Generica

Dark Gaia plays and reviews Generica by Kentona

Generica is a short side project made by Kentona, the creator of Hero's Realm. It's an interesting concept, as it tries to emulate the look and feel of an old NES RPG the like of which you might find for 2 bucks at a pawn shop.
There are a few RM games nowadays which attempt this, so Generica, with such a concept, must be reviewed with the limitations of such games in mind.

The story in Generica is fairly simple, involving standard "you are the hero, go out and save us" fare from the NES days, and is world driven rather than character driven.
There are no characters as such as you create them yourself, but this is not a limitation as you have complete control over what class your characters will take on, and these classes are well balanced and well thought out. It's highly possible to make a party full of characters that work very well together and make up for each other's shortcomings.

The gameplay of the game is fairly faithful to a NES RPG also, but it is also fun in it's own right. You can search bookshelves and pots in towns for items, and can search underfoot for dropped loot. Most of the game is spent questing, collecting random items to advance the story a bit, but it's not as easy as it sounds.
This being an old school RPG, it can be fairly unforgiving, so don't expect any mercy if you haven't been leveling and upgrading your equipment as you should be. The battles are fun but challenging and the bosses require some forethought, and the ability to determine a weak point to defeat.
The quest isn't too long overall, but then nor were games on the NES and you'll be having so much fun in Generica's nostalgic world that it's worth it.

The graphics are in a word, terrible, but I mean this in a good way. The game uses authentic NES style graphics ripped right from Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest so it actually looks as if you are playing a game on your NES emulator from twenty years ago.
The mapping, characters and monsters you battle are all beautifully 8 bit style, and they all fit in together perfectly.
The only bad point is the font, which is the default RPG Maker 2003 font. It looks a bit too "modern" for the game's theme, and detracts from it. A custom font, like the one in Dragon Fantasy would have been ideal.

The sound, likewise is 8 bit as well, being comprised of beeping Midi files and boopong sound effects. It certainly isn't mindblowing, but it fits the game well and for NES style sound effects, they sound very faithful and are chosen well.

So, there you have it. Generica, while certainly not the best RPG around, is a good, nostalgic attempt at a NES style game and is fun in it's own right. Play it if you are looking for an hour or two of classic RPG fun.