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True Retro Goodness

Graphics: It really feels like an honest to goodness Gameboy game the likes of Final Fantasy Adventure (or SaGa) only with the use of Final Fantasy 1's graphics. The only thing that really stuck out to me that could be fixed is the black space around the treasure chests. Aside from that, the battle backgrounds (such as the trees) seem just a little too stretched out. If anything could be done, I'd recommend using more trees and keeping them closer to how they originally looked instead of less and stretched.

I also really like Ashe's walking sprite and the animation of his sword attack.


FLOUWH!


Music: I'm not sure where it's from, but it's all quite good. No complaints here. The sound effects aren't the usual and have that simplistic Gameboy style which helps breed consistency and excellent gamefeel.


Doot do DO! DOOT do DOO!


Story: What first feels like a matter of Cain and Abel becomes much more when the player encounters Finn and sets out on their adventure to bring the lesser villages of the world together against Ashe's usurping brother. While the intro could do with some work (I feel like the castle layout misled me in terms of the quality of the game), when I gained control of the character, everything started falling into place.


Instructions: Just add water


Gameplay: I've never been a big fan of on-map encounters but something about this game does it well. The enemies are mobile but they're spread about in such a way that I was able to avoid most of them in the castle. The enemies in the forest are closer together and more numerous but they only move a certain number of tiles before coming to a stop, allowing me to run by them without too much trouble.

The enemies I encountered were also felled with only two strikes which kept battles from becoming damage sponges. The balancing was spot on.

Other: One thing I feel the game could've used is the other font style native to RPG Maker 2003 or maybe even its own blocky font such as other games have made use of in the past. I don't know how people establish these things for their own games, but with the proper knowledge, I feel it would give the game that extra push towards making everything feel just as it should.

Conclusion: It's just a demo now, but if the quality continues to be this consistent, I'd gladly give it a 3.5/5 when it's all said and done. There's little that this game does wrong with my only nitpicks being something more than what the original graphics/gamefeel was intended to be. I'd strongly recommend checking this out.

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Thanks Corf! I'll have to see what I can do to apply your insights to my work.
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