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~Full-game ver2 Updated 11/19/2010~
Vibrant Story
~Full-game ver2 Updated 11/19/2010~ Review
Sick As a Dog and Still Reviewing: A Review of Vibrant Story
Review by eien_tsubasa
You know, despite all the crappy games I played, writing reviews for them helps me pass the time, especially when your sick. I currently have a bad cold, but I decided to check out some of the more recent games here on RRR. And wouldn't you know it, I come across Vibrant Story,, created by THOMAS1. I reviewed some of his games back when my brother and I shared this account, and back then I was just a green horn who pointed out all the stupid things without taking a more critical tone with these reviews. As such, reviewing this game was pretty fulfilling, hell, even downright nostalgic. But that isn't to say that THIS game made me feel that way. Okay no screwing around, time to review Vibrant Story.
The back story is the standard generic rpg story of "Magic was all over the place but then evil guy used it to summon evil dudes and they get beat by a good dude who seal them away". The only difference being is that people stopped using magic and turned to a new form of magic (I'm seriously quoting from the game here) called Alchemy.
Okay, two things. One: Alchemy is not magic. Alchemy is a science that was an attempt to to turn base metals and other elements into gold and gave way to chemistry. While there was rumored talk of things like the Philosopher's Stone and the Fountain of Youth, it was still a practiced science. Second, I don't understand the logic. If these mages were powerful enough to SEAL the bad guys, why not just kill them? The problems with sealing things is that seals eventually break. If you have them power to seal them, then just destroy them. Sealing them is a waste of time and, in this case, magical power. It's an over used and flawed concept in these generic J-rpg storylines, one that should be avoided.
Anyway, wee cut to a female thief named Josia, who is running from too random knights. She enters a cave until she's cornered in a mysterious room with coffin and red glowing depression inside a stone slab. You walk over to the slab and manually press the depression (seriously you have to walk over to the slab and press the button. Why didn't the creator have the event do it? Why the extra busy work?) and this unleashes the game's main character, one of the evil bad guys who was sealed away (you can tell he's the main character because his theme song is as subtle as having Pantera playing a metalized version of the Barney theme). He kills the knights and then decides to spare the girl because she knows where the "Magi Bible" is.
Okay, this might be knit-picking here, but why would she help one of the evil warrior guys find the Magi Bible? It's not like she didn't know. He proudly announces it. She doesn't even ask what he intends to do with it, and doesn't even keep a close watch on his actions. I mean, come on! The guy cut through two knights like melted cream cheese! And she's not the least bit frightened? I call bullshit on that!
Oh yeah, the evil warrior guy who once helped the evil wizard guy destroy the world: His name is Zach. LOL Sorry, but that name doesn't exactly strike fear into the hearts of men there.
Okay now for the battle system...
...
You know, not to sound like an ass to the creator, but all these battle systems are almost the same in every game he's made. I remember White Trigger having nearly the exact battle system. I say "almost" because there is a new addition to it. It's something of a timing system. Whenever you land a melee attack (whether it hits or not) you can press the space bar to connect it with an additional attack, making room for more damage.
This however makes room for a few problems. The first is that it makes the overall gameplay slow, jarring, and downright annoying. And eve with the additional attack, you only do a mere fraction of added damage. The second reason is that because it doesn't matter it the attack lands, statistically this means that you can't miss an attack. Either you did double you damage, normal damage, or slightly lower damage. There's no negative or downside. At least in Legend of Dragoon, you damage was greatly reduced if you drop a combo.
The battles themselves fell like the drag on forever. Monster are extremely weak with high HP and give you nothing in return after you defeat them. If I'm going to sit through this shitty battle system, at least give something better than useless alchemy items. My other problem with battles in Vibrant Story is that YOU HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO FIGHT. YOU CAN'T RUN.
ugh...okay. Rpg's in their most purest form are strategy games. You do more then attacking and using skills. You could either defend, use an item from you inventory, but most importantly,, YOU CAN RUN AWAY! If you are level 5 in a cave full of level 2 monsters, I'm not gonna want to fight them. It's a waste of time. Added to the fact that the battle system itself is slow, this only makes the game WAY more tedious then it already is.
And the maps are long and full of easy to predict to predict two way paths where up always leads to the exit and down or other directions lead to treasure. And while the maps are very well done, longer maps make the game tedious, adding to the extra busy work.
If i didn't explain alchemy or cooking or all that other razzamatazz, it's only because it's in ever one of the creator's games, and I mean EVERY game. There's a fishing thing too, but seriously I didn't care. They were just more ways too pad out the game with bullshit time wasting things that serve no purpose to the overall plot. And really, can you imagine the evil bloodthirsty Zach with a pink apron and flower print oven mittens baking cookies?
Okay rating time:
-Tedious battle system
-Bland boring j-rpg story and plot
-Boring busy work add-ons
-Flawed battle mechanic
3!
Despite all the things I said and all the problems Vibrant Story has, the game could be fixed if they were simply taken out. The story itself....needs tons of work. And the battles need to be more quicker and intuitive and less groan inducing. Other than that, the creator THOMAS1 has a good general idea on how to make game. But knowing and executing however are two different things. Look to more story driven games like Shin Megami Tensei Series, or hell, even Final Fantasy XIII. It's then story that makes the game, the battles are what keeps us entertained. Finding balance between the two will make any game awesome.
Reviewer's Score: 3 / 10, Posted Mon, 03 Jan 2011 14:23:45 -0500
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Game Details
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Developer:
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THOMAS1
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Platform:
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RPG Maker VX
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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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2010-11-19 |
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Views:
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5246 |
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Downloads:
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User Rating:
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   12 Vote(s) |
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