Obelisk: Devilkiller

Obelisk: Devilkiller is an action rpg that was created by Craze on RMN that showcases a new battle setup created by Craze. In addition to individual SP, the team also has BP or “burst” that they can draw from in order to use moves. The game was originally made in 8 days for the RMVX Ace Nugget Crash Course event. For the record, (believe it or not) I beat this game in exactly 3 hours and 33 minutes according to the internal game clock.

-INITIAL THOUGHTS-

I really liked this game, but I know that others might not like the approach that the game took. Rather than explaining the backstory of the game or any details on the characters, it just sends the player right into the game without explaining much at all. Though abrupt, I didn’t mind this setup as I was able to head right into battle and start playing the game. This game gives the player a lot of freedom and allows them to beat it whenever they want. The game is setup where the player starts out with a full party but no items. By traveling around the world, the player can face an enemy in order to either collect items or more party members and the player can freely go to whatever place they want in any order, you can even go face the final boss when if you feel ready to do so. This way, the player can “beat” the game anytime they want to, just by facing the final boss. However, the game isn’t that easy and you most likely won’t be able to beat the final boss with your starting party alone and no equipment. I personally collected four more party members and a ton of equipment before facing the boss and beating the game.


-PRESENTATION-

The presentation of Obelisk: Devilkiller is subpar at best. Since the game was made in a short window of time I won’t linger on the details but there were some things I liked and others I didn’t. I really liked the battler portraits but there was no credits file explaining if they were RTP, hand drawn, purchased, or created using a generator. I believe generator but I could be wrong, regardless the battler portraits are really nice and fit their character descriptions very well. I didn’t like most of the music, the main menu screen especially sounded out of place and didn’t seem like title screen music. I did find some of the music in certain dungeons to fit the atmosphere, but not all of them. Finally, the rest of the graphics do use RTP, which is expected when the game was made in short amount of time, and uses the graphics well to show the overall theme of each dungeon/map.

-ENGAGEMENT/GAMEPLAY-

The battles can be very intense and engaging, however I feel that some of the non-boss battles can seem tedious due to the length of each battle. As for gameplay, the battles make up a huge majority of this game and the battle system is really well done. The game focuses on gaining burst to use special moves that can help the party or really damage the enemy. I like how the characters are divided up into people who build burst and people who use burst for their abilities. Since there are so many characters, players can easily adapt or make a party that suits their play style. However, while I liked the overall battle setup, I found it somewhat annoying to learn more about the solar/lunar attributes of enemies and other small battle details. One NPC helped clear up how to tell what attribute the enemy had, but I feel information like that should be available from the start. The lack of information in general is this games worst downfall, but the player can figure it out on their own over time. Nothing is too complex but having that information from the beginning would really help players from making small mistakes in the beginning. Other than that, I found the battle setup to be really interesting and creative.

-OVERALL-

I say try it out for yourself. The battle setup is different from the usual RPG Maker battle setup and gives the player a variety of options to customize their play experience. Definitely play if you like Action RPGs, Dungeon Crawlers, or Tactical RPGs. If you like playing those type of games, then I think you would enjoy playing Obelisk: Devilkiller.

Thanks for reading, and Happy Game Making!!





http://rpgmaker.net/games/3937/