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A very special game

One of the most complete, elaborate and absorbing RPG games I´ve played! Many characters to play, together with their stories throughout the game! Sweet and tender, yet harsh, human-like scenes with the characters! Challenging bosses! Touching moments! Ladies and Gentlemen, this is U M B R A L S O U L ! ! !




This is a must-play for anyone who likes RPG´s, be it a beginner or a veteran. About featuring aspects, I point out the fresh and special feeling of being on the side of evil, and starting from the very bottom at that. Then you start getting more allies, exploring more and more places, living through a great adventure, specially from the character development aspect. I consider this a jewel, treasure from our rmn.






Character Background and Development

The protagonist, even if being “raised by darkness”
(since she was somehow raised by lord Ragnarok as a pawn so that lord becomes an all-powerful god again)
is not a completely bad person, sometimes having bonds towards other people, sometimes seeing and using darkness as her willpower in order to give her life a reason and keep living. We see characters isolated because of unjust accusations; characters with good intentions being manipulated, or by their confusion, going to the dark side; even in the dark side we see good people (human, demons and etc).

The game does something very few RPG games do; the characters are humans. They have dreams, feelings for each other, scenes of quarreling, of reconciling, of becoming friends and falling in love too. They even have multiple special scenes (that do happen sometimes if you unlock them) that happen in the present time or the past. Of course, they´re not complete, real humans, but is a pretty good job.



soundtrack - graphic design and concept of art

Gotta say I really like that rock-themed song at the title, haha. Songs are very good and adequate for the battles, calmed moments, etc. Graphic design is quite pretty and elaborated. My only remarkable aspect is that it would be good to show full pictures of the characters interacting at certain times, there are a few, but adding some more would be superb. For example

When Lanith and Pandora, after meeting that immortal sucubbus, understand each other better and become closer, it would be greeeeeeat to have a picture of them hugging each other! Or in another pose, don´t know, but showing a full picture like that would be simply beau-ti-ful. Also when Pandora, on childhood memories, is protected by baby Draconus, or when both reconcile. Pictures of those touching moments, I would screenshot and save them right away




interface and user interaction

Very amicable, fun, interesting, since the basics are classical of many other rpg´s out there. The party-interface system, battle by turns, well executed. Liked the detailed sprites and pictures for all characters, enemies and NPC´s used. No bugs, no hard times with it. The user can interact with many other elements and NPC´S freely if he wants, being able to go through optional quests, with their own rewards too.


story development

The background story and world scenery possess history and legends by itself, it´s well done. My only, minimal claim, is that is a lineal story when these human characters and relationships have potential for multiple endings, or at the very least, multiple special scenes at the ending.

Close to the ending it happens involving Damien, Azrielle and Marcus. Damien does have some feelings for nuns, since he was raised by them. So at a certain cutscene when he seems to kill them, but actually spares them, if you have Azrielle in your party he kills them and scolds Damien, but if having Marcus instead, he keeps the secret and congratulates Damien. When I contacted the Creator, he said that while it was a great cutscene, it didn´t specially affected the ending at all. So then, if having a different ending because of those subtle situations, the game would be even better. Either way, it´s already outstanding


The follow up of the story along the game is by no means half-assed; it keeps the caliber from start to end.


Posts

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I can't even...

At this point I feel like I should copy/paste all the joy, gratitude, excitement, and sheer disbelief I expressed in the other reviews into this one, because my feelings haven't changed. Well actually that isn't quite right, with each review I come closer to having a heart attack and dropping dead on the spot, but I'm actually getting pretty used to that. Wait, is that a bad thing? As embarrassing as it is to admit, I just spent the last 5 minutes dancing with joy. Badly, in case you were curious. I can't do the moonwalk yet, but I can do a mean robot.

Phew, I'm relieved you didn't run into any glitches, though there are definitely some still lingering in the current version. They show up only if you take very specific actions in certain situations though, so at least there's that. Still, any bug is a bad bug, so they've been zapped for the next version.

I do dabble a little in art, though I've never tried anything on a computer. I wish I could draw up some snazzy pics of key moments like you said, but I'm afraid I don't have the practice or know-how. For the time being I'll have to stick to frankensteining pre-existing art.

Ah yes, the alternate ending angle. Trust me, I was tempted to take that route until I realized it would mess things up for the sequel. The story needed to be linear in some aspects in order to have things line up properly with the next game. Still, I love alternate endings myself, so maybe I'll make a game in the far future that features them. The far, far future.

I'm overjoyed that you enjoyed the various characters, it was a lot of fun writing up their various stories. I was trying not to bog down the gameplay with too much story, but there was still a lot of story I wanted to tell, so I turned them into scenarios. The ultimate edition will feature even more story and scenarios, so I hope you'll join me for that.

Whoops, I ended up saving the "thank you" for the last paragraph. Guess I must be losing my touch. Thanks for playing and sharing your thoughts, you just made a great day even better!

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