A Short and Sweet RPG

  • Dyluck
  • 04/01/2018 06:40 AM
  • 1270 views
This is a short and sweet RPG made for the IGMC 2017. This review will be mostly spoiler free.

The story revolves around a girl who receives a book that can alter destiny by writing inside it. She tries to use this book to save her kingdom from an impending crisis, all the while learning the consequences of using the book, and the impact to the people around her. It's a pretty interesting premise, and gives the story a feeling of mystery and tension. At various points in the game, you will be given a choice to use the book to intervene on certain situations or not. My understanding is that your choices will have an impact on some of the later scenes and the final boss and ending.

There appears to be a lot of custom artwork in this game, and it's all very adorable and charming. The town design uses a lot of stars and moons as a motif, and is very fitting for the game world and its themes. The way the opening and ending scenes are presented kind of reminded me of the corresponding scenes in Yoshi's Island, which was cute. The characters have some pretty unique designs, with some goofy expressions sometimes, and some very stylish looking battle poses as well, along with some nicely customized looking HUD elements.

Battles in this game use some pretty interesting mechanics. First off, characters have multiple sets of skills they can use by switching 'Stances'. Each stance is useful for its own situations, and can be freely switched at minimal cost without using up a turn. Secondly, within each set of skills, there is a lot of synergy between the skills. Each skill consumes either Mana or Focus, and using one type of skill will usually refill the other type. Some skills also do additional damage or bonus if the enemy is already inflicted with a condition, which can be given by one of your other skills. All these mechanics combined created quite an engaging and strategic battle experience. Although it was slightly overwhelming at first, when you first see all those skill descriptions all at once, but I guess there was no other way to ease into it for a short game.

The difficulty is challenging, but reasonable, and can be adjusted via options if needed. There's not a lot to do in terms of dungeon design and rewards, but again that's to be somewhat expected for a short game. It takes roughly a little over 1 hour to play through.

Overall, this was a very enjoyable game with good story and characters. I would have loved to see a longer story that fleshed out the characters and world a little more, and maybe further touch on the moral implications of the book, and more rules and consequences. The unique look and feel of this game, along with its story and battles, is something that I think most RPG lovers will enjoy a lot.