Rissa

Today I'm going to write a review on Rissa, a game, from which you wouldn't expect too much at first, looking at the graphics. The game is simply kept in RTP style and there aren't any dialogues at all. Also, the story is kept quite simple. The female protagonist's daughter is kidnapped by some evil demon and from now on it's your job to rescue her and bring her back home. You won't get more story and you won't need more story as the game is completely based on its gameplay.


The game has a small HUD in the upper left corner which shows the current HP and Gold value. Killed enemies drop Gold, while certain enemies that are a bit harder to kill even drop rubies worth 10 Gold. There's no save option, as the game is auto-saved everytime a checkpoint is reached. You can reach these checkpoints by either entering a new area or by destroying crystals using your weapons to activate them. You can return to any checkpoint at any time which is nice. The game is divided into sections, which are shown on the world map. These include a village, a cave, a castle, a ruined castle and a tower. You will encounter many different enemies, which you can destroy with a melee weapon, a boomerang, by using bombs or with bow and arrow. Each weapon has a specific function. For example, hitting an enemy with a boomerang will temporarily stun him. Bombs help to destroy rock walls preventing you from moving on. During the course of the game you will find, among other things, apples that increase your HP by 1 or treasure chests that contain various bonuses or reinforcements for your weapons or defense. That's nice and useful. I was always happy to unlock a new feature for any weapon.

The enemies in the game react individually to your weapon and move accordingly. They all follow different movement patterns and will do damage to you when they manage to touch you. After an enemy hit, you are immune to further damage for a short time. Some enemies shoot fireballs, other enemies (skeletons) throw bones on you and a previously killed flame splits into 3 more flames (Hell, that was annoying!). There is a lot of variety in gameplay and by using the right weapon tactically, you can gain an advantage over your opponents. Killed enemies leave coins, which can even be collected by throwing the boomerang on them. At the end of each section, a boss monster awaits you, which has a whole lot of HP and requires a certain strategy to beat. You can return to any area at any time. This is even necessary, as you can only proceed to some location after you've acquired the appropriate skill/weapon feature.

I had a small bug at the tower. After I lost the fight against two demons, I couldn't enter the tower again.


After restarting the game, this bug was disappeared (I don't know how) and I could continue playing. The end is a bit poorly designed. After the last boss the credits are shown directly, so the end seems very abrupt.


It's recommended by the dev to play using the X-Box controller. I played it with keyboard first and switched to controller later. I can only say that it's worth to do. I had the option to strafe using controller which I hadn't with keyboard. Unfortunately, you can't use SHIFT to dash if you play with controller. Don't know why.

This game has given me a quite good time and I can recommend it to everyone who likes Shooter or Hack and Slay games. Actually, this game is the only game made with RPG Maker I know so far, which uses a pixel-perfect collision detection.

I give this game a solid 4 out of 5 stars.