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Queen Of The Heartbreakers

  • Addit
  • 07/05/2015 01:49 AM
  • 1071 views


A Game Made By: Methera
Created Using: RPG Tsukuru 2003
It's A: ADVENTURE Game
That Roughly Takes Around: 30 - 45 Minutes To Complete
And It's A... HIATUS GAME!!!

(As Of January 28th, 2013)


It’s not every day that you find your next game to review from The Random Screenshot portion on the front page of all things. I’ve reviews games before in the past based on word of mouth…certain request…contest events…but never something that just nonchalantly just showed up one random night and gave me inspiration for what I should review next. If that’s the case, then maybe this might be the start of a brand new trend!

Saga Crusade: The Harpy Queen is an RPG Maker 2003 project that was created by Methera way back in early 2012. It didn’t garner as much attention as some other games did around that time, and it soon basically then drifted off into the depths of unfamiliarity after some time until it was eventually put up on indefinite hiatus sometime around early 2013. It’s quite a shame, though, as the game sports some pretty nice fancy custom menus - and the screenshots for it look rather promising! It definitely reminds me of a lot of some of the other promising Rm2k3 projects in the past that was quite ambitious for its time but eventually was crushed under its own weight of its own vast expectations. Well, at least the author was able to learn from some of his past mistakes, as he did eventually wind up finishing one of his games and having several other game pages posted on RMN other than this one, so he ended up doing rather okay after this experience, I’d say.

Now usually I don’t like reviewing games that are cancelled or put on hiatus unless a significant amount of time has passed or the creator is looking for some feedback on his past work. But since Methera has been missing in action since around last summer and hasn’t posted here in such a long time, and this particular build is more than two and a half years old since he submitted it with no word of any continuation, I guess I can go ahead and give it the ol’ Addit tries.

I mean…




(Besides everything…)

The Story


…Why are you sleeping in a cave, again?


So just as you begin the game, you’re treated to a short introduction sequence before introducing you to our main protagonist, Sameera, who I guess I can best describe as some sort of half cat / half human…something, who’s rather quite cheerful and can sometimes act a bit…well, a bit dense at times…and her partner who watches over her from an orb that Sameera must stick somewhere in her pocket, Mina, who basically likes to come out once and a while and pester the shit out of Sameera if she’s not doing what she’s supposed to be doing (Ie: acting dumb).

Basically, after waking up in a cave (which I still don’t understand why they’re sleeping there in the first place), the pair soon heads out to investigate a bunch of recent attacks on the townspeople by a group of harpies that are causing havoc up north. Eventually on their way there, they happen to run into a woman being attacked by a group of harpies and Sameera engages in some kind of fisticuffs with one of them before eventually defeating it before the other harpies manage to escape. For that you see, Sameera is a member of the Crusaders, a special group that’s in charge of dealing with hybrid creatures, such as harpies, that run amok and attack citizens. Mina is basically there as a partner to assist Sameera with detailed information and helpful backup assistance when needed. Basically these hybrid creatures, with Sameera being one of them, have started appearing all over the world ever since around the time that a strange comet got too close to the planet and began mutating a lot of the life there into what it is today.

And basically…that’s all the plot summary that I could get out of this whole experience. For that you see, this game, despite having a short premise and eventually being able to piece out some of things that I remember from after finishing this short demo, is actually quite text heavy. You basically have ALLLLLL this information thrown into your face so early on that it can definitely feel a bit overwhelming at first to truly understand what the hell is going on in the first place. I mean, yeah, you get to know a bit about the characters and what you’re supposed to do and all, but all these multiple different factoids of so many different things coming out of Mina’s mouth so early on made me quite a bit confused after first initially playing – and we’re only ten minutes into the game! I mean, slow down there a little; take your time; no need to rush certain details… How do you expect a player to learn everything about your world and its lore so fast!?

And once you manage to save the woman from the initial attack, the game’s story basically comes to a screeching halt the rest of the way through. You eventually get a message from Mina telling you return to a town in the south where basically, after talking to a grand total of two people and watching one random cutscene of two individuals with no names talking about something that confused me more than intrigued me, the game basically ends. Yup. It just ends…

I don’t think the story or the characters are necessarily told badly, I just think that’s it’s rather told uninteresting and is extremely overwhelming at first that it’s not presented in the best of light. Certain story elements and things should be released slowly over time…so a player can slowly follow through and get the hang of things as certain events progress forward. I just got so much thrown at me so fast that I just didn’t seem to really care that much afterwards. And it doesn’t help that much when I’ve seen this type of story told before with similar character personalities that I’ve also seen elsewhere.


The Gameplay


…Meow?


The gameplay is basically a cross between an adventure game and a turn based RPG. One of the things that Saga Crusade: The Harpy Queen has going for it is that it doesn’t have a traditional world map per say but more of a bunch of large individual areas that make up an entire world for you to explore. This may be a nice alternative to having a more traditional world map, but the game uses random encounters to go along with these giant maps - and the encounter rate is actually quite high... Not to mention the fact that you basically have no access to an INN, no access to being able to purchase any items that you need to heal any HP or MP, and you’re certainly not exactly a major killing machine here, as some enemies can take quite a while for you to kill unless you use any of Sameera’s special attacks to weaken the enemy defences first.

The first boss in this game can literally rip you apart considering that its double attack can do around 30 – 40 damage with you only having one curative item that can only restore up to 25 HP and you basically have a very limited amount of these because there are no shops to buy any healing items up to this point. The boss is beatable, yes, but you’ll get a bit disgruntled when you find out that afterwards that Mina - your bestest friend in the whole wide world - has the ability to heal you and that could have REALLLLY helped in this battle since there’s no shops to buy anything as of yet. It’s almost like a cruel joke that was basically tried to be played off for laughs. Well - I didn’t find it that funny.

Combat is also relativity boring and uninteresting too...especially after defeating the first boss. You basically will be spamming the regular attack option with Sameera with the occasional outside healing from Mina all the way until you’re done. There’s really just not that much here.

I do like the idea of having Mina come out and assist you in her orb form and provide you with some healing magic to back Sameera up in the battle, as it kind of reminds me a little bit like Brain Lord for the SNES where you had some helpers from jewels that you bought or found in towns or dungeons to assist you a little with their magic. I can see some potential with this if you could have two or three party members that consisted of magical orbs and just have them provide backup spell support while Sameera does all the main fighting. That would be a cool idea and I would love to see something like that implemented in this. But where it stands right now, combat isn’t that very interesting to me.

This game also supports some custom menus, such as a H.U.D. in the top, left hand corner of the screen which provides you some information about Sameera’s current level, HP, MP and a little experience bar (…I think?) to tell you when she reaches the next level. There’s also some other indicators here as well, but I can’t really recall what a lot of them do, if any…

The H.U.D. is a nice feature, but I don’t think it was really that necessary to include. It looks kind of spiffy, I guess, but it just comes off more confusing than it should be. There’s also a glitch with it in regards to it that after you reach Level 4 that the H.U.D. just stops counting up from beyond level 3 if you happen to get up that far. Also, the status menu that displays your other party members, money and such also has some strange glitches to it if you happen to open the menu up at certain times, like when you first enter a new transition or a map. It seems like it either gets stuck or it only displays part of the menu. You can also access it at times when the middle of a cutscene is playing.

This game also has some map passability errors, files that are missing that causes the game to crash, certain sentences that cut off too quickly, and quite a number of odd other oddities. These things aren’t quite as bad and are a bit expected from an early demo, but the constant missing files was something that frustrated me beyond belief because it would happen during random encounters, the boss fight and even during some of the cutscenes. I managed to fix it up myself from the editor - but no one should have to do that…!


The Soundtrack


I’d actually like to know the answer to that question too.
Could have REAAAALLLLY come in handy during that last boss fight, there.


I was actually expecting to hear some really good killer music when I first launched the game hoping that maybe the creator can match some of the impressive screenshots and custom menus that he had with a nice musical overtone that aligns with the rest of the game’s style and setting.

Turns out I was a bit disappointed, as the game not uses MIDI’s but also uses a lot of familiar, overly used songs such as the Pure Land from Secret Of Mana and one of the town themes from Chrono Cross in there as well! I mean…why use music from two highly successfully known RPG games like that? Luckily, though, most of the other music isn’t quite as well known, but I’ve still heard a lot of these songs before in other RPG Maker games. The thing is, other than the battle theme and the main menu theme, I just don’t think a lot of these particular songs really work in invoking the type of image that this game has going on. It’s passable, yes, but it’s nothing that rocks my socks off.

This game also doesn’t seem to have a boss battle theme present in this version, either. I believe this is another one of cases of the missing files, but it still was a little weird fighting the harpy boss not listening to anything other than the sound that’s coming from my fan. (At least I know that it still works.)

Sound effects are kind of interesting mixed bag here. On one hand, I really like the sound effects used for the menus in regards to scrolling around and confirming various options. They sound quite fantastic and, sadly enough, are probably one of the best things that I can take out of this experience when I think about this game again in the future. I don’t know if these are ripped from somewhere or what game they come from, but they fit actually quite well and I like ‘em.

However, this game also has an annoying “beeping” sound that happens to play whenever you’re low on HP or even MP on the map when you’re out of battle. It also flashes a corresponding color as well to let you know that your low on health or mana. I know that Pokemon, The Legend Of Zelda and even Kingdom Hearts uses this mechanic, and I can understand it for HP’s being low and all – but for MP too? W-Why…??? It’s just…dumb; it gets annoying after a while. Just get rid of the beeping sound and keep the flashing part in there.

And why the hell do the NPC’s have to make strange groaning noises whenever you have to talk to them? For the early part of the game, there’s nothing that plays when you first talk to any of these guys, so I naturally assumed that this game involved non-sounding NPC’s, just like most of the games here. So I was naturally quite a bit startled when I first heard these guys grumble something out loud that it kind of freaked me out a little. However, the battle voiceovers are a nice touch for Sameera and add a bit more charm to it. I just think that some of the sound and musical choices are definitely a bit questionable here.


The Aesthetics


Nothing like a good evening stroll through town.


Graphically speaking, this game does have some decent qualities to it, despite most of the graphics being ripped. First off, the mapping is surprisingly well done for a game like this. Locations are quite detailed, towns look lush and vibrant, the H.U.D. and custom menus look very nice, although a bit lacking in the necessary descripted details, and I really like the fluidity of the battle animation for Sameera in combat. It’s still a bit strange with her victory and defending poses that she uses, but the flexibility there is pretty good. If there’s one thing that the game does do well in is its graphical presentation. I think it’s quite strong for a game of that era.

The End Result


…Well – that was rather abrupt.


I hate to say it, but this game was a bit of a disappointment for me. I was quite looking forward to playing something with a bit more promise than this, but, sadly, that didn’t exactly turn out the way that I wanted it to be. I guess just because something may look pretty and promising from afar doesn’t necessarily mean anything in the long scheme of things. This game – and, yeah, I understand that this is basically still just a demo – just had too many neglecting issues that I just simply could not overlook. Not only is the story and the characters come off kind of bland and extremely text heavy, but the gameplay just isn’t that interesting to me. Also, files are missing causing the game to crash at strange intervals, there are tons of glitches sprinkles throughout – and I really hate that stupid beeping noise… Plus, this game can be quite challenging because of the lack of healing items or restore points early on which can make the first boss fight quite a challenge but everything else is a total breeze afterwards. I just don’t understand why people like to make the first boss or the first group of enemies in their game really hard when it’s supposed to be the first set of enemies and they’re supposed to be designed to be rather easy in the first place to get people slowly used to the mechanics.

Overall, I seriously wouldn’t recommend this game in its current state; there are just way too many issues going on to be any sort of entertainment value for anybody. I do believe, though, that maybe if this game manages to resurface one day out of the blue and goes through quite a number of radical changes that it could generate into something positively worthwhile. I don’t know if that’s going to happen at this rate, but who knows.


OVERALL GRADE:
1 / 5 - D- ~ Not Even Worth Your Time.