Where should I begin.. The well crafted & intriguing story? Beautifully used tiles and characters or perhaps it's implementation of varied gameplay through out it's 2 hour demo? Ultima has managed to have all those nice things I just mentioned within this game and he does it ease. This people is a quintessential Rm2k3 experience that shouldn't be passed up. Funnily enough Ultima has a second game which out does this one called Raciela you guys should also check out.



Lets start off with the games story. As you guys probably noticed my grammar is not the best on this site, but I like to think that I could notice good writing from bad. So to me, Story of Innocence has some good writing and a not so typical storyline for an rpg. Game starts of and plays out as if you're reading the story you're playing, y'know from a third person perspective.. I don't know. Anyway, the beginning offers multiple choice(But for the releases sake it's only Lyanna story we go through) showing us there is more than one story to obviously progress through here. As I was saying Lyanna is a 17 year old girl who has been sold off into the slave trading business. The day of her sale two people are bidding extensively for her, one is a vile man named Skarven. One of there best customers, the other is a man with an eye patch and gold armor. The man with one eye wins the bid by matching Skarvens bid but tossing in some rare materials along with it. Skarven angered leaves.

Lyanna is then greeted outside after the sale by the one eyed man. She offers herself and the man just laughs telling her he's "A married man". Dumbfounded Lyanna then asks the man why he bought her, simply hearing the words "I bought your freedom" confused yet ever grateful the one eyed man leaves you with some advice and you embark on your journey to get home to your family. The story and how it plays out has some creative writing, especially seeing as Ultima really tries to get each character a distinct personality. The one eyed man Joseon is a confident, skilled individual with a secret & past he's hiding from. Lyanna at first is a weak, yet strong willed person with no real experience in traveling around or really much good people skills. Duped by a actor used as payment for debts owed.

I think the more impressive thing to me is how the story is played out. Very smooth, well paced and never rushing you to a certain point. But that could also be attributed to Story of Innocence gameplay.



Gameplay wise Story of Innocence is quite varied. From carriage battles to snake biting contests, puzzles, stealth encounters, multiple world maps and diverse locations to explore, it's a fun yet challenging game. Story of Innocence battles does provide most of the games play time though it should be stated it is utilized well enough to not bore you or get repetitive. I will admit I had to grind a bit to keep up with the enemies damage rate sometimes, but in all honesty that just provided me with more of a challenge then anything else. Each new area not only brings a nice view but also provides new gameplay mechanics, puzzles and opportunity.

I also have to mention the custom leveling up systems that have been implemented within Story of Innocence. When you level up you are given a certain amount of SP(Skill Points) to level up each stat for your characters. The higher the stats boosted, the more skill points it costs. This same method has been applied to the magic skills of the game too which are bought and equipped to your character. I found myself not sacrificing the steep amount to simple upgrade a spell when my character could be boosted significantly for said points instead. Though at one junction in the story you will have to rely on your magic, so make sure to spend some points on AP!



Now onto the presentation.. As you can see just from these screenshots that Story of Innocence excels at giving the player a sense of consistency through style and quality through out. I dare say this is one of the best looking Rm2k3 games to come out.. Ever. Everything from the menus, to customized tiles and various character poses. Beautifully mapped locations to well placed audio pieces. Story of Innocence utilizes Rm2k3 to it's fullest and I have nothing but total praise to Ultima for such a well crafted presentation he's done.

I really recommend a playthrough of this game as not only does it have an interesting story but it's presented in such a way you're delighted to carry on even when the challenge ramps up.