Rhukaat: Broken Chain Plus

My first review!

In the one and a half months I've been working on this game, I'm very impressed what this game has to offer, even if it is short. It is basically about a battle between the dark mages and the paladins, battling for the rhukaat crystals. The main protagonists are Keo and Velmont, both Paladins. Before anyone says anything, yes, I did enjoy this game. Now, let's get down to business:

Story: 6/10

There are 2 sides in a battle, like always: The Black Mages, who seek to use the rhukaat crystals to take control of the world, etc, and the Paladins, who protect the world and the rhukaat, etc. A classic tale between good and evil has been done in most, if not all, RPGS ever created. There is originality, however. Now there are crystals involved!...wait, I've seen that too. So basically, another RPG game. Don't worry, I can't think of any other formula to use in making an RPG besides good vs. evil.

What I did see as a problem, though, was the plot itself. Although this game was very linear, it is not the kind of game someone with a short attention span would play. I was a little lost in a few places, and I couldn't understand a few plot points. Some grammatical errors were found; I don't usually use the term "avalanche" with a desert setting. For the actual story, the paladins, Keo and Velmont, must travel through the world to stop the Dark Mages from collecting all of the rhukaat crystals. A little flat, but not flat enough to turn me off of the game. The side things, such as finding a cat for a little girl, collecting the sheep for a farmer, and saving a small town from a drought, all give a little life to the game, but more should have been added. Another thing, it was a short game, given the amount of time I worked on it...


Gameplay: 6/10

The gameplay is something you would expect from any RPG: Go to a town, do whatever the people want you to do, get the best weapons and armor you can afford, go to the dungeon/tower, defeat the monsters and the boss, claim reward, move on. Usually, though, there's a world map which connects every town and dungeon to each other. Shaboba did not incorporate a world map in the game, which is something I personally didn't take too kindly of. However, Shaboba's instead uses field maps to connect places together, whether a maze-like forest or plain, or crossing a body of water. See below for more detail on these maps. The maps where the players had to cross water were a little too small, making exploration little to none. Oh, and there was one thing that I had a problem with:

YOU CAN'T GO BACK TO PREVIOUS TOWNS!!!!!

I always like going back to the previous town/area to train if the monsters in the next area were too strong for me. The good thing is that this wasn't necessary, which is also bad. The regular monsters in this game were too easy for my party, causing me to easily level up, no grinding needed. The bosses at first were easy, then they became too tough. I happened to beat the last few bosses entirely by luck. I had run out of healing items and thought I was dead, and since I couldn't go back to the previous town...I had to wing it. I managed to beat the game at level 12, making this game a little too short for me. The battle system in the game is basically the same as the default, except you can see your characters on the screen. This makes the monsters look way too huge. It was pretty funny watching my team get attacked by giant flowers, but I was attacked by giant dogs and that wasn't so funny. Going back to previous towns would help with more side-quests and more story. Money in the game was hard to come by, and there was a lot of better equipment I never bought, although it didn't make a difference.


Characters: 6/10

None of the characters were too rememberable, except Velmont's brother and his servant, which I think were very cool. In fact, the characters were so unrememerable that I don't remember their names, and I was stupid enough to not write them down! Besides the main three, Keo, a paladin, Velmont, another paladin, and Lyone, a magic man, everyone else just joins the party temporarily to get what's needed to get done in their little area. Adding a party changing script may have been best to keep all of the characters, since I prefer a wide variety of characters to fight as. What I did like, though, was some of their movesets. Lyone was unstoppable with his shock spell, and Velmont went from very weak to powerful when he learned Light. Keo had heal and raise, which weren't upgraded to stronger forms, unless he learned them at higher levels, which I never made it to. The spells for the the rest of the characters weren't too balanced, and I didn't use half of those spells while playing the game. The very last character to join was very weak, her only good point was burst.
And I don't remember seeing any more paladins except Keo and Velmont...Did they all die?

Mapping/Graphics: 7/10

I completely loved most of the mapping in this game. From the towns, to castles and dungeons, The mazes were thought out very well and the castles have a regal feeling about them. Something I noticed was that while I liked the layout of the regular houses, I was surprised to see the same exact layout in every house. The only things that changed were the tilesets and obviously the people inside them. Speaking of tilesets, I liked whatever tilesets Shaboba used in making this game, although there were some graphical problems. At the outside shops, I was standing on the wooden wall, with part of my head chopped off. The amazing mapping skills make up for this. Another thing I noticed was that all of the characters looked brighter than usual. It gave a very green-like color to this game.
If only these mapping skills were used to make a world map...


Music/sounds: 7/10

The music was another strong point of this game. It was all very fast-paced and lively. The standard battle music was great as well, as was the boss musics. The final boss music, however, didn't really stand out from the rest of the music. I thought I had heard the exact same melody every minute or so. It made me think the track lasted for only half a minute. The sounds are RTP, so just the average sounds.


Overall: 6/10 or 3/5

In general, I enjoyed playing Rhukaat: Broken Chain Plus. It made me think of mapping and concepts for my own RPG game. While this game lacks in story depth and characters who you would remember all the way to the end, it makes up for it with its beautiful presentation. It's hard to have a great story and gameplay with horrible graphics and sound, and it would be even worse to be lacking all of these features at all; this game just about comes in the upper middle in each aspect, and that's what separates this game from those who have recieved a score of 2.5 and below. So basically, this game isn't one of the best I've played, but it is far from the worst. Keep up the good work, Shaboba, if you are making any more games.

What you should consider in making future games:
-Make the game longer!
-Increase the difficulty, but not so much to annoy the player.
-Put some witty quotes and dialog.
-World map?
-Check all of your events and make sure there are no collision problems.
-Either remove your characters from the screen, or make your monster graphics smaller.
-Minigames/sidequests would be nice.
-Don't give up! This game has a lot of potential!

If this game was Shaboba's first RPG game completed, it was good for a first timer!