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My heart is melting(Gasp)MY HEART IS MELTING!(Falls dead)

  • todpole
  • 03/25/2017 10:57 PM
  • 1904 views
So I was browsing Gamejolt when I encountered this little game. Saw a few screenshots and decide to give it a try. Now I need get a mop to clean what remains of my cold,dead heart that this game melted with it’s romance. So yes, I say you should play this game. Now let me tell you why.

Story:

Karuna and Aurelie were friends who were in love with each other but too afraid to admit it, but after a quick rescue mission, Aurelie finds this evil suit of armour and gets possessed by an evil warlord. After some time of her being missing, she returns with a colourful gang of monsters and now Karuna must go an journey to save the woman she loves. Hold on... Two partners in arms in love. Evil artefact possesses one of them. Goes missing but recently returns. One of the bosses is potion themed. Rats almost everywhere. The part that shows how well they work together. Flashback of knights that wield shovels and giant shields. This is... This is..! THIS IS...!!

Audience: What?!

This is causing my heart to melt again. One second.

(One heart replacement later)


Now where was I? Oh yes. The story. Our hero is teamed up With two Others And while they’re not the most complex of characters, they are likeable and more than pretty faces. Karuna is the hero who mainly keeps her personal feelings to herself and lets people she knows or hates how she feels. Then there Chisa, the shy ball of joy who supports people who need it as she’s caring like that, and her stutter seems less to do with being nervous than just being the way she talks. And Merel, the blunt naga, who shouts to the world whats on her mind and a complete nerd for languages and ruins and the like.

If there’s one strength this game has its got to be the romance. Not only is the relationship between Karuna and Aurelie gets explored with all the sweetness it includes, but also we the the gradual development of Chisa and Merel as a couple, from Merel flirting with her causing to get all flustered to Chisa encouraging her to confess her love to world to become Nose Nuzzle Champions. And every time They acted all cute and cuddly, I image Karuna was kicking herself that she wasn’t able to confess her feelings in time.

I also liked the lore like how they explain how Darkloft monsters work or that every religion in the world is real. One tidbit about this Lord of Benevolence caught my attention on my second playthrough that suppose to rid the world of darkness and that struck me as a very terrible idea since darkness is an important element of the world and what we learn about Aurelie. Speaking of her, there’s a lot of flavor text here like the NPCs at home, beside expressing annoyance at the king, mention that Aurelie’s always been a bit off or my favourite is that almost every boss has a little line that gives them a bit of personality like the squid who uses treasure to lure prey or the lobster wants to rid the world of humans for the fish master race.It’s little things like that get the analytic side of my mind going.

But I must talk about the elephant in the room, Lynette. I don’t like her. She started good when you meet her and that she was very into killing all the darkness in the world. But after that whole subplot she just becomes a jerk to everyone for no reason. Anytime she became close to likeable, she insults the party which causes me to lose my sympathy, which is sad because her backstory wants me to make her succeed in a way. And she doesn’t stay with the group for long so she doesn’t even feel like a friend to them. But while I’m disappointed in her, the story seems to hate her to the point where I don’t think shes safe with it. She entered the story hoping to be a hero but ends the story a failure with no closure at all for her. Even the harpy that’s been pestering you since you meet first fight her ends up being more likeable and gets a happier ending than her.

Gameplay:


Before we talk about the combat, lets talk about some the handy mechanics on the field. Like the handy indicators that tell you which pots and boxes are worth examining so you don’t waste you time going through every single box. There’s also the very simple crafting system where you just need the items for the craft and there you go. And in dungeons, you see every monster on the field so you can avoid any encounter you don’t want to do. Though you would need to exploit their AI to do that but I recommend fighting them anyway because of the boss fights. Also, there the mission tab in the menu which just tells you what your doing but its done with the characters talking about what they doing so if you want a bit more dialogue with our three heroes, you can.

As for combat, its the simple combat I like with every character having their own role. Karuna casts buffs and wind and light magic and has a lot of physical attacks, Chisa is the white mage but is also a hard hitter so she can fight when she’s not healing, Merel is the black mage that I used to exploit enemy weaknesses and while Lynnette does have some useful debuffs and is the only one with water magic, we don’t get to play with her enough and she would’ve been really helpful against the first Darkloft fight, reducing her damage so the party can stay alive. It like Gameplay wanted to show you this fun doll to play with but Story wanted to take it from you first chance it gets. And when you get to play with her again, Story grabs it from your hands and throws it into a wood chipper.

Speaking of that boss I like to touch on the difficulty setting and say that it does make a difference. On my first playthrough, I was on easy and I got my first game over against said boss which was near the end of the game and on my second one, on normal, I got my first against the first golem fight in the third town.

Also I have nowhere to say these last two points but I like that the enemies are gradually getting stronger like you might fight the strongest enemies in one area become the weakest in the next, now teamed up with the new stronger foes. Abit of gameplay-story intergration And I’ve seen a few reviews that say that Singwind Pass felt long but I didn’t mind it as it told you how long it was and the sections weren’t that big, and they was a healing spot between each section so it didn’t bother me.

Presentation:


No point in denying that art for the title and similar pictures is f%&!ing gorgeous. The enemy art is also very good, being both very silly and pretty threatening like the slimes from Dragon Quest trying too hard to be evil or the demons that wear old scuba diving gear.I admit some were pretty bland. I didn’t remember what the first two bosses were compared to the ones we see later and I had no idea what those symbol like enemies are suppose to be.

Don’t have much to say on the sprite work and tilesets except they look nice and all the sprites of the girls cuddling or holding hands are so cute. The music however took me a while to get use to it. After hearing that kick ass title song, that techno song for the first town gave me whiplash since I wasn’t expecting that kind of music. But I got use to it and even started bopping my head when I was in a dungeon. HOWEVER. The song for Springmouth physically hurt me. It starts out with this sombre guitar but then this flute starts playing and I don’t how but the way the flute plays hurts my ear. Which is a shame since it ruins one of the best songs in the game.

Verdict:

So yes, its a fun game and would gladly give it a 5 if it wasn’t Lynette since she hurt the experience for me and the music. But that didn’t stop me from enjoying the other characters and the story. And since there’s a Lynette sequel in the works, maybe that might even make me like her like I wanted to. Just as long Story gets over whatever it has against STORY! Why are you about to throw Lynette into a pool of laser sharks!?

4.5/5

Posts

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unity
You're magical to me.
12540
Thanks very much for the wonderful review! :DDDDD

Sorry about the music in Springsmouth. ;_; I knew that part sounds different but I'm sad that its painful. Does anyone else find that track painful? Please let me know! I may need to replace it if so.

I'm very happy that you enjoyed so much! I can understand why Lynette is upseting. Despite what it seems, I do not hate her and in fact very much like her, but yeah, she doesn't get a fair shake here.

I'll work on music selection and writing to try to improve in future games. Thanks again for this review :D
And thank you for the thank you. And I know you don't hate Lynnette. That's just how I felt the story treated her. Though giving her her own game might improve her character and make her the woman you wanted to show us.
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