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.

----------------------------------

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 :(

----------------------------------

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.

Alcahest (SNES)

Hit it or Quit it?

Year: 1993 -- Developer: Hal Laboratory -- Publisher: Square

First impression:
Square!  And Hal!  No wonder this got translated.  Yes, this is my first foray into a translated game.  Since I'm assuming it's an RPG, I'm not sure how long I will actually play it for Hit it or Quit It since I don't really plan to get into it that much.  7th Saga worked out pretty well though, so maybe this will too.  Just seeing those names, and hearing this pretty awesome title screen music makes me wonder if this might even be a long-term game in the future.  There's no demo screens or anything, so who knows how this is going to go.  Being worthy of translation might be a good sign too though!

------------------------

Fooled around for: 25 minutes
It turned to not only be an RPG, but actually an action RPG!  Totally wasn't expecting that, and almost instantly bumped my rating up to Hit it.  Aside from a few text glitches on what look to be some type of Chapter screens, I couldn't even tell it was translated.  The script is just about as lame and cheesy as all of this era of games were, and it was awesome.

The music is a little lamer than I was hoping, especially running the same song over and over while you are getting through it.  And the controls are just a little bit sticky considering the amount of enemies and the angles at which they come at you.  Besides this, it was just straight-forward enough to not have to think, but fun enough to play so I didn't get bored with it.  It's actually hard to stop playing, since it was just starting to get good. I just got some fire guy as a partner and he's supposed to team up with me.  Being on the early side, it seems the leveling has something left to be desired, and the item system is a little weird, but it also may get better later on.  The graphics are pretty good for trying to be detailed considering it's on the SNES in 1993.

------------------------

Hit it or Quit it?
I wouldn't be surprised if it gets annoyingly hard later on, but for now, I would definitely hit again.  This may actually be one that I try to play for a longer style review.  I will actually create a new tag for Callbacks, because I think I'm going to want to take another go at this in the future.  Thinking back, I'm not sure I would even retro-fit any other reviews with a Callback.  This game is breaking all sorts of new ground for me!