One More Year

Intro

"One More Year" is a turn-based RPG that was being developed by Sgt M using RPG Maker VX Ace. Sadly this coming of age story never got past the demo stage. Though why this game died so early in development is a bit of a mystery. I suppose I could message Sgt M and ask, but I suppose why this project was ultimately cancelled really doesn't matter that much anymore. After all, I'm just here to review the demo for 50 makerscore and to add another project to my completed pile.

Story
Summary

You play as Sol and his friends who've decided to use the power of peer pressure to convince him to join them on a quest to explore an abandoned mansion. An abandoned mansion where a great tragedy too place long ago, but it's here where Sol will learn the true meaning of achievement. Or at least that's what would happen if the game was finished.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Sadly it's a bit difficult to pin down any strengths or weaknesses the narrative has in the demo since it only contains about 15 to 30 minutes worth of content depending on how much time you spend exploring areas and talking to NPCs. Albeit the nature of some NPCs is clearly meant to be comedic with a construction worker with a jack hammer wondering about what it would be like to suffer death at the hands of a horde of underground humming birds.



A train of thought that's both absolutely insane and makes this dude/dudette with a jack hammer sound like a future star when it comes to putting together scripts for really bad movies like Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2010). Plus it would get him/her away from that jackhammer he/she hates so much.

Gameplay

At first glance this looks like a pretty standard turn-based RPG, but this game does include a few differences both major and minor. On the minor side of things as you choose actions for your characters their face disappears from the screen and then pops up again for a short moment when they perform their action for that round. On the major side of the scale the game changes up the usual formula for gaining resources for a secondary type of skills. Unlike the TP system where the player gains points based on guarding, attack, or taking damage. In this game you gain 1 AP after every round of combat assuming your not fatigued. And you can only hold up to 5 AP at any given point in time.
So you need to consider if you'll save up your points for a big attack like Frenzy or Tetra Strike or spam lower cost skills in order to get more utility out of this system in order to conserve your MP for later.

Though why the game bothers with giving the player gold for winning fights is beyond me. After all, this demo doesn't include a single shop so it would be way more helpful if the player could farm enemies for drops. That way you'll have a few doses of MP restoring syrup on hand during the demo's one and only boss battle After all if your basically stumbling over syrup your going to be a lot more gung ho about spamming skills like Sessy's double attack.

Graphics

The game makes use of a few graphic packs in order to capture the look of classic games like "Mother 3". Though I do question some of the mapping since the area around your house contains quite a few random barrels of oil and cardboard boxes for some inexplicable reason.



Sound

The game definitely utilizes some tracks found in resources packs. So at the very least the game manages to avoid the tedium that comes from having heard the same RTP tracks for the 100th time. At the same time the game's background tracks really didn't wow me either, but I tend to be hard to truly amaze on this front.

Conclusion

"One More Year" does feel like a project that was going in the right direction, but it's nowhere near as engaging as some other demos I can think of. So while this demo hasn't left me hungry for more. I wouldn't object to playing a completed version of this game, but the likelihood of that ever happening is effectively zero. After all, this isn't a project that has been on hiatus for the better part of a decade, but a project that was cancelled by the developer over half a decade ago.