Save Point

Save Point was one of the entries for the IGMC (Indie Game Making Contest) for 2014. As one of the judges for the RPG portion of the competition it is my pleasure to share my thoughts on the game. This review will basically just be the notes I took cleaned up. It will be based on the competition version of the game, so certain aspects of the game may have been changed.

Presentation
Graphics are custom, from the looks of it. Mapping is a bit odd in that it looks good but there are many paths that seem like you can walk them but you can't. This confuses the player and makes it quite hard to get anywhere. However, the maps themselves are quite nice.

Music is quite nice and, from the sounds of it, all original tunes. Sound is standard - there but nothing outstanding.

Writing is pretty decent. Characterisation is pretty solid for the most part, though there are times when they come off as similar. Story is pretty standard - find another way home, oh but you can't die. The concept is interesting.

Gameplay
Battles are quite interesting. There are two phases - the initial, auto-phase where everyone attacks automatically, depending on the kind of skill you equipped and chose to use. Then the manual phase which allows you to pick your targets and use the skills on a per turn basis.

Skills are useful and learned during levelling up. You have to equip them from the menu scene.

Exploration is a mixed bag. While there's a lot of areas to look at, your exploration routes are cut by passability, thus it becomes more of a 'find the one spot you walk on'.

Items are useful and you are given a decent amount, which is helpful since encounters are set at a pretty high rate, even for normal encounters.

You can jump up and down ledges which was nice, but more often than not they're behind trees which makes it hard to see where to go.

Fun factor
The battles themselves are different and feel dynamic. They're pretty fun, all told, though the high encounter rate does get annoying. Learning and equipping new skills is also fun.

Exploration - my usual favourite part of a game - is less fun because of how annoying it can be to find that one way around all the obstacles. You can't walk on flowers or small plants, which is frustrating, and finding your way to chests is very annoying.


Overall it's a pretty decent game with an interesting story concept and well worth checking out, even if the random encounters can get annoying. In the IGMC I gave it a solid 47 out of 60. On RMN I'm giving it 4 stars.