Karr Lord of Chaos
05-18-2009, 09:54 PM
Description: Expedition is a traditional RPG. You follow two different story arcs, traversing the vast custom continent that Starba has created. Those who have played FF1 will especially enjoy some of the town’s layouts. Anyone who is a Final Fantasy fan will enjoy this game.
This game is a must play classic of the RPG Maker 1 era.
Review: Well I first played this game back in the early years, play tasting the original demo. So I re dl'ed it from the Pavi and found the files corrupted.
This would be a very short review if it stopped here so I fiddled with the files and found that copying them by hand rather then using the memory card copy command fixed the error. I wonder if anyone else has this problem.
The plot was an interesting collection of final fantasy clichés and Starba's own creations. The baseline plot was easy to follow but the bigger picture of spirits, guardians, rings, crystals, and a pile of other crap was impossibly confusing. I still haven't a clue how all that other stuff worked out but I ignored it and focused on the quest and was happy.
The game itself has a pile of interesting items at the very beginning. Nearly 90% of them are totally without any use beyond being quest related or outright novelty. Yet even still they added a different flair to the game. The novelty wore out there as no other town had anything like it, so the feel was lost.
Magic was very scarce in this game and limited to select characters. I found I never was able to use magic shops and even doubted their existence until the very last scene in the game and even then I still never got a chance to test what they did if anything.
The first random battles of the game were a make or break thing. You either got a massively hard battle or a pushover that cut the edge off the rest. This is the way random battles are but there are precautions you can take to reduce this severity.
The only bug I encountered was during the firehouse scene where if I went back a screen from the event I repeated the previous scene. The only reason I even discovered this was because the battle was impossible and I was trying to get out to re-stock. I ended up beating it after a few tries but it was one of several very difficult boss battles at the end of the game that I won by fluke more then I did by skill.
Even though I never used a magic shop I still found the magic I did have to be one of the most balanced I've experienced. The low mp for spells worked and having no mana healing items made you conserve. The support spells where useful, and this was the first time I even used status effects on bosses and was rewarded handsomely (and ended up being the only saving grace for some fights). In most games status effects are a novelty so it’s nice to see them used well.
Sometimes the games poison encounters were difficult because there were no opportunities to re-acquire poison recovery. It was only fortunate that there were statues around to fully heal you else it would have been an easy game over.
The weapons and armors were varied enough and came at the right intervals. The money was free flowing which is also great, though this happened only after a certain character switch and access to the world map. I found I was purchasing end game equipment from the second story arc and equipping it to my main character when the arc swapped back which seemed a little broken (however welcomed lol).
The two arcs where interesting. It was like two fires burning at opposite ends of a piece of wood. I really enjoyed the fact that the dungeons I crossed with this story arc was not repetitive so kudos to Starba for that!
The mini quest posters I didn’t even know about till I stumbled upon them and even then I never found another till the final two. I don't know if collecting them all does anything but was an interesting find anyway.
I disliked the pumpkin head of cursedness since I couldn't remove it as there was no way to do so. It didn't prove to be too serious a burden, just an annoyance.
I never encountered an e-skill even though there was prompts that would indicate they where there. Maybe this was the mystery shops function but as I never found a place to use them I never did find out.
The final boss was a massive hell raising impossibility with no less then 4500-4800 hp. if you plan to use magic to destroy it then you will run out long before you can beat this boss. If you plan to use attacks to destroy it then you will die years before you can whittle its outrageous hp away. I had the best equipment available, I was at a very decent level, and yet it was impossible to defeat this boss. After dieing several times I tried casting silence on it which worked but I still died as soon as it cured itself, what saved me was the 100 needles item I had equipped. I used it to deal about 100 damage and kept using that with silence to beat the boss. It’s kind of disappointing to have only a cheap technicality to beat the final boss. I wonder what level the testers where and what they used to beat this battle? I really went to down on the level grinding.
Overall I was satisfied with the game. I played it for around 6-8 hours and I enjoyed my investment. Its worth checking out if you can get the cards to work. Starba made a great game back then and even though it isn't filled with all the trimmings of today's blockbusters, it still does a good job of entertaining.
At the very end of the game you find out why the game is how it is. Though I will say that I've always had a soft spot for Chocobos and another race I won’t mention. All considered this game definitely deserves 8.75 out of 10.
This game is a must play classic of the RPG Maker 1 era.
Review: Well I first played this game back in the early years, play tasting the original demo. So I re dl'ed it from the Pavi and found the files corrupted.
This would be a very short review if it stopped here so I fiddled with the files and found that copying them by hand rather then using the memory card copy command fixed the error. I wonder if anyone else has this problem.
The plot was an interesting collection of final fantasy clichés and Starba's own creations. The baseline plot was easy to follow but the bigger picture of spirits, guardians, rings, crystals, and a pile of other crap was impossibly confusing. I still haven't a clue how all that other stuff worked out but I ignored it and focused on the quest and was happy.
The game itself has a pile of interesting items at the very beginning. Nearly 90% of them are totally without any use beyond being quest related or outright novelty. Yet even still they added a different flair to the game. The novelty wore out there as no other town had anything like it, so the feel was lost.
Magic was very scarce in this game and limited to select characters. I found I never was able to use magic shops and even doubted their existence until the very last scene in the game and even then I still never got a chance to test what they did if anything.
The first random battles of the game were a make or break thing. You either got a massively hard battle or a pushover that cut the edge off the rest. This is the way random battles are but there are precautions you can take to reduce this severity.
The only bug I encountered was during the firehouse scene where if I went back a screen from the event I repeated the previous scene. The only reason I even discovered this was because the battle was impossible and I was trying to get out to re-stock. I ended up beating it after a few tries but it was one of several very difficult boss battles at the end of the game that I won by fluke more then I did by skill.
Even though I never used a magic shop I still found the magic I did have to be one of the most balanced I've experienced. The low mp for spells worked and having no mana healing items made you conserve. The support spells where useful, and this was the first time I even used status effects on bosses and was rewarded handsomely (and ended up being the only saving grace for some fights). In most games status effects are a novelty so it’s nice to see them used well.
Sometimes the games poison encounters were difficult because there were no opportunities to re-acquire poison recovery. It was only fortunate that there were statues around to fully heal you else it would have been an easy game over.
The weapons and armors were varied enough and came at the right intervals. The money was free flowing which is also great, though this happened only after a certain character switch and access to the world map. I found I was purchasing end game equipment from the second story arc and equipping it to my main character when the arc swapped back which seemed a little broken (however welcomed lol).
The two arcs where interesting. It was like two fires burning at opposite ends of a piece of wood. I really enjoyed the fact that the dungeons I crossed with this story arc was not repetitive so kudos to Starba for that!
The mini quest posters I didn’t even know about till I stumbled upon them and even then I never found another till the final two. I don't know if collecting them all does anything but was an interesting find anyway.
I disliked the pumpkin head of cursedness since I couldn't remove it as there was no way to do so. It didn't prove to be too serious a burden, just an annoyance.
I never encountered an e-skill even though there was prompts that would indicate they where there. Maybe this was the mystery shops function but as I never found a place to use them I never did find out.
The final boss was a massive hell raising impossibility with no less then 4500-4800 hp. if you plan to use magic to destroy it then you will run out long before you can beat this boss. If you plan to use attacks to destroy it then you will die years before you can whittle its outrageous hp away. I had the best equipment available, I was at a very decent level, and yet it was impossible to defeat this boss. After dieing several times I tried casting silence on it which worked but I still died as soon as it cured itself, what saved me was the 100 needles item I had equipped. I used it to deal about 100 damage and kept using that with silence to beat the boss. It’s kind of disappointing to have only a cheap technicality to beat the final boss. I wonder what level the testers where and what they used to beat this battle? I really went to down on the level grinding.
Overall I was satisfied with the game. I played it for around 6-8 hours and I enjoyed my investment. Its worth checking out if you can get the cards to work. Starba made a great game back then and even though it isn't filled with all the trimmings of today's blockbusters, it still does a good job of entertaining.
At the very end of the game you find out why the game is how it is. Though I will say that I've always had a soft spot for Chocobos and another race I won’t mention. All considered this game definitely deserves 8.75 out of 10.