BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm

Hello and welcome to the review of BoxxyQuest (+ dlc!).

BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm is a 2018 videogame made in RPG Maker XP by SpherianGames, in collaboration with voice actress and former YouTube star Catherine (Catie) Wayne, none other than Boxxy (boxxybabee), that started her career in 2008 with some videos first on Youtube, then reposted on the site i-am-bored.com later in the year, and finally eventually appeared on 4chan. BUT please search wikipedia for more info on this, since it was a long time ago, I have a terrible memory and I'm here to review this game. The important thing is that this game tells the story of a girl named Catie, (both named for and voiced by Wayne), and her adventures within the internet.


Uhmmm good questions, pity that I've no good answers for you!

This is NOT the first game about Catie and her bizarre adventures, this is in fact a sequel to BoxxyQuest: The Shifted Spires, the developer’s first project made in 2012. However, new players are officially encouraged to start with The Gathering Storm, that is available here, on Itch.io and Steam for free since 2020. But, SURPRISE! In 2021 was realeased a DLC, also available here, that takes place in the post game and opens up two new areas- Newgrounds and Etsy. This part is an extra adventure where the Social Justice Warriors (a group of secondary villains that you encounter on the main quest) have kidnapped some Furries from two villages and taken over Newgrounds. This part includes sidequests, the possibility to collect plushies and buy and decorate a house in Etsy.

But let's start the story from the beginning:
BoxxyQuest: The Shifting Spires saw Catie as an amnesiac heroine fighting the masked villain Boxxyfan, that wanted to destroy the Boxxysphere with the help of the thrill-seeker wanderer Anonymous. The game is apparently unavailable now, but you can read the whole story HERE.


Uhm, should I trust the clone of the good old Steve from Minecraft?

BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm sees the return of the heroine in this immense virtual world that represent the internet: the various websites are the city states of this fantasy world, from Reddit to Tumblr, from TvTropes to Youtube, and so on. And just like in the real internet, these various places and their leaders are involved petty political struggles... until an unknown force starts wiping sites and turning users into glitched, zombie-like abominations! So the leasers of the sites... uhm cities... decide to set aside their differences and work together, Catie, as the queen of a small forum (see the previous adventure), is on her way to the peace conference. And this is just the beginning of an epic journey to save the internet, filled with surprises and secrets!

Oh yes, despite the apparent premise of being "just" a little Boxxy fan-game this is a real classic long jrpg adventure, that despite the semi-satirical representation of the internet it features battles, puzzles, sidequests, optional boss fights (eighteen!), and the classic journey about friendship and making new friends. The game includes various endings, including a secret weird epilogue (also called "False Ending") that was reminiscent of Evangelion!


Despite the humor this is still a classic jrpg so expect some serious battles! Here we are fighting various enemies in the arena.

Speaking about friends, the game is a party-based jrpg: besides Catie/Boxxy we have Anonymous from the first game, a member of the infamous 4chan tribe, Eddie, a Wikipedia guard, Til, a hipster girl from Tumblr, Shift, a YouTube resident, and Tyalie from GameFAQs. This ragtag bunch of crazy guys and girls at first is created because each charactes has his/her own personal reason or quest, but later they will learn to cooperate and be friends despite their different origins.

Party members means that there is combat, of course! There are locations with random encounters, others with touch encounters, and also some safe areas without encounters! The game uses a slightly modified RPG Maker XP standard battle system with first person view of the battleside and four active party members, but it offers the opportunity to switch party members during battles. Since this is the internet, skills have names like Maximum Trolling, Wikileaks and Meme Hysteria, status conditions like poisoned, slowed and incapacitated are renamed Virus, Lag and Banned, but aside for that the combat in this game is really classic. And challenging, sometimes even very difficult when you have to face bosses (that in some cases are able to one-shot a party member!), so do not expect a joke game!


Yes, there are airships in this game. I would be surprised if they were not present! But I admit I did not expect the youtubers!

Dungeons (it's a fantasy jrpg so of course there are dungeons) are really well designed, the developer here did the best, I especially liked the GameFAQs Towers that includes puzzles and platforming sequences! Oh yes, the game has some switch puzzles, action segments (minecart racing, air vehicle maneuvering and dodging obstacles/projectiles), riddles and other activites, for the most part they are well designed (and luckily some cases you can skip them).
Oh I forgot, you can save the game at the Goddess Statue, but only once before breaking... luckily it can be upgraded to Everlasting Goddess Statue (which lets you save on-the-go infinitely) by winning in the Arena (of course there is an Arena, like in every other Jrpg worth of its name!).

Graphics and music are a mix of ripped sprites but they're always used in a competent and appropriate way, so I won't complaint despite a certain "sprite-dissonance" in some cases, if you confront for example Catie and Anonymous sprite with Til and most peasants/npcs that use a different style and also look differently aligned. It's a really minor issue, I know, still that this little imprecision and visual dissonance unnerved me. On the other hand mapping is pretty cool, from the world map to the various villages and towns, I found it pretty brilliant and competently made. The Reddit for example is a beautiful resort with a nearby beach but also with horrible slums, the Downvote area (and an absolutely unbearable leader!). Brilliant idea, and great realization, trust me this is such a varied and well crafted world to explore. But this is enough, let's end the review!


Hey hey hey! Look who we've found here!

Final Verdict
Despite everything like the presence of Slenderman, My Little Ponies, Hatsune Miku and other popular characters, despite a Hype Train that is actually a true train and the Deep Web that is a dark dungeon, despite all the satire BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm is a full-fledged old-school Jrpg. Yes. A serious and well designed epic 30 hours (or more) fantasy adventure! This game is pretty good and enjoyable except for some parts like the platform sequences that cannot be skipped, not so well balance combat and the unfortunately possibility to permanently miss some rewards. Pity for these issue, because with a lot of quests, items (some of these can be arned exchanging Bitcoins for them!) and easter eggs you can have a lot of fun! Because yes, there are no serious bugs or issues with this game, so it's a long and enjoyable journey for the most part, despite some minor problems (not uncommonly found in other Jrpgs too) that an experienced player could be able to overlook. A classic.