Hello players!
This time I will not review a game, but an EXTREMELY short demo. Oh but why? Well, simply because like in other cases such as A Dust Take and Suteki, there are some little demos that really made me wish to see them completed. Or at least to have a sort of real demo, because what the developer left us is a little experience that is so captivating and unique that made me left wanting for more!

Eclipse was made in 2013 with RPG Maker VX Ace by Brady and Dyskrasia, and while I do not know this last developer, I instead know Brady for making Syma and VXA Pantomime: FFVI, two complete games that I'll probably play in the future.
But how is this game? Well we cannot say much: it consists in a series of cutscenes and a single map that has different exits that lead to different cutscenes and then the demo ends. That's it, limited interactivity and just a prologue of an adventure that doesn't tell us much about the game, there isn't even a menu. The game starts immediately after you run it, not even a menu screen (just a screen showing the protagonist), nothing.

The game starts in a base inside the Arnalisk forest, twelfe hours before the Purge, whatever this means. An unnamed redhead girl is running away from some biomechanic soldiers, and uses her last healing serum to heal her arm, broken after a fall.
Then we get to control her as she escape and tries to reach an installation guarded by the biomechanic soldiers and some mechas. In this part we get to move her around, using the usual rpgmaker graphics, even if all the assets are clearly edits, and very well done.
The direction chosen by the girl will determine how she'll reach the place and what happens. Then the game ends.



It's all extremely short and obscure, isn't it? Yes, but this was clearly going to be just a prologue, I guess. Anyway there are two things here that I liked a lot. First is the music, that seems original and pretty good.
And then the graphics: I liked the custom art, while the developer wrote that the digital art isn't fantastic, I liked it! It has a distinct style and the comic-book styled scenes are really well done, including sounds (a rope that breaks, the sound of the fall, etc) that are appropriate and create and atmosphere of action and tension. The setting seems to be sort of cyberpunk/futuristic scenario but there isn't enough to make up a real story or give an idea of what is going on. The protagonist seems to be a rebel hunted by the soldiers, that are obviously the bad guys. That's all.

Final Verdict
There isn't much to say about Ecolipse: it's a very short fragment but shows some really neat ideas: the branching paths, the comic-book inspired narrative and cool custom art, the nicely made edits and a single well done map with great attention to the lights and aestetic. It's really a promising demo... if it was not made 11 years ago I'd really hope to see it completed. Sigh!
In any case this was Eclipse. No rating, of course, anyway a pretty cool and original idea that is really different from most game I saw here!