Faint Dawn

Introduction

In some ways I dread doing this review. This isn't because I don't have anything to say about "Faint Dawn". But I always find myself a bit hesitant to tell new developers that their first project is complete crap. After all, I don't want to discourage their efforts, but encourage them to do better. Sadly, I don't always find the right balance for that, but it seems especially difficult with this project. That's because their is very little I can say about "Faint Dawn" that is positive. Though, I suppose I'll get to those elements in due time.

Story

The story of "Faint Dawn" is rather paper thin on the face of it. Your goal is to simply hunt down the source of all of the rampaging monsters on the planet Kyzen and eliminate it. In other words, your a simple monster hunter whose task is to kill any monster dumb enough to get in your way.

On the plus side, the game does hint at some deeper mysterious surrounding the game's main character as well as the game's simple plot. On the downside, the game really doesn't offer a satisfying ending to those mysterious. And that's if it offers any answer to those mysterious at all.

Gameplay

Where the game truly falls apart in my opinion is the combat system. After all, you can get away with a paper thin story if the game can make up for it with engaging combat that really pushes the player to think outside the box in terms of skill usage and whatnot. Sadly, you'll spend the bulk of your time in this game just spamming your basic attack over and over again for hours at a time. This is because the game only gives you access to a rather small repertoire of special techniques. Those techniques being an enhanced regular attack, a group technique that hits as hard as your regular attack roughly does, and a move to buff your attack stat for five turns. You can always gain access to an ultimate technique as well, but all of those are attached to the final series of weapons you can purchase in the game's final town. And those weapons don't become available until you've taken down a certain boss. Which means if your not the type of person to revisit towns in order to see if they've upgraded their weapon and item stock. You'll probably miss out on the option to equip a weapon that lets you reign shining death lasers and spatial anomalies on your enemies. Of course, the biggest problem with these ultimate techniques is that you'll probably only be able to use them on the game's final boss. After all, it's hard to gain enough TP in battles against regular enemies in order to unleash these moves.

Another annoying oddity with this game is that enemies in the later dungeons give you less money than those in the earlier areas. I always find myself scratching my head when people do this. After all, it really doesn't make sense for hard enemies to give you less money in a game like this. Though, I suppose the developer was afraid if they allowed the player to more easily farm large amounts of money and experience at the same time the game would be easier to beat. Especially seeing as how you can buy permanent stat boosters in most of the shops. Albeit, those shops really charge you an arm and leg for those items.

Graphics

Where "Faint Dawn" really manages to stand out is in terms of its original enemies, title screen, and ending screen. Sadly, these aren't enough to save this game by any means, but they do help give the game a bit of a unique flavor.

Conclusion

"Faint Dawn" is an extremely boring game to play. This is because the game requires around four hours or so of grinding in order to beat. As you can imagine this makes for a rather monotonous task when your best option for dealing with groups of enemies is to usually spam your basic attack option until you win. Add in the lack of a solid plot to make up for these gameplay weaknesses and your left with a game whose only saving grace are some enemy sprites and pieces of art work. And while these are nice to look at. If I merely wanted a visual treat I'd go play "Final Fantasy XIII" again.