Sellsword

Name: Sellsword

Developer: Ratty524

Story: You take control of three sellswords that are trying to acquire three artifacts for a perfectly honest merchant named Phobos. Please, ignore the fact that he's got you meeting him at an old castle ruin for a business meeting, is super secretive, and literally comports himself like a comic book villain. He wants you to gather the bones of an evil dragon that he is planning to put in a new museum and totally isn't planning to use to conquer the world. Why would you even think that? Dude, you have trust issues! You just need to go through some areas conveniently named so there's no doubt what order you should go in.



Writing: You take control of Riley, Paris, and Gunnar and you go on an adventure bickering. I don't have a whole lot to say about the writing. It's a comedy that sometimes spends a bit too much time with banter. At the end of the opening cutscene, it reaches the point where Paris is telling Riley to shut up and move it, and Riley's telling Paris to shut up and leave him alone and Gunnar's yelling at them to shut up and get to work, and you're yelling at them to shut up so you can play the damned game already! And it's fun. The opening cutscene is the only place it annoys you. The bickering is inserted really well throughout the rest of the game. Riley is the star of the story and a pretty-boy bard that can't stand to get dirty and is afraid of everything. Paris is pretty, but mean mage who likes to blow stuff up. Gunnar is a drunk sailor who found the original party member's employment letter and staggered into story, and basically everyone you meet treats you like losers. There's a very good balance between story and the game. The story is there to service the game and it does it's job extremely well.



Gameplay:It's pretty standard turn-based RPG Maker fare. The dev mixes things up a bit by getting rid of the standard attack and giving everyone a basic skill attack. Riley, our bard, gets songs, and he can damage enemies by singing badly. He gets one attack song, and numerous party boosting effects, or enemy status effects. The party boosting effects are fairly useless as they only last a couple of rounds and their effects really don't make a huge difference. What he has that's really useful is healing magic and the sleep status effect that he can inflict on enemies. If an enemy is doing a ton of damage, you can put it to sleep and get a little bit of a respite. Speaking of which, the fights are freaking hard! Fortunately, save scumming is super easy in this game.

Paris, of course, has magic. Once she runs out of MP, the only thing she can do is meditate to restore MP. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to also get restorative items to replenish MP. A bit of an oversight on the part of the dev, I think, but Paris can meditate outside of combat. Gunnar gets melee attacks, but only his pummel attack can be done for free. Everything else costs MP. Because of this, I feel it's bit heavy handed to ensure that when he levels up, his MP never increases. He can only use his strongest attack once. If he wants to use it again, you have to spend a turn using a restorative item. All this does is drags out a fight and aggravates the player. A neat thing that you can do with Gunnar, though, you can buy alcohol, get him drunk, and this doubles his attack power for a turn, so that's a fun mechanic.

Quite a bit of the combat is gimmicky, such as certain creatures having special battle themes, or being in a hall full of mimics, or meeting creatures that give you rewards for not fighting them and just listening to their stories or solving their riddles. Beyond that, the game is extremely linear, with the dungeons literally being lined up in a row and being named Oneson, Twosengard, and Threed. Each dungeon also has a minor puzzle. The sewer puzzle is more of an irritation than a puzzle, though. Leveling caps at 10, and the game remains pretty challenging.



Graphics: Straight RTP. Mapping is really very good and the game is a nice, fun little experience. It's a really a perfect display of 2k3 graphics, and it is my favorite RTP, after all. I do have a complaint here, though. He uses swipe transitions in town, which is really annoying.

Music: Straight RTP, and the dev goes overboard using as many songs as he can.

Conclusion: Sellsword is a really fun little time. It's short and a you'll spend as much time on it as a movie. Spend some time grinding to max level because there are enemies that can one shot the entire party in a single attack. Absolutely a classic of RPG Maker.