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Legends Of Illarion 2: Sins Of The Gods

Hello there, first of all let me state that I have finished the game and (despite what may be written below) I enjoyed it, and I thank you for giving me 15 hours of free entertainment.

I think that this game's biggest issue is that it's called Legends of Illarion 2, when compared to its precedessor, this game really feels disappointing overall. Had it been called "Myths of Illarion" or something and advertised as a spin-off rather than a second installment of the series, this would have received (that's how it's spelled by the way, not recieved :P) better reviews imho.
Now, don't get me wrong, I still think this is a good game and I also think that it does a few things better than the first Legends of Illarion did (better overall balance, no missables, opportunity to backtrack everywhere, no places where you can be screwed entirely and have to restart completely *cough chapter 4 in first game :P*), but it still has some shortcomings.

The biggest culprit is probably the storyline, that really screams "Final Fantasy 1", it's very linear, devoid of any plot twist or surpring event. The dialogue is very generic as well and most of the playable characters... well... they aren't characters. They are fighters with a bunch of lines, a bit like Darth Maul in Star Wars: Phantom Meance, as cool as they can be, besides the fighting there isn't much else to them. Only Nagrun has a real character development and Moshran/Petron towards the end of the game (for tying up the story with the sequel). Everyone else felt like they just "showed up to get the job done".

About the gameplay, balance is better than the predecessor, but I think that this was achieved with a "two wrongs make a right" approach, let me explain. The overall difficulty of the game is ok, but the problem is that this is achieved with particularly "cheesy" characters that vastly outperform some of their useless peers for long periods of the game:
1) Elara takes the scepter for the most useless character in the game, by far. Her magic attacks (that cost plenty of MP), pretty much do the damage of the meleer's normal attacks, and only a tiny bit more against weak opponent. Her only support ability is largely redudnant as MP restore items are readily available and Adron can really restore a lot of MP when he uses them.
2) Sirani is a goddess (even before she becomes one! :P), put on her a mana band and she will pretty much carry the whole group with her heals for 90% of the game, so much that you can pretty much ignore field healing items as soon as she joins. As if this wasn't enough, she also has Obsession, the best crowd control spell in the game that works on every single normal battle. It doesn't work on bosses, but she shines there as well because of her monopoly of healing and status removal. A must have.
3) Moshran becomes pretty useless later in the game as well, he doesn't have a niche role, his damage dealing moves also hurt him (AND cost MP) and he doesn't really any more damage than other meleers like Imromon or Malachin. Debuffs stop working on bosses after a while as well, making his whole Axe skill-line very erratic and just not worth the risk (if you're fighting a boss that is immune to certain debuffs, Moshran's axe is completely worthless).
4) Imromon is kept useful by what I suspect is a bug: Blockbuster Trade + Lose Liability can apply -HP debuff even on bosses. That's 30% HP removed in 4 turns, but apart from that everything else is redundant and generally useless. His mace line is almost irrilevant right away. You never truly need a single target defensive self buff and there's no real way to make Imromon tank, so...
5) I have never found a use for Nagrun and it's the only character I never used or felt the need to during the whole game, even though I killed all dragons as well. His dispel seems nice, but Imromon and Ronagan can do even better than that (acquiring the buffs for themselves on top of removing). Apart from that he just appears to be a damage dealing character based on randomness and that's it. There are better options than him.
6) Ronagan comes way too late in the game to be a relevant factor and even then, he's only good for a few normal battles with the exploding bombs (to kill them before they nuke the whole party, but there's only one enemy like that in the whole game), he's not needed anywhere else. Shady Deal sounds cheap and overpowered on paper, but then you realize that it's pointless with Sirani around.
7) Zhembra is great. And what's "worse", he makes Sirani even more godlike. Before Zhembra, Sirani has to choose between single target but powerful heals and multi target weaker heals. After Zhembra, with Intertwined Fates, she gets the single target powerful heals to spread to everyone. On top of that he can protect the party well from Ice, Thunder and Darkness area attacks that can cause wipes. Simply awesome.
8) Olghra, another great support character. Decay is almost a requirement for certain boss fights (Earth Entity without it would be a nightmare) and her regeneration + resurrection can be truly useful. She has her own niche that no one else can take.
9) Malachin. eerr.... his -HP debuff does not work on bosses (unlike Imromon's). He's a bit better than Moshran because of the damage shields that, along with Zhembra, can help the party surviving certain boss attacks, but not that great of a character. Mostly used for autoattacking in normal battles..
10) Cherga. Mana Fountain is great on paper for long boss fights, but that's it really. Talk about a one trick pony, for everything else she's like Elara. Actually, without Mana Fountain she would win the scepter of the most useless character in the game.
11) Adron. Really great support character. He's also the best item user of the game and can instantly buff up all stats to the max in one turn for the whole party. Sirani will remove the Intoxication anyway...
In the end the combo for bosses that seems to be the best is Silari, Imromon, Oldra, Adron and Zhembra (there are some variances, but Silari is always there, and the rest are there for 90% of boss fights). For normal battles it was just Silari with Obsession/Heals and everyone else doing normal attacks. It worked like a charm and nothing ever posed a threat.

Now, the skill advancement system. On paper a great idea, in reality this wasn't executed really well. Characters turn out having their own "best weapon style", so you hardly ever switch. For example, when Zhembra joins (and he has no reason to use spears), you may as well stop using bows with Sirani. She just doesn't need them. Moshran stats out with Axe being the better choice (reducing the attack value of first bosses is truly helpful, but this stops working on later bosses), but by the time you reach the tournament, he'll be using the sword until the end of the game. Adron's best move comes from Dagger, again, no need to use rapiers ever again. Imromon = Axe all the way. Olgra = Whip. Malachin = Mace.
The fact that the final weapons are of one type only further exacerbates this issue, especially when it's a weapon that belongs to the worst skill category, like with Sirani or Malachin.
In the end, what I'm trying to say is that half of the character's skillset becomes pointless as the game progresses. In some cases it's also obscenely redundant (like with Sirani).

Finally, the crafting system. It pretty much stops being a factor in the game when you finish the Elven Temple and kill the Earth Entity. It feels a bit "shoehorned" into the game and put in just for the sake of it. I also felt like it was possible to screw up progression entirely if you wanted to do more than one of the weaker items, since the resources are limited. It gives some temporary minor bonus, like getting a weapon a bit sooner that you could buy it, or provide armors for Imromon and Olgra, but you could even not bother opening the screen at all and you'd be fine anyway.

Overall, I'd give this game a 7+/10.
Damn I really wrote a lot. Sorry for the wall of text.
I don't know if you'll be making Legend of Illarion 3, but, if you do, I hope that you'll take in consideration some of the feedback written here. Thanks for reading if you came this far. :P

Shattered Hourglass

I played and finished this a few months ago.
What can I say, this is a masterpiece. One of the best rpg maker games.
If I had to nitpick I'd say that there is some balance issue between characters and classes (the robot feels especially underpowered with his steep TP and MP costs and even throwing at it the best equip or giving him items that increase max MP do not make it shine, not even in endgame). Also I expected some kind of uber reward for defeating the Slime God in that 1vs1 :P
But, apart from that, I just wanted to drop by and commend you on making such a great game and giving me so many hours of enjoyment. I'll remember this game fondly.

There was also a bug that crashed the game and it involved the Robot's Scan ability. I think it was that Scan would crash the game if the other allies took any action other than guarding in the same turn. But take this with a grain of salt, as I haven't played in a long while.

The Magi Chronicles

Hello there, I have finished the alhpa demo downloaded from here (not sure if it's the latest build), it ends when Kain leads you out of the forest and offers you a place to stay for the night.

Overall, I have to say that this game is very good, however, there are a couple of major issues:

1 - The tilesets/maps are all ruined/corrupted and all over the place. I think 95% of maps have roofs, trees, chimneys in random locations. Apart from being immersion breaking, it's also really annoying when you're exploring since they also end up covering stuff that should be normally visible. Also several tiles (especially in Pronta village) allow you to go through walls or climb on fornitures, ecc...

2 - The turn battle flow may stop sometimes. I do not know what triggers this, but even though both characters and enemies keep taking actions in turns, the numbered debuffs or buffs will not pass and become permanent, this becomes a big issue for several maneuvers in the game. For example, ignite and holy fire will stop dealing damage, Renew will stop healing, Dark Channel by Naomi will paralyze her forever, unless killed, ecc...

These two should be top priority to fix, they can really break the game if someone is not willing to endure through it.

Then there's a few other minor issues:

1) After you get out of jail, you can take the ship and go back to the frozen land, if you take the ship again you will teleport to the throne room of Eldelyn stuck there with your characters and Garome, no one will interact, you have nowhere to go, and if you save, you're screwed and have to restart. (I didn't do it, whew =D)
2) In Eldelyn, when you're supposed to go out and take the airship for the first time, if you go back to the throne room the screen will move up towards the councile and you won't be able to do anything, except opening the menu, saving and screwing the game entirely. :P
3) Equipment from shops seems to be generally overpriced, perhaps with the exception fo the Mithril Axe that costed only 1000 and well, that was a no brainer. Everything else seems to require a rather unbearable amount of grinding.
4) So General Garris could use the Bardiche and a Shield but Corran can't? Corran can't wear Mithril Plate but Darryl can? errr...
5) Ashlynn does not gain TP in battle with attacks dealt or received, but only with the turn flow, because of the second major issue I posted earlier, this makes her tremendously underpowered and borderline useless.
6) Kain, by contrast, has the Dual Slash special, that is completely overpowered and I see no reason at all to use the normal attack with him. It costs zero, gives a lot of TP and deals more damage than any other of his own skills. Mistery. At least give it a cooldown.
7) Darryl's Blizzard is too good for only 8 MP. It makes all other spells retire, more or less. Maybe it should cost 28 MP instead.

And finally, about the voice acting:
I didn't like it, sorry, I found it cringeworthy. If you want my opinion I would remove it entirely as I don't see how voice acting can enhance a game unless it's top-notch AAA blockbuster stuff. Sorry for being brutal about this. Still, I wouldn't think that this could ruin the game if you decided to stick with it. I'd just lower the volume when it happens. :P

In the end though, I really enjoyed this game, I think you're really on the right track with this one, and with a few fixes and adjustments in the key areas I mentioned you could truly turn this into a little masterpiece.
Keep up the good work and looking forward to seeing the next releases!

Slimer! Monster Quest

It's a funny little game if taken for what it is, an amateurial game with no big pretences. I actually appreciated the choice of making monsters good and humans evil. A change of pace from the same old "band of teenagers" plot.

There are a couple of spelling errors, but I suppose it's understandable since the author is not a native english speaker and actually most of the dialogue is written right and you get the gist of the plot immediately.

There is a lack of polish, though. Redundant spells, poor balance (Ogrus especially becomes useless later on, Slimer becomes a two trick pony with poison cloud/bodyslam and the rest is done with ailments or nukes by the imp and the succubus), characters having the same weapon when they should not (the imp and the succubus have the slime's poison in their main hand slot like Slimer).
The Iron Axe does not have an attack animation.

I'll also point out that there are two points in which the game does not really give any clue on how to progress, the first one nearly made me quit the game, the shiney for the imp is apparently a random drop from a random encounter (and up to that point there were no random encounters in the game), but if you don't meet wisps or you meet them and they don't drop the shiney you'll be thinking that there is something wrong with the game and that you're stuck because of an oversight, or that this is a demo and incomplete.
The second one is in the tower of Miria, where you have to kill deaths to proceed, even though there's no hint about it, and those deaths fly away most of the time and force you to wait and hope they'll be on a walkable tile so you can engage them.

One final note is that the boss battles are too easy because status like stun/poison/paralysis/confuse/silence (that you have in abundance) also work on them. The final battle has 3 bosses and they managed to give me 2 hits in the whole fight, they were disabled by ailments and killed off by poison (which isn't even that slow). The fact that you can buy for cheap items that increase HP, DEF, MDEF early on makes everything even easier and if someone spent a few minutes (!) farming, he could be immortal right from the beginning.

I still think that this game could be improved a lot with a few minor tweaks that would, overall, take less than 1 hour of development time. Of course it's up to the author to decide to do that or not.

Schizo Quest 3.0

author=Ironhand
Any feedback?

I have to say that overall the game is fun, the humor is done well, and there's lots of secrets, mini-games, ecc... I happen to like the characters too. Mike's a favorite, always arguing with the story and npcs. =)

There's a couple of negative things I'd like to point out:

1) Balance seems to be off in many aspects. The First Chimera boss is overpowered, in general all monsters are too fast, but this chimera manages to breath your entire party 3 times before you take action with non-rogue characters, considering the elemental system he will get Ice damage up to 200-300% faster than you can tone it down by using fire spells (and your fire spells will be weaker and weaker). It took me a lot of farming to beat that, and for being one of the first mandatory bosses of the game, I don't think that's really appropriate. Then there's unbalance between characters too. Richie (the gunner) is probably the strongest dpser of the game, since he can dual wield cannons that have very high ATK, the vampire appears to be useless eve after the class change and the class change for the 3 main characters does not seem something you can advantage of during normal gameplay, but only something that you should hold off for the very end, other characters can change class and get power ups right away with less trouble, this puts the first 3 at a serious disadvantage (imho) at start.
Then there's the accessory (Berserker Eyepatch I think) that gives 50 TP every turn and it's so godlike that I can't see equipping anything else (it's pretty cheap too).

2) Towards the end of the game, the amount of monsters becomes unbearable. There's something like hundreds of fight per dungeon. Castlevania took me 2 hours. 1 hour and a half was spent fighting groups of 2 Vampires. That's just not fun. Then I went to a maze-like dungeon that was even worse and after roaming in that place for another couple of hours I gave up on the game because I felt disheartened by something that who knows how long it would have taken to complete.

I didn't finish the game because of reason n°2, I think I'm stuck in that maze after doing Castlevania and there are so many monsters I completely lost the will to continue.

Overall I still think it's a good game, but if I were you, I would take a look at these two things, balance and amount of encounters, as they seem to be off.

Dreams of a Hero

Nice game, I finished it a few days ago.
You really put a lot of choices in there, that should really help with replayability. I had quite a bit of fun reloading and seeing how each different choice affected the story.
The only thing I don't like of are those QTE-like abilities that require you to press a key at the right moment. Especially if it's a key that I normally don't use.
Couldn't you use the original version of Dvorak's from the new world for the boss theme though? Now THAT would have been epic. =D

Labyronia RPG 2

Hello there, I think that overall this is a good game. I've seen a lot worse than this.

I like the characters and the balance, the story is not bad, there's a good sense of progression and exploration.

Let me point out a few things that I would change/improve if I were you:

1) A couple of zones have a too high rate of random encounters: The Elven Prison where you go free Dynion the first time and the Abyss room before the northern exit (the one that you need to have the pickaxe to proceed). These two are incredibly frustrating and not in line with the rest of the game in terms of encounter rate, if I were you, I'd make encounters (way) less frequent in those two zones.

2) Bechus gives only 4000 exp. How come? Shouldn't he give 40000 instead? Doesn't make much sense that he gives less than some random encounters and way less exp than previous bosses.

3) The Quizzer boss at the arena is way too punishing for people who are not 100% paying attention to the lore of the game and skip some text or don't explore everything. You may want to change that "Wrong answer" from an instant kill to something that just makes the fight harder, but still possible.

4) This has probably been pointed out already, but characters that follow you trigger failure in certain puzzles (like in the Elven Palace, that was place was a nightmare because of it). This is especially troublesome for The Ice Giant field treasure chests if you don't get them right away but return later with 4 party members, I know it's still doable, but I don't see why I should be penalized for that. If I were you I would either make the followers "untouchable" or just remove their sprites altogether and have only Garic's. It would make things a lot less painful.

5) I've been in two situations where I saw messages from characters that were not there.
During the fight against Armagen's Aspect to free Ann from the nightmare in the abyss, a message from Windir pops up saying that there's no time to waste, however he was not in party. Also, when I got out of the abyss the first time, and returned to the human town where the former arena champion lives, while speaking to an NPC that says "may the fire god bless you" I got a reply from Dynion, even though he wasn't in party either (at the time he's in the hall of madness).


A final plight to help me finish the game:

I'm currently stuck at the halls of mirror in Armagen's Castle and I really have no idea what to do to progress though. Unless you give me the solution or a strong hint to it, I don't think I'm gonna finish the game, because I've been at hit for 30 minutes and still can't manage to understand what I need to do to get past this spot. I suspect that only someone who has played Labyronia 1 (I didn't) will easily understand what each character relates to.


But overall, I have to say that I enjoyed this game, and I thank you for making it and providing me a few hours of enjoyment, cheers!
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