Heaven's Gate MZ

Welcome to this review of a short game made for the MV contest: Heaven's Gate. I liked so much the title do I decided to try it and...

Welcome to the wasteland! Are you still here? Ok the story is about a postapocalyptic place, but the survivors found some "gates" (hey hey, you surely expected that!) that works like teleporting devices ... but they are inactive! So they hire a mercenaries to do the dirty job... uhm I meant to explore some dangerous areas, fight monsters and investigate.

Enters Roy, a gunslinger/sorcerer that will be out alter ego in this little adventure. She... no wait, Roy is a boy! Uh Roy in the beginning has just a gun and knows a couple of spells but this will soon change.


I like big men like you. When they fall they make more noise and sometimes they never get up!

Here's the first cool idea: each unlocked area adds more items to the shops (yes, you have to pay for gear and resting! At least saving is free!) at the base. But you can also find loot on the maps, and take note that leaving and re-entering the map restores both monsters and loot (this is something a player can easily exploit)!

At the end of each area there is a boss fight, and this is expected. What instead is unexpected is that after defeating a boss you can automatically win against the monsters of that area (earning gold and xp)!

Graphics is Rtp, as the contest required. It's not a bad choice since the post-apocalyptic fantasy setting is well made, even if the various maps are a bit empty and with little details and obstacles... not the most interesting part of the game, still this is a barren wasteland, so don't expect a detailed world full of details (this also due to time constraint of the contest, probably).

So Roy is our lonely hero, there is no party, but luckily Roy has a lot of resources: guns, spells and items (not only potions but also knives and grenades!). Oh well, he can also attack bare handed, but is a waste of time (as I expected!). Guns are quite good, they are powerful and have various special attacks: pistols have slower but accurate and more damaging attacks, the shotgun is less accurate but targets everyone, the downside is that firearms have to be reloaded (spending a turn defending reloads them, or resting).

Spells are more versatile since Roy can heal and empower himself, damage enemies and even weaken them, and mana is never an issue (despite not being restored when resting) since it is gained when hit... and this happens everytime! The problem is that spells damage and heal less than firearms and items.

Items... well these cost money (or are found in chests) but are the best: buy the best potions you can have, buy some grenades and a ton of knives! Yes, throwing knives are costly but uber powerful against bosses (grenades aare best used against wandering monsters, since they attack in groups). The only downside is that potions can heal OR cancel harmful effects while with spells you can do both at the same time.


Oh Roy, that's really really rude!

Verdict

Ok, being a knife-throwing and using curses is the easiest way to win, provided that you have some good potions too. Game is rather easy when fighting minions, but bosses are another matter. Especially the fight against the cultists was hard since there are two of them and their "poison blade" is a very strong attack: if they both perform this attack it's often game over...except if you spent a lot of time grinding, but this is no fun!

Story is interesting, there are not many dialogues but these are well written, and even a New Game +. There are only some minor nuisances: some spelling errors ("Gaurdian"...), the fact that changing firearms leaves them unloaded (it's a bit silly starting a fight with unloaded guns, but there is no way to load them outside of combat, not even resting).
Despite this the game is quite enjoyable and fun to play. It gets 3.5/5... well done!