Destiny Quest

Introduction

Destiny Quest was created by Rose_Guardian as a submission for the Golden Age of Game Making contest. A contest that was held in order to celebrate the official release of RPG Maker 2000 and dedicated it's theme to old-school gaming and thus old-school cliches. This title is also among the titles that I had to go back and revisit in order to review since the game has been updated quite a bit since my Let's Play in order to address a lot of issues I had with the game. And while the game still contains a few minor polish issues the overall experience has improved rather noticeably since my Let's Play.

Story

The basic gist of the plot is that you play as a mysterious young man that is found washed up on the beach by Princess Annabelle of the Ashguard Kingdom. Of course, as our mysterious young man comes to at the castle he awakens to find himself suffering from what has been described by youtube user RemoteRPGs as RPG cliche #1, amnesia. Of course, our amnesiac hero has a great destiny to fulfill seeing as how he is the chosen hero to stop Arkis, an evil king that wishes to rule the world. Though, if you can't tell by now this game just runs rife with a lot of the usual cliches, as to be expected of an entry in the Golden Age of Game Making contest.

Dialogue

Destiny Quest contains several instances of rather awkward dialogue in my opinion. Usually these instances are a result of a missing word or two within a sentence. Though, these issue I can largely ignore or attribute to English perhaps not being Rose_Guardian's first language. As such I'll try not to hold it against game that much since it's not that difficult to puzzle out what she was going for. Sadly, not all of my issues with the dialogue are so easily dismissed though. Another issue that pops up a few times are lines that are nonsensical even within the context of the situation.



One of the best early examples of this issue is when Princess Annabelle tells Edge that it's never too late to get to know someone at their very first meeting. A line that left me scratching my head for hours since it doesn't fit into the context of the situation at all. This issue also pops up again when Annabelle claims that she couldn't summon her guards to help her during a fight since she would have been imprisoned for disturbing the peace. A claim that boggles my mind considering she is the mother <censored> princess.

Gameplay

In terms of combat Destiny Quest utilizes turn-based combat with touch encounters. Though the combat system does assume that you'll purchase the best armor in the store at your earliest convenience. Though, even if you are outfitted with the best armor available you may find yourself struggling to keep Nina alive in certain boss battles since she can easily be wiped out if both bosses utilize a group attack spell. So, it might be a good idea to boost Nina's health a little bit to make such situations survivable since the player is pretty dependent on Nina's party heals during boss fights. Outside of those issues the combat is rather standard and is enjoyable enough if your a fan boy for turn-based combat systems.

And on a positive note the boss battles have definitely gotten better and feel a lot more balanced then they did during my Let's Play of a previous version of this game.

Graphics

On the graphical side of things the game is all over the place in terms of quality. On the positive side of things the game features some solid mapping work. The various areas the player visits never feel needlessly huge or so small as to be pointless. The game also is populated with the right amount of objects too feel lived in, but not needlessly crowded.

On the neutral side of things the game utilizes the standard spell effects, but that is probably to be expected considering the short time Rose_Guardian had to work on this game and it doesn't really bug me. That standard RTP effects are serviceable and go along well with the RTP enemies. Where the game makes a misstep is when it comes to Valen and Arkis. Both of these enemies are clearly surrounded by a white background which indicates to me that both characters were likely ripped from another program. It also doesn't help that their sprites really clash with the look and feel of the rest of the enemies in the game.

Polish Issues



As indicated by the image above and below the game still contains a few straggling polish issues to address. Among the more notable is that the Ultimate Broadsword doesn't increase Lysander's stats, the Silk Dress actually has lower stats than Princess Annabelle's starting outfit, none of the potions have descriptions, the storm spell only hits a single target despite being described as a group attack spell, and the glacier spell still lacks a description.



Conclusion

While Destiny Quest still contains some nonsensical dialogue and polish issues to address. The overall game isn't bad if your looking for a short little game to pass the time with.