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L's review on Homework Salesman (Ep. 1)

  • J-L
  • 06/28/2013 07:05 PM
  • 3428 views

Hello, I am Laguna from J&L (Or J-L until a kind administrator decides to allow ampersands in usernames). As I've stated before, English is my third language and I struggle when trying not to write with a child's grammar and vocabulary. Hopefully you won't be too bothered by that!

~

This review contains no spoilers that I'm aware of!

A review exchange offer brought me to play this game which I had failed to notice (most likely because we haven't been on this website for long). If I only I had known about it earlier! This is a game I encourage you to play for yourself if you haven't already.

I feel the need to point out the fact that the game manual that comes with the project has some serious work into it and that the developers have really made an effort to make this game accessible for anyone. Congratulations for that!

Graphics, visuals, atmosphere 4/5

Homework Salesman is a (visually) pretty, pretty game.




Overall, maps are well planned and never feel unnecessary, as if every room or area had its purpose. You will be delighted to see how colorful a place as dark as a cave can be. Each house in the town has its own look and personality, something you will not see often in other games. The mapping has some minor flaws (namely the auto-shadow feature being overwhelmingly present in outdoor maps, items with wildy disproportionte size, ...) but most of them are associated with the platform the game is built upon and don't stand out at all. The game's weather system is interesting and comes with appropriate visual effects.

All of the important characters have extremely detailed portraits that display their emotions and moods perfectly. The enemies' drawings have a notoriously inconsistent design, but they make up for it with their hilarious premises and details.

The game's interfaces are very pleasant to the eye and are very consistent through all of the sub-menus available.

Reniat's animations doing all sorts of activities are more than welcome. These smooth animations really stand out and should be taken even furter in the next episodes.

The item' icons aren't particularly fresh, but they do their job well enough. Given the quality of the rest of the visual department, an even more original set of icons wouldn't hurt.

Music, sound 3.5/5

There is a vast amount of styles in Homework Salesman's audio library, but all of the soundtracks seems placed right where they belong. Some of the songs will be familiar for those who have RPG Maker VX-Ace's RTP stuck in their brains, but most of the tracks shouldn't ring many bells. Again, this is a very consistent department.

Gameplay 5/5

The project's amount of bugs is understandable given its ambition and is greatly overshadowed by the sheer amount of fun it brings. Gameplay is by far the true cornerstone of this game.

Homework Salesman allows you do things at your own pace, proves to be very challenging without punishing failure, exploits the crafting system in a nearly flawless manner is an overall extremely entertaining game. I can't quite stress this enough. This game exceeds at what a game should do best and everyone behind it reserves recognition for this.

The game's different menus are beautifully coded and serve their purpose intuitively. There is a huge amount of items, some of them with randomly generated names. Although the game is at an early stage, it would be nice to have a greater number of useful pieces of equipment. There are only a handful of armors or shields in contrast to other types o items.

The battle system is easy to pick up but manages not to become boring or monotone after a long while. Battles, very much like crafting skills, would benefit from a slightly more gradual variety of difficulty/level required. It would also be convenient to have a way of knowing more about enemies' stats somehow. Some enemies have an indicator of their strenght associated with them which can be very handy.

The character's skills are quite fun to use but your weapon choice can severely limit the amount of them that are available.

The journal makes sure that you will always know what's next in your to-do list and even the minor and repetitive quests become satisfying and serve as a reward for hoarding diffrent types of resources. The entire enchanting system should find a way to be slightly more rewarding at first, as it's one of the most difficult aspects for the player to pick up.

Everything about money seems well planned and always rewarding for those who know how to obtain benefits from their adventuring. Events that occur randomly are a great idea that should be exploited even more, as they keep the experience thrilling after spending many hours into it.

Story 4/5

This game's story is not the kind of one that will keep you hooked with a well-thought plot or unexpected twists. Instead, Homework Salesman (has anybody guessed what does the title have to do with anything?) focuses on an entertaining story based on character development. Much of it will begin to occur as you strengthen your bonds with the town's folk. It's quite unusual but spending time on this can be extremely satisfying. The story has some truly hilarious moments.



All of the characters are quite charismatic and feature unique characteristics that make them lovable, each in their own way. The dialogue with them could really use a bigger pool of random text, as talking to them can eventually become slightly repetitive.

The game often hints at past events or things that are happening outside of the maps the current episode makes available, so it would be a pleasant surprise to see a more complex background plot in the next episodes. This, however, is in no way necessary or important as the game's formula has proven to be very effective as it is.

Give me another episode half as entertaining as the first and I will be set!

Conclusion 4.5/5

Posts

Pages: 1
edchuy
You the practice of self-promotion
1624
I'm glad to have helped introduce you to the game, J-L! Since I'll be writing a review of my own (finally) soon, I won't reading yours yet, but I'm guessing you must have enjoyed it ... :D

EDIT: Hopefully you'll get the review for your game soon ...
This game looks so freakin' ADORABLE! Why haven't I seen this game, yet?

Oh, right...the laziness...

Great review, J-L. A non-spoiler review with plenty of purdy pictures are always the best. ^^
J-L
"I cannot complain when your icon of choice is a penguin"
1791
Cheers for the kind words, lads.

Also I'm glad to see that you two are determined to see that we change our actual name to J-L, lol.

EDIT: Also apparently I get Reniat's adventuring picture on my posts now. I feel important.
Ronove
More like Misao Stealing Prince
2867
Only because you are the author of this review~

Thanks for the review! :D I'm glad you enjoyed the game. >:3
edchuy
You the practice of self-promotion
1624
Good job, L! I'm glad that I focused on different things on my review than you did.
Thank you and congratulations for playing the game! I'm glad that you enjoyed the game and it was nice exchanging reviews with you too ;v;
Pages: 1