Firon is one of hundreds of low effort retro-pixel JRPG ripoffs spamming the Steam catalog. Like all RPG Maker "games", this is essentially a bunch of low quality assets (plus some truly laughable hand-made pixel "art") coupled with a cringeworthy high school anime club weeaboo fan fiction.
This crappy JRPG construction kit effort follows "Firon" through a mystery when strange things happen in a badly made 2D retro pixel town.
Firon is a template/asset flipped construction game. It's been slapped together lazily with the craptastic RPG Maker construction kit (a really old version, which is why my heuristic analysis picked this up as the hamster RPG maker). I originally thought this was made with OHRRRPGCE, the construction kit that seems to exist for one purpose and one purpose alone... to make RPG Maker not be the absolute worst construction kit plaguing the gaming industry. But no, the "developer" couldn't manage that and had to use RPG Maker, making this one of literally thousands of RPG Maker asset flips infesting Steam.
Why is this, like all other RPG Maker asset flips, to be considered an asset flip? Because it's just a construction kit game. The entire game is the result of dragging and dropping stuff in the RPG Maker interface, filling out templates. It's not a properly developed game. The entire game engine framework is one of the core assets any game uses, and when it's taken right out of the box with no effective changes or improvements, it's being "flipped" deliberately to make a game without doing the work of a game developer.
Some visual assets were apparently created by the developer, which explains why they look even worse than stock RPG Maker assets. I guess rule #1 of game development should be, don't use stock assets, so fine. Unfortunately rule #2 is, if your own assets look worse than stock assets, depart the industry. Of course, the game engine doesn't belong to the developer, or any of the game mechanics, none of that came from the developer, that's all Kadokawa's work. Flipped here, for profit.
Gamers who want a good retro JRPG experience would be better off playing the originals, like Final Fantasy, Star Ocean or Chrono Trigger. Leave this terrible fan fiction in the shovelware bundles where it belongs.
[b][quote][url=https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/marketing/profile]Profile Features Limited![/url][/quote][/b]
Valve have marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" at the time of this review. This is usually caused by poor sales figures and low community acceptance for the game (to date). Until this status changes, this game will not give you +1 to your Game Collector badge count, appear in profile achievements or any other Steam meta-accomplishments, nor can it be displayed in some profile showcases. If these factors are important to you, it may be worth holding off before buying this game.
[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]
I stand corrected and have edited my review to properly reflect that the developer couldn't work out how to use any construction kit more complex than the one specifically designed for children to use. That's in Kadokawa's own blurb for RPG Maker, by the way, "Simple enough for a child". So the developer here has taken a toy intended for children to use and even tried to profit from it (they have since made it free after it failed to sell). What a revelation, and I'm really glad the developer decided to breach Valve's guidelines to point this out. Is that going to encourage gamers to buy this?
But wait, there's more. Thanks to the developer drawing more attention to this RPG Maker asset/construction kit flip, I reviewed how popular the game itself actually was, and I've amended my review to also include the astounding revelation that the peak player count for the game was only ever 1 person. That probably explains the other revelation from my revisit of this review... Valve marked this game as "Profile Features Limited" due to the sheer community rejection of the game. It's no surprise as the deplorably poor quality of this game lead to mass rejection by the 12 million gamers on Steam. Out of 12 million gamers, only 1 player peak count. That's comically, embarrassingly pathetic performance for a game. Even after they gave it away for free!!!
I thank the developer for providing the opportunity to discover and share with gamers even more reasons why nobody should waste their time downloading this RPG Maker trash. I've amended my review to include these additional reasons the game has been rejected by all.
Edit: The developer insists the only things that can be called "assets" in games are visual. What a joke. Engine assets, middleware assets, sound assets... the developers sheer ignorance here explains so much about the poor quality of this product, but excuses NONE of it.
The developer agrees that their game looks crap because professionally made assets look better. A strange thing to admit to given the developers previous ignorance and dishonesty.
The developer doesn't understand that the popularity of a game is directly proportional to the quality of the game. Ignorance or self delusion so they don't have to accept the reality behind this abysmally crap game?
Edit: The developer once more demands that popular games have poor quality and only failed games have high quality... apparently. You can see the sheer delusion.
The developer absolutely admitted their game looks crap when they mentioned that the visual assets aren't professionally made.
Finally: Peak player count = 1. What a joke that the developer thinks this RPG Maker asset flip is high quality.
Attacking game reviewers will not change the fact that gamers rejected this failed RPG Maker asset flip.
[quote]Online Stalking and Harrassment[/quote]
The developer has started stalking me, delivering personal attacks and is attempting to publicly cyberbully and intimidate me by posting hitpiece videos and articles. Why? Because I wrote an honest and frank assessment about an objectively bad and failed product. It's an objective failure rejected by gamers, confirmed by SteamDB figures for the failed game, and for the other reasons I supplied in my accurate review.
Certainly, the hitpieces the stalker/developer here has linked up are false and misleading (for example, I've given positive reviews to 2D indie games in the past, but the "developer" here chooses to lie about that), but cyberbullies don't care about facts, they just want to intimidate and attack those for providing the truths the developer can't emotionally accept. This unhinged, unstable and harmful behavior from the developer is utterly unacceptable, and is a chilling attempt to silence the truth.
Now, you can look at the objective facts of my review, and then have a look at how this reviewer is attacking and intimidating reviewers, and suddenly the overwhelming rejection of these crappy GameMaker Studio ripoffs makes perfect sense.
I will not be intimidated or silenced by stalkers and bullies.
