Dragon Slayer

One of the few RPG Maker games I played to the end, and by now I have started over 50 of them. I recommend this to anyone who wants to create a game himself, it's both exemplary and inspiring, in fact I would call it a blueprint for aspiring devs - it's kind of Hollywood in a nutshell. On the other hand it's a little too short and text heavy to be entertaining for players-only.

The Good:
Simple, yet interesting maps that perfectly avoid to show patterns and are pleasent to look. The choice of tilesets is excellent (and the ingame credit is a nice touch).

Conversations are exemplary. Apart from NPCs that hint at their own story with a few lines, the long conversation with the female lead and the protagonist's dad stay interesting enough to read through and the antagonist delivers a classic speech.

The Story is something Peter Jackson could easily stretch into a 3 hour movie without breaking a sweat. The protagonist is kind of the last chapter in a part of (fantasy) mankind's history and this epic story is told in a way I actually buy it from Zelda-Style game. Without changing a single word of the key conversations and story inserts, the author could add another 10 maps and a dozen quests and the story still wouldn't feel thin.

The Bad:
The game offers about 65 % conversation, 20 % running around and only 15 % action. Combined with a playing time of 10 - 20 minutes its not a great experience for the casual gamer.

The Ugly:
There is no treasure, no loot, no gold, nothing to buy and one-sided easy battles - which makes the gameplay quite boring. Dragon Slayer is an exceptionally well-told story but lacks seriously of gameplay.

All in all I hope to see more from this developer (in VX Ace for even livelier conversations maybe?) and vote it a straight 3.