Kingdom of Honor (Tactical Adventure Demo)

The following is a review for Kingdom of Honor, a demo game made with RPG Maker VX Ace (Reviewed on September 27, 2016.) Looks like more developers are diving into making tactics games using GTBS. I'm pretty excited to see more of these games being developed and hope that the developer of this game can take what I have to say in this review and try to fix the flaws in this game.

I usually don't have much to say about music in games, and I certainly never open a review discussing it. But I must say that I really hate the music selection chosen for this game. First off the developer has chosen to use the RMN Music pack (This is a great pack, I have nothing against the music.) The way some of the music is used in the game is a bit unbearable. The opening scene uses The Ritual, which a sort of Gregorian Chant / holy chant. The issue is that the music doesn't match the scene. In this scene the king is complaining that servants aren't cleaning his table properly (sort of in a comical way.)



The graphics in the game mainly use the RTP. The mapping goes from semi passible in some areas to not really that great. The opening scene, for example, is a throne room that is too empty. There appears to be some custom sprites scattered in the game, but it could definitely use some more love in the non RTP department.

The game uses GTBS. There are a couple of issues I have with the implementation. The first thing I noticed was the fight scene mechanic that is common to tactics games like Shining Force. When you attack you see a separate scene where you can actually see the actors attacking each other. While this is a great feature in Shining Force, it isn't that great here. It just ends up slowing down an already slow system. Another problem is the enemy to hero ratio. Just in the third battle in the game you will only have 2 players, but there will be 7 enemies on the screen. If you're lucky you can kill 1 of the enemies each turn. This will be followed by a total beat down by the enemies in the following turn. A lot of your battle time will be spent watching helplessly as your small party gets beat up.



I haven't even gotten to the biggest issue I have with this game. This comes down to some poor design flaws in the environment / eventing. For example, when you enter the shop you are entering a scene where you have no control over your actor. You'r just provided with a buy and sell menu and then your actor leaves the map. Another map has three crystals. Upon entering you're given a choice as to which one you want to use. You use it and then you leave. There is no control over the actor in which you can just walk up to the crystals you want to use and use them (In case you want to use more than one or just decide to leave.) A game where you have no control over your actor or where you can walk is a huge design flaw. Games are meant to be played and players want control over what they can do.



I wish there were more positive things to say about this game. The more I think about this game, the more problems I can find in it. In order for this game to work as a full game package it's going to need a lot of work. It needs to design areas that you can actually walk around in and do things. And it needs to make the areas you visit to be a bit more interesting. The combat needs to be made a bit quicker and provide a couple more actors at the start of the game. And please change the music to anything else. I hope you can take what I have said and make this game great. Good luck.