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So long as they all work together...

  • Waxius
  • 04/09/2018 09:59 PM
  • 1765 views
Rainbow Vale - By Marrend

First Thoughts:
Rainbow Vale is a project by Marrend that was made for the "GAYMak the Rainbow" event. This event had specific rules, one of which was a less than 2 week time limit to start and finish the work. Game Makers were encouraged to create characters in the event forums and share them. In Rainbow Vale, Marrend used Unity's cast of characters, with permission of course:



Story:
Seven very different people have come to the vale. Each has his/her own reasons, but they must work together in order to seek the Five Souls. To what end? It's unknown. Perhaps they are being guided by a benevolent force, or maybe it's all just a coincidence.

In game.. there's very little storyline stated until the ending dialogue. Before that, you're in the dark, but it isn't too hard to figure out what to do.



Game Play:
At the start of the game, you're in the village and you have access to 2 of the five crystals, so you have the option of going to the mountains or the plains. Later, you'll also visit a Forest, a Swamp, and finally an Island.

Game play wise, it's pretty much all the standard RPG Maker VX Ace fanfare. Battles are front view, though all the enemies ARE on the map so you can avoid them if you choose to.

The first thing I did was skip all the battles to go talk to the guy at the top of the hill in the plains... big mistake! While he looks like a kind person, he's actually a boss and has to test you to see how strong you are! Of course I died.

Oddly enough.. I didn't realize I had 4 party members until the first battle started. It didn't occur to me to check the status page. But when I did.. I was surprised. Not only do you have 4 party members, but you have ALL SEVEN. You can change the formation and put any 4 (or even less) of the characters into the main party.



Characters:
Each of the characters, as per the event conditions, is to represent one of the colors of the GAYMak Rainbow. The line up of Unity's characters are as follows:
Sherise - RED
Fredric - ORANGE
Jerrold - YELLOW
Aldo - GREEN
Larue - BLUE
Arielle - PINK
Rosalva - PURPLE

Ultimately I chose to put Jerrold, Fredric, Sherise, and Arielle into my main party. Arielle has a nice "Brew Potion" skill that only costs 2 AP and fully heals a party member in addition to increasing their defense. Jerrold's "Magic Fusion" increases strength for the rest of the battle and makes his attacks magical instead of physical. Fredric and Sherise has strong offensive skills that cost nearly all of their AP. I never did replace my characters for any others, but you ARE able to use their skills in between battles for healing and status recovery.

Game Tips / Exploits:
The following game tips will make the game SUPER EASY, view them at your own risk:

1. You can run back to the village anytime you want by touching the crystal at the start of each stage. The enemies will respawn... but SO WILL THE CHESTS! This means that you can start a stage, avoid enemies and open the chests, and then run back to the crystal and repeat.

2. The store in the village has ALL the Weapons / Armor / Items that you'll need, even for the late stage of the game. With the money you get from tip #1, gear up your two best fighters. Now you can clear out monsters in the stage with no problem and rack up EXP and GP with nothing more that the ATTACK COMMAND being mashed.

3. Grind Experience in the Plains until you reach level 10 before attacking the boss. It doesn't take long. Your characters will learn new skills that will practically one-hit-kill the boss, or at least kill it in one turn. From this point forward, you can advance the rest of the game passing through the stages only once. Kill everything in each stage and upgrade your equipment when you return to the village.

4. Put Arielle in your main party during the final stage, her "Brew Ambrosia" skill fully recovers HP and AP for ALL Party members (all 7 of them), but it can only be used in battle. Best part.. it cost's NOTHING. 0 AP! Spam that skill while the rest of your party uses their most powerful skills. At Level 20 you'll kill all the bosses in no time at all.


Graphics and Music:
As far as I could tell, the graphics were all RTP native to Rpg Maker VX Ace. The mapping was adequate for the job at hand. There are no interiors, and the game basically consisted of less than 8 maps.

The music is most certainly NOT the standard tracks. Instead Marrend selected a small mix of trance and techno beats from newgrounds.com that was extremely enjoyable to listen to. I've listed the tracks here, and these are going on my phone next :)


Title Screen/Ending Credits:
"Esperance" - carl565 (http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/725359)

Battle Theme:
"Purpose" - namirhassan (http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/715884)

Village:
"Irish Coffee" - LimeDisciple (http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/505608)

Boss Battle:
"The Ultimate Master" - FrenZeon (http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/742372)

Stage Music:
"Walking My Own Path" - ingmar600 (http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/753005)



Overall:
Rainbow Vale was a short and sweet game. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't all that challenging either. I found some exploits which I immediately took advantage of, which allowed me to breeze through the game in less than 2 hours. There were no puzzles, no dialogue, and nothing that helped me get to know the characters at all. In the end, it's understandable, as this was a limited time event and it's always better to have a complete working game, then have an intro scene and an unfinished game. Still... I would have liked to see the seven characters all sitting together at a table or something, even if only one of them says "Let's Go!" before the adventure begins.

I'm looking forward to one day making a short game myself for an event like this. I'll probably have a better appreciation for the efforts put into them.

Posts

Pages: 1
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
Thanks for playing! A few comments if I may.

Concerning some of the game tips under the hide-tag...


This hasn't been the first time I've done the "respawn chests" thing, and... probably wasn't the last? I thought I set up the shops to have limited inventory that increased as the game progressed? I could be recalling a different game on this point.

Not going to apologize for Arielle's abilities. Her bio indicates that she's an alchemist. Thus, I can understand the argument of collecting items, and spending them as the "cost" for her abilities. However, I'm not a big fan of collecting items whose only purpose is for the alchemy system.


I apologize for the lack of dialog from these characters. I suppose one factor, among many, was a fear of screwing up, and not doing them, and the theme of the event, justice. That last point, in particular. To this day, I'm still not sure if I did the theme of the event justice.

You can give thanks to Kevincalanor, in regards to "Irish Coffee". The others I dug up on newgrounds, as you say.


*Edit: Darigaaz, the number of Magic: The Gathering references that I made in this game.
Waxius
"Someday I'll finish my game... someday.."
3898
author=Marrend
Thanks for playing! A few comments if I may.

Concerning some of the game tips under the hide-tag...


This hasn't been the first time I've done the "respawn chests" thing, and... probably wasn't the last? I thought I set up the shops to have limited inventory that increased as the game progressed? I could be recalling a different game on this point.

Not going to apologize for Arielle's abilities. Her bio indicates that she's an alchemist. Thus, I can understand the argument of collecting items, and spending them as the "cost" for her abilities. However, I'm not a big fan of collecting items whose only purpose is for the alchemy system.


I apologize for the lack of dialog from these characters. I suppose one factor, among many, was a fear of screwing up, and not doing them, and the theme of the event, justice. That last point, in particular. To this day, I'm still not sure if I did the theme of the event justice.

You can give thanks to Kevincalanor, in regards to "Irish Coffee". The others I dug up on newgrounds, as you say.


*Edit: Darigaaz, the number of Magic: The Gathering references that I made here.


Hi Marrend,

I still enjoyed the game, and I honestly would have made the same choice in regards to character dialogue, based on the event. I also understand that time was extremely limited and I applaud you for being able to finish it given the constraints.

In general, I try not to write reviews that are overly critical. I'm just sharing my thoughts about what I like and appreciate.
Sadly, Arielle's best potion brewing skill isn't useful if your trying to speedrun this game. Since if your doing that you'll start tackling the bosses at level 10 so you can use skills like pierce and whatnot. You'll instead sell off excess potions and other supplies in order to buy a bunch of ambrosias before the final gauntlet.

Edit: And I'm talking about the final gauntlet of bosses after you've cleared the plains, mountain, swamp, forest, and island maps.
Pages: 1