Intellia

Intro

Well the review train for old demos is still chugging along and it's time to take a look at "Intellia" by Discoveria. Unfortunately this is the only game he/she ever submitted to the site. And I say it's unfortunate since "Intellia" does have a decent setup. It's a pretty stock setup, but it was done reasonably well for a first time developer. Though the first issue I need to discuss is how to get the demo to actually launch. Thankfully it has the same issue as the last demo I review. So I'm just going to be lazy and copy and paste the necessary information since I'm getting tired of typing about this issue.

How To Get the Demo to Launch

The demo for this game comes with RGSS100J.dll. Unfortunately this file is only compatible with illegal copies of RPG Maker XP to my knowledge. So if you have the official RTP you'll need to replace this dll file with RGSS102e.dll which you can easily copy from games like "Three Temples". I was originally going to go with the "The Mysterious Wonderland of Alicia-chan" but that game has apparently been hidden by the developer some time after I downloaded it.

You then need to change Library=RGSS100J.dll to Library=RGSS102E.dll in game.ini file which can modify with notepad. After that the game should actually launch and work correctly.

Story

As previously mentioned the story starts out pretty stock with you being a prince who was whisked away while you were a babe as a bunch of cultists raided your parents palace and murdered them. And years later you find yourself learning magic at a premier magic school. Unfortunately it looks like members of the cult are closing in on your location so you need to leave school before you can finish your training. Thankfully the headmaster is willing to give you your graduation staff and orders the master of the boys dorm to give you a skill book. Albeit you'll need to go on a quest and collect faeries for the dude and why he wants them is never explained.

My best educated guess is it either involves unspeakable acts of depravity that have only ever been witnessed by those that watch "Interspecies Reviewers" uncensored or he's grinding them up to create high grade revival powder to sell on the black market to the highest bidder. Either way I feel dirty just having to interact with this dude. And after you get your spell book the game is effectively over. There might be a side quest or two you missed, but you really don't need to help the kitchen staff with their rat problem or help Master Ocean find the scroll thief. And the rewards you get for helping them aren't that great anyway.

Gameplay

The game seems to utilize the default combat system for RPG Maker XP which is fine for someone like me that enjoys turn-based combat, but the game does try to throw a slight wrench into the formula. In this game you don't learn skills by leveling up. Instead you learn spells through other characters or by reading scrolls. A twist that just gives you even more incentive to bother people about potential quest lines. Albeit to learn spells from scrolls you need to have enough element points for the given element. Albeit that aspect of the system is only mentioned in the demo and really doesn't impact your ability to learn the gale spell in the slightest.

Graphics and Sound

Graphically the game seems to largely draw on resources from RPG Maker XP and where it doesn't it really stands out.



So much so that I kind of wish Discoveria had simply stuck to the default assets.

Sound

As far as I can tell the music comes from the RTP but I might be wrong. I'll admit I'm not as familiar with the sound effects and music that comes with RPG Maker XP as I am some of the other RPG Maker engines. At any rate the music is serviceable if not particularly memorable.

Conclusion

I kind of wish this one had been finished since the start seems interesting enough even if the setup is pretty stock, but being semi predictable in my experience is only a bad thing if the writing sucks. After all, I've read so many stories and played so many games at this point that I've basically seen just about every dramatic situation imaginable a dozen times over. So while the enemy sprites are a bit iffy the demo is probably still worth a look if you have about 30 minutes to kill.