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Has much potential, a good first effort.

  • Waxius
  • 04/18/2018 01:55 PM
  • 1265 views
The Last Stand - by Meteomage



First Thoughts:
The Last Stand is a learning project for Meteomage and it currently a work in progress. It is made in RPG Maker MV and contains mostly the native assets for that engine. Because it is a demo, and improvements are being made to game over time, I'll refrain from giving it a rating.

Story:
You are Avery, a young orphaned girl living with a band of thieves, starving for food. Avery has a kind heart, even if she has to steal to survive. After hunting rabbits with her father figure Marcus, the weather forces them to find shelter in town. Here, Avery and Marcus learn about the towns problems (being overtaxed by the King). They also have a monster problem coming from a cave south of town. Avery decides to help them, even if her reasons are self-serving at first.



But during the course of clearing out monsters, Avery begins to actually care about this town and the people in it. Things get dicey once Kaizen, the tax collector, comes to visit the town, and after pushing him back, the town is now in great danger facing the wrath of the King himself.

Game Play:
The game play is pretty standard RPG Maker MV. The battles are side view with some nice zooming when special attacks are used. Random battles are frequent and you have a decent chance of running away when you need to. You can rest and fully heal at the campfire, inn, or at a specified save points inside the caves and dungeons.

There are also puzzles and mini games. You can race with Skid at the hideout for a prize, as well as take an intelligence test. In the caves there is a switch puzzle, to remove an obstacle in your path.

Your character walks pretty fast, so it's recommended to leave auto dash off in the settings and hold the shift key only when you need to sprint.

Graphics and Music:
The tilesets and mapping is fairly basic, but I did like how characters of interest have names over their heads, giving you an indication that this is someone you should talk to. In town, there's someone with the title of "Old Man" whom you should definitely talk to if you have 100G!



The battle backgrounds are nice, even if the characters look very small compared to the rest of the backdrop. Fighting rats in basement of the dining hall made me laugh out loud. I just didn't notice how small the characters actually are until reaching this point.



Overall:
I think what Meteomage has here is a good start, and the game has a lot of potential. Mapping and graphics can be updated in increments, and the story can use a bit of polishing. I would definitely like to see more of this game as the story develops.

Below are some thoughts for the developer, based on my opinion and observations, others may feel differently:


I think the character Marcus could be a bit stronger. His damage is much less than Avery's, even with his best available weapon. He also MISSED hitting most of the enemies he attacked.

I need a better explanation of how TP points work. Do they increase when you get hit, or guard, or just over time? It also seems that if I rest at the inn, the TP goes down to zero.

The puzzle room in the cave was frustrating, not because of the puzzle itself, but the random battles that happen while I'm trying to solve it. I was trying to move around the map to see how many rock piles there were and a battle started, and after it was over I lost count. I would recommend turning off random battles at least in the puzzle room.

Posts

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Thank you for the review!

It really helps me to stay motivated, and I will definitely take your suggestions into consideration
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