• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS

Epic story, epic battle system

From RPG Maker Game Reviews:

Score: 86/100



Concept
You are Kaan, the chief of the tribe, and your lands are being invaded. Can you save your daughter? Can you gather enough allies to turn back the tide of this new enemy?


The Score
Story: 10/10

There was a fairly long cutscene at the beginning of the game that had me confused, but as I played and talked to more people, who the characters were and who they were referring to started to make more sense. By the end of my playthrough, I could appreciate the richness of the world the developer is building and was interested to see whether Kaan would be successful.


Characters: 10/10
A lot of the charm of the game rests on the character’s personalities. There was enough dialog that I could really get a sense of who each person in the party was.


Writing: 8/10
I like the show vs. tell method by which the developer revealed the story, and everything about the skills, items, etc. was easy to understand. I am taking a couple of points off, though, for the typos that I noticed.


Mapping: 7/10
The maps were full and expansive. I didn’t appreciate how the developer hemmed me in, though. It would be one thing if there was something in my way, making it so that I couldn’t go somewhere, but to have an invisible line I couldn’t cross broke the immersion of the game.


Art: 8/10
The artwork uses the RPG Maker assets and tries to set the mood with custom artwork, such as the backdrops for the intro scene. To me, both look nice, but the two don’t go together. The first thing you see is the custom artwork, which then makes the actual game assets look cartoony in comparison.


Creative Game Design: 10/10
Besides story, the highlight of The Lost is the intricate battle system. You can take advantage of row formations, strengths and vulnerabilities, and a wide variety of skills and items. The game relies a lot on battling, and DutchPowerCreations has put a lot of love into this aspect.


Gameplay: 8/10
There were times that I felt like conversations with party members or NPCs went on too long, but other than that, the game was very enjoyable. Even the battles, despite how many there were, never seemed to drag, because of the strength of the battle system and the challenge involved.


Technical: 10/10
The Lost runs well with no bugs or glitches, and you can tell the work the developer has put into customizing the game, both in the battle system but also in the presentation of the game’s menus and HUD information.


Music: 10/10
The various music tracks fit the mood of each scene and is pleasant to listen to.


Sound: 5/10
The game doesn’t make much use of sound effects, though there are a couple of nice touches added to the intro scene. I’d like to see more sound effects used to accompany the events on the map. Other than that, voice acting would be a great addition.


Recommendation
If you’re looking for an epic story and an epic battle system, I think this is it. Just remember that this is the demo, so I’m not sure how much of an ending the developer has provided yet.


_ _ _

Would you like to see your game reviewed?

Posts

Pages: 1
Are you allowed to star-rate demos?
The demo can be downloaded here, so why shouldn't users be able to rate it? If I were a developer, though, this is the exact reason why I wouldn't publish a demo. In this regard, I agree with you that it shouldn't be possible to rate demos. Generally speaking, there's no need to take demo reviews seriously or to get worked up over them, especially when it comes to rather superficial demo reviews like this one.
First off thank you for your opinion! As a developer I don't mind getting rated or not but the reviews do give me a general opinion of how the game is doing.

The demo total length is around 5-10 hours of gameplay. Though it is a demo it has been tested and improved before this release.
Generally reviewers tend not to rate demos, but it's not against the rules to do so - it's just less hassle when a full version or update that fixes some issues is released in the future since the overall star amount is based on a culmination of all star ratings.

So if a game gets a 2-star review for it's demo, then does a ton of work and the game is now a 5 star game when it's complete, it'd be dragged down in rating to a 3.5 star overall. Of course, the more reviews the hypothetical game gets, the higher the score, but it'd never get 5 stars even if every other review was that high.

Of course, reviewers can edit the scores of their reviews.
Firstly, I don't play demos, and thus, I would never review demos. This is why I think that demo players should contact the developer to share their criticism instead of using a review to provide feedback. We're all only human, so most developers will probably be more inclined to listen to feedback if they don't receive it in the form of a low-star review that ruins the game's score for all eternity. I know that not everyone shuns playing demos like I do, and that demos are a great opportunity for developers to receive feedback, so rating demos will always be a point of contention.

Secondly, there aren't many reviewers that change their scores later, which is understandable: I wouldn't want to play through a game again years later if I already didn't enjoy it the first time. This means that potential players should rely on their media competence (yeah, I know it isn't smart to hope that other people are/act smart), i.e. they should notice the review's publication date and the state of the game at that time.

Long story short: If it was technically feasible to only rate completed games, I would support the implementation of this feature. Some important game review sites like Kotaku even do without ratings by now, and while I understand that many people desire quick orientation provided by scores, it's always better to completely read in-depth reviews.
I always let the testers and reviewers now that this is a demo (a long demo but yes, a demo of 5 to 10 hours of gameplay). I also state it in every aspect possible (Title, tag, pm's etc.) I'm sorry if anyone is still confused but it should be pretty clear.

I can understand why some people prefer not to play demo's but as stated by Kyle I put out this demo for two reasons; 1. to get feedback, but the main reason 2. for the general opinion of players liking or disliking the game idea. So far I am pretty proud of the ratings I received as they are all above average (again a lot of thanks for their honest opinions!).
Pages: 1