Strangers of the Power 3 is a traditional 3D Jrpg released in 2019. The game was Developed by Tuomo Laine, and Published by Tuomo's games. This game was developed using Smile Game Builder.
STORY: 14/20
The story follows a girl named Marion who has a gift for healing. This gift made her want to become an adventurer so she takes an exam to become one. After passing the trials, she's sent to a neighbouring city to take care of some monster problem. Upon completing her first job it seems her actions has inadvertently threatened the lives of many people of the world, and even people close to her.
There's not much in game to drive the story forward, which I go into better in the 'GAMEPLAY' section. I would have liked to see more story than what there is to flesh it out a little.
GRAPHICS: 16/20
I love SGB style graphics and this developer makes use of a lot of the standard SGB RTP stuff, but also uses some custom stuff such as houses, monsters, etc. Town layouts feel very confined and could do with a little more spacing out, they also feel a little flat, they could do with some elevation but looking at the developer's website I can see that I think this is their first SGB game so he/she was probably getting used to how SGB works as he/she built the game.
Spells, monsters, and animations look nice but there's a couple of things I see that could do with altering/editing.. shields for example in battle are at a weird angle, running into enemies looks weird.. especially when you don't even swing your arms. I also noticed graphical glitches with shadows of housing and such. I love the custom character art when people are talking to each other though I find it totally weird that they all look stoned, they eyes.. O.O
SOUND: 16/20
The game has some custom music and also makes use of the RTP free music that comes packaged with SGB, even the sound effects used do both. The custom tracks are nice and suit the game very well. If there's one thing I have to moan about here is the use of that awful heavy menu selecting SFX, man.. it's ear piercing. It's not just this game that makes use of it though, it's nearly every SGB game I have played, more effort should be made to change that sound.. it's easy enough.
GAMEPLAY: 14/20
So the gameplay is a bit of a mixed bag for me, i'm not a fan of the 8-way directional movement in SGB at all, it presents issues with games that lowers the quality of the final product so I personally would not use it, clipping of walls and houses being one problem, i'd suggest to the developer to turn the 8-way directional off and use the standard movement based grid setting.
SO! the main gameplay, you explore towns, find hidden items, do some quests, defeat bosses and monsters causing problems in cities, all whilst following the game's story, when you can find it. Movement is all pretty traditional JRPG-like, same with battles.. it''s menu turn-based. Exploring towns is quite boring due to there not being hardly NO-ONE to talk to.. the first town has 1 NPC.. and he has a quest to fetch 92 items in a cave though it don't take long to do as they are all visible and not hard to get.
As mentioned before, most of the in-game dialogue is fine but there's times where there are grammar/spelling mistakes but i'm pretty sure the developer's native language is not English so it's still a pretty impressive job considering, and the errors can be corrected.
SYSTEMS: 15/20
Okay, having used (and using SGB myself to develop my game) I have quite an insight into how SGB works. This game makes use of the compass which to me seems like it's just a visual thing and not much else use. The SAVE system is made use of, INN system, shop systems, a quest system, and probably more as you get further into the game.
MY one issue I have (as with many other SGB games) it makes use of the free-movement (8-directional) system, THIS causes all types of problems in SGB games.. clipping of surrounding things such as walls, houses, etc. It also causes difficulty in lining up your character to do simple things such as open chests, go through doors and such. I would have probably not used that system if this was my game until issues are sorted with it by SGB's developers.
OVER ALL: 75/100
Well, this is certainly one of the better SGB games, worth the price though I feel it still needs a little work. So, do I recommend it as it is..? YEAH! it's not bad once you get used to the free-movement and look past the small quirks that could do with editing.
