RetroBound Reviews

I have enjoyed what I've played so far. It has that nostalgic SNES RPG feel to it which I always enjoy. My only real gripe is the battle music doesn't really fit the setting of the game.

almost an hour in so far its alright. i do like the feel of it. The music could be a lot better IMO, i can see myself playing my own music next time i play as the repetition is gonna get old quick. so far it looks like the dev tried making it look like random encounters but cant seem to grind out an area. seems more like the more i walk towards where i need to go is only when i get "encounters".

Calling this an RPG is a bit of a stretch. When you play an RPG, you expect to actually walk in the shoes of a character and see their story unfold. This game does not provide that. You get tossed in, told some BS about a previous hero holding off evil, and then suddenly you find yourself in control of a 4-character party. No development of them, no explanation of their ambitions, zero information as to how they even know each other, but they're who you play as so go nuts. Secondly, there are no random encounters. You encounter enemies at set points, and that's it. If a character happens to die and misses out on XP, oh well. You'd better hope they survive the next fight to start catching up. There are also boss fights randomly scattered throughout the game that will just pop up with zero warning. At least, I assume they're boss fights because there's no actual explanation of it, but their names display with a * next to them. Seems odd to throw in a boss on a seemingly inconsequential piece of game path. Bosses are usually placed where they make sense. You've reached the end of a dungeon, you've fought your way through all of the minions and now it's time for the boss man, or maybe just a super strong henchman stays behind to delay you from the main boss. This game? Nope. You turned a corner and hey! There's a boss. Third, there is zero way to recover any HP or mana in the fight outside of spells. You have ONE character who has healing spells. If she runs out of mana? Sorry. You're screwed. If she gets targeted and killed? Also screwed. Game over. No items to be used ANYWHERE in the game, so ration your healer mana wisely and make sure she heals herself above all others because if she dies? Yep. Screwed. Fourth, there's a run option in the combat screen. Ignore it. You can't fucking use it. Fifth, magic does disproportionately HUGE damage in this game and will be the main source of all of your headaches when fighting enemies. They'll use something like 'Fear' or 'Glacier' and your entire team will now be at half health. Good luck there. Finally, the dialogue is awful. You reach the final point of the game, interact with the NPC you've been trying to reach this whole time (a crystal), and when it talks to you, your character says, "WTF. YOU CAN TALK?!" To which this crystal replies something along the lines of, "lol. Yep." Awful game that should be free if offered out at all. The one positive I can give it is the sprites in combat looked very nice.