Durham Fantasy: Agartha

Name: Durham Fantasy: Agartha

Developer: shadendehaan

Story: Parody inspired by Final Fantasy. The evil Chuck Norris has ruled for a millennium and it's up to Shaden, Lynn, Trevor, and possibly Cloud--if you're willing to pony up 500 gold--to stop him. Along the way, it's up to the heroes to do everything they can to smash the fourth wall to bits.



Writing: Apparently comedy is hard. This game would actually be better if it followed through with what it offered. Instead, it offers half-hearted stabs at bland jokes that are told for shock value, and doesn't even tell that many Chuck Norris jokes. There are some interesting elements to the story and it has some legitimate potential, but unfortunately, the game just isn't trying. There are a few funny moments when you make it to the desert and in the two towns, run into the casts of Final Fantasies VI and VII, but for every funny moment, there are two missed opportunities. A moment with significant potential, if not for humor, then for an emotional moment, is wasted: the meeting between FF VI's Celes and party member Lynn, who are mother and daughter. No opportunity taken for humor or for emotional drama, the game simply speeds through the meeting as if the writer suddenly doesn't want to be bothered with the story.

Gameplay: Good. It does a fine job emulating Final Fantasy, and the RPG Maker engine is really meant for that. Gameplay is done reasonably well, as the focus is on fast pacing and fast battles. Balance is unfortunately borked. Most enemies err on the unnecessarily easy side while a couple of bosses are well balanced, but some are balanced on the game-breakingly hard side. Excessive grinding becomes a must when facing many of these bosses and the way the game is paced, you come into boss battles totally unprepared.



Graphics: Okay. It's all RTP with the exception of rips of Final Fantasy characters used as cameos throughout the game (I find your lack of Yuffie disturbing.). There are some very unfortunate mapping errors, including one really common one:



Obviously, the mapping isn't great, but it's not terrible, either. Overall, the game's mostly presentable.

Music: Some RTP, mostly rips from Final Fantasy VI, and it really stands out. The game tries really hard to remind you of Final Fantasy, and really makes no effort to at least find music that isn't instantly recognizable, repurposing just about every FFVI theme for this game.



Conclusion: This game certainly has its moments. It's trying to be a comedy, but just doesn't really seem to feel like it. The game is very enthusiastic but it really doesn't know what it wants to be. The result is uncomfortably forced humor, uncomfortable drama, and nothing that feels really like it fits. You won't get bored with the game, at least, but you won't really be thrilled with it either. The game does fine, but Epic Elf did it much better.