SAILERIUS'S PROFILE

post=143965
Finished playing Cast Aside and reviewed it, so I'm not playing any RM(N) games right now. Even though I (still) have One Night 3 sitting on my computer, I just don't feel like playing it.

Tiamat Sacrament and Vacant Sky. The former I like in some regards with several caveats, the latter has some serious issues. 3.5 and 2-2.5 from me respectively, so far.

I was thinking of playing Vacant Sky, but I hear that Act I has loads of bugs that weren't fixed even though they were fixed in the proceeding Act. Why would a developer do that? I'm not playing through a buggy Act I just to get to Act II, that's silly.

Act I was my first experience with making games and it was perpetually delayed, taking 2-3 years to be released. On top of that, it's not very long (around 40 minutes, compared to the 2-3 hours of Acts II and III). I decided to keep moving on with the project rather than sink even more time into Act I, and that I would revisit it after I had refined the system in the later games. Looking back, I'm glad I did that now. The new systems and gameplay structure I've developed in Act II (and perfected in III) should be pretty easy to go back and implement.

Although Act I has a couple annoying bugs, the reason I don't like it isn't because it's buggy. It's just very, very linear. I learned a lot from making it and I got a lot of valuable feedback. As a result, Act I and the rest of the game are so different that they can hardly be called the same game. I'm hoping for feedback on the latter two acts so that I know what works and what doesn't, as well as what needs improved, before I go back and revamp the entire series.

post=141158
i think the point that he is making is that people treat gamers like they're immature douchebags because the majority of gamers act like immature douchebags.

The reason the majority of gamers act like immature douchebags is because the majority of people are immature douchebags.

I'm stuck trying to find the fourth floor key. The diary page says it's in a room in the third floor but there are only three rooms I have access to on the third floor and I can't find a key in them anywhere.

EDIT: It's also possible to get stuck in a room on the second (?) floor. If you try to leave, it says "I need to answer the phone." but the line is dead.

post=140818
*cringes* You pick the worst line in the game -- which is optional -- to paint an example of what the dialogue is supposedly like which isn't...exactly the case, but I appreciate your opinion. That was literally the only reference to alcohol. Perhaps I should've taken it out, but I didn't think people would mind much since it wasn't apart of any main sequence the dialogue hasn't been "dirty" up until that point.

Must've just been bad luck on my part. Just before that scene started, I thought "hmm, maybe I should actually take some screenshots."

What level were you on? If you were at level 5, then the battle shouldn't have been nearly that difficult. Just wear the thunder-shock-ring and equip the gun and you're good to go.

I was level 5 and I was frequently in danger of going down in either two or three hits.

My guess is that you didn't buy new equipment, which increases your speed. Perhaps that is my fault for spiking the difficulty up too high at that point, but buying new equipment is important. The game gives you more cash then you'll know what to do with. But -- again -- perhaps I should've warned the players to check out the supply stores before entering the dungeon.

I didn't think I'd need new equipment since the enemies in the first dungeon was so easy. An indication to buy new equipment would probably be a great idea.

That shouldn't have happened. I tried to be very specific, but if you're ever lost, there are colored arrows that are supposed to guide you in the right direction. At that point, there are only a few of them in the town, and if you had just followed the main road -- you should've found Mace's place in about 3 minutes. The city isn't huge.

Maybe I just had bad luck and kept missing it. The first time I saw the building, I thought it was the apartment complex, which I had associated in my mind as "that orange place."

They were both given to him right before the dungeon started. When the game started, he only had a gun and no powers. He was just a regular guy. Were you paying attention?!?!?!?!?! (I kid)

I noticed, but there wasn't really an explanation given other than "hey, look, a sword" and I didn't pick up on where he received the powers.

That's like 1% of the plot. You didn't really get to it at all.


I appreciate your review although you played .5% of the game, but it failed to keep your interest and I take full responsibility for that.

Sorry, it's nothing personal. I didn't dislike the game, it just didn't hold my interest.

However, I don't believe the game was as difficult as you made it seem, especially not at that point. I tried to make it as "player friendly" as I could -- I put many healing crystals around the dungeons - I placed arrows showing the players locations that they can enter so that they won't get lost - and for the second dungeon in particular, you can enter and leave at any time if you're ill-equipped, you can always buy new gear and return when you're more prepared, as well as rest at the hotel if you needed to. Furthermore, you can save anywhere and the dungeons aren't very long. It seemed like you were just bad at the game. :\

I do wish you would've played a little further, for the story and the plot are constantly building, but I appreciate your opinion nonetheless.

Maybe it was just because I didn't buy new equipment. I honestly don't see how the first boss could be construed as not difficult, though, without grinding to a higher level.

Complete Chaos review:



Gameplay: 2.5/5
Battles are pretty run-of-the-mill for RPG Maker 2003 games. There's nothing that stood out about them in the 2 hours I played the game. They start out very fast-paced when you're only controlling the protagonist. At this point, you can kill any enemy with one attack and you can usually get through battles without taking any damage. Early in the game, I found myself thinking that the battles were so easy as to be trivial, but as soon as I fought the first boss, I saw that I was wrong. The problem with the battles is that the difficulty is all over the place.

The first enemies you fight are laughably easy, and then you're thrown against an extremely difficult first boss that had me scrambling to keep my health high enough so as to not be two-shotted by him, leaving me with little time to counterattack. It almost completely busted my item reserves. In the second dungeon, the enemies are all much more difficult (but net roughly the same EXP as the pitiful first dungeon's) and its boss is frustratingly powerful.

Because the difficulty is so all over the place, it's hard to determine what level you should be at in a given area. I found myself mindlessly killing enemies in the first dungeon over and over because it was so trivial a task before getting bored and challenging the boss. I was blown away by how difficult the boss was. I figured that if the regular enemies are far weaker than me, then I must be at about the right level to finish the dungeon.

Another gripe about the battle system is that as soon as you finish the first dungeon, you gain two new party members. Why is this a complaint? Because the battles are very fast-paced...when you're actually doing something, that is. Your ATB bars charge maddeningly slowly, leaving you spending at least three quarters of every battle staring at the crawling gauges as you wait for your turns to come up. Everyone's turn comes up at roughly the same time, which is usually about the same time that the enemies take their turn. As a result, whenever your ATB bar fully charges, you're assaulted by a clusterfuck of animations and numbers, making it hard to figure out exactly what happened and who's suddenly at low health or has a status ailment. After you finish entering your commands, it's back to waiting for the gauges to charge again before anything happens.

From what I played, the game plays rather linearly and there were no sidequests that I encountered. This isn't necessarily a flaw, but a few times I found myself unclear about where I had to go. Even when you're instructed where to go, you're rarely given a more specific direction than "at the very edge of town." The town is pretty well-populated and expansive, so it's eay to get lost wandering the streets and searching for which building you can walk into. After beating the first dungeon, I was told about who I had to meet next, but I don't recall being told where they lived. As a result, I ended up wandering the city for at least 45 minutes trying to find out where I was supposed to go. It was rather frustrating and brought me close to giving up the game.

One more complaint I have is that frequently, a character (usually the protagonist) will say "........", which takes a long time to write on the screen and for some reason, you can never skip it by pressing enter. It's rather annoying.

Story/Writing: 2.5/5
The writing is pretty mediocre. There are a couple minor spelling and grammatical errors, but it's not bad enough to stand out. The characters are all pretty bland and uninteresting. I can't remember any of their names, so I'll refer to them as Cop, Chick, Cousin, and Chief. Cop is your typical protagonist of a police drama, a stoic and bitter guy whose dialog consists of roughly 50% unfunny one-liners and 50% complaining. For some as of yet unexplored reason, he uses a magical sword and can shoot fireballs.

Your sidekicks are a little more interesting. Chick is your partner, the obligatory smart girl who catches onto things faster than you do and wants Cop to take it easy. Cousin is your not-very-intelligent cousin who wears a bright red hat and wants in every girl's pants. These two join you as you pursue the mysterious stalker who appears to have the power to summon demons. Chief is your staple black guy in a police drama, he's your hardass boss who takes no shit and keeps you on your toes.

The story showed a little more promise than the characters. Cop is charged with protecting a jazz singer who has been harrassed by a stalker called Face. After rescuing her from Face, you meet up with a local black gang that Cousin (who is white) is a member of. This gang is a ragtag group of anti-demon freedom fighters who know something about what happened ten years ago, which may tie into the motives of the mysterious Face. In the beginning of the game, there's an intriguing air of mystery surrounding the story, as you're given vague hints about what happened in the past, which left me curious to find out what they were building up to.

Disappointingly, the story turns out to be pretty generic: all-powerful crystals, uniting them bringing about the end of the world, et cetera. The promise of a mature and unique story was what kept me playing in spite of the lackluster combat, so my interest in the game quickly began to wane after it was made clear.



Speaking of a mature story, that reminds me of another complaint I have with the writing. Alcohol and sex jokes do not make your game more mature. They came across as very juvenile and hurt what was otherwise not bad dialog.

Graphics/Level Design: 2.5/5
The tilesets are pretty consistent. They don't look out of place and don't stand out, for better or for worse. Mapping in general is acceptable and functional. The addition of flashing arrows to show which buildings you can enter is a great feature that other games should have. I would've been very frustrated without them, as Complete Chaos sports a large city with many unenterable buildings that look alike.

The facesets are pretty poor. Aside from being pixelated and washed out due to poor color compression, they're also extremely inconsistent. The facesets of the main cast use real people, whereas the people you find in the streets have faces of anime and video game characters.

Sprites are acceptable, although I do have a complaint with the townspeople. In what's otherwise a realistic modern setting, why are there random townspeople with purple hair? Also, I found the presence of recognizable anime characters casually walking around town very jarring. At least twice, I walked past Nappa from Dragonball Z. Also, I'm pretty sure that one of your enemies has an AT-AT in his house.

Audio: 2.5/5
The audio is pretty average. The music and sound effects are what you'd expect from an RPG Maker game and nothing stands out as particularly good or bad. There's not much else to say about it.
Suggestions:
-Get rid of the facesets or make them more consistent. Also, use a program like Photoshop or the GIMP to make sure that you don't end up with washed out colors when you compress the images.
-Make the difficulty more consistent or at least give the player some indicator about how strong they should be to fight bosses.
-The time it takes to get through a door after pressing enter is too long. Shorten the animation.
-Give the player a map of the city with key locations indicated.
-Spread out the turns in the battle system so that you don't wait forever doing nothing and then give commands for all your party members at once.
-Don't use sprites or faces of recognizable people or characters.
-Shorten the "............" messages to just "..." or make them skippable.

Bottom Line:
Complete Chaos offers a modern setting which is a breath of fresh air, but it still can't escape overdone cliches which hamper the enjoyment of an otherwise intriguing and mysterious story. In spite of its fast-paced battles, the game takes patience and trial and error due to the unpredictable difficuly of the enemies you encounter.

2.5/5