This one scores highly, music is excellent, great SNES vibe.  The mode 7 style angle is really cool and works here imho.

Lining the cutscenes up to the music must have been painstaking, bonus points for that even though I read pretty fast and spent a lot of time waiting.

Wow DJ, this is quite the production!

The music is fantastic. I didn't realize it at first, but the italicized words are actually timed to the lead instrument to simulate singing (and to help the player understand that the lines are being sung, rather than spoken). It really adds to the idea that this is a musical, not just another bunch of text. I also caught whiffs of the Theme6 motif throughout the score - nicely done!

Having choices during the game was a good idea to keep the player engaged, but the grading felt a little out of place. I wanted to play Harold as dumb as possible!

I also have mixed feelings about the combat. On the one hand, the menus are trimmed down to *just* what you need, no excess (OK, having Defend is questionable since it's not really beneficial in any way). Battles are not long, and each character gets 2 skills so there's no information overload. It's also a way to keep the player engaged. On the other hand, I don't feel like they fit the overall design (or potential design) of the game. Since the story is more central to this experience than combat, it seemed a little odd that losing is a possibility at all. Having to take multiple turns in combat slows the pace of the experience down, and since there are only 2 skills per character, there's not much strategic depth.

The writing is good. It's written like a Broadway-styled musical, only one of the cast members is that lovable derp Harold and the rest of the cast has to scramble to work around him. I really felt like I was in the audience watching this play that the crew was doing their darndest to save from catastrophe. Having all of the auto-advancing text on the screen made it hard to keep up with sometimes (particularly the parts where the crew was talking while the announcer was addressing the audience - I wanted to read everything all at once), but I understand you had to do it in order for the music to match the text.

The graphics look great too. Excellent use of MV3D to make it look like we're sitting in the audience and watching a play. I don't know how you could possibly do it better in RPG Maker.

Here's what I think would make this game really cool - either as a post-jam update, a remake, or just if you use the concept again:

• Instead of choices being pass/fail and having the player get a game over for making too many "wrong" choices, just have different endings based on the choices the player makes.
• Instead of combat being a win/lose multi-turn fight for survival, make it a choice (or series of choices) that affect the outcome of the battle (bonus points if it also affects the ending, like the suggestion above).
• This is entirely too much for a solo-made jam game (maybe even if you had a team), but voice acting. It would put this experience over the top! You wouldn't have to worry about players not being able to keep up with the text, and the songs could actually be sung instead of relying on the player to interpret things correctly.

In other words, I think if you approached this not as a turn-based JRPG with some musical elements, but rather an animated, interactive musical play that players can tell their own story with, this could be a legendary show-stopping experience.

Overall, great job, and I look forward to your next production!

Very interesting concept.

The antics are quite Harold, and the use of MV3D to really bring that stage-play thing to life is impressive.

I'm not super sold on the gameplay. There's a lot of waiting for the dialog (I know it's synced with the music, and that's amazing don't get me wrong), and there's a lot of individual moments where you have choices, but too many I think fall into illusion of choice from a functional perspective.

For example when fighting a certain slime, you can Slash for 0 damage or Spark for some damage. Playing without foreknowledge, the enemy just gets a free hit on you for using Slash and wasting that turn, and it feels kinda cheap. At the same time, you're instructed to preserve PP, but for that particular battle, you can't avoid using PP. I didn't try Defend strats as that fight is before the one where it makes it pretty obvious that you're not supposed to attack the opponent.

It also felt weird that I couldn't avoid that battle (or at least the dialog tree to do so was unintuitive).

I think the presentation, music, and technical wizardry behind this are all spectacular. And, it's entertaining in the sense that watching a short musical or something might be. My problem is - and this is something that cutscene heavy games have always run afoul of IMO - that I don't want to be entertained passively, I want to have fun actively by doing. This is what separates gaming from other types of media and by no means is this game worse in that respect than a visual novel, just to be clear.

That all said, and knowing I am not the target audience for this type of experience, it's a very high quality game that I think everyone should try.

The whole stage concept was very unique. The timing of the music and sound effects was extremely well-done. My only criticisms are minor, but I figured I’d share them anyway:

• The intro part could use a skip after the first time through. On my first playthrough, I went for true Harold behavior to see what happens when he gets boo’d off the stage. On my second, I wanted to try to do well, but I had to sit through that LOOOONG, unskippable intro. Thankfully MV is merciful and doesn’t stop itself when running in the background–unlike MZ.
• Sometimes text disappeared too quickly, and other times I was screaming internally for a fastforward option, but I get why it was done in this case–presentation timing.

Great overall though. I got a perfect score in the end, too! :D

Absolutely LOVE the stageplay RPG concept and presentation. Especially the clever use of music, player choice and 2.5D camera angles.  

Overall, Harold: Show Stopping Hero was a joy to play and to watch the hilarious, epic saga of Harold unfold from start to finish. A truly 'show-stopping' entry! :)

Okay, so this was a real fun game with a terrific presentation especially in the sound department. 

My one issue with this game is the autotext. I often finished reading before the text would update, but at the same time I also felt I couldn't look away for one second as there was no option to pause the game. In fact while playing, my cat accidentally minimized the game and the game just continued running letting me lose some dialogue. I would suggest either scrapping the autotext or at the very least have a plugin that pauses the game if it's not active.

Excellent use of music! I'm impressed on how well it syncs with the actions as well as variations which I think is based on the choices you make. Loved all the theme6 remixes in there. Interesting take of an RPG as a stage play (loved the thematic used of PP for magic as pyrotechnics) .  Loved it!

Wow, the presentation on this was spectacular! Please, let me audition for the real world version of this. Also release that initial song with full vocals! The timing on the music, pacing of the story, and overall execution were absolutely amazing.  If you had made some minor improvements or added to the combat system, I think you could have gotten perfect scores across the board. 

Haven't played all the entries yet, but this is really the one to beat so far! Thanks for submitting such a great entry!

I got a C. 11 of 20. I definitely need to play this again!

The game play was very good! And it has replay value! I do not see that in a lot of these jam games. 

Combat was good. Simple and clean. It made sense in the context of the game as well!

I was smiling a lot and while I had few laughs It had a light hearted feeling that I really liked.

MUSIC! I want the sound files just to listen too! (On par with my friend ViRiX's music... maybe, maybe so. MAYBE!) I was doing something else when the game loaded and I froze when I heard the menu screen music. Literally froze.

The issue with all the GFX for me was how all the backdrops in the sage looked like they were about to fall on the actors. I know it's from the messy meshing of the 2D and 3D but it was a bit distracting. And disconcerting! Forget the lights, perspective was warping! AHHHHH

Because this was essentially a chose your own story it was what I could make of it. I liked it a lot and I will play it again for more story!

Overall very good game!

Haven't even played the game yet, I just be vibeing to the intro!

This was very well done! Some of the responses to me picking dumb choices had me laughing. Nice job!

Right from the get go this entry is very well presented and very well sounding. Everything is well timed and appropriate for the context and setting of a screen play. Everything is deliberately well timed and executed to feel like a real performance such as sound ques, musical stings and the lighting of a spot light. This is probably one use of 3D in rpg maker that I can get behind and say works effectively.

The writing is well written for the theming of a screen play with the player able to make multiple choices to effect the outcome of scenarios. Music is very good, quite possibly the best sounding entry I’ve played so far. The style of music and comedic timing reminds me of Banjo kazooie.

One of the best examples of musical timing is when Harold finds Marsha singing in the forest with each timed ‘la’ a musical note. It’s very well done.

The only criticism I would have is that choices don’t affect the outcome all too much and things mostly go the same way however it offers some slight replay ability. Another is that all of the text is auto timed and understandably this is because of deliberate musical use and would be impossible otherwise if text was proceeded at the players leisure. I feel that starting section drags on a little for a tutorial but other than that its fantastic.

Overall incredibly good entry, one of my favorite so far, it had me smiling from its charm and well executed music.

Unfortunately upon download the game does not appear to run.