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A great-game's tale
Review by killergermel
WARNING: There may be spoilers in this review. If not played the game, proceed with caution.
The demo of Swordsman's Tale shows the potential of a great game and with some pushes from the right sides and to the right ways, it would be able to "slay" the hours of many of us.
I would not describe the storyline and the events led to the game, because steve1993 already detailed it here and in his game, I will just go through over some of the cons that the game had and point out several distinguishable pros in it.
Gameplay: The monsters are balanced, the default walking speed and the ability to run enhances the experience of playing and authenticate the game, there's a great menu system in which you go and see a partition between regular items, quest items and even sort them. There is a bank, a soul orb (not sure about its name) which gives you money for monsters killed, and much more... Finally I saw a game with a good explanation (a bit too detailed though) of how to play the game (keys and such). All this shows the many hours invested in the making of the game.
And despite all that, this section has some crucial flaws.
In the beginning, the menu in which you pick a difficulty doesn't tell you that you are picking a difficulty, and people in haste may see "knight" and think it to be a class.
Another thing that was bothering me - you put so much effort in this section, so why not put an effort for a new, better battle system, one of the most basic implements to a decent RPG game.
Another thing VERY disturbing was the indifference of the monsters, their very few attacks. The monsters themselves were balanced but their frequency of hits was very low, you may want to fix that.
Another disturbing thing, more to my finger than to me - if people could have a choice, to run or to walk, im pretty sure what would be their decision. I had to keep my finger at the 'shift' key for the whole demo (at least until I stopped playing), and it sure didn't do anything good for the poor ring finger. I would suggest you to make "always run" button or something like that.
A minor additional thing was that there were a few spelling mistakes and forgotten letters; you may want to check all your messages again.
I stopped playing because of a bug that caused the green headed friend to appear again and again in the food store and ask for the 600 GP to buy the food... You should fix that.
I would give you 8.5/10 in this section.
Music and sounds: Bad... The only section I really think you blew it in. Almost ALL of your music and sounds were RTP... Some sounds were put at places they weren't meant to be put, like on menu choices, when going up or down, the sound used is by default a cancel sound, so why did you put it as an up/down sound in menus? I REALLY don't know.
I would give you 6.5/10 in this section.
Storyline: The storyline itself, the 8 swords, the Utopian society and the fallen fire wielder is a bit cliché and quite impossible - I hear ALL THE TIME about a legendary magical artifact, almost always a sword, the hero needs to get to defeat an evil maniac, which is just what happens here. A known final boss (Malcolm) wants to rule/destroy the world and the only one who can stop him is a humble swordsman, and in order to do that he needs to lay hands on a legendary artifact. Heard that, done that.
Also, power corrupts. NO ONE can have too much power and not be corrupted, unless he is perfect, and NO ONE is perfect. Therefore your 8 heroes with the swords should have been corrupted, and used this power as evil maniacs. That didn't happen, and they created a perfect society... It goes against all researches of the human nature and, as I said, completely impossible.
Despite that, the conversions in the game are great, and it can be seen that time and effort were put in every one and one of the npc's conversations, even with the most insignificant ones, and that's a think I almost never see in games, GOOD JOB!
Another thing that I loved in this game was the integrating of the storyline into the game. You weren't thrown at the start into the main quest and a good wizard or something told you "you are the only one to save the world and kill the evil bastard", but you started the day regularly getting up from bed and going to buy groceries, saving a poor shopkeeper from bandits and in the meanwhile you were entered more and more into the storyline (the basilisks I guess...). This is great and VERY rare, even in remarkable games.
Therefore I give you the mark of 8.5/10 in this section.
Last but not least, mapping and graphics: There are two sides to the coin. On the one hand you used, again, RTP tilesets and SPRITES! The RTP MOST BASIC sprites.
I think it decreases the quality of your game by allot!
On the other hand, the mapping was great, and again, much effort was put in the mapping. I liked the towns and, actually, ALL of your maps, they were almost never empty and almost everything was where it should have been: The Rivers, the trees, houses, crops, gardens, beds, stoves and much much more. All was in its rightful place, except for the barrels, that usually just stood there in the middle or the room. No one put barrels in the middle of the room and it bothered me to see it just standing there.
I give you the mark of 8.5/10 in this section.
Overall, this game is pretty great (excluding the annoying storyline) and has an immense potential to becoming a top notch RPG Maker game. Keep up the great work and keep all of us updated, we (I, at least) would sure want to hear from you again.
Reviewer's Score: 8.5 / 10, Posted Wed, 20 May 2009 16:06:52 -0400
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