Given the hit-or-miss nature of many action-based RPG Maker games, I was skeptical of Homage going in. Thankfully, my fears proved unfounded as Homage is a wonderful game with an engaging plot and a unique combat system, but which is not without a few flaws and which is somewhat hurt by its short, five hour duration.

The game mainly follows the exploits of Rin, an ordinary young man who suddenly finds himself in possession of the 'Loris', a staff which grants its owner incredible magical powers, but which also quickly proves to be a great burden, as immensely powerful magical artifacts so often are, as it becomes bound to its bearer until death. Homage moves at a rapid pace and has a surprisingly large cast for its relatively short length. Thankfully, this is generally handled well as the game never spends much time going into character backstories and motivations, but dialogue is used extremely efficiently to give players a clear idea of character relationships and personalities while maintaining a sense of mystery about the world and its characters which only helps to enhance the tone. That being said, the plot is also one of the areas most hurt by the game's fast pace when it comes to character development; Homage may take place over a long enough stretch of time that it would make sense for characters to undergo some changes, but for players some of this may come across as rushed and at least one character in particular undergoes a very significant change over the course of what, for players at least, seems to be an extremely small amount of time. There are also some minor plot holes, such as the Loris somehow being placed rather far from Rin at one point and a supposedly opened door remaining barred after backtracking to it, but these are easily forgivable and don't have much of an impact upon the game as a whole.

Combat is an interesting combination of frantic and strategic. Rin doesn't have any sort of basic melee attack and instead relies entirely upon the magic of the Loris during fights. Said magic is cast by pressing the confirm key and then entering spell-specific arrow combinations, such as up up for a basic fireball spell. Players also have the ability to do a short hop in order to quickly get around small objects in the field of combat and to avoid enemies and projectiles. Thus, players must find a balance between offensively casting magic as quickly as possible while also effectively using the surrounding environment to their advantage when casting spells which don't directly deal damage. In addition, players will need to frequently make good use of the dodge ability and a very useful Shield spell when dodging enemy projectiles, nullifying magic attacks, or simply running away from a nearby enemy while waiting for MP to refill. It should also be noted that encounters are random, but aren't overly frequently, can easily be run away from, and never appear in puzzle rooms.

Progression is handled in an interesting way as well, though this too suffers a bit from the game's short duration. There are only three stats in the game, Power, which increases damage, Agility, which increases MP regeneration rate and spell cooldown speed, and Resilience, which reduces damage taken. All three stats go up a point when leveling, but players also get a choose a stat each level to give an additional small boost to and various herbs found throughout the game which also give permanent stat boosts. Surprisingly, spells are not gained through levels and instead three spells are presented for the player to choose between after each boss fight. This gives Homage a bit more replayability than usual since spells are quite varied and range anywhere from typical abilities like calling down bolts of lightning to more unusual ones such as summoning a slime or, my personal favorite, slowing down time and many spells work together nicely. On the other hand, it's sometimes difficult to know just how effective a spell will be as there is no clear indication of how much damage a spell deals nor of exactly how it functions and it would have been nice to have a way to swap around spells belonging to the same 'tier' at certain points to allow for more experimentation. There are also Emblems which can be found throughout the game which, when equipped, periodically cast a specific spell at no MP cost. Unfortunately, the short length of Homage means the combat never becomes particularly difficult so, especially when the excess of healing spots throughout the game are taken into account, I never felt threatened other than during some boss fights and I only used a handful of healing items throughout the entire game; just when my arsenal of spells was really starting to come together and the difficulty felt like it was about to start ramping up, it ended.

Dungeons themselves are fairly short, but are extremely well-made and varied. Each dungeon has a particular gimmick for its puzzles and these can range anywhere from typical 'block pushing' puzzles to much more creative ones, such as a transformation gimmick. However, even the most simplistic of these puzzle types requires a bit of thinking so puzzles are consistently satisfying to solve throughout the game. In addition, every dungeon is crammed full of treasure chests to find both along the way and hidden behind harder-than-average optional puzzle segments. The only segment which seemed like it could have been handled better was a stealth section which I had to repeat quite a few times as the sight radius of the guards was not always easy to determine and players are sent back to the very beginning when caught. Overall though, the creativity and care placed into the design of Homage's dungeons and puzzles results in a very entertaining experience.

Aesthetically, Homage is impressive, but not without a few flaws. The custom soundtrack is a great and rare treat which consistently helps to enhance the atmosphere of places and events. There is quite a bit of RTP here as far as graphics go, but it is used well and doesn't clash with the custom graphics while cutscenes are often filled with plenty of special effects. All NPC's have character portraits and, in an additional nice touch, say different things when interacted with multiple times. I also did not notice any errors in spelling nor in grammar during my playthrough and all objects appeared to be properly layered. Cities are large and lively and have various items to find or buy as well. Oddly, while much effort was put into interactions with NPC's, the same cannot be said of the environments. Homage has a very noticeable lack of environmental flavor text as, with extremely few exceptions, common objects such as pots, weapon racks, and bookcases cannot be interacted with unless they have an item hidden within them.

While it is not without its flaws and almost certainly could have benefited from another hour or so of content, Homage is a terrific experience. The combat is interesting and fun, the puzzles are clever, the plot and characters are memorable, the pacing never drags, and there is little reason not to go ahead and download this unique little game if you have not already done so.