Iffermoon

Iffermoon is side scrolling RPG, a very uncommon genre hybrid that generally needs more time in the spotlight. That's reason enough to play it, but Iffermoon has a lot going for it overall and presents as a solid gameplay experience.

Most games fail when they aspire to be too much and can't keep up with their own aspirations, but Iffermoon doesn't fall into this trap. It aspires to be exactly what it is: a short, interesting little game with an emphasis on collecting things. The only "flashy" aspect of the game is its graphics, which are simple 3D models and are done extremely well.

The storyline is nothing grand, yet maintains enough of an element of mystery to stay interesting throughout the game. The sound effects and music always seem to fit, and the out-of-battle controls are smooth enough.

The battle system is a little unwieldy at first, but quickly becomes very entertaining to explore and try to figure out the best combos between characters. And combos are the way to go; the game rewards diversification and strategic planning, and the relatively infrequent battles made it so that fighting was rarely ever a chore.

Iffermoon's biggest flaw is its load times. My computer, currently slugging along at 800 MHz, is well below the stated minimum requirements, so I'm not sure how it will fare on better machines, but every time I transitioned between screens I'd have to wait about 20 seconds. The snarky loading screen captions were a nice touch, however.

The second major problem I had was what I feel is a lack of balance in the battle system. For one, physical attacks seem virtually worthless, contributing only a small amount of damage each battle. Additionally, each category of attacks seemed to have one or two moves that were just more useful than all the others in that category. The balance between categories was done very well, but the fact that the majority of moves just didn't seem to do much was disappointing. On the plus side, figuring out which moves were the best to use was pretty fun and scaled well with the length of the game.

Pros

• The graphics are great
  
• The sound and music fit in very well
  
• The atmosphere of the world flows
  
• The battle system is fun to explore and doesn't get old
  
• There are a lot of things to collect and the arcade minigames are fun
  

Cons

• Long loading times
  
• Some lack of battle balance
  
• Some of the in-game tasks are repetitive
  

Summary
Iffermoon is a pretty short game that stays fun all the way through. It portrays the side scrolling RPG genre well and never falls flat of its aspirations. If you can get over the loading times, then you'll find yourself with a vibrant, interesting world to explore and a rewarding gameplay experience. It may not be the best game of all time, but Iffermoon is NOT "more of the same" in the RPG world, and you'd really be missing out not to play it.