May Angels fall down Reviews

I'm pretty sure I'm the only person to play this game off Steam, so I'll try to make this review comprehensive. I feel bad posting a negative review of a project so unknown, but I feel that this game has serious issues that do not make it worth purchasing for the standard price of 10 dollars. To begin, the gameplay of May Angels Fall Down (MAFD from now on) is by the same books as other RPGMaker horror games, such as Witch's House or Mad Father. It follows the pattern of solving puzzles in an ambient environment followed by expository cutscenes and/or chases. While the puzzles in this game are well-made for the most part, this pattern is well-worn, and asks the question of how the game remains interesting once the pattern is noticed. For the aforementioned games, this is achieved by either creating a tense atmosphere in which the player hardly ever feels safe (Witch's House) or including collectibles to encourage further exploration (Mad Father). MAFD doesn't really do either; chase scenes are incredibly telegraphed and there is nothing outside of a handful of lore books to see. Hence, the game relies entirely on its story. Speaking of, the story is actually quite good. It centers around the Icarus cult, a group of afflicted people who consume the flesh of their Sun to remain healthy. The main focus of the plot is on the current Sun and the one called Daedalus, whose job it is to care for the Sun, and their relationship. It sounds simple, and it is, but the themes the story brings up are interesting to think about, and the way the relationship between the Sun and Daedalus unravels was engaging in a way I haven't seen other RPGMaker games attempt. Despite this competent story, experiencing it is hampered by a multitude of other faults. The first one I noticed is that enemies seem to stunlock the player upon making contact at all, meaning one hit instantly saps your health. Hope you saved! The second was that the solution to open the vault in the grey area made absolutely no sense to me. The official guide says that an earlier clue hints towards it, but for the life of me I couldn't tell how. I am willing to chock this up to me being bad at puzzles, however. I also noticed that certain sprites, particularly Icaruses, seemed to have stray pixels left on, which distracted me from their actual design in any scene they were present. Finally, the biggest issue to me was the lack of content. This wouldn't be a big deal for an incredibly cheap or free game, but the game only took me a little under two hours. (keep in mind a good 15-30 minutes of that was spent trying to solve the aforementioned vault puzzle) To my knowledge, there aren't any alternate routes or endings either. I bought this game for 1 dollar, and I feel that is a more appropriate price considering the game. 10 dollars is a very hard sell for a game of this length and gameplay. What I want the developer to take away most from this is to spend more time developing your game. The story was incredibly creative and engaging, the creature designs were disturbing, and most of the puzzles were satisfying to solve. What kept me from enjoying these elements was what I felt was a lack of polish. The same room themes being recolored for each floor, the prevalence of typos and sprite errors, and the lack of innovative gameplay really bogged down the experience for what I felt could've become a classic RPGMaker game. I'm not saying to bloat it with content and flip flop themes constantly, but the impactful scenes displayed a lot of potential, and I would hate to see it go to waste. Moments like the Haejin flashback and the ending make me wish the rest of the game had as much care put into it. TL;DR: the little things matter more than you think. Take care.