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Epic Tale Of Scandal And Deceit, Plus Superheroes!

  • Joker
  • 12/02/2009 05:43 AM
  • 1253 views
Master of the Wind

This game is a gift to RMN. While it’s not without its flaws, its strong points pulled it up plenty high enough for me to enjoy it. The story is well thought out, and the characters are rather brilliantly written. There are a few issues with balance early on in the game, but please, push past it. You will be rewarded. While I have not yet gotten around to playing Arc VI yet myself, I’ve seen it played. I eagerly await the finale.

Score 4.5/5

This game should be played. It wants it, it needs it. Give it what it wants. I promise it’ll be worth the experience.

The breakdown begins

Story

MotW’s story is quite well crafted. There were times where I felt an agenda was being crammed down my throat, but the troubles they face are the kind of troubles real people can relate to. The setting is that of fantasy, but the story is not… Except for the superpowers stuff, that’s still fantasy. Our heroes are two ordinary fellows living in a busy port city, working in an armor shop. There is a twist, however. They are superheroes! That’s right, when night falls, they don their capes and fight crime. A purse snatcher here, a vampire attack there, they keep their fellow man safe. When a big corporate chain moves to their town, their livelihoods become endangered as well as those of their friends. Even stranger still, it seems a crime spree springs up in their town immediately after they arrive. Coincidence? As things progress, you will be plunged into their world’s history while they discover strange connections between a radical religious group and Wal*Ma- I mean Equipment King! Watch as our heroes foil evil plots, hate business, and hit on chicks.

Characters

Cade/Shroud: Here’s the rule of thumb with this guy. When he’s Shroud (His superhero persona), he’s a whiney little prick. When he’s Cade (His secret identity), he’s a total G. One thing’s for certain, this character has a lot of passion. He can’t stand it when he fails, so much so that he just about quits every time it happens. Luckily they are pretty good at what they do, so you won’t have to listen to him whine very often. One thing you will notice as the story goes along is that Cade is something of a ladies’ man. He flirts endlessly with every female character. No woman is safe. It doesn’t even matter if he’s already deeply involved with someone else. He still hits on every new girl he meets.

Bones/Stoic: This gentleman is a little simpler. He behaves pretty much exactly the same in either of his personas. The only difference seems to be that the eye that glows switches sides. Is that how he conceals his identity? The story behind this character is supremely interesting, and more about that will be revealed to you by playing the game. One thing that did really bother me was that they frequently tout his 1,000 years of age to be the source of his worldly wisdom and experience. The reason this pissed me off is that you will eventually find out that at least half of his life was spent sitting on his ass in a cave sulking about how his life turned out. Still… 500 years is nothing to sneeze at.

Finley/Baron: At first I thought this dude was super annoying. The more he started to be around, the more I started to like him. Eventually, he won me over with his charms. Finley is awesome. Every game should have a Finley.

Laurel: While not as interesting as the rest of the cast, she gets some pretty rich characterization. I have a feeling that things will improve for this character in the final arc.

As I write this, I realize that the cast of characters in this game is so vast, I can’t get too into them all. Since I’ve covered the player party, I’m going to end it here. I will note that pretty much ALL the characters, including the villains and such not individually identified here, are extremely well written. This game is very dialogue heavy, very very dialogue heavy, but in a good way. You’ll enjoy listening to these charcters talk to each other. They even made an effort to give the villains equal time.

Gameplay

The gameplay here is relatively solid. In fact, I’d say it’s extremely solid. Aw hell, it’s mostly perfect. While I do agree with many of the other people who have voiced their concerns about the encounter rate being too high, it didn’t really ruin the experience for me. I really enjoyed the puzzles in this game. I really really enjoyed them. Most areas where puzzles are involved, you won’t have to worry about dealing with random encounters. I can’t imagine how frustrating these puzzles would have gotten if you got attacked every time you were about to solve it. Once I got fed up with getting beat down in all the battles, I just plopped down in an area near a Healing/Save point well, and did some grinding for about 5 levels. From that point on, I didn’t have to do any additional grinding.

Battles

The battles in this game were a little iffy. Since I beefed my characters up a little higher than most people would, I didn’t struggle with them. I can definitely see the battles being more difficult than most people would like, but they’re doable. Healing items are readily available everywhere you go, and since 2 of your characters are competant healers, it’s generally not so bad. Just get used to having one of your characters healing every single round. It gets a little frustrating when multiple enemies pick on one of your characters, because that means they are going to be very dead. Again, however, you have 2 characters with the ability to revive fallen allies, so it’s just a minor setback as long as you keep on top of things.

Posts

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I never did thank you for writing this. We appreciate the kind words and the commentary on the characters was pretty amusing.
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