A Space For The Unbound - Prologue

Why is everyone riding this game's dісk? It's complete trash.

[u][b]A Space for the Unbound - Prologue[/b][/u] is an extremely short story and character-driven 2D side-scrolling adventure game whose gameplay primarily consists of mundane fetch quests with little to do between the objectives. The prologue only takes 20-30 minutes to complete and doesn't entice you to purchase the full game because it does not represent the full game very well. If anything, it acts more as a teaser for the game and could have been condensed down to a trailer to save time. Overall, I don't recommend it because the gameplay is very drab, the emotional story is severely undercut by an overused trope which cheapens the experience as a whole, the main characters are bland and they barely have any personality to them, and it frankly does a lackluster job of showing all that the game has to offer because it doesn't introduce all of the characters or game mechanics compared to what the various trailers show. That being said, it does have a novel setting but this alone isn't enough to salvage it. [hr][/hr] [quote][b]S U M M A R Y[/b][/quote] • The gameplay is dull, uneventful, and the game would have been better off as a visual novel since there's a lot of travelling to and from various plot points but with little to no action between them other than optionally talking to NPCs; • The graphics are made up of wonderfully-drawn pixel art, though some animations have very few frames which results in them looking extremely stiff and disjointed; • The soundtrack is composed of soft piano and ambient folk songs, both of which are pleasant to listen to but aren't anything special by any means; • The story, at first glance, appears to be more of a side-story to the main game but the ending is awful and completely undermines the emotional connection that it forms throughout its short duration while the setting is original and references authentic Indonesian themes; and • The game uses the horrible [i]RPG Maker[/i] controls (arrow keys to move, ZXC as buttons) which can't be changed but it thankfully has controller support (including PS4 controllers). [hr][/hr] [quote][b]R E V I E W[/b][/quote] [h3]Gameplay[/h3] The gameplay revolves around performing fetch quests to find items and magically dive into peoples' hearts to help them face their inner demons and solve their problems which impede your progress. Although the magical diving is a mildly fascinating premise, the core gameplay loop of fetch quests is quite boring and merely acts as a delivery mechanism for the story. Additionally, the trailers and screenshots for the main game show a variety of quick-time events and even some sort of combat but none of this is showcased in the prologue which is disappointing and makes it feel misleading. Much of your playtime will be spent running through various screens and, while the backgrounds are nice to look at, having to run through a number of screens just to get from point A to point B is tedious especially considering that there is no interaction or engagement between the objectives. [h3]Story[/h3] The story is not representative of the one in the main game, at least not fully, and feels somewhat disconnected to the description on its store page which is "[i]A magical adventure about two high school sweethearts set at the end of their school days - and the end of the world.[/i]" Instead, we are presented with an emotional side-story involving a different character altogether which is meant to tug at your heartstrings but the ending completely undermines the entire journey of the prologue as it is revealed that [spoiler]everything was a dream[/spoiler] which is an overused trope. That being said, I will admit that this does work well as a cliffhanger to try to get you to buy the full game since it leaves you with far more questions than you began with but it does feel cheap and contrived. The characters don't really feel like they have much of a personality so the story relies on you either associating or sympathizing with one of the two characters who is going through a traumatic childhood which initially presents itself as a lazy replacement for personality and character growth but the short length of the prologue really limits how much the developers could have put in if they decided to anyways. The setting is perhaps the most interesting part of the game because it takes place in rural Indonesia in the 1990s which is a novel and unique setting and references authentic Indonesian cuisine, music, and whatnot; although, if you don't know what some of the things being referenced are then you'll have to look them up online to get some context which is cumbersome. As such, having an in-game encyclopedia of sorts would have been nice for this especially since it's trying to appeal to a more global audience. Meanwhile, the script and the writing feel a little stiff at points which causes it to not sound realistic but this is a minor point. [h3]Conclusion[/h3] Overall, I don't recommend this game because it's simply not worth playing since it doesn't represent the full game very well -- it's too short to showcase all of the teased gameplay mechanics and completely omits one of the main characters in the story. Moreover, the gameplay isn't engaging whatsoever while the emotional story is woefully undercut by an overused trope (although it does act as a good cliffhanger in an attempt to hook you into buying the game). I haven't played the demo so I can't comment on whether it does a better job of representing the game but I do not recommend wasting your time playing this and instead recommend just watching the multitude of trailers that are available and deciding based on those.