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Daega vs. Blazes Battles Inc.
Daega
Cyber Cat
Download: 322 KB
V.S.
Blazes Battles Inc.
Play Time: 0 hours and 15 minutes
Review # 1 for Blazes Battles Inc.
Them's Fightin' Words
    This game looked pretty good from the screenshot, and IS pretty good during the introduction with the text boxes over the title screen part. However, once you see the first map, things start to go downhill... The game's not quite so bad you'd want to avoid downloading it, but it's definitely no so good you'd want to go out of your way to download it.
Graphics
    As for the walkabouts, I'm pretty sure that almost all of them were ripped. Then there's just some general errors about them. For example, in the first town, I think it was called Draco Town, everyone looks exactly the same (they're dragons, but there's no difference between them) except they have different palettes. Most of them are also copies of each other, but that's a different matter. In the second town there's another walkabout that used the dragon walkabout, but the pallete was screwy on that one and it looked sort of alienish, but you could tell it was an accident. There's a few different ones later, like Kayra's, but they also looked ripped. The one that looked original was the 'cat' walkabout graphic that is actually Kayra in disguise, but it was pretty bad. There was basically no shading, and when it walked only one leg moved.
The enemy graphics are just like the 'cat' walkabout graphic, basically just an outline with a solid color and then several necesary components, like eyes. Then there's the battle graphics for Krystal (the main character) and Kayra, which are just blown-up versions of their walkabouts. The only battle background graphic I saw (a blue sky with green hills) was pretty poorly done for something obviously made with 3D imaging software, and it may or may not have been ripped.
The maptiles had a large number of tiles that I think were ripped for two reasons. First, they're cropped horribly, and second, they're style and quality is SO much different from the other tiles in the game. The water graphics, world map graphics and dungeon graphics all looked ripped, which basically just left town graphics. Those tiles looked quickly done with the airbrush tool or with some organization but no detail, and had that uncomfortable mega-grid feeling. None of the tiles had any connection with surrounding tiles (no grass that was growing slightly over the road for instance, which looks incredibly awkward).
 
Storyline
    The story started out looking like it could be good. Once the text boxes leave the title screen, it gets odd. You join Krystal, who is arguing with her mother about whether or not she can leave, with her father make occasional comments. Her mother seems really, really mad about Krystal looking for a door that her mother says doesn't exist. Too mad. That could've been a good story point, her mother not wanting her to tell her about what she knew, but it was never used as one. Then there's the dad, who's basically... stupid. The mother threatens to disown Krystal if she dares set foot outside the house, and then the father BASICALLY tells Krystal her mother will forget about it, and to be back by Monday. From this point on, the story loses all sense. After leaving town and trudging through a forest, you can go to the town or to the next dungeon, but doing so means you'll have to hear textboxes from someone who isn't in your party. It allows you to progress without getting Kayra, who is in the next town. So let's assume you go to the town first. The overly-informative 'stand-next-to-sign-all-day' person tells you about Kayra, but you don't need to talk to him. Just go to the house at the upper-left part of the town, and you'll begin a plotscripted-scene with a cat. This terribly slow cat walks over to what looks sort of like a box, you assume it's hungry. Here's where it gets annoying.
You go up and have the choice to feed it or not (forget the fact you have no food). Could this game actually be non-linear, with choices? Yes! Except if you choose not to feed it, you die. You still get the choice though. Kayra leaves cat form and KILLS you, calling you an animal hater. That's just weird and not sensible, but it gets worse when you see what happens if you choose to feed the cat. Kayra emerges and joins you, but first tells you she was in cat form because a wizard trapped her in it, and she could only get out with energy (from the food). First off, the wizard thing is incredibly cliche and underdeveloped here, like Kayra forgets about him two seconds later. Second off, if you need food to get out of cat form, how did you kill us earlier? Anyway, she also says she couldn't get the food because she couldn't open the cabinet when she was a cat. Okay, that explains why you didn't need to have had food to give food to the cat, because it was in the cabinet. This raises another interesting question, why didn't you have to go over to the cabinet to get the food? Well, it wasn't there. This raises another interesting question, why was there an invisible cabinet? It doesn't really matter, because you're packing your bags and ready to go to the portal to Earth in the cave south of the town that you could've entered earlier.
After getting through this annoying labyrinth, you find the door. It's locked. Kayra tells you about her friend who can open it, but she's in prison. Kayra says she's probably on the ghost ship two seconds later. Ghost ship? How could she know, where did this 'ghost ship' nonsense come from? You're supposed to be able to reach it because you can fly to an island nearby (you're a winged dragon, after all) a hitch a boat-ride to the ghost ship, which is stationary (it's shown on a map given to you). Unfortunately, the previous questions will never be answered, because there's nothing to do after this. You can't fly over the sea to a nearby island. And there's nowhere to go. There's no notification, but you can quit now.
 
Gameplay
    The game was boring. In the first town, there was a bottomless well (as explained in the 'Balance' section) and all these npc copies, while the second town is nearly devoid of life. The text boxes had their fair share of typos, and they never 'shrunk' the text boxes to fit the number of lines when there were less than the maximum amount. The 'choose-wrong-and-die' scenario was also incredibly annoying because I hadn't saved. It just sort of drags on like that...  
  Battle
    The battles were really annoying, partly because there were more than there should have been in dungeons that size. Here's an example of a battle in the forest dungeon, which is the only battle you'll fight (repeatedly) in the dungeon: The battle has some sort of Unicornish thing, and occurs in the forest dungeon (while the battle background is out in these hills with no trees). You only have one attack (and a spell list with no spells), so does the enemy, so it just goes on like that. These battles are also stupidly long. I just ran from the future (one or two) battles, so I don't know if Kayra has any skill whatsoever, but it didn't seem like Krystal did. It also took too long to level up (but there's no reason to level up anyway).  
  Map Design
    There was NO good map design in the game. The insides of houses are basic squares and rectangles, and the towns are incredibly bland with few buildings. Some of them you can't enter, and in the first town, the door to the second (why two?) inn is off the ground. Now, if they're trying to make a point that you can fly, then I'd like to know why I can't fly ANYWHERE ELSE, and only up and down at that one spot. The world map is hideous, with the use of about six tiles. There's this terrible grid effect, because no tiles blend in with tiles surrounding them. Finally, there's the dungeons. They're maze-like, which is good. If used properly. This game has incredibly mazes, I'll give it that, but there's a fine line between challenging and annoying. There's the whole annoying constant battles part, but other than that, you could go down a path for several minutes, come to a dead end, and have to backtrack to the beginning and try again. You get nothing for going down the wrong passage, no treasure chests or anything, not even a unique battle, maybe with an enemy that appears on the map. Then there's how in the second map there's a secret passage you have to find. With no hints. And it's at the end of a dead end passage that looks like all the other dead end passages. So unless you go want to go through every single path to the very end and try to walk through the wall at the end, you may just want to use F11 after five minutes, like I did.  
  Balance
    The battles, although boring and straightforward, are pretty well balanced. What was especially impressive was how sometimes attacks missed (it's really hard to get a good hit/miss ratio, I know from experience). However, outside of battles, the game is REALLY unbalanced. At the beginning there's a pond where you can get an infinite number of healing items from, but you never really need them because there's never a fight you can't run from (or any boss battles that I could find). Most items you can buy cost hundreds of dollars (or whatever currency), but after fighting five long, boring battles, you'll be lucky to have fifty. Ah well...  
Music
    There's not much to say here. It was ripped from various sources, and most of it was placed in the wrong place to... place it. I also noticed, however, that after one track finishes, an entirely different (not even the same theme sometimes) one will start, which is REALLY weird.  
Enjoyment
    This game wasn't very enjoyable because of the many story and game flaws, the fact you could die if you made a wrong decision, the fact that it tells you to do something at the end that you can't do, and the fact that it has NO replay value whatsoever. Tic-tac-toe's more fun and will keep you captivated longer.  
Final Blows
    Okay, it did horrible as a game in basically all areas. The thing it excels in is POTENTIAL. Most games you see that would get grades this bad would never be able to be good without a lifetime of work put into it, and it's better to start from scratch, but there's something different about this game. It isn't enjoyable or a good game by any means, but when playing it you get a sense of the author knew what he/she was doing, but tried to do it too quickly. This game is obviously rushed, but the fact that it starts out looking fairly good and ends up looking bad should show that with a little bit of patience and remodeling, this game COULD be a great game. It would take some work, but it's definitely a possibility.


Final Scores
Graphics: 3/10.0
I'm pretty sure they were ripped... except the bad ones.
Storyline: 3.5/10.0
It starts out good, but gets bad. Fast.
Gameplay: 1.5/10.0
Boring.
Music: 2.5/10.0
It's ripped, and in all the wrong places.
Enjoyment: 1.5/10.0
The fact that it WASN'T enjoyable does it some serious harm in this area.
Overall Grade: D+
Final Thoughts
    With a lot of work and a little ingenuity, this game could be great. Until then...  


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