A note: my PC is a potato, and because of this my experience here was filled with plenty of lag. However, not so much to render it unplayable for me (and therefore unrateable)

Great graphics and interesting combat system. Though I struggled to figure out at first what was actually going on with the turns and actions (now I understand that the spheres are essentially action points, each skill spends a differing amount, and each turn provides allows you to spend more then before)

I found the skill/equipment system to be rather strange, some things didn't make sense to me (some characters couldn't use some sorts of skills, but I was able to 'buy' it for them anyway therefore wasting resources, no indication of this provided) and it felt tedious to find the stuff that was actually available. Not saying it's bad, just that I think there's probably a way to better implement it.

I didn't go very far, got one crystal, entered another world. But the story was simply there, good enough I suppose as an excuse to play, but not compelling (I haven't tried any of the previous titles in the series... so perhaps that may have changed my expectations?)

The jam game that played like a real game. Somehow you blew the scope so far out of the water, it shattered the multiverse. 

I giggled gleefully when I returned to a very familiar looking world with one of my favorite battle systems (with some notable alterations). I liked the little cutscenes following the HTLM crew's lives, the soundtrack felt just right, the graphics were retro-beautiful. While I am judging for the jam based on the 45 minute limit, I fully intend on playing through the whole thing! I was able to conquer one world before my time ran out. Part of it was my own addiction to grinding. Levels + skill mastery levels are a black hole for me, and I could be found grinding skill levels on non-damaging abilities, even though I do not know if that does anything.

I don't know if you can help yourself, but I'd challenge you to make a legit 45 minute jam game, instead of these awesome games that would take the rest of us a couple of years to complete.

Wow this is a long game. The art change at the start of the game caught me off guard in a good way. I also love how bouncy the horizontal walking sprite animation in the second artstyle, they are so cute. Too bad the vertical movement isn't too bouncy. While I love the skill-equipment system, I found my hoarding habit preventing me to explore the other skills since it cost materials. 

Pretty solid submission overall, good work! 

Harold Between Worlds 3 offers a nostalgic trip down memory lane with its charming retro pixel graphics, which provide a refreshing departure from the more commonly seen RPG Maker assets. The visual style alone sets the game apart, capturing the essence of classic 16-bit adventures and appealing to fans of retro gaming.

Despite its visual charm, Harold Between Worlds 3 feels like an ambitious project that struggles with the constraints of a game jam format. The game seems to be a repurposed version of one of the developer's larger projects, and this ambition leads to an overwhelming amount of content and mechanics. In the 45 minutes of playtime allotted for this review, I found it difficult to grasp and utilize the myriad features and systems the game offers.

The pacing of Harold Between Worlds 3 is another area where it falters as a jam game. The story is heavily front-loaded, with a significant amount of narrative setup before players can dive into the gameplay. While the storyline itself is engaging, the slow start may deter players who expect a more immediate and fast-paced experience typical of jam games.

In terms of gameplay, there's nothing inherently wrong with Harold Between Worlds 3. The mechanics and systems are solid, and the game functions well. However, for a game jam entry, it likely needed to be scaled back considerably. A more focused and streamlined approach would have made the game more accessible and enjoyable within the limited playtime.

In conclusion, Harold Between Worlds 3 is a well-crafted game with endearing retro visuals and a promising storyline. However, it misses the mark as a jam game mostly due to its complexity. With further refinement and a more focused scope, it has the potential to be a standout title. For now, it's an interesting but somewhat overwhelming experience that might be better suited for a full-fledged release rather than a game jam.

This game is huge. It took an extra minute to figure out the turn system and that I took some time to realize the equipment items function like skillbooks. Unfortunately, I wasn't in the mindspace to play a game this big, so this game felt like a slow burn I didn't have the patience for. I only went 25 minutes in which was shorter than I'd like but 5 stars seems fair with all things considered.

Hi! I finished in about 1.5 hours overall. Really enjoyed this submission and installment in HBW. You guys make a great team! I built a lot around the Vampire Claw. It was really cool jumping to all the worlds and collecting all of the personalities that are so well established in the rpgm community. 

The critical path was excellent and very clear.

I personally appreciate the on map enemies over RNG battle lol and thought they were very appropriately spaced out.

The Battle system really complemented the attunement system and character collection system as you didn't need to call on a member who wasn't beneficial in a fight against the current enemies.

In some menus it would be nice to see some filters between armor, weapons and even the sub types. 

I did enjoy the system for attunement (specifically thought it fit well with being able to choose from so many characters). I was able to figure it out the attunement system pretty quickly. I would suggest some very minor terminology alterations to further improve and support clarity. For example, in the battle UI Armour skills learned from attunements and Weapon skills learned from attunements are both just under "Weapons", might be nice to align it to the label in the map UI "Skills" which also more clearly covers both armour and weapon skills. Then in the Skills menu you could call the "Battle" section "Learned" or something to align with the "Learn" button when attuning. 

I absolutely loved this entry and the Art, Music, Vibes all nailed it! Great job :)

The ETB battle system works great! If the system ever gets adapted into a proper game, the attune menu will need some rework to be more user-friendly as it is quite clunky to scroll through this giant list of options. At the end, I didn't interact much with this mechanic at all and hoarded items "just in case" lol. The graphics and spritework looks great, and I liked the story. It was a bit long and went overtime to finish it (played on easy mode).

The purple gem confuses me a bit. I would prefer the x2 after the purple gem in skill cost.

But overall I love the game a lot~ <3

What is it with haroldjam 2024 and impossibly long games haha...
I've completed two of the three zones and already clocked in over an hour. Looks and sounds nice, premise is just a better execution of my World of Harold crossover in terms of gameplay loop, so I'm pleased to see all the characters, and the intro is lovely, but story past that is just a few character intros and fun fake harolds, I have yet to see more of the plot. Wish I could have seen more interaction from the characters but alas the game is already way too big.

As for gameplay... There's a really cool gameplay loop here, and the "turn mana" system is a lot of fun, but between me not playing the earlier games, the sheer complexity of how many parameters and buffs and debuffs and skill effects and resources I had to maintain each battle, skill masteries which didn't seem to do anything, as well as both not having any sort of autosave (game overs in a jam setting are painful) and me not knowing there was a shop or inn so I had to stress with 2 potions and no heals for a while, all combined to a stressful (even if mechanically rewarding) experience.

Going into a bit of detail, the tutorial for binding equipment to your characters wasn't great so I accidentally avoided the mechanic for one entire zone (i didn't even have an Equip menu option!) and having started with the Future first the holes in the wall for shops looked like the other non-interactable holes and terminals and machines in the wall, and I couldn't parse the signs as signs. I only wrote all this so you know what to avoid in the future.

My only wish is that the game had simpler combat and 70% less roaming enemies. Combat seems pretty deep and customizable but while I would gladly play a longer game, it challenged my patience as a jam game.

So, after 45 minutes in real time, and then 45 minutes in in-game time, I made it to the final boss, but I couldn't defeat him even within the time limit based on the in-game clock instead of real time. It was a massive difficulty spike, the dude was basically dealing 80% damage on a single party member each turn.

Anyway, the biggest issue with the game here is bloat. It's a pretty great full length RPG trapped in the body of a Harold Jam entry, and thus in my opinion gets hurt in both directions; it has to rush itself in order to meet the criteria of the jam, but it also has so much content that it can't meet that criteria at all.

There are, like, 100 different weapons (all of which you must scroll past every time you want to equip the new item you just found), five party members in battle, at least 9 different playable characters which I'm certain I didn't even find all of them since I randomly recruited RATD Reid while I was trying to find where the game's easy mode was located, and the sorta Hearthstone FTB system the game cultivates kinda necessitates enemies be needlessly spongey to facilitate the procedural growth that occurs between turns. This all wraps together to make a game that feels like it's way too much. It was very overwhelming, but in a way that I think would have been easy to digest if the game had more time to breathe and be a game instead of a jam entry. The fact that 90 minutes appears to be the expected runtime of the entry really speaks to this; I gave a pretty generous pass last year when the game nearly doubled the time limit, but after seeing it happen again this year it's really difficult for me to reward a game that can't seem to control its own scope like this, even if I did have a lot of fun.

The combat is excellent, this is a system that I would have loved to see in a 10-20 hour RPG easily. I hear this every year and you probably do too, but I would love to see this system expanded on in a future project of yours. However, this system is really held back by being in a jam, and its attempts to compensate for that end up hurting the rest of the game within the context of a jam. There are a bunch of enemies, each takes 5-6 turns to kill seemingly by design, the bosses take *eons* to slay, and even just navigating menus filled with so much fluff eats up a ton of time. There's also the prologue where you play as Reid, which, while very cute, really overstays its welcome and lasts a solid 10 minutes when I honestly think it could have been cut entirely without really affecting the game much overall. 

I definitely don't want it to come off as this game being a waste of time; it is not, I had a ton of fun exploring the systems and seeing these characters from different games I love (it was really cool running into Reid only to discover it was MY Reid!) However, as a jam entry, I feel it didn't *respect* my time, in the sense that it kinda just ran as long as it wanted to without consideration that I may be in the middle of a voting queue, playing several entries, or simply playing games in the jam expecting concise, casual experiences. It's a really great game, but not so great as a jam entry, if that makes sense.

I know this probably came off pretty negative, but time is one of the most valuable and difficult to manage resources in a jam, both as a dev and as a player, so seeing this game spend its time so flagrantly kinda rubs me the wrong way. I still really like it, and I *implore you* to find something to do with this system in a future project, maybe after Moonfell or something. But, like I said before, it's a great game trapped in a jam's body. It needs a little room to breathe.

Very fun entry as always! I loved the Rm2k3 graphics in the beginning and how it transitioned into NES-like pixels which were fun to see! I'm also very honored to see Klein as a guest character in this along with the other cool chars! I love that there are a ton of options to customize your party's skills via weapon/armor equipment. The battles were fairly balanced and I enjoyed the challenge when it was present. (I played in normal mode). I finished in about an hour and a half, so that was a good time spent. Amazing job! <3