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chuckroSo, this whole bundle is RPGMaker games. The big difference between games like these and what KEMCO is shoveling out is that KEMCO's developers are making standard jrpgs—in every game, you start as an unlikely hero with a forgotten past, collect some plot trinkets, learn that the big bad is a long-lost relative, acquire an airship, and kill god. You find new weapons in every shop and new enemies in every dungeon, and face a smooth difficulty curve. RPGMaker developers feel much more free to think outside the box. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn't.
The Chosen RPG - In theory many of the games here were tagged with “nudity” on Steam. That's inaccurate in this case, as the only “nudity” is that the character portraits for your team wear bikinis. The plot is bog-standard “the gods fought, good won but evil will return, you're the chosen one, blah blah blah.” The dungeons are short and the battle strategy options are sparse, and the game as a whole only runs about three hours. The game ends with Edge trapped in the Underworld and continues in...
Chosen 2 - Which follows Edge in the Underworld for less than two hours of additional game, then returns you to the surface for a solo dungeon and a final boss battle that you can't prepare ¾ of your party for. Stellar design, there. This game's nod to the “nudity” tag is that the four members of the main party suffer clothing damage when their HP are low, getting down to the bikini level. There are a couple of puzzles and interesting ideas, but really, this is nothing special.
Sins Of The Demon - This game takes place is an Asian-themed world that nonetheless has been cursed by Western representations of sin: People who give into one of the seven deadly sins turn into a demon representative of it. This game is loaded down with sidequests, optional dialogues between the two main characters (a man and his cursed demon-cat-brother), and a cooking minigame that can snap the game in half by providing permanent stat boosts and an infinite money loop (Pork Buns can be made for 125 Yen worth of ingredients and sell for 250). The systems are a bit uneven, as there's no equipment upgrades and leveling or using the food items are the only way to improve your characters; and there are only two tiers of enemies, ones with 200-300 HP and ones with 2000+ HP. Also, the map is fairly small and involves a lot of running back and forth through the same areas. But the story is decent and the characterization is quite good, and at 7 hours, it doesn't overstay its welcome. For an indie game made on RPGMaker by a small team, though it has flaws, this was quite fun.
Greyfox - This isn't really an RPG so much as a story / puzzle adventure game. A young woman moves into a retirement community, and gets dragged into supernaturally experiencing the lives of the old people around her. It's only about 45 minutes to get through, though there are multiple endings and little Easter egg achievements. I don't think there's really much to take away from the story, besides “the mysterious demon-woman will drive you crazy if you move into a retirement town while still young.”
Gladiator Trainer - This is a raising sim with a few visual novel elements—you don’t actually control the battles, as your gladiators fight automatically with whatever you equip them with. The mouse controls for the map screen were a poor idea (it’s a menu town), but they did introduce an interesting glitch/cheat: Your gladiators are always supposed to fight one-on-one, but if you right-click to select the one to fight rather than left-clicking, it brings your entire group in as the fighting party. The game kinda tops out its economy early, as most of the gladiator classes (there are six) can't equip the best weapons and armor, there's only one upgrade level for each building, and there are no consumable items. Eventually, you just pour your money into War College and skill training, hoping to get your second-best guy up to speed before your champion hits 75 battles and wins his freedom. Kinda cute side note: The male “pleasure slave” has no problem working on male gladiators, and regardless of your character's gender, you can pursue a husband or a wife.
Labyronia - This designer clearly figured out that you could make space-filling labyrinths in RPGMaker, and decided to run with that as a theme. That, and open-world design that isn't really open because of the beef gates. I tried very hard to make it through the forest next to the first town, but after the fifth time I died to a random encounter, I opted to explore more of the world. Trying to enter another country gets you thrown into a labyrinth you CAN handle with first-town equipment. The lack of direction and easily-missable important items doesn't abate after that—you need to buy obviously-underpowered water-resistant armor to fight a single boss, or he's effectively unbeatable. You need to get mushrooms to skip a maze crawling with nigh-undefeatable werewolves, but then it turns out that without the spell found in that maze (Stone), you can't get a spell in the Earth labyrinth (Dispel), and in turn, you can't beat the boss in the Earth labyrinth. Nothing at any point gives you clues about this. I don't like the idea that a relatively short turn-based rpg “beat” me, but after making it almost out of there werewolf forest, having killed four of them and collected all the items, then dying to a critical hit and losing all of that progress...I just can't. I'm done.
Labyronia RPG 2 - I was wary of this to begin with, but I figured I'd see if the developer had learned anything. The answer being, “Not really.” The plot starts off on a stronger note, but clearly assumes you beat the first game and know all the characters. (This takes place some years later, as the world has been plunged into endless winter.) The first dungeon is an unlit tower with enemies that you can't damage but still need to wait two rounds before you can run from them. The second dungeon is a massive area with a combination of empty fields and dense, space-filling mazes; along with more unbeatable enemies except for the one random, specific zombie you need to hunt down in the vastness. Nope!
Storm of Spears - I'm not sure how much of the problem is the game versus my computer, but this has janky animations and clunky controls; it doesn't run particularly well and that makes it unpleasant to play. The plot seems like it has some actual depth, though I'm not sure if the developer bit off more than they could chew with the scope. (This is also another game with a “nudity” tag despite having nothing more suggestive than cleavage-bearing armor.)
Overall: Sins Of The Demon, Greyfox and Gladiator Trainer were flawed, but interesting enough to enjoy playing through. The Chosen was bland, Labyronia was insane and clearly hates players, and Storm of Spears had potential but had technical issues. I got my money's worth in entertainment.
The Chosen RPG - In theory many of the games here were tagged with “nudity” on Steam. That's inaccurate in this case, as the only “nudity” is that the character portraits for your team wear bikinis. The plot is bog-standard “the gods fought, good won but evil will return, you're the chosen one, blah blah blah.” The dungeons are short and the battle strategy options are sparse, and the game as a whole only runs about three hours. The game ends with Edge trapped in the Underworld and continues in...
Chosen 2 - Which follows Edge in the Underworld for less than two hours of additional game, then returns you to the surface for a solo dungeon and a final boss battle that you can't prepare ¾ of your party for. Stellar design, there. This game's nod to the “nudity” tag is that the four members of the main party suffer clothing damage when their HP are low, getting down to the bikini level. There are a couple of puzzles and interesting ideas, but really, this is nothing special.
Sins Of The Demon - This game takes place is an Asian-themed world that nonetheless has been cursed by Western representations of sin: People who give into one of the seven deadly sins turn into a demon representative of it. This game is loaded down with sidequests, optional dialogues between the two main characters (a man and his cursed demon-cat-brother), and a cooking minigame that can snap the game in half by providing permanent stat boosts and an infinite money loop (Pork Buns can be made for 125 Yen worth of ingredients and sell for 250). The systems are a bit uneven, as there's no equipment upgrades and leveling or using the food items are the only way to improve your characters; and there are only two tiers of enemies, ones with 200-300 HP and ones with 2000+ HP. Also, the map is fairly small and involves a lot of running back and forth through the same areas. But the story is decent and the characterization is quite good, and at 7 hours, it doesn't overstay its welcome. For an indie game made on RPGMaker by a small team, though it has flaws, this was quite fun.
Greyfox - This isn't really an RPG so much as a story / puzzle adventure game. A young woman moves into a retirement community, and gets dragged into supernaturally experiencing the lives of the old people around her. It's only about 45 minutes to get through, though there are multiple endings and little Easter egg achievements. I don't think there's really much to take away from the story, besides “the mysterious demon-woman will drive you crazy if you move into a retirement town while still young.”
Gladiator Trainer - This is a raising sim with a few visual novel elements—you don’t actually control the battles, as your gladiators fight automatically with whatever you equip them with. The mouse controls for the map screen were a poor idea (it’s a menu town), but they did introduce an interesting glitch/cheat: Your gladiators are always supposed to fight one-on-one, but if you right-click to select the one to fight rather than left-clicking, it brings your entire group in as the fighting party. The game kinda tops out its economy early, as most of the gladiator classes (there are six) can't equip the best weapons and armor, there's only one upgrade level for each building, and there are no consumable items. Eventually, you just pour your money into War College and skill training, hoping to get your second-best guy up to speed before your champion hits 75 battles and wins his freedom. Kinda cute side note: The male “pleasure slave” has no problem working on male gladiators, and regardless of your character's gender, you can pursue a husband or a wife.
Labyronia - This designer clearly figured out that you could make space-filling labyrinths in RPGMaker, and decided to run with that as a theme. That, and open-world design that isn't really open because of the beef gates. I tried very hard to make it through the forest next to the first town, but after the fifth time I died to a random encounter, I opted to explore more of the world. Trying to enter another country gets you thrown into a labyrinth you CAN handle with first-town equipment. The lack of direction and easily-missable important items doesn't abate after that—you need to buy obviously-underpowered water-resistant armor to fight a single boss, or he's effectively unbeatable. You need to get mushrooms to skip a maze crawling with nigh-undefeatable werewolves, but then it turns out that without the spell found in that maze (Stone), you can't get a spell in the Earth labyrinth (Dispel), and in turn, you can't beat the boss in the Earth labyrinth. Nothing at any point gives you clues about this. I don't like the idea that a relatively short turn-based rpg “beat” me, but after making it almost out of there werewolf forest, having killed four of them and collected all the items, then dying to a critical hit and losing all of that progress...I just can't. I'm done.
Labyronia RPG 2 - I was wary of this to begin with, but I figured I'd see if the developer had learned anything. The answer being, “Not really.” The plot starts off on a stronger note, but clearly assumes you beat the first game and know all the characters. (This takes place some years later, as the world has been plunged into endless winter.) The first dungeon is an unlit tower with enemies that you can't damage but still need to wait two rounds before you can run from them. The second dungeon is a massive area with a combination of empty fields and dense, space-filling mazes; along with more unbeatable enemies except for the one random, specific zombie you need to hunt down in the vastness. Nope!
Storm of Spears - I'm not sure how much of the problem is the game versus my computer, but this has janky animations and clunky controls; it doesn't run particularly well and that makes it unpleasant to play. The plot seems like it has some actual depth, though I'm not sure if the developer bit off more than they could chew with the scope. (This is also another game with a “nudity” tag despite having nothing more suggestive than cleavage-bearing armor.)
Overall: Sins Of The Demon, Greyfox and Gladiator Trainer were flawed, but interesting enough to enjoy playing through. The Chosen was bland, Labyronia was insane and clearly hates players, and Storm of Spears had potential but had technical issues. I got my money's worth in entertainment.
