XRPG

Intro

"XRPG" is a turn-based RPG developed by slash_gotcho using RPG Maker VX and was described by nhubi in the following way:

It is very very rare that I can say that a game has no redeeming features that I can see, but I think this may be one of those occasions.

An opinion that while harsh is something that I actually agree with. Yes, I realize this is probably someone's first game and that might come across as overly harsh, but this game was also designed to be annoying on purpose to a certain extent as well. And I know that to be the case since the developer responded to the following comment with the word exactly.

author=KaRNoFeRoZ
This looks quite annoying.

As a result I'm far less willing to overlook a lot of the flaws in this game that I commonly associate with first time projects. Since I can assume at least some of them were a byproduct of slash_gotcho trying to make the game bad on purpose.

Story

Narratively speaking the game is a hot mess with the only discernable thread centering around an evil villain named Joe blowing up your team's base of operations. Unfortunately the game really doesn't go into details on why Joe targeted you and your friends or why the various other baddies in the game decided to help him. To make matters worse the game's limited dialogue tends to be very boring to read so there's little reason to get invested in the efforts of the X Platoon to get even with Joe anyway.

Gameplay

"XRPG" features your standard random encounter system with turn-based battles. On the plus side I don't have any issues with this basic premise since I play a lot of older games on the Game Boy Advanace and Playstation 2 so I'm still used to the annoyances that come with this sort of system.

Unfortunately the game manages to muck up this simple combat system in various ways. For starters the early enemies in this game can barely nick the player for a few points of damage if they inflict any at all. In a lot of games this would be okay since you'll probably start out with only a small handful of hitpoints so a hit for three or four points of damage will still represent a decent percentage of your health. In "XRPG" this isn't the case at all since you main character starts out with over 500 hit points. As you can imagine this makes early battles really annoying since you'll easily be able to absorb hits as you mindless try to strike your enemies down with a long sword.

Conversely your starting hit points are completely insufficient for the game's second boss Ginatu who can inflict over a thousand points of damage with a single attack.



Thankfully you can overcome this issue by buying a lot of life ups from the first item/accessory shop you'll come across in this game, but your probably only going to know you need to do this after you've been crushed by Ginatu for the first time.

To make matters worse if you saved after taking down the game's first boss you'll be unable to access that shop to buy life ups. So you'll either be forced to restart if you want to set yourself up to be able to consistently beat Ginatu or will have to save before fighting her and pray to the Gods and Goddesses of RNG for a lucky critical hit or two to get past her.

On a slightly brighter note you can farm the fight with Ginatu if you have the health for it. This is useful since every time you beat her the game adds a character with a high end equipment to your party named Lucky. So you can simply strip him down to his skives and give his weapons and armor to your other party members in order to make some of the battles ahead a bit easier as well as stock up on items you can sell for buying more stat boosters. A decision that is both helpful and unhelpful at the same time.

On one hand it becomes a lot easier to ignore damage from random enemies and boss in this game when you have maxed your health and have life rings that give you a passive recovery of five percent every turn, but the developer manages to muck this up by striping your party down to just Slash near the end of the game.



This is an issue since the developer then allows you to add your former party members back to your party, but when they are returned to you they've had their equipment set back to their starting gear as well as had their stats set back to the default they would be at for their given level. As you can imagine this is really frustrating if you put in the kind of time I did to get Lucky, Thunder, and Flash up to max HP as well as equip them with high end gear. And I easily dumped two to three hours into the game in order to get the funds needed to buy four life rings.

The game also includes a few other annoyances as well like including chests that contain gear weaker than your starting equipment as well as chests that contain absolutely pitiful amounts of money. Conversely the game hands you massive stacks of coins for interacting with a dog for no apparent reason at all.



Mapping



I suppose I could try and go on a long winded rant about how bad the mapping is in large parts of this game, but I think the above screen speaks for itself. And while this isn't the worst map in the game in my opinion. I'm of the opinion that it does a decent job representing the average map in this game.

Music

"XRPG" is weird in that large portions of the game are entirely bereft of a music while other sections like combat include it. A design choice that just makes me scratch my head since you think they would have included some of the default tracks that come with RPG Maker VX in the background while traversing the game's various maze like levels, but I'm guessing the developer figured dead silence would make those sections even more annoying to get through and I can't say slash_gotcho is wrong about that. At least if that was his/her intention.

Conclusion

"XRPG" is an absolute mess that should just be avoided. And while this game isn't as frustrating as some other games I've played through on this site. I can't say it's an enjoyable experience either. After all, it's a game that requires grinding at times in order to advance, but then punishes you for putting in the effort by making you add people back into your party with their starting gear near the end of the game. It's a game that features maps that are so awful that I'm left to assume that a decent chunk of their issues were the byproduct of slash_gotcho trying to make the game annoying. And the combat swings from being boringly easy to the point of encouraging the player to mindless tap away on the attack command to amazingly difficult at the drop of a hat.