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Warning Level : Posts : 280Join date : 2009-07-13Age : 33Location : Southeast, TN Subject: Darkness Review Thu Oct 15, 2009 5:57 am Darkness Review
Game by: darkssj3 Developed On: RPG Maker VX Score: Reviewed by Stephen “SnakeYukin” Lindsey Video Review: VIDEO Darkness is one of those games that comes along that can surprise a reviewer in such a way that one is unsure of how to think. That isn't in a good way either. This belongs in the pile of games that one should never play unless you want to play a game that is a prime example of what shouldn't be done. I'm telling you up front so you can skip ahead and read a review on a better game, perhaps on Idolcraft. For those daring to continue the read, the story, as you continue to play, of Darkness seems to be a rip-off of another popular game that I can't figure out if it was intentional, made in honor of, mere coincidence, or just a lack of creativity: my bets on either one or four. The story takes place in a world where the light has faded and only darkness remains. The story revolves around Xane, a former mercenary in the unit called GANG, who is now a fiendslayer, a person who slays fiends obviously; however, the fiends are actually robots and not demonic being like fiends are suppose to be. Shortly after all of that, we learn, at least are suppose to assume, that an evil corporation introduced, called DragenARMS and run by President Dragen, is behind the fiend attacks and promises to get rid of the fiends using a VX Project which requires a raise in taxes by 30%. Nonetheless, there's still, yet another bad guy named Vexus who is behind the world being in darkness and who has plans to destroy the world with the X-Doom Star. If you guessed that this game seems very similar to Final Fantasy VII, you are quite correct. It even goes as far as having DragenARMS HQ to have a very similar need to progress as Shinra's HQ, a highway scene, and also the very last battle is all too similar to the final battle against Sephiroth. Even the four characters in your party could be construed to match the ones in Final Fantasy VII, but I'll avoid making that comparison for this review. I'm pretty sure that there might be more similarities between the two games, maybe even other games, but there's a major problem in the game that makes it impossible to determine if that hypothesis is correct. One of the main problems that ruins the game and confuses the gamer is that the game skips three other towns that you are suppose to go visit and destroy security cores in; at least that's what I assume you are suppose to do. What happens is that shortly after leaving the first town and getting on a ship, you are told you are suppose to go to the second town and are heading there on your merry way; however, brain farts or sheer stupidity happens and you are now on your way to the very last level. This induces several problems: bad character development, missing plot points, certain characters aren't introduced, and, most importantly, your entire team is underleveled for the boss fight that you must fight before getting to the final level. The last sentiment would be completely true if your entire team wasn't super strong or your enemies weren't so weak. Most battles can be one in only one turn and all of the boss fights are disappointing because you can possibly beat them without them landing a blow on you if you know what skills to use; yes, this is even true for the final boss fights which are suppose to be the hardest in the game. The only boss that was some challenge was when the game skipped and forced me to fight a boss while I was clearly underleveled; however, what I mean by challenge is that it could possibly kill one party member instantly because of my level and it took me an hour of boredom and repetition to finally kill him. While we're on the subject of killing something, let's talk about the writing of the story of this game. One of the main problems you'll come across the game is that the person behind the game, only one person mind you, doesn't know the rules of what needs to be capitalized (names, “I”, beginning of sentences, etc.); however, he does know what words he believes need to have all capital letters or at least half of the letters capitalized. Also, all of the dialogues, monologues, and anything else that is written, for the most part, sounds very stiff and comes off like they are reading a vague script that they wished they weren't in. To the credit of the creator, I should have figured that it would consist of this new age kid writing or elementary writing when I read the description without any capitalization of anything except GANG. Even people in the game seem to have this pure idioticy about them involving not knowing anything when they should. At the very beginning of the game, the city is being overrun by fiends, the evil robots bent on killing you, your friends, your dog, and anyone else, which would most likely cause any normal human being to run around screaming, “Fiends are going to kill us all!”; however, the citizens don't have any fear of these creatures at all and, in fact, prostitutes are still out waiting for a client, a girl thinks you're cute, two boys are racing through the streets, a man is watching and commenting on them, and probably other things they shouldn't be doing. Oh, and also, the hero doesn't know what's going on at the beginning even though it's kinda obvious the city is being overrun by fiend: some fiendslayer he is. Now, time to talk about some slightly positive things about the game before I put the final nail in this coffin. First off, the music and sfx aren't bad and they fit for the most part. Second, it is playable; it doesn't just blow up when you press a certain key. Lastly, some of the maps are decent; however, most of the maps are quite bland and lack any interactivity besides those for story points, this includes certain NPCs as well, which makes it impossible to say that the mapping, in general, is great or even good. The last point to end on is about certain glitches in the gameplay and also the cutscenes. Some of the glitches noticeable are being able to walk through beds, walking through other objects, walking over a pit, not being able to walk on an area of a floor, characters appearing when they shouldn't be there, and several other things; however, there are probably a ton more in the other half of the game that I didn't get to play, which I'm grateful for by the way. For the cutscenes, like mostly the rest of the game, they are of poor quality: writing, directing, etc. Besides the writing problems (grammar, capitalization, delivery, etc.), there consists the problem that in most of these cutscenes, characters don't leave or fall to the ground in death, they simply just disappear; however, I can excuse people disappearing when they die. There can be a crowd of onlookers, but as soon as said cutscene is over, all members of the crowd prove they are magicians and disappear. Before we end this review, I can imagine that someone out there is thinking that perhaps I should contact the developer and ask him to fix the game so I can play the other half of the game. To that, I say NO! Even if the developer did fix that problem and the spelling, grammar, and capitalization problem it still wouldn't change that much on the actual review of the game. Early on, it was apparent that this game was falling off a cliff and was going to land in a field of crap, but since half of the game isn't there, that means less time of waiting for the sticky landing and more time of trying to get the nasty taste out of my mouth. The game of Darkness is one game that should have listened to its title and stayed in the darkness. The game is riddled with so many problems and glitches that one can only assume that there was no game testers involved or, if they were, they were incompetent and brain dead. The only things that make the crap a little shinier is that the music and sfx fit, the battle works, and you can get to the end, though why you want to isn't clear. Nonetheless, that doesn't change the fact that this game is crap and making it a little shiny doesn't change a fact.