Zack's Ultimate RPG Lite

I just finished the demo and had a ton of fun playing it!! I logged 1 hour and 39 minutes on my last save file, after beating the secret boss and running around enjoying all the post-game stuff to cap it off~

For people who haven't played the demo yet, you'll be blown away by the battle system. Every encounter takes place on-screen with an ingenious turn-based interface using common events, it made me wonder why the heck I never thought of doing something like that. It must've taken bicfarmer a lot of blood, sweat and tears to implement, though.

The way skills work in the game is really original as well, the damage you do is always a fixed amount starting from your attack/magic stat, which you can buff with certain skills, and enemies' attacks work the same way, meaning it becomes a pretty fun numbers game as you get in "duels" with your foes trying to be the first to whittle down each other's HP. One of my favorite skills to use was "Wind", which has a fixed damage rate of 2 plus the number of turns you've had in battle...so let's say you've taken 10 turns in battle, that means if you use "Wind" then you'll do 12 points of damage which is a LOT in this game, and on the next turn it'll be 13, then 14, etc. which is awesome~

Another neat feature is that once you start up the game, you're given the option of choosing between four different perks:
1. You can save anytime anywhere (this is what I went with and it made me feel a lot more secure)
2. You get a starter pack of equipment (all you get normally is a sword at the start, I don't know what you get if you pick this but it sounds useful)
3. You get two insta-kill items (would be very useful for a couple boss fights, but eh, it feels like cheating...apparently each use of them decreases your max HP by 20 though, which is a nice penalty)
4. You start with 200 G (might be the most useful option, money is painfully hard to come by in this game and inventory management gets tricky, but it's definitely doable and I had fun with the challenge)

As far as the story and characters go, this game takes a really lighthearted approach that I really enjoyed, it's very tongue-in-cheek and has a bunch of great meta-humor later on. I was really sad when I realized there was nothing left to explore because I was excited to get to places like the Cemetery and Harbor Town, which are places mentioned in the demo but never reached.

Overall I'd say this demo is absolutely worth downloading, it's short and sweet, has an excellent original battle system and will keep you entertained start to finish. I can't wait for more!!