Judge feedback

Judge feedback is anonymous and shown in a random order.

• Theme 

  After the disappearance of the entire village during a crab festival, a medical team and a bunch of mercs come in to investigate/save the village. Atmospheric and well done.

  Gameplay 

  Standard SRPG mechanics. There’s not much to say about the mechanics since I don’t think it brings anything new to the table except for maybe one thing ,a revived ally can act immediately on that turn rather than the next turn. I like this.  Also the dog is easily the strongest unit. There are however some pretty major issues:

  • The animations happen way later than the damage pop up which makes it really jarring too.
  • There are bugs where I can’t target enemies with a certain character though and really does mess things up.
  • Poison happens twice(!). One for start of your turn and end of turn. That’s way to severe of a punishment.
  • There’s many enemies and it took me a while to kill all of them to proceed through the story in a short time frame.

  Presentation 

  For the most part the graphics and tone of the game lives up. There are a few odd things here and there that could be fixed like the crab placeholder, some odd mapping choices like a lit candle but not reflecting any light on a pitch black shack, some of the house models, enemy sprites, etc. But it is pretty polished for such a short time frame. The writing is also pretty believable.

  Engagement 

  It was alright. Definitely one of the stronger entries on my side. I’m also glad it’s not just a bunch of teenages arguing about a ton of dumb things.

  Total – 60/80

• PRESENTATION
  

  Graphics appear to be custom created mixed with assets. Some of them stand out quite a bit in comparison. The mapping is isometric in some areas and not in others, which stands out a bit. It's decent enough for a tactics game, though more details would be nice to see.

  Sound is standard jRPG fare but fits where it is used and isn't jarring. The same with music which is decent but nothing amazing either.

  Writing is quite good with not many noticeable errors. The characterisation falls a little flat when it comes to some characters, but is well done for others, so it's a bit of a mixed bag in that aspect.

  The story itself is well framed and pushes the conflict along well. There's some mystery as to what happened to a town of people on the eve of a festival and now your team needs to find out the truth... and fast.

  GAMEPLAY
  Gameplay is FFT in a nutshell. Different characters have different skills to use and move on a grid in battle. They can attack, defend (parry), use items... the usual tactics fare. Nothing is really exciting in this set up, but at least it all works well with no bugs that I could find.

  Outside of battle you moved around the map isometrically and searched for clues. You could also check out the menu with the usual jRPG options.

  ENGAGEMENT
  It moves at a pretty slow pace, battle-wise, which is fine for tactics games but can still get boring despite that. The story was interesting at least, even if the characters were a bit bland sometimes, and I do like a good mystery.

  Also, moving around in dark areas is never fun. Less so when it's isometric mode.

  THEME
  Solving the mystery was the big theme of the game and while the investigation/story arcs made that work, the battles themselves had little to do with that bar providing a challenge to beat. It worked I guess.

  58/80