Recent reviews by e314

Overall : C+.
Not a waste of money, but unrecommandable for people who aren't fully fan of the genre.

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Minigames : C-
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Fishing : D
Boring, no variety on rewards/mechanics.
Not even worthy of being called a minigame.

Card Battle : B
Decent mechanics, lack of intergration with the rest of the game.

Trading : F
Terribly designed and misleading. I somehow know that a specific item is 2% more expensive *compared to the usual local price*, but not that it's cheap compared to other places I've visited?
You need a spreadsheet to engage with that mechanic, and at this point, just play EVE online.

Theater : A
Both interessing and sometimes hilarious.
If only the scripts weren't so annoying to obtain.

Duels : F
Scrap those and just make cutscenes. You can't make paper-stone-scissors with only 2 options. I wish I were joking...

Egg racing : B
Not my kind of fun, but well made. Needs a fast-forward.
Could use a betting system to make you see and care about other competitor eggs.

Battles : C
Good idea, but sooooooo annoying to watch without anything to do. Need a fast forward button (and not just a 2* speed, a 20* speed at least)
Also way too much scripted, there's choices which really matter.

Beigoma : B+
Decent gameplay. Manages to make me pay attention to a luck-based game.
Lack of use for early-game tops (which you won't even get because they don't drop until you start the quest mid-game anyway...), power difference between tiers is just too important.

Cooking battles : F
Again, another minigame requiring a spreadsheet. Fun if you like button mashing for 45 sec straight, I guess?

Guild missions : B-
Not engaging, but otherwise functionnal.

Racing : A
I HATE racing minigames, but can't complain about this one.

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Combat : A
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Mechanics : S
Good variety of skills, with a lot of planning possibilities.
Gimmicks and ennemies are interessing.
Support members combat effects being "sometimes, unpredictable" is quite annoying. Less powerfull but consistent effects would be more interessing.

Balance : A
Good balance of difficulty without the need to farm for hours.
Over half of the cast is utterly useless, with terrible stats at every level.
Support members non-combat effects should just be permanent castle upgrades.

Automatisation : B+
Good when there is no need to be efficient. Not parametrisable enough to work well against mid-threat mobs. Can't prevent some skills to be used.

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Interface : B+
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Graphics : A+
Not much to say. Good if you like the 8-bit style.

Animations : B-
It's good that they exist. It'd be better if they were skippable. I don't need a 6 sec "I caught a fish, let's display 2 unskippable message boxes before carrying on" ten times per fishing session.
Even menus are sluggish. You can't get to the equipement screen before the magic screen is done appearing, for example.

Menus : A-
They work, but a lot of them needs options for sorting.
There is a sorting menu for beigomas, there should be one for heroes, inventory, troops, ... wherever there's more than 6 items.

Music : A
Good ambiance, might need a "don't use combat music for regular fights" setting to enjoy it more.

Voiceover : A+
The only thing that gives characters a bit of personnality.

Inventory management : C
Limited and items stack rarely. Annoying for basically no reason, since you can't really spam items in fight.

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Story : C
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Main story : B
"Sure, why not?"
There just isn't a feeling of urgency, so it's "I'll do it later" until you need it to explore a bit more.
The main character lack of personnality makes it hard to care.

Secondary quests : D
"Let's clear a dungeon" are somewhat decent, but need a followup.
"Go fetch me an item" as boring.
"Go get me a rare random drop from a monster" are terrible.
"Go play that minigame" would be ok if the minigames were fun.
Beigoma questline is the only redeemable one.

Character writing : C-
Main ennemy motivation : powertripping
Other ennemy motivations : being evil for the sake of evil / being greedy / Being a traitor just because. None of them makes you think "hey, they have a point".
Ennemies turning allies (happens a lot) : all extremely, painfully telegraphed. You've seen them once, you know they are "good guys forced to obey", and they will defect when needed.
Main character motivation : .... None?
Allies motivations : Several of them are "you were kind once, i'll die for you", which are quite devoid of storytelling, but overall a good variety.

Un jeu relaxant, aux règles simples.
Un ou deux niveaux par jour après une journée de travail pour être détendu!

This is the worst disappointment I've had with a game.
Kind of when you find celery in your birthday cake.


TL; DR : It's not a bad game. It's bad for a Final Fantasy game.

Let's start with the good points, they still exist :
-Amazing music.
-Nice graphics (keeping in mind the game is now several years old)

Next, the "not bad, but lackluster"
-The skill system. Good idea, but skills way too similar identical between characters
-The strategy system. A decent idea to control the other active members of your team. If only it didn't reset everytime you change your party, or worse when the storyline automatically changed your party before a boss.


And then the "I expected a lot better" rest :

-the ATB combat system. That was a decent system back in 2000, when it was hard to make a reactive, real-time combat system with multiple abilities. WAS being the main point. Nowadays, this feels like a bad real-time system because you have barely any reactivity, and a bad strategy system because the abilities are few all the same.

But let's assume the ATB system was a deliberate choice. You want to make a good ATB system. Ok. Players must be able to quickly select abilities, targets and cast when the ATB bar is filled.
Then why do every single menu have a 0.3 sec fade-in/fade-out time? This is just horrendous.
Oh, wait, there's an "auto choice"? Still wondering why it bascically only selects AoE abilities when they are useless.

Which lead to another combat problem : the AI is just... braindead? If it's more than "select random enemy -> select random attack -> cast", I would be surprised.
Even the simplest things are messed up : You want to attack 5 times (because you have a quite long ATB bar)? Let's automatically mix ranged and melee attacks in order to maximise the time you spend walking between the hits!

Add to that random interrupts because sometimes attacks can be cast at the same time by different fighter, sometimes not. Or sometimes, being attacked will slow your attacks, because hey, you have to play your "injured" animation!


In short, this is the worst combat system I've ever seen in a modern AAA game.

-The linearity. I mean, I had been warned, but this was painful. Ok, there's a scenario to follow, but that's no excuse for preventing me to walk near a ledge just to enjoy the scenery. Or to make me walk through an amusement park without being able to interact with anything or anyone. For the first 20 hours, the game is only "follow the path, fight the ennemies, watch cutscene, repeat" with the occasionnal bosses.
If you get rid of the boring combats, it's just a damn visual novel. And not even a good one, good visual novels have choices.



The remaining will seem minor annoyances, but they add to the feeling of "unpolished game" :
-The minimap rotates with the hero, good, but why does the main map do that too? Without any "North" indicator. It's atrocious to use.
-Even the clowns in nightmares don't move like Vanille does... I can understand that you want some comic relief in the early game (because otherwise, you'd just want the heroes to die, they are more pathetic that Frodo!), but this is just ridiculous. Don't get me started on combat postures...
-Some functions can be mapped wherever you want on the keyboard/controller. Why not all?
-Crafting system uses over 100 different materials. However, there are few "functionnally different" ones. It feels like fake complexity.
-The camera doesn't want you to run straight (seriously, how hard is it not to mess that up?)

And the list could go way longer if I started listing problems specific to every Chapter

What you'll read on the vast majority of comments will be the same : less complex than magic, a great entry point for non-CCG players, while still allowing more interaction than Heartstone.

I played this game in closed beta, and it was fine... apart from two detail : it felt sluggish, and AI's deck aren't balanced.
Let's just say it didn't get better with realease on steam and servers a bit underdimensionned.

Every time someone plays, discards or draw a card, there's a quite long (> 1 sec always, average of 2 secs) animation, and if the card itself triggers effects, you can reach the 20-30 secs without anyone able to play nor skip those pesky animations.
There are even combos playing on this waiting time to prevent opponents to declare blocker becasue their time ran out during the animations.

About AI decks... even in the beginner's campaign (yes, the thing you have to do before you can start modifying your decks...), you'll encounter legendary cards that are played in tournaments, without being able to remove, for example, the "gain 5 life for 3" crap cards of which there are 4 in your deck.

To resume : The core of this game is good. But you may give up before you reach it.

If you don't want to read a lot, here's a resume : Don't, ever, buy this.

I mean... it's a decent RPG, with somewhat good physics and a bunch of good ideas.
However... Well, let's just say that the first thing you'll try to find is how to rotate tour camera.
And then, you'll find that it's impossible.
And then, you'll wander into a sewer, where you don't see what's trying to kill you, because, eh, your camera isn't on the good side!

This game is unfinished at best, probably a homework for some studies. WHile it's not strictly unplayable, it really tries to be.

The lack of tutorial, the crappy time-dilatation system, the almost unmanageable units, the "what does that spell do exactly?", the mostly incoherent story, ... everything tries to make you feel you wasted your money here.

Bon... ce n'est pas parce que j'ai eu ce jeu gratuitement qu'il ne vaut rien. Toutefois, il est clairement du niveau des jeux flashs gratuits.

-Musique très répétitive, voire excessivement lassante, Heuresement, on peut la couper.
-Gameplay ... répétitif? DIsons qu'il n'y a essentiellement aucune différence notable d'une partie à une autre.

+Pas prise de tête, parties très courtes.
+Règles simples (même si elles ne sont jamais expliquées, ce n'est pas difficile de comprendre qu'il faut tirer sur tout ce qui bouge)
+Quelques power-ups pour dynamiser le truc.

Bref, pas de quoi valoir 2€, mais avec un peu plus de "personnalisation", des niveaux ou des objectifs, voire en version rogue-like, le jeu serait décent.

C - Travail inachevé.

Record : 1 mn 20.

Il y a beaucoup de variations autour du concept de RPG.
Certaines intéressantes, d'autres moins passionnantes.
Puis, il y a ça.
Au délà d'une idée intéressante (mais déjà exploitée) de préparation des tours à l'avance, ce jeu n'a strictement rien pour lui.
Il faut reparamétrer son tour à chaque fois que l'on rencontre un ennemi, même si on l'a déjà battu 250 fois et que depuis le temps, on pourrait avoir stocké une configuration à utiliser à chaque nouveau combat conter cet ennemi...
Il faut farmer, farmer, et encore farmer du mob pour progresser. C'est long, pénible et sans intérêt.
en parlant de mobs, on en rencontre beaucoup, beaucoup trop peu de différents.

Ah, et oublions le concept de scénario. Cela se fait dans certains jeux au gameplay intéressant. Ici... ça ne fait qu'un vide de plus.

Bref, à éviter.

A-.

Un petit jeu de plateforme complètement linéaire et pas spécialement difficile.
Durée de vie : très court (<10h)

Graphiquement : A. Rien de très poussé, mais aucun mur invisible et la caméra se controle bien.
Scénario : C. Un effort de scénario, mais au final, pas grand chose à retenir. Aucun choix de dialogue, on est plus dans la narration que dans le jeu.
Puzzle/plateforme : A. Rien de bien difficile, mais suffisamment pour demander un peu de réflexion, et pas mal d'adresse.
Combat : B. Simpliste, mais demande un positionnement adéquat, et de bons rélfexes.

A-

Petit jeu, aux apparences calmes et hippies.
Demande beaucoup plus d'attention que ce à quoi on s'attend, pas mal de stratégie.
Cher.
Joli.

Pas grand chose à ajouter, si ce n'est que des jeux gratuits fonctionnent sur le même principe, et proposent parfois même une plus grande variété de scénarios.

Vaut le coup si acheté avec une bonne promotion.

B

Un bon RPG-Maker, mais sans plus. On est dans l'archétype du RPG où il faut farmer des monstres pour obtenir des niveaux et de quoi acheter des items, pour pouvoir décemment accéder à la zone suivante et farmer des monstres qui rapportent plus. Dit comme ça, c'est assez ennuyant (et pour être tout à fait honnête, ça l'est dans une certaine mesure), mais le système est raisonnablement bien calibré, à quelques détails près. Les possibilités de personnalisation des personnages via l'attribution des caractéristiques sont immenses. Il n'y a peu ou pas de bugs. En bref, une très bonne gestion "technique" du RPG. Hélas, il manque énormément de scénario. Même si, techniquement, il y en a un, et donc une fin du jeu, il reste excessivement peu présent,


En détail :
Graphismes : OK pour du RPG-Maker. Bonne utilisation des chipsets, mais rien de transcendant.

Scénario : Clairement pas le but du jeu. Il sert juste à débloquer l'accès à certaines zones au fur et à mesure de la progression de l'équipe.

Gameplay (hors combat) : Très Bien. Beaucoup de personnalisation des options, des menus simples et efficaces. Quelques manques (un journal de quètes?), mais rien de particulièrement critique. Des puzzles assez bien pensés (parfois), voire ardus. Un monde grand. Très grand. Donc d'assez nombreuses zones aux activités variées. On a parfois l'impression d'être devant une vitrine qui dit "Regardez, on peut faire tout ça avec RPG-Maker, et ça reste fluide!".

Gameplay (combat) : Le combat en lui-même est un tour par tour très classique, sans originalité particulière. A quelques boss près, les combats se suivent et se ressemblent dans une même partie. Par contre, étant donné la variété disponible dans l'attribution des points de caractéristiques et des points de compétences, la rejouabilité est immense. Cela a des avantages et des inconvénients : d'un côté, on est assez libres de nos choix. D'un autre côté, il n'y a aucun moyen de remettre à zéro les caractéristiques d'un personnage pour re-spécialiser, donc on se retrouve contraint de farmer plus pour ajouter des points dans des caractéristiques trop négligées.