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A well made plot-driven game combined interesting combat mechanics.

  • Elvario
  • 03/07/2017 02:48 PM
  • 2255 views
Story 9/10
At first, it might seem a little like this is the typical 'you're evil, go do bad stuff' type of game. It isn't. The plot is entertaining and managed to pull me in quickly, and it kept me interested until I realised I finished the game. The side-quests aren't 'mere' extra's, they are well worked out and add a lot to the depth and story of the game. Then there 'scenario's,' a form of cut-scenes that you can access after unlocking them. These work great as ways to put even more depth to the game for those interested and they are very entertaining and interesting in their own right.

One minor thing that bothered me a bit, was how the plot portrait some classic RPGmaker stereotypes in an (almost) laughable way (which worked great), yet still seems to fall back to some of those same stereotypes itself in some aspects regarding the main character. I'm vague, I know, but I don't want to spoil anything regarding the amazing plot because of this minor downfall. In fact, the reason this is worth mention is to make sure people won't let minor thing keep them from experiencing the rest of the overwhelmingly detailed and enticing story this game offers.

Characters 10/10
Nearly all of the characters, from the main ones, to summons, to random NPC's, seem to have a huge amount of dialogue that changes regarding the circumstances. That's pretty astounding. Especially the more prominent characters each have their own personality, their own skills and their own motivations. It works great, as it avoids a common downfall in other RPG games, where some party members just seem like addons for combat value. Even those whom would fall the most in that category, the summons, all have their own bits of story or quest around them.

Sound and Music 8/10
Although it was overall well worked out, some sound effects, in my humble opinion, were more a distraction than an addition to some scenes. The majority, however, fits the game. It is clear that the creator went through quite some trouble to get all of it together from different sources and people, and didn't slack off on this (often underrated) part of the game.

Combat and Mechanics 9/10
Each playable character has its own skill-set, whether that is a main character or a summon. Although I had my favourites, and although I felt like some of them simply weren't really 'worth levelling,' I cannot deny that they were all unique and fairly well balanced (with some minor exceptions, those who are really looking for it will find some strong exploits, I myself have encountered a few). The main reason I did some 'grinding,' was because I wanted to explore more, rather than just for levelling up. There wasn't a single point in the game where I had to keep killing a monster over and over for items, gold or exp, and that is something worth quite a bit, in my humble opinion.

There are also some interesting mechanics regarding the summons, from how to obtain them to how to level them.

Character images and area design. 7/10
Just like with the music, it seemed like the creator didn't spare effort to gather images to fit the characters, and there were different images for different emotions and states. The area's and maps were largely well crafted and fitted the plot and setting well. However, they were a few 'sloppy' things I encountered (such as a few images being of a much lower quality), the most annoying one being the relatively large amount of times that I suddenly walked into/onto objects that should have blocked me (walls, tables, chairs, etc) while there were also a few times that places you should technically be able to walk on (grass, dirt, roads) had some invisible thing block you. There was also one time where a single NPC character that couldn't be interacted with randomly existed in a place of which I'm pretty sure shouldn't have had it. That said, this is probably largely due to my own desire to try to go just about anywhere, and those whom would stick with what looks like actual paths would probably not encounter this to the extend I did.

Interface and Logs 7/10
Although the game didn't go out of its way to add things like 'bestiaries' or 'biographies' or highly detailed quest logs, it did have a quest log that was functioning enough to know what to do and where to do it. (This holds true in most cases. There was one point in the game where I lost track of things, and judging from the comments, I wasn't the only one. As of yet, I have also not been able to figure out whether or not I have managed to find all the side-quests, which is a shame, considering they are highly entertaining).

Time spend on it 20+ Hours (and I'm considering a partial replay)
It might seem strange that I add this, but to me, this is probably the one thing that speaks louder than any type of review I can give. In my humble opinion, the easiest way to figure out how much someone liked something, is too see how much time they spend on it. I finished the game's main quest and all the side-quests that I could find (although I'm not sure if that was all of them). I have also watched all scenario's.

That said, if there are alternate endings, or if it turns out I missed quite some things (which I'm not sure of, although I did ask the creator about it in the comments of thread), I will most likely end up replaying it (at least partially).

Conclusion
I have been greatly entertained by this game for quite a few hours, and the few points of improvement that (in my opinion) could have been made do not stop me from considering this game to be 'outstanding' and giving it a 10/10 (5 stars).

Posts

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(squeals like a little girl) *ahem* Sorry about that. You'll have to forgive my excitement, but this review has put a smile on my face so wide my cheeks are starting to hurt.

The heads up about those mapping issues is very much appreciated. It sounds like a stray testing event was left in there somehow too. I'll have to hunt it down and eliminate it. Sheesh, just when you think you've fixed everything. I left an answer to your question about the sidequests on the game's message board, though it sounds like you managed to find most if not all of them.

Ah yes, the faces; aka the bane of my existence. The photo editing program I used to tweak some of the facesets has a bad habit of decreasing the quality of the images or misaligning them. The demon maids were the most troublesome of all, since I had to pull their facesets from a very tiny image, making them pretty blurry. Perhaps I can go back and figure out a way to sharpen them up.

I want this game to be as polished as possible, so I'm going to run through it again squashing all the little glitches. I was also thinking of adding some more scenario's and a few other bells and whistles to make it worth replaying. Finally, there's one special surprise coming up that I think you'll enjoy.

Thanks for this very generous review, Elvario. Knowing that you had such a good time encourages me to develop even more games for everyone to enjoy. I hope you'll join me for the sequel as well!
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