Rissa

Good day!
Today I played Rissa, a game by Infinite, the author of Lasting Dreams, another rpgmaker action game that I reviewed a long time ago (in 2020, see it HERE). But this time it's not a RPG Tsukuru 2003, nor it's a sidescrolling game. Rissa is a 2017 RPG Maker VX Ace game that reminds to me of the old arcade Amiga games I played decades ago.
But let's start from the beginning.

Rissa is the story of a woman and a little girl. Are they mother and daughter? Two sisters? Well we do not know since the game has absolutely no lines of dialogue but icons and symbols are used to express ideas, anyway this is an action game, so it obviously doesn't need complex dialogues. Back to the two women: the two are living happily in the forest, when a mysterious stranger (is he really a man? Or something else?) arrives and knocks out the older one, and kidnaps the younger girl.


Our protagonist has done some progress, but she still needs that boat to reach the bad guy's island!

Guess what? The brave woman will do everything to rescue the little girl, and this means that, like in the old arcade games I mentioned before (like for example Toki, Double Dragon or Golden Axe) we've to lead the protagonist through a series of levels to rescue the loved one.
So we've a village where peasants were turned into undeads, a castle infested by demons, the mines... BUT in Rissa there's an important difference: in some instances it will be necessary to return to a previous level, since some items are needed to unlock some particular paths (bombs can destroy some walls, for example), and the bad guy made sure that these needed items are in possessions of some big boss enemies.

It's worth noting that enemies respawn, and not only the normal enemies but ALSO the bosses, anyway there is little reason to fight the bosses more than once: the first time you will get a needed item and a gem (that means some money), the other times just the gem, anyway that's still better than the measly coins you can get from normal enemies. Money are necessary to buy some items when you find the merchant, but remember that if you die you will lose a lot (if not all) of them. But at least you will respawn from the nearest checkpoint!


THIS! This is both a weapon and an indispensable item to progress, sadly it took me a lot to figure out where and how I've had to get it. I'm stupid, sigh!

This game does not use the traditional saves: you can just choose a save slot, and then the game will save your progress each time you enter the world map or then you strike one of these crystals that acts as save and healing points inside the bigger levels. Saving is also the only way to heal the protagonist, anyway as said before death means only losing money and being respawned to the last checkpoint.

Even if here there are no experience points or levels, and killing enemies usually means just earning gold (so in some cases it's better dodging them and leave the area), exploring the various areas it's possible to find upgrades represented by red potions (that increase health points), blue potions (that increase defense) various blades, (from a knife to various swords that increase damage for the standard attack), and some tomes needed to learn abilities like the charged attack or the triple-boomerang-throw. Our heroine can in fact use various weapons: Z/Spacebar is the standard melee attack (short range but powerful), A is the bow (longest reach but less powerful), and X is used for the boomerang (weakest weapon with medium range, BUT paralyzes the opponents!). The Shift key is used to dash and pressed twice it's used to drop bombs, finally the D key can be hold to strafe. Useful, but id you have a Xbox controller, well use that!


Oh yes, it's time for a bossfight! But don't worry, this is one of the easiest battles, next ones will be tougher!

Now this was the heroine, but the enemies? I was surprised to see how many different creatures can be found, from the slow zombies to the skeletons that throw their bones, from the fast moving rats to the slimes that leave a poisonous trail. It's really incredible how many different opponents, and how they are placed appropriately, for example: when you enter a room with a light fireplace the flame will attack, when you enter the library the cursed books will attack, and so on! Cool. Then there are the bosses, that are bigger and evil and sometimes even introduced by a short cutscene.
But this is not all! There are also other dangers like different traps, a short "blind maze" (I mean when you can only see your characters but no path so you have to blindly reach the exit in the dark), and even some puzzles, usually not too difficult but the lack of instructions at a certain point left some stuck until I realizes one VERY important thing: the arrows can be used to activate switches! I swear I tried many time to enter a corridor in the mines, believing that there was a bug since no wall was visible, but no. I was not supposed to do that.

Uhm let's forget this and talk about the assets. Graphically this game, like Lasting Dreams, just uses Rtps, or maybe some edits (I don't think the zombie villagers are Rtps, for example) anyway it looks cool because the colors aren't bright at all. On the contrary the place looks gloomy and grim, from the introduction the girls are among the few survivors of an apocalypse that explains the bleak setting. The world is in ruin, and no one will help our protagonist in her lonely journey. How will end this story?


Ok, here's why you need money! Uhm it seems I Can afford only that shield. For now, of course, since due to the open world nature of the game we can revisit the various locations!

Final Verdict
Uhm ok, concerning the end of the story, I'm not going to spoil but I must say that the ending is really abrupt, anyway I didn't expected a lot since there is almost no narrative except for some cutscenes. The focus of the game is all on the action, even if I was impressed because the player has also to figure out how to progress after encountering some roadblocks.

The difficulty is ok, some bosses may be particularly challenging but still the game will not punish you with a canonic Game Over, there are infinite lives and that's good. For the rest nothing to say, the game is solid, no errors or troubles that I remember, mapping is pretty good and I like how the various places are small and it's impossible to ger lost or stuck anywhere. Nice, I expected a lot less from a rpgmaker action adventure (due to the limitations of the engine) and instead I was pleasantly surprised.
This is without doubt a pretty good game, and if you like fast-paced action games it's worth a try!