Wyesse

Here I am, for my review #30, and I'm here to analyze another rmk2003 game that was never completed, but somehow attracted me.
Why? Well, maybe it's because it seems good, uses the pretty oldschool sprites I like, or maybe it's because of the large number of different playable characters. Well, for these reasons I decided to try it!

What I liked
Rhys Allesik is the protagonist of the story. I admit I did not like him very much, as he seems a depressed, whiny fellow, but hey there are many other characters, like the funny Kip. Ok most of them are walking stereotypes, still this is something I expect by a game that is close to the classic jrpg to make use of the typical stereotypes, and that's something that I and many others still love.

In fact, combat is classic. You have many abilities that costs Magic Points (and you unlock more levelling your characters) that in most cases are elemental attacks. Enemies are, as usual, weaker or strong against determined elements, and then you have also other skills like the ability to heal, steal, improve the defense or flee. Nothing new, as all, but not bad either. The layout is the classic side view battle with "Tales of" battlers. Again, a classic approach, not bad, still what I liked less is the use of some monsters taken from the stock Rmk, that have a totally different stile compared to the battlers, where other monsters, from other sources, merges better with the rest.
The nice thing is that random encounters are present only on the map, most enemies are visible and combat starts touching them. Some enemies move in a regular pattern, making them easier to avoid, others instead blocks the road and you are forced to fight them.

Another thing I liked were the little touches such as the Sprint command to run, the details, the nice backgrounds, the use of the light for day/night, and many other little things that you can probably notice playing this game.



The... ok!
Graphics are good but nothing exceptional, it's a style I like, but I know it's classic and outdated, and some edits are a bit too evident (some facesets are also slightly different from how the charset rapresent the character, but at least we have the facesets!). Still there is a good use of the chipsets and everything merges well (except for the monster sprite I wrote before and some charsets that comes from different sources).
Mapping and music are average. Nothing new, but they are both decent even if not memorable. I don't have any problem with that, anyway.

Finally there is the story: I think it's nothing new and not particularly engaging (ok so this mage girl had a dream and you have to follow her because of that? Hm ok, I guess!) and later it doesn't improve... it's also a typical fantasy jrpg for setting and world, nothing new.



What I did not like
Beside what I wrote before, I think that there are a couple of things that could have been better ad I found them annoying: the first was the name of the location that appears EVERY time you enter the zone. Normally this was necessary just the first time you enter a location, and that's what I expected. I think there was no need for that.
Another problem is the time changing sistem: here you have to sleep in the tavern to make time pass, and while it's true that time pass anyway during the game, I found that it probably would had been better adding a clock, in the tavern, to let the party wait (changing time zone) for free (without healing of course), as I saw in other games I played that used the Day and Night system.

The final problem depends on the player: this is a typical classic jrpg game where you have to fight in order to earn money and experience to improve, manage the equipment and be ready to have all the consumables needed and take advantage of the savepoints (it's a libear game where you are also forced to use the characters the game gives you, depending on the events). You cannot save anywhere (except on the map) skip most of combat or avoid some difficult fights (included some with limited time!).

Final Thoughs
Being this the first work of the author, I admit that it's impressive. While there are no characteristics that will made this game memorable, I admit that there's clearly a lot of effort and commitment that makes this work above average, despite the lack of originality and simple old school gameplay.
Ok, everyone tells me that the author's other games are better, and I'm going to play them soon, still I think that this creation for the dedication and the final result deserve at least a 3.

Still here? Then you surely know if you can have fun playing this game. I did!