Tales of the Three Kingdoms (demo)
Creator: PostulateMan
Since this is a demo, I won't be handing out any scores. Instead, I'll provide the basics of the plot, say what I liked, and say what needs improvement. I'll also discuss the potential of the final version of this game.
Plot
Here's what I could figure out: you are a soldier in the FIRE KINGDOM's army, and are equipped with a talking bow. The king wants you to kill the leader of a peasant uprising, but it turns out that this rebel is actually your childhood friend. You let your friend leave town unharmed, and so the bloodthirsty king banishes you.
You then wander around in a forest, save some girl from a demon, go to the girl's hometown of WIND KINGDOM, and wander some more until you find her dad.
I think the demo ends there, but it wasn't really clear.
What I liked
The premise. From what I can tell, in the final version, you will be able to choose a character from any kingdom at the start of the game, and play through these interweaving storylines. However, none of this was actually implemented in the game; you're forced to play as the FIRE KINGDOM character, Dedefal.
The humor. I love the part where you find
War and Peace on a bookshelf. I would say 20% of the time PostulateMan spent creating this game must have been put towards creating that text. The request-taking piano man was a nice touch, too. Some of the humor was more "miss" than "hit", but there was enough good stuff to make it worth playing. I think the talking bow could work, but it needs to be introduced better, as it took me a while to figure out why my character was talking to himself.
The custom art. The character graphics were pretty decent. I was particularly impressed with the graphic for Sammie, the WIND KINGDOM girl.
What I didn't like
The battles.
Random battles are not fun. And in the forest, they happen far too often. I was just about to give up on the game when I realized that PostulateMan put in a limitless special attack that destroys all enemies. This didn't make me enjoy the battles more, but it allowed me to play through them faster. And for the record, this isn't a problem with PostulateMan's game, this is a problem with RPG Maker. Don't use random battles unless you can really figure out a way to make them enjoyable. I'd rather have no battles at all.
The graphics.
Things need to be spruced up visually. The forest was particularly bland, and could easily be improved with some rocks, flowers, etc. Some of the rooms in the castle were good, though.
The gameplay.
It seemed strange that every exit out of the WIND KINGDOM (north, south, east, west) all brought you to the same forest that you came from. If this isn't changed in the final version, it could be confusing to the player.
Additionally, there are empty houses all over the place. I'm hoping PostulateMan plans to populate these eventually, otherwise entering them is pointless.
Including some puzzle or thought-based gameplay in place of the random battles would also be a big step in the right direction.
The bugs.
If you go back through to the forest, you will see the same demon that you just killed minutes ago, along with a clone of someone who's already in your party.
Also, there were a few grammatical errors, such as improper usage of your/you're. These errors didn't affect my understanding of the story, but cleaning them up would make the game look more professional.
Potential
The game needs a lot of polish, but if the weaknesses I mentioned are addressed, I suppose it could be pretty decent. While I really like the idea of choosing your initial kingdom, implementing this feature could be overly ambitious. I'd rather see PostulateMan finish up this game as he wishes, and then start a new spin-off game based on the reading of
War and Peace.
Screenshots
