Forsaken

[JSH357]

Forsaken is a mixed bag. In some ways it's a little better than Master K's other games that came out in 2011, but it falls victim to many of the same pitfalls. I'll start off with the visuals, as they illustrate this well enough. Master K does a good job animating his work: The intro looks really cool and the Boss Fight warning was neat. However, the actual quality of the graphics is fuzzier. Some things look like they're approaching a nice sheen, like the main character's walkabout, but then others look totally off, like the enemy thief walkabouts.

The game, like Cardians of Lore, also has vast maps that are simply unbearable to walk through as nothing happens on the way to your destination. I didn't even run in to any random encounters before the first boss fight, which was odd.

This was made further odd by the fact that the first boss fight is... impossible to beat, at least as far as I can tell. My physical attacks never hit the enemies, and my spells are both weak and cost too much MP to use repeatedly. I used F4 to get past this and in to the town, and I have to wonder if there's a way to win.

The town shows a lack of playtesting. There are NPCs you can walk on all over the place, and in general there's just an air of this being incomplete. Some of the dialogue is amusing, which I appreciate, but the game nonetheless feels very directionless at this point.

Master K is good at directing a scene when he does it well, but I think that more polish needs to be applied for this game to really mean something. As it is, I feel like my time has been wasted by playing 15 minutes of this, and it hurts because I know the game had a shot at being better.

Rating: 2 Magician Leads out of 10