Pathway: Desire+

Hello, players!
This is the time to play Pathway: Desire+, a RPG Maker VX Ace game by Nirwanda, originally made for the RMC's Indie in a week V, and later rebalanced and released in 2016. This is a simple, short but complete dungeon delving adventure with a party of three different characters, and charming graphics (in scale of grey).

The game starts with Erika, a wanderer that wakes up after a strange dream about a mysterious entity named Bael, trapped inside a mysterious cavern and determined to find the truth about the mysterious place that is now exploring. She's the classical fighter with some support skills, and she is later joined by the priestress Valda (classic support/healer character) and the mage Faith (classic elemental wizard, weak physically but with some good offensive skills).


I hope this is a nice surprise! It's good to have company!

Pathway: Desire+ has a rather linear pathway! There are some extra optional places, treasures and opponents, but the story is a totally linear path. Do not expect to find puzzles, optional sidequests, inns and towns to explore, because this is a focused little adventure... with some dialogues and lots of combat! But in this game combat is pretty much enjoyable and well done! It also does not use the boring usual "level up system" already see in many other rpgmaker games, but each combat provides skill points that can be used to buy passive abilities like boost to attacks, or new active abilities and special attacks. I liked this change a lot! Moreover some skills use a cooldown system unlike of needing to spend MP (Magic/Mana Points) that ARE still used. Oh and concerning battles, there are boss battles and wandering enemies but absolutely NO random encounters (well, since there is a skill-point system this makes sense! Otherwise you could farm enough points to become uber powerful!).

Visually the game starts with a black screen, but then it opens with a nice opening sequence that introduces the player to the mysterious cave. The custom and stylized graphics are really nice and reminds to me of Phantasy Star 2, except for the fact that's all in scale of grey. But do not worry, these are really well made and include some nice animation and really cool portraits that have a retro style that I like a lot. Enemies are classic creatures like goblins, ogres and demons but they're well made, and also maps and battle backgrounds are well made and full of many simple little details.
There are only a couple of little flaws: there are some glitches I found when enemies don't disappear and also music doesn't loop perfectly but has a moment of pause that is clearly noticeable. Anyway these are just minor issues, music and sounds are very good, like all the rest.


Exploiting the enemy's weakpoints is a classic! Especially against big guys like this thug!

Final Verdict
Pathway: Desire+ is a linear pathway but an enjoyable one! Ok, that's the short version, if you want to go more in detail, let's just say that this is one of these good little games you can enjoy because it doesn't do much (just exploration and battles, lots of battles) but everything is done pretty well. It's a short scenario, competently made and with a style that make it stand out from the more generic games, still it does not offer anything really new (except for the skill system, of course) so this is probably a game that can appreciated most by those players like myself that like these little dungeon delving self-contained adventures.