Zack's Cute Game

Intro

"Zack's Cute Game" is the only entry from The Kill the Cutie! event that I've played so far. And while I plan on working on the other entries in the future. The simple reality is I don't know when I'll get around to them, but I figured I'd take a crack at this one first since it looked like it would be the shortest entry and thus one of the easier entries to review. I suppose with that being said I should probably dig into the narrative.

Story

You play as a Rose, a young cutie, whose decided to become an adventurer. After all, who doesn't dream of adventure in this day and age where everyone is trapped indoors because of a deadly pandemic? At any rate you team up with a bunch of other adventurers in a bid to take down a bunch of freaking goblins living in a cave near the starting town. And like other entries in the contest this game tries to throw a curveball your way by having the nun backstab your group after you've slain some of her stronger troops.

And while I'd like to say this twist is really clever and unexpected. The sad reality of the situation is that I've played so many JRPGs over the years that I just assume nuns, priests, bishops, and so on are part of some evil cabal to control the masses. After all, that's a major plot point in "Final Fantasy X", "Luminous Arc", "La Pucelle Tactics", "Breath of Fire II", and many other titles I don't feel the need to mention at the moment. As you can see the church being evil is such a common plot point that the nun in this game being evil doesn't even feel like a twist. Since she's the one person you'd expect to betray the heroes from the get go. Especially for a game made for a contest event called Kill the Cutie!.

Gameplay

On one hand I really like the fact this game features a grid-based, turn-based combat system since I'm a really big fan of games like "Disgaea: Hour of Darkness" and "Arc the Lad". On the other hand I find myself baffled why rats in this game come equipped with long ranger sniper rifles as their default equipment. Seriously those cute little blighters seem to be able to shoot you from well over 10 squares away. Of course my biggest issue with the combat system is that it almost feels like an after thought considering you can skip past traveling to the cave yourself by simply talking to the chicken in town. And this was something I discovered entirely by accident since I was curious if it actually had any dialogue attached to it.

Outside of the combat the game also features a section where you need to run from goblins in order to avoid getting eaten alive. After all, goblins like their meat extra flesh and feel they should make their enemies suffer the horror of bleeding to death while they rip out and eat their insides. Of course even if you manage to avoid the goblins and make it outside of the cave you'll simply be smacked on the back of the head dragged back inside. In fact, the only real upside I can offer for getting out of the cave is that your end is a little less gruesome since you don't have to listen to the snapping maws of goblins eating your flesh while the game shows you a bloody looking game over screen. And that's only an upside if you don't particularly care for games like this in the first place.

Graphics & Sound

About the only notable use of sound in this game is on the previously mentioned game over screen if you get caught trying to make it to the entrance/exit of the goblin's cave. Outside of that the game feels pretty standard on the sound side of things with nothing for me to really praise or complain about.

On the graphical side of things the game follows a similar pattern with me liking the bit about getting hydrated. After all, bicfarmer emphasis that bit with an original art asset while the rest of the game appears to be tile sets found in the base game. Admittedly this is pretty common for event games like this. So it really doesn't lower my opinion of the game, but it also means the game doesn't have that much going for it visually to talk about.

Conclusion

"Zack's Cute Game" is a bit of a mixed bag for me. On one hand the game makes use of a combat system that really gets me pumped and manages to use a pair of visual and graphical assets rather well when it comes to creeping the player out if they get caught in the goblin's cave. On the other hand, the combat almost feels like an after thought considering you can skip over making your way to the cave by simply talking to a random chicken in town. And this matter isn't helped by bicfarmer having a character break the 4th wall by complaining about how hard it would be to implement an archer within the combat system he is using. To make matters worse the game's plot twist feels rather mundane in my eyes. After all, the nun being evil was the most obvious pick bicfarmer could have went with in my opinion. All that being said I feel the games good and bad aspects mostly even out. As a result this is pretty average event game in my opinion.