Master of the Wind

Story
The story begins rather simple. It follows the lives of Cade and Bones, two armor merchants, and their adventures as their alter egos Shroud and Stoic, two (poorly) masked vigilantes. At first they fight against small fry antagonists in relative isolated cases, like a vampire attack, but soon a bigger threat emerges in the form of an evil corporation. Of course, behind that threat, there's an even bigger threat and things gradually gets more serious.

What gives this game a lot of flair is that it plays a lot into the superhero theme. The heroes wears fancy disguises and their skills, while not being something you haven't seen in RPGs before, are presented in a way that makes resemble superpowers rather than just sword and sorcery (not that magic isn't a superpower in it's own right.) The later in particular helps in making the super hero theme more than just a gimmick, the heroes' powers are integrated into the story. For example, the main character is a wind mage and will not only use wind magic in combat, but outside of combat he will use it to flip out of reach switches, propel himself and his friends great distances and in a lot of other creative ways. It's also the same deal with the villains, they have more defined powers than is usual in RPGs and they use those powers to accomplish suitable tasks.

Speaking of heroes and villains, they are written so that they feel like actual people. It's not only them, this extends to pretty much any character with a portrait. Each of them has their own personality, and the game manages to do that without resorting to making them extreme or gaudy. Seeing those characters then argue with each other is really great. It's a good thing though, because they do so a lot and they cover subjects like racism (speciesism,) religion and business. Fortunately, the good writing holds up even when handling those subjects and when the characters presents their opinions, it actually sounds like it is their own opinions and not as if they are just reading out the opinions of the writer (not saying we don't get to see them as well) or making obvious straw man arguments.

What more can be said about characters is that Master of the Wind doesn't believe in being done with them. Even if a character seem insignificant at first, if he or she has a portrait, expect to see him or her again later. The game is also very slow at killing people, so the number of characters to keep track of piles up. The game's tendency to not kill important characters also leads to quite a number of annoying moments where a villain is defeated, but either gets away, or worse, the heroes just let him/her go. Then the villain of course keeps causing trouble. This does fit the super hero theme though.

The pacing is excellent for the first half of the game. It follows the old town -> dungeon -> town -> dungeon formula and the transitions generally happens at the right times. The dungeons also has plenty of dialogs in them, but they serve to enhance the dungeon exploring experience rather than interrupting it. The pacing doesn't hold up that well later in the game though. At some point the game dumps a lot of character background story on you. That will eventually pass, but the game stays more plot heavy than before. Then near the end, the main plot seems to just pause and the heroes goes about to do other things. That part makes it look like the writer is checking of a "things to resolve" list. Mind you, the writing remains good, but if you don't like long cutscenes, this will be a problem.

Gameplay
The game is rather pleasant to play. The dungeons have a great layout and distinguishes themselves well from each other. They don't just look different, they have different barriers and ways to get past those barriers. There's a lot of mini games and they are very well done. Usually, the mini games involves a character using his or her special ability in a creative way.

Battles are standard turn based fare. However, status effects will actually work on things you'd want to use status effects on, including a lot of bosses. Speaking of bosses, quite a number of them are creatively designed. If a boss has a certain special ability in the story, they will make a good use of it in combat as well. It's mostly flavor though, the creative designs generally doesn't change the actual tactics used very much. Also, despite the status effects actually doing their job, most battles will still be fought just like in the average JRPG.

The encounter rate is unfortunately absurdly high. You get a bar that fills up for every step taken and when it's full, you encounter something. The bar fills up at a ridiculous speed. There is an encounter down item you can use which lowers the encounter rate to something that's still rather high. Also, if you use the item when your encounter bar is empty, it will wear of before the encounter bar has filled up even once.

I ended up running from at least 2/3 of the battles. Bosses were still easy to beat until the very last chapter when they suddenly got very hard. Eventually I decided to grind about five levels for every character. That got me to a point where I defeated the bosses on the first try, but I had to struggle for it. I still think I was at a lower level than I would have been had I just fought every encounter, so don't expect to much of a challenge unless you also chose to escape from a lot of the battles.

Finally, you can craft improved armor with the items the enemies drop. Usually, you get slightly higher defense compared to what you can buy at that point and then some other bonus. I didn't use the crafting that often due to escaping from most battles and therefore not having so much material, but it worked great when I did use it.

Visuals
The characters are very well drawn, both their portrait and their battle image. The tilesets are mostly RPT and the mapping isn't very fancy, but the maps are very atmospheric. Towns are full of life, abandoned crypts feel very desolate and enemy strongholds look like something people actually use (even if the layout is dungeonish.)

Music
The music is very well chosen to enhance whatever mood the game is conveying. A lot of the tracks also sounds great even if you listen to them outside of the game.

Overall
Great characters, top notch writing and the superhero theme is well played. The gameplay isn't bad either. A lot of effort went into this game. It does however fall prey to a lot of weaknesses common in turn based RPGs, but unless you find turn based battles very annoying, chance is you will enjoy this game.