[h1]Twell: It's Just Fun, Plain And Simple[/h1]
[b]TL;DR: [i]Twell[/i] is a really neat game in the vein of Legend of Zelda. While the story is nothing to write home about and the combat eventually becomes easy enough that you'll mostly be mashing the attack button with the ocassional use of a health potion, the game more than makes up for it in exploration and puzzles. The puzzles are pretty fun to solve and the feeling of discovering a new tool, item or upgrade never gets old. An excellent use of the default RPG Maker assets combined with original sprites and a really decent musical score complete the package. It won't revolutionize the market, but I still believe this game should be played by any fan of RPG Maker games.[/b]
And so it came the time to finally review a game on Steam, so let's not waste time, and let's get right into it!
[u]Story:[/u] The story of [i]Twell[/i] is your typical JRPG affair: You're an amnesiac guy who wakes up in the forest and after a tutorial segment, you find out you're the new hero chosen to wield [b]The Sword of Light[/b](™)! And with that, you're assigned the task to find out the source of the monster invasion that plagues the lands of [b]Twell[/b](™) and eliminate it before is too late...
Yeah, it's not the most original plot around, and the characters are also pretty one-note, but that's par for the course with the developer's previous games, which prioritize [b]Gameplay[/b] first, and [b]Story[/b] second. Because of that, it didn't really affect my enjoyment of the game, and to it's credit, some of the jokes did get a chuckle out of me.
Grammar wise, it has the ocassional typo here and there, but nothing that stopped me from understanding what the characters said.
[u]Gameplay:[/u] As I said before, the focus of [i]Twell[/i] is on the Gameplay. The game is an Action RPG, with mechanics which are reminiscent of the [i]Legend of Zelda[/i] series. As such, the gameplay loop is split into three parts: [b]Combat[/b], [b]Exploration[/b], and [b]Puzzles[/b]. Generally speaking, while the game doesn't have that many original elements in it's gameplay, it implements it's mechanics with a level of care and polish that makes the game fun to play despite that.
Personally speaking, I find the [b]Combat[/b] in this game to be it's weakest element. The combat is pretty stat based, so unlike in Zelda, you have an actual HP value instead of hearts as health. You also have an SP bar, which is use as a resource for skills which you can acquire with the help of trainers spread in towns across the world, and of course you can spend money on consumables and equipment in shops. But as with many RPGs, I found out that it doesn't take long before you can just mash the attack button until the enemy dies while ocasionally drinking a health potion when low on HP, and by the end of the game you have so much money that you can buy more potions than you'll ever need. Even the bosses weren't really hard, since all you had to do was mostly figure out their (easy) gimmick and kill the enemies they summon. The only battle where I actually had to plan a strategy, was the final challenge of the second half of [b]Battle Mode[/b], an optional challenge mode where you face buffed up versions of the game's minibosses. Also, you can also block some damage with a shield, but even early in the game, I never felt it was very useful.
Where I think the game truly shines and makes up for it's lackluster combat, is in the [b]Exploration[/b] and [b]Puzzles[/b]. There's plenty of stuff to find while exploring the world of Twell, including sidequests, minigames, rare equipment, 7 wish orbs that grant you a wish when brought together (Huh... That seems familiar...), and other assorted secrets. Sometimes, these secrets aren't accessible at first, requiring the help of specific [b]Tools[/b] (or [b]Q-Items[/b] as they are called here) which are usually found in one of the eight dungeons which you have to complete to beat the main story. It's this experience usually found in Zelda and in Metroidvanias of finding tools which allow to uncover new areas previously inacessible that [i]Twell[/i] executes so well that I even achieved 100% completion of the game because I was really into it!
The second half of the game's appeal, found usually while exploring the previously mentioned dungeons, are it's puzzles. Again, if you have a decent experience with games, you'll be familiar with the puzzle selection here. You have puzzles with slippery ice, arrow tiles which force you into a direction, stealth puzzles, box pushing puzzles, the whole nine yards. But once again, it's how these puzzles are implemented that make the act of solving them fun, with just the right ammount of challenge, never too trivial or too obtuse. It was really satisfying to figure out the entire dungeon one puzzle at a time, and together with the strong exploration aspect, it makes the game's combat far more tolerable.
[u]Aesthetics:[/u] Now, I'm not that familiar with the XP version of RPG Maker, but I can certainly tell that aside from the standard RPG Maker assets there also many beautiful sprites for the enemies, bosses and interactive items and custom icons for all your items and equipment which is nice to see. (With special mention to the ability to see your character wearing the pieces of armor you equip on him! Which is a rarity on RPG Maker games, as far as I know.)
I'm not a mapping expert, but I can tell a lot of care was put into the making of the game's maps. I'm not sure if all of it was standard RPG Maker tilesets, but they were definetely well used, and I never once felt the maps had wasted empty space, or the houses were too big, or the design of forests and caves were unnatural.
Finally the music selection was also pretty decent, with the main menu theme, the minigame theme and the final boss theme being the particular standouts.
[u]Conclusion:[/u] In the end, [i]Twell[/i] stands as proof that games don't always need to be original, as long as the execution is solid and of course, fun! This game was in development for [b]11 years[/b] (Damn, I feel old already...) and you can tell by the level of polish and care put into it. I don't know what else is in store for the developer, but I hope they continue to deliver more gems like this one in the future!
[b]FINAL SCORE: 7.5/10. I just think it's pretty neat. :)[/b]
