ProjectROSE

Intro

"ProjectROSE" is a mystery/role playing video game that was being developed by JosephSeraph using RPG Maker 2003 that has never gotten past the demo phase. Though exactly why this project was eventually abandoned isn't exactly clear. Though the Moon Rabbit's last comment on this project seems to infer that this project will probably never be completed.

author=JosephSeraph
. . . Maybe these characters will resurface sometime in the future in some way, shape or form? Honestly I feel like I'll die before I'll ever put out something consistent, much less revisit old projects. I really wish I did, though.

Yeah, I definitely second that last bit. I've got several Let's Plays for RPG Maker games I still need to complete ranging from my revisit of "Demon Hunter" to my first run through "Cursed Crown". And one of those projects has been waiting for an update for nearly five years at this point.

Story
Summary

You wake up in a mysterious area with no idea if your dreaming or if you've been sucked into some weird dimension. At the same time you just can' shake the feeling you've been here before.



Language Issues

It's pretty obvious that English is not JosephSeraph's first language in this demo. And the indicators for this pop up during both cut scenes where the order of words is sometimes a bit off or during battles where one of the commands at the start of a fight is "autmatisch". Thankfully this doesn't hamper the player's ability to understand what is going on to much, but it is notable.

Greatest Strength/Weakness

I'd say the demos greatest strength and weakness are the same thing. The game is extremely mysterious which draws people in since they want answers to the mystery, but at the same time the demo only serves to raise questions. And while this does make sense since the goal of a demo is to draw players in. It also means the demo lacks any sense of narrative fulfillment and the narrative fulfillment will probably never come.

Gameplay

The game features the standard battle system that comes with RPG Maker 2003. As such you can expect battles featuring the active-time battle system which is my least favorite battle system for RPGs. After all, it punishes people for taking their time while flipping through menus. Thankfully you can set the demo to wait mode. Though, I'll admit that feels kind of pointless since most of your characters are equipped with accessories that have turned them into mindless berserkers. And the only battles available to the player are extremely easy. So much so that I just started activating the auto battle function after the first couple of battles.

The demo also gives the main character access to a weak group healing spell that costs 0 MP to use. So it's possible to heal your entire party for free outside of combat if your willing to spam this move a bunch of times in a row. You can also use it in battle to nullify damage as well if your enemies aren't strong or fast enough to outpace the amount of HP you can recover with this ability. Though the choice of calling this skill pray appears to be a nod to the Final Fantasy franchise.

And while fights in the demo are boringly easy. It's also a bit crazy how likely your to miss an enemy when you attack in this game. Seriously, I had three characters in a row miss one time. And that was after they had leveled up multiple times with some of my characters now being strong enough to one shot the enemies in the demo.

Graphics

Graphically the game is a bit of a hot mess. On one hand the images that were created for the various cut scenes are extremely beautiful in my opinion.


Albeit Rose's eye color is inconsistent in a few of these images.

At the same time the enemy and character sprites clash horribly.



While I'd say the game overall is a winner in the visual department. That's only because combat is such a small part of the demo. In a longer project I imagine you'd be spending a lot more time in combat and this might just tip the game more in the other direction.

Sound

Sound wise the game appears to rely on rips from other games for the most part. One of the most obvious examples of this being on the title screen which features one of the many versions of "The Prelude" from Final Fantasy. Though I'll admit doing stuff like this was pretty common back in the day. So these tracks almost feel like their part of the RTP for RPG Maker 2003 at times. That's just how often they were used.

About the only unique sound based aspect of this game is that it features a bit of voice acting during one of the early cut scenes. Though if this would have been kept for the long haul is anyone's guess. Though considering it only pops up during one of the earliest cut scenes in the game in an extremely limited capacity. My best educated guess is that it would have been dropped at some point. Jeez, I can only think of one game off the top of my head that was made with RPG Maker that is fully voice acted and that's "Fantasy Forever Revisions".

Bugs

It's possible to trigger certain cut scenes multiple times. I even had one cut scene stick me in a black void for a bit while the scene played out. Thankfully I was returned to a land of color afterwards, but it did show just how buggy this demo can be. Albeit this issue also happened on a map where the invisible barriers keeping your character on the correct path are rather limited. So it's possible to walk to places that would normally be inaccessible.

Conclusion

If the cut scene graphics are anything to go by this probably would have been a visually impressive game. So much so that it might have made up for certain other areas like the combat being weak, but as it stands this is just the broken remains of a project forever stuck in varying forms of development hell.