Elora's Quest is a really well made RPG Maker game with a good level of replayability due to its random level boss. The game is somewhat challenging on the basis that the battle mechanics are designed around a battle/war of attrition (pure dps and tanking damage) gameplay rather than trying to use strategy/tactics since the ability/magic/item options are quite limited during the battle gameplay which made me feel like its oriented for a casual game.
Magical Girl Concept: The game features two magical girl characters, Elora and Divini as magical girls, with Divini appearing for a short time while in the early game. Elora takes up the magical girl form when a pendant is filled with fairy power and she transforms into a magical girl that can perform magical attacks in the nature category. I'm not sure if the character design comes from a premade set but looking at the sprite and portrait before and after transforming the character does show a difference in the design from ordinary to a magical one. Its a little hard to evaluate more since there is no full body character art and the designs are limited to the overworld sprite and the portrait. However, the game does feature magical girls in an obvious manner. Besides that, I think the Magical Girl concept would look more apparent or is fully utilized if the companions could display magical girl features or are magical girls.
Mechanics: For a RPG Maker game, which if not mistaken is using mechanics from the latest RPGMaker MZ, I think the combinations of plugins and scripts used is good since it is designed as a simple and straight forward JRPG game. Its simple being that there is very little available strategy to utilize during the battle sequence and only a limited set of attack, magic/ability, and item options (only one item) are available during battle. I'm not too fond of the sparse options during battle since, it makes the game more of a battle/war of attrition where the player has to output the most dps, and tanking in all the damage from random enemy hits, while hoping the damage is evenly spread among the party members. I used Sasha's Inspire ability a ton through the game and even double buff each character to output the most damage, making the game really easy to complete without relying on Elora's magical form. Still this means there is very little though process involve for the player in defeating a particular enemy since there isn't much to play around in the battle sequence. It feels like the battle gameplay is designed to be of a casual game sort of nature since its limited to the attack and item button while the ability or nature button can only exist in either one time depending on Elora's being transform or not. Besides that, I kept getting only one type of item through the game which is restoration tea and there doesn't seem to be any other item that can restore MP, which I want to point out that it kinds of defeats the use of the transforming pendant aka Elora's magical form. Besides that, I like the boulder pushing puzzle that is different in each level, which helps break the game flow a little, as well as providing more gameplay that complements the battle sequence. However I find that the effort put into obtaining the magical form by completing the puzzle outweighs the effort by fighting the enemy in the direct approach. Basically it means that, I can clear then entire game by fighting head on without the need for the transforming spell. By the way, collecting energy for the pendant to work is quite an interesting idea but somehow it got overshadowed by the non magical attacks/abilities and should be implemented in a better way. There should be someway to emphasize the use of the transformation and provide reasonable incentives to the player so they are encouraged to use it often. So one incentive of transforming that I like is how there are new spells and magic ability (there are up to 4 powerful magic spells) each time Elora transforms into her magical form, but the oversight of a lack of methods or items to restore MP made me reluctant to actually want to transforms since her warrior abilities, triple attacks + double attack buff, can caused about 120 damage to the final boss, which when I think about, feels a little unfair since the magic attack can be performed on a limited count due to limited MP. Anyway, I find that the battles is skewed a little to the easy side but can get a little heated at times. Next thing I want to highlight is the randomness in the enemy type for the particular level which gives it a nice touch of replayability. Based on 6 different full playthrough and several new/load games, I manage to be able fight all 9 available types in all 3 levels. I would say the random set of enemy types per level is quite limited (3 types per level) so there are many occasions I ended up with the same enemy type on every new game or on every next level loaded (as in moving to the next level and not loading from a save game). I'm not sure if there is more but so far a solid 3 types is the most I have fought on several playthroughs. A good random set for a short game would have about 5 to 7 enemy types per level but if the game is a longer release, this sort of randomness can't happen often, since players don't replay longer games in rapid succession, so a smaller set is more reasonable. Also its probably because the game is designed for the game jam so I want to point out that there is no emphasis on grinding for levels (leveling up) or fighting against any random encounters (random minions) in any of the levels, making it a very straight forward game of fight each enemy boss blocking the path and gathering party members.
Visual: The selected arts assets use really complement the look of the game and intention of the game design. The tile set used gave a nice touch of what Emerald mountain would look like, on top, and within, and its presented very cleanly. I notice that the tile set in the second level, where Sasha becomes a party member, had a little issue matching up on some corners. Its not a significant issue but I am a little curious at why it doesn't match up and would be good to note to the developer if there are plans to work on the game further. Besides that, the enemy sprites blocking the path didn't look out of place and I felt that they all match the intended game art style pretty well. The battler background art used suites the tile set in the location and made its feel relevant. The character sprites are all animated but I notice the enemies didn't have an animation of its own during the battle sequence. It would be nice to watch enemy have their own animation as well which will definitely add lots of visual points and appeal but I don't know if its a limitation in RPGMaker or the art asset pack that does not include it or something that can be done about it. The use of the final boss art is really nice and I have to mentions how it correlates very well with the music track which will be discussed in the audio section later. Lastly, I want to say that the flashy transformation effect really does radiates the right vibe when the character transform.
UI: Since its a RPGMaker MZ game, a lot of the game menu and in-game menus are present through out the game. However, the developer has obviously put in time and effort in making the UI look good, unique, and is well laid out with easy access to the main game. The UI in the battle sequence is clean and pretty straight forward on its layout. Its commendable that the UI has some customization done to it while there are no issues with it with my playthrough. One thing I do find a little peculiar is that Elora in her magical form had her ability button replaced by the nature button, making her ability not accessible when her MP is empty. I'm not sure if its a thing with PRGMaker MZ or if its an intended design decision to have the ability button replaced. Though, can be a problem in much longer games because Elora basically becomes dead weight without any way to restore her MP or utilize her build up of TP in the magical form.
Audio: The audio selection use is really pleasing and are used in the appropriate situations throughout the game. The battle track used feels a little mild but exciting at the same time. (Spoiler Alert! Start) As for the battle tracks used before and during the demon king segment, the music theme that was use matches really well with what is happening which does feel like a face off between Elora and the Demon King. Also, the upbeat track during the battle enhanced the feeling of fighting against the demon king and is really relevant to his presence (Spoiler Alert! End). Besides that, sound effects are used appropriately and are quite pleasing when certain effects happen like Elora's transformation, when the boulder is pushed, and even during the battler segments when a magic spell is used and attack is performed. In other words, there is nothing that is left out in the game when it comes to the audio being used through out the game. Two improvement I would suggest is to get a voice pack so at least the characters can grunt and puff during battles or dialog sequence, and secondly, try to explore more music track options outside of what RPGMaker offers since there are much more exciting and powerful music packs that would enhance the gameplay further.
Theme: The magical girl theme is very obvious in this game since there are two characters that are designed to look like magical girls while the main character, Elora can transform between her warrior and magical form. As for the theme that the developer picked, they are Uncertainty Principle and Nuclear Energy. It is mentioned that Elora transformation effect represents the Nuclear Energy theme because it is called "Radiation" and after seeing the effect several times I have to agree that the effect does radiate intensely like the sun which is relevant to what Nuclear Energy comprise off. Besides that, the game does feature some level of randomness which fulfills the Uncertainty Principle since each time I start a new game or enter the next level a different enemy type lies in the path of progress. However since the random enemy set is quite small, I did mention above that on occasion the randomness is not apparent at times due to the limited set.
Challenge / Engagement: The game starts off quite challenging when the player has to face the first enemy alone but after a while with more available abilities and party members the game can be easily beaten without the use of the magical form. Basically, the magical form is a good supplement to the existing party outfit and it could have been utilized a little better so it would take up a major role in the battler segments. Maybe have Elora be able to transform during battle (after collecting fairies, and in both ways between normal and magical) and not immediately after collecting all three fairies since I find it a little troublesome to have one party member limited to the attack button alone after MP is used up while with no way of spending the pent up TP points. As for engagement, the game is pretty engaging with a decent level of story and gameplay. The randomness of the enemy and puzzle elements kept the game engaging but after the first few playthrough, I find that the game could use improvements on the story and gameplay in terms of item variety, companion abilities, grinding, treasure hunting, activities, etc. Basically, the game seem to have left out a good amount of its RPG and grinding elements, causing it to feel like a game that focuses on the boulder pushing puzzle and straight forward battlers, making it not as appealing in the long run. I don't know if its due to time constraint or intended design to test out the two elements
Originality / Creativity: The story and game level is setup in an original manner but not much else to say besides the two. For creativity, the use of randomness to the enemies in each level give it a nice creative touch while the different puzzle designs of the same puzzle mechanics utilizes a good level of creativity. The story does feel a little generic and could use some creative inspiration to spice up the dialog. Anyway, this will be discussed in the next section.
Story (Entire section is a spoiler): The game basically presents a simple story about Elora saving a group of her companions and I find that adding Divini does make the story interesting at first but at later stages of the game the story got a little generic when all it involves is just fighting the monster blocking the path, meet new party member, solve puzzle, then rinse and repeat. There is some level of creativity in the dialogs since they are different when meeting each new companion, as well as the hints being pointed by Elora when fighting an enemy. I like the hints from Elora since it helps me understand what I would be fighting in the battler and what to expect, such as the elemental dragon being able to change forms. As for spicing up the story, I was actually expecting some additional lore from the main game "Divini" in this game since I have not touched any of the main game yet and it was mention this is a side-story to the main game (I think its was in the comments below somewhere). I'm not sure this is suppose to be a non-canon or canon story since it felt like the former as there wasn't anything more after meeting Divini for the first time. I think there is some relationship between Elora and the Demon King since she did mention that she knows of his second form so this might just be a part of the main game lore that I'm not able to relate to. Anyway, the story is sufficient for its use in a game jam setting but I think there needs to be a well written story if the game does intend to be a canon side story to the main game. Hopefully story elements from the main game gets implemented into this game so that new players, like myself, who pick up the game can look forward to the main game expecting some continuity to the main story and world lore.
Overall: Its a really well polished RPGMaker game with good use of art/audio assets and really good level of presentation. I really enjoy the battler gameplay aspects of it but the story could use some work. I find that the game seem to emphasis on the gameplay and puzzle solving elements, possibly due to the game jam theme and it ends up attributing to the lack of substance in the story. In its current state, it feels more of a casual game because its very easy to pick up and the game mechanics are straight forward to play with while having nothing sophisticated or any advanced/deep gameplay involved. I think with more improvement in the story department and employing a good amount of emphasis on the RPG elements that RPGMaker offers, the game would feel a lot more complete and engaging this way rather than relying on the theme.
Note: For reference, the feedback is from playing the WebGL version on the latest Firefox browser. (Spoilers Ahead! Start) The enemy bosses are Treant, Garuda, Harpy, Dragon, Elemental Dragon (at least 4 different forms), Lamia, Ogre, Iron giant, Behemoth, and Demon King which doesn't get randomize at all (Spoilers Ahead! End).