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

I want to live where soul meets body.

  • NewBlack
  • 07/16/2011 02:00 AM
  • 3728 views


Garden by Rhyme
Genre: Adventure RPG, dungeon crawler.
Play Time: 2-4 hours approx.
Engine: RPG Maker VX

Made for Rpgmaker.net's 2011 Valedictory Game Drive

NOTE: This game has been updated based on the content of this review - As per my "deal" I have increased the star rating of this review to 4 to reflect the changes Rhyme has made to the game, however, the content of this review has been preserved for posterity :) (tl;dr - The game is a lot better now, not everything in this review still applies)

Overview:

Garden is an adventure-slash-dungeon crawl type RPG set in a mysterious locale known as the "Garden". The eponymous setting is described as some kind of legendary promised land or utopia which may or may not even exist (even though you know, it does) and it is your job as the player to navigate the mute progagonist Elle, a half-exile, half-human hybrid and her AI-controlled full-blooded exile sidekick Loke through the Garden in an attempt to reach the true promised land within and discover the secrets of the Garden (or something... After playing this through for 3 hours straight my memory of the opening is a little fuzzy).

Anyway, on the surface it's your pretty standard setup, mysterious forgotten location, stage-tiered dungeon crawling, lots of monsters, puzzles to solve in order to advance through the labyrinthine dungeon etc. So first of all let's talk about what makes Garden shine while I steal this review format from somebody/somewhere I can't remember.

The Good:

First up, I have to say this game is, at least for the most part, downright charming to play. The storyline, although slightly vague at times and told in little segments of exposition is still pretty engaging and a little different to your regular old RPG or dungeon-crawl plot. I like it when dungeon-crawl-y games bother to give you an engaging, interesting and legitimate sounding motivation behind your player character(s) being there in the first place and Garden does just that.

Where Garden really, really shines though, is in its presentation. Yes it's an RPG Maker VX game and is therefore still one of the squarest things to walk the earth, but Garden is an incredibly well presented game. Even the title screen is great.


mmm, minimal.


..and it doesn't end there. All the system graphics are to a high stardard, the mapping is excellent, especially (here we go) for a VX game. The maps in this game are actually interesting to nagivate, which is a great feature in any game which focuses as highly on exploration and linear advancement as this game does (although not exclusively linear if you suck like me, but more on that later). Although the whole overlays and screen-effects thing is done to death these days and we've seen them all before. I'm going to put it right out there that - screen vignettes and lighting effects make VX games look 100 times better in most cases. Sorry guys, they just do. This game would not be anywhere near as beautiful as it is without those features and they're pretty damn artfully used in Garden.


It's pretty isn't it? Go on, admit it. Yes, that's an inn sign on a cliff, yes everything is square. I don't care.


As for audio - the music in Garden is absolutely, hands-down some of the best I've heard in an RM game. There are a couple games I can think of that are better or close to being this good in terms of musical choices but Garden is definitely up near the top in terms of its BGM. Along with the graphical effects, the music choices in Garden really help to enhance the atmosphere and make the player experience more whole, convincing and engaging (and for the record, the theme in the final area was probably my favorite).

On to mechanics! Garden uses some interesting battle and gameplay mechanics and I'm actually quite fond of them and the possibilities that can play out in battle (which often err on the side of sadistically tormenting the player, but it's still entertaining :>). However they can take a little getting your head around. So I thought I'd provide a handy diagram:


Understand? Great. Finally my title pun has context.



I am a big fan of when plot elements are accounted for and represented well within game mechanics instead of their being some weird awkward plot wall between what the player does and the facts of the game's world. Garden manages to pull this off pretty well. Your counterpart, as I mentioned earlier, is AI controlled and is for all intentions and for better or for a worse a complete badass (which I will get into more later). You can change his AI behavior from the main menu, although I chose not to bother as exiles are apparently "happier when they're allowed to be free". For the most part the AI was pretty damn smart - As far as I understand, Rhyme programmed the AI for Loke herself and aside from a couple of instances in the final boss fight where he seemingly managed to kill himself by casting a spell (derp, you need MP to live, Loke) he did the right thing in 90% of cases, including providing adequate support in addition to generally kicking everyone's ass; constantly. Lastly I'll briefly mention the game's character development system (in a stats way, not a narrative way) - Garden has a pretty simple custom character building system which allows you to distribute stats for Elle as you wish upon her levelling up. It's nothing too complicated but it's a nice change from linear character growth, although I will add - Don't bother with Devastator too much, Elle will never kick as much ass with physical attacks as Loke, as far as I can see anyway.


That's good value for money right there.


Okay, I've rambled about why Garden is cool, now time for:

The Bad:


I HOPE YOU LIKE BATTLES! - because you're going to be having a lot of them, a damn lot. Honestly, I'm very glad there is a reliable escape from battle option because sometimes you will not wanna bother with the sheer volume of battles you will be getting in to. I know the point of a dungeon crawl type game is to fight monsters, but there's a limit and I think Garden over-steps that limit a bit. Garden uses touch-encounters but due to the map design, enemy speed and monster distribution it ends up being easier to fight 10000 battles per screen than actually avoid them. At times I was getting into a battle every few steps. As RPG players we're probably all very familiar with that phenomena - We usually experience it when a game has random encounters - Touch encounters are meant to counteract this.

LOKE IS THE TERMINATOR - As I mentioned earlier on, AI-controlled Loke is a badass. In fact he's probably too much of a badass. You can win a great deal of the fights in this game by keeping Loke alive and letting him relentlessly demolish everything around you. It can leave you feeling a little redundant at times as your counterpart just blasts through 90% of the foes you encounter whilst you're sitting there trying to get a meaningful hit in and occasionally topping up Loke's soul juice or health. This gets better as the game progresses and more of your attention is required in order to get through the onslaught of the battles, however the penultimate boss in the game I managed to defeat by using "delay" (which delays an enemy's turn and costs ZERO SOUL JUICE) every turn (so the boss barely ever got to attack) and letting Loke deal all the damage. It's tactical, for sure, but it's also a little too hands-off at times.

Hi my name is "Burst" and I will kill 75% of the enemies in the game:


Learn early, use for 90% of game. :<


I may have been imagining this, but for the last 50% of the game all enemies appear undead or otherwise spooky, and they are also plentiful. It also seemed like you could one-shot 50% of enemies using burst (Which I'm assuming undead/otherwise spooky monsters are weak to because it looks like light/holy), or at least inflict pretty hefty damage, even better than some of the final tier (hehe, "final tier") skills in the game. There may be mitigating reasons behind this because from what I can see, Garden uses some pretty unique damage calculations which I didn't fully understand even at the end of the game.

BUT THOU MUST (But not quite?):

This dude:

"But thou must?"


a) Is a boss fight.
b) Has dodgy arrows.
c) Isn't lying!

I'm not 100% sure but in retrospect I think he's programmed to tell you to turn around if you don't have a key that you could have missed a few screens back (which I obviously missed, which lead to me backtracking through the very confusing, labyrinthine maps) and that you will need as soon as you get past him. Now this is partially player error, for sure, but it's also pretty irksome to have to backtrack so much. I ended up fighting an absolute tonne of battles as I went back to find the missing key :< You'd imagine I'd be over-levelled from that too, but alas... No. Aside from this however; I loved most of the crazy puzzle-based navigation in the game's varied areas and would like to see that sort of thing more often in games like this.

NOT ENOUGH ITEMS AND POINTLESS EXPLORATION: Sometimes in this game there are just too many dead ends and a bunch of frustratingly pointless exploration. There are barely any items in Garden so there's no sense of treasure hunting as you explore the maps. Sure, you might get some money and you'll be needing the keys to advance, but aside from that there's not much point in exploring any more than you have to. Which is a shame considering the maps are so good! This game has an "equip" option in the menu, but we never find any new equipment - There's a double fix opportunity right there. (as a caveat to that statement I'll add that bearing in mind that this game was made for the Valedictory Game Drive - there was a time limit and therefore it's understandable that some aspects may have suffered due to trying to meet a deadline).

MORE NITPICKING: In the comments on this game's screenshots people have mentioned the clashing art styles, and while I will admit they don't exactly match I can assure you that after about 30 minutes of playing Garden you forget all about the mismatching art styles and just start to enjoy it. I will nit-pick however and mention that there are a bunch of awkwardly worded and/or grammatically incorrect bits of text or dialogue in the game, but nothing so terrible as to make you wanna stop playing or anything like that.

Lastly we come down to...

The Ugly:
- This stuff has since been fixed :>

As I just mentioned, Garden was made for RMN's 2011 Valedictory Game Drive event and that means it was made within a time limit, so certain bugs, rough edges etc are to be expected and forgiven. However as the game currently stands there are some downright game-breaking bugs in this game that really need to be addressed. In fact, I had to fix the current version of Garden multiple times in order to complete it (I also had to cheat to beat the final boss, but that's partly my being crappy and we'll get to that).

Game-crashing errors: You can expect the current version of Garden to crash every time you attempt to use the Recovery or Shift techniques from the main menu due to a script error (possibly with other skills too, but I didn't try those). This is obviously a pretty debilitating bug!

Missing resource crashes: Thank frick I was saving often. On three separate occasions I had to replace missing resources in order to get the game past certain points. This is an easy oversight to make when rushing to put a game out by a deadline, so it's forgivable but it's certainly not ideal as it means a player without knowledge of the RM can't actually complete this otherwise enjoyable game.

The current version of the game is actually impossible to beat without editing it :<:


The blue-key mystery... o_o


This is obviously an oversight, I know. But it's a pretty damn game-breaking one!

Lastly, for the ugly. I actually think the final boss in this game is impossible to beat. I know it's easy to blame the game for you sucking as a player and I personally hate it when I see this happening (and wholeheartedly endorse this post by our very own Max McGee) but here is my break down of my attempt to beat him:

a) Get killed within 2-6 moved from the boss (repeat attempt x8)
b) Open in the editor, halve boss's agility, still get decimated within 10 turns (repeat attempt x5)
c) Open in editor, halve boss's HP - Get killed within 12 turns (repeat attempt x6)

Now I was really actually trying to beat him on all those attempts, I wasn't just mashing enter. I was thinking tactically, trying to get Elle in her Exile mode (remember, I can't select it from the main menu beforehand because doing so crashes the game) but getting destroyed before she had a chance to get established, using life spells on Loke and desperately trying to get him back in the game, only to have him cast spells that make him kill himself when he has such low soul juice. I know Rhyme likes crazy-hard sadistic boss fights, but this seemed impossible - It's not like I was under-levelled either, thanks to all that back-tracking I did earlier on in the game (I think I was level 15, for the record). Here's the kicker: Eventually, do get the game finished I put the boss's health on 100 per form (he has multiple forms as you'd expect from any good final boss) and somehow he still managed to kill Elle before I could finish him off! To me that just reeks of being crazily over-powered.


Now for some closing comments and a brief explanation as to why I showed all these game-breaking things at the end here which need fixing:

I'm giving this game 3 stars as it currently stands. That's because I actually really enjoyed it, I thought it was pretty, engaging and fun for the most part. Gamebreaking bugs are obviously an oversight and this game was made for a deadline so it's understandable.

However.

If Rhyme fixes everything listed under "The Ugly" here (and maybe gives some thought to the stuff in "The Bad"?) and updates the available download so that the game will actually be playable for everyone and anyone that might download it (without needing to edit it to get it to work! :P). I will gladly change this rating to 4 stars and add a comment to this review explaining that the content applied to a previous version and has now been fixed.

That is my deal :P
- Done!

So, in closing. I thoroughly enjoyed playing Garden and consider it a true hidden gem here on RMN and you should definitely all play it!

PS. I loved the scarecrows.


"Standing next to this scarecrow feels very pleasant..."


-NewBlack

Posts

Pages: 1
I actually defeated the final boss...BUT I AGREE WITH EVERYTHING. Even when I defeated the final boss I complained to rhyme about that XD
author=Archeia_Nessiah
I actually defeated the final boss...BUT I AGREE WITH EVERYTHING. Even when I defeated the final boss I complained to rhyme about that XD


Haha you're a much better player than me, then :|

Glad you agree though! Nice to know it's not just me being a crappy player.
chana
(Socrates would certainly not contadict me!)
1584
Right,The maps are really beautiful!("for vx").
Updated to reflect Rhyme's swiftly-implemented changes and bug-fixes.

(The game's overall star rating will update to match this review when RMN's overnight clock ticks over, or so I'm told)

:>

I've finished the game after Rhyme fixed the things mentioned in the Review and enjoyed it. There is still the problem that the hooded guy/young man near the beginning doesn't join you, but given Loke's badass character, having only 2 in the party didn't seem to be too much of a handicap. I thought the balance between the effort of exploring and rewards available is now pretty good, and the maps were well done.
Max McGee
with sorrow down past the fence
9159
Deathcab For Cutie?
author=Max McGee
Deathcab For Cutie?

Oh Yers.
nubbinsrulz


I'm so in love with this.
Pages: 1