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So Where Does This Go in the Trademark Fo(r)mar Arum Universe?

  • Frogge
  • 01/21/2019 03:36 PM
  • 1146 views

Liberty and Anarchy by Formar0153
Length: ~15 minutes




It's kind of interesting to see how many RMN games Liberty has actually starred in over time. Somebody needs to make the gal an iMDB page except for games she's cameo'd in. Across delivering small flavor text in Midsummer Dreams 2010 to being a cowboy sherrif in Delsin's game, Liberty's basically become a sort of stock character at this point. Liberty and Anarchy is no exception, the game being a present for her birthday by the rocket scientist developer Formar.

Anyway, let's see what this one has in store for us. L&A is actually a boss rush game, interestingly, so the main focus obviously goes to the battles. And yeah, the battles are actually pretty good! They're very simple and extremely easy, but I had fun with them. The hardest boss is probably the final boss and the dragon, as those are the only two that managed to kill me more than once. Each battle has a sort of unique mechanic to it, and while very simple, I do enjoy the variety. I also like how the game in a semi-free order. Basically, you have to fight the first three bosses to unlock the rest, which you then have to kill all (?) of to unlock the battle with Caz and then move onto the final boss. It kind of reminds me of Titan Souls in that regard since it's you're not quite completely free in choosing each boss you will fight or the order, but it's also not quite linear.


Big oof


While not really much of a complaint about the battles themselves, I did sort of wish instead of generic monsters, we had RMN themed ones. The fights themselves are fun, but I really don't feel like they add that much to the game considering this is supposed to be a sort of community RMN game. What if instead of a generic slime, you had to fight the RMN diamond thing? You could fight the logo, the forums, or you could have even just fought other members. Some flavor text for defeating those would be really fun too.

I also did find a few skills to be pretty useless. I never ended up using the skill that buffs your max HP since it actually increases it by a pretty useless small amount. I also couldn't figure out how to actually change your stance, so I just had aggressive stance turned on for the entire game.

Now with most of the work going into the battles, the rest of the game's aspects don't really hold up as much, as to be expected of a game made in only two days. The visuals for one are not really anything outstanding. Even just for RTP, a lot of the maps simply fall bland. I will admit that the mechanic of being able to turn the world upside down is pretty fun, and being able to walk below the bottom walls is a neat little detail, but the castle really could have looked better. Visual glitches are fairly common, with enemies floating in the air or autoshadows in places where they probably shouldn't be. My other small suggestion would be to color Libby's name so that it stands out a bit more from the dialogue.


Mommy, mommy, that slime's floating! (Also pictured: why you should use word wrapping scripts in your games, kids.)


But while lacking in presentation, the dialogue itself isn't really all that bad. I enjoyed most of the jokes, and the ending was actually a half decent twist. I do wish Formar and Caz both got a little more screen time. It just feels weird to me to have a game about somebody's birthday and give them a game with RTP monster battles instead of a larger focus on that person and their friends.

Anyway, L&A is still a pretty fun game to spend 15 minutes on. There's minor issues here and there, but for a game made in two days, it's really not bad. Dialogue is brief, but what's there is pretty good. That being said, I would probably only recommend this game to anyone looking for some unique-ish, fun battles.

I think Formar did a pretty good job for two days. Oh, and remember to always call him Formar! He hates being called Fomar, so don't mistake the two! ALWAYS Formar, never Fomar.

I give this game three presents out of five.

Posts

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Thanks for the review, I asked Liberty what she wanted and she wanted Polearms and a solo character game. Hence why Caz and I went from glamerous super amazing co-stars to disgruntled villains.

It didn't really occur to me to use RMN for the enemies. That would have been better, as for graphics I at least rotated the battle backgrounds!!!

Anyway glad you found it fun.
You change your stance by using the Q and W keys. Though, I think your opinion on the quality of the combat on display in this game would massively shift if you were aware of how to change your stance. This is because the defensive stance is pretty OP in my opinion.
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