SILVIERA'S PROFILE

I am amateur game developer, and even more amateur reviewer, currently in and out of college.

I am currently developing a game called Eternity: The Black Star along with Solitayre, which is nearing its first release.

I have extremely high standards, so please don't be offended if you believe that I have reviewed your game unfairly. My focus is on improving the body of a work primarily by pointing out what I think are its flaws, but feel free to ignore me if I am wrong (and I will be).

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Silviera's Review Requests

Game: Sacred Earth: Bonds

Battle System- 2/5
This game uses the traditional rm2k3 battle system, with plenty of extra features thrown in. The focus here seems to be on powerful Burst attacks, which function a lot like Limit Breaks. Once a character has used a physical attack three times, their Burst gauge fills and the basic attack command changes to list of available Burst techniques. On top of that after your party has used 10 Burst techniques, an incredibly powerful Final Burst technique will be available for use. The problem here is that you'll be using Burst techniques far too often, and they will always be your main source of damage. They appear so quickly you'll barely have to time to experiment with your other skills, and since everything other than attacking normally uses MP you're better off conserving for your Bursts anyway.

Instead of leveling up directly, your party's exp is stored in one pool from which any character can draw to improve a stat of their choice. This works well in theory, but unfortunately it isn't really balanced for rm2k3's ATB battle system. Some stats are far more useful to gain than others, particularly agility which if you focus on you will find yourself attacking 6-7 times to the enemy's 1. Since using normal attacks builds up the Burst guage, it only serves to further unbalance the system.

The bosses are where the system really breaks down. Many of the bosses will occasionally fire a ridiculous powerful attack, most of which you cannot defend against no matter how high your defensive stats are. Since there's a limit on how much max HP the game will let you gain, there are a few situations where a character will be instantly killed no matter what you do. Your goal usually ends up being to dish out as much damage as possible before the AI decides to use their game winner attack, or to stock plenty of items (and keep your agility high so you can move several times before the boss does) so you can bring up the characters that will inevitably be killed.

There are a couple other added features, such as a field effect that grants benefits during battle, but for the most part this doesn't have a large impact on combat. This game has a lot of good ideas at work, but none of them really seem to turn out as intended. Overall the battle system feels a lot more flashy than functional.

Storyline- 2/5
Your father is suffering from a strange illness, so you and your brother head off to a mysterious tower which will hopefully contain the cure for his ailment. As you progress through the tower's floors you'll eventually stumble on to a much more grave scenario which will require your intervention. One thing that struck me as odd while playing is that the two siblings spend a lot of time joking and messing around in the tower, despite the fact their father is supposed to be about to die at any moment. The overall narrative came off more as a fun adventure rather than a race against time.

Characters- 3.5/5
Even though I didn't find the story itself very interesting, the two siblings get plenty of worthwhile character development. There's quite a lot of banter between them, and you really do get the sense that they are brother and sister. The main problem in this category stems from the villains. The tower is absolutely packed with them, and you only encounter each one for a few brief scenes before the game moves on. As a result pretty much all of them suffer from a lack of development, and I felt it probably would've worked better if 2 or 3 of them had just plain been removed in order to focus on developing a few of the others. You never even find out what they're doing in the tower until the very end of the game. I also felt in some parts of the game the dialogue felt a bit forced, and in the rare case even out of character.

Level Design- 3/5
You spend the entire game in one massive 20 floor tower. Most of your time will be spent wandering around navigating mazes and trying to solve puzzles. Maps are well laid out, and there's occasionally the interesting puzzle to solve. The game implements a tool system, where you can select a tool using the number keys which will then activate in the appropriate situation. Although the idea comes off as novel at first, it eventually wears thin as this gimmick is overused. There's never really any innovation thrown in here, once you've figured out how to use the tool the first time every other obstacle you come across you'll instantly know how to deal with.

A main problem in this category is you'll be spending way too much time backtracking back and forth across an area looking for a key a switch to open a door, which will in turn have another switch inside of unlocking the next door, etc. etc. ad nauseam. Probably the worst thing here is you never know which door you've actually unlocked. You have to spend a lot of time checking each door to see which one is open. A simple graphical indication indicating whether a door is locked or open would have done wonders here.

Graphics- 4/5
As far as I can tell a great deal of the graphics have been ripped from various Summon Night games. The sprites are very well done, but the real eye candy comes in the form of the giant character portraits that appear during conversations. The battlers seem to have been ripped straight from Summon Night, and their animations have been flawlessly preserved. Battle animations are flashy and fun to watch, which is good because you're going to be seeing the same ones over and over. My only real complaint in this category is in the battle backgrounds. They are blocky and don't really fit with the overall graphical style of the game. The worst part is a lot of areas are associated with a certain element, causing the enemies and backgrounds to reflect this. It's pretty hard to see a group of red enemies up against a primarily red backdrop. That complaint aside, this is a good looking game.

Music/Sound- 4/5-
I really enjoyed a lot of the music in this game, and as far as I could tell most if not all of it seems to have been custom made for this project. Every song perfectly fits the scene, and the majority of them are pleasant to listen to. There's a bit of voice acting here as well, but it's never used during any of the story events. Unfortunately some of the voice clips used are of terrible quality, some of them seem to be suffering a severe case of mic feedback. Other than that hearing the same attack name shouted over and over again can become a bit grating, but overall it's not that big of an issue.

Random stuff I liked-
Veili gets angry any time you find an empty treasure chest. It was a small touch but I liked it a lot.

The final boss. Even though the fight itself is pretty unbalanced, it was still one of the more epic fights I've experienced.

Random stuff I hated-
You can't use items outside of battle, which is pretty annoying when you have someone who is half dead and you're sitting on a pile of healing items.

The menu system is terribly slow. It's slow to open, slow to navigate, and slow to close.

The strobe light puzzle in the electricity section. I mean, it wasn't a bad idea, but why in god's name did I have go through 15 sections of it? A single one would have been more than sufficient. Also, the constant screen flashing hurts my eyes.

Most teleport events transport you directly onto the teleport events of the next room. This means you can not immediately turn around and exit, and that if you attempt to move left or right upon entering the room you'll end up walking out accidentally.

When adding stats to characters, you cannot see their current totals. It's annoying to have to go back a few steps in the slow menu to make sure you're developing your characters equally.

Your character comments every time they pass the slightest obstacle. Every time they hit a switch, every time they shoot an object, every time they break down a barrier. It's fine the first few times you are using that tool, but after a while the player doesn't need to hear it.

Veili's eyes are...enormous. Even gigantic for an anime character. We're talking 3/4 of her face enormous.

Final Thoughts-
A fun dungeon crawl that is mired with technical issues and poor balancing. If you can deal with the random hiccup now and then, and possibly the odd crash, this one is worth checking out.

Overall Score 2.5/5

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some extra notes for the Developer

I really apologize if I came off as overly venomous in the review. Unfortunately I found myself playing a game I really wanted to enjoy, but was weighed down by so many technical issues and strange design choices that it ruined the experience. Since I want people to improve as developers I feel the need to mention every slight flaw I encounter in the hopes they'll agree with a few of them and attempt to correct their mistakes.

I found it interesting that your game uses a substance called Ether as its source of magic energy, as my own game's universe uses this as well. They even share a lot of similarities such as both being contained in the atmosphere and being composed of 8 elements, though we did not come up with the same 8.

I can tell you put a lot of effort into this game and I'm confident you'll do much better with your sequel.

And lastly, the bug report. I read you weren't working on this game anymore, but I figured I'd mention them anyway:

Using the Final Burst technique in battles with more than one enemy would frequently crash my game. This occurred when my character attempted to Final Burst twice in a row and tried to strike an enemy that was already dead.

On the map Floor Six>Valesta Library, Maron is set to wander around the room randomly. Unfortunately after you examine the bookshelf in order to advance the plot, your character begins moving to the right. If Maron happens to be standing in between you and your destination the game will freeze right there.

Gunnar's LF and EP display do not work properly.

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Looks like Cyber Factor is up next. You people are running me ragged, but I shall persevere.

Silviera's Review Requests

My first impression was that the mapping was too big and empty, but as soon as I acquired the Map and left that first hub area the problem pretty much disappeared entirely. The best maps definitely come in the later parts of the game, but since I felt the pacing of the adventure was superb it really only made sense to me to start the game off with the most basic of obstacles.

You're more than welcome to add my review to your site.

Silviera's Review Requests

Game: Pokemon Hunter 3: The Search for Curly's Gold

Battle System- 4/5
The game uses strictly traditional combat, and appears to be loosely based off the Pokemon skill sets. The game absolutely excels in balance, difficulty, and above all pacing. The first hour or so eases you into the battle system, and by the halfway point bosses are frequent and challenging. Status effects have a high land rate, both on your party and on enemies. They even work nicely on bosses. The only real twist thrown in is that during combat certain Pokemon may evolve into a new type. If you're not careful an easy encounter may turn into sudden death as the threat level drastically rises.

Now on to the few gripes I do have with the battle system. The first is that not all of the skills you obtain will be useful. In fact, by the end of the game I had nearly 20 abilities per character and usually only employed 2 or 3 of them per battle. The second is that you're going to be grinding, a lot. Although combat is very fun, it can get tiresome when you get stuck on a boss and have to spend the next 30 minutes killing the same few groups of enemies over and over. The second gripe is that elemental weaknesses are barely effective, for the most part I was just better off using my highest damage skills no matter what element they were.

Storyline- 3/5
You are a group of random adventurers or some such, hired by to be bodyguards by a mountain mining crew. Your task is to guard them while they obtain rare fossils to sell off at a huge profit. You are getting paid based on what they find, so there's no slacking off. Unfortunately as you attempt to clear out a room of monsters containing these valuable fossils, a strange shadow appears and causes a gigantic cave in. You'll have to find another way in to the room, which is unfortunately a lot harder than it sounds. That's about as deep as the main narrative gets, but the real storyline actually comes from exploring the mountain. It's full of mysteries, and there's a real sense of exploration as you wander its various tunnels and traps. In a lot of ways, what you get out of the story in this game will be what you put into it. There are so many optional events which give you background on the mountain and its history, and they all serve to make you curious about what is really going on inside of it.

Characters- 3/5
Let's see here...we have a few one dimensional RTP heroes known as Team Awesome, and the Avalanche crew from Final Fantasy 7 (minus Cloud). For the first thirty minutes of the adventure I was repulsed by this cast. However as I played on a curious thing happened. They grew on me. Eventually I just accepted that these were well developed characters who just happened to look like the cast of a certain Squaresoft game. Although some minimal effort seems to have been made to retain their personalities from Final Fantasy 7, it's not long before you start viewing them as a mining crew. Really instead of the FF7 cast and the weird cameos you could pretty much insert any other character in their place and everything would work just as well, without the initial repulsion. Team Awesome also requires a bit of elaboration. Although they are very one dimensional, they are quite likeable. Some of the cast gets a lot more screen time than others, and you'll probably leave the game attached to at least a few of them.

Level Design- 5/5
The maps in this game are absolutely enthralling. The entire game consists of two locations, a gigantic mountain and the base camp located just outside. The camp grants all basic town functions and all the shops update as you progress throughout the mountain. Nearly all of your time however, will be spent exploring the depths of the mountain. The mountain is divided up into various sections, all based on some theme such as fire or electricity. Accompanying each section is usually a set of mazes, traps, and puzzles all closely tied in to the theme of the area. The real gem in this category comes in the form of the various obstacles and puzzles that will be barring your progress. There is an absolutely ridiculous variety, and you'll be seeing just about every RPG convention in the book as well as a few innovations here and there.

Each area will generally introduce you to some core mechanic you'll have to understand in order to solve some of the more complex situations coming up. As you progress through the area, things slowly become more complicated until they eventually culminate into some monumental task. As the game progresses these puzzles become more frequent and more difficult, and it is really the pacing of this adventure that allows it to function so nicely. On top of all that the mountain is crawling with hidden items, secret passages, buried treasures, and a whole lot of other surprises. Since the game does start off a bit slowly you likely won't be initially impressed, but it's definitely worth sticking it out for the hour or two to see how things develop.

One of the best additions here is the inclusion of a map. You can bring it up through the item menu at any time, and leave it on the screen while you explore if you desire. Aside from helping you figure out where to go next it's invaluable in making your return to base camp as quick as possible.

Graphics- 2/5
A mix of RTP, Pokemon rips, a few choice edits and the odd cameo. I actually thought the Pokemon graphics fit rather well with the RTP, but there are a few occasions with other graphics where the style really clashes with the rest of the game.

Music/Sound- 2/5
Mostly RTP here, with a few extra songs brought in. Although song placement is always appropriate most of the tracks used are extremely bland. I tended to just zone out during most of it.

Random stuff I liked-
Snippet is awesome. That is all.

Random stuff I hated-
The enemy death sound effect is set to a low pitched cat mewling. The first time I encountered this I was confused, after I realized just what the sound effect actually was I became enraged, and a few hours in I reluctantly accepted I would be dealing with this for the rest of the game.

Final Thoughts-
Despite a few unusual design choices, this is a solid game for anyone who enjoys difficult, superbly balanced combat and engaging dungeons. It's also quite the lengthy adventure, so expect to be playing it for a good 10-20 hours depending on how many of the extras you choose to explore.

Overall Score 4/5

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Some extra notes for the developer-

Congratulations on making such a bug free game. I didn't explore everything, but I didn't encounter so much as a single typo.

Game Completed in: 11 Days
Game Completion: 42%

That figure disappointed me quite a bit, I may have to take a second pass at this game someday. On the plus side, I did find Curly's Gold.

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You people need to stop sending me quality games. My efforts to be viewed as a harsh reviewer will fall through at this rate.

Legacies of Dondoran Review

I've got to clarify a few things here. Generally I'd give a game a 2/5 if it just took the default battles as is, and didn't touch a thing. I'd bump that up to 3/5 if things were decently balanced, and higher if they are superbly so. My real problem with a lot of games, this one in particular, is that they have taken the default battle system and made it even worse through terrible balancing and systems that slow down combat for no real reason.

I also want to make something else clear, your game can have a completely awful battle system and I will still be able to enjoy it. The deciding factor is how much time the game makes me spend playing through portions that I hate. Unfortunately a lot of developers like to pad their playtime with grindfest mazes, and this game in particular is one of the worst offenders of all.

My overall score is not an average of the scores I have given a game, but rather how a combination of how much I enjoyed it and how well I thought it was designed. If your game has the worst battles I have ever seen, and I rate it a 0/5, but your game happens to be a 10 hour epic where you spend roughly 5 minutes of the game in combat, it will not effect your score in any way. I'd like to point you to one of my other reviews http://rpgmaker.net/games/733/reviews/525/ ,where I thought the core gameplay was great but it was filled with terribly written, lengthy, and unskippable cutscenes which dragged its score lower than it should have been.

I have to note this game's only other focus besides the endless battles is the storyline...which I hated, so there's really no redeeming quality here to bring my rating up.

I do appreciate your input on the matter, I just don't want you to misunderstand me based on what you have read so far.

Silviera's Review Requests

Game: The Tiamat Sacrament

Battle System- 3/5
You'll be spending a lot of time at this part of the game. Battles are fairly traditional with a few nice twists thrown in. The most important of which lies with the main character, who is a dragon, and has the ability to inhale magical runes and exhales to produce vicious attacks. Inhale a rune of fire, and you'll breathe a torrent of flame to roast your enemies, inhale a rune of water and you'll be able to call a healing rain down upon the party. This game mechanic serves a second function as well, as your main character will evolve into a more powerful type of dragon after he has consumed enough runes. The rune type you have absorbed most determines your dragon's next form and abilities. On top of all that, every time you evolve the number of runes you can inhale at a single time is increased, allowing you to combine runes for more powerful or interesting effects.

While I enjoyed all of this quite a bit, there is a fundamental problem to the battle system. Runes are annoying to acquire. You can only obtain them through the use of your second party member, who has next to no fighting ability and is mainly there to provide support. She begins the game with the ability to turn an enemy into a Rune, but only if they are at 5% max hp or lower. It is pretty damn hard to get an enemy to that life without killing them. You can upgrade her weapon to increase the effectiveness of this skill, but by the end of the demo I could still only capture enemies with 15% or lower of their life total. Since most enemies tended to die in two or three hits, even less if I was using skills, I constantly found myself missing opportunities to grab Runes even though I was actively seeking them out.

There are a few more twists thrown into the battle system as well. The dragon can learn extra abilities by equipping stones you'll acquire throughout your adventure. At the beginning of each battle he absorbs a bit of the stone's power, and after you've fought enough he'll be granted a new ability. Although these skills are useful they pale in comparison to inhaling Runes. Your supportive party member has the ability to Observe enemies, which will give the percentage of their hp remaining, and also allow her to copy their skills if she observes it used multiple times. The bosses are challenging, and will require you to be carrying a large stock of runes to have any chance at victory, which unfortunately turned out to be tedious to gather.

Storyline- 3/5
A standard take down the evil empire plot by collecting a series of items, though since it is told from the point of view of a dragon it tends to be more interesting than most other of its ilk. The author takes their time to develop dragons a bit further beyond their typical fantasy stereotypes, which is a nice touch I appreciated. The script has an old school fantasy vibe about it, which may appeal to some and not to others. Overall the story kept me curious about what was going to happen next, but I was never on the edge of my seat or anything.

Characters- 3/5
It is fun to play as a dragon. The main character is easily the most interesting of the cast, sort of mixing the innocence of being a newborn with the arrogance of being a powerful dragon. There are a couple nice touches in this category, such as the dragon's inability to use items because he can't open their contents with his claws. The rest of the cast was quite forgettable, including your other party member. As of the demo I didn't get to see much of the villains, other than a random subordinate of the emperor terrorizing the village folk and an evil duke who doesn't get much screen time.

Level Design- 4/5
Definitely a high point of the demo. You'll spend most of your time in dungeons full of interesting and occasionally unconventional puzzles. You'll spend a bit of time thinking, but there's enough hints strewn about that you shouldn't get lost anywhere. Most of the dungeons are short and rely on a single theme, and you'll be finished with them long before they overstay their welcome. Town design is rather lackluster, with buildings strewn about randomly separated by nothing more than a few trees.

Graphics- 2/5
A mix of RTP and various other graphics floating around on the web. Most things look decent enough, especially our draconic hero. Unfortunately since the graphics come from so many sources they often appear inconsistent, which was occasionally distracting. This is most noticeable in the enemy battlers.

Music/Sound- 2/5
Everything was ripped from other games as far as I could tell. Most of it seemed to be from Wild ARMs, Final Fantasy, and Breath of Fire. Having so much high profile music was a big turn off to me, in particular the music from Final Fantasy as it's almost universally recognizable.

Random stuff I liked-
Playing as a dragon. I think it deserves mentioning twice.

Random stuff I hated-
NPCs are set to always have their walking animation active, even when they're standing still behind a shop counter. This annoyed me in old games and it annoys me here.

Enemies tend to have high agility, often higher than your own party. Since this game uses an ATB system, it means you'll be spending entirely too much time staring at the screen while waiting to act.

Your second party member joins with absolutely no way to attack enemies. Since she's faster than the main character, you'll be spending a lot of time asking her to defend until you've copied your first attack skill.

Final Thoughts-
A solid adventure with a great deal of potential. It's worth trying out, and definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Overall Score 3/5

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Some extra notes for the developer-
I encountered a strange bug with the fortune teller. When I asked her about my evolution progress, she listed the number of runes I had inhaled as listed below.

5 Earth
2 Fire
14 Air
1 Water

She then proceeded to tell me I needed another -11 Runes to evolve. I ended up evolving after the next 3 I inhaled.

The torches in the ice cave don't actually light, even after you've solved the puzzle. You can still progress as though they were, but it would look a lot better if you added a flame.

A typo in the Borderlands, just in front of the raft maker's house. When you examine the goddess statue you get the line "(It is a statue of goddess.)"

Another typo just after defeating the bandits in the Borderlands, Az'eur begins a line by saying "I'm not I'm suited..."

I noted in the review that I thought Runes were too difficult to acquire. Since they are both fundamental to character growth and to defeating the game's bosses, more than anything else I'd like to see them be easier to obtain. I suggest doubling the capture rate of each weapon, since even at 30% you still need to be actively trying to capture Runes in order to acquire them. Aside from that I wouldn't mind seeing an alternate method to obtain them, possibly even selling them in shops. You can make them expensive if you have to, but it's nice for the player to have more than one way to obtain such a central gameplay device.

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Now it's time for me to save the Titanic.

Silviera's Review Requests

Whoops, i had no idea I was being asked to review two games. I'll get to Solar Tear after I've gone through a couple other of these reviews.

Honestly, I didn't think I'd be flooded with requests this rapidly, but I'll do my best to meet everyone's expectations.

Silviera's Review Requests

Game: Dungeon Quest

Battle System/Gameplay- 3/5
This game is designed to be a throwback to the days when videogames first exited the era of Ascii code graphics. To its credit, it imitates this style very well. Gameplay consists of wandering around dank dungeons filled with monsters and treasure chests. Combat is extremely simplistic, any time you choose to fight an enemy you will be given 3 commands. Fight, in which you physically attack the enemy with either a Sword or your bare hands (Swords break after each use), Magic which lets you blast an enemy to dust as long as you have a Scroll handy, and Run, which will of course allow you to flee. Scrolls seem to instantly win the battle against every enemy with a few exceptions, while Fight is a bit more risky since you may take a point of damage while defeating your enemy (especially if you're out of Swords). There's a bit of randomization both to the outcome of battles and to what you will encounter in the dungeon, so you'll require a mix of strategy and luck to actually complete the game. The last boss requires 5 hits to destroy, so you'll need to conserve your strength to have any shot at completing the game. Combat does get stale after a while, but really you're not meant to be playing this game long enough to where it reaches that point.

Storyline/Characters- 2/5
You are a champion sent forth to rescue the princess from an evil villain. That's really the only storyline you get, and about the only thing I can say is since the story is nonexistent it does not detract from the game experience in any way.

Level Design- 3/5
The levels are simple, which matches the simple gameplay quite well. Every room consists of one or multiple locked doors, a few enemies, some treasure chests, and maybe a random merchant. The first enemy you kill, or the first treasure chest you examine, always drops the key which lets you advance to the next room. There are multiple routes to reach your final objective, some of which are far more dangerous than others, which adds quite a bit to the replayability.

Graphics- 3/5
Everything is drawn to mimic the old school style of the gameplay, and it manages to capture that spirit perfectly. Unfortunately it is marred by a few problems that those games once shared. The first of which is the tilesets are so dark it's pretty hard to see anything. The second is that doors are the same color as the walls, which will occasionally have you squinting at the screen trying to find the exit.

Music/Sound- 3/5
The game contains only a single song, which fits well enough with the style the game is going for. Sound effects also match up consistently with the games of that era.

Random stuff I liked-
A couple of the endings are quite amusing, but I won't spoil anything.

Random stuff I hated-
The Run command was completely pointless. The only time you get into an encounter is when you initiate it yourself, and since combat always ends in a single round there's never any situation where you'll see things are going badly and attempt to flee. The only exception is against the final boss, where the run command does not work.

Final Thoughts-
Overall this is a very average game that accomplishes exactly what it has set out to do. I felt it could have become a much more enjoyable title with a bit of innovation, but I suppose that wasn't really the point here. If you're a fan of the old school and are looking for a little nostalgia this is worth the 5 minutes it takes to download and play through, and is probably worth opening up every once in a while when you're feeling bored. Everyone else, stay far away.

Overall Score 3/5

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To Nemo- I'm not really sure what you meant by the Solar Tear area, but I tried to go through every route I could find.

As an added bonus, here are the scores from my playthroughs, in the order I experienced them.

Princess: 624
Dwarf : 895
Elf : 957
Knight : 1019

Silviera's Review Requests

Game: Speak No Evil

Battle System- 4/5
I am extremely impressed with how battles play out in this game, and thankfully there isn't a whole lot to the game besides this. Maps are absolutely covered in monsters, and most of the time you'll be actively avoiding combat as much as possible rather than trying to fight. When combat does rear its ugly head strategy is the name of the game. Every enemy has a clearly defined weakness, in fact they take 500% damage when struck with it which tends to kill them on the spot. Enemies often come in huge swarms, and since the game uses one of the most fast ATB battle systems I have ever seen you'll have to react quickly or you'll be dead in moments. You'll be seeing a lot of the same monster type, and their weaknesses stay consistent so after a while you'll immediately know how to deal with each enemy. Enemies level up as you progress, and learn new skills making them extremely dangerous if you let them live long enough to act. Although it tends to re-use a lot of the same monsters, it keeps throwing new types in with each area in order to keep you guessing.

Most standard RPG conventions have been completely done away with, and it only serves to enhance the battle system. Items have been thrown out entirely, and almost all of the gear you acquire is designed with a singular purpose rather than just mindlessly upgrading as you progress. Some gear raises a specific stat a modest amount, others provide much needed resistance to attacks or immunity to status effects, and other provide unique effects such as allowing a character to always act first or resist critical hits.

The only part of combat I didn't enjoy came in the form of boss battles. Most of the innovation was thrown out the window in favor of seeing who could dish out the most damage while keeping themselves alive. I also found that when a boss was nearly dead it was capable of killing my party members with a single well placed attack. I imagine this kind of problem would not have come up if I had spent more time grinding, but in this game that seems counterproductive. Although these bosses are fast paced and do require you to act quickly or be killed, they are just not as interesting as the normal combat sequences.

Storyline- 3/5
There's not a whole lot to the storyline here. The main character begins the game by running out on his angry mother, and runs off to his girlfriend's house. A few moments later they hear a noise outside and peer out the window only to see a gigantic army of the damned. A few break down the door and suddenly our heroes develop special powers to deal with them. Unfortunately despite killing a few the swarm is so gigantic their only hope is to run like hell. You spend the rest of the game fleeing from these monsters while recruiting other survivors. It did seem like the plot may have been leading up to something, but thus far it never really goes anywhere beyond the initial premise.

Characters- 1/5
This aspect of the game is disappointingly weak. The main character is soon afflicted with a condition that removes his ability to speak (hence the game title), but unfortunately prior to this event he had so few lines that his personality was not developed at all, it didn't really feel as though there was much point to stealing this character's voice. His girlfriend seems to be lacking in personality, and also doesn't speak much. Most of the lines are given by two supporting characters who will join up shortly into the game. The two of them are quickly involved in some dramatic scenes, but since you barely know these people any emotional impact is completely absent in what could otherwise be moving situations. Thankfully since the game is light on dialogue, you won't be spending a lot of time dwelling on this aspect of the game.

Level Design- 3/5
Every map in this game is designed with one purpose in mind, giving you a place to run through. The game begins with wide open spaces that allow you to easily escape from the swarms of monsters, but as the game progresses you'll quickly be thrust into small buildings with much less room to maneuver. Treasures are littered around, all of them equally as dangerous as they are beneficial. You'll occasionally have to hunt down a key in order to pass through a door, but that's about as complicated as things get.

Graphics- 3/5
Everything appears to have been drawn with MS Paint. Although the game isn't pretty to look at, every object is recognizable and there's a consistency to the graphical style that I appreciated. There's a couple nice touches as the characters become animated during certain scenes.

Music/Sound- 4/5
A couple of the songs seem to have been ripped from various other games, though for the most part I didn't recognize a thing. Nearly every song is intended to create a sense of urgency, and they accomplish this goal well.

Random stuff I liked-
Battle animations are incredibly short, and since you'll often be fighting large groups of enemies with the same speed value it creates an interesting effect with characters being struck rapidly in succession. It really makes you feel as though you're being swarmed by a squad of vicious demons.

Between missions your party returns to a home base, which allows you to wander around and speak to your party before moving on. Since I hated all the characters it wasn't as enjoyable as I'd have liked, but still, the concept itself is a fine addition.

Save points are absolutely everywhere, which I found comforting in a game with frequent and painful deaths.

Random stuff I hated-
At one point I opened a treasure box and my entire party was poisoned. Much to my dismay, I was unable to use my status cure from the menu, I had to wait until a battle began before I could start recovering one party member at a time.

Near the end of the demo I became locked in a room with a save point, just prior to a boss battle. I didn't really see this coming and had saved my game in a rather difficult position. Although I was able to defeat the boss with a little luck, I didn't see any good reason to lock the door behind me which would allow me to exit and do a bit of grinding if absolutely necessary.

Final Thoughts-
An incredibly fast paced adventure with a solid battle system. Although it does have plenty of flaws, it focuses on its strong point which makes for a very enjoyable experience. If you're a fan of fast paced action and difficult combat, this game is definitely worth a download.

Overall Rating 4/5

A couple of extra notes for the developer. On the map Hotel Floor 2 there is a locked door which gives no indication that it is locked when examined. I noticed you used a sound effect indicating locked doors later in the game, so I imagine this can be fixed with a quick copy/paste.

The skill Arc Cleave is described as dealing physical damage to all enemies. However it's actually set to no damage type, which causes it to deal damage to enemies it shouldn't and be entirely ineffective on the things it's supposed to destroy.

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As for the rest of you, I don't think I'll be busy for the next few days so I will get started on the rest of these reviews.

Silviera's Review Requests

You've got it. I'll get to playing it immediately.

Silviera's Review Requests

I am taking all requests for reviews, it does not matter what you have used to make the game or whether it is a complete game or demo. It does not matter if you are the creator of this game or just a fan who believes it deserves a bit of attention. I've looked around and noticed several people are already doing this, but I figure it can't hurt to have another person available to take on requests.

I have taken on this mission for two reasons. The first is that I'm currently in development of my own game, and I am a strong believer in the idea that even if a game is horrible almost all of them have at least one redeeming quality. I plan to use this information to improve my own development (don't worry, I'm not looking to steal game systems wholesale or anything of that nature).

The second reason is that while I was sorting through the game archives of this site, I noticed a great deal of games, even completed ones, that had no review at all. If someone is going to sit down and take the time to create a game from start to finish, the least I can do is spend a little time providing feedback.

I must warn you in advance that I am a very harsh reviewer with high standards. If you're looking to bump up your score, I do not suggest requesting my input unless you are supremely confident in the quality if your game. I will provide an honest and objective review, to the best of my abilities. I will mention any part of your game that I enjoyed, and I will pick apart in detail every aspect I believe needs improvement. If I have reviewed your game at some point and you have updated it, you may request that I review it a second time in order to revise my rating.

I will attempt to finish all requests within a few days from when they are posted, but if your game is exceedingly long or I have a lot on my plate then you can expect some delays.

Upcoming Reviews:
Lucadia
Omnisia
Ascendence (after the next version is released)