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This Blade needs polish.

  • Elder71
  • 05/08/2015 03:27 PM
  • 2290 views
RADIANT BLADE

Review


STORY

Radiant Blade, though stronger as a game than I was admittedly expecting, suffers from a long list of issues, redundancies and shortcuts taken.

As easy, superficial example is the 8-directional movement, which adds absolutely nothing except a means by which the player character can strafe about and a extra script plugged in to make the game feel artificially more loaded.

Eased through the creation process by the software’s lion’s share of the hard work, the maker does not seem to have thoroughly tested this demo before releasing it. As has already been mentioned in the comments on the game’s homepage, the spelling throughout is atrocious. Grammatical errors are almost so common that they’re routine; with missing full stops, ignored capitalisation and absent apostrophes to name but a few of the personal pet hates of mine that feature. I’m lead to suspect, as I have been before, that English is not this maker’s first language. If so, this explains the mistakes but I’m unwilling to accept it as an excuse and gloss over the issue. Having the game proof-read would be an excellent and easy way to apply some much needed polish.


(This week on the evil puppet's trans-dimensional tales...)

The story itself, while functional as a means of coaxing the game along, smacks quite loudly of being made up on the fly. It’s built entirely of clichés - which is nothing new as a reviewer’s musing - but also reads like it has a strange, awkward sense of self-awareness.

To encapsulate this point perfectly, during a cutscene where several bad-guys are meeting, two cloaked figures declare their organisation (which was, I’m sorry to say, so “uh-huh, yeah, okay” that I haven’t remembered it and don’t care to dig it out). The following two chunks of dialogue read thus:

“Sounds clichéd.”
“It doesn’t matter that it’s clichéd!”

With slap-dash writing that can’t pick a tone and stick to it, this kind of dialogue translates very strongly (to me, anyway) as a kind of fumbled meta-apology. Radiant Blade is advertised as a comedy (which, suggestively, I had to double check), but it feels as though this was once intended as a serious project and at some point it became easier for the game to mock and pity itself in this cringing kind of way.

To the maker, if they want to take this game seriously moving forward, I’d recommend a serious rewrite, approached with an air of confidence. Your faith (or lack of it) in the project comes through strongly in the finished product, and self-directed wise cracks aren’t going to fool many people into forgiving the flaws in the writing.

I really have to add that there were no laughs here at all.

The plot is a straight-laced betrayal/fetch the magic scroll affair, NPCs have no personality and the entire first village is populated almost exclusively by anthropomorphic one-liner tutorials. As far as I could detect, the ‘comedy’ element relied solely upon characters occasionally calling each other “asshole” or muttering “dick” under their breaths. It’s extremely telling, as I mentioned 161 words ago, that I had to reconfirm that this demo was labelled as a comedy since nothing in it, excepting some immature dalliances with bad language, stood to suggest it as such.

As a plus, game play is never stuttering because the player doesn’t know what to do or where to go. If in doubt, I found, talk to “plot propellant” Rick. The plot, such as it is, moves along pretty smoothly.

In summary, the demo offers a pretty well put-together prologue scene that commits unflinchingly to a “power corrupts” vibe, the rest of the demo presents plucky young thieves destined to be the world’s saviours, magic scrolls, a shadowy cult. As a strictly personal point, I don’t find tropes or stereotypes at all appealing, so Radiant Blade’s plot bored me even as it managed to keep me ticking over with its ease and simplicity.

Character relationships are rushed and consequently undeveloped (i.e. not developed at all with the exception of a few debatable instances). The PC and his chum Rick seemed like husks, saying and doing whatever the plot requires them to without any sense of identity. I liked that I could name my character, the process of which was smoothly done (I named him “Bortzo”), but he (she?) had no personality beyond responding either impatiently or brat-ishly wherever the designer apparently thought it suitable.


COMBAT

(If you’ve read a review on this site before, there are fairly strong odds that you’ve encountered this point before. I include it here for those of you that maybe haven’t and for the sake of completeness.)

Battles in Radiant Blade are a first person affair with a few scripts tacked on for decoration. I recognise the default Enemy HP Bar graphics, which are surely one of the easier aspects to customise and edit. They haven’t been, though, and static enemy battlers that sway and waver and bob about don’t quite do enough to create an impression of motion. The animations of attacks done on party members have a weird offset that makes them appear half off-screen to the left - this was, strangely, fairly easy to ignore (unlike the ‘waiting for player interaction’ icon which, though it’s meant to be a rotating star, immediately and permanently looked like a tiny man doing star jumps).

As an interjectory note, humour is still missing - another snippet that suggests this game was originally meant to be serious but was warped into a comedy in an anxious attempt to paint over its cracks. (I don’t mean this with any vitriol, I’m simply trying to demonstrate how strongly a designer’s attitude can be projected in their game.)

For a large portion of this demo, battles can be won in one or two rounds by the staple attack/get attacked/repeat formula. In this instance, however, it isn’t quite so dull. Early battles are, as they should be, in my opinion, simple enough and serve the game well as a means of easing the player into the game. There’s a brief period later when new skills enter the fray and battles take on a somewhat more interesting shape, but problems soon arise with the difficulty curve.

Or, to put it another way, the absence of a useful one. With the exception of one boss fight, every battle can be won by essentially mastering the most basic strategy and remaining faithful.

I’d suggest to the maker that simply ramping up enemy HP and attack stats is not the most effective way of developing combat - battles simply taking longer to win is not the equivalent of battles becoming more challenging or interesting. If they aren’t going to pose a new kind of threat, cannon fodder enemies should probably be as easy to kill throughout.

Said combat is initiated by contact with on-map enemies, a neat touch which I know from experience took a little extra work. Irritatingly, though, it was introduced as though a unique feature. “Unlike other RPGs...” it read, and I found myself viscerally annoyed. My game has on-map enemies, as do many others. Additionally, there’s nothing that gives me a stronger impression of a game’s weakness than when I find it boasting about itself. On-map enemies are one of this demo’s strengths, but they’re by no means unique or original and to suggest this with an in-game message is a really jarring, awkward thing to do. Just as it would be, for example, to have your characters make straight-faced comments about how beautifully mapped the game was.


(No. Or, okay, maybe. Rogue apostrophe, though.)

To sidestep any accusation that I’m taking this comedy too seriously, I’ll acknowledge here that this may have been an attempt at humour. If it was, I have no way of knowing (because, sadly, it wasn’t funny) but I’ll happily concede that the above paragraph comes across a touch pedantic and offer an apology on this condition.

If this wasn’t meant as a joke, I’d like to offer the maker one of the oldest adages of fiction-making. “Show, don’t tell.”
It doesn’t apply succinctly in this case but it works like a charm as a general mantra. I’d suggest that if you find one of your characters explaining how interesting he is, you need to focus on demonstrating the intrigue rather than expecting players to accept your word for it. Extrapolate this to your entire world and story and the whole experience becomes much more natural and fluid for the player.


MAPPING

The RTP tilesets are put to fairly good use, so they’re no complaints from me on that particular front except to say that several maps suffer from being empty and oversized. There’s nothing wrong with smaller, concise maps (which several of Radiant Blade’s maps actually are) where the only alternative is, like in the village’s weapon shop, to have 60ft of empty floor space and then a three-tile counter tucked away in the corner.


(Floorboard wasteland.)

As a slight gripe, the shadow tool is used a bit liberally. The houses in the opening village look like they’re painted onto the ground because the placement of said shadows doesn’t visually match the height of the buildings. In a 2D game shadows are one of the best ways, sometimes the only way, to create a sense of depth.

The picture overlay used in caves to create a limited field of vision doesn’t quite fit the screen or the maps aren’t quite large enough to work with the image. Either way an easy enough fix - but one that could already have been spotted during the most cursory pre-release play-test.




EVENTING

This requires a minor category of its own because I encountered a few curious issues that I haven’t seen anywhere else.

Doors.
Not requiring a button press to go through a door is a good idea for keeping exploration streamlined, but the events themselves are set up so that you enter doors by passing across them as well as by heading into them.

I would guess that the door events are set to ‘Below Character’ and are placed in front of the doors themselves. Instead, I’d make the door sprite itself the event and set it to player touch. That way the transfer event will only be triggered if the player is facing the door and tries to move into it.

Particle Effects Overlay
The fluttering leaves effect, present on many of the maps, sometimes loads a second or two after the player character has appeared on a map. The opposite is true of the limited field of vision overlay when exiting the caves on Mt. Rocky - it only disappears a second after the play has come out of the caves.

Mr. Maker, if this is a problem with events not running quickly enough (something I’ve encountered) I’d suggest bookending the event with fade-in/fade-out to mask the delays.

Stealth Section
Akin to the Shinra-HQ break-in of Final Fantasy 7, there’s a section where you have to enter a prison without being spotted by guards. I was quite excited by this until I discovered that it’s really just pot luck as to whether the guards can see you or not. I was soon relaxed enough to jog brazenly around in full view knowing that whatever mechanic was meant to make me ‘visible’ had failed to function as intended. If this was implemented using a custom script, I don’t think it was set up properly. If it relies on a network of events, switches and variables then the fundamental logic of it needs serious refining.


SOUNDTRACK

I don’t recognise the music off-hand, so I can’t comment on where it may have come from. I will say that each piece is well chosen and successfully creates an appropriate mood. I for one rank music as one of the top three elements in an RPG for creating atmosphere, so a good selection of music (if you’re not lucky enough to have or to be a composer) is invaluable. Selecting tracks from other games, though one of the more minor jobs involved in creating an RPG Maker game, is Radiant Blade’s strongest point and rescues a lot of the rest of the game from becoming overtly aggravating.


IN SUMMARY

As an general cover-all tip; maps, battles and quests do not an RPG make. The true essence of an RPG is how well these elements flow/gel together in creating a composite feeling. Radiant Blade seems to have been created with a kind of “ticking the boxes” attitude and as such has a real lack of flair or individuality. Many aspects, like combat (for the most part) seem to appear for the sake of it, as does the job-system.

There are strengths, though.

I’m a particularly fussy gamer and my interest is not easily held. I managed to get through the Radiant Blade demo with only a mild and very infrequent urge to give up. It’s easy, which helps lubricate the whole affair, and nice use of cutscenes go some way to salvage the wreck of the writing - which is in dire need of some thorough proof reading, corrected pacing and character development. Where do our heroes come from? How did they become thieves? Why should we be scared of the enemy? Why are the scrolls they seek so valuable?

If this game is to remain a comedy, these are still good areas to explore.

As a final word I would suggest that it shouldn’t, though. Comedy is an extremely difficult thing to get right and few injections of cheeky bad language or a kind of “oh god I can’t believe you’re making me do this quest” character perspective on game play won’t make the grade.

Radiant Blade has the incomplete skeleton of a good game, but at the minute the good points aren’t anywhere near enough to support the weight of the whole body. It plays like the result of an early courtship with the software and, if this is indeed the case, could promise a lot of the maker if he develops.

1.5 / 5

Posts

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Porkate42
Goes inactive at least every 2 weeks
1869
My apologies for the late post but I would like to thank you for the review. It was so good that I thought I wasn't ready yet. However I took this review too seriously and I actually did remove all my games. I re-uploaded this one because I wanted people to see this review (You probably worked hard on it).

Individual thoughts:

1. I thought the flavors was just what it featured, not a sub-genre so my apologies on that.
2. The music is from the DS Resource Pack and a couple from other RPG's I found, I gave credit too them.
3. I rushed this, I thought it would be easy but sadly, no. I have a more fleshed out story for Demise than this.
4. I now have a game tester so he can help make my game better.
5. “Unlike other RPGs...” RPG maker VX Ace only used random encounters unless u use events, so I assumed that not many people knew how to use it.
6. Grammar is my biggest weakness, so whenever I test it, I cannot catch it.
7. I really don't like making villages since the houses are mostly the same. However I'm making excuses
8. I took some of your suggestions and putting them in my new game.
9. No idea why I ignored the balance issue in combat...
10. The door issue was caused by Victors Pixel movement script, but I needed it for the jump command, however I am now using Galv's


Thanks for your honest thoughts and I will use your suggestions well.
If you wanna see what my current situation is, click here.
There's nothing wrong with being silly or too rash as long as you man up to it.
Kudos to that.



I remember the reviewer to be slightly discouraged about that reaction, so all the more to reason to appreciate you coming back.
Porkate42
Goes inactive at least every 2 weeks
1869
author=Kylaila
There's nothing wrong with being silly or too rash as long as you man up to it.
Kudos to that.

I remember the reviewer to be slightly discouraged about that reaction, so all the more to reason to appreciate you coming back.


I just hope he forgives me, that was a dumb mistake I've done.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
We all start somewhere, and learning from mistakes is the first step on the path to improvement ^_^
Hullo Porkate - I'm really pleased to see that you've reuploaded the game.

I stand by my 1.5 score - but reading back through the review, I now feel that my tone was a bit harsh and I apologise for that. I should have focused more on suggestions and points to work on.

1. I thought the flavors was just what it featured, not a
sub-genre so my apologies on that.


No need to apologise. I just thought it was important to make it clear that the comedy element hadn't worked out too well.

2. The music is from the DS Resource Pack and a couple from other
RPG's I found, I gave credit too them.


The tracks were well chosen.

3. I rushed this, I thought it would be easy but sadly, no. I have a
more fleshed out story for Demise than this.


Essentially, RB just needs more story content to fatten it up: a few more scenes of dialogue, things like that. I think a good idea might be to write a script first and get it looked at before you move forward. By 'script' I mean like a 'move script' rather than a 'coding script'.

4. I now have a game tester so he can help make my game better.

Good news! I think a round of testing will work wonders here.

5. “Unlike other RPGs...” RPG maker VX Ace only used random encounters unless u use
events, so I assumed that not many people knew how to use it.


That's fair enough - but even if this were true, mentioning it in your game still felt awkward and out of place.

6. Grammar is my biggest weakness, so whenever I test it, I cannot catch it.

Well, I think writing a script first and/or having a tester will help with this hugely.

7. I really don't like making villages since the houses are mostly the same.
However I'm making excuses.


I think it's possible to be very creative with the RTP, so you might benefit from just playing around for a while and mixing up which tiles you use for walls and which ones you use for roofing, etc. There's no rule that says houses have to have brick walls and slate roofs.

8. I took some of your suggestions and putting them in my new game.

Great to hear. Sorry again for the tone I took in the review - I promise you that it wasn't my intention, but I think it comes across a little nasty.

9. No idea why I ignored the balance issue in combat...

A good rule is to test your game over and over before release. If you test it thoroughly, and you find sections/areas that you're not enjoying or don't work too well, odds are players will have the same reaction.

10. The door issue was caused by Victors Pixel movement script,
but I needed it for the jump command, however I am now using Galv's


I'm not familiar with either of those scripts, but it's good to hear that the issue is getting sorted.


Anyway, it's great to see RB back up again. If you want, you can send me a message when/if you release an updated version and I'll happily review again.
Porkate42
Goes inactive at least every 2 weeks
1869
author=Elder71
Anyway, it's great to see RB back up again. If you want, you can send me a message when/if you release an updated version and I'll happily review again.


I am planning to work on this later. My main project is Demise. However when I'm done with Demise, I will re-make this game.

author=Elder71
I stand by my 1.5 score - but reading back through the review, I now feel that my tone was a bit harsh and I apologise for that. I should have focused more on suggestions and points to work on.


Don't be. The review was fair and I didn't find it harsh.

I'm just glad you forgave me. I will not disappoint you again senpai.
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