Gamelist Review List Song List Watched Journals Forum IRC Gamelist Song List Review List Forum Articles IRC Log Out Add Game Edit Games Add Reviews Edit Reviews Add Songs Edit Songs Log Out Edit Games Edit Reviews Edit Songs Sign Up Log In My Journal My Game Journals Watched Journals All Journals Journal Settings All Journals About Us Staff FAQ
Castle Paradox
Title Bar
Log In Box
 
______  
[more]
    1) Moyos Theme by Obright
    2) Hydra Shrine by Obright
    3) Ode by Obright
    4) Hellas Theme by Obright
    5) Cave Dweller by Obright
Demon's Wrath vs. RedMaverickZero
Demon's Wrath Heads on sticks? Sounds evil to me.
RPGrealm5
Download: 191 KB
V.S.
RedMaverickZero
Play Time: hours and 30+ minutes
Review # 27 for RedMaverickZero Heads on sticks? Sounds evil to me.
Them's Fightin' Words
    I have this thing I do. I play every game blind so to speak. I go in not knowing what is gonna happen next or try not to think that way. I read the title of the game and then saw the title screen and I thought that this game looked interesting to say the least. Anyways, with some things missing and a decent amount done this game is one that with some fixing up could be very good.
Graphics
    I really don't know what to say about them. I want to say the maptiles were ripped but I don't have entire proof. Anyways, the majority of the game takes place in a forest, so "naturally (hehe bad pun)" that's what you see all the time. With little variety in that area, you're forced to gaze upon the green trees and green grass. Yes boys and girls, that is the forest tiles. I imagine it was about 5-6 tiles for that area. Considering the trees looked about 2-3. Anyways back on track. The maptiles looked fine. Although some looked a tad sketchy at times.

However... While the maptiles were decent (ripped or not), the walkabouts and such left much to be desired. I saw the tiles and then the hero graphics and I shook my head. That's probally the reason I assumed these graphics were ripped actually. But the walkabouts had little shading and bad structure. I know some people can't comb their hair right and their hair bounces when they walk. But... does that mean that the main character's hair has to? I mean, the beginning of the game made him seem like a fairly rich and wealthy traveller.

The enemy sprites were awful. Sorry RPGrealm, but they were. It looked like a big buff dude in a coat with a hair piece. I don't know if that was your real intention for the drunken man, but, it just isn't very good dude. Maybe make him hold an old whiskey bottle or something. To add more character to the fight and the enemy. The hero graphics in battle weren't bad. They were the best graphics besides the maptiles. It showed a lot of life to that cloak. It bounced and moved like an actual cloak would. And what I thought was really unique was when you're in the one fight in the game, when you get hit, the main character holds his cloak up in his face to "block?". What was real neat about it was that the main character holds his hands underneath the cloak, which is a cheap trick yes, but it didn't look too bad here. Although most of these graphics need to be worked on more. To make the game look better and feel better upon play.
 
Storyline
    Okay, in my most recent review, the Crystal Globe, I said graphics don't make the game. And this game shows that so very much in the storyline area. Although with poor gameplay and other things I will get to later on you will see what I mean.

This man Bryan, he's a traveller who does work for merchants by err... travelling to places and handing packages. A delivery boy to make it sound simpler. Anyways, one day this ole chap was delivering this package all the way through the forest to a town called Sapplen. When he returns to his hometown he sees everyone and everything has been brutally destroyed. With a freaky symbol of blood on the floor of his town he gets enraged because he knows it was his friends' blood that was used in that. Who did this? Unfortunately you don't find out in the demo. But Bryan goes off to other places in the demo such as a bar and finds a lead on how he can find out what happened to his friend's and families. This wasn't the best storyline but it kinda kept me going. The gameplay dragged it down though.
 
Gameplay
    Wooo doggie! This was awful. I mean, the demo had a fairly decent length, but that's about all it had going for it. 30 minutes isn't too shabby I'd say for a demo that is planned on being finished. Or to my assumption it is. Anyways, as stated before you spend most of your time in a forest. And the main character continues on and on about how "I SHOULDN'T GET LOST!". If not for the debug keys I would have gotten lost several times. Usually I thank ole James Paige and the other creators of the OHR for the F4 button but today I thank them for the F1 button usage. Without it I would have wasted a lot more time. But there's an easy way to avoid this slick. Since your maps are so big and you obviouslly don't want your player to get lost in the greenery, just go to the map data and make the map have a map that you can access through the menu. You'd need to do this in a large majority of the maps if anything.

The forest really kills the gameplay for you. I mean, with it being quite big, it becomes quite a big hassle to deal with. And on top of all this, yes, the icing of the bad gameplay is the lack of needed scripting. With some simple plotscripting commands that even a novice scripter can perform this game could be looking a lil better. Cutscenes would look a lot more like cutscenes. Heck, with fixed up graphics and a lil scripting the gameplay would be improved a ton. So, go open up the plotscript libraries in Hamster Republic and you'll not only make your game better but be able to think of more things you can do.
 
  Battle
    One battle. One measely battle. And through the text boxes you thought it wasn't gonna happen. But it did unfortunately. The main character has a measly speed of 5. 5... Everyone knows that the OHR runs kinda slow on some computers. And 5... 5 just runs wayyyy too slow for anyone. Even a fast computer. But what made me real frustrated was that directly after that fight you recieved an item that boosts your speed by 50! This didn't make sense at all. I mean come on. 5 to 55?! Fix the speed issue and then you should have a nice area of battles with more of em added of course.  
  Map Design
    Gameplay pretty much said it. But you spend at least 10-15 minutes in the forest trying to find your way to the next town or area. In a 30 minute demo with one fight and a crap load of text boxes this isn't a good thing to see. You don't want to bore the player by going through pointless maps and such. It's a waste of time and in doing smaller maps you conserve your maps. Because if you plan on making this a fairly long and decent game then you should conserve these. Forest graphics are real easy to put in one to two maps too. But the choice is up to ya slick.
But if you do go back and work on the forest maps be sure to take a few out. Because some of them were a little pointless.
 
  Balance
    One battle. One item in the game other than the chests. And it was the item that really boosted up your speed. But if the speeds were raised in the fight then this game would have some balanced battles. Adding more variety to the hero's skill list is always a nice way to preportion out your characters too. Other than the speed and the map designs, I can't find too much that isn't balanced in this game.  
Music
    My computer doesn't play BAM so I cannot judge this area.
 
Enjoyment
    I didn't exactly enjoy the game. But I liked seeing someone put some effort into their game. I mean, nearly half the games on Castle Paradox are just screenshots and a picture. I've done it a couple times but I had them deleted. With games like this coming around the bin we may see more and more completed games around the horizion sometime. And as always, I enjoyed writing the review.  
Final Blows
    Hopefully some of the things I have mentioned in here have helped you out RPGrealm. If you just take a little bit of time, no more than an hour, you can fix up the maps and maybe spend a day or so on graphics and you will have a much more enjoyable game. With better gameplay and everything. Just take these things into consideration dude.


"Bloody" shame.
Final Scores
Graphics: 3/10.0
Not bad, but they need work. This is a demo and the creator said there were things he was gonna fix up.
Storyline: 6/10.0
I am a lil eager to see what happens to Bryan and who did the stuff to his town. So keep up your work and don't stop.
Gameplay: 2.5/10.0
Oh man, fix the forest! That and learn a lil bit of minor plotscripting and you will be done in no time buffering this up.
Music: 1/10.0
My computer doesn't play BAM so I cannot judge this area.
Enjoyment: 3/10.0
As always, the review was nice to write. And the story made the game enjoyable. Just finish your game man.
Overall Grade: D
Final Thoughts
    This game is incomplete yes, but to see a decent way to establish story check this out. It shows all the ways of going about getting a character from Point A to Point B, without skipping the stuff in between.  


All games, songs, and images © their respective owners.
Terms of Service
©2008 Castle Paradox