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Legend of the Quicktime Events? No, much more!

Good Day!
Today is the demo-day, or a day in which I will review an old demo of a game that will never be completed, but that nonenthless is interesting. Previous games like A Dust Tale or Oathguard were pretty interesting, even if they were short compared to other demos like Money and Power, Carpe Diem, Heaven & Hell part III or Cyberfactor. Legend of the Silverstone 4th demo was released in 2017, and it's an Rpgmaker2003 game made by MarcL.

Legend of the Silverstone is first a german game made by MarcL and released as a demo in 2014, anyway I played it in english of course, but I noticed some lines untranslated (this may not always be an error since the protagonist Taka calls the german-speaking men "foreigners" so it may be done on purpouse THAT part, in other cases there are few instances in which there are some really untranslated lines).
This time our protagonist is Taka (even if temporarily we get to play as other characters too), an apprentice warrior and mercenary whose brother is a renowed combatant. Anyway his life changes abruptly the day of the final exam, becoming even more adventurous than before.


Taka, his brother and a friend fight a monster... the day when their lives will be changed forever!

From a plot like this I expected a classic rpgmaker adventure game, and this is partially true, partially because the game contains a lot of unusual parts. For example side view exploration (or just walking around) with quicktime events to dispatch wandering enemies, quicktime events where you have to press a sequence of movement keys, quicktime events where you must bash repeately a single button, quicktime events in which you have to press some directions and avoid others.
Yes, that's a lot of (slightly different) quicktime events!

By the way later the game also features some classic exploration in the usual Rpgmaker style, the typical combat system with special attacks that require MP, experience to level up and so on... BUT it's worth noting that it also features custom menus where you can select items to use, like for example a magic stone useful to reveal hidden loot, levers and buttons on particular locations.


Oh yes, dear Taka! You will do a lot of things for nothing at all, by the way it seems that instead Alex doesn't mind at all!

And there are also puzzles, the first one (the "dragon stare") was a bit difficult to solve also because there are some annoying opponents that constantly respawn (but it's also my fault because I selected Normal difficulty instead of Easy... and no there is no Hard option, Normal is already pretty challenging, but not too bad), the others instead were pretty easy, and for the most part I liked them. There was also one pointless running part, that like the intro side-view section feels a bit like some "extra additions", a bit disjointed and many long cutscenes (like the one with the recruiter) that while fun they are a bit of time-wasters (while instead cutscenes related to the story are surprisingly short and immediate, see for example when Taka is captured or the part where he wakes up after the dramatic first mission (for a moment I even believed it was a flashback, but no! Everything happened in chronological order).

Visuals and music are great. Really, this game uses many Rtps merged with edits and rips from various classic games (like Metal Slug, Tales of the World and so on) but for the most part there is no clash of style and despite some dissonances between some portraits (main characters have various facesets with many different moods), battlers and charsets (see for example the difference between Taka's charset and his brother's), the final result is pretty good. This game is basically a more modern version of the good old fantasy Rpgmaker2003 games such as Three the Hard Way or The Way: a story driven game that incorporates a captivating narrative and classic rpgmaker combat with puzzles, minigames and diversions (some a bit meh like the running sections).


Escaping a prison camp during a rainy night! As you can see there is a truck, but you will find also droids and other hi-tech elements in this game!

Mapping is pretty good and the various locations are of the right size (no "huge room size") and detailed enough, backgrounds are carefully selected, there are interactable items, and even some cool (I think custom made) animations in some situations. Music is, like the graphic assets, ripped! We have some classic Final Fantasy VII themes, and others I cannot recognize, by the way the selection is good and also sounds are fitting, despite some imprecisions like the wind sound in a certain map that doesn't loop exactly, so it's a bit annoying.

Unfortunately the game isn't really perfect, since there are also some flaws: besides some untranslated parts I also found some errors, for example during a part in which I broke a vase, exiting and re-entering the area resetted the situation and the vase was whole again! Another problem is that sometimes I found myself wondering and wandering (HEEH!) to find how to progress the story, for example at the training camp, in the city, and so on... because there was no info about I was supposed to do ("I'm having a walk" isn't really explicative).


The main thing is to jump over the obstacle! Let's go!

Final Verdict
Ok, the title of this review is because the beginning you have to play a quicktime event after the other, of different kind and... well it's really a lot, luckily later the game expands and becomes much more interesting even if some aspects are a bit predictable, like a guy that reveals himself to be a BAD guy, but I guessed it the instant that appeared on screen! But this happens in many other classic stories, by the way it's something I enjoy. It's not a pefect game, being a demo there are some issues and problems, by the way it offers some hours of fun, despite the incomplete state. What else? The use and combinations of the various ripped assets is really amazing, I mean that this is not a simple party based story driven rpgmaker adventure where you visit dungeons and fights various enemies until you face a boss (and repeat!). Oh no, it's a much more varied experience that includes lots of custom made original aspects, and a very enjoyable one. If this game was completed and the little issues were fixed it would have been another cool game like Theia for sure!

Posts

Pages: 1
Hey thanks for the review :) Glad you somehow liked it. Nice to see some people still find this old project! Dunno if the download is even still working or not xD
Yeah I guess the project will probably never be finished as this 30h demo only showed ~40% of the plot and I have kids and I'm working full time but you never know :) (If you're interested in how it would have ended I can provide you with the rest of the story)
Also I'm working on a commercial game (spiritual predecessor of this game) which hopefully will be ready for a demo on steam in the next years :) Maybe if I put this on kickstarter and people like it I find some coworkers and get it done quicker. Furthermore I start a new work in march where I earn double the money so maybe I get so lazy that I just pay some people to do the tedious mapping xD
author=MarcL
Hey thanks for the review :) Glad you somehow liked it. Nice to see some people still find this old project! Dunno if the download is even still working or not xD
Yeah I guess the project will probably never be finished as this 30h demo only showed ~40% of the plot and I have kids and I'm working full time but you never know :) (If you're interested in how it would have ended I can provide you with the rest of the story)
Also I'm working on a commercial game (spiritual predecessor of this game) which hopefully will be ready for a demo on steam in the next years :) Maybe if I put this on kickstarter and people like it I find some coworkers and get it done quicker. Furthermore I start a new work in march where I earn double the money so maybe I get so lazy that I just pay some people to do the tedious mapping xD


Oooh good news! Anyway yes, the download worked here but I know this game is also archived on rmarchiv.net that has almost all german games. Nice I'd quite curious about what happens later even if I had my theories. Of course!
woopsy seems like I never wrote an english version of this story XD
well its like this (Spoilers ahead):

-after the mountain part you are confronted by the thiefs and they run off
-you walk through the woods towards Libra, the town of the judges when you find a sign towards a town within the forest called Prefis Hark
-everyone in the town is gone but for some reason there seem to be imperial soldiers there
-it turns out the empire has a secret base here
-the heroes are caught by some guards and are led to their commander who seems to have gotten very weird because of being stationed here for years and being forgotten by the emperor
-it turns out the empire has a hidden labratory in the town where they conduct strange experiments with humans and nakuu
-also one of the experiments seems to be causing mind issues and hallucinations with all of the soldiers
-the commander wants to send the heroes to the empire but Tessaja Kyre appears and demands the commander to hand them over
-while the commander and Tessaja argue the heroes manage to free themselves from their guards and escape ending up in the laboratory
-while the heroes find out all of this by accidentially stumbling into the old rotting laboratory they find a highly guarded capsule (codename ECHO) containing a strange body
-the body turns alive and follows them killing of dozens of imperial soldiers
-the soldiers evacuate to their airship and the heroes also board this ship
-the body of this undead psychic creature also gets onboard killing everybody
-the heroes meet Tessaja who seems to be connected to Echo (the walking psychic corpse) and it turns out Tessaja found Prefis Hark because she was called there by Echo and that Tessaja also was born in the laboratory and is also a side product of the empires try to create a human nakuu hybrid
-the ship crashes and our heroes manage to jump off at the right time landing in the sea near the Libra
-tessaja decides to join the heroes
-In Libra which is under empires control the heroes are again almost caught but saved by Exod who is happy to see Taka alive as he found out the slaves he freed got caught because there seems to be a mule within the rebels he's working for
-he brings the to the rebel headquarter which is right under the empires nose in Libra and it turns out the rebel leader is Misato who after Taka and Riag disappeared fought against the empire
-they meet some more rebels like Tsuin who is the rebels inventor
-Leonas background gets unvolved
-there's an attack on Taka by one of the rebels but the rebel accidentially gets killed by getting crashed by the trap he wanted to kill Taka with
-because the heroes were almost caught noone is allowed to leave Libra and the heroes are stuck here unless they get a writing of one of the towns judges who are said to be more powerful and influential than the emperor
-after a reunion the heroes try to sneak into the central court because one of the judges is working with the rebels
-When the heroes arrive it turns out it was a trap and that the emperor is here himself and killed every judge to take over their power and blame the rebels
-the heroes would have been able to escape but due to Takas anger and will to kill the emperor they are caught and taken to court and sentenced to death by getting kicked into the bottomless snake pit in the center of Libra
-before getting kicked down Taka manages to free himself and almost scratch the emperor showing the emperor what a threat he is because Taka with all of his training as a kid and his body having been trained as a slave he's on a good way to surpassing even his brother
-nonetheless the heroes get thrown down and after falling for several minutes into the darkness the heroes begin to float and it turns out deep within earth there's a giant underground "bubble" like a whole world with three cities and several kilometers diameter
-beneath them is lava and the heat is somehow blocked by an invisible shield on which there is like a forest because lots of earth fell on most parts of this shield, theres like a completely new flora and fauna here
-also all people send here by getting thrown into the hole survived here and live here in the three towns separated into three factions
-it turns out exod grew up here and misato was thrown in here and they both found a way to get back up to the surface and then started the rebels
-it took them two month though to get back up
-however the heroes dont have that much time because the empire is already collecting troops near Libra ready to go to the nakuu world with their planet machine
-the heroes try again to go their dangerous passage but Vena feels some strange power calling her
-the heroes end up in a dungeon where there's another titan residing who is the one keeping this underground world alive
-after fighting him the helps them to get so high up that the can reach the surface in only a matter of days
-after reaching the surface the heroes go back to Libra and Taka fulfilles his promise to the guy in the prison to give something to his wife
-the sends them to a cave where there's a submarine whose captain that guy was
-with that the heroes and rebels start an attack on the planet machine to destroy it and reclaim the silver stone
-Tsuin, Misato, Leona and Tessaja join Arek, Taka, Vena and Exod
-The heroes get separated and part of the group is again running into a trap in the main hall where the silverstone is used as an additional power source to the planet machine
-Taka and Arek meet the emperor and Dai as they are about to begin the connection process, the empreror leaves showing that it all of their friends got captured
-Arek tells Taka to go and stop the emperor with the explosives they took along
-You play Taka and Arek in different scenes, Arek fighting Dai on the roof of the planet machine
-depending on the players choices with Taka and moving some platforms Arek dies or survives and later rejoins
-taka getting absorbed by his hate again trashes his opportunity to destroy the planet machine in time by rather attacking the emperor
-due to the explosion while opening the gate to the nakuu world the planet machine explodes with Vena almost dying by getting knocked unconcious and falling down a hole
-Taka realizes he is an idiot and risking his life he jumps after her saving her just in time
-When the dust unveils everyone is scattered near the entrance of the nakuu world
-there's a romantic scene between Taka and Vena where Taka almost tells Vena his feelings towards her but again misses the opportunity
-they quickly leave before the empires troops arrive
-the heroes find themselves in the nakuu world and manage to meet with a nakuu tribe before the empire does so
-the nakuu leader tells them about Vena's father falling in love with a human and thus having to leave
-he tells them about the whereabouts of the 3 angu stones and it turns out the last one was broken into 7 pieces, the seven silverstone
-the heroes try to find the first two before the empire does
-within the three temples reside the three most powerfull titans who tell them in cryptic words that they must not open the angu door
-after fighting the first one you get the fist angu stone returning to the village
-In this night Tsuin turns out to be the real mule in the rebels and also the inventor of the slave crowns and researcher of the empire who created ECHO and Tessaja
-he is also a nakuu who was once after the Angu stones to revive his dead wife and thus got his wings cut off and send to the human world
-The backstabs Exod and leaves with the 2 Angu stones and takes Vena hostage
-Taka wants to stop him but the emperor and Dai show up with several giant robots and stuff
-Vena tells Taka to stop and leaves voluntarily so that the heroes dont get killed
-They leave and Taka is about to give up before remembering Riag and gaining new hope
-They go to the next temple and find the second Angu stone only to get stopped by Dai and Tsuin. Tsuin leaves with the stone the hero fights Dai who in the end feels bad about his behaviour. Depending on if Arek survived he rejoins here and kills Dai himself
- The empire now has all Stones including the 7 silverstones and 2 angu stones (thus 3 angu stones) and the next day the want to sacrifice Vena and open the door
-in one last desperate attempt the heroes and the nakuu try to stop the empire. Taka and co riding on flying birds and Taka making his way to the gate seconds after the emperor stabbed Vena and opened the Angu gate
-Vena is dead and its too late for thim to tell here he loves her. In a desperate cry time stands still and the door is opening again as everything is turning black
-Taka stands before what has no name but is the creator of this world. "It" tries to find the reason behind its existance by experimenting with its powers and once created the titans who then created the contients, elements and stuff. The titans after finding out they've been created and fighting a war about what to do about with this knowledge about their creation locked out "it" with the Angu door. Only the most powerful survived in weakened states and every other titan died.
"It" tells Taka that the gate is merely a window for it to research coincidence and that it only calls those before it who are arousing its interest
-Taka and the emperor are somehow showing a lot of connection to it making them special
-The player gets to choose several actions affecting the end seqence (and theres lots of it)
-it makes it clear that it keeps everything in balance but still gives hime several options about what to do, how much power he wants to have
-depending on your choice I think in the best ending the scene returns to the world where the heros fight and are about to win when the emperor shows up and with a wipe of his hands kills dozens of nakuu
-he is keen on trying out his powers and severly injures Tsuin
-as he is about to kill the heroes Taka shows up and is as powerful as the emperor and you fight him (alone or with your friends)
-with godlike powers Taka revives Vena and depending on this question choices with "it" Taka dies or survives
author=MarcL
woopsy seems like I never wrote an english version of this story XD
well its like this (Spoilers ahead):

-after the mountain part you are confronted by the thiefs and they run off
-you walk through the woods towards Libra, the town of the judges when you find a sign towards a town within the forest called Prefis Hark
-everyone in the town is gone but for some reason there seem to be imperial soldiers there
-it turns out the empire has a secret base here
-the heroes are caught by some guards and are led to their commander who seems to have gotten very weird because of being stationed here for years and being forgotten by the emperor
-it turns out the empire has a hidden labratory in the town where they conduct strange experiments with humans and nakuu
-also one of the experiments seems to be causing mind issues and hallucinations with all of the soldiers
-the commander wants to send the heroes to the empire but Tessaja Kyre appears and demands the commander to hand them over
-while the commander and Tessaja argue the heroes manage to free themselves from their guards and escape ending up in the laboratory
-while the heroes find out all of this by accidentially stumbling into the old rotting laboratory they find a highly guarded capsule (codename ECHO) containing a strange body
-the body turns alive and follows them killing of dozens of imperial soldiers
-the soldiers evacuate to their airship and the heroes also board this ship
-the body of this undead psychic creature also gets onboard killing everybody
-the heroes meet Tessaja who seems to be connected to Echo (the walking psychic corpse) and it turns out Tessaja found Prefis Hark because she was called there by Echo and that Tessaja also was born in the laboratory and is also a side product of the empires try to create a human nakuu hybrid
-the ship crashes and our heroes manage to jump off at the right time landing in the sea near the Libra
-tessaja decides to join the heroes
-In Libra which is under empires control the heroes are again almost caught but saved by Exod who is happy to see Taka alive as he found out the slaves he freed got caught because there seems to be a mule within the rebels he's working for
-he brings the to the rebel headquarter which is right under the empires nose in Libra and it turns out the rebel leader is Misato who after Taka and Riag disappeared fought against the empire
-they meet some more rebels like Tsuin who is the rebels inventor
-Leonas background gets unvolved
-there's an attack on Taka by one of the rebels but the rebel accidentially gets killed by getting crashed by the trap he wanted to kill Taka with
-because the heroes were almost caught noone is allowed to leave Libra and the heroes are stuck here unless they get a writing of one of the towns judges who are said to be more powerful and influential than the emperor
-after a reunion the heroes try to sneak into the central court because one of the judges is working with the rebels
-When the heroes arrive it turns out it was a trap and that the emperor is here himself and killed every judge to take over their power and blame the rebels
-the heroes would have been able to escape but due to Takas anger and will to kill the emperor they are caught and taken to court and sentenced to death by getting kicked into the bottomless snake pit in the center of Libra
-before getting kicked down Taka manages to free himself and almost scratch the emperor showing the emperor what a threat he is because Taka with all of his training as a kid and his body having been trained as a slave he's on a good way to surpassing even his brother
-nonetheless the heroes get thrown down and after falling for several minutes into the darkness the heroes begin to float and it turns out deep within earth there's a giant underground "bubble" like a whole world with three cities and several kilometers diameter
-beneath them is lava and the heat is somehow blocked by an invisible shield on which there is like a forest because lots of earth fell on most parts of this shield, theres like a completely new flora and fauna here
-also all people send here by getting thrown into the hole survived here and live here in the three towns separated into three factions
-it turns out exod grew up here and misato was thrown in here and they both found a way to get back up to the surface and then started the rebels
-it took them two month though to get back up
-however the heroes dont have that much time because the empire is already collecting troops near Libra ready to go to the nakuu world with their planet machine
-the heroes try again to go their dangerous passage but Vena feels some strange power calling her
-the heroes end up in a dungeon where there's another titan residing who is the one keeping this underground world alive
-after fighting him the helps them to get so high up that the can reach the surface in only a matter of days
-after reaching the surface the heroes go back to Libra and Taka fulfilles his promise to the guy in the prison to give something to his wife
-the sends them to a cave where there's a submarine whose captain that guy was
-with that the heroes and rebels start an attack on the planet machine to destroy it and reclaim the silver stone
-Tsuin, Misato, Leona and Tessaja join Arek, Taka, Vena and Exod
-The heroes get separated and part of the group is again running into a trap in the main hall where the silverstone is used as an additional power source to the planet machine
-Taka and Arek meet the emperor and Dai as they are about to begin the connection process, the empreror leaves showing that it all of their friends got captured
-Arek tells Taka to go and stop the emperor with the explosives they took along
-You play Taka and Arek in different scenes, Arek fighting Dai on the roof of the planet machine
-depending on the players choices with Taka and moving some platforms Arek dies or survives and later rejoins
-taka getting absorbed by his hate again trashes his opportunity to destroy the planet machine in time by rather attacking the emperor
-due to the explosion while opening the gate to the nakuu world the planet machine explodes with Vena almost dying by getting knocked unconcious and falling down a hole
-Taka realizes he is an idiot and risking his life he jumps after her saving her just in time
-When the dust unveils everyone is scattered near the entrance of the nakuu world
-there's a romantic scene between Taka and Vena where Taka almost tells Vena his feelings towards her but again misses the opportunity
-they quickly leave before the empires troops arrive
-the heroes find themselves in the nakuu world and manage to meet with a nakuu tribe before the empire does so
-the nakuu leader tells them about Vena's father falling in love with a human and thus having to leave
-he tells them about the whereabouts of the 3 angu stones and it turns out the last one was broken into 7 pieces, the seven silverstone
-the heroes try to find the first two before the empire does
-within the three temples reside the three most powerfull titans who tell them in cryptic words that they must not open the angu door
-after fighting the first one you get the fist angu stone returning to the village
-In this night Tsuin turns out to be the real mule in the rebels and also the inventor of the slave crowns and researcher of the empire who created ECHO and Tessaja
-he is also a nakuu who was once after the Angu stones to revive his dead wife and thus got his wings cut off and send to the human world
-The backstabs Exod and leaves with the 2 Angu stones and takes Vena hostage
-Taka wants to stop him but the emperor and Dai show up with several giant robots and stuff
-Vena tells Taka to stop and leaves voluntarily so that the heroes dont get killed
-They leave and Taka is about to give up before remembering Riag and gaining new hope
-They go to the next temple and find the second Angu stone only to get stopped by Dai and Tsuin. Tsuin leaves with the stone the hero fights Dai who in the end feels bad about his behaviour. Depending on if Arek survived he rejoins here and kills Dai himself
- The empire now has all Stones including the 7 silverstones and 2 angu stones (thus 3 angu stones) and the next day the want to sacrifice Vena and open the door
-in one last desperate attempt the heroes and the nakuu try to stop the empire. Taka and co riding on flying birds and Taka making his way to the gate seconds after the emperor stabbed Vena and opened the Angu gate
-Vena is dead and its too late for thim to tell here he loves her. In a desperate cry time stands still and the door is opening again as everything is turning black
-Taka stands before what has no name but is the creator of this world. "It" tries to find the reason behind its existance by experimenting with its powers and once created the titans who then created the contients, elements and stuff. The titans after finding out they've been created and fighting a war about what to do about with this knowledge about their creation locked out "it" with the Angu door. Only the most powerful survived in weakened states and every other titan died.
"It" tells Taka that the gate is merely a window for it to research coincidence and that it only calls those before it who are arousing its interest
-Taka and the emperor are somehow showing a lot of connection to it making them special
-The player gets to choose several actions affecting the end seqence (and theres lots of it)
-it makes it clear that it keeps everything in balance but still gives hime several options about what to do, how much power he wants to have
-depending on your choice I think in the best ending the scene returns to the world where the heros fight and are about to win when the emperor shows up and with a wipe of his hands kills dozens of nakuu
-he is keen on trying out his powers and severly injures Tsuin
-as he is about to kill the heroes Taka shows up and is as powerful as the emperor and you fight him (alone or with your friends)
-with godlike powers Taka revives Vena and depending on this question choices with "it" Taka dies or survives


whoa COOL!
Somehow I expected Taka's bro to be involved... dunno why
author=TheRpgmakerAddict
whoa COOL! Somehow I expected Taka's bro to be involved... dunno why

Actually Riag survives as a secret side character with lost memory and mask :) Whatever have a nice christmas xD
author=MarcL
author=TheRpgmakerAddict
whoa COOL! Somehow I expected Taka's bro to be involved... dunno why
Actually Riag survives as a secret side character with lost memory and mask :) Whatever have a nice christmas xD


I KNEW!!!!! The "death" was a bit... too fast and not really certain.
thanksn to you too!
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