The Fall of Gods (XBLIG)

Hit it or Quit it?

Year: 2011 -- Developer: Geex -- Publisher:  XBLIG

First impression:

Looks like an SNES-era action RPG.  Sprites are a little small on the screen and it makes the whole screen feel a little crowded and distracting, but maybe it won't feel like that in the game.  I have a feeling that 7 minutes of this isn't going to get me anywhere, but we'll see what comes of it.

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Fooled around for:  14 minutes (Two cycles of demo limit)

This is the first time I have actually ran the demo limit twice.  I expect to do this generally for RPGs when it allows you to save, so I can get a better feel for the game.  The first run, most of the time limit was taken by just watching the story intro.

Speaking of, the story was actually pretty interesting.  Kind of a creationist, how the world started, thing, but with magic and the corruption of man leading to the Fall of the Gods (see what they did with the title?).  

My feeling was pretty much right with the graphics though.  The sprites are too small, and the movement isn't grid based.  This isn't always bad, but considering it looks retro, I would rather walk on a grid than free-form and not be able to get around a tree because my hit box is catching too much.  This also leads for some tricky sword swinging.. am I close enough? am I lined up? etc..

The script boasts that there a several dungeons and maps, and lots of puzzles.  This is fine and actually sounds pretty good, except you need to be a super good puzzle designer for so many puzzle to not feel crammed in.  The "puzzles" so far seem that way.  It leads to to exactly what you need to do, except then there is one small piece that is so vague, it's just confusing.  Not because the "puzzle" is tricky, but because the pieces just weren't designed well.

So.. Graphics are okay, controls aren't that tight, and the puzzles have been more annoying than clever.  So much for that interesting story :(

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Hit it or Quit it? (80 MSP)

Considering how many retro RPGs I see pop up here and there on XBLIG, I'm guessing some of those are probably tighter than this is.  They may not be action-RPGs, but a tighter turn-based RPG would be more appealing.  I might come back to this someday, but I have a feeling there are plenty of hours of RPGs out there to play before I need to come back to this.  So quit for now, but maybe not forever.