Etheria

Etheria is a small RPG demo with a lot of issues but still some charme. I can not promise that this review will be spoilerfree in its entirety.

The Story
So we've got Marsha, who unfortunately dropped of a sinking airship and landed in a snowy desert. We decide to look for the wreckage of the airship. This is basically the story of the demo. Pretty basic stuff and I think it will not be part of the main story for too long. I think that the main story begins after that airship is found so why end a demo right before that happens? This is the first big issue I want to touch on here. The acts also lack everything. Every action of the chars seemed completely forced and even the character description of Marsha which we got half way through the demo was not surprising since it was way too forced. We also didn't know Marsha long enough to actually get affected by something like that. I get deeper into the characters in a bit.
The story gets 1,5/5 points from me. A bad told story is still better than something which would be complete nonsense, so I can at least give a point on that. Another half point for half-good writing.

Characters:
Marsha:
We do not know a thing about Marsha until half way through the demo. She also has no real trait except for being pretty formal and polite.

Clara:
No real character here in my opinion. She was just there for the sake of being there.

Therese & Lucius:
Rating them together because they make up a awesome duo. Therese being the girl who always tends to be mean with Lucius restraining her.

Harold:
Complete idiot with some shining moments. He is the Patrick Star of Etheria.

Overall:
Harold, Marsha, Therese and Lucius are the default characters in every MV project. They also have the same classes and equipment as the default starters. No creativity in those picks. We only have flat characters so far, too.
The characters get 2/5 points. The last 3 characters saved the game for me.

Graphics:
This game uses the MV RTP which isn't a bad thing at all. How it is used is only solid in the Ancient Forest. Every single region apart from the Ancient Forest looks very bad as the maps have sometimes unmatching tiles or are just waaaaay too big with no space really being used. There were also no battlebacks sometimes so the maker used the Map for it. On the first map, the battleback also didn't fit to the Map completely.
The Graphic part is still worth 2/5 points though since the Ancient Forest was very good.

Audio:
The audio consists of mostly RTP themes with little exceptions. The music was used in fitting situations though so it is fine.
Solid 3,5/5 points there.

Gameplay:
The gameplay was where the game had the most issues. First of all: No item and almost no skill had any description so you have to guess what item does what. Potions heal for 500 HP, Magic Water for 200 MP, Stimulators revive... I guessed all of those because I know the Maker. Descriptions have an impact on Gameplay because they are like a tiny Trial and Error system for the players. Same goes for the spells. Sometimes the Icons were deceiving too. Try to match Icon to what the spell does. The Holy spell had a Fire icon for example.
Also the balancing was very bad. In the first fight, you have to waste 30 MP to barely win the first fight against 2 Bats. There is no way of saving your MP in that fight. Luckily you put some Magic Waters and Rest points here and there. That would've been not much of a problem if the difficulty of the game would not change that often. As soon as Clara is in the party, the difficulty changed from hard to very easy, because Clara only took a tenth of the damage Marsha took. Also for stats: Every single character has the same stats. Every difference is made by items. Also the Lv Ups are pretty much worthless. I skipped every skipable fight and the final boss of the demo was still a piece of cake. Also: You can skip fights by simply escaping.
Gameplay-wise, this game has a lot of weaknesses, a lot of unused potential. Good things were: Magic is learned from books. Enough healing points. That's it.
I can only give 1/5 points for the gameplay because of its weaknesses. The only thing which wouldve made this rating worse wouldve been a Gamebreaker.

Overall:
The game wasn't bad. It just wasn't good. It was below average as the characters were poorly designed and the gameplay was having a lot of flaws. Most of the issues couldve been easily solved though. For the final rating:
1,5 + 2 + 2 + 3,5 + 1 = 10. 10 divided by 5 are 2. And that's my rating. If you invest some time for the characters and the gameplay and maybe some better mapping, this game might easily archieve 3+ points. But in this state, it is just worth 2.
I hope you take this criticism as a help for you to make an awesome game.