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Never lost his innocence...

  • Waxius
  • 04/16/2018 01:30 AM
  • 1356 views
Elf's Diary - by Starmage



First Thoughts:
Elf's Diary by Starmage is a fun fantasy adventure story with Christian themes and very challenging gameplay! The music is engaging and the graphics mapping is simply beautiful. I am actually sad right now writing this review, because that means I finished the game, and I didn't want the game to end.

Story:
You play as a Half-Elf, Half-Fairy, named Faint. Faint is a wide-eyed idealist character who sees the world through a child's eyes. He takes naivety to a whole new level, and only sees the good in people. This makes him annoying to other characters who make fun of him and even bully him at times. His father Rolf, a full-blood fairy, fears for his safety knowing how the world actually is. Faint's mother, on the other hand, encourages him and supports him no matter what.

The little town of Karonna is currently without heroes, because they are busy on the other side of the kingdom fighting monsters. Lately, it appears that monsters are encroaching on the village and attacking people, and there's nobody to protect them.

Faint and his friends would like to start a guild, so that they may serve and protect the people of Karonna from monsters just outside its walls. Some people think it's a silly idea, but Faint is determined to make it work, and has faith that God will help him see it through.



In order to realize his dream, Faint will have to recruit new members, establish a headquarters, get registered at the mayor's office, stop monsters from coming from the EAST, WEST, and SOUTH directions, and get their guild recognized throughout as the defenders of their fair village.

Game Play:
Elf's Dairy was made in RPG Maker VX Ace, but the battle system has an interesting mechanic I've not seen before. While the game is turn-based, your characters each bring with them an "Action Point". If you have three characters, then you'll have three action points at the start of the battle. What is interesting is that you can spend those points on any character actions you want. So if you need Faint to heal the party twice and attack once, you can do that, but the other characters will do nothing. After your points are all spent, the monsters take their turn (they have action points too, though it's behind the scenes!).

Early in the game, Faint will learn the "Swift" skill. This is like Haste in a way, because it increases your agility, and it also gives you another Action Point to spend next turn. This increase stays and only reduces down if your agility returns to normal or you are KO'd. You can continue to cast swift on yourself or your party members and gain new action points until to reach a limit of 10.

That said, the challenge of the battles in this game involves making sure you have enough action points and are spending them wisely. Attacking, casting a spell, using a skill, or drinking a potion all cost 1 point each. The only free action that I know of is using a "Life Essence" potion to bring someone back from Dead Status.

Another aspect of game play that surprised me, and also challenged me, was that there are no re-spawning enemies whatsoever. I didn't realize the ramifications of this dynamic until late in the game, which made the last few bosses very difficult for me. You see, I pressed on with battles even if one or more of my characters was dead. Dead characters don't get experience and don't level up.



PRO TIP: Because enemies don't respawn.. and you don't get experience if you are KO'd, you cannot get that experience back, ever! The solution is to save your game before each battle, and restore if ANY of your party members die and miss out on experience.

I'm not sure how often I let Kaliah die in combat, but by the end of the game, she was useless to me except for her Dispel Skill. Perhaps if I leveled her up more, she might have had something better up her sleeve.

"The developer doesn't give you more than you can handle...", isn't that how the saying goes?

I still appreciated the challenge even if I did have to fight the Frost Witch about 6 or so times! I was beginning to think that I had made the game unwinnable, because there was no place to grind exp. But, I switched up strategies, and eventually found an attack/healing pattern that worked and I was finally able to defeat her! Same thing goes for the boss immediately after her. I had to die a few times before I found something that worked.

Graphics and Music:
As far as I can tell, there's a mix of the native VX ACE graphics with custom drawn people and monsters. I love the village with animals walking around, and butterflies near flowers and plants. Inside the forest are heavy shadows, giving you that feel of being in dense foliage. The animation is smooth and nothing looked out of place or weird. The music has a mix of Medieval and Orchestra tracks, which is exciting and serene. The final boss music was very cool as well, definitely one to listen to outside the game.



Overall:
I really enjoyed playing Elf's Diary. After about 6 hours of gameplay, I didn't want it to end. While I believe it's possible to finish the game in three hours, I made sure to talk to every NPC, and search all nooks and crannies. I died a lot with the final bosses, but it was satisfying to overcome those challenges without being able to grind for experience and come back stronger. Story-wise, the ending was bittersweet for me and left open to interpretation. We see a flashback to how it all began, which makes sense, but I was left with more questions than answers. Did Rue and Bert ever resolve their differences? Does Faint understand the world better? (I.E. what happy leaves are and that "girlfriend" does NOT mean "a friend who's a girl") Do others respect him now? I choose to think that yes.. he's all grown up now!

I highly recommend Elf's Diary! It is a complete game with a very engaging and face paced storyline. It is made from a Christian point of reference and in the Church itself the NPC's will quote the bible. It's not required to enter the church to drive the plot, so you are free decide if this is right for you or not. From my experience, the Christian references do not come across as "Preachy", and was therefore not a detractor for me. My conclusion is that the game is great just how it is right now.

Posts

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Thank you so much once again for this, Waxius!! ^_^ You already sent me this review via PM Beforehand, and I have expressed to you how happy I was with this review!! :) ^_^

I am SO SO Glad that you enjoyed the game, Waxius! It is truly an honor, and you have brought the game justice be not finding the religious context "Preachy"! ^_^ I am so happy with that! So thanks so much once again, Waxius! ^_^ You have all the more inspired me to improve my game making skills as well as putting Chirstian references without being preachy! ^_^ :)

I can't wait to watch the LP! ^_^
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