DRAGNFLY'S PROFILE

I think every student puts their projects on hold when exams hit. It's as natural as bears hibernating.

Wow that was a lot of notifications. I've been keeping them clear bit by bit but wow this thing exploded. Thanks for the Mark All As Read option though. Fantastic idea.

Back in the Dreamcast days of Phantasy Star Online a Gamefaqs user became infamous for saying abnunged instead of banned. So in the super ultra rare instance that I'd ever get banned (I don't think I've ever been banned from anywhere that counts) I hope it says abnunged.

Anyway I think a bunch of us learned stuff here. For me I was able to identify some potential issues in my own project (some bits of dialogue probably better used elsewhere to avoid clumping).

I'm skipping notifications for this review so if something comes up where I'm needed regarding this review, it's best to send mail since I won't notice update notifications.

Anyone who plays console jRPGs wouldn't believe that sites like IGN play 100% of their games before reviewing them anyway. It's common on message boards to see fans of games developed by Gust, Falcom, Compile Heart or Nippon Ichi expose points where it's obvious the reviewer didn't get very far. They have way too much work to do to tackle 50+ hour games. I forget if it was the GamePRO or GameFAN (wow I feel old) review of Xenogears (a game famous for it's brutally long dialogue while still being engaging) and it was clear that the reviewer didn't even beat the first disc.

author=eplipswich
Though it's true that the reviewer probably shouldn't give the review an official rating (maybe just mention the rating in the review).

I try to put a grade in all my reviews because, for a lot of people I know that's all they care about. It's sad that I give reasons and mention the good and the bad but it's just my experience that the number is all some people care about.

author=Liberty
At least he didn't make an account to create a fake review for his own game.

wait WTF really? ... Well I admit I thought the dev responses were immature and arrogant but if he did that then... wow. stiven I praised your game's art, music and the double protagonist system but all that feels wasted if you'd need to lie and cheat just to defend your creation. I'm more disappointed in this than in your game. Forget it. I'm out. There's no helping this guy.

I always loved ruins. So much history and mystery.

While I disagree with some of Shayoko's points I do share their overall rating.

Something that will really help you on future projects is to step back from your story after all the writing is done and think "does anything here contradict anything else?" and "is anything here that doesn't contribute beneficially" It's a common writing exercise that I've always done and now I see that I've been taking it's usefulness completely for granted. When it's not used the problems are so obvious that they suck the life out of the entire game.

I'm writing a proper review right now but in summary the game's biggest flaw is player engagement. Lengthy cutscenes only work when they're emotionally or intellectually engaging. While player engagement doesn't require player interaction (visual novels being great proof of this) without engaging the player physically, emotionally or intellectually the overall experience suffers to the point of being insufferable.

45 mins in, got into the main game proper, dropped.