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(1 edit) (+2)

This game is - to me - the definition of a 3/5 entry. Each individual piece is fine, but together it has some issues holding it back from greatness that I think it's worth talking about here in a review.

First off, I appreciate the amount of effort that's gone into the game. There's a script, the scope is clearly defined, and it accomplishes what it sets out to do. I really respect that about this entry, and I think that should receive some kind of special Production Prize for "well-managed scope".

The presentation is good - especially the music, which has great Flamenco vibes. I really appreciated the basically-gerudo-valley track especially. I liked how consistent it was within its own rules, and the use of RTP backdrops to tell the VN-style story I thought was especially well-considered.

I do wish that the backgrounds and battle sprites had been custom - there's a distinct artstyle on display here and while I appreciate that bust art (haha, geddit) is one of the more appealing things for an artist to work on, there's a bevy of other assets here which would have really benefited from a similar treatment.

As a broader critique, some of the art here made me frankly a little uncomfortable; I'd recommend that the artist do some anatomy practice and studies - there are a bevy of references which will help improve this skill in a matter of days-weeks. I personally am a huge fan of http://reference.sketchdaily.net/ - which has the added benefit of being customisable so you can spend as much or as little time learning as you like.

Not to "go in", but some of the art here ranges from 'that man's obliques are multiple seperate muscles and his spine is too long' to 'this feels weirdly oversexed for a jam entry, her back must hurt a lot'. The art is charming, in its way, but I think that some time spent practicing anatomy will go a long way!

Now, as far as the gameplay goes - the game has a charming structure which straddles the line between RPG and Visual Novel really well. I appreciated getting and spending currency in the form of shrooms, and the stock of items/use of accessory slots is really cleverly implemented.

On top of that, the battle system was really creative! It did seem like another RPG-Maker-Game-That-Could-Use-A-Balancing-Pass, as it was so easy that it became quite easy to disengage. Not to say that games which are easy are necessarily bad, but here the challenge ranged from "do what I say or you die immediately" to "this is so trivial you can win by holding space", so it felt like the delta was too wide to be meaningfully satisfying.

I did enjoy my time with the battle system, please don't mistake this critique for dislike, but I was left feeling somewhat disatsified. Especially given that the enemy variety and customisation/skill point system were so strong.

Finally I'd like to address the story and writing. The story is fine - it's standard fare, but also shamelessly basically lifted directly from the Besaid portion of FFX. I don't know if that was intentional or not, but it served as a fine framing for "do some fights, get a lamp". The issue I took with the story was that tonally it is all over the place.

The game struggles from having jokes and not really following through with them. You go to a weird sexpervert forest but it ends in a catfight between an ogre and a dominatrix - and the sexual content isn't presented in a particularly funny way. It sort of detracts from the game, rather than enhancing it, because I don't know what the vibe is. One of the characters is like "I don't fight people because I crippled my brother" and it's like "wait what, wasn't this game about titty jokes 3 minutes ago" - then the whole game ends with Harold demanding that no-one think he's gay for watching Ru Paul's Drag Race.

In the post apocalypse. Because it's all a dream. Out of nowhere :P 

I dunno, none of it comes together to create a cohesive whole and instead you're left with a game that does several things fine, but nothing well enough that you can point to it and say "that makes this a stand-out entry".

Certainly not a bad game, and a game with a bunch of cute ideas, but a game with flawed execution marred by tonal issues and content issues. The epitome of a 3/5.

Edit: Mostly, I'm disappointed that in a fantasy post-apocalypse feat. Drag Race you didn't call it the world of Ru-in.

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Hello Knight Shift and thank you very much for playing and for the detailed feedback! That link is very helpful for me for future artistic endeavors! And yeah, I do understand the "adult" themes and jokes can be quite all over the place, but I just had fun with making em for this short jam I admittedly haven't considered some very critical aspects of story telling, but alas. xD I'm glad to hear you enjoyed the battle system for the most part. <3

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Mostly, I'm disappointed that in a fantasy post-apocalypse feat. Drag Race you didn't call it the world of Ru-in.

OMGGG Ru-in would've been genius xDD <3 Ofc the Dark Lord would spare Ru-in's Drag Race. xD