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A Game about Defeating 8 Armies

My playtime: 04:46:12 (last save before the ending)

Intro
Port Traventor is a resource management game combined with RPG elements. As a king of the realm, you have to eliminate any risks that are endangering your land.

Graphics
The realm of Port Traventor was displayed far from the ground, where your character and enemies are displayed by pointers using their heads. Since there are only overworld maps in the game, there isn't much to say about the mapping. The use of the head display for the characters is a good choice though - they look better than the usual RPG Maker sprites in this context. Same with the pointers that denote important objects.

One thing that I want to mention is that all characters have very small heads in their portraits. Luckily, there weren't a lot of dialogues in the game.


Is your head okay?


Story
The lord, which I assumed to be your father, asked you to prove your worth by ruling the land and eliminate the threats on it. A guard will teach you the ropes, although he'll mostly stay in his house and left you on your devices. There is nothing notable about the story except for some word exchanges with some of the bosses, which turn out to be an important piece for the ending.

The build-up for the ending doesn't noticeable at all, making the ending feel empty in response. It feels as if all stars are aligned to help you in your darkest moment. One particular character also talks too much - I believed it will be better if the dialogue was made concise. There is a bit of mystery in the ending, but I felt that it was unnecessary because, again, there isn't enough build-up for the story to make it interesting.

The Game
Gameplay
Resources management is the core of this game. You'll have to build some buildings and train the villagers to help you collect more resources, which can be used to build other buildings. The cycle will keep on repeating itself until you can train some soldiers, which you can use to launch an assault on the enemy's fortress.

While this looks interesting at first, having too many resources that you must keep track of makes it hard to remember everything - I had to keep on coming back to every building to see how many resources that I needed to train a particular soldier. Strangely, I couldn't find the information in the menu despite the game giving other information such as the map and what resources I need to build a building in it.


This is all the info I have? I need more!


The game also starts to be repetitive once you reach the "training soldiers to build an army" stage. To train a soldier, you need villagers, which you can retrieve in your castle every day by a random amount, ranging from 3-5. At a minimum, 15 villagers are needed to do an attack with your army. This means that you must do the same thing over and over for 3-5 days just to build an army. To make it worse, you must do this 8 times to finish the game since your soldiers will be lost after an assault. Luckily, you will always win an assault no matter how many soldiers that you use, with 15 being the bare minimum.

Combat
Different types of enemies drop different tools that you can give to your workers to farm resources. Strangely, your workers will require one tool to farm one resource - it's as if they break their tools after one usage or something, forcing you to spend most of your time defeating these enemies for their drop. Enemies are spread on the overworld, similar to touch-encounters. However, the battle will only be initiated after you interact with them. They weren't difficult to beat at first although their numbers might overwhelm you later on.

The implementation of the last four bosses might be unique, but other bosses felt like normal enemies with higher health. There wasn't anything different nor anything special that I needed to defeat most of them. The hardest part in defeating the last four bosses are figuring out their weakness, but they also weren't that hard to beat. Although it was true that I needed several tries to defeat some bosses, it was either because I was undergeared or I didn't use the right attack from the start - your MP is limited so you need to utilize your turns efficiently to defeat the bosses without using items.

Day/Night System
Time will change as you walk the land. Different enemies will come out at different times, and merchants will only sell items during the day. The timer might feel too fast at first, especially since it was hard to collect enough resources to overuse your workers every day, but you'll cap everything soon since all items cap at a surprisingly low amount, 50.


Come out and talk to me already!


Length and Difficulty
To be honest, most of the 4h+ that I spent was purely used in grinding. There was nothing else to do apart from gathering enough resources to build new buildings or train soldiers. Exploration of new maps is discouraged due to the day/night system - time flies so fast that you'll mostly spend a full day doing nothing but exploring if you're unprepared. Plus, you also need to come back to the castle every day to claim new villagers that are essential to winning the game.

You'll eventually find a good grinding spot to grind resources and grind there for hours. I even finished the game while multitasking with something else due to how boring it is. Resources feel like nothing but a tool to train soldiers at the end game - there wasn't anything you can do but train soldiers with it.

Problems
The use of caravan in the game is nothing but an annoyance. You can't use it to travel everywhere on the map and every time you try to drop off from it, it will drop you to the south side, either blocking your path from the exit or dropping you in the direction that you don't prefer.

Pros:
- Unique resource management system

Cons:
- Boring and grindy
- Exploration was discouraged since the day/time system is too fast

Final Rating: 3/5
Although the game has an interesting concept, it fails hard at the implementation. The game could use a few tweaks of larger maps and more methods to claim villagers without going to the castle. Changing the game focus from resource grinding to assaulting the enemy's stronghold or region exploration might also be a good idea to explore. In addition, it would be better if workers can automatically send out resources every day instead of you having to manually give them tools to get the resources in the first place.

Posts

Pages: 1
Hi, aquatorrent. Thanks for the review on Port Traventor, I really appreciate it. While I agree with very few of the points you make, that's still okay. Finally, since this review is mostly centered on the cons of the game, I'm happy to see a overall rating of 3/5. I hope you'll check out my other games as well. :)
Thanks for making the game too. I was unsure whether to give it 2 or 3 star at first tbh, but i decided to go with 3. Sure, i'll check your other games later once i finished other games. It might take a while though.
author=aquatorrent
I was unsure whether to give it 2 or 3 star at first tbh, but i decided to go with 3.


Yes, I noticed from the review that this isn't your kind of game. Not a big deal, though. I do a lot of different games and perhaps another one will suit your taste more. :)
author=aquatorrent
The use of caravan in the game is nothing but an annoyance. You can't use it to travel everywhere on the map and every time you try to drop off from it, it will drop you to the south side, either blocking your path from the exit or dropping you in the direction that you don't prefer.


I'd like to announce that this problem is solved since tonight. I've finally found a way so that it's no longer possible to block your own way when getting off the caravan. I uploaded a new version a minute ago. :)
author=Tw0Face
author=aquatorrent
The use of caravan in the game is nothing but an annoyance. You can't use it to travel everywhere on the map and every time you try to drop off from it, it will drop you to the south side, either blocking your path from the exit or dropping you in the direction that you don't prefer.
I'd like to announce that this problem is solved since tonight. I've finally found a way so that it's no longer possible to block your own way when getting off the caravan. I uploaded a new version a minute ago. :)
nice job! That will make it easier to travel that area.
author=aquatorrent
nice job! That will make it easier to travel that area.

Thanks. Yes, it's much more comfortable now.
@aquatorrent:
I made a huge Update a couple of weeks ago. Wanna play the game completely without grind and totally re-balanced battles? I'd be happy to hear your oppinion about this Update as I think the game feels much different now - in a quite good way. :)
Sure, i can do that. It might take a while though since i have to play other games first.
author=aquatorrent
Sure, i can do that. It might take a while though since i have to play other games first.
Sure, no prob. :)
hello, i just realized that the game is now paid, so i won't be able to replay it. i feel that i should let you know since i said that i was going to replay the game - i don't want to leave you waiting for it.
author=aquatorrent
hello, i just realized that the game is now paid, so i won't be able to replay it. i feel that i should let you know since i said that i was going to replay the game - i don't want to leave you waiting for it.

Sure, no problem. If you don't intend to play and review commercial games, that's fine to me.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
If this has gone commercial, the gamepage should be flagged as such.
author=Marrend
If this has gone commercial, the gamepage should be flagged as such.


Yeah, right. Thanks for the heads up on this. :)
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