Man, I have very mixed feelings about this game… On one hand, I did find myself enjoying this very tongue-in-cheek adventure about four misguided and mostly dimwitted “friends”. On the other, there were SO MANY little things that frustrated the hell out of me!
[u][b]Let’s start with the good:[/b][/u]
For the most part, battles are pretty straight forward. The classes for each character are fairly interchangeable, but essentially, you have 3 physical-focused characters and 1 magic-focused character. Honestly, I didn’t notice much of a difference in damage output between the 2 (magic and physical), and it was pretty tough to compare, due to enemies perma-dying. Each character can dish out a fair amount of damage on their own, and they each have their own form of support spell. Even so, they mesh together well enough to make a fairly cohesive unit. All-in-all, not a terrible system, but I’ll leave my nit-picks for later.
The story is sold as “light-hearted, unepic, fun, [and] cynical,” and it pretty much hits the mark. The only real story element that is consistent throughout the game is your party is WAY underprepared for what they got themselves into. Other than that, there isn’t too much substance. The story does sort of shift right at the end from “monsters have kidnapped our people” to “a demon ordered them to do it to ascend to a more powerful form!”, which was honestly a bit jarring, and not very consistent with the overall joke-y tone of the game. I will quickly point out that there were a few grammatical errors, but nothing too terribly distracting. Not bad enough to put in the “bad” section below, at least.
There is a bit of exploration within this short game; enough, at least, to justify the mention of it. The last few quests in the game require a bit of persistence and a bit of attention to detail in order to find, but they’re not so far out of the way that they would be easily missed. Most of the rewards later on are the “ultimate weapons” for each of the characters, which do give fairly considerable boosts for the final battle.
[u][b]Now, for the bad…:[/b][/u]
This first one is a bit silly, but I was bothered by the fact that skills that can hit two (or more) times on random targets were able to target already dead enemies. Yes, there are skills that hit more than once, but specifically only target one enemy, which I totally understand. Yet, when you pay a higher cost for a skill that is able to “reach” more enemies, why the hell does the second or third attack have a chance to hit a target that is clearly already dead? That’s just lazy programming! This is not a new thing, and it should be fairly easy to program into these skills. Plus, the higher costs of these skills make them almost strictly worse than their “single-target; two-hit” counterparts. I know this is a small thing, but this aspect royally screwed me on more than one occasion.
Sticking with the “random” theme, DO NOT MAKE FOUND ITEMS RANDOM!! This is not a rogue-like! I was about halfway through the game when I noticed that the gold piles you find on the ground would give paltry amounts of gold, which I thought was weird. I wondered if the amounts were random, so I tested it by save-scumming, and they were! The range of what they can give is insane, making them almost pointless, unless you want to save and reload until you get a decent drop! I wouldn’t have included this, but since all encounters are gone once you fight them, it means resources in this game are finite. Plus, having an achievement that encourages you to hoard gold drives the point even further that “gold is rare and precious and should only be spent in an emergency!” It sets a REALLY strange and uneasy tone. Yes, I am aware that there is plenty of gold throughout the game, and yes there are plenty of places where you can full heal for free, but it’s the effect it creates that makes it less fun and more stressful.
Speaking of the full heal spots, why in the ever-loving bull nuts would you program it to be random whether or not it would work?! This has [u][b][i]ZERO[/i][/b][/u] effect on gameplay, and it just causes players to waste time talking to the same spot over and over again until it actually sticks! Again, this may seem like a minor nit-pick, but I thought I had broken the game when it took me 5 or more attempts to get a full heal to trigger. It’s not fun, nor funny. It’s just EXCEPTIONALLY annoying. Random elements should be something that is (at least partially) within the player’s control, and actually has a meaningful effect on the game. OR something that has a small chance to trigger that gives a small Easter egg. This is neither, and is a great example of how to annoy your player-base.
One small nit-pick before I get to the last big one was the music. It wasn’t bad (nor was it good), but a lot of it was very repetitive and dissonant. Also, there was no boss music, except for the final boss, which was way more epic than it deserved. Not a terrible thing, but just something I thought was noteworthy enough to point out.
Finally, why would you taunt the people that payed money for this game by not giving ANY reward for a “monster-in-the-box”?!? There are about 5 or 6 chests that have fairly hard battles inside, and the rewards range from absolutely nothing, to some random healing items! This is insulting and not fun. The point of these types of fights is to have a “Surprise! You’re going to have to earn this treasure!” effect, rather than “hahaha, look at how dumb you are for opening this chest, which was just a big kick in the nuts!” It really just discourages exploration, and makes the player paranoid. “When was the last time I saved?” “How healthy is my party?” “Will I survive [i]opening a treasure chest[/i]?!?!” It’s dumb and very poor design. DO NOT PUNISH PLAYERS FOR EXPLORING IN A GAME THAT IS MEANT TO BE EXPLORED!!!!
[u][b]The Verdict:[/b][/u]
Even with my ravings in the “bad” section, I still think this should get a passing grade. Honestly, even though I was frustrated more than I wasn’t, I did have fun clearing everything out and getting all of the achievements (which, by the way, are fairly easy, but do take a bit of digging). There was a sense of satisfaction going back through older areas, not having to worry about getting into battles since I had already taken care of all of them. The upgrades that come with finding all of the best equipment make the final boss a joke, but, again, there was still a sense of satisfaction after I won.
Although this game seems like a school project at times, it still feels complete, which can’t be said for a lot of RPGMaker games out there. The price is fair, but it is a pretty short game, so it might be a twinge high for some people. Not a bad game albeit a lot of VERY annoying issues. Definitely give it a shot if you looking for something a little less serious and still fun.
