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Stop bickering like a married cou- oh wait

  • Erilex
  • 11/29/2009 09:20 PM
  • 1656 views
Storyline and characters - 4.5 out of 5

The story of Slade's vicissitudes as he is chased by the terrifying Shadar is appropriately epic, with plenty of interesting plot twists and the ocassional shocking revelation thrown in for good measure. Demon Legacy does a good job of pitting the party against seemingly unsurmountable odds (in this case, the very forces that shape the universe), something that I always enjoy in an RPG. Everything eventually leads to a rather satisfying conclusion (with a sequel in the works, apparently), which is definitely a plus.

Slade and his companions, as well as the huge cast of antagonists are all a competently written bunch, although with the exception of Orion, who is badassness incarnate, most of them are not particularly memorable. There was, however, one character related aspect I found myself actively disliking: the interactions between Slade and his, uh... friend? Rhea are painful to sit through. Every conversation between them quickly devolves into verbal, and sometimes physical violence, without either of them making any effort to understand the other. Speaking of which, I though that Rhea's potential as a character was badly squandered by a serious lack of development. She exhibited some truly interesting traits, such as selfishness and cowardice, that could have been built upon to great effect.

Gameplay - 2.5 out of 5

The gameplay is... tolerable. It doesn't get in the way for the most part, although a lot of the regular battles are on the tedious side, with little to no strategy involved (it doesn't help that characters have very few skills to choose from, and some of them you will never use, because they do less damage than others which cost LESS SP). Boss encounters thankfully manage to be genuinely entertaining and heart-thumping, while not requiring the player to go out of his way to kill random monsters in order to strenghten the party. It's a good thing the game doesn't expect you to grind much, because the benefits of leveling up quickly become completely negligible, making it a truly yawn-inducing endeavour.

What I hated with every ounce of my soul were the spike traps abundantly sprinkled around every single dungeon in the game. They were the pinacle of annoyance.

Graphics - 3 out of 5

Chipsets are mostly well used. I didn't really pay a lot of attention, but there might be the ocassional mapping error. Battle sprites and animations look pretty good, though some of them can be slightly clunky at times (Shadar's normal attack comes to mind. Damage is dealt before he actually strikes the enemy, which is not very aesthetically pleasing).

But. BUT. The fog overlays used in certain parts of the game (particularly the black and white forest) were a torture to behold. Furthermore, the choice of facesets in certain climactic scenes of the game was... awful.



These two facesets should never, EVER be used in a serious, dramatic scene.

Music - 3 out of 5

Pretty decent choice of music overall. I liked the normal battle theme, so I was a bit upset when it was replaced with a crappy Kingdom Hearts tune when exploring certain important dungeons.

Overall - 3.5 out of 5

Although a bit dated, Demon Legacy is a great game, easily the best completed RPG Maker one I have played to this date (That's not saying much, actually, but it's still a good enough game in its own right). Definitely a must play. Of note should be that its sequel, Phantom Legacy, improves upon its predecessor in pretty much every single aspect, and does so in a pretty impressive fashion. I can only hope Nero doesn't plan on becoming the Slade to Lilith's Rhea...

Posts

Pages: 1
Solitayre
Circumstance penalty for being the bard.
18257
Thanks for participating, Erilex! This event is going a lot better than I expected!
benos
My mind is full of fuck.
624
"These two facesets should never, EVER be used in a serious, dramatic scene".

Well he had to use some facesets when Slade was taken over by Khan. Thought it was okay. Thought that face looks like a slight of embarrasment of some sorts.
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