The Frozen World

Intro

"The Frozen World" was a turn-based RPG being developed by WIP using ika that was meant to be a recreation of Lys86's game "The Frozen World" which was created using RPG Maker 2000. Oddly enough that game is also available on this site so I kind of wish WIP had changed the name of his game slightly or included the word remake in the title. That way it would be easier to tell them apart. At any rate WIP's remake never got past the demo stage which was released as part of a release something event.

Unfortunately it's going to be hard to write a particularly substantial review for this demo for two reasons. For starters the demo only includes a single dungeon map with a few enemies you can battle since this demo was meant to let potential players test the combat system. Secondly this game was made with ika which doesn't run that well on my PC. So much so that I basically had to stutter my way through a single battle as the game locked up after every exchange. As such I wasn't able to experience the combat system as WIP intended. Though, I suppose this does showcase why old games are sometimes forgotten about since getting them to run on modern hardware can be an absolute nightmare.

Story

As previously mentioned the demo is focused on allowing the player to test the combat system as such the demo itself doesn't include any cut scenes of note. At least that appears to be the case since it's possible to experience the entire demo in under 10 seconds by just making a beeline for the exit.



Though if we look beyond the demo to the game's summary page it appears were a hero that had failed in her quest, but somehow survived being tossed from the final boss's tower. So we now have a second chance to achieve eternal glory.

Gameplay

Combat wise the game features a turn-based combat system where the player needs to spend stamina in order to perform actions. And the cost of those actions varies on how powerful your action was in the eyes of the developer. Admittedly there is the option to recover stamina by doing nothing, but this means giving enemies a free attack. And I really don't like giving enemies free hits on my characters since they can end a battle in a hurry if your not careful. Though allowing enemies to score free hits is a necessary part of leveling up your health in a few games such as "Threads of Fate" for the PS1.

Though as previously mentioned I really wasn't able to experience this system as the developer intended since the game kept becoming unresponsive during combat. So much so that it was hard for me to get through one fight since I'd have to wait anywhere from 30 to 90 seconds between attacks.

Graphics

Graphically the game does look like Lys86's game "The Frozen World" from what I can tell using screenshots taken from that game. So I suppose this game does capture the look it was going for which was to look a lot like a game made with RPG Maker 2000.

Sound

On the sound side of things the game was rather forgettable in my opinion. Though oddly enough while the game would sputter dealing with attack animations or flipping through the menu. The music would never stop so I got to hear the combat music loop over a few times during my one battle.

Conclusion

Sadly, I really don't see a reason for people to play this anymore. Beyond the problems this demo can have running on newer operating systems and hardware. There just isn't that much content here to experience. And it's possible to skip over the one thing this demo was meant to demonstrate by simply running for the nearest exit and never looking back.