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A retro game that truly feels like an NES classic

Straightforward, simple and, above all, fun. Ocean has made a game that truly feels like a classic RPG straight off the NES. Tons of character customization, quick transportation and lots of sidequests make this the must play adventure retro RPG fans have been waiting for.

So what makes this game different from game like, say, Heroes Realm? Well, Ocean's unique graphic style for one. Unlike the previously mentioned game, which directly copies the exact style of the earlier Final Fantasy titles, Ocean's graphics, while keeping the retro feel, have a life all their own. What results is a colorful, vibrant world of characters, cities and adventure.

The customization is the most in depth I've seen in an RPG maker game to date. It is very similar to FF5's class system, allowing you to change between the classes you've found anytime though out the game and learn different skills that are transferable to different classes. You start with the basic FF1 classes and gain more throughout the main story/side quests as you progress, such as the Paladin or Time Mage. Characters learn their abilities through a skill tree that allows you to keep track of how many Ability Points you characters have and need to obtain their next skill.

The story is very simplistic and most players will get more out of the game by playing the side quests than through the main story itself. Side quests can include anything from finding an amulet for an old man, to assassinating the leader of a deadly cult. Doing these quests will also help you get much needed EXP, items and ABP.

Leveling is essential in Paradise Blue. I can't stress this enough. While you can, in theory, run past every enemy in the game (minus bosses), some of the bosses can be quite difficult if your party is not at a decent level.

All in all, the game was a fresh, unique experience that really took me back to the days of playing FF1 on my NES. Definitely a game I'd reccomend to fans of oldschool RPGs.

Posts

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I've always wanted to be benchmark.
Don't take that wrong either. I loved Heroes Realm too.
DE
*click to edit*
1313
The game already has 2 reviews. Cool!
I post here because i dont have the english skills or time to create a full review. I liked a lot your game but my main problem with it this the very low challengue. For a game that tries to have a retro feel that hurts a lot. In general i have passed the complete game in a very low low level, evading 95% of the combats of the game, ending in in level 7.

I know that in rpg you can calculate the challengue you want but evading 95% of the combats is totally awfull in my opinion, also because you spent A LOT of time creating beautfiul monsters, classes, items, engines, animations... and that gets totally lost when you pass over it.

I suggest you creating two versions of this game. Other will have also a 8-16 bits challengue....

For the rest the game shines. The music is great, art, etc... the history is bad but i didnt care about. And with or without the challengue the game is fun, and that JRPG-Oblivion gameplay is very interesting.

Ocean
Resident foodmonster
11991
author=gerkrt
I post here because i dont have the english skills or time to create a full review. I liked a lot your game but my main problem with it this the very low challengue. For a game that tries to have a retro feel that hurts a lot. In general i have passed the complete game in a very low low level, evading 95% of the combats of the game, ending in in level 7.

I know that in rpg you can calculate the challengue you want but evading 95% of the combats is totally awfull in my opinion, also because you spent A LOT of time creating beautfiul monsters, classes, items, engines, animations... and that gets totally lost when you pass over it.

I suggest you creating two versions of this game. Other will have also a 8-16 bits challengue....

For the rest the game shines. The music is great, art, etc... the history is bad but i didnt care about. And with or without the challengue the game is fun, and that JRPG-Oblivion gameplay is very interesting.


Oh yeah, this is interesting. I've seen at least 2 other reviews that say it's too hard and that you feel like you needed to defeat every enemy to get through. Perhaps you just found and stuck with a good strategy, or they didn't figure a good one out, I dunno. What classes/abilities did you use? Maybe I can see why some people are doing so well and why some aren't. Perhaps I didn't balance the game correctly.

Honestly it is possible to beat the game at Level 1 if you reaally want (I forget if I tried the bedbug at Level 1 too) but yeah there does come a point where the later enemies don't really match up to how strong you get and you'd have to do the optional bosses for that challenge.

I was not really going for old school difficulty though, as I don't like that kind of difficulty. I prefer to beat games at natural levels, and go on more the easier side. I'd have added low walk speed and frequent random encounters if I really want to keep a retro feel. But yeah, I hope my next game won't be as bad in the difficulty section.
author=Ocean
author=gerkrt
I post here because i dont have the english skills or time to create a full review. I liked a lot your game but my main problem with it this the very low challengue. For a game that tries to have a retro feel that hurts a lot. In general i have passed the complete game in a very low low level, evading 95% of the combats of the game, ending in in level 7.

I know that in rpg you can calculate the challengue you want but evading 95% of the combats is totally awfull in my opinion, also because you spent A LOT of time creating beautfiul monsters, classes, items, engines, animations... and that gets totally lost when you pass over it.

I suggest you creating two versions of this game. Other will have also a 8-16 bits challengue....

For the rest the game shines. The music is great, art, etc... the history is bad but i didnt care about. And with or without the challengue the game is fun, and that JRPG-Oblivion gameplay is very interesting.

Oh yeah, this is interesting. I've seen at least 2 other reviews that say it's too hard and that you feel like you needed to defeat every enemy to get through. Perhaps you just found and stuck with a good strategy, or they didn't figure a good one out, I dunno. What classes/abilities did you use? Maybe I can see why some people are doing so well and why some aren't. Perhaps I didn't balance the game correctly.

Honestly it is possible to beat the game at Level 1 if you reaally want (I forget if I tried the bedbug at Level 1 too) but yeah there does come a point where the later enemies don't really match up to how strong you get and you'd have to do the optional bosses for that challenge.

I was not really going for old school difficulty though, as I don't like that kind of difficulty. I prefer to beat games at natural levels, and go on more the easier side. I'd have added low walk speed and frequent random encounters if I really want to keep a retro feel. But yeah, I hope my next game won't be as bad in the difficulty section.

Too bad i erased the game, i remember:

-Using the regen, speed, and first strike(to scape easily), also the merchant one, of course, that saves a lot of monet.

-Althought i didnt fight enemies i dont rememebr having money problems. The quests gives sufficients, and also, checking all areas for chests, etc, and have a thief or a hidden skill always, also the spped one.

-Obviusly i used the status skills, and defensive ancs.

I used all the classes, i think, i had they balanced. Except assasin and cholocaltier. I changued to any necesary when needed. I also developed the skills that looked better to me.

Because of my low levels i only had a physical attacker actor that used fighter/archer classes, but hte trully nice thing was that his weapons had interesting effects. I remeber using two weapons state causing a lot of time.

I love time mages and autohaste is very good for normal combats.

Note that the final boss took more time to me. The rest, no.

The game seemed pretty easy, at least for me, i didnt win the optional boss, although.

The complains for the a hard challengue... well your game has a nice gameplay. Im a fan of the job systems and was very interesting. The problem with that people is that they will be playing trully bad. Maybe your game is broken is some way, remember FF8? if you convert spells you have 2500 of life and 90 of attack in the 3h of game, in your game i feel somewhat liek that, that without leveling i can do anything and very accesible.

Too bad i cant think in anything particularly broken. The problem for me was the lack of challengue. I defeteated no enemies and i didnt have any gold or ap problems... and the bosses didnt hit that hard. It was just pretty easy but with all that options you give it can be complex for some people.

Anyway i think a more hard standard difficulty will be better. Think that i finished FFVII with only Cloud, for example, but thats a game that i ahve played 10 times. In your game that was the first time and i was doing the same, thats a bad challengue, at least for me.

I dont like 8 bits nes era challengue 100% of the time. But for true i will give this game a challengue at least bewtwenn FFV and FFVI, and it will be a lot better, at least for me.

xd, for my game i want a between FFNES - FFV challengue, with a easy difficulty level and ambe a hard one. Note that i use XP so its more easy to balance diferent didiculty levels.

pd: Note that im a very skilled rpg gamer, but in general i think its easy.
Heh. I defeated every enemy because I don't like leaving survivors in my wake. >:D
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