Immortal Sins

This is a demo review.
This is a review for Version D0.20 Update 3 (0.20.3-20170628GA). My playtime: 05:34:49 (based on in game clock). I stopped in Danotia Prison because the game always crashes on the next battle.

Intro
Immortal Sins is a RPG turn based game where you control a woman who is being accused of murder. The game offers up to 8 playable characters with a maximum of 5 person in a party.

Graphics
The game mostly uses customized graphics, especially on the portrait. However, some of the portrait doesn't shown at the same position (Nicolae, the MC's daughter, for example).



The mapping itself is decent (if you ignore the oddly looking tile like the picture above) although it's quite hard to navigate. You'll mostly end up "hitting" other houses if you are not using the main path in the first town. The dungeon mapping, on the other hand, is designed very good with a lot of similar places that can make you get lost in it.

Speaking of houses, there seem to be a lot of houses in the town although most of them are locked.

Before i forgot, the game also have a lot of collision errors.

Music
I don't really remember much about the music but it sounds good to hear. The only bgm that bothers me is the bgm in Mendor (the sound really hurts my ear) and the shooting sfx in Corsair HQ.

Story
I love how the dev gives each character a different personality. The conversation between each character looks interesting and the story also flows smoothly, if not for the mess that the characters caused (Maria and Zero); They tend to pick a fight when the time isn't right and sometimes, imo, ruin the atmosphere.

The game
First of all, i would like to point out that the game takes a long time to load and runs very slowly, especially in battle. I have to restart my computer several times just to make it run faster (it goes slower after you play it for a few minutes although you only open notepad and the game).



The game offers up to 5 characters in a party although i'm not really sure how the dev defines a turn. All characters will restore some MP per turn and as you can see, the more enemies and character in a battle, the more text will be displayed per second.

Speaking of turns, there are a lot of buff skills that relies on turns. I'm not even sure how they really work because although the buff says that it works for 5 turns, it will end before the user's turn, which makes it quite useless.

The game itself offers a lot of attack types: there are normal attack, attack skills (that requires "DP", which can be obtained after hitting or getting hit by the enemies), spells, and drives (skills that requires 100 DPs, think ultimates). You can learn skills either by leveling up, learning it from the menu, or buying it from the shop.

The interesting thing is that you can level up your skill from the menu and upgrade it (not all skills are available for upgrading). The upgraded skill will be even stronger, although it will require more MP to cast. However, as i said before, you'll regain MP per turn so there is no need to worry about running out of MP. I want to point out that the spell upgrade from single target heal to aoe heal kills the heal effect (on the first level) though, because the aoe heal hardly heals any HP compared to the op single target heal.

Although you can buy spells from the shop, there is only one character that learn spells without having to buy it from the shop. It's not really convenient since there is an enemy, Rogue Leader, in an optional dungeon that can absorb this character's spell element (with her having the strongest attack from the party at a low level). It'll take a lot of time to kill it (and you might risk of dying if you're not well geared) if you didn't buy any spells for your party beforehand.

There isn't any puzzles in the dungeons and all dungeons look similar to each other; a square sized dungeons with a lot of diverged paths. There isn't any random encounters although there are a lot of enemies in the dungeon, especially in the first dungeon. It might be impossible to dodge some of the enemies because the room is very small and there are a lot of enemy in the area. In the last two dungeon that i explored (Underground Entrance and Danotia Prison), the enemy respawns after you beat it so you can't beat them all to map to your heart's content.

The battle itself contains a lot of enemies 3+ to beat and each battle can be finished in 1-4++ turn (if you encounter Rogue Leader, you're doomed). There is only one character that can dish a great amount of damage early game, although there will be another one that can help dish out some damage later on (Zero). There is also a character that can steal and because the enemy drops less than 2000 golds per battle and steal can steal 250-1000 gold per turn (if succeed), i'd rather to use that character to steal because you'll need a lot of money to buy equipments and learn spells (and earn some experience points for skills while doing it).

There is also another feature in a battle, active defense. Iirc, you have to press a button when the enemy is about to attack, but i never succeed in doing that. The tutorial also doesn't really helpful because when i answered that i didn't get the information, the game skips them and said "you'll get better over time". I ended up turning that feature off because it can also make the game runs slower.

Because the game tend to be fast paced, sometimes a character forgot his/her turn and i have to reassign what he/she should do at that turn after a series of turn finished. I think it's happening because i'm assigning a lot of people at almost the same time.

I can't really remember whether there is a boss in each dungeon, but if there is one (and i believe there is one), it's not as strong as the Rogue Leader, a normal enemy in an optional dungeon.

As i said before, there are some equipments that you can equip. These equipments are priced very high and you need to farm gold to collect them (and use the steal skill to make it faster). However, the equipment shops in Celtia and Celtia Port aren't in sync with each other although they are unlocked at the same time. I ended up not buying the best equipment at that time (although i had the money) and i have to recollect the money for it.

The game also have a serious issues on story progression. While there is a journal to keep track of things, there is a time when it's not being updated. When you're asked to meet the king in Celtia, the journal wasn't updated and i forgot that i have to go there so i have to explore a lot of places just to find the castle. The castle location which is hard to see doesn't help either.



Speaking of the location that's hard to see, Corsair HQ location is also hard to spot. I have to spend a lot of time to find the location.

The game also offers side quests. There are side quests that you can take from people in town (this one isn't logged in the journal) and there are also side quests that you can take from the guild hall in each town (this one is logged in the journal). I only find one quests in each guild hall though.

Lastly, i think the options can use a humanized word instead for the controls. And i encountered a lot of crashes while playing the game. I can't even continue the demo because of it.

Pros:
- Levelable skills
- Up to 8 playable characters
- Side quests
- Journal

Cons:
- Collision errors
- The game runs very slowly, especially in battle (less than 10 fps)
- Crashes
- Hard to see location (Celtia Castle, Corsair HQ)
- Unbalanced enemies (the op Rogue Leader)
- Not all side quests are logged in the journal
- Confusing and hard to learn "active defense" mechanic.

Conclusion
This is a good RPG maker game if not for the low fps in battle. You'll spend most of the time in battle and the low fps doesn't help at all. I'm actually interested in the skill leveling feature that can give you another reason for grinding.

Final Rating: 2/5
As i said, the game is very slow. I can't even play it with other things and i have to restart my computer several times to make the game run in top speed.

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I found a lot of bugs in the game. I have uploaded some on your mantis site, but i stopped since it'll take a long time to register all of them.
- DP tend to be displayed with decimal points when you use skills outside the battle.
- If you change the control, the control instruction that showed up right after you start the game is unchanged.
- The text in Headman's House (Ground Floor) isn't displayed correctly- there is an unrendered(?) character. The text is also too long to be read in full.
- You can't report the purse side quest after you're accused of murder.
- The characters are "passing the wall" when they are leaving the town (after being accused of murder).
- Unable to continue after dying. When you press exit, an error popped up:

- Sometimes there is this kind of error whenever you close the game.

and

- Sometimes the enemies' HP are shown, but most of the time, it isn't.
- Magic Barrier (Gus' skill) description said that it'll boost DEF although it boost MDEF.
- Steal message: Gusattempt to steal!
- Maria and Gus have Cloak on their equipment slot although they can't wear it.
- The "ring" sign in Mendor should be replaced by armor shop sign instead. They didn't sell accessories.
- Danotia isn't "to the north" of Mendor. It's "to the east".
- Gus and Sierra can't equip helmet but the shop shows that they can wear it.
- There is a popup when you inspect a well in Danotia. The game doesn't crash though.
- The transition on the cutscene when you're entering Gus' house isn't smooth; The light suddenly went dark after the members are sitting on the chairs.
- After you initiate the custcene in Gus' home in Danotia, all rooms went dark. If you go upstairs of mercenary guild and go downstairs after that, the room will become even darker.
- After you initiate the custcene in Gus' home in Danotia, a "dark" layered area will be on the top left of every area (even in the world map).
- After giving the Medallion to the guy in Mendor, he'll ask whether you have found the medallion... again.
- Some of the brown colored chests change to small red colored chests when you open them. I find 1 in Stone Dungeon and 3 in Cave.
- In Underground Entrance, if you talk to the rogue enemy on the map after you beat it, it'll keep on showing '?' dialogue and you can't do anything else.
- Some of the brown colored chests change to regular sized red colored chests when you open them. I find 1 in Underground Entrance.
- Error on event battle in Danotia Prison on Rick's turn.


Collision errors:
- Invisible wall on the right.
- The shirt is above the chair.
- Collision error if approached from the left side.
- I can pass through the fence.
- I can go into the water from the sides.
- Collision error when you want to "enter the house".
- Invisible wall on the left and right.