• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS

Oh Laine, You So Drunk Right Now

  • Addit
  • 06/17/2014 06:16 AM
  • 10094 views


A Game Made By: yuna21 & Ronove
Created Using: RPG Maker VX
It's A: RPG Game
That Roughly Takes Around: 7 - 9 Hours To Complete
And It's A... COMPLETED GAME!!!


This is what happens when I usually promise to do something one day and end up eventually doing it almost three months later after the initial request. (Yeah, I’m not too good when it comes to keeping track of dates and what not.) But here I am, many days late…finally abling to sum up the courage and pound this baby out.

(Oh that sounded so bad in my head right about now.)

So - let’s finally talk about what the F I’m reviewing right about now, shall we? If the title of the game has gotten you all confused, so am I… Anyways, Enelysion, Volume 1: Comic Con Days, or whatever the hell it’s called. Wait a minute, “Addit,” you say, “What’s this about a Volume 1? *southern redneck voice over* I thought that this was a supposed to be a one night stand. I thought that yuna21 cancelled the second volume in order to work on that Tristian crackers thing.” You’re right, drunken hicks. You’re right.

But there’s no denying the popularity of her first endeavourer – oh noes! And despite most of her targeted attention these days being directed towards good ol’ Tristy here, I, like many, wouldn’t mind seeing a second chapter to this so we can finally get a conclusion to this story. I mean, if you asked me a couple of days ago if I cared or not that Volume 2 got done, I’d probably say 50/50. But now that I’ve played and finished Enelysion to almost 100% completion, I’d say “Hell yeah, I want a sequel. Why not? This game’s awesome.”

I guess you can tell just how much I enjoyed this game from that last sentence.

Anyways, enough stalling around for cheap laughs. Let’s go download this sucker, crack open a cold one, and put our grinding sneakers on and dive right into another highly requested featured game request, “Enelysion.” Is it better than Tristian: Lady Of The Lightly Salted Crackers? Ahhhhh…for now, I guess… Anyways, I’m not here to compare; let’s go!!!

I hope you like your blue…greenish haired heroines. (Is it blue or green???)

The Story


Truly great words spoken by poets.


Our tale begins with a very impressive opening sequence explaining about the history and the story of the four founding fathers of the mythical world known as “Tairngire” (sounds like the name of a good drink). The hero Cuchulain, along with his many other companions, managed to stop all the violence, bloodshed and darkness by igniting the people together through these harsh tough times and created one unified land where all people can live in peace and harmony. These are the teachings and laws that bind the world still today and have been throughout the many centuries.

Flash forward many generations later to a dirt silk road where a travelling merchant bringing goods from one town to another is suddenly attacked by a group of Raiders that wish to steal the cargo and sell it back on the black market for an even higher price. But unfortunately for them, inside the wagon, a young woman with long luscious hair and the calm demeanor of maltase falcon flies out and manages to quickly make work of the bandits, swearing revenge as they run away and coward in fear.

All in a day’s work for full time mercenary for hire “Laine ‘Alexandra’ Fisher”.

Before returning to the city of Landen to receive her payment for her assignment, she stops home to pay respect to her fallen mentor, the great Rikard, before heading into town. There, she soon runs into an old dear friend by the name of Patrick, who works as a priest for the church of St. Fonteini. Patrick and Laine have known each other for many years now, and Patrick always worries about the type of work that she does and worries for her safety, despite Laine shrugging his feelings of resent off like thr total badass she is. Patrick decides to come along with her forcefully to keep an eye out on her, even though his frail condition doesn’t really suit him for such endeavourers. Agreed to take him up on his request, the two head over to the pub in Landen and speak to a man named Krei, who takes her up on the jobs.

After receiving a strange request to meet a hooded man behind one of the houses in town, Laine and Patrick goes only for the stranger to say a few words and gives Laine a mysterious blue sparkling orb that seems to draw her curiosity in. Not really paying close attention to what the hooded man was saying, the two decide to keep the orb and just brush it off like it’s no big deal. After returning to the bar, Krei has a new job for Laine to go to the Forest Of Pan and head on over to the village of Ogham to see what’s up there. Upon reaching the town, they soon find out that there are these strange, black like creatures that feast on people’s negative energy and have been wreaking havoc on the town since. Laine manages to defeat them along with the help of Patrick but not after going through a transformation herself. Usually calm and cool in battle, Laine becomes quite angry and easily agitated which something that’s not usually like her. Could that hooded man have something to do with this?

This is just the beginning of a long winded journey for Laine, Patrick and among two others that will see them travel all over the world of Tairngire in an attempt to understand more about this strange orb, those mysterious black creatures and finding out the truth about Laine’s origins and who she really is.

Not bad for something the creator just happened to spurn out as she went along.

The overall plot of Enelysion is definitely very entertaining and very enjoyable thanks in large part to its atmospheric scope and detail to its rich background and story. And although some of these plot points can be a bit overwhelming for some (as I still don’t even understand half the stuff that’s going on myself), I can still make out most of what Laine and co. are trying to do and accomplish, so that helps bring someone who’s slow at catching up to things along. I can honestly say that I found the story very enjoyable, in large part thanks to its characters, which are some of the best well-written that I’ve seen.

First off, you got Ms. Badass herself, Laine. She kinda reminds me of what Cloud and Lightning would be like if they ever got together and had a kid. You got the relatively calm, cool as a cucumber who tries not to show too much of her inner feelings to the surface while also still trying to act somewhat lady like. What really separates her from the rest of those boring types of generic heroes is that she’s not afraid to be quite comical at times, especially when she’s front and center at a bar. Oh man… These scenes whenever Laine happens to visit the neighbourhood pubs almost makes me like her even more. She’s a good, overall interesting character.

Patrick is another interesting one, too, mainly just more because of the gender swapping of a role that’s usually played by the female over the years carrying the “healer / love interest” tag. Patrick isn’t very strong, nor does he sound or act even remotely intimating, but you can’t deny seeing the little guy try his best for Laine and even admitting his deep down feelings for her. I like this little guy. He’s got wazoo.

And then there’s Sir Cillian and Siglud, or Siggy for short. Oh man…

These two will eventually join up with you a bit of ways in, but they definitely add some much needed comedic relief interacting off one another. Cillian is the serious one. He just wants to do the job and look rather semi-professional while doing it. He may look like Roy from Fire Emblem, but he’s no Roy. Siglud, on the other hand, likes to be a bit reckless, a bit of a goof, and say some of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard anybody say, which results in a light smack upside the head from our Roy wannabe here, Cillian. Often times, Siglud will try to change the subject and lighten the mood, or say something completely out of the blue. The tall b**tard will even try to hit on Laine, for god sakes, right in front of Patrick. And that’s why I love him for it.

The main characters work off each other so much that it becomes a joy to watch them travel together and interact with each other. Even some of the NPC’s have a good line here or two. I enjoyed this story mainly because of the great characters and the interactions they had with one another. And even though the story can be a bit hard to follow with everything that’s going on in regards to the mythos, I still knew enough to care and kept going, and that’s just fine with me.

I have no problems with the story overall, other than it sucks it had to leave on a cliff hanger. Grrr…

The Gameplay


O-Okay, then, lol…


Compared to playing yuna21’s other game that I reviewed some time ago, Tristian: Lady Of The Lion, I found, although quite a number of similarities between the two games, that this game was way more enjoyable and way more manageable than that one.

First off, you got the combat, which also uses a similar setup and relies on a smaller stat based system. While encounters are still touched based and everything else may appear to be the same on both ends, Enelysion biggest advantage that it has over its counterpart is in regards to the overall difficulty, the large amount of available equipment options for you to desire from, and the ability to customize your characters with statistical upgrades the way you see fit after gaining levels. Those three key factors make Enelysion an absolute improvement over what I played before with Trisitan. I found Tristian way too difficult right off the bat, didn’t really have too many different weapon and equipment options, other than the odd new sword and pendant that increased your attack or speed status by a few points, and, although it did have a customization setup in regards to boosts, you still needed to find particular items that were quite rare to find in order to raise your characters up. Not so much here. The challenge of the game and its enemies are quite fair towards even the first timers of RPG’s. You’ll usually hit harder than your opponent will ever hit you. You’ll also find and receive a plethora of many different pieces of equipment, healing items and among other things to make each battle and scenario more fitting. I mean, if you’re willing to explore the maps, you can find tons of different herbs, gear and among other things that rewards the player for their curiosity, which is a good thing. Even the many different abilities you learn by levelling up have their good uses at some point.

Another interesting thing about this game is that currency is not usually acquired by normal means. Instead, you must take down enemies, skin them of whatever dignity they have left, and sell their teeth, hides and bones to shops in order to receive more money. That’s a really cool way of doing things and breaking away from the norm. You can still receive money the traditional way by defeat bosses or completing certain objectives, but even just this is a nice change of pace. You can keep those materials and sell them at various merchants in exchanges for various items that you can find across the world. The majority of these aren’t much to be excited for, but there are a few items there that are worth picking up.

Dungeons are pretty much the standard fare here but at least yuna21 tried to implement a few clever puzzles, like pushing blocks and statues on switches and what not, to make things more fun. Although it would have been nice to see a few more cleverly done puzzles, I can’t really complain too much about the lack of them either. In fact, I really like exploring the desert part of the game and have a exhaustion meter that fills up the longer you’re out there, forcing you to hide in caves and seek shelter or drink from the various streams so you don’t burn up and die.

This game also has quite a number of secret chests and even hidden bosses to fight if you’re willing to go out of your way to find some of them. It’s not really necessary in finishing off the game, but it’s a nice touch. There’s also things like “Golden Doubloons,” which are also present in Tristian, that you can use to exchange items in order to acquire other things. This game has quite a lot to do, and it makes it fun while doing it.

However, not everything is peachy keen when it comes to certain things that I noticed. For one thing, this game has a few annoyances that really bugged me. First off, if you end up getting “Wounded” or “Poisoned” in a battle but didn’t take care of it inside of it, you’ll find that these status problems will still linger on outside of battle. Okay, that seems normal with something like poison, but these problems can be removed after a few turns in battle just by normal means so why does things like the wounded status still stay? This can be a pain in the neck because there’s no warning for it, like flashing of the screen, and you’ll end up wandering around before going into the next battle and seeing one of your characters at 1 HP, ready to drop, and you had no or little warning of it. That kinda sucks.

Also, with key items, you have the ability to actually SELL these items at stores if you’re not careful or just feeling stupid enough to do so. Did you happen to sell that gate key before actually using it and you happened to save your game? Uh oh – SPAGHETTIOS! Back to the start for you! What about selling that red gem you needed to open some of the doors in the Eos Shrine? No ending credit sequence for you, I’m afraid. I know you’d have to be pretty dunce to sell something like that, but it can happen, I’m done it before in other games. This is something that should have been easily fixed, but I guess nothing was done of it.

There’s also a bunch of scenes that can be triggered early or shouldn’t even happen at all during some points of the game. Take one scene in the Forest Of Pam when Patrick explains to Laine about drinking the water to replenish lost HP and stuff. If you end up not viewing this scene and you lose Patrick for some time and come back here, Patrick will magically come back to speak with you with all his worldly wisdom. Now he’d do that, anyway? Same thing when you need the Sledgehammer for Siglud in order break down a wall that leads to the Bandit’s Cave. Even if you HAVE the Sledgehammer equipped on Siglud, the scene won’t commence until you de-equipped it first. Oh, and did I mention that you can sell that too!?

Luckily, these annoyances are more comical than they are game breaking or just plain frustrating, well besides the sledgehammer bit. Compared to Trisitian that had a lot more bugs and weird stuff happening all around it, Enelysion was surprising pretty tame. I seemed to have only encountered issues in the first half of the game compared to the latter half, so I guess yuna21 was paying a bit more attention towards the end.

Overall, the game does have a few issues, but most of the overall experience was quite pleasing. Sure, the difficulty jumps a bit when you reach the Eos Shrine, but I don’t mind a bit of a challenge gap seeing how it is around the end stages of the game. Overall, I had a good time swiping down monsters and collecting herbs and potions from off the ground, even though there was that one scene where day suddenly turns to night after the switch of a map, just because I decided to skip seeing one cutscene.

The Soundtrack


Look hard! There are treasures to be found!


Just like her previous works before it, the soundtrack and sound department once again delivers on all its supposive promises, perhaps more so in this game than others. The music in this game helps to bring out its world and its atmosphere to life thanks in large parts to these tunes. I do recognize a few songs, like from Enya and Celtic Chill, but some of these others ones are quite new to me. Anyways, some of my favorites have to be the boss battle theme from Roger Subirana Mata, “Land Of Silence – We Are Runners,” as it’s an extremely epic tune for a fated encounter against a worthy foe; cybordjeff’s, “L'hymne de la Guerre des Paquerettes,” which is a great, catchy town theme; and another one from cybordjeff’s, “El Lento”. There are a lot of great tracks here, so you might find yourself cracking open the BGM folder and listening to a few of them after finishing up with the game.

The sound effects, such as the ambience noises of the forest, rivers, caves and even the bar scenes are fantastic and also drive the atmospheric factor home. I know that there are RTP default sound effects used for things like attacks and what not, but I didn’t really care that much that it hindered my overall experience of the game.

The Aesthetics


Like a boss.


Come on, it’s freakin’ yuna21, for crying out loud! Of course this is going to be her speciality. The mapping of each town, cave, dungeon – and even the forests aren’t as cluttered as they were in Tristian look great and adding those nice lighting effects and overlays add a nice extra attention to detail that is quite rare to find in some RM games. Hell, even the menus looks fabulous, not to mention these custom portraits and cutscenes that happen in-game. That’s right! There’s cutscenes here, like the one above, that happen at some points in your journey. They’re not animated or anything, but they still look pretty cool. Anyways, I love the look for this game, so I can’t complain too much about it.

The End Result


…Why not, Laine, at least until Volume 2 happens to show up.


You’ve heard of the saying “You’ll never forget your first?” Well, I like to think that might apply in this situation here. There’s a good reason why I see a lot of people trying to feature this game and persuade yuna21 to do a second volume, and I finally see why. Enelysion is a fantastic, well-written game that not only delivers on pretty much every single front but it’s such a joy to sit down and play. Even though there are a few hiccups that I found that made me shrug a little but, they’re usually harmless to relatively comical at best. And although yuna21 may be busy with hammering out Tristian and may be in love with her and all that, I hope she doesn’t forget that there’s somebody else out there, among the shadows that’s waiting for her chance to shine brightly once again.

Because you’ll never forget your first.



(BTW, this should have been Siggy’s official theme song, lol.)


OVERALL GRADE:
4.5 / 5 - B+ ~ Oustanding. Truly Outstanding.

Posts

Pages: first prev 12 last
CashmereCat
Self-proclaimed Puzzle Snob
11638
Pages: first prev 12 last