Finding Light

[h1] Finding Light [/h1] [b] Trip to Heaven's Door [/b] [h1] 📋 Premise [/h1] Finding Light is a handheld-style RPG game that brings back the old GameBoy adventures with its grayscale tones. Developed and published by Joshua Keith, Finding Light takes place in the same universe as its predecessors: Knight Bewitched and Mari and the Black Tower. Even though it is a brand new experience story wise, the repeated mentions of characters and events from previous games might confuse a new player. Finding Light doesn't aim high. Whilst it's not a game that wants to offer you the absolute best content for its genre, it does an amazing job in giving a fast-paced experience, full of funny dialogues and retro-esque features. [h1] ✅ Pros: [/h1] • Nice story and fast-paced narrative • Appropriate, and funny, usage of fourth-wall breaking dialogues • Different difficulties, fit for who wants to enjoy the story over the combat and vice-versa • The pixeled artwork is pleasing and 8-Bit RPGs fans will feel right at home [h1] ❎ Cons: [/h1] • The game easily falls prey to repetitiveness • Sudden difficulty spike forcing the player to grind for more levels • There are a few annoying bugs and a game-breaking one [h1] 🎮 Gameplay: in depth [/h1] [u][b] General information [/b][/u] Finding Light takes from the old RPG classics, creating an endearing adventure that isn't for everybody. While the game doesn't try to be massive, the fast-paced narrative makes up for the relatively small world we're thrown in. So small, in fact, that it might even leave you a bit confused. Finding Light's world isn't "contained" within borders, on the contrary, it tries to portray a round world: this becomes particularly noticeable once we start sailing, flying or swimming underwater. If, for example, we start from point X and arrive at point Y, whereas we wanted to go on even further, we will eventually end up at point X once again after having traveled all the "globe". Even though this is a smart little detail, it often isn't so welcome. In many instances, the developer has created maze-like dungeons and having the map endlessly repeat itself can be disorientating. If at first, the game's world appears too small and voided of locations to visit and dungeons to explore, you'll be delighted to find out that Finding Light's world is actually built in layers. You'll be starting in the Overworld, and you'll soon find out that the world offers lands way up in the sky, cities underwater and even kingdoms underground. Exploring every location that each layer has to offer is important for lore lovers since most of it is only explained by talking to inhabitants. The biggest fault in Finding Light probably takes place in this portion of the game. The fast-paced narrative combined with a handful of throwbacks to past games can result very confusing for someone that is making their first approach towards Joshua's works. Many past events are connected to the heroes we will be finding on our path. Even Mari, our protagonist, and Abbie, her partner, origin from another of Joshua's games: Mari and the Black Tower. Thanks to funny and embroiling dialogue choices, however, the plot-hole gets put on the back burner. Like many other RPGs, Finding Light falls prey to a common fault that has always plagued games of the genre. Repetitiveness. Traveling around the world will always result in getting involved in countless random battles. While you could avoid most of them by escaping as soon as you get to the battle screen, it is not advised to do so because of the terrible difficulty spike that hits around late mid-game. [u][b] Story [/b][/u] The story is straightforward and lacks detailed narrative. We take control of Mari, a nymph that along with her partner, Abbie, had previously saved the world from the Black Tower's threat. Upon doing so, Abbie mysteriously disappeared and Mari returned to her homeland to mourn and seek some peace. The sudden appearance of what people call "Heaven's Door" will finally put Mari's gears in motion again, and along her magical pet companion, Roxie, she'll set out on a journey to find and ultimately save Abbie. Other than Mari and Roxie, other four characters will join our party. Most of them are characters that in previous games and timelines were tied to the world's fate. [u][b] Combat [/b][/u] The combat system is what really shines here. While it is not innovative nor unique, the fact that it neatly brings back old-style turn-based RPGs features like the ones we used to see in the first Final Fantasy games truly warms one's heart up. Our fighting formation is composed of 4 out of the 6 characters that we can have in our party. The way they are located from left to right does not affect who is going to attack first since the characters with the highest AGI stats will be going first. When it is our turn to choose what our characters will do, we are presented with many different options: attack, magic, skills, defend or items. Thanks to the magic and skills palettes, many are available to us when deciding how to set our party up. Magic wise there's no limitation to which characters can use said spells. Skills are usually tied to the type of gear you're wearing or the weapon your character is wielding. Blunt weapons are more likely to have melee skills, while scepters are more likely to have spells bound to them. Contrary to what you might have experienced in other games, Finding Light always allows you to be able to escape battles unless they are boss battles or plot-related fights. This generally spares the player from hours of pointless fighting while traveling between locations. [u][b] Content [/b][/u] Finding Light is a relatively small game and even though it's hindered with some necessary grinding, it can easily be finished with not much effort. The different difficulties could, however, entice the players offering dozen hours more of playtime. The achievements themselves tease the completionists by telling them to defeat the final boss at the hardest difficulty. [h1] 🔬 Technical Analysis [/h1] [u][b] Graphics [/b][/u] Joshua Keith has remained loyal to the old-style 8-Bit RPGs and this is clear from the very first moment we start the game up. While it obviously does not offer anything new, the pixeled world of Finding Light is detailed and pleasing to the eye. [u][b] Music [/b][/u] The music is never absent throughout the game and is characteristic of the genre. It offers us a soundtrack that shares many similarities with the tunes from old games such as the very first Pokémon ones, for example. [u][b] Performance [/b][/u] There aren't any significant performance problems besides the occasional stutters here and there during battles, usually followed by a crash. [u][b] Bugs Encountered [/b][/u] The game presents a few bugs and a particularly game-breaking one. Not saving frequently enough can easily ruin your experience in Finding Light. - Got stuck in the walls while in the Tower of Trials - Frequent crashes during battles - There's no way of getting unstuck when exiting Tiamat's cave after the boss battle: leaving the room through the stairs will get you stuck in a stalactite [h1] 🎬 Wrapping up [/h1] Finding Light is definitely worth checking out for every fan of the genre. It's got all the features that make it a small gem and a work of art if we consider that the game has been made with RPGMaker. At the price it's being offered it's an incredible deal, given that the bugs that undermine the game are taken care of. [h1] 📈 RATING: 7/10 [/h1] Disclaimer: [i]This product was reviewed with a key provided by the developer for free.[/i] [quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/23741321/]Follow our curator page,[b] Alexander's Club Curations[/b] if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.[/url][/quote]