Demon Legacy

This is going to be mine first review so you should be happy that I choosed your game. Not many rpgmaker games are notheworthy, many fall into the depths of history, some hold on the pedestal, but not too long and there are legends *cough* The way or Heros realm* cough*. Many games, for me, have the problem that they feel neglected, that they miss the zing, the love,logic and fun factor, many strive for it....some have play value, some even more...Demon legacy caught mine eyes for some time,lets forget the horribly cliche name, because of its successor Phantom legacy, wich I played sooner and liked it very much, so I wanted to give this baby a try,I readed good things about it too. So here I am, now lets cut this sentimental chit chat and go right to the review.

The story begins with a nice cutsene, the cutscene isnt long so a big + in mine view, telling us about some fallen prince that went destroying the harbinger of human life,a demi god, kahn. The prince succeded, then we heard something about firebrand and we are teleported to the main protagonist....Slade, somewhat cheesy name for me. We start at his training, I assumed he had age of 12-15, but when I saw the hero cast I was shocked that he was actually 22 years old, where he isnt the best student ever,nor he has much of a personality...for now. Then we meet the second protagonist, Rhea, a total bitch. Finnally Slade is sent home, it took me some time before I found out that I had to go trough a forest...wich is a - for me, we arent given any coordinations, some mumbling about his path would be nice, when he arrives home, we understand that he has an stepmother,another bitch, that his life wasnt bright at all, she sends him to pick up some stuff at the local market. When arrives at the vendor, the vendor gives him the stuff and a strange old diary,after long confrontation he accepts this old piece of trash...oh how he was wrong. He returned home, gave his "mother" statue or whatever it was, afterwards in his free time,he starts reading that diary, wich comes up as diary of the fallen prince, who was in the cutscene, giving us some insight about his life, wont spoil it up for you. The next day he sees the vendor walking into a park or forest or whatever it was,so he decides to sneak upon whatever he is doing...when Slade catches him up, the main antagonist appears, the malevolent shadow, SHADAR. Seriously at start I wanted to laugh, was somewhat upset, mixed feelings...because the antagonist was your typical dark mega strong "cool" demon killer, I wanted to end this game and delete it, because the scenario was same old same old, with cliche antagonist,boring...how wrong I was, yet again...now lets head on the review.

Balance 3/5:
The battles are your typical RM2k3 side view action battle system, nothing new, same old same old...now you ask yourself why 3/5? And I will answer it, the battles are smash-fest of the strongest attacks and heals,but there are many characters with their interesting battle styles, wich caught me most was Iris and her copying of enemy attacks, rhea with her fast attacks. The biggest savior are battles themselves, there arent any random encounters, thank god, nor the battles arent mandatory, boss battles are the savior and its minus. They have good balancing, so they prove a challenge yet they remain fun...but its not that perfect, some bosses are laughably easy and some are beyond defeatable, for instance battle with shadar, oh cmon 2 hit KO for whole party?...Someone loves his antagonist too much, I had to cheat to defeat him, setting his life to 1 so I could advance, sadly I had to do it more times. But some battles were extremelly well done, last boss was one of the best bosses, I had such great feeling when I beat the crap out of omnipotent mad being, it was worth it... still some bosses wont save the whole game. Thats why I choosed 3.

Level design 2.5/5
Level design was incoherent, it was easily indetificable that you progressed as you went trough game, the begining parts of game were one point from bad,but at the end they were rememberable, wich is a very good thing. The biggest downfall were cities, they lacked EVERYTHING...big big letdown...forest scenery had good execution I would say even great, but yet again...that leaves overlay. Levels used many different chipsets, "borrowed" from other games, so lack of new things wasnt the problem...the main savior, again, were puzzle areas, you had many puzzles raging from mindfuck to pixel hunting. The puzzles werent hard but they werent too easy too, they were enjoyable. Many people make puzzles, they make them either tooooo easy or too frustrating that you just want to punch the creator in face. Yet puzzle areas here were combined with fighting, wich gave us relief, balanced and good,yet again the downfall of puzzles were poor execution of some, for instance the spikes...the main + of level design, thats why I gave it 2.5, for 3 it should have average level areas, wich it doesnt from start to middle game...

Characters 4/5
The cast of this game was very well done and I can proudly say VERY WELL DONE!!! As I mentioned earlier Shadar ,the main antagonist, was your laughable cliche character, from start. As the game envelopes you will see his true face, his true intentions, his actual character. He is very well written as other characters, it is clearly seen here that the creator really loved his characters. The characters had personalities, raging from the typical alcholic loud dimwit to the slick and sleen highly refined noble,had their own backstories, own lives, dreams...the big bonus is that characters actually CHANGE trough the course of events and actions,perfect example is Iris,from innocent "I say nothing" child to brave young soul, so you can sit back and enjoy quality written dialogues, lets forget typos, the drama. I could even say the main protagonist is actually the antagonist, Shadar, lets face it, what would the good guys do without the bad guys? But here it isnt clear who is good or who is bad...so the characters are actually beliavable and likeable. Im giving it 4, for 5 the texts shouldnt have so many typos and the characters should be something new and fresh.

Story 3/5
The story begins when Shadar wants to hunt down our hero, Slade...his mentor Narik gives him a tip to run ,run far away, because no one survived confrontation with malevolent shadow and our story starts to get interesting, many twists and turns, interesting characters will keep you playing this game. Someone got inspired by Norse mythology,as when Velon starts his long history lesson about the anicent lore, where the real goal is set...defeating omnipotent demi god,saving the world, you could say "hahaha generic story", I too said this, but the actuall story starts to get very interesting, many dramatic cutscenes, characters will keep you wondering what next? Twists and turns on every step...I would say there were too many twists, far too many, that it made the story hard to grasp, making you confused. Story wasnt nothing new or revolutionary, but it was executed good, thats why 3 was the rating from me.

Music and sound 2.5/5
Music....generic FF game ripping, some RTP throwned it. It served its purpose, but not always, some songs were annyoing, some made athmosphere, nothing great nor extremelly bad. Sound, sounds were again typical, nothing new, it served its purpose, sometimes again it was lackluster...so average 2.5.

Lets summarize this!!!

The good
-Greatly written characters
-Great boss battles
-Engaging story
-Fun factor
-Dramatic cutscenes

The bad
-Lackluster city maps
-Some boring songs
-Beginning of game
-Typos, especially overusage of the word fathom...
-Too long cutscenes

Overall....4/5
I wouldnt want to give it 3,5, because the game isnt that bad nor 4, because the game had some flaws...because Im an optimist and this game was enjoybale,it killed mine free time graciously, Im giving it overall number 4. It was interesting classical epic RPG game with interesting battles and great cast of characters. The main thing that bugged me was the overusage of the word FATHOM, I fathom this,I fathom that...it was really annoying, I dont know if it was cool or what, but surely its annoying, for me.

Closing words
Well done.