• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS

A nice game, but needed more Money & Power!

Here we are! For another appointment with: "Rpgmaker games I've never seen and now I love to play". Seriously, many older rpgmaker games are famous or you find at least one video on youtube. Some of these are even ugly and terrible to play, but hey this is not the case of this game. Let's start:

The Good
The game is about the adventure of a team of two mercenaries even if you will play also other characters during the game: these two are Max, the gung-ho brawler and Axl the suave and nimble swordsman that is also a dark elf. Yes. Because the game is set in a techno-fantasy realm that includes airships, guns, scientists and robots but also armored guards, ninjas and mages. Oh yes, well not overly original as this is the usual jrpg familiar setting, still it's less boring than the "plain fantasy" stuff.
These two protagonists are really likeable and their dialogues are great, but wat's even better are the bad guys: there are tons of them! I especially like Rodriguez, anyway you have a plethora of bizarre bosses you'll love to hate and you'll hate to fight... but more on this later.

I said fight. Because there is obviously lot of combat, but surprisingly the random encounters aren't a problem in my opinion, since, thanks to Axl agility, you can escape at almost any time! And they give almost no experience points, so there's no point fighting them. Bosses (that are also the main source of Xp) are totaly another matter... but more on this later.

I said that you get almost no experience points and no gold from random encounters, so this means that grinding isn't particularly effective, especially when you will learn that abilities are learned not levelling, but finding them around. I like this since this is an incentive to explore the world around you (there are also some other secrets and hidden items). And yes, you will need them a lot... but more on this later.



Mapping and graphics are from average to good. Nothing exceptional, but really functional and bare bones: cities and villages are quite small but nice, they are all different from their appearance, anyway they look a bit like the "generic and stereotypical jrpg city" due the use of the FFVI chipsets. Not entirely a bad thing, but for example the settings of New Jado, Theia and the Cerebral Symphony (that had similar techno-fantasy settings) felt less stereotypical and more alive.
Anyway I liked a lot the idea of the game set "after the huge battle against the big bad". It's original! And some events and situations gave me an idea of what would be going to happen after the events of this demo , but... shhhhh!

Also I give a bonus for the nice custom made hand drawn oldschool cutscene. Very good and fit the game perfectly!

Another nice thing I noticed is that for the second mission you have to choose which village you want to investigate, leading to different subquests, locations, situations and bosses (of course I had to save before and played both!). A nice touch, really!

There are also some puzzles and typical adventurer's task such as "find the hidden key" (I hated a bit that part as I spent a lot of time searching every location!)



The Bad

What I was going to say? Oh yes, combat. The usual front view enemies, no battlers, nothing fancy, plain and simple. Usually abilities that cost Mp.. well Tp in this case, but it's the same. So just spam your best abilities (maybe using a buff before attacking with them) and hope not to die as sometimes (like in Three the Hard Way I reviewed in the past) the opponents with unleash their most powerful moves, other times they will choose poorly and defend or use weaker attacks (one of them kept 'changing state' for almost ten times in a row instead of attacking/defending/healing and this meant ten free attacks!).
Oh the joy of random actions! Mind that this is not totally bad as this means that there are some variables and that every boss has several ways to attack.
Yes. And they are all different!
Some will heal themselves and others will buff themselves, some will summon minions and others will summon suicide minions, some will change state and abilities to a different set, others will have the infamous Final Form!
The bosses are so cool, hey they are even better of the protagonists as they fight alone (well, most of them) and they are so damn strong! They have a ton of hit points (houndreds and houndreds!) Pity that in the beginning the lack of money and power will make a bit frustrating fighting the first boss battles. And, well, most of combat in this games are boss battles. And you'll have few money and few healing items, and there is no way to avoid that, since there are no random encounters to help you.

But hey, this made me feel great when I was able to win!

Later you use a more powerful character, but... you can guess that, enemies will be even more powerful!

Another problem is that your starting characters (and those that you play most of the time) are two fighters, Axl is really fast but frail, while Max is stronger and tankier. It's a pity, a healer would have been useful since the lack of healing potions, money and power!
Oh and why the Power Bar and other items are LESS effective than the Medicine BUT costs more? There's no reason! At least when you save you are completely healed and restored!
That's something.

Oh and there are a couple of typos (like "wierd", "descision", "compotent") but nothing much. Dialogues are great here!



Final Thoughs
Well I do not mind challenging games, I played some of them, the problem is that here there is few strategy involved (just look for every resource and spend it, and hope to be lucky) and few possibilities to create a decent strategy. That's not to say that combat is boring, the opposite! Sometimes you have to choose which action is better, but often it's just matter of luck and they drag for a lot of time due to the huge reserve of hitpoints possessed by the bosses (ok, I get it, they are bosses, but a dungeons have five of them in a row, and before going there you have to fight another boss outside!).

It's a pity since I absolutely loved everything else, from the characters to the dialogues, maps and story. To be better I think this game needed just a bit of more... money and power!

3.5 it's still a good rating, since the game involved me to play until the end, and even if it ends in media res, I found it enjoyable and charming.