The Realms Shattered

I've been following this game on and off for a while, never letting it get too far away from the radar of my mind's eye for promising RM games. This game definitely stuck out to me because of its visuals. Well done RTP and a unique presentation for character graphics!? Interesting! When Release Something VIII finally came upon us and we were blessed with a demo of The Realms, I eagerly downloaded it, fullscreened it, and started it up. I like what I played, even though there's still some things to turn up a notch.

STORY-

To be honest, I didn't really know what to expect from the game's plot, as I sort of innocently skimmed through the plot summary, and didn't actually read it until not too long ago, so the only grasp of the plot I picked up from the summary was 'some bad shit goes down at some point'. Given that I wasn't expecting any particular kind of setting or plot direction, I felt this let me experience what the game offered with impunity.

The dialogue is great. While it does seem a bit 'light', mostly because of the lighthearted setting (so far), it's well written and conversations sound genuine. One that sort of struck me is uh...I mean this in no sexist way, considering that Liberty is female, but sometimes the conversations can seem uh...girly. Yes, I know the main character is female, but for example, the spat between Dissa and Narissa was uh...it sort of reminded me from something in Degrassi. Some of the other conversations seem to have this 'touch' to it, but it's not a bad thing in itself. I just hope that as the game progresses, it's consistent with the later events and setting! I am also to understand there was some sort of incident regarding Narissa in the past. The demo was sort of vague, but I assume that this will be expanded on.

Unfortunately, the event(s) that give the game its namesake weren't touched on in the demo, so I really hope that we'll get to see it. That's one thing I'm not sure I liked, as I when I read the plot summary after I finished the demo, I went 'Hey! None of that happened!' Here's to hoping I see more in the future.

MUSIC-

If you're familiar with RTP music, then none of it will really be new. What matters here is the application of the music, which The Realms handles gracefully. Everything uh, fits! I'm always interested in how people apply their music in their games, as its one of those things that can be pretty shoddy! Fortunately, Liberty seems to know what she's down. However to be fair, the demo doesn't really present too many spectrums of mood just yet, the plot doesn't really get much lower on the dramatic scale than 'cheery', so it remains to be seen how she fares with dramatic events and so on.

GRAPHICS-

I will never make fun of the RTP again. Scratch that, I might if someone applies it like an special needs child like they usually do, but...in any scenario, Liberty has all but mastered the use of graphical RTP. Every environment I've seen is beautifully put together, from the natural chaos of an untamed forest path, to structural organization of houses and the contents therein.

Liberty has turned mapping with the RTP into an art, and she does it very, very well. I am consistently impressed with her worldbuilding using it. I was also impressed by her choice of how to handle the character sets. The decision to use FF4/5 sized and styled character sets (and to accustom the size of the world around them) was a good one, and the unique look and color of every individual character also says a lot about the care the graphical look of the overall game was given. While the facesets and monsters however, aren't as good as the character sets and the mapping, they're not 'bad', either. The monsters and facesets sort of look a bit sloppy, but assuming they're custom, the possibility of improvement is there.

GAMEPLAY-

Unfortunately, while not BAD, this seems to be the weakest part of the package. I wish there were more :(. What I played wasn't bad, I just wish there was more 'beef' to it. I can tell Liberty has a lot planned in the game, with skill subsections that were empty (which I assuming are planned to be occupied), a book I read about Guild and personal quests, and learning magic and all that jazz. Unfortunately, within the demo I didn't get to do any of that, and mostly the intro consists of setting up the plot and talking.

Which isn't bad in itself, and I'm not saying REMOVE it, but my suggestion would be to switch things around a bit so Narissa goes hunting a little earlier in the game. Maybe a little side quest where she can go traipsing around in the forest as well? There was a store, but I didn't get to kill enough stuff to warrant buying anything there. Let us kill more stuff! Give us more opportunity to kill things! And more reason to want to kill things! Polish up the battle system a little bit, and you'll be alright.

Also, there are little nuiances in the gameplay which caught up to me. Less. Pausing. In. The. Dialogue. I'm not a die hard that wants it gone completely, but damn, sometimes it was aggravating. Also, it would be good to find some way about making Narissa go through doors a bit faster. It's a cool touch to make her actually turn around and close the door around her, but speed it up a bit to make running around town a bit faster.



I liked this game, all in all. It's a diamond in the rough, some sides of it much shinier than others, but it's definitely getting there. I can easily see this game becoming one of the greats, it just needs more 'oomph'. It has a LOT of potential, Liberty, as long as you keep beefing up that gameplay. Definitely looking forward to playing more!