Rhukaat: Broken Chain Plus

Battle System- 2/5
Definitely a weak point in this game. The core of this lies with the fact that the battles are just too easy. You actually spend several levels without any skills to use period, but that doesn't matter because every enemy goes down swiftly from a few normal attacks. HP is on the high side and you'll probably go through entire dungeons without having to heal. When you finally do get abilities they have ridiculously low costs compared to your mp pool, in particular healing which is practically free. Ability lists are on the small side, so through the entire game you probably won't be doing much more than using attack and one or two skills per character. The fourth party member who joins you also tends to be rather useless in combat.

There is one difficult fight in the game, and it comes right before the final boss. You fight two extremely strong opponents, one who uses powerful spells and another who is capable of paralyzing the entire party. It comes out of nowhere and will likely force you to spend some time grinding in a game which you have probably been blowing through up to this point. It's worth noting that while fighting the final boss I took no damage at all. The boss spent several turns attempting to debuff my party with single target debuffs (and failing I might add), and buffing itself. Your experience may vary, but for me the boss died before performing a single offensive maneuver.

Storyline- 3/5
A rather generic quest about an order of paladins fighting to take down a group of evil black mages. There is some crystal collection involved here but it never really becomes the focus of the story. Instead of actively seeking them out you sort of just stumble across them, and the villains acquire most of them off screen. Most of the game is spent fighting actively against the mages, though for the most part nothing is accomplished until the finale. The script is on the light side and you won't spend a lot of time reading. It felt as though the author was rushing the conclusion at the very end, as a lot of pivotal events occur without much buildup. Before you know it you're fighting against the final boss. Overall I felt the story was on the average side. The writing was actually of a very high quality, though I'm disappointed there wasn't a more interesting plot to go along with it.

Characters- 2/5
This category ends up faltering a bit. The two main characters are paladins from the order mentioned previously. They appear to have a bit of a rivalry at the start of the game, but this is never expanded on and pretty much falls through entirely a few hours into it. Overall the cast seems underdeveloped; a few of the characters get almost no development period. The worst part is easily the fourth character who joins at the end of the game just to fill a party slot before the final boss. The villain is on the stereotypical side, and though there is a small plot twist involving a few characters it never really has any impact on anything. When it came down to it I just didn't care about any of these people.

Level Design- 4/5
You'll be spending a lot of your time walking through small dungeons in this game. Most of them are quite well put together, if simple in design. You usually don't spend much time in one area before rapidly moving on to the next. The towns are a bit on the weak side as they usually consist of nothing more than identical buildings pasted next to each other. Although the mapping is weak in that regard, most towns have a few small subquests you can accomplish to gain a bit of extra loot or items. The dungeons have no real puzzles to speak of. Nothing more complicated than a switch puzzle here or there. One feature I liked is the world map was done away with completely. You instead find yourself traveling through various forests and valleys in search of the next town. It helps give the world a nice cohesive feeling, and makes traveling from one point to another a lot more interesting. It's actually difficult for me to pinpoint just what I liked so much about this category, but regardless I found myself enjoying the level design more than in most games.

Graphics- 3/5
Mostly RTP here, though everything is well put together. As far as I could tell all the battlers were taken from a single artist, which gives the game a nice consistent feel. The game doesn't really go out of its way to impress you in this category but everything looks nice enough.

Music/Sound- 3/5
Mostly rips from various popular games here, though it wasn't as recognizable as some RM games tend to be. Everything is placed well enough but overall also forgetable.

Random stuff I liked-
Nothing in particular I haven't already mentioned.

Random stuff I hated-
At one point you are asked to clear out a castle full of monsters. This entire dungeon consists of the same encounter over and over again, specifically a single easy enemy that happened to be present in groups in an earlier dungeon. It felt like a gigantic waste of time.

Final Thoughts-
This is a game with no glaring problems whatsoever. It doesn't do much to rise above the competition either, but if you need a solid title to kill a few hours it's worth the download. There's a sequel on the way, and if the author has improved it's definitely worth keeping watch for it..