Quest RPG - Warning - Spoilers Included.This is the worst game I've reviewed to date, but there are some good things to it.
Graphics - 5
I have no desire to give background information for this game, since it's rather lame. As a result I'll jump straight to the point. The graphics are rather poor for a Game Boy Color game. If you don't believe me... look at the examples below.
A lot of the graphics I didn't bother screenshotting since they were mostly the same 4 or so tiles over and over. Obviously there aren't as many possibilities being GBC games, but it's no excuse for not trying to make it look somewhat appealing. A lot of the colors clash on the world map and there are abrupt color changes on the map. They do a good enough job on the battle screens, so I'm lead to believe they had the ability to make maps more presentable, but were too lazy to.
Sound - 4
I spent close to 10 hours listening to the same track over and over. Almost all the battle themes are the same. Almost all the music is the same. It's repetitive. It's not catchy. It bordered on annoying almost right away. Sometimes I couldn't wait to click off the game for a bit just to get some silence. The N64 did the music a little better obviously, but this version of the game and the N64 have basically the same tracks.
Addictiveness - 4
The game was not very fun. It was your cookie cutter RPG (Who could have guessed?) and the bulk of the time was spent powerleveling your spells. But once you get a certain spell you can get through the game pretty quickly. The fact I was trying to get through quickly, and not talk to everyone/give a shit about the characters shows I wasn't at all interested in this game. The biggest fun was looking at screens like this...
At this time, I'll also point out my biggest qualm with the game.
Can you take a guess? Yes. You have an item limit. And you can't just delete items. You have to USE them. Not like you need the items anyway. Once you get to a certain point, magic does everything you'd possibly need to.
Story - 4
What would you rate a game that
1. Starts out without explaining anything other than 2 people stole a book
2. Leads you to a random castle town near you to get help
3. Which leads you to a forest to beat a guy and get an orb that contains the element of earth
4. Which sends you to another town
5. Which leads you to the Wind Orb (Jade)
6. Repeat step 4
7. Brings you to Water Orb
8. Repeat step 4
9. Brings you to Fire Orb
10. Repeat step 4
11. Fight evil army who have your father (who you haven't seen since the start of the game.)
12. Go back to each town grabbing items and talking to certain people for the sole reason of getting a mirror.
13. Which brings you to the castle somehow
14. Where you fight the bad guys who are just being controlled. (you kill them mercilessly)
15. Where you eventually get the book back mentioned in step 1
16. Which leads you to a demon (wtf) who is the real bad guy of the game
17. While never even once really truly explaining what the hell is going on.
Yes, I literally explained the entire game in 17 steps, and 4 of those steps were the same thing. It was all exposition with absolutely no true plot. I'm sure that talking to the people sets up the plot, but I shouldn't be required to talk to NPCs in random towns to learn anything at all. That stuff should be put into the cutscenes that exist.
I probably should have rated it lower, but I know the story better than I should.
Oh, and some screenshots.
Depth - 1
For an RPG, there really isn't much to do. I didn't see any side quests, and the one thing you can do that isn't part of the storyline is participating in the lottery (which gives you a bunch of items you'll never use ANYWAY) in a city late in the game. Not only that, but the only thing I'd reccommend doing is finding at least half the spirits in the game. I finished the game about level 40 or so in each element which made my experience easier. The game is also short for an RPG. I beat most of it in a few hours, and using the RGR's turbo function, it's not impossible to beat this game in a sitting. Any RPG that CAN be beaten in a sitting probably isn't very good.
Difficulty - 3 if you don't memorize spells. 1 if you know spells off the back of your head.
I can sum up the difficulty in only one image.
Learn this spell. One earth (around level 10?) and two water (around level 20-30?). The spell is called spirit armor level 2. What does it do? IT MAKES YOU NEARLY INVINCIBLE. I'm not kidding you. I fought the final boss (shown) using only Spirit Armor Level 2 and Wind Cutter Level 3 (3 wind). Each attack the enemy did to me did only 3 damage. As long as you fight every enemy who attacks you in the game, you should have high enough stats to get by on this. Spirit Armor Level 2 breaks the game entirely, without it, this game is probably closer to a 3 since it would require minimum effort (I'll be totally honest. Even I didn't know I had that spell until I started checking my spells list more closely. Once I found I had it, I tested it. Not upset at all.)
The above are my final spell levels going into the final boss fight.
Overall - 4.6
This game is a stinker. It's just flat out not very good. I've pretty much explained why above. So to recap I'll do my favorite part of the review.
Best
1. Room for Thought in battle.
2. An actual RPG for the GBC
3. Has small (read - tiny) learning curve.
Worst
1. English Language - Not very well translated or something. A lot of bad moments.
2. Too easy - Spirit Armor Level 2 breaks the game.
3. All Exposition, No Plot.
So thank you for reading. I hope you aren't unfortunate enough to play this like I was.
Graphics
5 Sound
4 Addictive
4 Depth
1 Story
4 Difficulty
1
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