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Awesome Game. Here's my review.

I'll summarize my review in the end for those who want it simple.

Thanks to some mentally held back reasons I never had a chance to play any RPGMaker games or create any for that matter so I am fairly new to the whole thing.

Despite being a huge fan of RPGs. Oh boy I didn't expect a masterpiece like this one on what looks like some playground for newbiecreators. My world was shattered. This game is easily among the best games (Not RPGs but games) I have ever played right there with Tales of Phantasia on Snes.

Lets start off with the worst part. Thier instead of their is no more than a reminder that the creator is human. I didn't even realize most of the time and can easily ignore it. There were another two bugs I found though I played on android using JoiPlay. Yeah I had some free time and what better things to play than an RPG on mobile? Like I'd touch that touchscreen garbage from the playstore. No, this was my chance to test some actually good RPGMaker games.
So I hope these bugs are just due to incompatibility but it doesn't seem that way so please take the time to check.

Secondly I'm sure it was not intended so I'll just say Lanith can heal herself with her skill to transfer lifeforce. I found out during the colloseum that the skill wasn't greyed out. It made her pretty much invincible.
Lastly I can warp back to Azrielle's castle during the final mission. Its darker and it rains inside but I guess idiots don't catch colds since Demura just kept wiping the floor. ~Shrug~

Honestly theres a lot of good things to say about your game. Being the evil guy is nothing new. (Dungeon Keeper, Overlord and others). But your story is uniquely executed. We don't have a two dimensional evil guy. We have a person with a background and it shows every step along the way. Our protagonist is clearly human. The ones we call monsters are very human. You can sympathize with pretty much everyone except the good guys even though the good guys (the ones we have to fight) don't do anything wrong most of the time. Well done.

While not a bug, it was a bit out of place when the characters went super Saiyan. But really it doesn't bother me that much. Could have done something that fits the atmosphere better. But it's not like sonics appearance in crusader of centy. That was truly out of place.

This game kept me up to three in the morning because it was just so entertaining. I really couldn't pull myself off it until it was finished. Congratulations. Not many games can do that. And still it took me days to play through the entire thing. Every side quest was well worth it and this game easily took 40 hours of my time. As far as I'm concerned the only real problem is that in already done. It's that good.

I didn't pay much attention to them music but I remember it was always fitting the atmosphere nicely so ten out of ten. Let my personal taste not diminish a work well done.
One thing I think you should add to this game and I mean this one, not the next if there's ever gonna be a second, let's explore the abyss a bit more. That would give us a chance to power up the summons while learning about the world of demons. How did life even begin in such a horrible place? How can different demons even learn to live as groups like that? Why is everything so hellish in the abyss to begin with? Give us hints and riddles. Maybe let us meet Lilith again and ask her what she knows. Some tournament or beauty contest for Lannie in the abyss would be cool. Show us how demons live when they're not threatened. Make us love them more. Show us why Ragnarok wants to do what he wants. How he was born. A lot of stuff to increase game length. Some side quests to retrieve materials for level up options would be cool. Maybe side missions to make the abyss a safer place to live. Make our antihero into an abyss hero. Just some ideas. I think the game is as perfect as it can be already. I’m just trying to get more of it.

It's still an RPG but the summons and all makes it way better. If only we could get more out of the weaker demons. Strategically some Monsters make sense to summon but they're to weak after one or two quests already. In the end I kept escaping fights but not before the final battle. I just gave up leveling my minions by then. It may make it better to take random encounters off the final level. You could add more scripted bis fights instead. Captains and stuff. Force us to use our potions and fight for our lives a bit on the way to the final battle. Let us know the gravity of the situation. The regenerative stones would be much more helpful then. Imagine going through three big fights before you can heal up. Yeah. That would make me appreciate them.

Also one question, can enemies run out of mp? In that case I could almost beat the blonde knight with only Pandy. Enhance my mana Regen and use protective bubble then heal and then unholy blasts, rinse, repeat, when the enemy has no more mp to heal then only blasts until she's dead.

Also I wanted Lannie with me at all times because she and Pandy are just cute together. The tournament was awesome because I could just have all of the summons interactions without fear of missing out but the exp gained was way too low to matter and then prize didn't help much. Demura was endlessly fighting the grasshopper on the beginner level. BAM-80hp grasshopper. Leech life+75hp. Oh good was I thankful to have a speed button in joiplay.

One thing that you should probably consider changing is the pacing. It feels like the entire story happened on the same day. Maybe just adding day and night cycles would be enough to change that. Dunno. Just felt like that somehow. Let them talk about days of preparation or whatever. Just to make it feel like its not all happening in the same hour.

And now the biggest flaw. I really want to pay for this. Compared to the triple A garbage with bugs and dlc and whatnot this game is worth some cash. Honestly. Had this game appeared on the SNES I would be first in line to grab it out if the store. I won't complain though since I have no job right now but if there's ever a part two i hope it'll be on steam. I will definitely support you. Your game really Inspired me. I will make good use of what I learned from you if I ever make my own.

In my head I had more to say but some of it was lost while I was writing. Mainly compliments. I love this game.

TLDR:
Music 9/10
Gameplay 9/10
Atmosphere 10/10
Graphics 10/10
Length 10/10 (20-40 hours)
Story 10/10
Masterpiece.

Achievement unlocked. Lannie is the first trashy character that I like. Have an Internet for this.

Ragnarok is somehow not frightening but cute. Like a brat throwing a tantrum. Is that intended? He would make a better summon than owner.

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*cracks knuckles* Welp, let's see if I can manage to make this response shorter than the actual review. I doubt I'll be able to pull it off, but I'll give it the ol' college try anyway.

Alright, so when I first saw that this game had received yet another five star review, I stared at the screen and blinked a few times. I then immediately began thinking of how to express my gratitude in a manner I hadn't done before on the other 14 reviews. I concluded that the best way to thank you would be to skip the theatrics and address all of your questions and concerns in a calm and concise manner. *adjusts monocle*

Let's get to it then! First of all, "i" before "e" except after "c" is a dirty lie and I blame Schoolhouse Rock for any and all spelling related issues you encountered. Now that the most important subject has been addressed, let's delve deeper into the nitty gritty.

Dude, I had no idea you could play VXAce games on anything other than a computer. I'd kill to be able to play those games on my phone or the TV. It'd be a dream come true.

There were a bunch of glitches that escaped my notice before releasing this game, but you might be happy to know that I've been working on a new version where said glitches are a thing of the past. Not only that, but I've taken player's feedback into account and made some improvements to certain aspects of the game. For example, more enemies drop items, which you can then sell for more Demon's Draughts. This means you'll be spending less time training summons individually, making it much easier to obtain every evolution in the game. Lanith's self-heal was intentional though. She's a bit gimmicky and has weak defenses, but she more than makes up for it with her powerful healing.

Thanks for all the suggestions, you've got a bunch of interesting ideas. It's awesome to hear that you enjoyed the story, as it was a lot of fun writing from the perspective of a villain. What I find even more exciting though, is the fact that you're curious about the Abyss. There is a very distinct reason why I had players explore only a small chunk of the Abyss. You see my friend, I've been saving the origin of the demons and their lives in the Abyss for a separate game. I guess you could call it a prequel to this one. It's funny you mentioned Lilith, because she actually plays a role in that story as well. I've probably said too much already, so I'm just gonna clam up now.

One thing I was deathly afraid of when making this game was soft-locking the player. I knew someone out there would try to take on the final boss, get trounced, and then have no way to make themselves stronger, resulting in a useless save file. That's the main reason why I added encounters to the last dungeon. Well, that and I really wanted to use some of those shiny battlers I had in storage. I've got a bazillion of these things.

Ah yes, enemy MP. Here's a fun fact for ya; none of the enemies in this game have MP. I set the costs of all of their moves to zero so they could fire them off indefinitely. Since I never wanted my bosses to run out of gas, I thought adding MP would be kind of pointless. It might've added a new layer of strategy, but I never thought anyone would be crazy enough to try and stall out a superboss like Athena. I just keep underestimating you guys.

Ah, so you also fell pray to the infinite Demora vs Hideous Grasshopper loop eh? Yeah that was funny the first time I saw it, but I realized it was also really annoying, so I gave that enemy a new move that raises its speed. That way it won't just spam its HP draining attack and you can slap it to death at your leisure. Considering she's a maid, you'd think she'd just pull out a flyswatter or something.

Hoo boy, I don't think I'd know where to begin when it comes to implementing a day/night cycle in this game. Pandora's ability to teleport makes setting up things like that an absolute eventing nightmare. Don't get me wrong, I'd do it if I thought I could, but I have a feeling I'd just end up creating more bugs in the process. If it's any consolation though, there are events that occur at night in the sequel.

The fact that you'd be willing to trade your hard-earned cash for something I made is just... It gives me the feels man. The feels are real. Money has a way of making things like this more complicated than they should be though. I'm content with just making games as a hobby and sharing them in the hopes that others will enjoy what I've put together. Hearing wonderful feedback from people like you is more than enough to justify the effort I've put into making this game. And hearing that it actually inspired you? Man I tell ya, there's nothing more rewarding than that. I'm not sure I can handle all these feels.

If you ever do decide to get your feet wet with RPG Maker, send me a message with any questions you have. Anything you've seen in this game you can do yourself with a little time and patience. And hey, feel free to message me even if you just wanna shoot the breeze. I've made a lot of great friends on here and you can never have too many.

Oh, I almost forgot. First of all...

author=Writing ForMyBrain
Achievement unlocked. Lannie is the first trashy character that I like. Have an Internet for this.

I am now dead. This comment killed me. I am writing you from the great beyond.

Secondly, Ragnarok is used to people cowering in fear at his presence and doing everything he says. Of course, that worked better when he was a thirty foot tall monster instead of a three foot tall flaming eyeball. Even so, he demands the same level of respect, which results in him coming off as an angry chihuahua at times.

Thanks for the review, and for generally being awesome. I hope you'll join me for the Ultimate Edition and the sequel!

EDIT: I almost forgot to welcome you to RMN. *ahem* WELCOME TO RMN! There's a lot of great games to play and people to meet here, so I hope you'll stick around and enjoy the wonderful world of RPG Maker.
Bias 100% because of writing.
Based on actual review lot of flaws here and there, but score are 10/10.
I'm glad to hear I could enlighten you to the wonderful world of anything unrelated to android being usable on android. It really feels like every idea ever was ported to android lately. I have a full C++ IDE on it to try stuff whenever I don't even have a pc with me. Its cool.

Back to the Review though.
I couldn't possibly ask for a better reply. My concerns were answered. my hope was rewarded with teasers. It is a warm welcome. Thank you very much!

I figured you'd have most of the glitches fixed already but I was just too lazy to go through pages of comments in search of their mention. Can't hurt to just point it out even though my review looks biased now.

I'm glad there will be another game but equally sad there won't be a reason or chance to level up all of my minions in this version. You really motivated me to level them all up. It just needs a bit of story behind it to hide the grinding.
Maybe it just lacks a reason to pick one of them though. By the time I found all Minions the game was almost finished.
The only reason to change summons is a tactical advantage which is not great enough when your Lanith learns tailwhip.

I'm glad you have plans for the Abyss. Can't wait to see why my minions aren't the worst monsters and what I may make new contracts with. Isn't Ragnarok technically my minion? Can't I force him to do things? Maybe you could summon him once or twice to spread more chaos. I can't stop thinking about this game.

Its funny how your fear of softlocking the player resulted in the best feature of the final fight. More generals and heroes in the castle please!

You honor me. To be the first maniac to try Athena. Who would have thought I have it in me? I really wish I could have done it. I came so close too.
Sigh...cheating games~ Like Pokemon. Some of the strategies lose purpose this way. Just like using up double attack points in pokemon if your opponent is an NPC. Please Consider changing the script a bit to give them a cooldown period along with their infinite mp or something along those lines. That was probably the best fight if not for the inifnite MP. I really felt like Pandy was strong enough to fend for herself. It would have been cool to prove just why she is the leader. By beating an overpowered hero.

Heh. The Grasshopper. Poor Demura can't even hurt a Grasshopper.

But I've said it before, this game is already as perfect as it needs to be to keep up with some big company games.

Consider you and your team my hero. I will gladly contact you if I have something to say. Keep up the great work!




Dragol: I reviewed this game not for perfect coding but for actual gameplay. It managed to keep me wanting to play throughout all of it. By the way even big games can screw up heavily. I still remember how I softlocked myself in one of the final dungeons in Legend of Zelda - Link's awakening. That is a frustrating flaw that shouldn't happen.
In Umbra Soul, like I said, the issues I've mentioned can easily be ignored. I just wanted to contribute a bit to the game and added as much as I can remember and I thought I'd joke around a bit by writing it that way since I forgot some compliments anyway.
But its true I am biased. I love RPG's and turning things inside out which this game does quite well. I'm rooting for the evil guys to win and for a semi-bad end (In a good way for the bad ones).
All of that aside the game was already updated when I finished playing it so I couldn't even be sure if the flaws I found are still in there.
How many paying game companies completely ignore their games with gamebreaking bugs as soon as they push it out and get some money?
This game really deserves its five stars for still updating despite being finished and three more reasons.

1. Almost 100% fun. There is no moment when you feel like...meh when will this part finally end? (Final Castle aside)
2. 0% Grinding and its still never too hard or too easy.
3. Balance between Fighting and Storytelling. I love the part when I choose my bedtime stories. It keeps you wanting to come back whenever there's something new and gives a break from the tedious RPG fighting.
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