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I Miss the Sunrise Review: A bite of RPG Maker heaven!

  • Adon237
  • 07/25/2012 02:00 PM
  • 3795 views
I Miss the Sunrise - Review

Let me start by saying this HAS TO BE among MOST UNAPPRECIATED games on this site, though I am pretty sure a previous review covered that. The purpose of this review is to completely worship this game and say it is the best in existence provide constructive criticism to this game. Some say it doesn't need it, but it's real close to a commercial standard game, and if it weren't for the text box things, I wouldn't have believed this was made in ANY RPG Maker engine. So let me get on with this review.

Graphics and Audio

Graphics
The graphics in IMTS were spectacular. They all fit in with the theme so well! Of course, I can notice a VX tile here and there, but I believe everything else is 150% original! Impressive. The graphics make the game much more enjoyable than it already is, but I do have some 'problems' if you will.
• The character movements. I know they are all custom characters, but GOD, when they are moving it practically looks like they are shuffling or scooting their feet across the floor. It looks even more ridiculous when they are dashing. When I first played the game, I chose a LAC(Lacertian), I thought it was just something that they all did. Eventually I restarted for reasons unknown and I became a SOL, and he had the same problem also. I began to notice this with NPCs and characters like Marie. It bothered me a lot when I first started playing.

Now these are VERY nitpicky, but still worth an explanation!
• Kara's spaceship is brighter than everyone else's ship:

I honestly felt like the other font was obnoxious. Plus I don't have it installed.
I wonder to myself, WHY is Kara's ship so much brighter? Is it because she is more technologically advanced? I mean the other ships look so dim compared to hers.
• This image also can serve to address my graphic concerns. See the bottom enemy(red) ship? The bottom underlaps with the action selection, and then the other part overlaps the neighboring spaceship.
• Some of these ships take up parts of another square to the left and/or right of it. Probably the cause of the overlapping.

Don't take any of this as being offensive, they were just some 'minor' problems I had. I loved the face graphics, even though you can obviously see spots of where they were highlighted and darkened at, in other words not the best quality, but they fit with the personality of the character for the most part:

Adonis Storm? What a stupid weapon name I made!
I am pretty sure this guy has self confidence issues for being a half-Lesser, half-Lacertian(Lessers are really stupid, ugly, and foul smelling counterparts of the Lacertians, who are quite the opposite.) and also afraid that nobody likes him. Yet, his face doesn't portray that lack of self-confidence or awkwardness, it says he has an attitude and you don't want to mess with him, which is a feeling I get from another character, not this one. Of course I do not expect you to redo all of the faces or anything.

Audio
Now I had better discuss the Audio which I will start off by saying, was amazing. I love the songs, especially when you talk to other people during the 'relationship talks', for a lack of better words. All of the music fit the theme of the game, the theme of the scene, were used correctly, and all had the same 'style uniformity'.The music was of high quality, and I didn't ever hear a song that felt out of place.
Also, Jessamines theme music was quite spectacular, and it reminded me of some Afro guy from Pokemon XD:


Of course this is really more guitar-y than Jessamines theme, but how she referenced to her 'girls' were hilarious. The sound effects were appropriate, a wavy sound when you shot a laser that was wavy, etc. In other words, the audio was top notch, and there isn't anything wrong in this apartment.



Storyline and Character Development
Potential SPOILERS BEWARE!
Storyline
I am not an expert and picking up bits and pieces of information from a game story, and I don't know EVERYTHING about it yet either, though what I have learned comes from MISSIONS. More specifically, TypeLog data and our allies soon to be enemies. So let us start from the beginning, the SHINE. The Shine was a catastrophic event that caused mass destruction and chaos all throughout space. Many people died, crafts, carriers, and possibly habitations, were completely destroyed. The so called 'perfect' world was destroyed. People began to regain their emotions, and much other chaotic things you would normally find in this type of game. Many fleets of spacecraft emerged, some good, most bad, and all had their own purpose. You play as a character that you customize, and you get to be commander of a fleet, apparently because of your special blood protein that when aided with certain radiation and drugs of some sort, allows you to make complex decisions in a split second. That complex decision making is reflected in a battle, and all of the actions you choose are actually going to be done in a split second! No wonder they want this guy to be captain. Anyway, apparently these people can theoretically live forever, or at least a very long time, due to some type of radiation, +ii, that does something to your cells while exposed. They also don't get to keep most of their memories in their head, mostly because they found it was efficient if they didn't, and had the technology to do so. A non-profit organization called TypeLog stores YOUR memories into their database is assume by machines that are located in various places. In game, this is the equivalent of saving. Yeah, it would take me forever to explain all of the stuff, and is best that you play this amazing game for yourself anyway.
The storyline is very gripping, and personally I did not feel like anything was 'filler', and if it was, that was some of the best filler I have ever had. Everything flows so... smoothly. It's great. It may take you a while before making sense of what is actually happening to this universe, but is excellent nevertheless. When they don't need you for a while, and have to gel you (putting you in a tank to 'preserve' you, so to speak.), when you are de-gelled, you are often confused, but everything is pretty much cleared up by the time you are out on a mission. It's those roller-coaster rides of knowing and not that really boosted my liking to this game. I found very little flaws or contradictions, and I am anticipating for the up and coming release of Episode 5.

Characters/Character Development
There are a fair amount of characters, and I am assuming there are more coming since there are a lot of open spaces left in the party menu:

Menus in battle? Aww yeah! I also happen to hoard the moneyz.
Hopefully there aren't that many characters left. I honestly doubt it because it would make switching fleets a hassle.
Well, the player can develop his/her/it's character by simply choosing actions during missions, briefings, and etc. I don't know what the personality does for or against the player, but I assume good qualities are better. You can also build up other character's personal trust value, which I also have no idea what that effects, could it be like Makerscore? A trivial number that could mean a lot to some people? Oh yes, you build or destroy a person's trust value by certain actions, and during scenes or dialogue, the choice that you make, or what you say. It is accompanied by a little animation above their heads (and with my experience, on the other side of the room!) that tells you whether trust went up or down. Also, you actions may be indifferent to some characters, showing no animation, meaning the trust value stays the same.

The characters in game all have defined personalities, some are shy, awkward and lack self confidence, some are spunky, some are just plain weird, etc. etc. My three favorite characters from what I have played so far are in order from most favorite to less are Doctor Ran(m?)send, or just Rami, Tez, and Daszkh.

This category did very well and was a pleasing aspect of the game, and if I feel sympathy and excitement for characters, you know your story was good!


Gameplay
Ah, gameplay. Perhaps the most exciting part of this game, of course, is the gameplay. It's pure brilliant:

Vulnerable, you say? LET'S DO IT!
One look at this screen and you might be overwhelmed in an overcrowded mess. That's not what this is. It ALL has a purpose. So let me explain how damage works. Take a look at the Marie HUD, it shows three bars. Each of these bars represent the health of a certain part of the ship. The Hull bar shows how much stable the hull of your spacecraft is. To damage your Hull, you must use skills that have the damage color in orange. Only those Hull type skills can damage the Hull. The purple bar is the Systems bar is the stability of your Systems, AKA what allows you to fly and stuff. These can only be damaged by skills who have the damage color purple. It's the same thing with the Pilot, which is the welfare of the person inside of the ship. If ANY of these reach 0, the ship 'explodes', I am not sure whether they blast away, or explode into smithereens. Whomever can kill all of the other side first, wins. But suckishly, if you leader dies, you lose, I think.

Missions are a treat! As you would expect as normal material for a game like this, there are plenty of them. Except it isn't your normal space travel gameplay like DarkOrbit or something like that. You travel on 'nodes', something acknowledged by the characters of the game:

This mission is a complete bastard CHALLENGE.
It is actually a really simple thing, this type of travel. You see that little moon crescent thing, that is the Inquiry's symbol. It is also a cursor to let you know which fleet you are controlling. Once you get enough people, you start getting fleets. You can arrange who are in the fleets, spread them across multiple, etc. You can change whichever fleet you are controlling, and that is a MUST for some missions.
Anyway, see the "CP" at the top-right of the screen? That is like a turn point of some sort. Your actions use up these points. Moving between nodes costs 1 CP, Investigating the nodes (which can find you interesting items and such) costs 1 CP. Even your approach to an encounter in battle costs CP, depending on your choice.
There are also different color nodes, the blue nodes are the ones that have already been investigated, the grey ones still need to be investigated, and the green nodes display the map, and can be damaged in some plot and mission related events. In fact, there are some missions which require you to investigate a certain amount of nodes before you pass them.(AKA all of the Splice Missions)

The gameplay was refreshing, and still challenging past Episode 3 (after you have had plenty of time to practice.) and this is probably one of the few RPG Maker games I actually enjoyed. (and most were of the medieval fantasy genre) This game definitely stands out, and I definitely support it being a featured game.

Conclusion
As I said in the above paragraph, this is a VERY good game, with very minor flaws in my eyes, and this game is a keeper. I am excited to see your future and upcoming games, and I am going to have to play the original Reconstruction and compare.
This game was bite of RPG Maker heaven, and I definitely give it 4.5/5 stars.

I wrote this review while also playing through Episode 4, how neat. I know a lot of what I mentioned has been addressed in the Episode 5 release, but still, I think there are some points that still stand.

Posts

Pages: 1
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
You sound so enthusiastic about every little thing! I am amused. Good luck with TR if you get in to it; it's a whole lot harder.

(And you are missing a lot of optional characters! There are 16 PCs in all. More fleets = more CP per turn, too, even if they aren't full fleets.)
Adon237
if i had an allowance, i would give it to rmn
1743
(There are a lot more optional characters below Episode 4? Do I need to look around the splices?)

Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
They're all over the place, but you can get any of them before the end of Episode 4, or in the post-game.
You can get them through various sidequests. Exploring the Inquiry and reading those Typelog articles you get after every mission (have you read those? They're pretty interesting) are good starting points. If you're really stuck, a list of characters and how to get them is on the wiki (beware of spoilers though).

Personal Trust gives minor boosts to accuracy and damage in battle, by the way.

Would be interesting to see what you think of episode 5 and the ending(s) (perhaps make an additional post here).

Interesting that every review so far has given this game a 4.5. That's the score I would give it, too. :o
I'm on EP3 (iirc) and I have all the characters (I think):O

edit: okay apparently not... But i have more than Adon ;)
Pages: 1