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Truly, a Solid Frientagonship

  • Liberty
  • 03/01/2015 03:23 AM
  • 786 views
Antagonist 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.


Please note that I touch on some spoilers of the plot in the last section of this review.

Presentation

The writing was quite well done, for the most part. The characters were fun, enjoyable and I got attached to at least one of them during the game. The story itself was interesting and drew you in. It wasn't 'deep' but it had depth and for a short game it was well paced. There were some minor grammatical issues and a few wrongly worded parts but they didn't stop the flow of the dialogue or break immersion.

The art is lovely. There are no maps, just custom art of areas and characters. It was more like an interactive novel in that way. The graphics were quite well-polished and all fit together well. The character designs were quite nice, too. I loved the parody characters. And Teeth. Teeth was awesome.

I can't recall much more than the battle music, really. I know there were some RTP tunes due to crashing, but most of the music was original. It fit the scenes but didn't stand out. Battle music was nice though~

Sound direction was pretty good. Again, it didn't stand out but it was there and helped to build the atmosphere nicely.

There was quite a bit of parodying going on in this game - especially when it came to the other 'actors'. Very tongue-in-cheek and a lot of video game references thrown in added a lot of amusement.

Gameplay

Gameplay consisted of interacting via choices and battling. The choices didn't really change anything in the story but were interesting and explored different facets of the characters a little more.

Battles were fast-paced and nicely balanced, skewed towards easy. The last battle was a good challenge, though the end part was scripted (which led to hilarity on my part because I was supposed to use an ultra special attack... only to have one of the people helping in the battle rip the enemy to death for me. I was denied the cool... XD ) In that battle certain people would jump in during turns and help deal damage to the boss, which was interesting and great fun to see. They were scripted but it added a bit more dynamic to the battle, making it seem a lot more epic (and letting us revisit some of the awesome characters of the past).

You learned skills after certain battles, given a choice of which ones to take. Later you do gain access to all of them, but it added a bit of customisation to your character, allowing you to build a skillset that worked for you.

You only got to play as one character until the last battle, but your partner in battle was pretty good with the AI - always healing when you or he needed it and dealing good damage (though he really liked that cover spell a lot).

The most interesting thing about the battles were how the AI changed over time, in response to what was going on in the story. Initially they would only attack, ignoring you and not helping out as much. As the characters grew to trust each other in the story, so too did the AI in battle reflect to show that trust and mutual like. Skills were unlocked and how they used those skills changed.

Items weren't really used much and really not needed, even in the last boss battle.

There was a crashing issue due to some sound files not being included in the download. I'm sure it's since been fixed.

Fun Factor

This game was fun. It really was. The characters were silly and funny and interesting, the shout-outs were a neat addition, the story itself was fun and battles were a breeze for the most part. The last battle felt pretty epic due to the in-battle dialogue and interactions and the ending just made you feel good.

I'll admit I may have shed a tear during a certain scene. BUT I LIKED THAT CHARACTER!!!

I was a little upset (but then found it hilarious and rather fitting) that I never got to use the super awesome attack. I... well, let's just say that Teeth got her revenge before I could charge the spell up and he died to her, shall we? It was pretty funny though. (Would have been even more so if it was deliberate and there'd been a scene depicting her glory stealing. XD )


All told, the game was solid, short and fun. It was full of amusing characters and a lot of great design elements. The battles were fun and had some challenge, depending on your skill choice, but the game is really about the story and characters and that is where it truly shines.

I scored it a 52/60 for the IGMC. On RMN I'm giving it 4 stars.