Ascending Dreams

Name: Ascending Dreams

Developer: Infinite, with additional writing by Ruesikin.

Story: This is the story of Alex, a name that few people realize is unisex. Alex, depending on your choice, is either male or female. Alex is a lazy bum. You begin right off the bat shooting enemies with a lazer gun only to find that this is a dream, and you're no hero; just a lazy bum (hmm...is there a message intended for the player in any of this?). Well, dad is kicking your ass out. And you don't live in a world with space lazers and aliens. Your primary weapons are going to be swords, and your secondary weapons will be bows. It's your job to get out and get a job. Your first job is cleaning a pool and delivering a letter to the king. Your second job is being totally strong-armed into going on a quest for the king. Are you even listening? Quest! Fate of the world! Get moving!



Gameplay: Very well done. All fighting is done on the map in the style of Legend of Zelda. You can even grab out of reach objects with your sword. When you kill enemies, you can collect their bodies (yeah, that's a thing) and trade them for valuable prizes! Seriously, though: this game implements a nice little trading system, and if you want, you can sell the tradeable items for cash, though trading is the only way you can get a lot of items. Oh, I probably should have mentioned this first: you need a gamepad to play this game. I know, right? This is an RPG Maker VX Ace creation with full gamepad support! This game doesn't even look like an RPG Maker game! I almost forgot the weather system. In the sunlight, there's a few monsters here and there, but very few. At night, plenty of monsters come out so make sure you're indoors. I didn't time it, but I'd say that day and night come and go roughly at two and a half to five minute intervals. You have a handy little clock on the upper right corner so that you can see the passage of time (It's a just a little moon and a sun, but that is definitely a kind of clock). If you die, you're taken back to your last checkpoint...with quite an unfortunate number of your things missing.



Graphics: Wonderful! This game is only a few hours long, but it goes out of its way to feel bigger than it is. Only a little bit of RTP is used, while most of this is original assets. This game deserves a lot more attention than it's gotten. The style of art is not uncommon, but still quite charming.

Music: Original work by the developer. The music has an airy, zephyr quality, the favorite instrument being things such as crystals (glasses), voices, and chimes. The music sets the atmosphere perfectly, but doesn't draw attention to itself. A nearly perfect score.

Conclusion: All the way around brilliant, I can't recommend this enough. It's engrossing and richly detailed and absorbing. It looks and plays the way a retro action RPG game is supposed to.