Ursus Quest: Tree of Life

[Ωbright]

Data Slot # - 3
Play Time - (8-25)+ hours
Genre - Life Sim RPG
Rating - Mature


This tree has many branches. Which one will you climb?

The scattered survivors of Mercer's brutal rampage have gathered in the
safety of an ancient hilltop fortress, where they could rebuild their lives in
peace. Slowly the town of Moyos emerged, and even began to enjoy some
prominence in the arts and sciences, but all was not well with this small
society. Many of the original pillars of the community have fallen, either
by death or decrepitude, and it's now up to you to help the town get back
on its feet again by becoming a Jack or Jill of all trades! Open the shops
and the restaurant, decorate the town, get married and have a child if you
like, help your neighbors, and provide some entertainment!



Game Features -

- Choose whether you play as the male hero Victor, or the female heroine Zoey!
- Become one of 4 teenage characters, and one of 8 adult characters based on your actions in the game!
- Launch your career as an artist, chef, romantic, trader, musician, saint, archaeologist, and/or thief!
- Become an archer, mage, magic knight, adventurer, or summoner
- You only HAVE to fight one battle to beat the game, and if you're clever you can do it without training
- 30 playable characters
- Interactions with NPC's change according to who you are playing as, and your level of game completion
- Get married to one of 16 different people, and have one of 3 children
- 384 different families can result!
- Many, many minigames, puzzles, and sidequests
- Yearly seasonal cycle, and randomly changing weather
- One map, but many climates and terrains to explore
- Complete all 7 main quest paths to beat the game, at which time you will earn one of four rankings
- You can continue to play after the ending if you wish
- 3 different endings
- This game is relatively short, with a very high replay value
- Play again to marry someone else, become a different adult character, see a different ending, or achieve a higher fame ranking!

[Lausen]

RPGM 3 Tree of Life

Story: The story had you play as one of two orphans. You could to choose to play as either Victor or Zoey. You play through their life as a child to adult. After the beginning you could pretty much choose what you wanted to do. Obright gave a great amount of freedom to the player. You could help reopen Max’s shops, become a musician, become an artist and sculpt statues all over, become a cook, go on archeology digs, become a clergyman, and many other things. Obright did a great job at giving each of the characters personalities. The thing I found most appealing was that each time you talked to someone 4 options came up. This gave you more of a chance to get to know the character and the surrounding area. You also could flirt and even get married and have a child. I never got the chance to do this however. You could become a thief and steal from the town people, and even go to jail. Also the back-story of the area was pretty interesting as well. Elements of Shadows of the Towers were in this as well. Overall you’re just playing out the characters LIFE trying to make Moyos a better place, or stealing from it.

Memory Use: Obright used all 99.9% and it shows. Some of the coding and puzzles he used had to of taken a great deal of space. Each of the main 7 quests had 4 different ranks you could get and at the end depending on all of the ranks you get one rank. I can only imagine what else Obright would have added if it weren’t for the limit.

Maps/Dungeons/Towns: Well I’ll start with towns. There is only one town, but it’s broken into two, Moyos and West Moyos. Let me say Moyos is amazing. It suits the feel of the game perfectly. It’s one of the few towns that I’ve encountered that is actually believable. West Moyos is kind of overshadowed by Moyos, but it’s still not bad. The detail in them is great.

Obright used dungeons differently then most. None of them had any enemies instead he opted for puzzles in which I thought were really cool. The puzzles he had were really well done. The only real problem I had was you need to have a good eye. There were quite a few crumbling walls that you needed to find in order for some of the quest paths to be completed.

The map wasn’t what I expected. Not bad, but not what I came to know of Obright. In Shadows of the Towers his maps had many elevation differences, but in Tree of Life the map was rather flat, but it had a really neat rocky area, and the little area Moyos sits on is cool. Also there are a lot of rivers that make the area seem bigger, in a good way. Overall the map was done very well, just different then what I thought.

Battles: There are random battles on the field, but Obright added a little feature that made fights different every time you stepped out on the field. You can ask nearly everyone in town to join your party. Because you don’t level up the traditional way each person stays the same level so no one gets over powered. The battles themselves were done pretty good. At first you need to be cautious as to where you go because some of the monsters will wipe you out in a single hit. The different skills each character and monster got were definitely cool.

Standout stuff: The first thing is obviously the town. It just grabs you. Also the opening storyteller was done quite well. The archeology quests were by far my favorite. Some of the things you had to do were cool. You learned a lot about the history of the town. Also the hookah you could smoke was funny. It added a nice little effect. The weather system was cool. The only thing I wish was different about it was that every time you slept it came to morning. It would have been cool to pick what time to wake up, because some of the things you had to do at certain times. There are plenty other things, but you’ll have to find out for yourself. The trading was cool at first. You could gather parts to make a metal detector and sonar, but after a while it got old. I think if you write down what everyone wants and will trade it will safe a headache. Of course I didn’t do that so I was going back and forth guessing what people wanted.

Overall: The story was interesting and being able to choose your own path adds to the replay value a lot. There are many different quests that fit different peoples interests, which is a great thing. I can tell Obright really put a lot into the appearance of Tree of Life and it shows. The look just fit into the story perfectly. The few puzzles he had were definitely cool. Though I got worked a few times in battle most of them were balanced perfectly and being able to choose your battle team was a nice touch. There were one or two spelling errors I seen, but the standout stuff made me completely forget about them.

This was one of the most unique experiences I have had with RPGM 3
9.5/10