A BLURRED LINE v2.1

This is one of those games that when you play it, you know it's a homebrew game. But at the same time, you forget it's a homebrew game. Lysander's "A Blurred Line" shines with its excellent storytelling, characters, dialogue, and battle system. The only faults are the obvious graphic choices and some map design. Despite these faults, the game comes out to a perfect 5, because it's the type of game you don't want to quit because it's so dang interesting. On to the review!

Story:
Without spoiling too much, the story revolves around a visor-wearing computer programmer named Talan and his escape from "The Agency" after being framed for a murder he didn't commit. The story is great, the pacing is excellent, and there are enough twists and cliff hangers to make you want to play further. The story is definitely the best part of the game and the reason you don't want to put this game down.

The characters are extremely well done and believable as well. The progression of the personalities and motives was very good. A+ there as well.

Let me emphasize this again. The story is one of the main reasons you need to play this game!

Music:
Ya know, I imagine all the music was ripped from various games but it WORKED. And I'd like to say that the World Map Theme was so well done I found myself lingering there just to listen. The music was well selected because a definite "vibe" was set. Lysander did a great job of keeping this intense vibe the whole game. I liked almost all the music and did not recognize a single piece. Nice music choice!

Gameplay:
The battles are fun, though at times can be hard if you aren't ready. Every character has a unique skill set which makes the battles more than "mash confirm." Also, Talan is given a skill to absorb magic from the enemies' aura. If you absorb the magic enough you gain it permanently. This was cool, it made me want to grind and learn some skills.

Besides battles, there are plenty of forced mini games which are really neat and take a lot of thought. Some are insanely hard, but you get retries and occasionally can skip if wanted.

And a last note, there are TONS of chests to find. I liked this, a lot.

Graphics:
Well, this is probably the weakest point. I would say more of how the maps are put together rather than how the graphics are, but it is overall lacking. I can excuse this because the game is great in all other aspects, it would be nice if Lysander went back and cleaned up a bit of everything. Not necessary, but bells and whistles don't hurt.

Replay Factor:
Since there are multiple characters you can get (I always got the robot ironically...) based on paths you take and other things like that, this game definitely lends itself to more replays. At one point you have to choose a profession which leads to separate quests and characters. Nice work on this.


Overall:
Get this game now! It's a classic.