~Forever's End~
A Review by Linkforce

Before I get into the review, I have a bone to pick with this game! ........but it's not a bad bone.....it's a good one. Without a shadow of a doubt, this game SCREAMS cliche. From the good turned evil king, to the evil right hand man, to the main character who realizes his ways early and succeeds from his position, to the 6 crystals that drive the story forward. I just want to point that out first. Personally, I have no problem with things being cliche. It's incredibly hard to be original these days because everything has been done at least once. It's just how much something has been used that determines how bearable it is. For your game, there are a lot of elements that are almost directly from a final fantasy and whatnot, but once again, I am not complaining. I suppose I'll get into the review and save what I think about it as a whole until the end.

STORY: 7.5/10
As I said above, your story borrows a lot from other games. But it's done in a way that seems fresh and innovative. Like you take familiar elements and you put your own special twist on it. It creates moments like "Oh, I've seen that in Final Fantasy #......but not in this context". The best example of this I can think of is when you introduce Slade. At first it's like yeah, he's the typical goon, lackey, hired by the king to hunt you down. But then you realize that he actually has more to him and he's not there exactly to kill you more then he is to do something else that doesn't involve you. It's twists like this that keep your story fresh and stops you from being overly cliche.

CHARACTERS: 8/10
Your characters are pretty solid and they definitely show some growth as the game progresses. That's good to see and you definitely start to care for some of them. My only complaint is that Elise and Epoch get along waaaaaaay too early for them hating each other not long ago. I think if you paced that out a lot more it would help develop the characters. I also noticed that Epoch thought she was cute so I can only assume that there will be some feelings between them later on in the game. In that sense, if you made their relationship develop more slowly, as in Elise begins to like him more slowly, it would make her final leap towards liking him that much more great of a moment. Aside from that, your characters seem pretty solid, except for some of the cliche ones I mentioned above. But as I've been saying, it's not a problem.

GAMEPLAY: 9.5/10
I gave this a 9.5 out of 10 because I don't think that anything is ever perfect, BUT...the system you've implemented into your game are vast and plentiful. Even though most of them have been used before, it is refreshing to see them coded very nicely and used with ease. They all work great and are introduced at a consistent pace. Whether it be the traveling merchant, the "1" key that reminds you what you're doing, or the "Draw" skill that Lee uses, they all are refreshing and welcomed. The only beef I have is that there are many things you can do in the game, capturing monsters and what not, that it tends to be a bit much. Not a bit much in the sense that its too much but in the sense that you forget you can do certain things. Like throughout the demo, I completely forgot I could capture monsters. Maybe having a special menu that let's you go over all the cool things you can do and how to do them would be helpful. Just a friendly suggestion.

GRAPHICS: 8.5/10
Your game looks very good and it was a joy to play through. Your maps were laid out nicely and apart from some bland interiors, they were appealing to the eye. Your animations were incredible too. There were a lot of them and I can only imagine how long is must have taken you to perfect them all. But they were very nice to look at and I got excited when I got special attacks cause they looked cool! My only main complaint with the graphics is that your font is absolutely atrocious!! I suggest you find a better one because I had a lot of trouble reading in your game.

MUSIC: 9/10
It's hard to go wrong when most of your soundtrack is from Final Fantasy and other PS1 classics. They bring back fond memories, and there's something about that Chrono Trigger song that plays when your skill menu pops up, I think it's called "Reprieve", that just mesmerizes you. But aside from the fact that they're mostly FF and PS1 songs, they fit very nicely and you don't overuse any of them which makes them accepted regardless of their "cliche" quality. All in all, great job on the music selection. (Don't be afraid to branch out though!)

FINAL WORD:
All in all, this is a very solid game. I didn't get to play it to the end though because your game said it was missing some file right before I had to fight the two soldiers who were going to arrest Elise. But even from what I did play, it was very well thought out and very very clear you put a lot of heart into this game. And as a fellow game maker I appreciate when somebody puts a lot of work into their game and doesn't give up on it. So with that said, I hope you don't give up on it because I want to see what happens next! You've succeeded in making a good game because I want to find out the answers to my questions, and that, is the ultimate goal of any game, to keep the player playing. Keep up the great job and don't stop for a second! You have received Linkforce's seal of approval!