Tragedy of Rupert

Hello.
The first thing I will write here is that when I started The Tragedy of Rupert I was really confused because in the beginning you start from Chapter 4 and have to fight against the final boss!
Oh yes!

In the beginning I believed that there was an error about the party starting placement, then I noticed destruction and hints about the (unusual) combat system so I realized that this was totally correct.
I admit that this (first) final boss took me three or four tries (less than next combat encounters except for the final boss... er... I mean the last enemy of Chapter 1, last opponent of the game! It is the hardest opponent but it is clearly the final opposition to reach the beginning of the story and the ending of the game), then "Chapter 3" apperared, and I progressed the game until the prologue. A reverse game (since characters starts strong and become weaker as we go back in time), pretty cool idea!

Oh yes, the story of this game is told form the ending to the beginning and before, and I admit that maybe this made the short a simple adventure more interesting. During the adventure you will use five different characters, sometimes they will be friends and in other cases they will enemies, likewise the same places will be' revisited in different situations.

From this point of view there is nothing really new: charsets and facesets are all Rtp and also the monster sprites... if I am right! Mapping is ok, nothing that really stand out, simple but not too bad. The really original part is combat.


Combat against our friend Craise!

Ok, now please forget the usual ATB combat: during the Tragedy of Rupert you have to control two characters in real time. Each has five different skills that recharge with the passing of time, and you can switch between characters at will to choose their actions (you can also switch target, but I usually prefer concentrating the attacks on one opponent to defeat him/her quickly!). Mind that using the skills increase the aggro of that character, in any case you need to use them in order to win (some are area attacks, others are healing spells, and so on), and since the objective is to kill the opponent(s) as fast as possible this oftens turns combat in a sort of button mashing (still you have to change abilities and switch characters, so it is not a mindless activity!).
Ok, probably the final result of this experimental combat system isn't what was expected (should have been less frenetic I guess), still it is an interesting experiment, the interface is clear well done (even if I got few occasions to look at it due to the need to activate skills at the speed of light!), and I did not mind it for this short adventure.

Ok what else? Oh yes there are no experience points, even if in a specific part you can kill extra monsters to earn extra experience levels, but normally avoiding monsters is the best choice since there is no loot or items. The problem is that if one of the party member dies you can probably reload the previous savegame since it's almost impossible winning with just one party member (almost!). Oh also you can only save at savepoints, but at least you don't havento worry about healing or gear since characters are restored after each combat and there is no inventory management.


Everyone! Let's go to read the...

...verdict
Tragedy of Rupert isn't a tragedy of a game: while there are some flaws like a couple of typos and some errors (like the princess facesets show when one of the protagonists talk about her!) the story is well written and told in a crazy but cool way. I mean, every parts gives more informations and enriches the story with new details from the past, because the whole plot is totally explained in the first two dialogues! Just to give an idea this is a tragic love story that involves that infamous witch called Carol (if you know the Rmk database heroes you know who I am referring to!) and other original characters like the protagonist Rupert, that unlike what you can probably expect is an important character but during some sections he isn't even present.

This is a simple game, short but experimental and with a good variety of situations (a part in which you can grind for levels, a part in which you wander the main map, another in which you need to explore a forest avoiding enemies, a quest in which you look for some particular characters...).

Ok now the hard part: I cannot give 4/5 or more to this experimental game but I don't think it deserve less than 3/5. I'd give 3 to the gameplay and graphics, but 3.5 to the narrative, concept and ideas. Since I played it from the beginning to the end, and I had fun trying to understand and master the combat system I'd set with a 3.5 for the effort and courage to propose something new in Rm2k3. It's an ok game, difficulty is balanced I guess, it took me about an hour / and hour and a half to complete.
Not bad at all, this game may be everything but not a tragedy!


Oh... Craise you changed a lot! (NOTE: if you are stuck here just enter the menu with ESC and exit so the character isn't stuck anymore!)