2012 In Review 017 - Illusions

Pre-Thoughts:
This is another game I know I've played before at some point. I'd even swear I've reviewed it, but I can't find any evidence of that. I know it features MasterK's standard graphics where the heroes and NPCs are consistent though sometimes a little drab and the maptiles are pretty decent. I believe it featured a pretty cool red flashy-text thing when a boss battle starts, which I'm always a sucker for. Was also an RPG, I think a Boy and a Girl save the world kind of RPG. Honestly I think it was kind of bland, but he's got like 3 frickin versions up so maybe it's gotten way way better since last I played.

Thoughts-During:

Title music is cool, title screen kinda lazy.

Two blank skills on the "Choose Your Special Skill" screen, interesting. And for that matter, it could tell me a little more about these skills instead of just asking me to choose more or less blind.

I'm betting Forcefield was useless, MagicBolt or whatever would've been decent and hoping REstore is a curative spell and not just like "Remove Status ailments" or somethin.

Man, with this boy and girl both having a portrait, and the dialogue going back and forth between 'em it makes it super obvious how much they have in common facially. It's a hard effect to describe,
but it makes it vaguely like the boy is growing and ungrowing his hair while flipping his shirt color back and forth.

That boss text thing! Badass!

Been holding down enter and doing one damage for a long time here...

Protip: If you're going to have a battle mechanic like "You must Identify monsters before attempting to fight them" YOU SHOULD PROBABLY INTRODUCE THAT IN THE COURSE OF THE NARRATIVE BEFORE IT IS AN
ISSUE.

I think these windows are from Dreadful Occupant

Why is the squirrel battle music so much more intense than the actual boss battle thing?

Bee battle was surreal. And now the girl is dead.

Okay the girl is dead so I can't identify these illusions to fight them, can't find a way to revive her. Can't run from the boss.

I love the death animation thing, but it gave me the false hope that was an unwinnable battle.

Haha! The save statues don't save the fact that they crumbled! Infinite saves ahoy!

Startin to notice the grid in these grass tiles, but at least one trip back to bed and Alanna (who I have named Alanis) is back on her feet again

This one house exits out another house. Is this an illusion or what?... and I go back and there's a lady there! What sorcery is this...

Wandering aimlessly isn't fun! Motivate the characters, motivate your players! Make our adventure obvious!

...on a black screen all of a sudden. Is this a bug of some kind or a spell?

..another random teleport after fighting the boss. Not sure what the hell's going on. Maybe 'cause I'm taking screenshots?

Happend AGAIN what the hell

Three strikes, I'm done.


Post-Thoughts:

This isn't as bad as I remember it being but it's still got some typical OHR RPG problems, battles are a little slow, never bothers to explain to you what some of the stuff does. I only figured out in my very last battle that Charge was meant to restore your MP and wasn't some kind of broken buff. In your very first battle, you have to use "IDENTIFY" to change the illusion into a form that you can damage... but I don't believe it told me to do that which is a shame because it's important in other fights later. Kind of an interesting system but you have to set something like that up within the story, you can't just expect people to try every option in every battle, especially when so many games I've played so far think having an unwinnable enemy is an acceptable opener, and that 1 damage is a good way to chisel your foes down to size.

The town I got to had doors that didn't link properly. That is a SUPER basic thing to get wrong, and what it implies to me is that the author has never actually played his game, walked through his own town and paid enough attention to see that you go in one place and come out another. If you're not gonna pay that much attention to it, why the hell should I dude? There were maybe 5 NPCs total in town and none of them did or said anything except "The princess is another castle, forget this place!". What's ugliest is that the dialogue is almost identical to Dreadful Occupants "Hey, the king is sick." "Someone should save him!" "Could we save him?" "Maybe we could." "We should find out how!" "I know how!" "Oh boy! We should go save him now!" "Okay, we're gonna save him." "That's our plan." kind of beat you over the head with it crap, and then that's supposed to sustain you until you find the next exposition point. At one point, a character even says "We should go to

I've already warned MasterK countless times about how his generic walkabouts, heros and portraits make you not care about the characters so I'm not gonna waste too much more breath about it. However, when all of your character portraits share 95% of the same pixels you have to be really careful not to advertise that by putting them in discussions where their portrait boxes will be drawn in the same place. At least flip one of them to be facing left to hide it a little. Hero graphics are painfully cookie-cuttered and so are the walkabouts but at least they look okay. His maptiles are pretty good though I swear a couple of times I saw like... the shoreline randomly vanish and then return when I wasn't expecting it. Kinda weird.

That weirdness is actually the only reason I quit the game. I minimized the window to go to IRC while I was in the forest, and when I came back I took a few steps and was in this weird black area, which I eventually discovered was the interior map of the pirate ship. Reloading my save, thank goodness there had been a recent save point I managed to beat the boss, take a few steps into a giant tree... and teleported back to the forest, at night, INSIDE of a tree's wallmap. Tried it again three or four times and always at or near the same spot I teleported to somewhere weird within that forest map and had to give up. No idea what the hell could be causing it. I was willing to put in maybe another hour or so, just to see if maybe the story would start going somewhere but it seemed impossible to proceed. I wouldn't go out of my way to advertise the part of the game that I've seen, but I wouldn't deter anyone from giving it a try either. Got a lot of flaws but it's definitely not the worst game I've played and the illusion gimmick is kind of cool, even though you have to figure it out for yourself. I'd probably beef up the Charge command so that it's restoring a more meaningful amount of MP than 4, maybe make it more obvious what it's doing. I'd cut back on the superfluous text, maybe add in some more narration or plot, something to give the characters a reason to choose the particular route they take. Just little things that make it feel pokier and newbier than it is.