The Last Islands of Man

I wanted to like this game, but I can't recommend it in its current state. I played this game after watching a critique of it and liking the idea of a game which is brutally difficult, time-bound, and allowed for different classes for your own experience. The game is brutally difficult, but not in a fair way, its just blatantly unbalanced at quite a few points. The initial premise is that the world is being overrun in water, and people and monsters are fighting for the last few scraps of land that remain, you as the hero, are trying to find a solution. That said let's go over the individual points. [b]Sound 8/10[/b] The sound is what drew me to this game over anything else. The ambient sounds in particular fit so well with the theme of the game. The idea of sailing around looking for the last vestiges of humanity on a time-bound game really appealed to me, and the soundtrack really nails this idea most of the time. The over world music is just fantastic. The battle music a little less so, but it has some really good points as well, notably it's boss battle music, although you hear it very infrequently through the game. [b]Graphics 4/10[/b] The Graphics are nothing to write home about. The opening screen is just a picture with some photo shop work done. The characters are all made using RPG Maker VXAce character creator, and there is no busts for the characters at all. I am not sure if there was any unique enemies, as I am not very well versed in VXAxe, but they seemed like they were all default and uninteresting other then possibly the final boss. Don't expect anything out of the ordinary other then standard VXAce artwork. The battle system also uses a front-view and the animations all are nothing to write home about or get excited about, no breathtaking action sequences which make you want to use those cool moves or anything. [b]Gameplay 3/10[/b] I wanted to like this game the most based on the idea of a brutally difficult retro-rpg which forces you to use your resources sparingly as everything you do is time-bound. The game has a timer which ticks while your on the overworld map, inside dungeons, and whenever you rest to restore your HP/MP. There is also a little variation of the NPC's depending on the time of day, its possible I missed a thing or two, but it mostly boils down to during the day the NPCs are at shops / around town, and they are in their homes at night. There doesn't appear to be any difference to combats based on the time of day, in fact on the overworld at night if you get into a battle its suddenly day in the combat. The combat is brutally difficult, but its boring, the skills the characters get are very lackluster, and because every time you sleep, you lose time in the time-bound game, most of the time your just attacking, endlessly attacking, and running away from the unbalanced enemies. Save all your MP for healing, eventually you get into a loop where you get enough money to buy MP items to heal so you can keep grinding and not waste lots of time sleeping. Several of the enemies are massively more difficult then others, and do not give proportionate rewards. Overall the gameplay was not very enjoyable because of these things. [b]Story 3/10[/b] I was really interested in the story premise. But, that's really all it is, a premise. The characters are all extremely flat, and there is actually very little dialogue. I found 3 of the 4 endings, with the final ending (i'm guessing the "True") ending I was unable to actually finish because the games hints are to vague to figure it out. I spent about 3 hours trying to find this last ending to no avail, even playing the "story" only mode to possibly find it, searching every nook and cranny, playing with the timed events, no luck. The endings do have character variations, and are mildly interesting, but they don't really resolve anything and are very short. Not really worth the effort of getting. [b]Overall Opinion[/b] Overall I was very disappointed by the game. I wanted to like it, and I gave it the good old college try, but until the balancing is fixed, they spruce up the characters to make them feel more interesting, and do a better job leading the player towards the next objective, this game is a hard pass!

TOO SHORT

a

Awesome game, love the feel, sound is great, story is great! Nice that it gets updated too.