Score: 7

"A slightly flawed gem"

submission: Feudalism II

date: June 21, 2009

I have to say, I found this game a lot of fun, but there are a lot of improvements that could move this game to the next level and make it fantastic. The idea was there, the execution was quite lacking though.

First of all, people find this too hard? I followed the links to the other site so I could make a custom character (which I recommend). I played the game twice both times opting for the Far East Empire. The first time I reached level 39 but couldn't conquer the final town (I could take out anyone, and I would get VERY close, but one of the ninjas would eventually decide to unleash that huge damage move doing 7000+ damage... not exactly easy to survive). The second time I took two of the best skills (auras) you will find - Banshee Cry and Unholy Cry. I managed to get to level 29 within 30 minutes of game play, and take over the final city in the Far East Empire. Which then allows you to purchase Shogun Ghosts, which I didn't realise were the most powerful units in the game - no wonder it was so tough to take over the town! The tactic? Stock up on healing potions, and sit back and spam Banshee Cry/Unholy Cry, having healing as your 3rd aura also helps, and just keep healing. You will wipe out armies in seconds. Warning: After this point the game becomes ridiculously easy.

OK, so I found an easy way to win the game, regardless I think you can level up very quickly and easily and while this is fun, the game becomes very easily very quickly.

The second issue is money.
This has been mentioned several times... and well after the first battle you have, you already gain plenty of cash. Weapons should cost a LOT more, or you should get a LOT less cash from battles (and to start with). Getting 5000 for clearing out rogues, or delivering things is laughable when you consider how much you get from battles. It kind of makes quests useless (except for the fact that clearing rogues = easiest way to level up).

I would also like to not see a cap on the skills at level 5, this would allow greater customising of your character. And some of the passive skills should be more powerful in my opinion. +5 HP per skill level seems rather... well useless, especially late game (which as mentioned takes only 30 minutes to get to).

A good effort, but there's a lot of balance fixes you need if you're ever to make a new version.

Score: 7

"Easy"

submission: Anti-TD

date: June 17, 2009

Quite easy to beat, as you can get insane amounts of money by spamming the tanks (in early levels) or the roadsters and then the missile things later.

Good concept though. Needs a few more options for replayability though (upgrades possibly? the possibility to purchase more entrances or something).

Score: 8

"A fantastic game... probably."

submission: Mardek Rpg: Chapter 2

date: June 17, 2009

Just finished it, even with the saving difficulty. You CAN save (it is invisible though) and CAN load if you die. However after finishing the game I can no longer access my save? Which I shame as I wanted to go back and find all the treasure I missed. I also didn't get to save at the very end so won't get to load my game into Chapter 3... bugger! Hopefully your starting chars in chapt 3 are at a similar stage to end game chapt 2 (I had everyone level 13, and about 13k gold +many many items).

Anyway, a very enjoyable game, and the best web RPG I've found around here, and one of the better freeware ones too.

Battles are great. Perfect difficulty. I only died once in this game - to the 4 heroes. I wasn't entirely prepared for such a tough battle, and let the healer survive too long at which point killing anyone became impossible. The next time I killed off Bernard first, then focused on the healer. With those two down it became an easy battle. Heal with Mardek, attack with the rest. I've noticed a lot of complaints about the difficulty... but I think people are simply missing something. Always use the ASD reactions. The Paladins spirit powers are great against Undead (which is most of the end game). Mardek is a healer, don't bother attacking bosses with him, cast shields and heal instead. If you master all of that you shouldn't be troubled too much. The other bosses are tough, but far from impossible. I'd say combat is definitely one of the games strengths.

The only thing I can say is that magic is way more powerful then physical attacks. I found myself usually constantly waiting for Emela's turns, as she did by far the most damage - one-shot-killing anything that wasn't a boss. A few more physical abilities could help perhaps - things like channeling certain elements into your sword (not just the spirit one, but earth, fire etc so then you can use the appropriate one vs enemies).

The story was good. I loved the intro in chapter 1.
I love the discussions the Magi have at the end of both chapters, those are by far my favourite peices of dialogue. Very funny. The rest of the story mixes a lot of humour with some serious themes... I think humour within the game is fine, I found a lot of it great but some of it just broke the atmosphere far too much t i.e. 'ZOMBIE LOCKSMITH.... WTF IS THIS? WHO KNOWS!' Humour within the context of the game is fine, and is good writing, but things like that just broke the illusion too much for me and reminded me that this is just a game afterall, nothing more. That said, I loved how detailed you tried to make the world. The Encyclopaedia was a fantastic addition. Some of the dialogue could also do with improvement... I see you have plenty of potential (i.e. that discussion about the killing at the start, but that kind of stuff is rare, you should explore some of the themes you bring up more) so I'd love to see you use it.

Oh and the final part... where a character dies, I found a bit unbelievable. I still had 7 minutes on the timer dammit, we could have killed that thing! Perhaps a shorter timer may be needed. (tbh I didn't like how that whole event was handled in general, but I won't get into that here, suffice to say he was my favourite character though)

Anyway you've created a very interesting world and I look forward to seeing what is to come!