PENELOPE

Intro

"PENELOPE" is a short RPG developed by snekodawg using RPG Maker 2003 that has some ups and downs in my opinion when it comes to combat and at least one notable exploit. Though if that exploit will still be there by the time this review gets cleared is anyone's guess. After all, I did leave a comment about it on TheRpgmakerAddict's review. And some of the comments left by the developer on the game's summary page seems to suggest they'll want to fix it.

snekodawg
This game has been a passion project for me over the last six months, so I'm happy to finally be able to release it! If you find any bugs or other issues, tell me and I'll try and fix them!

So in a slight change of pace I'll start off discussing the exploit and a minor spelling error I noticed.

Exploit, Spelling Mistake, and Minor Bug

Do to a terrain mistake it's actually possible to land on the island containing the time stone.



The main benefit of this exploit is it means you can skip an entire section that involves going around looking for clues to a three digit password as well as skip a boss fight. Though oddly enough in my run I decided to explore the island a bit before going for the stone and ended up triggering the fight anyway, but it should be possible to just run up the ladder and grab the time stone and leave from this position.

And there's a minor spelling error I caught while reading through the comedian's dialogue in this area as well.



After all, I'm pretty sure that "pf" is meant to be an "of". Though, I'm pretty sure it would be better if it was just "the hardest, hitting knee-slappers". Though, I'll admit my grammar is far from perfect.

And the game features a minor graphical bug that can apparently pop up when putting up posters for a DJ in the human city.



The issue being the poster doesn't actually change after you've chosen to replace it. Admittedly this issue does clear up if you leave the map and reload it. So it isn't that big of a deal.

Story
Summary

You play as Penelope an anthropomorphic dog girl with amnesia, or as some like to call it RPG cliché number one. At any rate after modern medicine proves unable to restore her memory she and her new found friend, Mead, pay a visit to an insane wizard who says he can restore her memories using the powers of magical stones located in three ancient ruins. A task that will prove highly dangerous considering these towers are located in areas filled to the brim with dangerous monsters, but with the help of a legendary monster named Nessie I'm sure we can conquer these ruins in no time.

Strengths

On the plus side a lot of the characters in this game are rather wacky which makes the game mildly amusing in my experience, but I may not have been in the best mood when playing this game considering I had just gotten done working on a pair of episodes for "Falnarion Tactics" before looking at this game. And the balance in that game is so awful it makes me wonder why I even bothered to pay money for it considering I knew the game was going to be awful after playing a few bits and pieces of the version that was available for free for one of the Indie Game Maker Contests.

Weaknesses

Unfortunately some of the attempts at absolutely awful jokes in this game truly are awful. The problem is those bad jokes don't manage to curve around and become awesome all over again in my opinion. As a result those jokes only serve to annoy the player. On the plus side you really don't have to deal with that many of them before your given a piece of the password for accessing one of the time stones. Albeit it's the one I mentioned near the start of the review that you really don't need if your willing to use a passability error to your advantage.

Gameplay

The game features the default combat system of RPG Maker 2003 which kind of sucks in my opinion since I'm not fond of the active-time battle system used by the Final Fantasy franchise. To make matters worse the battles in this game feel a tad pointless since you can't actually farm enemies in this game for experience in order to level up. Instead you'll farm enemies a little bit for cash in order to purchase weapon and armor upgrades for your party. Though I suppose this does make balancing the game a bit easier since you can build bosses around the notion the player will spend their time buying new gear for each upcoming boss fight. A practice that's just standard procedure if your an old hand at RPGs.

Though my biggest gripe with the game's combat is the final boss. Unlike some other games where I've griped about the final boss being too hard. In this game's case the final boss is both mind numbingly easy to defeat if your properly geared as well as overstays it's welcome. If the final boss is going to be super easy then there's no point in making it a damage sponge since it simply delays the inevitable. So much so that I probably spent well over five minutes chipping away at the final boss's health while taking only a few hundred points of damage in return over the course of the entire battle. Which meant I was taking damage at such a slow rate that I could easily take two or three hits before needing to heal my characters by drinking some milk. I just hope Penelope and the others aren't trying the one gallon challenge since I don't think the creator is going to want to deal with all of the puke that will result.

Outside of combat the game also features a few simple math puzzles near the start of the game. So simple they barely qualify as math puzzles in my opinion since your just doing some basic adding and subtracting in order to reach a specified sum in order to unlock the gate blocking the player's path to the next area.



Graphics

On the graphical side of things the game features almost entirely original assets which have a simple charm to them. Though a few of the characters are rather drab in my opinion. This is especially true of Penelope whose color scheme places a heavy emphasis on the color grey, but also applies to the enemies in this game which are always displayed in grey scale on a black background. Which leads to some really interesting issues when it comes to Nessie since her overworld sprite, combat sprite, and shop sprite are all colored differently.



Sound

Sound wise the game also features some original tracks and mixes of known songs. On the downside the most memorable bits for me were the tracks in the building containing the disco. Which is unfortunate considering I found the music playing there highly annoying and I found the tonal shifts between the combat music and the background music in some areas really annoying as well. They just didn't flow that well into one another. As a result I got tonal whiplash every time I got into a fight in those areas.

Conclusion

"PENELOPE" is clearly a passion project. And while this game is far from flawless in my eyes. The bulk of it's issues are rather minor for the most part. And some of my issues with the soundtrack are a byproduct of my own tastes in music. That being said the game's final boss fight just goes on for way too long and some of the musical selections in this game will give you tonal whiplash so bad you'll probably snap your metaphorical neck when you experience it.