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Hero's Way's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Playability & Innovation | #11 | 2.000 | 2.000 |
| Fun & Appeal | #11 | 2.000 | 2.000 |
| Overall | #12 | 2.000 | 2.000 |
Ranked from 1 rating. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Judge feedback
Judge feedback is anonymous.
- Jumps around WAY too much No direction Gave up before seeing rest of game due to how the flowed; I couldn't figure out what to do next Never saw a crossroads due to this, not sure if there was one. Player sprite kept changing as I changed maps
Game Name
Hero's Way
Developer Name(s)
Santouryu3
Genre (especially if not a turn-based RPG)
JRPG
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Comments
Hello, I think you are doing a good job at learning to use RPG Maker MZ and I'd encourage you to keep going and keep learning, some stuff in your game could work but uhh I felt in this current state it's overall actually quite messy and confusing. Some stuff was good and made some sense, and some stuff if developed upon could work.
I don't know much about Echo's game but I know enough to know you were saying something with it, and I had to look at the comments and other feedback you received to assume it's not positive. Some dialogue I read asking me if I know her as well to see that apparently it was negative what you were saying made me feel a bit sad. If you want to create an antihero duplicate why not create your own fictional one instead? Because mentioning Echo at all was weird. If that's the case that this was negative like the feedback I'm reading says and the way it look to me, my advice is not to do that I don't really understand enough to say anymore on that topic, but it sounds like that's something to get rid of or turn in a completely different direction.
Anyway, I can only really comment on the story and gameplay. It feels like it had potential and it's not necessarily wrong to cover a mature theme, but I don't like how it's handle here it feels a bit weirdly done to me. The mature theme would need to be covered in a way that we either aren't uncomfortable, or if we are mean to feel uncomfortable it need more maturity to the mature theme if that makes sense?
The ideas of characters in servers is fine, and you really can have as many characters as you want, but they need to be introduced properly with proper reasons, motives, goals to be in the story and they need to be able to interact with each other well. As readers and players we need enough time to at least understand the more important ones and we need to understand the playable characters and it's just too messy at the moment. You don't have to reveal too much all at once, I'm not meaning or saying that, but you do need to give them a bit more life and reveal something more about them, your choice what you choose.
I think you can improve upon this a lot and then you can create something really good, and I recommend you listen to feedback and advice everyone else has given you as that'll help you a lot too, so I wish you the best of luck forward. Remember that we want some sort of entertainment when it comes to the writing, characters need to surprise us or not but make us laugh or not but at least leave us curious to keep playing, something like that, and you've done it in some scenes but I think the story as a whole needs a lot more changing.
On the gameplay side of things, the skillsets, well it's good to give the player quite a few choices and different skills but they need a bit more balancing or a reason to use each one at different points of a battle / different battles. It's also a little bit messy as it is. Mapping is also everywhere, some maps like your pub area were good.
Some maps looked half good but not finished in terms of details and more borders, and then some maps like the forest area were a bit messy. It's good some of your maps are good and I think to me that shows me the messier maps you can truly make better already, but if really not some more learning and I believe you can do.
You left an impression on me, but mostly a confused one, and that really isn't in a good way overall. Still there were some enjoyable moments in your game, and I enjoyed some moments in it. So I hope this can help you. Good luck going forward! : )
"Hello, I think you are doing a good job at learning to use RPG Maker MZ and I'd encourage you to keep going and keep learning, some stuff in your game could work but uhh I felt in this current state it's overall actually quite messy and confusing. Some stuff was good and made some sense, and some stuff if developed upon could work."
[Yea... I skipped ahead of the beginning of the game's story about some characters with their names mentioned only... I ended up starting at the very end game's sad but true ending portion... Supposedly, the main characters' transformations died on their own story path...]
"I don't know much about Echo's game but I know enough to know you were saying something with it, and I had to look at the comments and other feedback you received to assume it's not positive. Some dialogue I read asking me if I know her as well to see that apparently it was negative what you were saying made me feel a bit sad. If you want to create an antihero duplicate why not create your own fictional one instead? Because mentioning Echo at all was weird. If that's the case that this was negative like the feedback I'm reading says and the way it look to me, my advice is not to do that I don't really understand enough to say anymore on that topic, but it sounds like that's something to get rid of or turn in a completely different direction."
[Well, it's supposed to be about her game crossing over with another game. Gameception at its finest over a crossover... Purpose of the main character is that he's falsely accused of the pedophilia of children in a deadly online game filled with convicts, rapists, killers, pedos, and so forth from a bloodsucking vampire game dev... His purpose is to collect blood data for long lasting hunger cravings or metabolism to his own kind. So what to do... bring every living beings from different dimensional world. Also, Echo is an expert of gaming rpg and knows how to draw which is why ??? needs her help by kidnapping her and forcing her to do stuff... What choice does a protagonist need to do to survive against bounty hunters and gamers? Sorry if I never bother adding those ideas to make it more clearer than before... D:]
"Anyway, I can only really comment on the story and gameplay. It feels like it had potential and it's not necessarily wrong to cover a mature theme, but I don't like how it's handle here it feels a bit weirdly done to me. The mature theme would need to be covered in a way that we either aren't uncomfortable, or if we are mean to feel uncomfortable it need more maturity to the mature theme if that makes sense?"
[Biggest fear... saying the word pedophilia... most words get censored and audience don't want to hear or see them... which is understandable...]
"The ideas of characters in servers is fine, and you really can have as many characters as you want, but they need to be introduced properly with proper reasons, motives, goals to be in the story and they need to be able to interact with each other well. As readers and players we need enough time to at least understand the more important ones and we need to understand the playable characters and it's just too messy at the moment. You don't have to reveal too much all at once, I'm not meaning or saying that, but you do need to give them a bit more life and reveal something more about them, your choice what you choose."
[Online servers = Freelancer's planets in every galaxy. Four of the characters are the same person just a split persona since the main character decided to mess around the drawing tablet and duplicating himself with four separate personalities. Would like to make a full game tbh... Would like to introduced them properly if it wasn't a 2 week project given a lesser than a day project... -__-]
"I think you can improve upon this a lot and then you can create something really good, and I recommend you listen to feedback and advice everyone else has given you as that'll help you a lot too, so I wish you the best of luck forward. Remember that we want some sort of entertainment when it comes to the writing, characters need to surprise us or not but make us laugh or not but at least leave us curious to keep playing, something like that, and you've done it in some scenes but I think the story as a whole needs a lot more changing."
[Again if I didn't mention it... I skipped the beginning and went to the end with short little time...]
"On the gameplay side of things, the skillsets, well it's good to give the player quite a few choices and different skills but they need a bit more balancing or a reason to use each one at different points of a battle / different battles. It's also a little bit messy as it is. Mapping is also everywhere, some maps like your pub area were good."
[I'm still messing about how to make my dumb main guy know how to transform and revert back when the battle is done, but... I get same result of... nope try again dude... T_T]
"Some maps looked half good but not finished in terms of details and more borders, and then some maps like the forest area were a bit messy. It's good some of your maps are good and I think to me that shows me the messier maps you can truly make better already, but if really not some more learning and I believe you can do."
[Mapping and paralaxing aren't my strongest points...]
"You left an impression on me, but mostly a confused one, and that really isn't in a good way overall. Still there were some enjoyable moments in your game, and I enjoyed some moments in it. So I hope this can help you. Good luck going forward! : )"
[Angry Tourettes Me: Whatever... *Insert bad word.*]
Your sharing a lot of ideas with me where I feel some of those could work well, and you are explaining things clearer now where I felt in the presentation of the game they weren't as clear. If it was just the amount of time given I understand, I think it was a good time length for the game jam so I'd just keep taking those ideas and like you want to try and spend more time, the time you feel needed, to get them across better, but I have more to say about all this.
Developers know more than players do at all times but the idea, or trick, is to try and see it from the player's perspective to see if it's been presented in a way they can see that, I think that is something to just show more clearly. You can keep creating something with a mature theme included if you want to, but in my thinking and from my understanding I think it would be better to create something more light hearted (in the sense of without those themes for now, doesn't have to be a light-hearted project but I would recommend that too) without those themes for now, I think that may help you get more people interested in a game and get better feedback there and then later you'd be able to cover those themes better, but that's just my thinking it sounds right to me but you may want to challenge yourself and do more mature themes anyway.
My issue was, either the game is a bit too pessimistic in how it was handling the themes or it wasn't the objective to do that but it came across that way. If it was purposely pessimistic there are other ways to create feelings of shock or "wow, that's serious, ok." without it being "Oh, that's really uncomfortable I don't want to keep going with this game", if that makes sense? If the aim wasn't to present something pessimistic then the goal needs to be to realise how it looks to a player.
To me it felt like well the person you mentioned a lot was being portrayed in a bad light and that just didn't feel right to me at all. You wanted to create an alter version of the person I think, but it just it comes across as something not nice to that person and that isn't going to be received very well if that's the direction things goes which is why I'm giving this feedback now. Too many of the ideas came across as portraying them in a bad light unfairly, or it looked that way.
That was my biggest issue, but your right to say the themes you used can easily cause someone to feel uncomfortable, which is my second reason why I'm giving all this feedback I'm giving here. I hope that can make enough sense and help you with what you decide to do next, but good luck. I can also tell this may have come across as very sensitive but it's not been given to insult your project but to give feedback as in helpful advice or how to avoid issues. But anyway, good luck with what you do next. : )
Btw, the reason I made this game project is because one gaming company I really despise its shady practices. For now, we'll say its EA even tho it's NOT EA I am having a beef with... Makes other game devs look bad cause of their method... -_-
Ci$cape, my garbage gaming company... ~_~
I'm sorry, but I couldn't finish this game. The characters were not likable and the story was all over the place. This was exacerbated by grammar issues. Characters being introduced suddenly then switching to other characters suddenly makes it hard to understand, too.
It's not all bad, though! Mimics poisoning the player right at the outset is a cool concept if developed further. The initial battles aren't too hard, and the introduction doesn't waste time getting down to business.
This game might have been better if you had made it smaller and polished it more. Keep trying, keep improving!
Sorry, you didn't like any of the characters given a 2 wk project... Would flesh them out better if irl stuff wasn't taking a hefty time on my end. Supposedly, the main character is like the Shield Hero version but with worse reputation than R word accusation... P word instead with kids... Four characters have split personalities from one main character... Aloondra's attitude is overzealous, ruthless, stoic, and pessimistic. ODD's attitude is carefree, humorous, open minded, and optimistic. Rose's attitude is kind, gentle, caring, and selfless. Lastly, ??? character is depressed, lonely, careless, and oblivious who doesn't care anything NOT even himself... I've already started Crashigiri: VF since why not... Main character's ability to transformation drawings out of a drawing tablet is good enough. Akira is supposed to be like KOS-MOS/Lenneth Valkyrie. :v
Hero's Way is a story in an universe visibly inspired by titles like Sword Art Online or Code: Lyoko. The story felt confusing to me, I'm not sure I understood everything. It looks like a redemption story. Gameplay wise, it's a relatively simple RPG in its mechanics, nothing groundbreaking. So let's go to the points I think deserve attention.
- The map for the introduction is very strange. It's just a small boxy forest-like map with a trees as parallax. It just looks odd to me. No pun intended.
- After defeating the Treant (very easily by the way for a boss), you must interact manually with it again for the rest of the scene to follow up for some reason.
- The cat man transformed for no reason into someone else. Get back to being a cat man whenever he enters anywhere and even when leaving town. There is even scenes were the cat man talks even when he is not the cat man anymore! When I come back in town from the world map, he doesn't "transform" anymore until I leave a building. Why did he transformed at all?
- Additionally, when you leave town, you are joined by the people you recruited earlier without any explanation or any scene about them joining you.
- The fact of being forced to press a button to get teleported anywhere... Or not... anywhere? Why in some places the game forces you to press a button to teleport where you want to go and not in others?
- Unbalanced encounters early game with monsters that deal a ridiculous amount of damage in one go. I had to grind a bit for experience and items to make sure I was ready for the followup.
- The appearance of the sleeping people you interact with change depending on the orientation you face them.
- Also are the three sleeping supposed to be our party members? How did they instantly fell asleep upon arrival even before the cat man opens the chest?
- "Plants don't sleep." Well... Yes and no. If we can call that sleep. https://www.sleep.org/do-plants-sleep/
- Why Albert keeps changing appearance throughout the game?
- The girl says she is going to heal me, but she never does.
- Static Bolt OP. The final fight is a complete joke thanks to it. It is very abusable and, ho boy, did I abused of it. They could barely do anything.
And that's it. A story that looks good, more polish would have been welcome, a lack of consistency and clearly more balancing wouldn't have hurt the game. You did addressed the lack of balancing in a comment, but the fact you recognized it doesn't mean it is a problem that should be ignored. It's nice though you recognize the problems of your game by yourself. ^^
Additionally, I noticed this game was made with no plugins (or too little to be noticeable) which is a courageous decision on your part as it allowed you to dig into what the editor could do, a respectable way to discover the engine.
Also, even if I admit 2 weeks is very short, I know game jams that happen in the span of 2 days only. So 2 weeks is very welcome compared to this. (With that said, me too, I would have a appreciated a longer time span, that could have save me a lot of stress. XD)
Anyway, congratulations for your participation and good luck for your projects!
"Hero's Way is a story in an universe visibly inspired by titles like Sword Art Online or Code: Lyoko. *[Well both along with Shield Hero, Ben: 10, & Reboot NOT the Guardian Code live action trash one...]* The story felt confusing to me, I'm not sure I understood everything. It looks like a redemption story. *[I was gonna make a dark story driven like based just as Valkyrie Profile did.]* Gameplay wise, it's a relatively simple RPG in its mechanics, nothing groundbreaking. *[If I could able to make my useless main character transform all those transformations in battle which I always get the same result... NOT good enough try again, dude... The only groundbreaking idea I could come up with is main character transform attack 1st combo move, transform again attack 2nd combo move, and transform again attack 3rd combo move with a 3 combo attack while transforming rapidly fast... Don't steal that idea what I mentioned... I never got the chance to add that innovating idea in a week project...* D:] So let's go to the points I think deserve attention."
This is suppose to be the main project game that I want to work with... well a crossover gaming project...
- The map for the introduction is very strange. It's just a small boxy forest-like map with a trees as parallax. It just looks odd to me. No pun intended.
*I got nothing on my end of the root. I had a problem in the past with the intro of the 1st game jam being 15 minute long dialogue of no gameplay, so... I'm trying to avoid the same mistake... -_-
- After defeating the Treant (very easily by the way for a boss), you must interact manually with it again for the rest of the scene to follow up for some reason.
*Was working on the elemental strengths and weaknesses... it's obvs its weak against a fire Pokemon... Also, there's a reason why I set it to manually interact it again... Was gonna make the Treant's animation go to its faint pic instead it went to this vampire dude's pic... I'm like... "Screw it! Make him transform into a big baddie, bloodsucking vampire game dev CEO...
- The cat man transformed for no reason into someone else. Get back to being a cat man whenever he enters anywhere and even when leaving town. There is even scenes were the cat man talks even when he is not the cat man anymore! When I come back in town from the world map, he doesn't "transform" anymore until I leave a building. Why did he transformed at all?
*Drawing Tablet has its mind of its own just like Ben 10's Omnitrix... or it has the transformation hiccups...? It's supposed to be bugged during the time when all four duplicates with four separate personalities split off into four different servers. Am sorry that I never got the chance to explain that since this was meant to be the true ending of the other game's project...
- Additionally, when you leave town, you are joined by the people you recruited earlier without any explanation or any scene about them joining you.
*Well the gang did say that they'll join as soon as they're done drinking their beverages although you did spot that they did join ODD when they exit the town, so I forgot to add in where they joined the ODD's party which would matter at the very end. It's not like Aloondra's gonna kill two rando brutes cause they're expendable convicts from a prison world...*
- The fact of being forced to press a button to get teleported anywhere... Or not... anywhere? Why in some places the game forces you to press a button to teleport where you want to go and not in others?
*HUH? I understand the Treant part, but this... is it during an autorun cutscene...?
- Unbalanced encounters early game with monsters that deal a ridiculous amount of damage in one go. I had to grind a bit for experience and items to make sure I was ready for the followup.
*1st encounter was intentional which you 100% knew. A week or less to tinkle away database with troops...*
- The appearance of the sleeping people you interact with change depending on the orientation you face them.
*I think I know what ya mean...*
- Also are the three sleeping supposed to be our party members? How did they instantly fell asleep upon arrival even before the cat man opens the chest?
*I forgot to add another event of the chest reclosing and reopening effect... It's supposed to be a trap chest to adventurers from this sicko P word...*
- "Plants don't sleep." Well... Yes and no. If we can call that sleep. https://www.sleep.org/do-plants-sleep/
*Maybe the plant is an all nighter like Batman? Doesn't need to be realistic in a deadly online game... Final Fantasy!*
- Why Albert keeps changing appearance throughout the game?
*Bad transfer screen? Idek...*
- The girl says she is going to heal me, but she never does.
*Does heal when ODD's HP is low; it's just the healing animation didn't appear on ODD... even set it to Player animation... I blame Magikarp's SPLASH effect...*
- Static Bolt OP. The final fight is a complete joke thanks to it. It is very abusable and, ho boy, did I abused of it. They could barely do anything.
*Roza can still screw ya up if you fall aSLEEP by her sleep spell! Against All ODD is really OP but really time consuming to reach to 100 TP.*
And that's it. A story that looks good, more polish would have been welcome, a lack of consistency and clearly more balancing wouldn't have hurt the game. You did addressed the lack of balancing in a comment, but the fact you recognized it doesn't mean it is a problem that should be ignored. It's nice though you recognize the problems of your game by yourself. ^^
*Aloondra: Gonna kidnap Echo607...*
*Rose: To protect her?*
*ODD: Terminator protection effect?*
*???: I can't draw, so she knows how to draw, RPG stuff, and a game dev... Good enough for me in this game's story plot...*
*Echo: Toxicity!*
Additionally, I noticed this game was made with no plugins (or too little to be noticeable) which is a courageous decision on your part as it allowed you to dig into what the editor could do, a respectable way to discover the engine.
*I got no new MZ plugins in use... v_v*
Also, even if I admit 2 weeks is very short, I know game jams that happen in the span of 2 days only. So 2 weeks is very welcome compared to this. (With that said, me too, I would have a appreciated a longer time span, that could have save me a lot of stress. XD)
*I'll be adding in the beginning part of this main character... Only reason I chose the true ending part to make cause the two raccoon kids... "Kitsune kids."*
Anyway, congratulations for your participation and good luck for your projects!
*Thank you. Hopefully this crossover project is done from start to finish... I've been working on this too with a little modification of Echo607's mascot sprite with Inuchiyo's transformation fused with Akira... As Robin Williams told the boi... not to touch or cheat the Jumanji gameboard ???'s adopted daughter as a freak. Still working on it though... v_v
Hello! I'm going to add a bit more context, hopefully so you can understand what I meant a bit better at some points.
- My problem wasn't in your intro, but in the map. I just found it weird to an extend.
- I don't understand why this could not have been a followup to the battle, instead of having to press a button to continue the story.
- When I talk about being teleported, I was talking about, for example: entering/exiting a building, going in/out a certain place on the world map. If I remember correctly, it's in the secret passage the game makes you pass automatically from one map to the other automatically when the player character reaches the border of the map.
- I get the sleeping gas chest was a trap, but I have a problem with the staging of this scene. As soon as you enter, the three others are already shown asleep BEFORE the trapped chest is opened.
- Nah, Albert's appearance is sometimes inconsistent on the overworld (when he is an event outside of the party).
As Martian Manhunter would say, "NO! The price was too high. I see that now. You can no longer tempt me." 4:40 to skip the entire scene. Btw, the game is unbalanced, so I didn't have enough time to twerk stuff around especially a 2 week submission... can't there be a game jam with a 2 months or a year submission...