ABC Challenge: Palate Cleanser Edition

The first thing that caught my attention were the graphics. They were so polished and well done that one could think this game was a NDS port. They also put a lot of work on the menus to the point it doesn’t look like an RPG Maker at all. I wish the full screen mode kept the original 4:3 ratio instead of stretching the screen.
Plot-wise it was quite original but I felt they could have one a bit more with it. For a game that’s about not killing mobs senselessly you can grind as much as you want without consequences. IMO it’d have been more interesting if random mobs stayed dead for good. I also would have appreciated if they didn’t showcase that one flashback all the time.
The OST was fine save for the main theme, which was played at the title screen and during most boss battles. Personal tastes aside, it didn’t fit with the overall setting and it was immersion-breaking.
The game itself was fairly easy (save for the final boss, but that had to do with my natural disregard of using items in RPGs). With a bit of grind at the start you can get your characters quite overpowered early in the game if you want to, and your characters have a tendency of landing critical hits more often than you can imagine. Also I felt like most monsters gave the same amount of exp and money despite some of them being harder to beat than others (and it doesn’t help that there’s a noticeable lack of available equipment).
There’s quite a bit of backtracking too, which made me miss being able to walk faster like in many other games (thankfully the maps weren’t too big).
In short, it was a good game despite its flaws. I hope the sequels are even better.

Saying that I fell in love with this game during the first hour would be an understatement. Even if the plot isn’t original (save for the origin of the vampires) and some of the plot-twists are predictable the game pulls you in and makes you want to know more and more about the trials and tribulations of the pint-sized Lita (friendly reminder to never wear a ring you find in an abandoned dungeon). The lore is also very extensive, but instead of getting exposition bumps thorough the game we can learn about the world the game takes place in by reading the different books that can be found in each city (or you can ignore them if you don’t want extra info).
The characters are well written too. Lita in particular stands out as being a teenager who wants nothing to do with the Artifacts of Power and eventually succumbs to the pressure of having the fate of the world on her hands, unlike your typical hero who is all gung-ho about being in a huge quest to save the world. Also it’s noticeable how some of the antagonists aren’t inherently evil and they only do what they do because they all they want is a way to get rid of their curse. They could have been allies if circumstances were different.
The backgrounds and character designs are quite pretty and very varied, from gorgeous forests and ruins to snowy towns. Just take a look at the screens and judge for yourself.
On another note, it caught my attention that the game lets you resize the window to some pre-established sizes or just go full screen. Yes guys, you don’t have to play in a small windows if you don’t want to.
Another thing I really loved was the soundtrack. It’s really immersive and the quality is on par with many AAA games, though it gives a bit of a mood whiplash when, for example, there’s some epic track playing and once you get in a cave it plays he usual upbeat dungeon-crawling track (and to makes things worse, if you battle a monster from the previous map inside said cave it plays the epic track again).
Regarding the mechanics, while the battles played as they’d play in any RPG Maker 2003 game there were a lot of things that made the whole game different in this regard. For starters you can craft your own equipments and potions once you get the recipes (though there’s not much variety), you can choose which stats to improve when the chars level up (protip: raise Seri Kasu’s MP to 600 ASAP. You’ll thank me later) and you can learn/improve your skills in a store instead of just grinding. The game counts with a story mode too, which lets you instawin battles in case you just want to enjoy the story (don’t use it on your first run though =P).

All in all get this game ASAP. It’s worth it.

Btw, the devs pretty much finished a remake of the game in Unity (it’s a beta at the moment) which improved on a lot of things, got rid of any limit the previous engine had, fixed most of my minor pet peeves with the game (90% of them had to do with said limitations), and allowed Steam integration (reason why I don’t have any unlocked achievements).