Dream Catcher - Emergence by Mateui

 

Quaden is a rather shy, young adult living at home with his parents in Zoasis, a peaceful city known for the art of "dream catching" - the process of entering people's dreams to cure them of physical or psychological ailments, while at other times being used as reconnaissance in military operations. He hopes to become a Dream Catcher himself, but this in itself will be no easy task.  Events unfold and what starts out as a rather serene and ordinary quiet life becomes something quite different - a life unexpected with tough decisions to make; decisions that will test Quaden's morality and judgment, and allow him to ultimately grow as a person. 

Dream Catcher is a story driven rpg heavy on dialogues, but that also includes some minigames like mining and a battle system with some neat additions. There are also puzzles, and one even right in the beginning, after the impressive intro. Graphics are pretty good, pity for the enemies that do not match the style of the rest of the game.

Download Link

Rpgmaker.net

Rmarchiv.de 

 

Random Fact: the game is about 3 hours and 30 minutes long and it's complete, however this was supposed to be the first installment of a series that, like often happens, was never realized. On the other hand Matui realized and completed a little fun game called Pengui! But this is another game for another day.

Final Verdict: a pretty good introductive adventure focused on telling a story, and that's where it shines, for the rest there are only minor issues. Pity that it ends a little too early, leaving the player yearning for more.

Pilgrim's Road by Sidewinder

 

Seventy five years have passed since the great atomic fires nearly scoured all life from the planet. Mutants, twisted by radiation and disease lurk in the shadows of mankind's once great buildings, while gangs rummage through the wastelands, preying on anyone weaker than them.

 

You play as a junker; a drifter with no place left to call home, wandering from ruin to ruin, salvaging anything of value. A passing merchant told you of a great iron tower in the middle of the New Mexican desert, where clean water and electricity can still be found, and who's denizens pay handsomely for any salvaged technology. With nowhere else to go, you've resolved to find this strange city.

 

Will you be able to solve the mysteries of the post-apocalyptic wasteland? Or will you die alone and forgotten in the desert?

 

 

Pilgrim's Road is an adventure with visual novel and rpg elements that is inspired by old CRPGs: half of the game is played in first person, after from a top down visual, the first is used during dialogues and battles, the second during exploration of both dungeons and settlements. The game borrows the style from the Fallout series with its retro talking heads and the custom interface. There are no experience levels, all upgrades are bought or earned, so there is no option to grind for experience.

Download Link

Rmarchiv.de

Rpgmaker.net Archive 

 

Random Fact: Pilgrim's Road is an event game that was created for the Abrupt Ending Party Event at RMK, and this is the reason why it's pretty short and simple. Anyway the game has TWO endings: the abrupt ending that was required for the event AND a true ending that requires four skills (to earn it you have to start with Int 17 and the needed skills, but I think it's pretty easy to understand whose skills are).

 

 

Final Verdict: this is a short but good game, the plot is simple but I liked that some things are mentioned but never clearly explained, leaving a lot of mystery about the setting and the characters that live in this bleak world. I liked these details, the foreshadowing, the narrative, but the main and best aspect is probably the style and graphics.

Slay the Lizard of Lunenberg and other thankless sidequests by psy_wombats

 

Chelsea is the princess of the (definitely real) kingdom of Lemuria. After journeying to the hamlet of Lunenberg and learning about the (definitely real) lizard terrorizing the local peasantry, she and her retinue take it upon themselves to end this menace for once and for all! 

Lunenberg is a deceptively active town. Despite being positioned well away from anything important, it still sports the all-important amenities such as the Inn, Shop, Castle, and Underground Dungeon. While there aren't too many monsters to fight (apart from the titular lizard), there are plenty of residents to talk to and sideplots to discover.

Explore the town, talk to its inhabitants, unravel the plots of its various factions, complete menial errands, retrieve cut-rate treasure... This game's got it all!! (it's shortish, dumbish, and hopefully funny -- you should play it) 

 

 

Slay the Lizard of Lunenberg (and other thankless sidequests) is a game made for 1-Dungeon RPG Game Jam by Psy Wombats. This is a lighthearted fantasy adventure with no battles nor action minigames, but rather a humorous game of fetch quests and exploration. There are also a couple of puzzles, but it's not a very long game, in any case it's also a pretty good looking game due to the use if the White Screw assets.

 

Download Link

Itch.io

Rpgmaker.net 

Rmarchiv.de

 

Random Fact: if you need help to complete the game you may visit the seer, or helper, that will give some hints about what you are supposed to do. The old guy you meet in the beginning will immediately direct to her so you will never have to wander aimlessly. 

Final Verdict: Slay the Lizard of Lunenberg is a fun game, an adventure and a collection of stories of quirky and memorable characters: the Xp-hungry adventurers, the emo pianist, the rebel rabbits, the guy with the... uhm curvaceous statue, the Slime Prince, the clever cats, the goth girl, and so on. 

The game is big and you've to do a lot of walking, some fetch quests aren't also very intuitive (the bodyguard one for example. Others like the emo pianist or the hotel owner ones were easier), but that's why the helpful seer is there. 

Fun fun fun! I really liked this game and I cannot believe it's an event game.  

Saint-EX by DyA Producciones (spanish)

 

A redhead girl is trapped inside an underground complex, looking for her father, a man in a lab coat. When she founds him he turns and he has red eyes and e metal mask... then the screen fades to black.

It turns out this was just a recurring nightmare of  a redhead young woman, a killer for hire called Crimson Blade. Her new job is very well payed, and she fears it will be really risky, but she accepts anyway.

Unfortunately, as she feared, she is ambushed at the subway station. Being an experienced hired killer, she's good with swords and guns 

 

Saint-EX is an action adventure with custom graphics: the game uses original portraits and tilesets, some CG cutscenes and the final result is excellent, the world looks like a dark metropolitan city, and it's reach of details. The gameplay consists in classical exploration and interactions, plus some real-time battles against multiple enemies: Z and X are used to attack with sword and gun, while Shift lets Crimson Blase use a special move, when possible. All works smoothly and the characters are well animated.

 

AlianzaRTP.es

Hellsoft.net

Rmarchiv.de

 

 

Random Fact: the game begins with a maze with crates that have to be pushed, and a gate that has to be unlocked. Unfortunately in  this part it's highly probable to get stuck if you do not pay attention. And this means restarting the game, since there is no save point nor reset button, but at least this happens in the beginning. I am not sure if there was another way to avoid this situation.

 

Final Verdict: Saint-Ex is the demo of a very ambitious project that was unfortunately cancelled, but if it had been completed it would have been one of the best video games in the RPG maker Hispanic community. But even though it was just a demo and one of the first projects of D&A Producciones, you could see the talent that these developers have when creating video games.

Mystic Legends - Symphony of the Goddess & Rebirth by Skie Fortress

 

Seven years ago a couple of siblings, Renai and Ellis, were hunted by spectres after their parents were killed... then they met a strange creature of darkness that cursed them. Anyway it seems that after seven years they grown up as members of the church... but their traumatic experience with the occult forces will surely have some dire consequences.

Enters our hero (Leon) or heroine (Mai): Leon starts his adventuring days hunting monsters that are a menace for the travelling merchants, helped by Rod, Mai is instead a ninja that is exploring the forest with a junior ninja called Naru. However both heroes will be soon destined to face the forces of darkness...

Mystic Legends is 2006 fantasy rpg: it consists in explorations, battles and puzzles, but the game also offers a choice of the protagonist between two different heroes. The plot is also slightly different depending on this choice, but this won't really change the gameplay or the rest of the adventure. Aside from the prologue in the beginning that's linear, the rest of the game doesn't gives lots of guidance or indications to the player, leaving the freedom to explore and progress.

 

Download Link

Rmarchiv.de 

 

Random Fact: the last version, is the demo version nr. 4, but Title folder of the game contains also the old title screens of the previous versions of the game. These show a different title, Death Bring Angelix, surely the previous title of the game.

 

 

Final Verdict: a classic jrpg adventure game and unfortunately one of these that were never completed. Nice maps and pleasant graphics, includes some puzzles and many battles. 

Vae Turpis Eons by SquishyWizard

 

The world of Ethrnan is ravaged by a war between the humans and the Croixian, a race of powerful humanoids probably from another dimension. In Tears of the Sword we witness the end of the war and its aftermath, here, being a prequel, we see what happens during the war. 

Seth is a seer that has the power to control the bodies of the important humans taking part in the war against the Croixian, while his rival does the same for the opposite side, and they are playing a sort of game of chess to determine the winner of the war. Hayatou, Uven, Naviniel, Omen and others return in a series of different scenarios: a young man lost in a dark gloomy forest and destinated to fight a friend, a captain who has to defend his ship from pirates, a scholar who has to catch the thief who stole a prized book and so on.

 

Unlike the first game, that was a linear story driven rpg, this is a sort of spin-off action combat, divided into various separated . Originally meant to be a demo, this project ended up having an arcade like feel, and this is how it ended up. The game features an Active Battle System which requires a certain amount of skill to master.

 

Download Link

Rpgmaker.net

Rmarchiv.de 

Random Fact: aside for the various scenarios, the game includes an arena mode where we can play as the protagonists of the various scenarios or as one of the four unlockable extra characters. 

Final Verdict: I admit that the only appeal of the game and the reason why I tried it was to learn more about Tears of the Sword and Omen and Hayatou's past. Unfortunately this game is incomplete as the other, so I guess that some characters would have been (probably) present in both games (like Navinel e Uven, for example), but for the most part these looks like a couple of unrelated stories that it's also hard to connect to the whole war against the Croixian.

But again, it's not one but two incomplete games. Sadly, unlike the demo of Tears of the Sword this game lacks both an intriguing story and a decent combat system (that were the strong points or at least the more likeable parts of that game). This was probably an experiment, for what I can see it's a little mess.
With an awful gameplay and an almost non-existent story that is just an excuse for a series of battles (a pity, some parts could have improved a lot with more dialogues, exploration and adventure).

Tears of the Sword by SquishyWizard

 

Uven the mage, Naviniel the archer and Hayatou the warrior are three friends that come back to Verin City after they won the war against the Croixians. Anyway they find that Lance and Ferrium, the sons of the Croixian king they defeated earlier, attacked their hometown and kill many citizens including Kehia, Hayatou's wife. But Ferrium, that wants to be merciful towards humans, is killed by his own merciless brother, and before dying he saves Hayatou.

After eighteen years the land of Ethran is at peace: Lance disappeared and the Croixians signet a peace treaty with humans. Lord Hayatou now rules over the City of Veritas assisted by his daughter Fiona.
Amerea the ranger, while investigating the forest near he City of Veritas finds a mysterious amnesiac young man: Omen. 

 

Tears of the Sword is an epic tale, classic rpg that was unfortunately left unfinished: the demo lets us play eight different characters and present a couple of dungeons with avoidable battles and obligatory bosses. There are some simple puzzles included too. The graphics includes some nice character edits.

After the demo ends you can still explore. The game then adds a character, Sergeant Alfred, that can raise the level of Omen's party.

 

Download Link

Rpgmaker.net

Rmarchiv.de 

Random Fact: Tears of the Sword was the title of the second demo, while the first older one was instead called Lacrimae Ferrii. And you can still download the older version from the link below.

Download Link

 

Final Verdict: even if it will take you 1-2 hours or even more to finish this demo, well it's really a shame this was never completed, so now you understand the reason of my tears in the title! I liked it, the story was captivating and mapping and graphics were on par with sole old classic rpgmaker games I loved. 

Only problems I found is that there are some typos, and some items that you probably cannot use due to the fact that this is a demo, otherwise no issues or bugs of any kind.
In the end this is a good, classic rpg adventure, that even if incomplete presents some interesting ideas and balanced combat encounters. Shame it was never finished but... it's ok!

The Longing Ribbon by Gibmaker

 

Three friends, Jeannine, Matthew, and Sara, plus the dog Sandy are travelling through the woods. During the trip they get lost and later they find a wrecked car with nobody inside. When it starts raining they notice a stone path that lead to a huge mansion, so they decide to take shelter there. The place looks abandoned but suddenly after they enter something happens, and Jeannine find herself alone. She later meets the mistress of the house, that tells her she already met her friends and is going to let them stay, so Jeannine goes to the room where her friends seems to be arguing. Soon Jeannine realizes that this mansion isn't a safe place at all!

 

The Longing Ribbon is a survival horror adventure focused on exploration and puzzles. Combat is in real time, but it's always better to avoid combat encounters, since Jeannine does not get experience from combat, but examining the art and literature she can find. The game uses many RTP resources but the sepia tones and atmosphere made this game stand out. If you need help do not search for a walkthrough, since it is already included with the game.

 

Winner of the 2005 Misao for Best Atmosphere.

 

Download Link

Rpgmaker.net

Rmarchiv.de

 

TvTropes 

 

Youtube Playthrough 

 

Random Fact: this game is also available in French, translated by Z-Master: find it here at Oniromancie: The Longing Ribbon: Le ruban du désir

 

 

Final Verdict: The Longing Ribbon is a classic horror game, probably one of the first really memorable horror adventures for what concerns the plot. The first parts, especially the first half are especially good, the second half begins to feel a bit rushed, and as the developer confirmed he was a bit in a hurry to conclude the story. I wasn't also a fan of the advancement system and the real-time battles, for the rest it's all really well made.

Shaq Fu Rpg - The Chosen by LinoG, Nameless & Dz

 

Shaquille O'Neal after the events of Shaq Fu (the videogame) has come back to his normal life, until Kobe Bryant kidnaps his girlfriend. Shaq finds his rival, but falls into a trap and Kobe uses his voodoo powers to trap Shaq into a forgotten fantasy realm, the Second World, where the evil mummy Sett-Ra awaits him to get his revenge after their previous encounter. However this time our hero is assisted by Michael Jackson the Moonwalker, and helped by the advices of the wise old wizard Dragnor...

 

 

Shaq Fu Rpg - The Chosen is a sequel of the Shaq Fu, and also a parody. The plot soon sends our two protagonists into a classic fantasy land with orcs, barbarians and dwarves, where they will have to learn magic and increase their powers to defeat the minions of Kobe. The game uses a custom menu and has also animated attacks that uses sprites from Shaq Fu and Michael Jackson's Moonwalker. A lot of effort went into the animations and cutscenes, however do not expect a serious game.

 

Warning: the game includes some swearing, dick jokes, crude language and situations! 

Download Link

Rmarchiv.de 

 

Random Fact: this game was followed by a sequel called Shaq Fu RPG2 Goatass Beckons. However it was made with Rpgmaker XP so I may talk about it at a later date.

 

Final Verdict: a  fun game, it may look like a trash game with its mismatched graphics, but a lot of effort apparently went into it! Cool!