Review for Quodia

[TheLordThyGod]

Quodia is an OHR RPG released in2016 by Froginator (The Pumpkin Warriors).

As the game opens, the protagonist Sunny finds herself marooned on a deserted island with her dog Max, with no recollection how she came to be there. Exploration of the island reveals a quirky society of snails, slugs, fruit-people, and talking inanimate objects. For reasons addressed below, I was unable to complete the game; so I can’t comment further on the main plot.

From the title screen, it is immediately apparent that Quodia boasts much higher graphical standards than the average OHR game. The starting map is even more impressive – the palette is vibrant without crossing into retina-scorching saturation, the animated ocean tiles gently roll and sparkle, and every object is smartly shaded to give the whole environment a sense of depth and mass. The impressions in the sand (pawprints, etc) are a marvelous touch that might ordinarily be overlooked in a no-budget homebrew game, and the pixels seem to come to life because of this meticulous attention to detail. The sprites are absolutely delightful (especially Max). Much of the game is spent wading through water or mud, and the graphical representation of Sunny and Max half-submerged with waves rippling out from them is perfect – I can’t believe I haven’t seen this is more OHR games (though admittedly, I have no idea how it was executed).

The first-person perspective, descriptive caption commentary, and checkerboard motif of the battle screen are reminiscent of EarthBound; and the player party battle sprites give us a view of the back of the characters’ heads that is unusual for this type of interface, but helps maintain continuity with the larger world outside the battle screen. These rear-view sprites look even nicer on the save screen.

Now that I’ve sung the praises of Quodia’s graphics, here come the gripes (of which there are many):

My primary complaint about the game is that certain aspects just move far too slowly. Trudging through the mud can get tedious (even if it does look pretty), and I find myself wishing the battle captions would disappear promptly as I press the enter/space key so I can just get on with my next move already! I’m also not certain why both Sunny and Max begin with an un-unequippable “Burger” as their default weapon, even though both characters used unarmed combat; and I never managed to figure out what Sunny’s “Interpretive Dance” ability was supposed to achieve. I also didn’t appreciate the Sandpants Beach area, where the narrow pathway littered with pushable rock-people is very easy to accidentally block by pushing the rock-people in the wrong direction – instantly requiring a Quit/Load to try again (which I had to do three times just to walk through one corridor). This may be intended as a “puzzle” of sorts, but the process was frustrating and added nothing to the experience – pretty much the antithesis of fun. Also there is a very “incomplete” feel about the game, even as superficially it is incredibly polished. Colorful characters and out-of-place objects litter the landscape, begging to be interacted with, but many are totally unresponsive. The battle with Alex and Aaliyah (a couple of larcenous amphibians) was very long and slow, exacerbated by the limited combat choices and utter lack of healing items in the game; and, as I could never manage to kill either of them, this is where I gave up on Quodia.

Quodia is a beautiful game. Undoubtedly within it is the potential for a great, fun experience. Unfortunately it still needs a lot of tweaking in terms of user-friendliness. I hope this happens, as I’d love to revisit this beautiful art again; but until changes are made, that’s incredibly unlikely.