Maranda

"Maranda" is a difficult project for me to review on the grounds that it isn't really a game. While this project has been tagged as a visual novel. A visual novel at least gives the player choices in my opinion. "Maranda" on the other hand is just one long cut scene that serves to put a "Final Fantasy VI" fanfic by The Real Brickroad to visuals he/she created using RPG Maker 2000. As such this project has more in common with something like "Kaena: The Prophecy" than it does with visual novels like "Disgaea Infinite".

I suppose some would argue comparing this project with a CGI movie is a bit weird, but "Kaena: The Prophecy" takes a lot of inspiration from video games. Which probably isn't that surprising considering the people behind it. On the plus side, "Maranda" is a much better movie even if it's visuals are less impressive since it's story isn't dragged out to the point it becomes boring to sit through.

Though I suppose before I give a really brief overview of the story I should discuss how to get this project to run properly. For starters you'll need to grab a copy of the harmony.dll file from "Chase for Divinity" or another RPG Maker 2000 project that includes the harmony.dll file. You'll also need to right-click the RPG_RT.exe file and select properties. You'll then need to clock on the compatibility tab and set compatibility mode for Windows XP (Service Pack 2). Though I'm sure other settings will also work, but this option is the default on my computer and is perfectly functional for getting this project to run correctly. Though your results might differ on newer machines.

As far as the story goes it covers the conquest and eventual decimation of the village of Maranda at the hands of the Vector Empire or more specifically at the hands of Celes. As you can imagine if your familiar with "Final Fantasy VI" this story doesn't have a particularly happy ending. Albeit the author makes this pretty obvious from the start in their preamble as well.



On the graphical and music side of things it looks like The Real Brickroad got a hold of rips of the game sprites and music from some resource sites online that may or may not exist at this point. Though, I'm guessing they are probably both gone at this point in time. After all, this project was released all the way back in 2007. So it's highly unlikely they are still around.

As a whole I'd say this movie is worth a read/watch if your looking for a tragic tale. Though I'll admit this isn't a particularly favorite genre of mine since I tend to agree with the guy at the end of "Little Rita" (1967) that movies have to have a happy ending or else the producer will lose all his money. After all, who wants to watch a film to feel sad when real life is depressing enough already. Especially with how things have been going lately.