Dhux's Scar

Let's begin by stating the obvious: there is a reason why RPG Maker games receive such a bad rap. The majority of them, while sometimes fun to play and occasionally inspring, are in many ways fundamentally indistinguishable from each other in terms of mechanics, graphics and conceptual design. But there are some RPG Maker games that are legitimately excellent, by any metric. Some games, such as Hero's Realm, excel through the brilliant synthesis and understanding of traditional JRPG mechanics. Others, such as Sunset over Imdahl, remain memorable through beautiful graphics and unconventional plots. Then there are games like Exit Fate that are so ridiculously polished that despite the music reused from old Playstation RPGs, despite the familiar storylines and characters, they become brilliant homages rather than shameful rip-offs. Finally there are games that are so ridiculously ambitious and occasionally insane that they transcend whatever flaws they have and worm their way into favorite lists everywhere. I would posit (feel free to shoot me down) that The Way is a pretty good example of the latter.

Another good example of the latter is Dhux's Scar. Translated from Spanish by Erilex, the game's creator, it is potentially the most deranged game I have ever played in the RPG Maker engine. It is the traditional JRPG's oddball cousin: tripping on acid, overdosing on Japanese anime and convinced that flooding the screen in Christian symbology is the coolest thing ever, no matter what some people say about Evangelion or even Xenogears. Contained within the six to seven hours of Dhux's Scar are demon children, mistaken identities, gruesome transformations, brutal decapitations and enough plot twists to legitimately make somebody's head explode--an event paralleled by similar happenings in Dhux's Scar. It is an experience that, for all its religious pretension and occasionally hilarious violence, is perhaps legitimately adult. It is also so difficult that if you are a newcomer to JRPGs, it might be worth coming back after you have a couple of Shin Megami Tensei games under your belt. But that isn't all.

You see, Dhux's Scar is a game that lies to you.

Aesthetics
I am the Alpha and the Omega...

A significant amount of the art in Dhux's Scar is custom. The entire game is furnished in an art style that is distinctly Japanese, from the occasionally super-deformed ace graphics to the cavorting sprites on screen. Many games that use the aesthetic are often cutesy and anime-lite, but thankfully Dhux's Scar goes the whole hog and frequently dives into the bizarre and outright macabre. The monsters you fight range from wolves to knights to terriying monstrosities. Demons, when they appear, are particularly well-designed. Moreover, the game is exceedingly well-animated. While the art is very rough around the edges, as might be expected from an amateur production like this one, battles depicted outside of combat are convincing and often exciting. Characters blink, swing swords and occasionally mutate horrifically. Most importantly, there is life to the graphics of Dhux's Scar, a real sense of homemade work that is rare in most RPG Maker games. There's a distinct vision here, and real soul.

Unlike many of the graphics, the music of Dhux's Scar is taken directly from other sources. Nevertheless, pieces chosen are always fitting, and do a very good job of enhancing the action. I recognized very few of the pieces, and of the two I did recognize--one from Fate/Stay Night, the other from Persona 2--the former made actual thematic sense in connection with its source, while the latter was admittedly a little distracting since it was literally its source's opening theme. The music also does a very good job of making boss fights even more panic-inducing than they are normally. This is because, as you see below...

Mechanics
...the First and the Last...

Dhux's Scar will kick your ass. If you are new to JRPGs, this is not the place to start. IF games like Chrono Trigger of Final Fantasy VI give you trouble, this game will give you nightmares. On the other hand, if you've played games like the Shin Megami Tensei series and survived...then Dhux's Scar will kick your ass anyway, but since you've probably played a whole lot of JRPGs already you will know enough to recognize what the game is doing, and smile as you are brutally eviscerated.

The most important thing you need to know about Dhux's Scar is that the typical game balance found in most JRPGs is totally different. Most JRPGs feature a hero character, a healer, some kind of warrior and a black magician, among others. Each of those characters might have strengths and weaknesses,but it is expected that each character is ultimately powerful enough to be used in any situation. Dhux's Scar, on the other hand, gives you two weaklings alongside a godlike mercenary and expects you to cope. The mercenary, whose name is Faye, is for much of the game's length the strongest character in your party. Not only does he deal ridiculous amounts of damage using special skills, but he also learns a spell that heals every character in your party for a significant amount of HP. Then there are the weaklings. The first is Elijah, who is a merchant. While he can use his savvy to win good deals from fellow merchants, his attack power is pitiful. He can do decent damage by using amulets, which deal elemental damage, to hit enemy weak points, but the damage dealt by his amulets never exceeds damage dealt by Faye, in addition, if Elijah ever runs out of items, or out of money, he essentially becomes a glorified paperweight that can occasionally heal people with potions.

The second is Celliann, who is a little girl. Although she can freeze enemies in dungeons and find hidden items using her abilities, her fighting skills are even weaker than Elijah's. She has very little HP, and is very difficult to keep alive. But Celliann is the embodiment of Dhux, a powerful demon. Early on, she learns an ability called Unholy Prayer that can reduce the health of all enemies on the field to 1 HP. This essentially allows the player to kill anything, even bosses, in one hit. But there is a drawback to using this power. From the moment Elijah first encounters Celliann, you are given 50 PE. Every time you use Unholy Prayer in battle, you lose 2 PE. You lose the same amount if you move to a new region of the world, and if you enter an area on the world map, you lose 1 PE. In this way, you are essentially under a time limit. If you backtrack excessively, or abuse Celliann's Unholy Prayer ability, you not only risk a Game Over but also the game's bad ending. The only way to obtain the good ending--which, believe me, you want to do--is to play all the way through without backtracking once and using Unholy Prayer as little as possible. Thankfully, Dhux's Scar is extremely linear, so as long as you thoroughly check each area for items or conversation you should never have to return to previous areas, or even use Unholy Prayer to cheat your way out of difficult boss battles.

But even though the character dynamic is so incredibly skewed, the game is actually quite balanced. Although Faye is easily the most powerful party member, enemies are often too strong for him to destroy without the help of Elijah. Celliann might be difficult to keep alive, but not only can her Unholy Prayer reduce bosses to dust but she is also invaluable for healing her allies with potions and other things. Although battles are exceptionally difficult, they would be even more difficult were Faye forced to solo the game by herself. Thankfully the game is fairly liberal with healing potions of all sorts. This is important because by the time you are three-fourths of the way through you will be throwing full HP and full MP elixirs around like nobody's business. But while battles are difficult, they are rarely (with a few absolutely agonizing exceptions) irritating. It's just that beating this game requires an understanding of its inner workings; a skill much easier to come by if you have played many other JRPGs.

Story
...the Beginning and the End.

In this analysis of the relative merits of Dhux's Scar, it is fitting to end with a discussion fo the game's plot. This is because the plot of Dhux's Scar is so firmly wedded to the game's aesthetics and mechanics as to be inseparable. The whole game, from the arbitrary balancing to the battle animations to the PE meter, revolve around the plot. This would all be for naught if Dhux's Scar had an unmemorable story, or if the characters were the bland stereotypes common to most modern JRPGs. Thankfully, in keeping with the rest of the game, the plot of Dhux's Scar is stark raving mad in the best possible sense. It is also deceptive.

It begins with Elijah: a down-on-his-luck merchant, who is selfish and a little cowardly. When his boat breaks down in the middle of the forest, leaving him lost and alone after a deal practically falls through, it becomes clear to the player pretty quickly that he is the most pathetic person imaginable. But then he finds a young girl named Celliann, bleeding from multiple wounds and sporting a mysterious scar on her forehead. Elijah recognizes the scar as a sign that the girl is the embodiment of a powerful demon known as Dhux, who is reborn every five hundred years. Realizing that he could become filthy stinking rich were he to bring her to the Church that rules society, he decides to "escort" her to the Holy City of Jehridan to turn her in. Celliann goes along with this because she, for reasons unknown, also wants to go to Jehridan. They are soon joined by aye, an androgynous mercenary who lends his talents to Elijah in return for a percent of the profits. So begins a journey that will take them cross-country, as demons, angels and men of the Church fight for possession of Celliann, while other forces linger in the shadows.

The writing in Dhux's Scar is surprisingly excellent. Although the game was originally released in Spanish, the translation is flawless and often hilarious and self-aware. In one instance early in the game, Elijah meets a fisherman who attempts to forcibly induct him into a fishing minigame. In another instance, a mysterious character challenges one of your party members to a battle, only to realize that what you thought was a challenging boss is actually in way over her head. That's not even mentioning Celliann's insane speech patterns, or a particular late-game character's frequent anachronisms. There are a few obnoxious anime cliches that pop up in the latter half, but overall Dhux's Scar's "localization" is leagues ahead of many RPG Maker games. Particularly after playing a couple of Playstation-era JRPGs, the difference in quality between the translation of, say, Xenogears and Dhux's Scar is astounding.

But that's not all. You see, Dhux's Scar is a game that lies to you. It is also a game in which everything that happens after the initial setup is a spoiler. I'd love, for example, to explain why Faye is so overpowered, discuss Elijah's character development or dicuss any one of the mind-bending plot twists that pile up in the game's good ending. But that would be ruining the experience. Dhux's Scar is, first and foremost, a game of surprises. The less you know before playing, other than the basic premise, the difficulty level and the knowledge that conserving PE will net you the good ending, the better your head will explode when you realize what exactly has been going on behind the scenes. The ultimate plot of Dhux's Scar is perhaps too twisty, complicated and even rushed to be considered excellent. But it is exciting and fulfilling enough to make you pump your fist in the air and tackle the game's ridiculously difficult end bosses with relish. I will say this: Solitaryre mentioned in his review that he thought Elijah became less interesting as the game continued, and while he is probably right, by the point in the game he was talking about I was honestly cheering. Dhux's Scar does that to you.

In Conclusion:

Dhux's Scar is probably one of the best games ever released in the RPG Maker engine, but if you don't have JRPG superskills it will eat you alive. It is not objectively perfect, by any means. But when an RPG is this uniquely bizarre, it eels criminal to give it anything less than five stars.

PROS: One of the best looking RPG Maker 2000 games ever, a mind-bending story, game mechanics that are balanced while at the same time being totally atypical, no obnoxious fishing minigames to be found

CONS: Brutal difficulty provides high barrier of entry, aggressively linear, plot arguably becomes too crazy

COROLLARIES: Remove a star if you prefer to breeze through your JRPGs, and potentially a half a star to a star if excessive religious imagery gets on your nerves or if you hate plots that are, by the admission of the creator, objectively trainwrecks.