Introduction

Project 8 was created using RPG Maker VX Ace and is an old-school dungeon crawler with some rouge-like elements. Unfortunately the project was rushed so it's various elements tend to work more against each other then with each other. Though, I'll get to the nitty-gritty of why this game fails in a bit. First, I'd like to discuss the plot.

Story

The setup for this game is that you play as a couple of average joes that are setting out on a life or death adventure in order to win a fabolous prize from a TV studio. That prize being a whopping $500,000 U.S. dollars. And while the setup is rather basic the game doesn't seem to truly embrace the fact that what is going on is being broadcasted live. If anything the game should drop reminders every now and again from the host that this is a live action show where people risk life and limb for money. And a perfect time to drop those reminders would be before or after a boss battle. Heck, have a little fun with it and have the host be a sadist like the English dub version of Koto from Yu Yu Hakusho.

Gameplay

On the gameplay side of things the game is a mess. While the basic idea of providing the player with a random party isn't a bad idea since it would encourage the player to explore options they might not use on their own. Sadly, this positive aspect of the game is burdened by a whole slew of issues brought on by the fact that the game forces the player to race the clock.

The first of these issues is that the game doesn't give the player any sort of dedicated healer, but this is further compounded by the fact that some of the ingredients needed to make healing potions are also rare. This can make advancing quickly enough to beat the clock with certain party combinations extremely difficult if not impossible since you'll need to spend time grinding out levels, but the game doesn't give the player any time to do this since the clock still counts down during combat.

To make matters worse the game doesn't give the player any reliable way to get weapons and armor early on. In effect the random nature of the loot you pick up becomes a nightmare for the player to deal with when they are under a serious time constraint. It took me over 15 minutes to find weapons for one of my characters. And in a game where your run time is restricted to a minimum of 30 minutes or a maximum of 45 minutes that isn't acceptable.

Outside of my issues with the time constraints the game also appears to suffer from an odd bug where the player only gets control over two party members instead of three. This issue also contributes to the whole time constraints issue since some of the later battles feel like they are built around the player having access to a third party member.

Graphics

On the graphical side of things the game feels like your typical RPG Maker fare. As such I don't have too much to comment on. Though, I do feel as if the game suffers from a lack of enemy variety. While most of the enemies do evolve over time into more advanced forms much like Pokemon or Robopon do the enemy variety still feels limited. To put this in perspective imagine a Pokemon game where you only ever encounter four pocket monster or their evolved forms and never anything else.

Sound

On the sound side of things the game is alright. Though, I'll admit to paying very little attention to background music or sound effects. I was usually to distracted by my need to kill enemies in a hurry to take a second to enjoy it.

Conclusion

Project 8 is a title that feels like wasted potential. There are a few good ideas to be had here, but a lot of the elements are undermined by poor design decisions. As it stands I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone.

Suggestions

1) Get rid of the time limit. A time restriction only works in my opinion if the player is able to quickly advance through a game and has more then ample time to complete their objective. Unfortunately the random nature of your party in combination with the random results you'll get from chests makes the game feel like your hoping to get a Yahtzee when it comes to both.

2) If you don't want to get rid of the time limit then I suggest turning off the timer during certain sections of the game such as when the player is in the rest area and during combat.

3) I'd also suggest adding an additional character to the rest area which gives the player various ingredients for items in exchange for essence. This way the player can avoid the downfalls of not having a dedicated party healer by being able to more readily acquire weapons, armor, and potions.