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Hello! So yeah, this a thing: a beat'em up with the RPG Maker MV engine. Welcome to the merciless world of Harbor City Hostage where you make money by stomping on your enemies' corpses! Sounds dicey, right? And it is.

Alright so, before I go on, I wanted to say: I saw the Soda and was asked to not buy it by some random picture. So I bought 22 of them. You know, for science. So for anybody who's curious, here is a list of what the Soda does:

- It's supposed to increase stats by 1 and deals damage to your character. BUT!
- There is a missing SE file (Growl.ogg). This is a minor problem that can be easily solved.
- However if the Soda kills you, you are teleported on a blank map called "World", then after you passed the messages of the Soda's effects, you're back to level 1 (possibly with 0 HP). Reusing the Soda at 0 HP, should bring your health back up. You can't move, simply jump and kick, but your kick have no effects and you can't move on with jumps because you have to defeat your enemies first - thing you cannot do in the current state, softlocking the game.

Actually the Soda bug is only dangerous if you let it kill you. The Soda deals exactly 100 points of damage. To avoid it softlocking your game, you simply have to use it while being above 100 HP left.

Now, with curiosity out of the way, let's begin:

- You can kick and jump when you're in the mall, but not punch for some reason.

- Actually, descriptions for items you propose would have been nice. We're kind of invited to buy item without a clue about what it does.


- This is a known problem, but I'm going to say it anyway: after getting defeated and coming back to a previous level, some enemies/bosses of that level and others may be inactive. Common enemies are immune to punches and kicks and bosses are immune to thrown weapons.

- There is also instances where the boss was invisible. In that situation, you will likely be able to stand on the same square and land free kicks on her (you can't hit her with punches) until she dies, she won't be able to respond. As far as I know, it only works on the first boss after you've defeated her a first time when you run for the end of the stage without defeating all her minions.

- Some messages also feature typos.


- After dying, you are briefly teleported on the level where no enemies are active. It only last a short moment before you get teleported back to the actual playable level. However during that period, you can open the menu and access the options from where you can edit the UI. Something tells me the player is not supposed to be able to do such a thing.


- The battle system would deserve to be more fleshed out. There is no parry, there is no counter, the AI mindlessly go towards you, fights are stat fights, bosses are HP bags... I know, it's still a beat'em up made on RPG Maker, and for that I congratulate you for being brave enough to dare going so far with this engine. And I think, yes, you can do anything you want, and that's why I strongly invite you to go further with it.

Well... This is what I had to say. If you intend to make it a full-fledged bug free game, I'm looking forward to it, this is interesting. Anyway, best of luck for your projects! ^^

(+1)

Hey I LOVE this review thanks for all the awesome feedback! :D

If you liked my sorry version of a super awesome classic game you should definitely try out the game it's based off of.  Making it for the jam was something of a parody. It's called River City Ransom (one of the best games to ever exist) it was on the NES, I bet you could find an emulated version pretty easy.

Yeah, the soda is very jank.

I couldn't get rid of the bugs before the time ran out, but since the game was just for fun and I can't be officially graded, I decided to upload it anyway.

So, yeah, the lack of item descriptions was part of the parody, the original game had many items, but not a single description.

As for the AI, it's not too far off (definitely a little worse) than the game it was made to copy. If I wanted to expand this game I would just code it and not try to use an engine like rpg maker haha.


Again thank you for the amazing feedback! :D

Yeah, your entry made me think about a game, but I forgot its name. ^^; The Switch proposes to emulate the game, having the console and the access to the feature, I could try out River City Ransom which is, indeed, a neat game.

Yeah, if I remember correctly you managed to send your game for the jam juuust in time, right?

Ah I see. But I think it's still a waste, this is an aspect you could have used to improve from the source material. But I understand your point of view.

About the AI, enemies in the original game didn't got stuck to you like glue to optimize their damage, some wait for an opportunity to strike or surprise like when you turn your back on them for example. River City Ransom also had varied enemies that could come to you armed. You could them disarm them to equip yourself and have an advantage against them in retaliation making each of them a little more unique and bring something new to the player to toy with.

Also, if you mean to expand your game in the end, it's perfectly fine to use an engine. It's just that RPG Maker... isn't exactly... made... for that. ^^;

You're most welcome! Despite all the flaws and oversight it can have, you did a good job on your entry. I enjoyed it. ^^