Full Games List
Featured Games
New Games
Reviews
Images
Blogs
Game Updates
Images Feedback Summary
Game Design Highlights
Tutorials
Articles
Scripts
Utilities / Plugins
Resources
Engines
Engine Bulletins
What is Makerscore?
Past Events
Achievements
Forums
Post History
Chat
New to RMN?
Full Store List
RMN Music Pack (free)
Add Review
Subscribe
Nominate
Submit Media
RSS
Sacred Reviews: Snowy Adventures
thesacredlobo- 01/17/2024 06:31 AM
- 110 views
Intro
"Snowy Adventures" is a short turn-based RPG developed by nightfishy using RPG Maker VX Ace that takes around 80 to 90 minutes to complete. And while I will try to be a bit nice to this game since it is labeled as a first time project. This game contains a lot of bad design choices that make it difficult at times to not rip this game a new butthole or two. A good example of this is mentioned by someone asking a question in the game's comment section.
The simple answer is there is nothing susantii18 can do at this point beyond reload her last save file assuming it was before she was forced out of the bar or start the game over from the beginning. This is because you need to grab a key hidden in a barrel in the bar before witnessing the dark priest destroy a fool for throwing your party into him. And this game breaking mistake happens within the first ten to fifteen minutes of play. Thankfully none of the other issues are game breaking, but they are still annoying in my opinion, but I'll save those for later.
Story
Summary
You play as Snowy, a white cat, whose decided to set out an adventure after an earthquake to retrieve everyone's stolen treasures. These treasures range from teddy bears to golden eggs. Though how all of these objects were stolen during an earthquake is anyone's guess. At any rate along the way we'll meet a few additional friends and solve a few local problems as well as we track down the thieves and bring them to justice.
Greatest Strength/Weakness
I'll admit I'm not sure this game really has a narrative strength going for it. The characters are so flat it's hard to even define their personalities and the one flashback we get to try and give Cheese Master some depth really doesn't help him that much. This flashback is meant to give him motivation to go back and join the party after he ditches the party upon reaching the castle of our villain de jure that kidnapped his girlfriend out of fear. A sequence that feels pointless since he rejoins the party as soon as they enter the castle.
Another oddity with the plot is that we learn before the final battle takes place that Snowy and Fluffy are actually ninjas. A reveal that comes entirely out of right field and only seems to exist to explain why these animals are so tough and can wield whips, flails, and long swords.
Gameplay
The Good
Sadly the only positive I can really offer this game is that it's a rather traditional turn-based RPG which is a genre I really enjoy. Other than that I have a rather lengthy list of complaints about this game.
The Bad
For starters combat in this game is boringly easy. So much so that fights in this game quickly become an annoying chore. This is because most enemies can barely scratch the player for a single point of damage if they even manage to launch an attack, and most enemies really won't get that option since Snowy, Fluffy, and Cheese Master can spam all of their moves for free. A factoid that becomes even more insane when you realize that all three of these characters have access to dual attack to start with. And there are very few enemies in the game that can even survive this move when it's used by the weaker members of your party.
As a result of the party being so powerful it means items like potions and antidotes in this game feel like an utter joke since the player really doesn't need them. Another issue in my opinion is that enemies in this game give you money when you defeat them, but you can only spend this money at a one specific store run by a cat in one of the dungeons. And the prices in that shop are really weird.
This weirdness largely centers around the apples. For starters the big apple is as powerful as the standard potion is and costs just as much money to buy. This means either the basic potion needs to go or the big apple needs to go since they effectively serve the same purpose. The bigger problem here though is that the large apple is twice as powerful as a potion, but costs just as much as one. So it effectively makes the potion and even the high potion kind of pointless since combat in this game isn't intense enough for that extra 50 points of HP to mater. And the magic water is a complete waste of money since the only character that actually consumes MP to use her skills is a fairy with healing spells you don't need since you'll rarely take damage. And this issue becomes even worse if you manage to reach level seven since Fluffy, Cheese Master, and Snowy gain a free healing skill that can restore over 2,000 HPs for free.
And finally combat in this game is made boring by the lack of enemy variety in areas as well as in fights. A lot of areas in this game only contain one or two unique enemies and when you do encounter them they always appear in groups with the same type of monster. So even if fights were more difficult you really don't have to put any consideration into which enemies you should focus on in any given encounter since they all have the same value.
The Ugly
On the ugly side of things we have the queen of the fey that gives the player free gear. I imagine most are scratching their heads how I can complain about getting a free equipment upgrade. The problem here is that almost all of the items she gives you are utterly useless because only one of them can actually be equipped by a member of your party. And I consider this far more worse than the bad stuff since it means the developer didn't even consider the items the party could actually use before having a character toss the party free gear to help them on their quest to retrieve the lost treasures and save the world.
And finally in this section the developer apparently didn't know how to add Cheese Master back into the party without resetting the character's level back to one. Admittedly this issue isn't as bad as it could be considering the game's low difficulty, but it still gets under my skin when developers do this to the player. If you don't know how to add the character back in at a later date at the same level. Then you really shouldn't remove the character in the first place in my opinion.
Graphics & Sound
On the graphical and sound side of things the game appears to rely mostly on the RTP, but uses it incorrectly at times. A good example of this happens right at the start with the facesets for Snowy and Fluffy's owners not matching their sprites. And at times the developer seems to have placed items at random in certain areas of the game. The best example of this is the castle containing the final boss which features a bunch of coffins laying out on the beach around the castle and you'll find a bunch of them scattered around the dungeon as well. Though why there are tons of coffins here is beyond me since the only enemy you'll encounter while running around this area are individual rats.
Thankfully the sound side of the game is a better, but the game does have an area where you'll encounter a bit of sound whiplash in my opinion. It isn't as bad as the whiplash you get in "Final Fantasy VIII" where you'll go from nice peaceful music to combat music as you get randomly attacked by giant caterpillars, but the shift in music from being outdoors in the second town to entering a house is a bit rough in my opinion.
Conclusion
I wish I had more positive stuff to say about this game considering it's someone's first project, but it's plagued by boring combat, boring characters, and can become literally unbeatable if the player interacts with the wrong NPC in a bar before finding a key item for advancing the plot. And while a lot of these errors are pretty common to first time projects and would usually leave me feeling a bit generous when it comes to my final score. The fact this game contains a game breaking issue makes that impossible in this case. And there are a few other issues I left out of the review to save on time since I'm writing this review rather late and I need to hit the sack to catch a few winks before going into work for my shift that starts at 5 AM.
"Snowy Adventures" is a short turn-based RPG developed by nightfishy using RPG Maker VX Ace that takes around 80 to 90 minutes to complete. And while I will try to be a bit nice to this game since it is labeled as a first time project. This game contains a lot of bad design choices that make it difficult at times to not rip this game a new butthole or two. A good example of this is mentioned by someone asking a question in the game's comment section.
susantii18
Help me, I'm stuck with this red bar's key, what am i supposed to do with this key?
and i cant enter the night bar anymore...am i doing this wrong? :((
The simple answer is there is nothing susantii18 can do at this point beyond reload her last save file assuming it was before she was forced out of the bar or start the game over from the beginning. This is because you need to grab a key hidden in a barrel in the bar before witnessing the dark priest destroy a fool for throwing your party into him. And this game breaking mistake happens within the first ten to fifteen minutes of play. Thankfully none of the other issues are game breaking, but they are still annoying in my opinion, but I'll save those for later.
Story
Summary
You play as Snowy, a white cat, whose decided to set out an adventure after an earthquake to retrieve everyone's stolen treasures. These treasures range from teddy bears to golden eggs. Though how all of these objects were stolen during an earthquake is anyone's guess. At any rate along the way we'll meet a few additional friends and solve a few local problems as well as we track down the thieves and bring them to justice.
Greatest Strength/Weakness
I'll admit I'm not sure this game really has a narrative strength going for it. The characters are so flat it's hard to even define their personalities and the one flashback we get to try and give Cheese Master some depth really doesn't help him that much. This flashback is meant to give him motivation to go back and join the party after he ditches the party upon reaching the castle of our villain de jure that kidnapped his girlfriend out of fear. A sequence that feels pointless since he rejoins the party as soon as they enter the castle.
Another oddity with the plot is that we learn before the final battle takes place that Snowy and Fluffy are actually ninjas. A reveal that comes entirely out of right field and only seems to exist to explain why these animals are so tough and can wield whips, flails, and long swords.
Gameplay
The Good
Sadly the only positive I can really offer this game is that it's a rather traditional turn-based RPG which is a genre I really enjoy. Other than that I have a rather lengthy list of complaints about this game.
The Bad
For starters combat in this game is boringly easy. So much so that fights in this game quickly become an annoying chore. This is because most enemies can barely scratch the player for a single point of damage if they even manage to launch an attack, and most enemies really won't get that option since Snowy, Fluffy, and Cheese Master can spam all of their moves for free. A factoid that becomes even more insane when you realize that all three of these characters have access to dual attack to start with. And there are very few enemies in the game that can even survive this move when it's used by the weaker members of your party.
As a result of the party being so powerful it means items like potions and antidotes in this game feel like an utter joke since the player really doesn't need them. Another issue in my opinion is that enemies in this game give you money when you defeat them, but you can only spend this money at a one specific store run by a cat in one of the dungeons. And the prices in that shop are really weird.
This weirdness largely centers around the apples. For starters the big apple is as powerful as the standard potion is and costs just as much money to buy. This means either the basic potion needs to go or the big apple needs to go since they effectively serve the same purpose. The bigger problem here though is that the large apple is twice as powerful as a potion, but costs just as much as one. So it effectively makes the potion and even the high potion kind of pointless since combat in this game isn't intense enough for that extra 50 points of HP to mater. And the magic water is a complete waste of money since the only character that actually consumes MP to use her skills is a fairy with healing spells you don't need since you'll rarely take damage. And this issue becomes even worse if you manage to reach level seven since Fluffy, Cheese Master, and Snowy gain a free healing skill that can restore over 2,000 HPs for free.
And finally combat in this game is made boring by the lack of enemy variety in areas as well as in fights. A lot of areas in this game only contain one or two unique enemies and when you do encounter them they always appear in groups with the same type of monster. So even if fights were more difficult you really don't have to put any consideration into which enemies you should focus on in any given encounter since they all have the same value.
The Ugly
On the ugly side of things we have the queen of the fey that gives the player free gear. I imagine most are scratching their heads how I can complain about getting a free equipment upgrade. The problem here is that almost all of the items she gives you are utterly useless because only one of them can actually be equipped by a member of your party. And I consider this far more worse than the bad stuff since it means the developer didn't even consider the items the party could actually use before having a character toss the party free gear to help them on their quest to retrieve the lost treasures and save the world.
And finally in this section the developer apparently didn't know how to add Cheese Master back into the party without resetting the character's level back to one. Admittedly this issue isn't as bad as it could be considering the game's low difficulty, but it still gets under my skin when developers do this to the player. If you don't know how to add the character back in at a later date at the same level. Then you really shouldn't remove the character in the first place in my opinion.
Graphics & Sound
On the graphical and sound side of things the game appears to rely mostly on the RTP, but uses it incorrectly at times. A good example of this happens right at the start with the facesets for Snowy and Fluffy's owners not matching their sprites. And at times the developer seems to have placed items at random in certain areas of the game. The best example of this is the castle containing the final boss which features a bunch of coffins laying out on the beach around the castle and you'll find a bunch of them scattered around the dungeon as well. Though why there are tons of coffins here is beyond me since the only enemy you'll encounter while running around this area are individual rats.
Thankfully the sound side of the game is a better, but the game does have an area where you'll encounter a bit of sound whiplash in my opinion. It isn't as bad as the whiplash you get in "Final Fantasy VIII" where you'll go from nice peaceful music to combat music as you get randomly attacked by giant caterpillars, but the shift in music from being outdoors in the second town to entering a house is a bit rough in my opinion.
Conclusion
I wish I had more positive stuff to say about this game considering it's someone's first project, but it's plagued by boring combat, boring characters, and can become literally unbeatable if the player interacts with the wrong NPC in a bar before finding a key item for advancing the plot. And while a lot of these errors are pretty common to first time projects and would usually leave me feeling a bit generous when it comes to my final score. The fact this game contains a game breaking issue makes that impossible in this case. And there are a few other issues I left out of the review to save on time since I'm writing this review rather late and I need to hit the sack to catch a few winks before going into work for my shift that starts at 5 AM.
