Post by Saragraph in Hexed comments

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Edit: I had an attitude problem when I first wrote this. Rewrote the final paragraph to be more nuanced and less rude, merged it with the good, edited the verdict to sound less negative, added a TLDR, and added two lines to the introduction.

TLDR: this game was not for me and that feeling was strong enough I dropped it partway through, but hopefully it will be for you. It has its flaws, but there's enough good in here that if your tastes differ from mine, it just might.

First the bad, then the good, and then the verdict. Since I didn't finish it, so please do not take this as a careful assessment of everything Hexed has to offer. However, it does sum up my thoughts and impressions of my time with it, limited though it may have been.

The bad: this game may be short, but it's still too long for for me personally. It is very short for RPG standards, but it couldn't keep me hooked for long enough, I can say that for me it was too long. The combat wasn't complex enough to keep me interested (I dropped it midway through) and the story doesn't do a whole lot of interesting things either. The battle art is inconsistent, there are no resolution options, and you can't access the item screen by pressing the i key (instead having to navigate to it through the main esc key menu).

The good: even if what follows is far from its quality, the title screen and music are wonderfully done. It's really impressive stuff! Especially because I assume it was done with royaly free material. Actually, while the rest of the music isn't as good as the title screen's, it's all decent at the very least. And while the battle art is inconsistent, there are some amazing sprites and backgrounds in there. The first battle against that swordswoman in the forest cabin comes to mind as a good example of that. And finally, while the rest of the story is nothing special, the premise is fantastic. It was my favourite part of the game. "Traveller gets turned into a spectre and, being the terrifying monster they are now, shunned by the world they were once a (presumably appreciated) part of, must find a way to live and cope" is a great setup for an emotional tale, be it purely tragic, uplifting, or both. The way it was executed here was not my cup of tea, but that doesn't mean the basic ideas were bad. I'll remember Hexed for it and who knows, maybe one day I'll find something similar yet different enough to set itself apart in a unique way that aligns more with what I'm looking for in a game or book.

The verdict: The flaws (like the fights or the game's length) were bad enough to make me drop it. That said, it's more than affordable, was originally made to show some maps to a friend (which to me makes parts of the game's design more understandable), and it has its share of redeeming qualities. Therefore, if the fantastic premise intrigues you I would encourage you to pick it up and play it, but put the difficulty on story mode. If you're like me and the combat doesn't really click with you, maybe that'll make it easier to see the whole story through and possibly discover some pearls that will remain hidden for me.

Misfit Games2 years ago (1 edit)

You can change the controls in the options menu, the default is definitely not advised.

Resolution in RPG Maker is a difficult thing as it will always zoom out everything, make it too high and you'll have tiny text in massive text boxes and your characters will be very small in a map that feels far too big for them (Alternatively if the map is too small, you can tell the map wasn't made with the view in mind)

You are correct that everything was made with royalty free assets from RPG Maker (VX and MV) or other content creators who allow their material to be used for free if credited.
With all that said, we're sorry you feel the product was lackluster and hope to do better in future titles.

Llen2 years ago(+1)

How rude must you be to suggest someone to take their idea and make it another game?! The game is only 4-5 hours long, that isn't super long at all.

I mean yeah the dev knows I have well over 17 hours in to the game in one playthrough, also you can always change your keybinds. >.<

Saragraph2 years ago (1 edit)

I'll give it to you that I wasn't being the best human being ever when I wrote that last part and that maybe I should just have kept it to myself. Rereading it know, and it was way too strongly worded. My god... I really don't want to be an a-hole, and if I upset anyone with what I said I wholeheartedly apologize. Again, I really don't like being a knob, so I'm sorry if I was.

That being said, there is loads more you can do with any premise than what a particular dev, writer, film maker, you name it, ended up doing with it. Taking basic concepts from other media and interpreting it in their own way is one of the basic ways in which creators make more things. Of course, if it's basically the same thing the whole way through but either condensed into a summary or fleshed out with more detail and conversations, that's a form of plagiarism, that's bad, and no one should do that. However, a new story doesn't have to follow the same beats as what came before. It's totally possible for a creator to come along, be inspired by something (either in a positive or negative way), and make it their own. They can execute a premise in such a different way that, yes it may be clear the fruit of their labour has the same basic idea behind it as its source, but be a wholly different creation in nearly every aspect. Every high fantasy story written after The Lord of the Rings came out or every space opera following Dune can be described with "that, but different". Of course, the more specific a premise is formulated the higher the risk of plagiarism, so maybe I shouldn't have been as precise as I was. But what I was suggesting was not to take the story of Hexed, add bits to it, and turn (for example) the walks into a written paragraph. Neither was I suggesting to take the first x minutes, not change it at all, and then go from there. I agree that would be quite rude. If it turns out we actually agree but it was a terrible misunderstanding due to poor communication on my part, I apologize for that too.

As for the game's length, that's entirely subjective. Different people have different amounts of free time and a different number of things they would like to do or explore with that free time. I for one have a neverending backlog of games I want to play all the way through because I know I'll like them, or at least try out because I think I might enjoy them (and that's not even saying anything about the books I want to read). Therefore I always ask myself the question: "Is what I'm doing right now fun? Is it worth the time investment when there are so many other things that I could be doing instead that will or could be more satisfying?" The shorter something is, the less time I have to start feeling bothered. For me, something is too long if those questions have popped up with a certain frequency and the answer is a definite no. 4-5 hours may be short in the grand scheme of things, I'm not arguing against that, but for someone with my tastes Hexed was still too long. That is all I was saying.

(Also, while you can assign the menu to the i key, you can't go straight to the items screen. You have to press enter first. It's a minor thing, but still.)

Llen2 years ago

As someone with nearly 7k games, I understand backlog...4-5 hours is still extremely short lol.

Also this is a RPG Maker game, it has quite a bit of limitations, but going straight to an item screen is similar and akin to older RPGs such as early FF and Dragon Quest games. Menus are a thing for RPGs. I understand ya may not like it, but eh, I dunno who ya are, or if ya grew up with newer games only or older games at all.

itch.io

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