SECRET SANTA REVIEWS!

Update 12/28/11: Secret Santa guessing has concluded!

However, voting for the review with the best feedback will continue until December 30th at 12:00AM. Please PM me your vote for the review with the best feedback - anyone can do this, even those who didn't participate in the event!

Here is who reviewed what:


Felipe_9595 - Lihtan - http://rpgmaker.net/games/3470/
Orias_Obderhode - Return of the Sith - http://rpgmaker.net/games/943/
TehGuy - Magic Quest - http://rpgmaker.net/games/889/
calunio - Incarnation - http://rpgmaker.net/games/2273/
Marrend - Draug's Resurrection - http://rpgmaker.net/games/3132/
LockeZ - Cosplay Crisis - http://rpgmaker.net/games/1741/
SorceressKyrsty - Mystical Princess Ultra - http://rpgmaker.net/games/3576/
Ocean - The World is Made of Paper - http://rpgmaker.net/games/2954/
Acra - Novella - http://rpgmaker.net/games/3362/
orochii - Valthirian Arc - http://rpgmaker.net/games/1799/
ganonfrog - Enelysion - http://www.mediafire.com/?gnbt2euegjf7qdx
NewBlack - Golden Age: Endless Dungeon - http://rpgmaker.net/games/3043/ - SENT
Dudesoft - Project: Crusade - http://rpgmaker.net/games/3043/
Archeia_Nessiah - Dragon Quest Legacy of the Lost - http://rpgmaker.net/games/3385/
yuna21 - The World Between - http://rpgmaker.net/games/1680/ - I am writing a review basically as we speak! - Deckiller
psy_wombats - DIE2DANCE - http://rpgmaker.net/games/2870/
Sailerius - Arbiters From Another World - http://rpgmaker.net/games/3433/
eplipswich - Take Down Legacy - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=3NYDMYV2
Liberty - Vindication - http://rpgmaker.net/games/1642/
pikachu 2127 - Finding Eden - http://rpgmaker.net/games/3531/
Killer Wolf - Seraphic Blue - http://rpgmaker.net/games/2727/

Finding Eden - by Sailerius

Let's start with the Gameplay:

As stated in the game, WSAD is to move, Spacebar is your Action/Attack, J is the leader's special move, and the Escape key is to Save your game. Although you only have two characters to work with in the entire game, the battles aren't that hard as they seem to be.



The game is like an adventure, but the only enemies you will be seeing are the bad, black armored harvesters that will attack the group, which you would have to fight back. They aren't that hard though, I can handle by just attacking them, and sometimes use a Skill Attack.

Now let's get to the music of the game:
Although there's not alot of music, the game's Music selection for specific areas of the game seem to match the specific areas. (Man I stink at Reviews!)

The Graphics and music of things:



I'd say it's a Pretty Blue for most of the Maps, what can I say? Blue is an attractive color like that. The rest of the maps also have the right theme to the Music as well, like going into some camp that's set on fire, at least a small amount of fire.

The big battles?:
These kind of battles are well planned out. Unlike the Harvesters, they don't get a one hit KO from Blu's Barrage Skill. It also seems like a challenge for the ones who only attack with Space Bar, because they are trying to preserve MP for something else.

The Characters:
I looked up the character bios at Project BC's website, where the game's website would be at. They didn't have character names, but when I saved the images of the two character descriptions, I think the names are Blu and Red, the names seem almost similar to Blue and Red from the Pokemon Game Boy games.

Blu is an Idealist who tries to find the good side ideas of everything, which seems like the good Conscience to everyone before the end of the world happened. Her Mana Skill, Barrage, brings big damage to the enemy that recieves it. In the beginning of the game, she wakes up from some sort of dream she was having.

Red is a jaded pragmatist with a tough sense of both love and loyalty for an adventure, which is kind of like one in the game. From what I know is, she just likes going on adventures. Her Mana Skill, Snare, temporarily Paralyzes enemies, perfect for just attacking them, or making a combo using Blu's Barrage technique.

And last but not least, the story:



The story actually touched my friendly side of my heart. It kind of reminds me of share stuff with your friends, family, and others. The setting almost reminds me of Fallout 3, because it's the end of the world where nothing but a few live. Now I can't give anyone any spoilers because it could be..... dangerous, so I will try to just not put any spoilers on here.

All in all, I give this game a rating of 5.0, because there's a moral in this game as well.


5 stars - review by pikachu 2127

Draug's Resurrection - by Acra

Engine: RPG Toolkit
Status at review: In Production/Demo

Background:
I had no foreknowledge of what this game was, or what it was about. This is partly due to the the nature of the 2011 Secret Santa Review Event (for which this review was made for).

The game came with it's own manual (AKA: a readme file) that contained much useful information. Indeed, I referred to it while writing this review, and certainly had no qualms referring to it while playing the game.

Graphics:
It is not my intention to show disrespect, or to be insulting, but I seriously think these graphics were made in MSPaint, or similar program. Whatever the source, they are as basic and bare-bones as one can get, yet still relay a sense of what they should be. I must note that there are sometimes a few places where the graphics get in the way of things (see "Gameplay" section).

Audio:
With a few exceptions, the game uses audio files that came with RPG Toolkit. After poking through the music directory (I have a nasty habit of doing that), only "Battle2" stood out, and only because it sounded oddly familiar to me.

Story:
The beginning of the game sees the title in literal action: Draug is being resurrected! Of course, the process is not totally successful, as Draug has no memories of anything. It was figured (by what I assumed at the time to be future party members) that by obtaining certain items from Draug's past would not only allow his memories to surface, but he would once again become the powerful warlord that he was once feared as. From this alone, one can conclude that the story is, in essence, a collect-a-thon. Just replace finding the triforce, or crystal shards, or whatever, to finding artifacts that pertain to Draug's previous life, and you're set.

Except that maybe not everything is as is seems. This is just sheer intuition/guesswork on my part, but the people present at Draug's resurrection come across as a bunch of backstabbing, conniving individuals who have plans within plans within plans. There are certainly indications that there could be an internal strife story here (Which would, indeed, make an interesting story!), but I did not play long enough to see if there was any follow-up to the idea.

Gameplay:
I must admit, I'm not too familiar with RPG Toolkit, or it's default control scheme. I was half-expecting to use the IJKL WASD keys for movement. Thankfully, the manual gave me a run-down of what button did what. Some controls are intuitive (Arrow buttons for movement!), while others are there for what I must assume to be beta-testing purposes ("B" to get into a random encounter!).

Noting that I could cause an encounter by pressing the "B" button, what's the first thing I do when I take control of my party? "B" for "battle"! If one has ever played a turn-based strategy game, like something from the Heroes of Might and Magic series, some similarities are certainly apparent. Even if one has not, there's elements of a turn-based strategy here. For one, allies and foes alike have an certain range for "Attack", depending on the type of equipment that is being used. For example, axes and staves have a range of one, where as bows have a range of two. Once an enemy is defeated, it does not disappear from the battle space. Rather, it still takes up a square, and can still be targeted for the purposes of spells and abilities. I suspect that an empty square can also be targeted, but I never made an attempt to do so. In any event, I'm uncertain if this ability to target dead opponents is a bug or no, but using the "Move" option to get into range of still-living ones seems the best course of action.

The manual notes that the intent for the "Skill" option is to display a list of, well, skills that the active character can perform that is not otherwise listed in the main battle command options. It also notes that the "Item" option does nothing in the demo. As far as "Skill" is concerned for this demo, all it does is perform a pre-scripted action, depending on the active character. From my experience, the "Skill" option has a range of two squares (Opponents within a range of one are not target-able), and is generally worthless. If the ability doesn't outright miss, and this seems to happen more oft than it should (Perhaps that's just dumb luck, though), what damage it deals pales in comparison to a normal attack. There might be a few exceptions, but they are few and far between. There is also the oddity of any battle message not clearing until the player presses the Enter key or Space bar. I suspect that this is an oddity inherent to Toolkit. Even so, it could be an annoyance to some. As a side note, resolving a "random" combat only awards gold with this demo. Looking at the status screen, I'm guessing the developer wants some kind of Secret of Mana-like system, where using weapons and/or spells enough will eventually level up that weapon/spell. However, that system didn't appear to be in place for this demo.

Since battles don't give much in rewards at the moment, surely there must be some way to get stronger? Right? Right? Wrong. As far as I can see, there is no way to do make characters stronger. Outside of cheating, of course. You might think I'm joking, but I'm totally not. The manual is quite clear on this point, even going so far as to suggest a certain point in the demo where it would be most beneficial to use the built-in cheat codes. Re-read that last sentence if you must, but it's the unfiltered truth.

Outside of battles, the system that intrigued me most was the morality system. During certain conversations, the player is presented with a choice of responses. Some responses have consequences that lean toward a moral perspective, indicated by an icon. One icon is that of a scale (Order/Lawful?). The other icons are a skull (Evil?), something that looks like an ant's head, though it's probably supposed to be an angel (Good?), and I don't even know what the other one is supposed to be (Chaos?). If one has ever played Planescape - Torment, or even Dungeons and Dragons in general, one can see where this is going. However, I'm uncertain how much implementation this particular system has in the demo, nor does the manual make any mention of it. There could be some potential here, if not merely what happens in the finale, but some NPC conversations suggest that this system will affect how NPCs react to Draug as his alignment changes.

What of the task of finding the triforce Draug's artifacts? There's nine crystal shards artifacts in total to find, and talking to a certain NPC gives you a map that indicates the known locations for his artifacts. My first target was the one just south of the town of Estaria (more or less the first town). After I recruited a monk (Marcia) into my party, I explored the forest area a bit. There were a few forks in the path where Marcia told me were I needed to go. They were helpful, as the passabilities were not always entirely clear. As a quick example, what I first assumed was a solid wall was actually a path that was hidden by a tree's foliage. In stark contrast to that, the very next artifact I went to get was north of an icy tundra. The tundra itself was an open field, with very little variation in the terrain. For another artifact, I went to a castle. It had a tower with an infinitely looping room. Maybe it just seemed that way, as I was seeing the same rooms over and over again. It's possible there could be a "correct path" that I didn't discover, or it really is an infinite loop.

Overall entertainment:
The manual notes that one shouldn't really play the demo as a "game", but as an exploration into the concepts and mechanics that the game will have, once it gets fleshed out more. Despite that "warning", I played a total of two hours of the demo. In that space of time, I managed to get three artifacts, and had a quest that would grant me a fourth one. How entertaining was all that? Most of my enjoyment came from simply checking out what systems were in place. The other part of my enjoyment was, I must admit, the use of the in-game cheats to make Draug way too overpowered for his own good.

Summary:
Amazingly playable, despite being merely a showcase of what it could evolve into. One might do well to keep an eye on it as things develop.


Not rated - review by Marrend

Return of the Sith - by Killer Wolf

When I was assigned to review Return of the Sith, I wasn’t sure what to think. Even though I have seen all Star Wars movies, I could hardly say that I am a die-hard fan. I watched the movies and enjoyed them a good bit, but I didn’t come close to remember storyline details. With that said, the story probably made less sense to me than it would if I would have been a die-hard Star Wars fan, so bear that in mind!

Story:

I had a very hard time following the story. I got bits and pieces of it, but my limited Star Wars knowledge prevented me from probably understanding the full cast of characters. I am assuming that many of the characters introduced are characters many Star Wars fans would recognize, but in my case, I couldn’t recognize any of them.

I couldn’t get attached to any of the characters. You’d simply be told what to do, and in the very beginning, you have absolutely no direction whatsoever. You start out on what I presume to be a spaceship. After some walking you discover that you are to help a woman, Ayla, find her brother who was taken by the empire (I think?). You also learn that you used to fight in some war (I’m really sorry, it probably was an actual Star Wars war but I don’t know what it was) and you are now a mercenary.

You then go off to a desert looking town to find a long lost friend of Cail (the protagonist) and find a shuttle that takes you to some other desert planet. Then you get ambushed by desert people twice and then I didn’t know what to do. I walked around, slowly I might add, to figure out what was to happen next and could never figure it out.

However, my copy of the game came with several save files, so I decided to give em a go! Obviously the story didn’t make much sense because I had missed so much, but it felt like more of the same. The final save file allowed me to see the final CS in which you would think there would be a boss, but there was not.



Great… and who is Danvir?

But, I did run into one character I recognized (or so I thought!) I saw this NPC and thought it bared a striking resemblance to the protagonist of a certain Final Fantasy game.



Cloud, I finally found you!

Gameplay:

The battle system is default RM2k3 if I am not mistaken. Being default in it of itself is not a bad thing. I generally enjoy it. However, there were so few abilities to use and the ones you did have seemed so weak that the battles consisted of me mashing Attack as soon as I possibly could. Generally having no battle music didn’t help either.

However, from playing through a few of the other save files, you see that Killer Wolf added some features. Depending on what Light Saber you have, you get to use different abilities. This is further improved in that the way you fight with the weapon (idk what this means) influences what you learn.

From playing other save files, I also noticed Cail had some abilities he could use outside of battle. He could use the force to jump over obstacles and reach items that previously could not be attained. However, I never got to experience any of the new features much. The save file that allowed me to play around with these features ended soon, telling me that this was just a demo and I could continue to play through the buggy untested areas ahead if I really wanted too… unfortunately, I didn’t, so I stopped.

Graphics and Audio:

Graphics were just a mess. Some areas looked decent, but there were always tiles that just didn’t seem like they belonged. I always say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I have added some pictures to demonstrate my point.



This was one of the better looking areas in the game. This was Cail’s ship if I understood correctly. It took me a good 5 minutes to figure out how to leave the ship. Can you spot the exit?



Oh, that’s a door?



Not only are the sand tiles beautiful and non-repetitive… the house looks great!

I really apologize. I am normally not too picky when it comes to graphics. I think the general layouts of the areas are totally fine, but could be enriched if all graphics seemed to fit and you just added a level of detail and polish that was not present in Revenge of the Sith.

Final thoughts:

I really gave this game a genuine good try. I tried to follow the story, and I tried every possible thing I could think of when I got stuck. I saw bits and pieces of the whole game and finished with watching the last CS. Adding a bit more the plot, refining the battle system (even just adding music and a few more abilities would be enough), and fixing up the graphics would go a long way in improving the game!

Cons:
- I think it would be impossible to walk more SLOWLY. It takes forever to trudge through the wide barren maps.
- Where is the battle music!? Battles are boring and monotonous without music.
- Everything feels so rushed and fast paced. Perhaps adding a few more cutscenes and explanations would be of great help.
- I eventually just stopped talking to NPCs because they never said anything helpful. In the desert place all of them outside speak alien language and say the same thing no matter what you say in response. (However, when I was stuck, I literally talked to everything and still couldn’t figure out what to do).

I award Revenge of the Sith a 1/5. I wish I could rate it higher, but I did not enjoy my experience playing through the game. Typically, a game has about an hour to hook me, and while this one did not, I really wanted to continue to it give a fair and honest review.

1 star - review by Orias_Obderhode

Take Down Legacy Part 1 - by Dudesoft

Some things to say before I begin: I did not finish the game, but I played enough to have a good idea of what kind of a game Take Down Legacy Part 1 is like. The version I played is most probably the original version rather than the remix.

When I'm given this game to review and I first tried it, I must say, it was a challenge for me because a parody game like this is not my cup of tea. I'm more into RPGs with serious storylines. Nonetheless, I went ahead, and here are my findings.

The biggest selling point of this game is definitely the immense interactivity among characters and NPCs. Most of the dialogues are funny, engaging, and never fail to be exciting. The game, from what I see, is also somewhat non-linear, making players the freedom to do whichever he or she wants to first.

Next is definitely the catchy and fun-filled music. It definitely fits in well with the non-seriousness of the game.

In terms of plot though, I wouldn't say it's great. The game starts off with a historian known as Omochao who is investigating relics as he delves into the past and eventually ends up as Megaman.exe and gets stuck as him as he tries to get back to present. There isn't a clear and concise flow in the story. The plot pretty much doesn't make sense at times, but it's still engagingly interesting, with all the dialogues and such.

For the title screen, I find it could hav been better done instead of just putting a blank title screen with no title. As for the intro, I don't like the fact that the intro texts are in different colors (for what reason?) It would have been better if the colors are consistent. And when the title appears, it, well, doesn't blend in well with the background, once again, I suppose, due to inconsistent colors.

I like the fact that the game starts with simple tutorials without too much depth, and that all the help is from the "Help Chao" (haha) so it gives players the option of whether to read the help tutorials or not.

Now, for the battle system, well, there's nothing much I can say about it, since it uses the default RPG Maker 2003 battle system. Battles are your typical battles in a typical RPG. So there isn't anything interesting in the battles, though the boss battles are certainly challenging and interesting in a decent way.

Next, the quests. As mentioned earlier, I like the vast non-linearity of the quests and side quests, and as such, I like the fact that players don't have to follow the game in an orderly fashion and actually has the freedom to do what he or she wants (once the game actually kicks in full swing). There are certain quests though which can get pretty frustrating and repetitive, most notably the little boy quest. That's pretty much minor though :)

All in all, this is a great parody RPG that's filled with immense interactivity and non-linearity. A great game where gives players the freedom to perform quests and such, earn rewards, listen to comments and jokes from numerous NPCs and others. This is indeed a very engaging game, I must say. It's a game I would rate 3.5/5. It's a game I highly recommend to those who firstly don't mind parodies (there's Megaman, main char of FF8 and the queen of the Super Mario world) and secondly don't mind the plot that doesn't make a lot of sense but funnily engaging.


3.5 stars - review by eplipswich

Vindication - by LockeZ


When I saw that I'd been given Vindication as my game to play I nearly face-palmed. I'd seen it on the site before and it hadn't really interested me. I'd though of it as another of those stupid 'comedy' games with little-to-no story and lame-ass jokes. Thankfully, my assumptions were dead wrong and I found myself enjoying a game that I would never have picked for myself to play.

Now, I have yet to finish this game. It's quite long and I would like to play it all the way through eventually. That said, I did end up playing well over 7 hours, which I think is more than enough to talk about it.


Story
The plot of Vindication revolves around James and Cole, two normal-ish guys who are just going about, living their lives in normal, if rather crazy, ways. One day their world gets turned upside down when the evil Emperor Justin sends his troops to steal the Masamune - currently in James' possession - and throw James in jail. Thankfully, though Cole is run out of town because of his association with James, he decides to save his friend instead of abandon him. This choice leads to an adventure of a lifetime, complete with silly jokes and running gags.

The writing in Vindication is well-done and though a little hokey here and there, generally pretty good. If there were any errors, I sufficiently distracted enough not to notice them. There's a plethora of jokes to make sure the story doesn't get too dark, and some great gags are set up in ways you'd never guess until they hit you in the face. I won't lie, I laughed at some of them. There's humour to suit all types, too - toilet humour, tongue-in-cheek, witticisms, plain old jokes, general silliness and gags a-plenty.

One scene I really enjoyed was the second jail escape. It just sums up the humour in this game and the character interaction is priceless. This is really where the game shines. The characters are very likable and I will admit to being touched during certain cut-scenes. These are not your typical band of heroes. Each has a history and motives for what they do.
The main character, James, has a teenaged daughter, making him a lot older than he acts and looks. Cole is a responsible ex-teacher who is pulled into James' crazy schemes. Calla is a Rebel leader who loves fragile things; Dak, a trusting Black Mage and Sedryna a half-demon summoner who struggles against her evil side.

Then there's supporting characters like the gamer girl Ginny, James' daughter, the Pialid soldiers who help you in battle, the spy that sticks out, Justin the evil Emperor, the little girl who helps with battle demonstrations, Danica the manly woman and the rest of the crazy, yet lovable cast.


Sound
One of the things that lets this game down is the choice of music. Almost all the tunes were from Squaresoft games and/or very recognisable remixes of them. Whilst used decently, it would have been a lot less jarring to hear less recognizable tunes. There are a plethora of sites out there that offer free music for those who wish to use it and with a bit more effort in this area the game would truly shine.

I will say that I liked the remix of Final Fantasy VI's 'World of Ruin'. It was just so... chirpy, I couldn't help but to love it. Who knew such a sad tune could be so cute?

Sound effects are there, but they are nothing to write home about. The game isn't silent and what ones I did hear were used well. One that stood out a lot was Kefka's laugh. It was a bit jarring, I'll admit, and instantly recognisable.


Gameplay
Battles are a bit odd in that sometimes I liked them and other times it felt like a chore to get through one battle. This is especially relevant when you're fighting a large group of enemies and the ATB starts to slow down. Even with four characters in the party there can be a long wait and slow battles are annoying battles when they aren't bosses.

The fights themselves were generally well-balanced, a bit more on the challenging side of the spectrum, and even on Normal mode (there's a hard mode!) it can be hard to get past certain areas if you're new to RPGs.

It is easy to run away from fights though, which is great because in some areas where random encounters are present, you'll be doing it a bit. Yes, there are random encounters. They're mainly in places like forests and caves so you don't have to worry about them except when traveling. Other areas, like the Pialid castle dungeon, had evented battles with a few random ones thrown in. The world map is free of fights, though.

The characters each have their own way of fighting - their own gimmick if you will. The type of skills vary and present a pretty good selection - which you'll need to take down the various enemies you come across. In my playthrough I had access to a Samurai, Blue Mage, Summoner, Elemental Mage and Debuffer. Every skill was balanced, though I'd have liked to have seen a bit more damage output. It shouldn't take five hits to kill a normal enemy and in some cases I ended up missing a few times too, which was annoying.

Leveling up didn't seem to do much in the way of changing your stats or damage output. There was one case where one of my characters went up three levels after a fight and I couldn't tell the difference between his abilities before and after. The only ting I could see leveling up useful for was learning spells, and only certain people learn them that way, which makes it useless for the other players. For example, one of my characters only just breached the 100 HP mark at the end of my playthrough and he'd started with 50 life. He had gone up over 10 levels during that time. That wouldn't worry me so much except that the enemies were taking about 1/4 to 1/3 life off each hit... and there would be times when you had a group of five or six enemies.

Thankfully you did get a lot of reviving items, and there were healing spells. I was a little disappointed with the newest healing spell I learned, though. The original healing spell healed about 50 HP and added the regen state on the character. That was gained at the start of the game. The newest one healed the party but only an half of that characters health... and he had the lowest health of the group, so that was around 30 HP each, if that.

Puzzles are in every dungeon (that I played through, at least) and each as different as the last. They make sense to the dungeon and are generally enjoyable and easy enough to figure out. Some, like the block push puzzle in the prison, were a bit of a challenge, but not too hard. Others, like the ladder puzzle, were a bit more tricky and expected you to double back a few times in order to activate levers. This of course meant more battles.

Saving is not done on the world map. Only certain points allow you to save and this can be annoying when you're halfway through a dungeon and need to go do something. I lost progress twice in a dungeon because of the lack of ability to save and this is one of the reasons I ended where I did. Thankfully most dungeons had save points scattered about but it would have been nice to be able to save anywhere.


Design
Treasure was doled out pretty generously, though it would have been nice to get more healing items and a few less life revives. The idea being to restore life before you have to die. Thankfully there were a lot of herbs - magic restoration - which enabled the use of healing spells.

Item names and descriptions were interesting and quite funny in some cases. They helped add a little more charm to the game and though sometimes they left you wondering what they did, it did add character. After all, potions that only heal 50 HP are pretty crappy.

Items cost a bit much and there weren't many weapons or armour scattered about. There was some, but by the time i found them I had already bought them at the town. It would have been nice to see some more armour, though, as it was very scarcely found in chests and you didn't start with any.

Money was odd. You found what would usually be considered large amounts in chests but when things cost as much as they did it didn't last long.

One thing I really liked about Vindication was how quickly your party changed. Characters were always leaving and returning and it made the game feel more dynamic.

I also liked that you put a split party system near the start of the game. Most people leave that until the end and it's nice to see things being mixed up a bit. I would have liked the Pialid soldiers to be a bit stronger or have a bit more defence, but it was fun playing with them and I liked that you individualized them from each other.

I did really like the introduction with the scrolling text. It looked great and worked really well. I'm not sure if I'd have used that tune with it, though. It was a bit too recognisable.

One thing I miss in an RPG like this is side quests and so far, well, Vindication has none. Which is a pity, because with the humour and characters that abound in this game any side quests would surely have been memorable. Can't have everything, though!

There was one major design complaint that I had all through the game and that was the end of battle screen. It broke the flow of the battle/map transition, was annoying and served no real purpose - meaning that it did nothing different to what the default system did so really wasn't worth bothering to implement. It was also rather ugly and the music that played on it (from Grandia, right?) just didn't work. I will admit that when I first saw it I thought it was cute, but that was because I thought it served some purpose. It soon began to grate on me, though.


Graphics
Animations. This is one of the areas where the game truly shines. There are so many poses and character edits in the game - from the battle characters to the sleeping sprites. Though some sprites are a bit iffy - some of the monsters, for example - the majority are quite nice and very well done.

Mapping is a mixture of RTP and rips. Whilst some maps come off looking great - forest areas that use Mack tiles, for example - most of them come off looking really odd or terrible, which is sad because with a bit more effort to match chips, Vindication could look quite polished.

One thing I really like is the amount of edits done to some of the chips. There's a lot of them, especially of the RTP and that can only be a good thing.

Mapping errors were few and far between, though there were a few. This game does suffer from a few large maps, especially in towns, and sometimes the mixture of graphics looks quite odd.

The window skin is both good and bad. I love the small rose icon that is used as a pointer, but the window could be improved - mainly the terrible gradient. Making it one colour would work to eliminate this issue, though.


Overall
Vindication is not a game I would have picked for myself but I'm glad it got picked for me, otherwise I'd have been missing out on a great game with a lot of potential and charm. It focuses on the areas I like best (minus side quests, but we can't have everything!) and still manages to do gameplay right. Though it has a few issues that could do with fixing, I really enjoyed what I did play of it and look forward to playing the rest when I have more time.


Job well done!
4/5

ROUGH NOTES: (PLEASE DO NOT READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILERED!)


4 stars - review by Liberty

Seraphic Blue Review

Translation: 2.5 out of 5

+ I have to applaud Eplipswich for taking on such a gargantuan effort.

This is actually the hardest section for me to judge. If Eplipswich is handcuffed to an EXACT phrase for phrase translation by the game’s creator, my criticism here pretty much goes out the window.

To me, the translation seems very clumsy. It feels like what you might get by feeding the text through an online bot. You get a very literal translation, but the flavor of the words is all wrong. Some phrases are down right funny, while others are simply painful to have to read. On several occasions, the mood of a scene was completely ruined by a piece of W.T.F? dialog.

I would suggest you bring an editor/proof reader in at the end to help you naturalize the dialog. For me, the most glaring bits of Engrish came out during the overlays during the cutscenes. The actual in game dialog was fairly clean, outside of a few important scenes.

I know it sounds daunting, to make subtle alterations to every message box full of text you’ve already invested a sizable chunk of time into translating, but I think this game would REALLY be able to shine with cleaner phrasing. Every time I started to get interested, started to feel the story pull me in, some laughable line threw me right back out.

Despite being really unhappy with the way most of the text reads, I’m still giving this section two and a half stars, mainly out of respect for your taking on such a massive project, and because I realize the game’s original author might have placed stipulations on what you can and cannot change in the script.


Gameplay: 2 out of 5

+ There is depth to be found here. The sphere system gives you quite a bit of customization options for your team. The only problem is that you usually have to go into a boss fight and get creamed the first time in order to formulate your strategy. I like that there are items to increase the likelihood of your additional effects striking the enemy/increase the power of your elemental damage add ons/resistances. Certain status ailments are very useful against some of the tougher regular enemies you will come across, and while the turn indicator is not always accurate (enemy turns appear to jump ahead every now and then) it does help you plan for that big attack you know is coming up next. The enemy data function works well, and I have to give credit to the developer for not causing it to waste a turn.

- However, it seems that bosses resist just about everything. It seemed like I was able to stack effects up on enemies in fights I didn’t have much trouble with anyway, but every time it would have really helped me out to be able to poison a boss with gargantuan hp numbers, slow them down, cause them to forget their skills, or to paralyze them for a couple turns reprieve, I found myself unable to because of the enemy’s resistances.

- This means that you can have a reliable party build, using weapon add ons and effects, that make the random (which I’m not sure they really are) encounters something of a breeze, but that same build will be completely useless against bosses. Again, you will not know this until you get into the fight, so you will have to watch the pre-battle cutscene again for the almost inevitable second attempt.

- Navigating the item menus can be something of a chore since there is no sort function. When you find or purchase a sphere or curative item, you may need to flip through several pages until you find the slot it occupies. This is one area where the game’s professionalism really takes a hit.

+ The game is actually somewhat fair, in that things like poison which seem entirely overpowered when they are used on the party are actually just as overpowered once you manage to tack it onto an enemy

- Certain areas just heap punishment on the player like there is no tomorrow. One monster type had an attack which was capable of poisoning, confusing, and blinding the target (I believe. I alt-f4’ed out the first time it happened, and on subsequent re-plays I didn’t notice all of the effects stacking up). Now, that isn’t so bad in and of itself, but four of these monsters appeared in a given encounter, and they always seemed to have the initiative. A lot of time I was left crossing my fingers that the computer would burn a turn attacking/missing, so I’d get a chance to fight back.

Innovation: 2 out of 5

- To put it bluntly, I didn’t notice much. The plot felt cobbled together from a host of JRPG and Anime clichés. In some cases I was able to predict the outcomes and “twists” just by identifying what I believe to be one of the creator’s sources of inspiration.

- This is JRPG 101. At times it feels like the creators were ticking things off a checklist.

+ I did like the sphere system. At first blush it may seem like it is trying to be Materia 2.0, but it ends up much more customizable and enjoyable!

+ Being able to automatically refill my hp and tp after battles via the supplement was a nice touch…

- ...but it felt like an excuse the developer invented to keep from properly balancing some of the dungeons.

Music & Sound Fx: 2 out of 5

This is a mixed bag. For the most part, the music does its job. I like that in some areas the track fades out. When used sparingly, silence can work better for some scenes then the best orchestral score could. I noticed some tracks had similar themes to pieces I was familiar with, and I’m not sure if they were written that way, or it was just a coincidence.

- I would be remiss I I didn't point out the number of audio glitches I encountered. Some of them were minor, subtle latency and clipping in a song, while others were more glaring, almost sounding as if the file had been sped up to compress it, and then played back at the accelerated speed instead of slowed down. The game made me paw my headphones off my bleeding ears twice when it decided to vomit a string of bit noise at me in the middle of a scene that, otherwise, had me leaning in and getting interested.

Graphics: 3 out of 5

+ The game has a consistent, clean style that is easy to look at.

+ I believe the monster sprites are all custom, and if not, are at least uncommon enough that I do not believe I recognize a single one of them from another source.

- Unfortunately, outside of combat and character sprites, you’ve seen most of it before. The areas tend to blend together, when combined with the fact that you never seem to spend too much time in one place, it becomes hard to remember individual towns.

- The over world map is just plain ugly.

Bells and Whistles/Presentation: 4 out of 5

+ The character portraits and cut scene artwork is really well done for the most part. I’d put the artwork in the game’s “cinematic” sequences up there with Dhux’s Scar. As a whole, the cutscenes are fairly exceptional.

- Unfortunately, you’re not able to skip them, if for example, you are trying to get back for your third attempt at a boss. As pretty as everything is too look at, the third time I am stuck watching a whole scene just to get slaughtered by a boss, it really starts to grate on my nerves.

Overall: 2.5 out of 5

In closing, I do not want my relatively low score to discourage anyone from trying this game out. It is a very competent JRPG, and once you get used to some of its quirks, you will have fun with it.

This game could easily move into the 3.5+ star range with just a few adjustments.

Right now, the biggest strike against the game, for me, is how stilted and unnatural a number of the scenes are. Without the “build your character from scratch” aspect you get in most Western Rpgs, it has to rely on the main strength of the JRPG, which is the story. If I can’t get into the story, or can’t get through a major cutscene without either rolling my eyes or laughing, I can’t get into the game. Period.

If I were able to skip through the scenes I’d already seen, thus saving a lot of time on the almost inevitable multiple boss attempts, I might have been inclined to have bumped the score a little higher as well.


2.5 stars - review by Killer Wolf

Magic Quest - by pikachu 2127

Magic Quest
Story - 1/5
The only hint of story you get is off of the game's main page, otherwise it's nearly nonexistent until the 'King' tells you to go find the source of this unknown thing called 'Magic'. The game ends pretty much 20 seconds after that.

gameplay - 1/5
HIT ATTACK UNTIL IT DIES unless they're zombies, in which case HIT "CROSS CUT" (your only skill) UNTIL IT DIES.

mapping/graphics - 1/5
maps appear to be too big and are pretty empty. They do, at least, progress linearly. It's also completely RTP EXCEPT for some of the characters. Before I forget, the weather tends to be random between the maps. It rains at the start point, but the maps around it are clear for instance (and these are all about the minimum size XP allows).


audio - 3/5
Still RTP, but at least it more or less fits into the map or the event that's going on.

Overall - 1.5/5
There a lot of mapping flaws present (some not even shown) and the lack of story (especially in a RPG) kinda kills it. The upside is that this is EXTREMELY short (I think I beat it in around 3-5 minutes).

For those who kinda want to know the full thing about this game, you could read through my notes here.

Magic Quest 2

Story - .5/5
Somehow, it's managed to give you even less than the first game. Again, the only clue is off of the game's page.

Gameplay - 1/5
Still the same from the first game, nothing new except I didn't need to use my skills.. ever..

Mapping/Graphics - 1/5
STILL the same issues as the first game. Big rooms, not enough in them. This one, however, had really odd choices on the tiles from one room to the next (one was an ice dungeon which moved into a sand/flesh dungeon which turned back into an ice dungeon).
WARNING: In the last dungeon there is a letter in the top left corner. Using this will cause the game to crash

audio - 3/5
Same as the first game.

Overall - 1.5/5
Pretty much no improvements over the first one with the exception of a new UI scheme. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but seeing on how this has the same issues as the first one I didn't feel a need to post any.

For those who kinda want to know the full thing about this game, you could read through my notes here.

1.5 stars - review by TehGuy

The World is Made of Paper - by ganonfrog

It was pretty hard for me to review this, as it was a Visual Novel and not an RPG like I'm used to. I didn't mind trying it out though. I went into the game having not heard of it, having not read the description, or seen any screenshots really. So it was all a surprise for me.

Story:
Definitely not the "save the world from the evil that revived from being sealed" type of deal. It takes place in the modern day, starting with you wanting to get away from your boring life and have an actual adventure. It is an adventure, feeling at first like something that could happen to a person, and I rather liked how the mysteries started popping up. "What does this mean?" "Why would he do x?" and questions like that you could ask. I'm not one for this type of genre but I think I enjoyed it fairly well. It's still a demo so I'm sure it can go and answer the questions it brought up at the end (purposeful cliffhanger) but I feel it can also end in a rather obvious way if they decide to write it that way.

There was a mispelling of the word "referring" in "I was mostly reffering to your strange, but seemingly random, experiences..." but other than that, I felt it was written well, no other mispellings that I noticed. Each character was distinct, had their own motivations and actions. I would say it's pretty funny how they call the main a "nice guy" or "good guy" when everything he says is something rude or mean, and has 0 patience for anything. I mean, I don't even mind that he has this personality, it's just funny how they still think he's a nice guy despite showing he's pretty much a jerk.

I would have to add that there are choices to make in the game. A few, not many, but they do lead to different outcomes. Some are game over (or seem like) conditions. Some advance the plot or provide a different view on a scene. There was one time passing one that didn't really seem like a necessary choice because the scenes didn't really do much different but other than that, they seemed distinct enough.

Graphics:
The graphics seem hand made so I'll praise it for that. It worked well for what it was attempting to do. I'm sure if they used moe anime portraits, the feel of the VN would be lost or at least very different. There were various expressions for the characters, and a few backgrounds. I think it did what it had to just fine and set the tone up.

Audio:
Other than that I think the music was appropriate enough and fitting, I don't really remember much in this category. Nothing stood out as being too out of place and again seemed to work well with it. I do not know if these are custom or if they're from somewhere else, but I didn't really have any complaints in this category.

Misc:
Some issues that I did notice. Return is HIDING behind the 10th save slot! I mean, you can always right click the menu to return back to the menu. Speaking of which, you need to right click to enter the menu. I thought VNs usually had a HUD or something to tell you what the buttons did. I didn't know there was a menu because the game didn't tell me about it. It was my friend who told me that I should save before a choice, which got me to even try to figure out how to bring the menu up.

Might be renpy's fault, but I wish you could have a little bit of a pause or something because I click the screen and suddenly I've accidentally made a choice somewhere, since choices are so infrequent and usually it's a lot of dialogue.

Overall:
I enjoyed it enough, despite again not being my type of genre. It's about an hour or so, it's not really very long so it's worth a playthrough at least. I don't think I have much to critique as far as the story goes, so I'd just say to continue on with it and finish it up, after some minor tweaks. They're not even game breaking really. Good job with this!


Not rated - review by Ocean

Dragon Quest: Legacy of the Lost - by Orias_Obderhode

Title: Of Dragons and Slimes...
A well presented game...on the outside. Let me break it down for 'ya.

Dragon Quest: Legacy of the Lost is a story about a hero named Aldain (or Achii in my playthrough). His mother is sick and you go on a quest to get her healed and eventually get recommended to the king.

Story

Okay, I'm starting with the story since that's the easiest right now. The story is ...definitely not for someone like me. the intro felt slapdash as the king goes out in the front gate of his castle instead of a castle balcony or something like a true royalty does. Then he gets zapped by a wraith/whatever that bad guy is again. It just felt random.

Then that's not the only one. It's the mother's sickness that makes me want to bang my head on the table. Allow me to elaborate+summarize:

Sarah:
It's me, Doctor Rothberg. I have come down with a terrible sickness.
It's a sickness I fear I've never had before.
Rothberg:
I see...Well, my dear Sarah. Could you describe the symptoms?
Sarah:
Well... I don't feel that bad right now, really don't. It's just that every day I wake up with less and less energy than the day before. It's scaring me doctor. It seems my sickness worsens every day.
Rothberg:
Hmmm... My my... It sound's like quite the disease.
May I ask, if there are any other symptoms present?
Sarah:
That's just it...that is my only symptom.
Rothberg:
My dear, from what you are describing, I fear the worst. Sarah, I do not believe you to be sick. But instead cursed!

You know doctor, she could've been, idk, depressed, could be lacking sleep and so on and so forth. This is just too vague and general that I just went wtf. So anyway, moving on. I was asked to retrieve a moon flower and get a holy water.

Except when I went to the general store there's a moon flower there. Weird. But moving on, I went to the forest got stuck for a while since the forest doesn't even drop any clue on what I should be doing.

A few dungeons later, my mother is healed and suddenly she recommended me to the king and the king believed her. I believe that isn't the right way to recruit someone but I can pretend my mother is a super important person. But anyway, I get this mission by the king to go to this shrine. Talk to all the guards to get a boat or something and go there. Except I talked to all the guards and didn't get to proceed at all. All I know is one of them used to be a seafarer etc.

The game also talks about a Shrine. Something about creationist theory that is obviously a foreshadowing but...I didn't reach there because onto the next section:

Gameplay

Okay, I have a huge beef about this game's gameplay. Here's some of them:

In the intro, the game asks you some pair of questions. One of them is either you want to be a physical character or a magical character. Being the magey person that I am, I decided to be a magical character. Except...You don't start with a magical spell at all. Which is like, rule of RPGs man! I went to battle just mashing attack and getting bored. Which is chained with:

The whole saving only in the town. I swear, you can't save on the world map, there's no save points in dungeons and you can only save in the town. SAVE.ONLY.IN.THE.TOWN. This game was frustrating for that one. I can accept the dungeon, BUT WORLD MAP? Dude, some of us have responsibilities to go to, and I would like the ability to save anywhere in the world map just in case an emergency comes by. But nope, I end up using my warp wings to go back to the town and save and trek all the way again to know where I'm supposed to go. Not fun. Which leads to another chaining point:

If you're a character with those STR seeds, this is not a problem I guess? Just mash attack and move on. But as a Mage? It takes a while longer and it isn't until Lvl 3 you get Heal and Lvl 4 you get Frizz (Fire). This was annoying I swear to you. And because a lot of times I am almost dying, I end up going back to town or my house, heal and walk again to go wherever I'm supposed to be. It feels like GRINDING. I know DQ is all about GRINDING but by gods this is arghhh.

Aside from mashing attack on the first 3 levels and me screaming bloody murder fighting 4 slimes, 2 birds and a dragon, or some variaton at once and do nothing but mash attack and heal. I am glad that this game DOES have some nice battle small number damage formulas. I loved that aspect of the game.

At least flee is effective.

Another thing I have beef with this game is the "puzzles." Dude that forest dungeon sucked, change it. It did nothing but randomly teleport you 5x and a huge guessing where the right teleport might be. I rather have pushblock puzzles or some sort.

The other one is the marsh. I can't evade some areas with the marsh so what the hell? Good thing I bought ten herbs that majestically got decreased to two since I was fighting at the same time (I was lvl 3 when I got here 8|).

Moving on...

Music and Sounds

One of this game's good features is that the music collection and the sound effects are fitting and cute. I can't say I heard any of the BGM music before, but anyway, nice choice. It might have come from the old DQ games or something, but really. They're nice and fitting.

Graphics

It uses CUTE enemy graphics such as :


I like how it's like DQ3 (The only DQ aside from 1 and 2 that I played lol). And well, it feels like DQ. The other thing though is that I wish you went the extra mile and changed the battle animations. It was just really weird to see high res special effects on 8bit/16bit??? sprites. It broke that DQ illusion for me.

Overall

At first I thought the game looked solid. Then I saw the intro and my hopes plummeted in terms of story. Then how the gameplay was presented made me want to scream bloody murder. I think this game still can be improved on since it has a lot of nice aspects. So I can't really give this a rating. I don't like giving ratings to games that are obviously incomplete and can do better :) Good luck bro.


Not rated - review by Archeia_Nessiah