Violet Gold

Intro

"Violet Gold" is a short, turn-based RPG developed by SpiraPhantom using RPG Maker VX Ace that's a bit of a mixed bag in my opinion. On the plus side the game features a pair of dashing and evil rogues on the other hand the game's combat is pretty boring since the player can render their enemies almost entirely helpless with a really cheap area of effect spell. So while I find myself drawn to complete the game because of the characters. I also found myself getting frustrated with the sheer amount of combat in this game.

Story
Summary

You play as a Ollia, a mad scientist, and Nero, a powerful magician, who are deeply in love and have decided to have their honeymoon on a small archipelago. Unfortunately it appears the ads for the place were a total lie so our evil duo of lovers decide to conquer the archipelago. After all, it's obvious the queen isn't capable or willing to spend the necessary funds on turning this place into a real tourist trap. So were going to need to take over in order to due the job properly.

Strengths

While the main characters are definitely evil they also have a cute couple dynamic going for them. They also seem willing to play a bit fast and loose between the sheets with others. Though if this is a nod to the Monarch and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch from the "Venture Bros" or another series I'm not sure, but it is nice to see representation of a polyamorous couple.

Weakness

I'd say the game's biggest weakness in this area is there are a couple of bits of dialogue that are still in Russian. The prime example is one of the guys in the port town, but this issue also pops up with one of the chests in one of the game's four dungeons as well. Though, I'm not willing to go through the roughly 90 minutes of footage to find that example.



Gameplay

"Violet Gold" features your standard turn-based combat system with the characters having health and magic pools. The twist here is that the game has a level cap of 10 so to make the player feel way more powerful than this level would usually provide the player is given access to powerful skills. The problem is this skills are so powerful they tend to undermine any sense of challenge the combat is meant to have. The best example of this is Nero's opening ability which costs 5 MP to cast and can confuse and paralyze entire groups of enemies. Admittedly this skill's accuracy isn't 100 percent, but it's still high enough to turn most fights into a minor inconvenience as you smack down monsters that are practically powerless to stop you. To make matters worse at least half of the game's bosses are vulnerable to this skill. So you can turn the bulk of boss fights in this game into an utter joke.

And the few that are resistant to this skill get utterly wrecked by Nero's Stern Look ability which drops the targets offensive and defensive stats by a single stage. And this effect can be stacked which means most bosses are rendered unable to do more than feel like they are trying to beat the player to death with a single sheet of paper.

Another issue I have with the game is that SpiraPhantom seems to absolutely adore mimics because they feature prominently in most of the dungeons in this game. And while I'm willing to acknowledge that this type of monster is a staple found within most RPGs. It's also hard to deny that this enemy type is among the most annoying to come across. And you'll probably have to deal with over three dozen of them in order to complete this game. And that's a lot of mimics for a game that takes around 90 minutes to beat.

Graphics and Sound

Graphically the game largely relies on non-rtp assets, but it doesn't appear that SpiraPhantom created them. In fact, a few of them seem really familiar. So I'm guessing they come from either a free asset pack or one that is commercially available. And this also appears to apply to the game's background music and sound effects for the most part as well. Though, I'm pretty sure that evil laugh sound effect was pulled from a game made by a major studio. Though, I'm having a hard time remembering exactly where it comes from.

Conclusion

If your looking for a more casual game where you play as an evil couple trying to conquer a few villages on a small chain of islands this might be worth playing. On the other hand if your looking for something that will test your skills a bit I'd suggest looking elsewhere since it's pretty easy to blitz your way through this game. In fact, I took down the final boss at level eight and I imagine beating her at even lower levels is quite doable due to how easy it is to drop her stats with Stern Look.