Okay I goofed up on my post scheduling for this week (most likely to post my post on a gaming service on Saturday). If I can't keep this schedule, I may have to tweak it around. Anyhow, since you guys suggested me take a look at Victim of Xen, here is my take.
First impressions Like many of you, I thought it was going to be a generic RPGmaker game, with very little assets. After all, the screenshots didn't look like much, and the description was pretty generic. At first, I was planning to never play it, but my curiosity took the better of me, and thus I installed and dived right in, and boy I was glad I didn't simply dismiss the game as shovelware. Just some thoughts After experiencing a bit of the game, I felt like I had a slight change in heart about the game. The plot wasn't as predictable as expected, especially with the twist that occurred with the main character. While not necessarily very relate-able on the whole, there are themes that we can understand. A prominent theme is that depending on your gender, a NPC may react to you in a different way. The protagonist goes through such conflict in the plot and interaction with others (and no I won't spoil anymore). Other parts I thought the developer did well were the move away from just using the base sprites and the cliche fetch quests. If the game was just judged on this, I would heartily recommend it to others. However, not everything is great. In the end, it is still restricted by the usage of RPGmaker. Thus the choices and amount of variety and interaction really depends on how much time and expertise the developer has. Being the first game by this developer, it is understandable how the really only big change is the themes and just a few custom sprites. If there was one thing I would consider stuck out like a sore thumb, it would be the dialogue choices. While the concept was great, the actual execution of it completely failed in my eyes. The game was very linear, and the speech choices and interaction was no different. Recap Looking back on this game, I actually enjoyed it to some extent. I most likely won't be playing it much, and may even forget that I did a review on this, but to say that it was the run-of-the-mill RPGmaker game is stretching it a bit. Would I recommend to others as a must-play or nominate for best game in category? Bluntly put, definitely not. But is it worth a look if you wanted to play an RPGmaker game? Absolutely, and put in that mindset, you might be pleasantly surprised a bit. All in all, I give kudos to the developer for making a game that is at least half-good and stands out in the slew of RPGmaker games. Postscript: Upon further investigation about the development of the game, I found out that it was developed by a Belgian-born American who at the time was struggling with his own citizenship issues. Perhaps this situation helped inspire this work that deals with the double standards of gender identity. Regardless, it was an interesting tidbit I learned. (Shortly after he released the game he ended up in court about this issue in immigration and citizenship, but this is an issue for another day.) Comments are closed.
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About MeHi, I go by letsmaybeLP92 on many sites on the Internet. I enjoy reading and testing out the newest and oldest games out there, as well as sharing my passion with others. Archives
March 2023
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