Sonic RPG: Legend

[RadiantWind]

Hey guys, I'm making a Sonic RPG with RPG Maker 2003. So far, I have a demo out. Enjoy, and please comment!

Screenshots:







Demo:

http://www.mediafire.com/?yl9oclz8doj


Story:
(This game takes place a couple years after the new Sonic game) Sonic and co. have settled down in a peaceful city. One day while Sonic and Tails go home, they find that Shadow has gone evil again and defeat him. However, Amy is missing after the battle, and Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles have to find Shadow and Amy.

Characters in the demo:

Sonic:

Starting Moves: Spin Dash


Tails:

Starting Moves: Tails Freeze 1


Knuckles:

Starting Moves: Power Uppercut

[Dominicy]

What the hell did I just play?

Graphics and mapping: D-

The graphics are bad.  Colors are a mess, maps are often physically impossible - even more so than other RPGs, commercial and non-commercial alike - or just as a whole bad.  Trees are clusters of leaves stacked in neat, neck-high piles next to one another.  Backdrops often look nothing like the area they're set in.  A marsh should stay a marsh, not a beach.  A house should stay a house, not a dusty tomb.  A three-to-four-foot hedge hog should not become seven feet tall when not fighting off robotic animals reminiscent of the very beginning of the Sonic timeline.  On the positive, I love the way that battle characters and character sets remain a consistent size, rather than growing and shrinking erratically as they are known to in a whole host of RPGs.  Call me on it as you so will, but that sort of graphic style appeals to me in some way.

Music and sound: C

Lifted right from the bland, ear sodomy that is the recent Sonic sound-track, the music ranged from the almost pleasant - if not for a certain voice obnoxiously screaming at me about an army of robots during battles - to the all out painful, inflamed all the more by its constant repetition throughout the whole of each dungeon or perhaps zone, if you find that more fitting.  As far as sound goes, it's all RTP, and I'm sticking with reviewing Sonic RPG, not RPGmaker RTP.  What I can say without the frailest shred of guilt, however, is that the sounds feel adlibbed, and not even well.  In place of the chain-saw rattling of Sonic's rolling is a heavy thunk, which could easily be remedied with a whole host of other RTP sound effects, for example.

Gameplay and features: D+

Battles are boring.  Taking five steps, only to be met with another battle is aggravating.  The two put together is near unbearable, but for the sake of reviewing this game honestly, I pushed through it.  The one thing that can almost save the game - crippled so disappointingly by being tightly choked between a dozen or more random encounters - is the addition of a timed dungeon - complete with the slippery controls that are a trademark of the franchise - well, back when it was worth playing.

Difficulty and fairness: F

There's no challenge.  Save for a rather short lived hall that I was forced into using the last of my healing items to survive, the game is easily summarized as a long hallway with a bunch of mouse-traps every several steps.  Naturally, not left with any challenge, I quickly lost interest.

Plot and characters: F-

This made no sense.  Why didn't Shadow just blow my *** to Kingdom Come at the very beginning of the game?  Why didn't he just kill me in the ruined city where he left me for dead?  Why didn't he just blow up the bomb and kill me in the marsh, rather than give me three minutes to escape?  The characters lack personalities - or any feelings at all, it seems - and just seem to be there because no one else is available.  As far as I can see there's not even a link to any other Sonic games, not even the terrible 'Sonic: Next Gen'.

Overall: F+

Everything needs work - perhaps most urgently the script.




Take no offense to my review, please.  They're my thoughts on the game.  As harsh as it may be, I don't feel a need to offer constructive criticism when there's nothing that can be improved, the game is beyond saving.

[Dominicy]

For sake of reviewing the game, yes.

[RadiantWind]

I appreciate your comment. I guess you're right, but could you give me some tips on "challenge"? I get everything you're saying, but also, I didn't get your review on the music. It is from SA2 (Sonic Adventure 2) for starters, except for a few songs. Plus, finding some good sounds are really hard, so I decided to stick with the RTP. Please reply, thanks!

[Fisherson]

Challange means to make things more difficult. For example let's say you have to get a treasure chest on the otherside of a river. In the river there are two stones you need to jump to get to the chest. A fixer for this would be to add more stones and even a crocadile the moves between the rocks that ethier damages the player or sends them back to the bank.

[RadiantWind]

Thanks for the tip. I might be restarting the game.  Oh well, not like it was good anyways........

[Dominicy]

I appreciate your comment. I guess you're right, but could you give me some tips on "challenge"? I get everything you're saying, but also, I didn't get your review on the music. It is from SA2 (Sonic Adventure 2) for starters, except for a few songs. Plus, finding some good sounds are really hard, so I decided to stick with the RTP. Please reply, thanks!

Yeh, the RTP sounds I left you alone about, for the most part, I just don't like Sonic's music style.  Though that might have to do with my obsession with European metal.  What I was talking about with the RTP sounds is stuff like how nothing sounded like what it was supposed to be - for example Sonic's rolling.

[Superguy12345]

 Thank Goodness That This Is Just A Demo. I Hope the full game will be much much better.

[RadiantWind]

It will be. I am restarting it, and this time, there will be a story!