RPG Maker strikes again!
Fear Of The Dark is one of hundreds of low effort retro-pixel RPG Maker asset/construction kit flips spamming the Steam catalog, made with the RPG Maker video game construction kit... in their own words, "Our easy to use tools are simple enough for a child." Like all RPG Maker "games", this is essentially a bunch of low quality/canned assets from RPG Maker coupled with a cringeworthy high school anime club fan fiction.
As with all RPG Maker games, the poor quality engine displays badly in fullscreen and doesn't have full HD support or any graphics tweaking options, making this unacceptable for any dedicated modern PC gamer. The point can be made that the intention of RPG Maker is to make demos and small games to pass around friends, and shouldn't be used for "professional" game development.
There's a badly done "horror" theme slapped on this RPG Maker copy+paste, which is a break from the usual generic anime fantasy theme... but it's still bad, and this is certainly one of the worst RPG Maker games on Steam.
Gamers who want a good retro JRPG experience would be better off playing the originals, like Final Fantasy, Star Ocean or Chrono Trigger.
From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.
These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.
The poor quality of this game is reflected in the general public reception. At the time of this review, SteamDB shows the game only ever reached a peak player count of 2 (TWO) players... you can't make this up, that's how bad it is. This is a pitiful enough number, and now, the only player activity occurs once or twice a month, presumably someone loading it up to see what it is then quickly uninstalling it. Considering there's over 120 million gamers on Steam, the overwhelming lack of interest in the game is remarkable, but also to be expected. This complete and utter rejection of the game from gamers should be a keen information point for anyone considering buying shovelware like this. Gamers just didn't take this seriously, and for good reason. PC Gamers generally don't like RPG Maker asset flip trash.
You're forced to sign a highly questionable yet legally unenforceable End User License Agreement. Developers must learn they are here to serve gamers, not control them. I had my cat walk over the keyboard while the EULA was displaying, which fixed that problem for me. It was kind of funny to see a copy + pasted EULA slapped on an asset flip RPG Maker trash game, as if it was some kind of professional product or something.
Fear Of The Dark has an overly optimistic price of around $5 USD, it's not worth it given the defects and shortcomings with the product, especially considering the sheer number of completely free, much higher quality games on Steam.
[quote][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Response![/url][/quote]
The developer has weighed in to inform everyone they didn't read the [url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/reviews]Developer Usage Rules[/url] for Steam "partners", or they deliberately ignored the part where Valve says:
[quote]Though it may be tempting, not every review needs to be responded to. A developer response will frequently draw more attention than the original statement, potentially turning a small issue into a much larger community discussion. It's also not a good idea to use this feature to refute customer opinions. Your direct attention can be seen as validation or a defensive attempt to silence your customers.[/quote]
First up, the developer starts swinging and attacks me for being a troll, which is of course completely false and a coping mechanism from a failed would be "game developer" (although as I have mentioned, copying+pasting premade assets using the RPG Maker childrens RPG construction kit does not make one a real game developer).
The developer seems to think because I have written thousands of honest, factual reviews (most of them on bad games, but MOST games on Steam are not masterpieces!), that somehow this review for this bad game must be a troll? Ridiculous. My reviews are completely honest, factual, and most importantly, useful for gamers.
The developer insults all gamers by admitting that honest, truthful game reviews "hurts" the talentless hacks who make shovelware pollution like this, without considering how much harm they are responsible for by flooding Steam with thousands of valueless asset flips like this. This shows us the developer only cares about themselves and their own ego, and has ZERO consideration about what's good for gamers. This arrogance explains so much about this trash construction kit asset flip.
In an attempt to discredit the facts and validity of my review the developer seems to think that the game must be played for several hours before determining any objective facts about it. Apparently, before deciding a carton of rancid milk has gone sour, the developer thinks we must drink the whole carton before we're allowed to tell anyone the milk has gone off. What rubbish. [b]Playing a bad game for longer will not make the graphics better, cause the code to change, controls to become better, or fix any bugs or other defects in it.[/b] So why insist the game needs to be played longer? This is simply psychological denial on the part of the developer. If they can attack the review, they can pretend their game doesn't suffer from the defects this review highlights. This is outright delusion, unfortunately. [b]It does not take very long for the defects in this game to become apparent. Playing the game for longer will not change them.[/b]
Comically, the developer seems to think the reason millions of gamers "nothinged" this asset flip is because of a lack of marketing, and not because it's sheer garbage. That is true delusion.
The developers ranting, weird tirade ends with another accusation - that my review does not discuss the defects in the game? This is again complete BS as my review highlights all the things gamers need to know about this asset flip/construction kit copy + paste. The developer [b]agrees[/b] in their own response to these defects which I mention in my review about the game (and thus my review is 100% about this asset flip):
[list]
[*] The developer admits this is an RPG Maker asset flip (then weirdly claims they rebuilt the entire proprietary engine, thus infringing copyright and breaking numerous laws, but thankfully this is just another lie)
[*] The writing is bad/faulty
[*] The graphics suck
[*] They don't understand why it's bad the graphics suck
[*] That RPG Maker sucks and isn't intended for professional game development
[*] The developer can't do video game art properly
[*] The game is bad because the developer lacked the skill, training, talent and budget to create video games properly, but dumped this crap on Steam with a ridiculous $5 cash grab price anyway
[/list]
The developer openly admits to all these defects in this trashware asset flip. Why is this something that should be inflicted on gamers? Nothing in the developers pointless, dishonest response changes the objective facts about this terrible RPG Maker asset flip. My review stands unaltered.
