I have the full version of this game on Steam and can wholeheartedly recommend it. If you enjoy old school sidescrollers with a bit of RPG stats and adventuring, this is for you.
I have the full version of this game on Steam and can wholeheartedly recommend it. If you enjoy old school sidescrollers with a bit of RPG stats and adventuring, this is for you.
Thanks man, I'm glad you enjoyed the full version!
Not a bad little game so far, it could definitely have done with updates graphics. Even simple things like player sprites and proper tilesets used in the dungeons. It would definitely have given much more of an immersion factor to the game.
I'm not entirely sold on the rhythm based battle gameplay. It's something I haven't seen before which is nice, but it got old relatively quickly. It doesn't make grinding to help get through the factory very fun. I'm still grinding to work my way through the dungeon, it's highly frustrating to lose and end up back on the world map. I'm going to keep playing and see how far I can get because it's a game that you've clearly put a lot of work into and I want to make sure that I give it a fair shot.
You've absolutely got a good core of a game here, but I see it as just that. A core. Make a few gameplay modifications, scale the difficulty down a little and add nicer graphics and you've potentially got a very good RPG.
Many of this game's quirks are a fault of their intended platform. The simplistic graphics are done purposefully so as to reduce the memory usage of the graphics. Ultimately, I found the different enemy types (police, state trooper, riot police, soldier) and ranks (normal, with hat, with hat and star) to be incredibly succinct and attractive, and have not considered them a problem since I drew them over a year ago.
The graphic style is also where the name Ava RPG comes from - Ava is short for avatar, as the graphics are only representations of characters rather than trying to imitate the image of a human being outright, though I didn't want it to be associated with The Last Airbender or the sci-fi film, hence the shortening.
The 'rhythm' gameplay as you call it is also something I developed specifically to get it to work on the PSP. I agree that it does get somewhat repetitive. Later on as you acquire more abilities and charms, the gameplay will start getting a bit more interesting as you find uses for more buttons and begin planning out battles.
The difficulty level is set where it is mainly because you still get experience for losing a random battle. The game used to give out experience for all lost battles, but I took this out when I realized you could go up to the arctic factory from the start and grind by losing.
Thank you for the well-written and critical review. Even if I disagree with most of your points, I can see you took a good hard look at this game before reviewing it.
I remember playing this game on FGL around the same time I stopped looking for a sponsor. It's a very good game and it's nice to see a TRPG in the Flash community. You've made the game a nice challenge, not too simple, but not hair-pullingly impossible.
The graphics are quite simple, but it works out pretty well. The storyline seems to be something you wanted to focus on which is always a plus in my books. The music, although good, doesn't fit with the drawing style you've got going. I feel the music would work better with pixelated graphics.
All in all, it's a very good game and if anybody reads this, I recommend giving it a shot.
Game developer known for my RPG Tale of Enki: Pilgrimage and my horror series Azurael's Circle.
Age 33, Male
United Kingdom
Joined on 12/18/12