Ancient Death

Heya!
Ancient Death is a short classic zombie survival adventure game made in 2013 with RPG Maker VX Ace limsoonchiong. I say "classic zombie survival adventure game" because I've already reviewed games like the Infection series or the more recent Spring Eternal that used rpgmaker as a base to create a short adventure about survivors fighting the endless undead horde.

The game starts with Jason, a man that wakes up wearing only his underwear inside a locked cell. The first task will be finding a way to exit the place, anyway things go from bad to worse when he finds that the place is overrun buy zombies (if this reminds to you of the movie "28 days later", yes, that's quite similar)! Luckily searching the body of a nearby cop will probably give him a weapon, but he still need to solve his most important problem: ̶f̶i̶n̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶d̶a̶m̶n̶ ̶c̶l̶o̶t̶h̶e̶s̶ ... errr no, learn what's going on here, survive and escape!


Honestly? No, BUT there is safety in numbers, my friend!

The gameplay is pretty simple: Jason has to search the complex looking for clues, resources and allies and the layout of the place is pretty linear and the game includes some backtracking, but the most important thing is that enemies are always visible and do not respawn. Yes! The undead actually stay dead once killed! But wait! Are you thirsty for experience points and money? You can always use the Holodeck to fight monsters in the virtual reality and earn both experience and money. Yes, money, it's true that the vendors are all dead (or undead!) still there are the vending machines that can provide weapons and armors for your team of survivors. Oh and there is also some little crafting included too. Nice!
So, explore and look for clues! And grind a bit in the VR to be able to survive, anyway despite that last sentence I overall enjoyed the battles and the gameplay.

Now, the graphics: this game uses classic rpgmaker styled facesets, battlers and charsets, but they're modern characters wielding modern firearms, and not your usual average fantasy adventurers (even if they use TPs or MPs in the same way to power their abilities, because the system is still classic rpgmaker!). There is also a plethora of different zombie sprites (I cannot recognize the sources) that look a bit cartoony but goes well with the slightly super-deformed battlers. The backgrounds are instead realistic, exactly like some slides that illustrates some salient moments, like the first encounter with the zombies and the discovery of... nah I won't tell you! Anyway I liked the ending, it's EXACTLY what you can expect to see at the end of a B-movie. Concerning sounds and music the game includes both classic RTPs tunes like the battle fanfare and also some music that goes from instrumental rock to ominous atmospheric music. It's ok, I guess.


Jason uses Explosion against a group of zombies... I guess you know what this means!

Final Verdict
I like a lot zombie movies, and I had fun with this little game. The only thing I didn't like so much is how grindy it was, but ok, that's me since I wanted to be sure to win, and having a backpack full of resources, weapons and healing items (better be sure than sorry... hey this grinding is helpful but sometimes I wish it was not possible so we had to try a strategy instead of brutal force). For the rest you'll find a nice game with some references to classics like Resident Evil (obviously) and the X-Files (that was less predictable!), I also liked the idea of using a small cast of (differently skilled) survivors instead of using the classic lone survivor...

I liked it! Not perfect, but still pretty fun!