be forgiven, however, since I came away from the game thinking that Spike Lee was the real star. Apart from Psyburn, who came off more annoying than anything else, the four main characters barely had any personality. I suppose they were just devices to base the game's minigame format around.

Now, the meat and potatoes of SLTZ are the minigames. To put it simply, I despised them. I hated how unresponsive my keyboard seemed to be and how enraged I was becoming after losing and having to read the slow-moving dialogue time and time again at the start of the minigames. Most of the minigames were in no way fun and were very difficult. One particular offender was a hellish segment where you must quickly collect food (which moves around) for a hungry cave man thing who will take away your life if you don't feed him quickly enough. You must do this while searching for the exit of a map and dodging rampaging dinosaurs who also damage your life if they touch you. It was very, very horrible.

My opinion on the minigames may seem very negative, but I look back on them and I am actually glad that I played through them. Conquering those minigames brought back a strange, almost childlike glee, similar to how I used to feel when I actually enjoyed playing videogames using reflexes and hand-eye coordination. The last "minigame", a ridiculously annoying battle which involved plenty of audible screams of "Oh come on, that's bullshit!" and "Fuck this fucking game!" before I was finally able to beat it, brought an incredible feeling of bliss afterwards. It had actually succeeded in charming me with its frustrating design, and I felt very relieved during the rest of the day after I beat that last minigame, as if a burden had been lifted from my shoulders. Modern games haven't done that for me in quite a while.

I'm not sure if it's just me being stupid and bored, or if the creator was playing around with some weird meta concepts while developing them, but I find that there was a strange artistic quality to the minigames. They were all so rage-inducing for me, and yet I couldn't stop playing. Of course, the storyline with Spike Lee was a contributing factor in me not giving up, but there was something else. What I'm talking about is how certain genres of "entertainment" involve no real entertainment at all. Take for example a film like Irreversible (the movie where Monica Bellucci gets ravaged for ten minutes), or a game like Shadow of the Colossus. These two examples of interactive entertainment aren't really so entertaining, as they both make the player feel disturbed at times. Even if Strangeluv wasn't going for it, I think this game is similar to those two examples, and I think it deserves to be celebrated for that.

Another reason why these minigames don't bother me so much right now, after I am done with them and can look back, is that it was very apparent that an incredible amount of work and effort had been put into them. I couldn't imagine how much planning it took to create six or seven different minigames (I can't remember how many there were exactly) on RPGMaker 2003 of all things, and then implement them without any major bugs. I will say that while they weren't the best designed minigames, they did seem to work like they were supposed to.

All in all, Spike Lee's Twilight Zone is a game that will no doubt offend many players with its difficult minigames. The writing, which at times can be quite dark and even offensive, is for me the game's most interesting feature. I would have preferred the main heroes to have a bit more going on in terms of characterization, and I could have done without the very, very graphic beach scene, but overall, I would very much recommend it to anyone who would be interested in trying something a little different to the typical RPG.

3/5

Retro Quest 2



Throwback RPG for RPGMaker 2003

Gotta love alcohol!

Amount Played:

About an hour and a half.

Gameplay to Story Ratio:

There's not much story, but there isn't much gameplay, either.

Legality:

Completely illicit. The amount of rips in this game is staggering



Description:

You are trippin' balls. Rob flying particles of their free will to escape your comatose state!







Gameplay





Learning Curve: 8/10

The game starts off insultingly easy, as it should. However, it doesn't pick up at all at later points. There's no real difficulty present in the game - your stats are either sufficient or they are not. It is fairly easy to figure out if they are, however, so at least this game earns decent marks somewhere.



Battle Mechanics: 2/10

This is where the game begins to fall flat on its face - there are no mechanics to speak of. Just good old 2k3 DBS.



Your starting skill is "Damage a foe". Until you happen across books that teach spells, you won't have any additional skills. Actually, my hero learned one skill - "damage a foe and remove buffs". A neat touch, except that no enemy I encountered ever buffed themselves. So it was really "damage a foe". Sigh.



Battle Balance: 1/10

Balance? There isn't any.



Upon learning a Fire spell, I was prepared to turn to it as my main form of offense - only to find it dealt less damage than my sword. Not only that, I had exactly two shots of it before my MP was depleted - or I could reserve two shots of Cure. Again, sigh.



Later on, you get a book of Haste, which instantly doubles your speed. In 2k3. There isn't much to the game after that except buying an Ether after every battle to continue fueling Haste.







Narrative



Story: Irrelevant

what is story can u eat it ??



Setting: 3/10

The entire game, as I saw it, took place only within a single castle.



Characters: Irrelevant

You are the Hero.







Aesthetics





Graphics 1/10

Rips, rips, everywhere, rips! Not only are they rips, they're bad rips. FF1 mixed with Legend of Zelda mixed with Pokemon with absolutely no coherence. Battlers are the biggest offenders - often quadruple-scaled, even for human enemies that would otherwise be your size. Battle backgrounds are simply RTP, recolored to grayscale - nowhere near the four-color limit of the consoles the maker is trying to emulate.



Audio: 2/10

The selection of music is just upsetting. Victory Fanfare is an instant mark against this game - who isn't tired of it, really? Mix it with RTP, various rips, and music of very non-retro quality, and you have a recipe for disaster.



Interface: 6/10

Nothing out of the ordinary here. Simple 2k3 - no marks up, no marks down.







Overall Score

Not having a lot of experience with RM2k3 games, I wasn't sure what to expect going into Retro Quest. My first surprise after unzipping the game was that the executable was not the installer for the game, but for the (Japanese) RM2k3 RTP. After navigating the Japanese menu to install it, I was able to run the game itself. I don't know whether or not RPG Maker 2003 is capable of turning off the RTP dependency, but doing so would've made the installation process a lot smoother and almost surely would've cut down on the filesize, since I doubt Retro Quest makes full use of the RTP.

The second surprise which awaited me was the almost-unreadable font. Several letters appeared indistinguishable and there were some cases where I couldn't tell if a letter had been forgotten or if it was simply overlapping with an adjacent character. This made reading the messages particularly difficult and made discerning numbers nearly impossible. I don't know if this was some problem with not including the right fonts or if I made some mistake during installation (which, since it was in Japanese, I wouldn't rule out), but it made reading any text printed in the game a huge strain on the eyes.

Gameplay: 0.5/5

The gameplay is standard fare for every other RM2k3 game out there. You only have a single party member, the aptly-named Hero, who can perform a single special attack. The gameplay consists of walking aimlessly around a dungeon hitting random encounters every 2-3 steps and mashing enter while waiting for your ATB bar to fill. Unfortunately, the enemies take far too many hits to kill and there's no free healing. More often than not, I found I was making less money from battles than I needed to purchase healing items to replenish the HP/MP I spent in the fight.

Although you can get full HP/MP healing (for a fee), it requires you to trek all the way across the castle to a specific room. Unless you happen to be in an adjacent room, this is completely impractical; if you're in need of healing, you will certainly die on the trek back to the healing room. Not only can you not escape from battles, you also can't use items in battle! If you don't go into every battle at max HP, it's almost a guarantee that you will die. Considering the rate of random encounters and how sparse money is, you'll quickly find yourself bankrupt just trying to survive.

I ended up being incapable of finishing the game. I was stranded in the middle of a room with no money, 10 HP, and no MP. Within three steps, I was guaranteed to get a random encounter, resulting in my death. No amount of savestating would get me more than three steps in any direction before my death. At this point, my only choice was to restart the game, which I didn't, since the game was unentertaining, uncompelling, and unfairly difficult.

Story/Writing: 1/5

The writing is pretty bad. There's nothing wrong with the spelling or grammar (as far as I could tell) but the characterization and story are nonexistent. The first line of the game is "Gotta love alcohol!". It doesn't get much better from there. The dialogue lacks character and exists solely to carry you from point to point with only the most minimal of explanations. The story is that the princess is in danger and you have to save her. Why? Because you feel like it, I guess.

There isn't much more to be said about the writing; there's so little of it that there's not much to comment on aside from how bland it is and how shallow the premise is.

Graphics/Level Design: 1.5/5

The graphics are in plain black and white and seem to simulate old Game Boy game graphics. In that regard, I guess the graphics accomplish what they're shooting for. There's nothing particularly impressive or appalling about the graphics. They're very simple and lack detail. The level design leaves much to be desired, however, with most of the maps being repetitive and boring. Frequently, my path was blocked by a line of identical objects that I couldn't identify, which looked particularly unattractive. There's not much else to say about the visual aspect of the game, aside from the font issues mentioned earlier.

Audio: 1.5/5

I hardly noticed the audio. I don't know if it's RTP or what, but there was nothing to write home about. It wasn't appallingly bad, but it was completely forgettable and repetitive. I guess not remembering anything about it is better than remembering something bad about it.

Suggestions
- Playtest your game before releasing it. Have beta testers offer their thoughts on game balance and variety.
- Have some more varied environments.
- Add party members.
- Give some way to get free healing, even if it's difficult.
- Test your game on multiple machines. Have other people go through the installation process and see if they encounter any difficulties.

Bottom Line
Retro Quest is a poorly-balanced and repetitive game reminiscent of old (very old) RPGs. There's little innovation or creativity to be found and the gameplay is far from rewarding.

Eyes Without A Face Review

A lot can be done in a matter of five days. You can take your time and make the Lego Death Star with a couple of friends. You can read a Harry Potter book. You could also watch a full season of Dragon Ball Z, unless it's anything but the Frieza Saga. One thing I didn't think of doing in five days is designing a well put together game such as this one.

Eyes Without A Face is a game based upon a 1960 French movie “Les Yeux Sans Visage”. It's probably a good idea to check that out before you play this game. The story about a young woman named Carrie who is forced to meet with her father after ten years of solitude. She is driven there by her coach, Logan, who constantly tells her that she should respect her father. It's clear by the first few minutes that she has an itch against her father. She eventually makes it to the house and meets her old Nanny, Lisa, but not her father. After a couple more minutes of cut scenes, she wakes up and finds a strange note from her Uncle, talking about brothers and how he's sorry of something. Going through the story a bit, I find, in Logan's room, an odd woman in a white robe and and on an IV. That's all I'm going to give away at the moment when it comes to the story.

I felt the strongest part of this game was the interaction with everything in the game! There was so much story I could explore without actually going through the story! Even though some of the things didn't even do much, I'd rather go to a book and it say “It's a book”, than the book saying absolutely nothing. Don't be discouraged, the books say a lot more than that. There are some pretty good horror events that go on. Without giving much away, you would have to encounter a “patient”, who is, of course, trying to kill you. Sometimes, this patient would catch you and you would have to smash the “Shift” button to escape. There's also a part where you can hide, but sadly, that's the only part. At least they stuck with variety when it comes to escaping. Although, when escaping, it would feel as if I'm running from a rock with legs. It took away from the horror somewhat. Overall, when it came to the juicy, once in a while runaway events, they excited me most of the time. Also, the exploration was a pretty nice gig, but the semi-confusing story kind of overwhelmed the horror aspect and put me off the edge, which is the place I would like to stay during a horror game.

The effects of the game seemed promising at the beginning. It was played as if it was an old film, with the pale yellow frames and the scratches on the film. Probably wanted to keep the feel of the movie. However, it kept that way when you would interact with the environments, such as reading notes or seeing pictures. I like the idea, but when it came to trying to examine these certain elements, the effect would just get in the way.

The artstyle seems to be too “RPG Maker-ish” to me. Although most of these chip sets seem to be custom made, they are still shouting RPG Maker to me. Not only did the sets and environment, but the characters were the same as well. They all seem as bland as any RPG Maker character would look like. Although I could rant about how the style could be different, they all did fit the mood it needed. So in essence, it accomplished what it needed to. However, I had to give credit to the extreme custom ones. For instance, there were some dead bodies that were made, which took the whole generic mess upside down! They took me by surprise!

Nothing makes or breaks a game to me like music. If the soundtrack is aching and tiresome to listen to, what makes the game bearable? However, this was not the case. Even though the music didn't have the rhythm like most games, it had the right feel at the right time. It was enough to keep at the back of your head while paying attention to what's going on, especially those horror events. The sounds were decent and timed pretty well for the most part. The only time that bugged me was the sound the patient made when she was dragging her IV across the ground. It was so off from the action, I thought it was coming from something else. All in all, the soundtrack was grand, but the sounds needed work with the timing.

I could give you some smaller issues I had with the game, but why should I? If you haven't noticed from the beginning, this game was made in five days. Five days! There may be some problems, but they're so small that it didn't even matter comparing to the time the creators were given. Without much time allotted to them, you are surprised at how clean it is as a final project! Would I recommend this game? If you have 30 minutes to spare, of course! And if you have another 30 minutes, play it again! You have to play it a few times to fully figure out the story. Give it a try! You've got a good gaming experience to gain from this.

"POWER UP!!!"

Dude Jr: "A game made by Dudesoft. With music random music from so many random sources he forgot what they are."

I can start off by saying that this game was one the funniest things I've ever seen. Now on to the review.

In Quest of the Dude II you play Dude Jr, the son the legendary hero from the first game. I haven't played the first game nor any of Dudesoft's other games but I can already tell they are going to great.

Story: 4/5
Dude Jr. just decides one day to go to the Deep Dark Scary Dungeon and takes some random towns people such as a suicidal clown, bald knight and his step mother and goes questing. He then makes the mistake of unleashing the ultimate boss that his father sealed away and get sent to a faraway place and must make his back.

Gameplay: 2/5
The gameplay really isn't a factor but I still include it. The only battles you fight in the game are the 5 BOSS fights and 4 of those are won by simply hitting attack. I gave the gameplay a 2 based the on idea of finding skills on random items and place around the game. This idea should be incorporated into an actual rpg in the future.

Graphics: 3/5
The graphics are rtp but are used to some good looking maps, especially considering the fact that this is vx mapping were talking about. Overall some of the houses looked good but a little cluttered and the world map had issues that bugged me, but I'm just nitpicky over mapping.

Sound: 4/5
Most of the music fit perfectly with the scenes or map. My favorite was the desert music, though it took forever to remember the name of the song. That battle music was also great.

Scenes: 5/5
I'm including this category due the fact that this is a comedy game. The mini cutscenes in this game great and pretty much all of them made me laugh, though I laugh at almost anything. Favorite lines include:
"Move... my castle? Is that even possible?"
"I was talking to Mr. Plastic Face first. Wait your turn!"
"No, no, not really. I could show you my Deep Dark Safe Basement, I have candy down there."
"Instead, I shall sip this fine wine. The likes of which you could never imagine affording. Mwa-ha."
"Dude, that's the monster we have to kill. Why are you rap battling it?"
"Isn't that how people fight?"

It's a great game and I hope Dudesoft plans on making another soon. The game its self is only about 30 minutes so go, play, quest, and laugh.

4 Stars

This review is for ISLAND SKY, made by Ocean.


Overall score: 3/5
General Conscious: Just a cute game.

Island Sky is a completed RPG Maker 2003 game made by Ocean that features a custom battle system and a few mini-games for those who enjoy mini-games. It is roughly four hours long, give or take, and doesn't take itself too seriously.

Story & Characters: 2/5
The story begins with five college students who decide to enjoy a day out on the town and the game follows them as they get into all sorts of problems throughout the day. And that's basically it. This isn't bad per say but when playing the game; I couldn't help but ask myself: "why? What's the point?" Not a great deal actually happened in the game. The characters went to location to location fighting random (and strange) people usually named after some sort of pun (most which were actually pretty funny), but there was no real conflict taking place. There was no drama or anything to pull me into the story, so I couldn't really care about what was happening. The characters, while likable, fall into the same hole. They play off well with each other, which is nice, but they only have one defining personality trait (i.e., James the noble one who talks strangely, William the prankster, Sabrina the nice one, etc), and that's it. They are never developed beyond those roles. Granted, since this is a short and light hearted game, they didn't need to have anything OTT happen to them, but *something* compelling to give them more layers, make them stand out and/or even make relate-able.


Also, and perhaps this is just me, but I felt the characters acted much younger than they were supposed to, considering their ages. I was surprised to find out that they were in college, because they acted as if they were no older than fourteen. In my humble opinion, I think the characters' personalities should match their ages or vice versa.

Gameplay: 3/5
The game uses a CBS inspired by tactical RPGs...of which I played once many years ago and did not particularly enjoy. But that's neither here nor there. The battle system, once you get the hang of it, is pretty decent. The biggest con is that some of the battles ran a bit slowly, because you had to maneuver your characters in the appropriate places in order to attack. Unfortunately, some characters move so slowly that they almost never get anything to do in battle. But this isn't too much of a problem since some of the other characters can take care of nearly everything by themselves. You can control 3 out of the 5 characters available to you, but everyone gains a level at the same time, which was great. Be warned, that if one character dies, it's an auto game over, which definitely took me by surprise. But then again, that could be a stable with tactical RPGs for all I know!

Graphics: 3/5
I think the graphics were okay, for the most part. The only thing I thought was strange were the background images, but they weren't vomit inducing. Other than that, I thought the chipsets were used well, if somewhat overused, and nothing stuck out to me as being used inappropriately.

Music: 3.5/5
The music was, to me, the strongest component of the game. Each location had its own unique background song that fit perfectly with its location. Although I enjoyed the music, I didn't feel that it was particularly memorable. But nonetheless, none of it was offensive to my ears.

Rundown: 3/5
It's a cute, simple game and not much else. It doesn't really offer anything that you can't find elsewhere, but it's not a waste of time either, if you can withstand some of the game's trickier boss fights. If you like what you see, give it a download.

POKEMON HUNTER 4
a game by Halibabica

Lovingly Reviewed by tardis.

I should mention I have not played the 3 Pokemon Hunter titles leading up to this one. Reviewing this was a task set to me in the Review Secret Santa, so here we go! I'm going to take a bit of a different approach to this review than I have previously- rather than play-by-play and lambast the game as each excruciating detail comes up, I'm going to treat this more like a text-based/screenshot Let's Play. I'm going to do my best to get in the spirit of the game and hopefully, my narrative will reflect that. At some point, I'll close the narrative off (this is supposed to encourage people to play the game after all!) and give some developer feedback and possibly rate the game in the usual categories. There will at least be SOME semblance of my usual running monologue conveyed through the captions of any screenshots I use. Or something. Enjoy!

It's been a while since Team Awesome fixed the local beast problem. Tom hadn't really noticed, but as his friend Marty remarked, they had doubled Tom's work. At least it was finally safe to fish.
Marty: "Hard to believe it wasn't safe to do this not too long ago. Ever since Team Awesome fixed things up around here..."
It's true- they had saved Baise Town and stopped the beasts from attacking people. Tom remains stoic and unmoved as always.
Marty: "Do you really care about anything? It doesn't seem like it."
Tom: "Hey, I care about my work! I just don't show it much."

Marty insists Tom is taking life too seriously. That he needs some more excitement in his life. He needs something to get all riled up about- it'd do him good. It'd do everyone good.
But hey, big things never happen around here.


turns out said magikarp is named De Rol Le and has evolved into a GYARADOS AAAAAAAAAAAAA

Turns out they were fishing... FOR POKEMON. Damn good of them, ridding the world of those hideous creatures. Tom and Marty part ways for the evening- Tom heads for home, Marty stays to fish a while longer.


Tom walks along some incredibly wide testicle-strewn beaches

Tom clips down the beach at what is almost an alarming pace, not once pausing to take in the rather dramatically golden sunset. Barely 50 feet from the dock where Marty still sits...


OH GOD A MONSTER KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT AND THE OTHER ONE OH GOD OH GOD

Tom strikes out at the filthy turtle with (presumably) his weapon. Its disgusting, unclean beast's blood splatters the beaches, and it endures the sting of sand and salt blown into the wound by the wind. That'll teach those horrible monstrosities...
Without any warning, the beasts flee. It seems Tom's show of strength was enough to scare them off. For how long? No one can be sure.

"Hmph... gave up without a fight. Maybe things were better before Team Whatever fixed 'em..."

After the trek back to town, Tom is greeted by Reika. She helps him to secure the Beasts inside for the night. Space was at something of a premium, so he shared his single-room flat with the creatures. Time for a pleasant night's respite.

Until...

A crash. The sound of crumbling brick and moving earth. Frantic pounding. Tom jolts awake to discover angry citizens at his door and one of the beasts missing.


it's one of them newfangled posses come to fuck my shit aaaaa

Tom: "The sooner I track him down, the sooner this will all be over."

Or at least that's what he thought.

This ends the narrative portion of tonight's review. From here on, it's all gameplay and my commentary thereon!

From here, the player is given their objective and allowed to select their pro-grade battle group. Their options are Dugtrio, Magneton, Beedril, Gyarados, Kadabra, and Porygon. I picked Porygon, Kadabra, and Dugtrio, or as they're called in game, http://, Dig Dug, and Mr. T. Yes, I picked them solely on the nicknames.


your characters have souls

I just have to stop for a second and remark that while the initial bits of this party select system are a little rough (lol magical room to pick my doods out of), some of the custom menu crap generated for it looks fairly ace! Especially the one that pops up when you want to swap one of your doods out. Good stuff here!


MR. T YEEEAAAHHHH

Battles!
I just hit my first real fight in the snow fields south of town.
All I can say is, I must have picked really poorly back there at character select because holy crap my guys suck. My character deals a solid ~30 damage from his only skill (some fire attack) and about half that from a physical attack, but my Pokemon, when they can actually hit, strike for a pathetic 3 or 4 damage. Even Kadabra only did as well as 5 with his special. The enemies only do a point or two of damage thus far, so I probably don't have too much to worry about. For 'fearsome beasts,' these pokemon are pretty pussy-ass shit. Eat fuckin' axe, Jigglypuff
The good news with this is the balance drastically improves a little further into the game. Battles become at least a tiny bit challenging when you hit the first dungeon. The bad news is, you actually have a fair chunk of MP and your skills can actually kick some pretty serious ass.
I realize elements are supposed to play a big role in this game, but I have no idea what I'm doing with my elements against which foes, and I can't rely on my knowledge of the Pokemon games and their weaknesses/resistances because dammit you changed all the types/elements what gives. This might be some attempt to run with the card game or something, but the typing system in the commercial Pokemon titles is so good I don't know why you wouldn't use it.


ASH KETCHUM'S REAL FATHER

One thing that I thought was really cool was a couple of enemy pokemon EVOLVED during battle. Changed sprite and name and everything. It was pretty rad. It's one of those things that makes you go "woah." when it pops up.
That "woah" feeling only lasts so long though. My enemy went from a fairly non-threatening Pidgey to a Pigeotto that started completely wasting my shit. Like, my dudes were dying in two hits to a random encounter kind of wasting-my-shit. I guess that goes along with the whole 'evolution' shtick, but jesus god i got raped.

The random encounters would have been a lot cooler if they showed up in tall grass like in the pokemon games. This probably would have put a little more emphasis on good environment design, which is a fairly weak area I will cover in...

Visuals!
I have yet to see anything that isn't Pokemon rips/recolours or RTP. The two styles are both fairly vibrant, and mesh decently well together. The battles feature rips from the Pokemon games on the Gameboy Advance against RTP backdrops, and there is a fair amount of resolution clash there.
I've seen the RTP used better, though. The maps are fairly wide and bland. Not the worst I've ever seen, but nothing I'd spend a lot of time exploring if I didn't have to. There's some edits to the RTP here and there- they look pretty decent.
Some of the maps are really big and monotonous like the beach and the snow field. The interiors are also pretty huge and repetitive. We're talking full-20x15-tile-room maps with one tile of border running around them.


miles of this. seriously. parts of it look like they were copied and pasted.
what is this, Quest 64?

While the towns/interiors aren't a whole lot to write home about, the dungeon design is pretty decent. Still fairly spread-out maps, but the puzzles all fit and function within them.

At one point, though, the game actually uses a damn real photograph(see above Mr. Mime battle screenshot) as a battle background. Come on, that's weak.

Writing!
The writing in this game is pretty weak. Again, not as bad as some games I've played, but I find I'm clipping along through it pret-ty fast to try and get to some more action I might actually care about. There's no real sense of pacing throughout the game, and a lot of the dialogue feels like gum-flapping for the sake of gum-flapping. "i am the queen of the ice cave who are you" "have you seen a nidorino around here" "you must be an assassin" "i am not an assassin i am looking for a nidorino" "oh okay that changes everything" "where is my nidorino bitch" "there is a beast rampaging in my ice cave" "oh that's mine" "k get rid of it ty"

That's a scaled down version of one of the actual conversations in the game. The main character then pussies out and runs offscreen to deal with the problem tomorrow.

The main character of this game is sort of an unlikeable twat. He's one of those "RPGGUY(tm)" types who does whatever he's told, is chronically lazy, trains monsters for fun, and lives in a generic fantasy village. Add to it that the writing in no way attempts to make him likeable or invest the reader/player in his succes or shenannigans in the slightest, we're already off to a bad start.
I realize this is a pretty simple game- that it isn't trying to be a novel, or a great story-driven masterpiece, but having characters that are more than just "The Angry Mayor" and "RPGGUY(tm)" and "Headstrong Lead Female" would have helped to make this stand out from the legion of other RTP games like it. Well, they didn't have Pokemon, so that's something.

Sound!
This music is 80% RTP, which is fairly non-offensive, but still a little grating after a while, and 20% Pokemon midis. I'm not sure where the Pokemon midis were found, but some of them are kind of... bad.
Even then, the two don't necessarily clash. One thing that really stuck out at me was the music in the battles. A fairly passable midi rendition of the Pokemon battle theme plays when you're duking it out with the wild 'mons. But when you're victorious, the... Default RTP jingle plays. If you already got Pokemon midis for the title screen and battles, why not throw the Pokemon victory jingle in there as the victory tune?

Wrap-up!
I dig the concept of this- Pokemon are wild beasts, uncontrolled and not understood by humans. Some humans try to tame them, others run in fear before them, and still others hunt them. That's pretty cool. As a hardcore Pokemon fan, I'd play it. But I think it would work a lot better in a more modern setting. I'm not saying "POKEMON + GUNS LOL," but something like... America in the 50s. Or a rural backwater town at the turn of the 20th century. That gives you interesting archetypes of civillians to work with- gritty hunters and craftsmen and the like- but in a setting that's modern enough that the audience can relate. Introduce the Pokemon element, and you'd have a cool spinoff. As it stands presently, Pokemon Hunter 4 (and I presume the other Pokemon Hunter games) are just mediocre jRPGs with Pokemon characters in RTPland. It's not bad, but there's so much more you could do with the concept.

While RTP games aren't always awful, there were some weird game design choices made in this. Things like save points being one-use-only. I didn't know this the first time I used one. Then I realized I can actually save anywhere from the menu. Oh, I guess those rocks heal you as well. Not really sure why they function as save points as well. And it would be nice if something told me I'd been healed. There's also a day/night system, but it takes way too damn long to make the transition from day to night. An entire hour of gameplay before night? 20-30 minutes would have been more reasonable. There's apparently some pretty varied gameplay at night, but I never got to see it as I reviewed this on a time crunch and it takes too damn long to get to night.

Pokemon Hunter 4 ain't a bad game. I was actually fairly pleasantly surprised with some of the less-default shit that showed up in here- the party change system could have been a bit more elegant, but the menu popups I saw were passable visually and served their function well. The game really needs more of this kind of stuff to make it feel less like "My RTP Adventure: Pokemon Edition!" and more like POKEMON HUNTER 4: LESSONS IN BADASSERY: FEARSOME BEASTS EDITION B). It's hampered by its RTP graphics more than anything. Edits of the graphics from the commercial games would look pretty great with this, especially the old black and white/lo-fi colour gameboy stuff.

At the end of the day, it's a pretty cool concept that could be executed a lot better. If you like Pokemon and fairly chilled-out nonobtrusive RM2k RTP gameplay, this could just be the game for you. The game employs some pretty neat behind-the-scenes systems like day/night transition and the grind-minimizing auto-level. If a little more of this showed on the surface, it would help the game greatly.

<END>

if i were actually submitting this via RMN's review system, i would give this game 2.5/5 stars

Xelos: Sinner's Circle (Demo) Review

This was a pretty well-made game. Although, I can't say I reached the end, I came pretty far and enjoyed it for the most part!

Gameplay: 4/5
This game had a custom battle system:



The battle system really got me excited. The battle order, on the left, is determined by how well each player fights. SP, or CP in this game, is determined by an overdrive bar on the bottom. Each turn you get a little more CP for specials. Something I've never seen before is the threat box on the side. It shows how big of a threat each of your people are to your opponents. Yes, the battle system was pretty cool.

Another cool addition was card packs:



Hidden throughout the game are packs of cards. When you open them, you get 3 to 4 random cards that up your stats in battle. That was pretty creative!

Early in the game, I found an item in a chest; It was called an enemy book:



It told me anything about any enemy I had encountered before. This feature made me wonder just how many other cool things I'd find in this game. (Since I had found all this stuff only five minutes into the game)

The run feature in this game sucks. As soon as you run, the enemy attacks you again.

I'm afraid I couldn't get out of the forest. (I'm not that good a gamer) There were too many enemies for me to handle and they were all chasing me. At one point I literally had a stampede of them behind me. It was a fun ride, although short. It could use less enemies and more revision on fleeing from a battle. (Maybe give me a second or two ahead start before the enemy jumps me again?) I'll give this category a 4/5, since its Christmas.

Graphics: 3/5
Eh... this was pretty average. Most of the graphics were the default ones, but the main characters were custom made, along with some of the menu:



I like the way the swamp was made. It really created a mood of eeriness. I'll give you credit for your wonderful mapping abilities; something not many people have.

There isn't much to say about graphics. I'll write you off with a fair 3/5.

Music and Sound: 5/5
Congrats! The music in this game was absolutely beast! I only heard two songs, (Because this was only a demo) but those two songs were done pretty well. The battle music was the original music re-mixed! It was catchy, and made me want to stay for a fight. (I normally flee) Excellent job in this category! You deserve 5/5.

Storyline: 3/5
I'm not really sure what the story is yet. I enjoyed the intro, where killed a bunch of people for power, but I haven't seen where that all ties in.
Til, a physic who tricks you and tries to murder you, was an interesting character. I wish I could see how she would fit into the story, but this is only a demo.

The storyline looks as if it has a good start. I'm interested to see where it will go when the full game is released. From what I saw I'll give it 3/5; average.

Overall: 4/5
This game scored pretty high in all categories. It is on the right track to be an amazing game. I hope and look forward to seeing it completed.

Merry Christmas!

Nothing here yet...