Kukenstra: The Megalomanical Monasteries

Game Play -

This is a very linear RPG, with not much battling. It seems like it's broken up into 3 sections. Monking about – imagine harvest moon.. for monks. Yeah, that's the first section. The 2nd section is the war between the monks; and the last part is the climax/resolution of the war. As mentioned before it is very linear. You can't leave until you are ready, you can't shop until it's time. In some ways this is good, because the maps are quite large and you wouldn't want to have to go all the way to the other side of the world and realize you weren't supposed to be there.

The battle system is pretty simple, standard fighting. It was interesting how magic points were used to learn new things while in the library. It was a quite interesting concept, however there wasn't really much to explore. There weren't hidden items or anything like that.

Time to Beat: 3 hours

Characters -

There was 1 main character that fought, and that was Brother Henry. There was also the Garitst monks, which were the main enemy. Also during the story you pick up some crazy bandits. Some of the Azo monks would go with you on missions, but usually you were hanging by yourself.

Story -

The Azo monks and the Garitsts monks are against each other. One of the Azosts falls ill and dies, and the Garitsts are blamed. This causes one of the monks to get hyper-active and starts planning on getting them back. Then when the more peaceful monks come to make peace, it sets off the Garitsts and they bomb their church, and then it continues to escalate. There is a plot twist that takes you away from the action. Too much spoiler, to mention. But when it returns to the plot, Henry saves the day and makes everything better.

The story seems to flow pretty well until the plot twists, and then you're kinda left wondering; but it does come back together again at the end.

Look and Feel -

The feel is quite monkish. There is minimal decorations and the maps are large and plain. The map feels a little colorless. The town was built well, but it was all the same color. The spelling and grammar was tolerable, and not too distracting, but not the best. The music was quite odd, but the game itself felt odd so it kinda tied everything together. The opening video was a nice addition to the game. It felt a little too linear, and I feel guilty that I didn't go to the shop when I had the chance.

Overall -

I think this is a pretty good game for a first timer with RPG Maker. I would have liked a little less linearity, but it helped keep it on track in this game. There's not much that stands out about this game, and there's not much that makes it super horrible. It really is a good game for a monk. Extra points for doing an opening movie.