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What an Adventure! You're an Archmage, Arthur!

Hellooo!
And welcome to Archmage Adventure, an... adventure made with RPG Maker MV by unclet. This game is a not too long (little more than three hours) party based rpg in which our alter ego is Arthur, a young mage. Our unlikely hero likes napping, but when the town is attacked by bandits he goes to help Sigfred, the best warrior, and Gandolyn the ranger. Unfortunately despite their efforts a mysterious thief steals the magic stone from Elder Joe, and this will mean misfortune and calamities for everyone.

So what? Well, Arthur and friends have to get back the magic stone, of course! Even if the real archmage was Arthur's grandpa Aticus, now it's time for the young lad to stop napping and show everyone that he's worth of the title of archmage too!


I'm not sure I should accept a drink from a complete stranger... I hope it's extra juicy and NOT extra pukin!

Gameplay is old style classic jrpg: we have a party of character of different classes: Arthur is the classical elemental mage with different elemental spells, that also fills the role of healer/reviver, Sigfred is a classic tank with few abilites like the skill to stun enemies (but this does not always work, also he has really few skill points, that's the equivalent of mana in this game) and Gandolyn has various arrow types (blinding, poisonous, piercing) and a couple of attacks that hit every enemy. Regarding the fourth party member (it's an obligatory party of four, of course)... well I won't tell you! See by yourself!
Combat is challenging, but not extremely difficult, at least until you reach the final parts of the game and the final boss (that has some deadly multiattack skills!), anyway it's important reminding THREE important things:

1) there are NO money and NO shops in this game! All items (that includes both equipment and consumables like the potions used to revive characters and restore skill points) are found as loot so their quantity is limited.
2) When the LP bar is filled a character may unleash an ultimate attack that's often crucial to win a battle (or to win earlier!). Gandolyn's attack hits every opponent, the others can unleash single but devastating attacks, and you may conserve the full bar for the next battle, if you think thaty you would waste the attack against a weak enemy.
3) Even if there are some healing points, the best way to survive is using the healing still that a couple of characters possess: this not only restores hit points, but also skill points, and being usable on the caster himself it lets you heal the entire party for free outside of combat. It's a neat way to spare potions and avoid backtracking to resting places, just remember to cast it on the caster sometimes to replenish the skill points so it's possible to keep healing/restoring skill points. On the other hand the ability to cancel the negative effects/debuffs are relatively useless since these immediately disappear after combat.


Final attacks are really powerful, and this is Gandolyn's!

The game sees our characters travelling through various dungeons and on the main map, facing random encounters (ughnnnnooou! The rate is also a bit too frequent in my opinion, by the way you need these to level up, get stronger and earn new abilities) and fixed boss battles, but at least we are able to save anytime and anywhere (luckily!). The place may be an island due to the presence of a single village and some points of interests, otherwise what you will find are chests of loot. That's all.

Visually the game is really pretty, I like the pixel art used here, that while it does not include facesets (not even for the main cast) it has some nice charsets and battlers. I also liked the assets used for the various locations and backgrounds, the pixel art is nice, BUT... yes, there is a small issue and it concerns the enemies: some of the opponents comes from different sources (I guess classic RPG Maker MV, like the effects used for the attacks) and are iper-detailed, contrasting with the pixelated heroes and scenery, in my opinion clashing a bit too much.

Another issue is that there are some minor (not game breaking at all) issues like some missing descriptions (for example on one of Arthur's ultimate attacks). Also I experienced a problem during one of the final battles in which one character was poisoned and the "remove all effects" skill (or item?) did not seem to work. Well nevermind, nothing terrible for sure!

Mapping is ok, I mean I hated some labyrintine dungeons but luckily they're never too big, and it's impossible to get lost, anyway it's worth exploring since there is some extra loot and additional enemies that are optional but pretty useful to be a bit more prepared for the next encounters.


Oh yeah sure, the guy that got robbed. And how good can be an Elder named Joe, Jim or Bob? Please!

Final Verdict
Archmage Adventure is a very simple and classic game, but still very enjoyable, if you like this kind of old-style adventures. I wrote that this is very simple because of the lack of shops, choices about the equipment and party composition (other games lets you choose your party members, here you have just the four mandatory ones, luckily except for a skill in common, they have totally different abilities and powers). This does not mean that's an easy game, because the scarce consumables requires to exploit the various abilities (luckily one party member has a Scan skill to perceive the opponents' status and weaknesses) to win, and it's ok, maybe the final enemy was a bit frustrating because I arrived with few consumables left (I believed that the battle BEFORE him was the real final battle! Sighhh!), and I'm a player that usually spares them!!!

In any case this is a nice game, the old style graphics (that reminds to me of "Evoker" or "A Stolen Love and the Forgotten Promise", check them for similar adventurest both for graphics and gameplay!) are the mest aspect, the story is both simple and short but it works even if the twists were a bit predictable, but NO, I won't tell you more (that's why I seldom discuss the plots of the games). I can recommend this game if you want a short jrpg adventure.

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author=unclet
Thank you TheRpgmakerAddict for playing and leaving a review!


Yay it was short but fun! ;D
Thank you TheRpgmakerAddict for playing and leaving a review!
Pages: 1