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A Blurred Line Review
Instant Classic...with some flaws
Review by Ty
"A Blurred Line" is an instant classic. The project makes up for RM2Ks limited ability with stellar story telling and believable dialogue. It also does what many other RM games strive to accomplish, half-decent balanced battles. That is not to say this game is perfect however. The graphics are inconsistent and some of the enemies are poorly designed. Even though most of the battles are balanced, there are still some that will have you pull your hair in disgust.
Storyline (/10): Lysander86 develops strong believable dialogue that draws the player into the story. The story focuses around Tallan, a worker at Delcetric Factory. As the main protagonist, Tallan is highly likable and usually has a few witty remarks to say. After an incident involving the Director, Tallan becomes the target of 'The Agency' and must fight through globs of dust, diseased rats, and high-tech drones in order to clear his name. Although the storyline is not entirely original, twists and turns at every point will keep you at the edge of your seat. The only problem I have with the storyline, the ending feels rushed.
Rating: 9 / 10
Dialogue: The dialogue in "A Blurred Line" is brilliant and believable. The great dialogue makes the storyline come alive and draw the player into Tallan's situation. You will find the occasional grammatical error, and the dialogue explaining some of the story twists seems off. Despite these minor flaws, the dialogue is above your typical RM2K game.
Rating: 8 / 10
Graphics: Although the graphics of "A Blurred Line" appear to be great at first, they quickly degrade as you fight new enemies and explore new areas. The battle backdrops are 3D rendered, which would be good if the monster sprites did not look like a blob of pixels. The graphic style is also constantly inconsistent. You have enemies and battle backdrops each following their own art style, and a clash between the standard RTP and the modern tilesets. Which in my opinion, looks awful. Despite this, the storyline makes up for the sub-par graphics.
Rating: 5 / 10
Mapping: Personally, I did not like some of the mapping choices. The mapping reminded me of the old 'Pokemon' RPG games. You have objects placed only to block your advancement into a certain area. However in 'A Blurred Line' walkways are narrow and some areas are completely inaccessible, despite having a man-made structure placed there. overall, the mapping could definitely be better.
Rating: 5 / 10
Sound: The sound is decent; albeit not perfect. You have the occasional 'noise' in the background and sometimes the sound does not feel right within the current environment. The sound effect that annoyed me the most was the clapping during the meeting with the Director. In fact, that entire scene seemed off. Yet the sound sounds what it was meant to sound like. Fire sounds like a flame crackling. overall, the sound is decent but does not help in drawing the player into the environment.
Rating: 6 / 10
Music: The music in "A Blurred Line" suits the atmosphere of the scene. Their are a few areas where the music stops before the scene ends, which creates awkwardness. (Limits of RMing =/). The only annoying problem I had with the music is battles. Map music continues playing during normal battles (Bosses have their own music), but it feels weird killing things while a peaceful serenade is playing in the background.
Rating: 7 / 10
Gameplay: The gameplay feels different than your typical RPG Maker 2000 video game. It feels more polished, despite using the same style of movement as any other RM game. The main problem with the gameplay is Random Encounters. I am one who absolutely despises random encounters. Occasionally, you will encounter multiple enemies, you kill them, then you will encounter more. I also felt that the experience rewards was lacking slightly (More info can be found in 'Balance'). Overall, the game plays like any other RM game but feels more polished than any other RM game.
Rating: 7 / 10
Balance: The encounters in "A Blurred Line" are generally well balanced. There are extremely challenging battles and extremely simple battles. However, I felt that the EXP rewards were rather slight. You had to rely on bosses in order to get the majority of your EXP or spend all day killing the same enemies over and over for the same EXP one boss will give you.There is also one encounter that provides only 10 EXP, despite the enemies completely hammering the player for heavy damage. Boss battles are tough; regardless of your level. (Unless you are like level 99). Since "A Blurred Line" uses the default combat system, combat gets bored rather quickly.
Rating: 8 / 10
Features: "A Blurred Line" does not offer many additional features that are not already included in RPG Maker 2000. There are a few, and they are generally well designed, but therein lies the problem; their are few.
Rating: 6 / 10
Re-playability: Once you pass "A Blurred Line" once, there is not much to make you come back and play it again. Maybe to re-play the games strong story, but the effect of the twists and turns are minimal since you know what to do and what happens after you do it.
Rating: 2 / 10
TOTAL: 63 / 100 = 63%
Overall: Although the game is an instant classic...story wise, the inconsistent graphics, rushed mapping and the occasional challenging battle will hinder your enjoyability somewhat. Then again, this is coming from someone who is quite nit-picky. Either way, despite the problems listed above, "A Blurred Line" is vastly superior than your typical RPG Maker 2000 game and its strong story telling made it an instant classic.
Reviewer's Score: 6.5 / 10, Posted Wed, 28 May 2008 23:00:19 -0700
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Game Details
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Developer:
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Lysander86
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Platform:
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RPG Maker 2000
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Genre:
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RPG
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Status:
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Complete |
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Last Updated:
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2003-02-02 |
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Views:
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14637 |
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Downloads:
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1372 |
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User Rating:
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  23 Vote(s) |
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