Descendant of Truth

Hellooooo!
This time we're talking about history! Descendant of Truth is in fact an old legendary game originally released on the site http://gaminggroundzero.com by Illy AKA Cecil Beoulve... and I say that because the name of the protagonist IS Cecil... hmmmmmmm!

Anyway this is an old rpgmaker2000 game, and it's also a demo, not a complete game! On the other hand it's a sci-fi adventure with guns, mechas and airships. Not your typical rpgmaker game, isn't it? Anyway let's start with the beginning!


We're in a galaxy far far away, and Lieutenant Cecil welcomes us. Get ready for the first mission!

Lieutenant Cecil and his friend Junk are fighting a group of rebel terrorists, that looks like the Jawas from Star Wars, but taller. The mission starts with Cecil commanding a mecha, and it's a short linear part that I believed was going to be the main part of the game. Instead no! That's just an introduction, because after this section the game becomes a classic rpgmaker adventure game.

The party is formed by Cecil, Junk and two unnamed soldiers that we cannot control but have different attacks they can use. Our characters instead begin with their weapons (Cecil has a rifle, Junk uses two pistols), but soon they will find the first of the secondary weapons, the chaingun: these items can be equipped to enable the use of some special attacks that require expending AP points. These can be exchanged between characters and are a sci-fi counterpart of mana (charges).


Let's battle the rebels! We're outnumbering them and look... retreat is NOT possible!

After this tutorial mission Cecil is back at the base of the space marines, a giant spaceship but the events that follows will leave him stranded alone on a desert planet. Further adventures will see him meeting again his friends and also the rebels, but this time it will be the opportunity to learn something about each other. In any case I am not going to tell you more about the story!

If combat is more or less what you can expect from a classic rpgmaker game, including the random battles, weapons, armors and consumables like healing items and grenades (but excluding the equippable secondary weapons), like in many other classic rpgmaker 2003 game there are a couple of other inevitable aspects: puzzles, tasks and exploration. While the game is practically linear, some exploration will be necessary to find some items that will be needed to progress. Then there is a simple stealth section, a puzzle with some valves, a chase section in which we're the pursuer, and so on, and like the first minigame with the mech, all these parts fits the game pretty well, I like diversions, especially when they're brief and not too difficult!


I got you!!! Now tell me, Talan, what happened to A Blurred Line?

What I instead hated was the saving system: there are computers that act as save/healing-points but they could have been better placed (one inside the terrorist base, for example would have been useful!), and the animation to use them is long, also because you have to select to HIT or to KICK the computer respectively to SAVE or to HEAL.

Visually the game is ok, I mean mapping is in some parts mediocre (the planet with the worms, and the town, where there is also a clipping error with the jars on the left side of the village) but acceptable and in some cases a little better (the terrorist bases), anyway there was an excellent use of some ripped assets, and the portraits taken and edited from Fire Emblems are always good to look at. There is a bit of style dissonance due to the charsets and sprites from different sources (FFVI and Romancing SaGa characters do not fit very well together, and also the RTP giant dogs clash with the background and the other enemy sprites), but on the other hand there are also many cool animated cutscenes, starting from the evocative intro and the end of the first mission. Oh yes, the developer ripped some sprites but set them in motion. The music and sounds are likewise pretty good for this game.


The best way to make new friends is impressing your enemies!

Final Verdict
Descendant of Truth is a charming title, a real pity that's a demo since it made me go back to the old times of the glorious rpgmaker 2003 epic adventures. For this reason I cannot recommend this to everyone but just to those who like me had fun with some old classic titles of the past, despite rpgmaker does not permit incredible graphics or a combat system that's more than a time waster. While the story is nothing special, I like how we have to do a lot of different things and not just battles: drive a mecha, look for items to repair the ship, avoid enemies in a stealth sections... all these moments are functional to the story and also give something different to do. It works and it's enjoyable, despite the lack of polish! Not bad at all! (actually I am biased and I'd personally add 0.5 to this rating, since I absolutely loved this kind of old rm2k3 classic adventure/rpg games, but I know this would not be objective, sooooooo... do your math!).