Intro

"Starship TsukuruNova 20003" is a short RPG developed by unity using RPG Maker 2003 that was created for A Golden Week of RPG Maker 2003 event. An event held to celebrate the official English release of RPG Maker 2003 that gave developers a bit over a week to put a game together in this classic engine. An engine that has been used to create a lot of class games and features a default combat system that annoys the crap out of me since I never saw the benefit of being put on a timer when you need to flip through menus. It just results in a system that feels like a cross between turn-based and real-time and ends up with the disadvantages of both and none of the benefits. At any rate, I suppose I should focus on discussing the plot of "Starship TsukuruNova 20003" for now and talk about it's combat later.

Story
Summary

We play as a group of special operatives led by Maelym Terraero, who leads the Hazardous Emergency Assault Recon Team (HEART), on a mission to restore power on Greenshell 3. A task that quickly goes awry when the crew is attacked on route by a scout ship belonging to the Zyerbitians, a species of aliens with tentacles so I guess we better cross our fingers and hope this doesn't turn into a hentai game considering the main character is a woman. At any rate after being forced to perform an emergency landing because our pilot didn't known Anakin's trick about spinning in order to avoid fire were forced to perform an emergency landing on Greenshell 3. Thankfully we manage to survive slamming into a lake on this colony world and pay a visit to the only town on this backwater and learn that the plant is currently inaccessible because of some slime and that Zyerbitians have invaded the planet for unknown reasons.

At any rate we get a lead from the local big shot's maid about interesting readings in a cave to the South of town. A cave that might just hold some useful technology left behind by the Space Nomads. At any rate it's better than nothing so we set off to conquer the cave to the South and eventually stumble upon a chemical solution that can get rid of the slime as well as run into a famous criminal with a 10,000,000 credit bounty on his head. Though the far more useful find in my opinion our some useful upgrades for LR-388. So much so that I decide to visit the cave to the West of town as well. After all, we might need more firepower and skills at our disposal if we run into the guy that managed to escape from ULTRA JAIL again.

After that we lead our team to the final area and fight our way to the reactor room as we deal with space demons and the Zyerbitians elite. At any rate we eventually manage to reach the main reactor room after finding a bunch of useful equipment upgrades and skill upgrades for Maelym Terraero and LR-388 such as the legendary Ultra Beam Cannon which allows LR-388 to just shred enemies like their made of wet tissue paper. Of course we find the criminal their along with his buddies who've smuggled an egg containing a Zyerbitian Princess into the reactor room so she can rapidly reproduce powerful offspring and allow them to take over the planet using a device that can control the princess's mind when she turns into an all powerful queen. Of course, our heroes are more than prepared to lay waste to her with poisoned knives and an unstoppable beam cannon. After that we get an epilogue that leaves room for two different sequels I suppose since it ends with our characters starting a new mission as well as includes a bit where the main villain swears he will escape again and get revenge on us for his stopping his brilliant plan to take over the world.

Greatest Strength/Weakness

On the plus side the story is pretty chill and doesn't require the player to take it that seriously. Though, I do wish the game snuck in some more references to other material at times. At the same time this relaxed atmosphere means it's impossible to take the main villain seriously. After all, he escaped from a place that sounds like a small child came up with the name. Oh well, at least ULTRA JAIL has prison bars. That's more than I can say for Kazon prisons in "Star Trek: Voyager".

Gameplay

On the combat side of things the game features the standard combat system used by RPG Maker 2003 with wait mode turned on by default. As a result the combat in this game feels more like the conditional turn-based battle system used by "Final Fantasy X". This means really fast characters will get way more turns than anyone else in this game and this can make dealing with enemies or using healing items in order to counter the effects of enemy attacks a lot easier. So much so that combat in this game is pretty easy if your willing to spend a minimal time on grinding in order to purchase all of the best weapons and armor in the game. A task that isn't that hard since the best weapons cost around 1,500 gold and most groups of early enemies drop around 200. Though, I'll admit that is undermined somewhat by the fact that combat in this game is really skill heavy. At least if you want to get through fights in a reasonable amount of time without needing to spend a bunch of resources on healing.

On the other hand two of the three characters in this game don't operate like normal characters that learn skills as they level up. In the case of both Maelym Terraero and LR-388 they need to equip gadgets or upgrades respectively in order to gain access to new skills. A factoid that can make your life either very easy or very hard depending on how many of their skills you purchase. Though, I'll admit certain skills like the one that can potentially inflict sleep on all of your enemies at the same time aren't worth their purchase price in my opinion since this skill is both highly costly and highly inaccurate. At least the one time I tried it on a group of four enemies it didn't manage to put a single on of them to sleep. And in all honesty even if it could put enemies to sleep reliably it would be pointless considering how often you'll be spamming LR-388's skills which are largely area of effect in nature.

Though, I'll admit my perspective on combat might be being shaped somewhat by the post contest version which speeds up all of the playable characters and enemies for the most part in order to improve the overall flow of combat. Which is a good thing in my opinion since the default speed levels for characters in these games tend to make the active-time battle system even more of a nightmare as you wait long periods of time to do anything.

Graphics and Sound

While I did play the post event version of this game. It still sticks to using the assets found within the RTP. As such this game looks and sounds like a lot of other games made with this engine over the years, but this can't be held against this game considering it was a restriction of the event itself. And while one could argue the post event version was free to do more. It's pretty obvious the post event version was just intended to improve combat flow and lower the game's overall difficulty by making it easier to find as well as purchase SciFi Vials so the player can restore their SP during the final battle.

Conclusion

"Starship TsukuruNova 20003" is a pretty chill RPG that will take around 90 to 120 minutes to complete depending on how much time your willing to devote to extra grinding in order to gear up your characters. This also means this game is a pretty good time killer if you've got little to do during a lazy afternoon and just want to pass some time while being mildly entertained by referential humor and the sheer amount of bodies you'll be leaving in your wake as you attempt to save a colony world from destruction. Though I think this game would have benefitted from more lesbian robot action. At any rate this game is definitely worth a play if you have the time for it.