Cyber Factor

Battle System- 5/5
This is one of the most finely crafted battle systems made with rm2k3, and perhaps even of any platform. Balance has been fine tuned to the utmost degree, and every single boss is downright epic. I'll mention up front this is an extremely challenging battle system, and it doesn't pull any punches right from the start. The first few encounters can kill you if you're not careful, and by the time you reach the first boss you better be on full blast to stand a chance. Although it's mostly a traditional combat system, there are a few extra features thrown in. The first comes in the form of a small adjustment to the status window during battle, each enemy has listed a series a symbols which represent their weaknesses. These symbols are also attached to all of your abilities, which makes for easy reference in heated combat.

Your characters are given a small boost to stats upon leveling, but you're also given the option of adding points to one of three categories. Body, which accompanies offensive and defensive power. Mind, which effects your MP total and the effectiveness of various skills. And Spirit, which grants additional agility and HP. Aside from giving extra stats, when you reach a certain point in these attributes your character will learn a new skill based on their fighting style. Bonus skills come in the form of consumable items called .exe's, which can be given to any character.

As soon as your character learns at least two skills of different elements, they will learn a combination technique which consists of two elements at once. The combination gauge builds up over time through combat, and when full you will be able to use 3 combination arts before the gauge is depleted. If the gauge is only 1/3 full, you can still use a single combination. These skills tend to be slightly more powerful than others, but not overly so. The best part about them is they will strike at both weaknesses of an enemy, so they tend to be effective on a larger range of opponents than normal skills. Most of them also don't consume any MP, so you'll find yourself mixing and matching combinations and normal skills during combat.

It's worth mentioning that instead of random encounters you'll run across enemies as they wander around the map, but even this has been improved over most variations you see in games. Initially enemies are in a passive gray state where they wander around the map, usually at a very low speed which will let you avoid them if you're careful. When you get close an enemy turns red and will begin to rush towards you, if you manage to evade the enemy for a short time they will shift to blue and become immobile for a brief period, allowing you to run past.

Storyline- 3/5
I'm going to skip ahead about an hour into the game for this one. Although the intro is pretty interesting, the real hook of the game comes just a little after the first boss. You are a being comprised of data, who has somehow managed to assume a human form. You awake in a world destroyed by Geists, a monster with the ability to delete entire continents from existence. Along with a few friends your task is to restore the deleted world by restoring the data to its proper place. I have to admit I really enjoyed the novelty of this idea, basically a sci-fi twist on Soul Blazer/Act Raiser/Terranigma. The game spends a lot of time developing the lore for their universe, including explanations for the various powers you'll employ and on the nature of the Geists, which is quite unique. Unfortunately the script suffers from a lot of problems in the actual writing department. Spelling errors are common, grammatical errors are frequent, and there's a lot of unnatural sounding dialogue. I've reflected this in my score, but if this kind of thing grates on you, you may want to drop it even further.

Characters- 2/5
The main hero is a silent protagonist, and you're able to choose most of his dialogue which will eventually define his personality. The rest of the characters are pretty interesting, a bit one dimensional at first but slowly develop a bit more depth as the game progresses. Unfortunately this category is also dragged down by the poor quality of the writing I mentioned earlier.

Level Design- 4/5
The main focus on these maps is brought about by the main character's primary ability. He can break down physical objects and process them into a raw form of data that can be easily carried. This data is used to traverse obstacles in a variety of ways. Say you come across a river that needs to be crossed, you can break down some nearby logs into a Wood data, and then use that data to create a bridge. It's a rather novel approach to what boils down to a simple collect item, use item to unlock area mechanic. As you progress this idea is expanded upon further, and even used in a few puzzles. The towns are pretty average, and I have nothing to say about them in particular.

Graphics- 2/5
Consisting of rips and a bit of RTP, nothing is particularly ugly here, but everything is completely inconsistent. I get the feeling the author just grabbed every resource he was interested in and cobbled them together without much thought.

Music/Sound- 2/5
This game uses a large collection of music ripped from various games, and the occasional odd voice clip. Most of the songs fit fairly well, but some of them seemed oddly placed. Having so much commercial music is a big turn off for me in this category, since when I recognize every song it tends to interfere with immersion.

Random stuff I liked-
The 'save recommended' warning. The game allows you to save anywhere which might cause some players to be lax, but here anytime you're approaching potential death a warning appears. Wordlessly, it's also telling you to prepare yourself for what's up ahead.

The game offers a rational explanation for the character status window during battle. It's completely unnecessary and entirely awesome.

The game has a crafting system which allows you to combine accessories to create more powerful equipment. I didn't feel it had enough of an impact on gameplay to mention earlier, but it was still something I enjoyed having available.

You can examine a lot of objects, and you'll occasionally get a bit of humorous dialogue for doing so.

Random stuff I hated-
Not a thing.

Final Thoughts-
The finest example of an RPG Maker 2003 battle system I have ever seen, and a solid game besides. With a script editor and a few smarter design choices this could become a perfect game. Knock off a full star if you hate games with the difficulty set to High, because this one will kill you.