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
Crescent Dream vs. KainMinter
Crescent Dream What can I say....?  Wonderful graphics in Crescent Dream.
AdrianX
Download: 1.77 MB
V.S.
KainMinter
Play Time: 3 hours and 53 minutes
Review # 2 for KainMinter What can I say....? Wonderful graphics in Crescent Dream.
Them's Fightin' Words
    If you are looking for a Game whose graphics and music are on par with many of the greater SNES RPGs, Crescent Dream is definitely a winner in that regard. On the other hand, there are a few design points that made it hard for me to enjoy the game to its full potential. Allow me to go into a little more detail below.

Graphics
    Absolutely amazing. The detail in the backgrounds, the emotion bubbles, the emotion walkabouts, the beautiful walkabouts themselves, the well done battle graphics, the enemy sprites, the attack animations, the detailed over world... everything is done so well, I must praise AdrianX to no end for this. I can see how much time and effort was put into making this game look gorgeous. There are a few flawed edges on maps... I am pretty sure this is only because the tile set is already full of so many other details, though. The character sprites even change if their environment changes. Watching the characters go in and out of the water, on the field as well as in battle, impressed me.  
Storyline
    What can I say... Its a little bit cliché.. But, you know, the only reason there is a cliché is because it works! The dialogue is only so-so at points, but I'd have to say it gets the job done. I do like the 'must become the Protector' aspect of the plot, as well as all of the foreshadowing that is done. The character development (Personality wise) is pretty good. By the end of it all, you kind of *know* the characters. ..Kind of like how I really hated Adrian's sister. >.<
Feeling emotions toward characters in the game, good or bad, is a good thing. ^_^
 
Gameplay
    High difficulty and progression in the beginning impaired my ability to enjoy playing at first. After the surprisingly difficult opening area, the game throws you immediately into a tedious 'errand' type quest before the player gets a chance to get hooked. I had a couple friends who downloaded this game, and they decided to quit right after the 'errand' quest was dished out. I also was tempted, but knowing how good AdrianX's work is, I forced my self to complete it. The game starts to become pretty fun after that, fortunately.

The weapon stats are pretty confusing too, as it is difficult to determine which weapon is best to equip at any given time. On another note, having to pay to buy coins in order to save also sucks. Could you imagine trudging through the final dungeon, and realizing at the end that you are fresh out of Save Point Coins? o.O

 
  Battle
    The battles are pretty tough. While some are fun, many are frustrating. It took some serious leveling before the battles seemed to be right for my level.. Even with the leveling, though, the first and only boss was super difficult and required me to do another hour of leveling to be able to think about beating him.

There are only two battle ready characters so far:
1- Adrian…Swordsman, with attack type skills.
2- Fhae…Knife thrower, with a few stat affecting and attack magic skills

There was one battle (the boss) where you are forced to use Fhae’s magic instead of physical attacks on its weak point.. Over all, though, there isn’t a whole lot of strategy in battles yet. This may be a result from the lack of options in battle, but I feel like there is a lot of potential for good things to come.
 
  Map Design
    The map design is well done. All of the maps themselves look great, and are balance excellently with landmarks and variations. Very memorable map designs. Good work, Adrian.

The introduction area is short, and there is a straight line to the exit. This is the perfect design for an intro map, since the player still hasn’t gotten used to the game yet and anything too difficult may frustrate the player at this stage. The first town is also fairly simple and easy to navigate. As the game progresses, the areas start to become a little more complex, offering multiple routes and secrets to find. If map design had its own score, Adrian would have gotten a 10.0 from me.
 
  Balance
    This game's balance could be better, actually. CD starts off very difficult, making it hard for me to get my foot in the door on starting a new game. An Example::
The first New game I started, I died horribly trying to rush into the item menu to figure out what item heals me as a red slime raped me to death.
On the second new game I made sure I knew what healed me before I started my hike down the cliff... but was still rapped by some red slimes.
Finally, on my THIRD new game I was very careful to avoid ALL battles so that I could escape without being raped by those red slimes. Its ridiculous that I'd have to die so many times in the opening area before I could finally pass it and go on to the next thing. It took some power leveling before I could safely say that I had caught up to where I was supposed to be for the opening area.

Just when I started to feel like my character was becoming powerful, I run into a super boss that completely destroys me... except its not a super boss, its required to progress further into the game. All of the enemies in the same area as this boss die horribly at my hands now, but this boss still manages to ruthlessly take me down, with little to no effort.. *sigh* It took another 5 levels to beat him..

Soooo, yeah... Basically, the balance and/or difficulty is my main complaint about Crescent Dream. As a note, though, Adrian did say that he was going to tone down the difficulty a little bit before his next release. I’ll make sure to revise my review at that time, if I can.
 
Music
    Crescent Dream has an original sound track written by Velduanga.

The battle music is one of the most important pieces found in an RPG, and it is done well for Crescent Dream. The music is not repetitive in the slightest, and has a nice melody that I occasionally find myself humming randomly. Not only the battle music is good, but many other songs found in this game are done so well, too, from the world map, to the cliff area, to the village, even going to sleep… well, let's just say that the music in this game is well written and fits well where it is placed. I'd like to applaud Velduanga for his music.

 
Enjoyment
    Despite the difficulty and massive amount of leveling, I have to say that I did enjoy Adrian's game very much. His graphics were beautiful, the dialogue was humorous from time to time, the characters grew on me, and the story wasn't half bad at all. I'm sure any RPG fan would enjoy this game. Too bad it ended so abruptly.. ^_^

 
Final Blows
    Crescent dream is another rare find in the OHR community, where the graphics and area designs are way above the average OHR standards. The difficulty is a little high, but if you tough it out there's always something awesome waiting to reward your patience.

I hoped that if I kept slashing it enough times it would be weaker or die before I had to fight it again.... no luck. I was massively raped again. *Loads save game and continues to level up characters*

I hoped that if I kept slashing it enough times it would be weaker or die before I had to fight it again.... no luck. I was massively raped again. *Loads save game and continues to level up characters*
Final Scores
Graphics: 10/10.0
As good as they get on the OHR. It'll truly be the day when I see something that looks better than this.
Storyline: 8.5/10.0
A good little story. Not the most innovative, but it is definetly satisfactory.
Gameplay: 7.5/10.0
Extremely difficult, at first. Alot of leveling required, but yet pretty fun in the end.
Music: 9.5/10.0
One of the best original music scores I've heard for an OHR game. Many of the peices challenge the quality of music from SNES RPGs.
Enjoyment: 9/10.0
Truly enjoyable all the way to the end. Fun dungeon(only one so far), fun diolouge, and some of the best original music and graphics to highten the experience.
Overall Grade: A-
Final Thoughts
    Crescent Dream is a beautiful game! Come check it out, and find yourself wishing you could do graphics this good too.  


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