Chance Encounter

Intro

"Chance Encounter" is a short, turn-based RPG developed by Marrend using RPG Maker VX Ace that was created for the Game Chill 2013 event. An event that ran from December 19th 2013, to January 9th, 2014. Though considering how short this game is I'm guessing Marrend entered the contest rather late and just tried to toss something together in a hurry. At least it feels that way since this game comes across as only partially baked in my opinion which seems to be the general consensus about this game if the other reviews are anything to go by.

Story
Summary

Prince Hiroji has decided to run away from own and abandon all of his royal responsibilities on his 16th birthday. And in order to do this he throws himself out of his own window and hits the ground running. Unfortunately for him the guard stationed to watch him isn't going to give up that easily and decides to follow him. After all, who else could possibly teach the prince about the importance of duty and honor. Of course, while the guard is trying to catch up the prince runs into a beautiful girl making a snowman who agrees to help the prince escape his royal responsibilities, but before they can leave the forest the guard catches up to them and decides to teach the prince the importance of duty through example by protecting him from the various forest creatures.

After that the team runs into a visiting princess whose there to join in the festivities surrounding Prince Hiroji. Unfortunately Princess Tamaki is pretty hot-headed and tries to murder everyone for ruining her time with her lover by showing up at the wrong moment. A scene that kind reminds me of the setup for Misty's gym battle in "Pokémon Gold/Silver/Crystal". At any rate after beating her up she decides to retreat for now only to pop up a second time and challenge the player to a one on one duel. Though whether you win or lose said duel you'll still get caught by the temple guards and be sent back to the castle where you'll get to dance with the woman from before and learn that she's a princess from another country. And that just maybe being the king of Askigaga won't be so bad if you can't marry her in the future. A prospect that might be a bit remote considering she's already engaged to a violent maniac. Oh well, I suppose that's an issue for another game to cover.

Greatest Strength/Weakness

I'll admit it's hard to think of a major narrative strength working in this game's favor. While I'm a sucker for happy endings and love conquering all. This story really doesn't end with that so much as a hint that such a story might be coming in the future. So it doesn't even have that to fall back in my opinion.

And while I suppose the story does have some solid ideas potentially going for it with the prince running away and learning the importance of duty from one of the castle guards. This story doesn't feel like it's properly fleshed out. An issue that largely comes down to how this aspect of the story is executed in my opinion.

Add in some major characters that feel rather bland and your left with a pretty boring tale. A tale that is full of poorly executed clichés which results in a story that is highly predictable as well, but the poor execution makes the cliché nature of the story either annoying to the audience or utterly underwhelming.

Gameplay

On the gameplay front "Chance Encounter" is a basic turn-based RPG with the standard combat actions. In fact, the only thing that does separate this game from most turn-based RPGs is that you regain MP in this game when you guard. A feature that is essentially pointless if you spend any time leveling grinding in this game since you'll quickly find yourself with way more MP than you'll ever need. Especially since you can easily restore your HP and MP by interacting with the numerous snowmen in the area named Frosty.

In fact, the only other thing of note about this game is that it includes a one on one duel in the style of the Suikoden franchise where the player needs to choose what to do based on the opponent's dialogue. A system I never really got particularly good at and eventually started writing down a few notes in order to know which action to take in response to a line. Which just shows that some of the enemy's dialogue in that section aren't entirely intuitive.

Graphics

On the graphical front the game appears to rely heavily on the RTP for RPG Maker VX Ace. As a result the game looks like a lot of other games I've covered over the years. Add in some middle of the road maps and were left with a game that doesn't present that well. An issue only made worse by the numerous graphical glitches that can pop up such as Oharu getting stuck in the guard spot during the duel and the character being able to move at points during cut scenes.



And I'm still not sure why Tamaki exited the area for the duel walking backwards that one time. I'm guessing it had something to do with Oharu getting stuck out of position, but it might be entirely unrelated as well for all I know. I know when I redid the duel to see if the game had an alternative ending if we win that she exited the area properly because Oharu didn't get stuck in the wrong spot during the duel.



And Oharu being out of position also means the prince walks through Oharu when he attempts to merge back with her sprite when the party leaves the area. This error can also pop up if you move Oharu during the cut scene which is also possible.

Sound

On the sound side of things the game relies on the RMN music pack. A factoid that is interesting in my opinion, but the music contained in that pack appears to be rather forgettable if this game is anything to go by. On the plus side I really can't think of anything to complain about as far as the usage of the songs go.

Conclusion

"Chance Encounter" is a short game that takes around 20 to 25 minutes or so to complete. And that's if you take the time to grind your way all the way up to the maximum level of ten which isn't even necessary in order to beat the game. Though, I'll admit being level 10 does make the fight against Princess Tamaki a lot short since you can drop your strongest spells and physical attacks on her. Unfortunately this game is crippled by poor storytelling and boring combat. As a result this game doesn't even qualify as a good time waster. In fact, I'd argue you'd get more entertainment out of a silly bad game like "WWF vs WWF" or "FLEX". At the same time I can't shake my initial feeling that this was a rather last minute entry into an event. So I'm willing to cut it a little slack in terms of overall rating.