Poetry 2K

Intro

I'm not entirely sure how to review "Poetry 2K by Liberty. This is because "Poetry 2K" really doesn't qualify as a game in anyway. It's basically just two poems set too visuals in order to create a greater impact on the audience than mere words on a page.

To make matters worse I really can't say if Liberty's poetry is good or not. While I have submitted a few of my own poems in the past to poetry contests. Those contests were always attached to my English classes while growing up so I'm pretty sure my work wasn't subject to severe scrutiny. And while at least some of them were published. I'm going to assume those poems were published in books that were meant to appeal to parents so they can be amazed at their kid's poem getting published regardless of the quality of the poem in question.

All and all my greatest asset when it comes to reviewing "Poetry 2K" might come down to my ability to prattle on at length about very little. Since, I basically just spent two paragraphs on explaining why I can't give this project a review score.

As previously mentioned "Poetry 2K" features two poems written by Liberty. She then set those poems to visuals in RPG Maker 2000. So we basically have a pair of short films that have been strapped together like those multi-movie discs you regularly find in bargain bins that rely on a quantity over quality approach. Which may or may not be a fair comparison. Though, I suppose some might call creating a movie in RPG Maker 2000 even if it's a short one an attempt at experimental film making. Though I imagine most people would call such a film extremely low budget, but I suppose I should discuss the contents of the poems.

Story

The first poem we get is about a young woman looking for her lover and thus we see her wandering around to various locations in search of him. Albeit some of those locations are probably more humorous than Liberty intended.



After all, it looks like this world is filled with seas of dying fish. At least the way their flopping about reminds me when I would accidentally drop fish on the ground while fishing for blue gill at a nearby state park.

At any rate the poem is rather melancholy and may or may not tie into the second poem about a man abandoning his original lover in favor of a new one. So the ending we get with the first poem with her lover apparently returning might just be a segue into him returning home to tell her to find someone new. Which makes the first poem even more depressing.

Though I think the first poem suffers from pacing issues since some of the visuals and words linger on the screen for a little too long which left a lot of time for me to crack jokes while recording a video for this project, but it also meant I was given a lot of time to try and shatter the mood Liberty was going for. This means the second poem was ultimately stronger since I had a lot less time to add in commentary about seas of dead fish and how much of a waste of time it is to wait for me.

Graphics and Sound

Both of these aspects of the project are decent if not particularly memorable since it looks like the bulk of these assets came from the RTP for RPG Maker 2000. And while there isn't anything inherently wrong with this. It does mean this project looks similar to a lot of other stuff made with RPG Maker 2000. Probably the nicest thing I can say about this aspect of the project is that Liberty put together some solid maps so the world we experience isn't too empty nor too crowded.

Bugs and other Minor Issues

This project has a few issues. For starters the current download is missing the harmony.dll file. Thankfully you can just copy this file from another project like "The Crate Maze" in order to address that issue. Secondly the game crashed on me upon launch and gave me the following error "Easily Fix DirectDraw Error (DDERR_UNSUPPORTED)". Thankfully this issue can be dealt with by creating a shortcut within the folder containing the game's executable and telling the PC to run it in compatibility mode for Windows XP Service Pack 2. I imagine other settings might work there as well. And finally if you pick the play all option the second poem plays on an endless loop.

Conclusion

I'm not sure if I want to recommend for or against this project. On one hand I imagine a lot of people here might get a kick out of seeing RPG Maker 2000 used to make a short movie. On the other hand the poems are rather depressing considering their contents. As such they may not appeal that much to those looking for a happy ending and others might wish to avoid this project simply because it isn't a game. As such, I can only suggest taking a look at this project at your own discretion.