RD 2002: Doujin/Freeware Game Reviews

Jaded Perspectives

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 03:08:00 +0000

Check out my new blog, "Jaded Perspectives." The tagline says it all: a cynical EVN creator's ramblings on niche gaming, anime, life and everything in-between. This is basically a fresh start on the doujin game blogging legacy that this site has strayed away from.

BTW Final

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Mon, 09 May 2011 17:20:00 +0000

This is the last release of BTW.
http://baka-trio.lunaen.com/btw_april_2011.pdf

BTW #9: The Future of EVN Communities.

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:06:00 +0000

BTW is a free, EVN-Centered (English Visual Novels), non-profit ezine in pdf format. It is published and maintained by the chatters in #baka-trio on freenode. This release marks the last monthly edition of BTW. New volumes will be released as they are available at our discretion.

BTW volume #9 is now available for download
http://baka-trio.lunaen.com/btw_january_2010.pdf

Join our newly established community for discussing EVN creation and for posting completed EVN games: The Teacup. Click on the image below to visit.

BTW #8: Making Compromises

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:34:00 +0000

BTW #7: VIsual Novel Protagonists

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:10:00 +0000

BTW #6 Death in Visual Novels

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:53:00 +0000

BTW is a free, EVN-Centered (English Visual Novels), non-profit ezine in pdf format. It is published monthly and is maintained by the chatters in #baka-trio on freenode.

BTW volume #6 is now available for download
http://baka-trio.lunaen.com/btw_october_2009.pdf

One Week of Eternity (Ebook Version)
http://baka-trio.lunaen.com/owoe.pdf

This volume released by the notoriously famous Mugenjohncel
http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&p=81374#p81374

BTW #5 Visuals in Visual Novels

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:18:00 +0000

BTW #4: Visual Novel Character Design

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 05:00:00 +0000

Suguri - Horizontal Shooter

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:52:00 +0000

By request, here's my review of Suguri.

Suguri is a fairly popular doujin shooter with some unusual elements. You control the game's titular character ~~Shana~~ Suguri through 7 horizontal scrolling stages... actually, I'm not too sure if it's really seven. I'm just basing that on the stage select screen. I can't get past stage 2 on easy, but hey just because I can't beat it, it doesn't invalidate this review.

The background music is amazing. Technically, I'd say the tracks are on the same level as ZUN's music for the Tohou games, but I'm no music major so don't take my word for it. I just know that I love the BGM for stage 1. Graphics are excellent.

The graphics are excellent for an indy title. Suguri is a 2D sprite but the enemies, projectile effects and backgrounds are rendered in 3D.

The gameplay looks simplistic at a glance. All you do is shoot and avoid enemies and projectiles. There's a lifebar (shield, actually), so you can take more than one hit. However, when you actually sit down and play this game, it can take some getting used to. First of all, Suguri can take two different weapons with her into battle. You can change your weapons from the options menu. Each weapon has its own characteristics. The machine gun is the only reliable weapon for me so far (I've had this game for years, but never really played it much.) The beam laser is powerful, but there's a recoil time that stops your movement for a fraction of a second. Since the enemies and projectiles are always coming, this means you have to time your shots carefully to avoid taking damage yourself. Then, there's a power level gauge, which when filled, allows Suguri to perform a super shot based on the primary weapon you've chosen.

You unlock more weapons by beating stages. Suguri doesn't shoot straight forward like in standard horizontal shooters, she locks on to enemies when they enter a certain range and shoots straight at them (about mid-range based on the screen). This adds an extra level of challenge to the game, if you already don't have your hands full dodging the bullet-spamming enemies. Also, sometimes the bullets just fill the entire screen before you can kill the enemies. To equalize, buton 3 (or keyboard "C" by default) boosts Suguri forward or you can control the direction she accelerates at by using the directional keys. This allows for quick dodges and lesser damage in case you get grazed by a bullet.

There are end-level bosses with visible on-screen lifebars. The bosses are humanoid sprites just like Suguri. (Actually, they're characters from the game's fighter sequel, Acceleration of Suguri) Over-all, this game is a bit on the hard side and the controls are a bit of a challenge, but it's a nice refreshing change from the usual japanese shmup formula.

Publisher: Orange Juice Circle
Demo: http://indygamer.blogspot.com/2006/02/suguri.html
Buy the game here: http://www.rockinandroid.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=70&Itemid=91

Note: I'm not affiliated with any of the websites I've linked here.

Miku Rasher - 2D Nes Style Game

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:48:00 +0000

Got a small doujin game to review today. It's Miku Rasher based on the vocaloid character and internet icon, Hatsune Miku. I'd recommend the Hatsune Miku psp game too, but that's just me drooling all over Miku after seeing her booty-shakin action in "The World is Mine." Back to Miku Rasher; It's free, cute, and fun. Unfortunately, it's so simple that there's not much to review, but, let's break it down.

The music and sound effects are really old school. It has that famicom feel. 8 bit background music featuring Levan Polkka and familiar famicom blip-blips. The creators obviously wanted to make things look and feel like a famicom/nes game and they've succeeded in this aspect.

The graphics, just like the music. The graphics are really reminiscent of simple NES/Famicom titles like Pipeline, Joust and Battle City. Nothing to mince words on, really. Check out the screenshots, they tell everything. The animations are just what you'd expect of famicom titles. Very limited animation but with smooth sprite movement.

Now let's take a look at the gameplay. Sorry if I'm beginning to sound like a broken record, but once again, the game feels like something right out of the nes/famicom era. Even the level of difficulty.

The first otion is the A mode game. It starts easy enough but gets impossibly hard in the later stages and just like a typical famicom game; THE CONTINUE IS A LIE! That said, I like it. It's like a variation of Balloon Fight. There are only two buttons plus the arrow keys for the controls. Holding down Z or pressing it repeatedly boosts Miku up so she can fly. YOu can control her flight with the left and right arrow keys. Pressing X fires some kind of short-range projectile (is that her trademark leek?) that engulfs the enemy in a bubble. YOu have to literally burst their bubble after trapping them in it by bumping into them. Coming into contact with an "unbubbled" enemy means instant death. Enemies engulfed in bubbles escape after some time depending on the type of enemy and they get faster and harder to avoid/hit every time they escape. The objective of each level is to kill all the enemies. This pretty much sums up the gameplay. I'm not sure if there's a bonus level or boss fights. Haven't played this game to death... yet.

B mode game is almost the same as A mode except that you can fall into holes for instant death as well and the enemies are more aggressive. Tutorial mode just shows you the game in action with a graphical representation of the controls in order to demonstrate the functions of each button.

Over-all, I'd say not bad, not bad at all. This is the type of game I'd recommend to old school gamers - specifically, those who like the more simplistic games from the era of nintendo 8-bit dominance. It has a limited lifespan, but paraphrasing Dracula from Castelevania SOTN: "The same could be said of all NES era games." Well, maybe not all of them, but there were lots of similar arcadey games for the NES. Of course, if you like Hatsune Miku, I don't need to tell you to get this game. Download it now. (It's only 1.3 MB) The screenshots used here are from the game's official homepage.

Publisher: Yoshiba Works
Publisher's homepage: http://www.yoshibaworks.com/mcrasher/

Recommend a Doujin/ Freeware Game To Review

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 07:01:00 +0000

Yup, yup. I've got quite a few games on my backlog, but I'd like someone to recommend me a good doujin game to review.

I'll play any game as long as it's good. (Real clear standards, huh?) For the record, I prefer fighters, 2D shooters or classics like breakout style games and tetris. (Tetrinet? Nah, I suck at it. I get about 60 PPM max)

Please don't recommend something like Scarlet Weather Rhapsody. Yes, it's an awesome game, I know, but everyone's heard of it anyway. I prefer obscure but fun titles... Hmm... I guess I could try that Marimite mouse-controlled game for my next review. La Seour de etc... ahaha! Hmm... or Suguri, even. (Hard! Game is hard!)

Anyway, please list your recommended games on the comments here.

BTW #3: Love in VN Stories

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:52:00 +0000

BTW #2: Approaches To Storytelling

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 05:21:00 +0000

Umihara Kawase - Snes Platformer

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Sun, 24 May 2009 13:37:00 +0000

Today, I feel like reviewing another non-doujin game, the cult-hit platformer, Umihara Kawase. I'll be reviewing the SNES version. Just in case you've never heard of it, it's a series of platform games starring a cute little schoolgirl called... well, Umihara Kawase (real imaginative, huh?) but what's in a name? It's all about the game and Umihara Kawase certainly delivers in that aspect. Let's break it down.

The graphics are solid just like any other snes platformer from the mid-nineties era; cutesy, colorful anime stylings and smooth animations that don't suffer from the stop-motion syndrome seen in some japanese games. Umihawra-chan and her fishing line move seamlessly through the various interconnected levels using semi-realistic physics.
Which brings us to the meat and potatoes of this game, the gameplay. You control our appropriately named female protagonist. and basically make your way through the various multi-platform levels using nothing but your fishing line and a the good old jump button. The goal is always to make your way to the level's exit door while avoiding falling into the water or getting hit by enemies, which is no small feat since one hit is fatal. However, what makes this game unique is the maneuverability and versatility of the fishing line. It can clamp on to any anything it touches (acts as an attack against enemies, which stuns them and you can them reel them in and Umihara will store them in her backpack for points) and you can control its length via the d-pad and even swing around to a certain extent. It's a lot like Bionic Commando's arm, but the fishing line is surprisingly (and not) more versatile in the fluid and intuitive way it responds. After a few minutes of immersion, using the line to hook onto nearby platforms will feel like second nature. Of course, Umihara herself is a lot harder to maneuver through the levels without having a good grasp of the fishing line's physics. Her jump just isn't high enough to get her across most gaps. It's a great platformer in that there are various ways to tackle any level (and I'm sure there are some daredevils out there who can pull off innovative ways of using the fishing line to breeze through some levels)
The music is cute, catchy and very Japanese in feel. Anime/Jrpg fans will feel right at home with the bgm for this game. It kinda reminds me of the music for Lunar and Falcom games like Legend of Heroes and the Ys series.

Over-all, this is an excellent platformer for gamers of any level - from the hardcore types to the casual players. It's quite a challenge going through the multi-platform levels and many of them require quite a bit of creativity and some luck to pass through unharmed. There are no continues and a limited number of lives available. Lucky for us, there are emulators and savestates nowadays ;). Also, this game was never released outside of Japan, but some fans have released an unofficial translation patch for the game (for what minimal text there is).

BTW: The EVN Community Ezine

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Thu, 21 May 2009 13:43:00 +0000

Idolmaster SP and Firmware 5.05

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:22:00 +0000

Hehe! I bet I'm not the only one feeling like this right now.

Magical Boutique - Shop Management Sim

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 00:15:00 +0000

I'm back and I've played a ton of new freeware and doujin games (or both :P) ripe for the reviewing!

Having had the chance to interview the author(online) recently, I thought it would be a good time to review another game from the EVN(English Visual Novel) scene, Magical Boutique.

Presentation
Magical Boutique looks and feels like a mini-game spin-off of the Mana series. (Legend of Mana, Secret of Mana, Seiken Densetsu 3, Sword of Mana, Dawn of Mana etc.) The colorful interface, Framboise' character design, the layout of the in-game interface, and the colorful backgrounds just remind me so much of Legend of Mana, especially.

Is this a good thing? Definitely! It doesn't feel like the creator just blatantly ripped off Square/Squenix just to somehow ride-on to their success - it just feels very close to that cozy, children's story-like atmosphere of the mana titles.

Of course, there are a few complaints I have. While the character art for Framboise is not very professional-looking, she's passable enough and I'd say it could have benefited quite a bit from dark outlines outside her body making her look more cartoony (Think simple cartoon network titles like Powerpuff and Dexter). Another thing is the text used in the main window. It just doesn't suit the game over-all. It looks too plain and well...default when compared to the pretty fonts used for the item descriptions and pretty much the rest of the game. I'd also liked to have seen a smaller text box rather than the fullscreen one the game is using. It just doesn't feel aesthetically correct to me... or they could have made the window look something like a piece of parchment paper while retaining the transparency.

VN purists (of the eltist variety) will cringe at the artwork used for this game. Actually, it's not that bad. It works well enough for this type of game and really, it's not that distracting to the eyes that you have to overreact to it.

Music
A few looping tracks that sound magical enough. They do get repetitive after you've made your hundredth or so potion, but the music does its job well enough.

Gameplay
This is the meat and potatoes of the game. Honestly, I don't really like game VNs, but that's just me. Magbou is best described as a potion shop management sim rather than a visual novel. Your main task is to create potions for customers while being assisted by Framboise (shown in the video trailer) who can also make potions or go on quests to find more items for ingredients. You can also visit local merchants during special days to buy furniture that upgrades your shop's capacity or adds some special features.

The days advance automatically and you'll get an option to assign tasks to your current staff for the day or view your status screen and see what items/ingredients you've got in your inventory and what potions you can currently brew. Attempting to brew a potion that you don't have the ingredients to will end up with you wasting a turn. (naturally)

Your characters gain experience with each potion they brew unlocking higher level potions that you can sell to your clients. I should note that there is really no way to manually sell the potions you create to your clients and it seems to be controlled automatically by the game.

Bits and pieces of the story get unlocked automatically as the game progresses. I'm not quite sure, but I think some special events can only be viewed by completing certain tasks for story-based customers.

Over-all
Just like any other management sim, Magbou suffers from repetitive gameplay, though it does offer some rewards for players diligent enough to attempt to unlock everything in this game (I'm not :P). Over-all, it's a solid title and a nice little time-waster for slow days. It's a game that you can just pick-up, play and leave at any time without feeling any vague moral obligation to keep on playing till kingdom come. It has a nice cozy ambience that just seems welcoming for all types of players.

So, to conclude, should I give you a numerical assessment of this game? Tsk. Why bother? Just try it out. I forgot to mention the best part. It's free!

Download Page
http://www.renai.us/game/magbou.shtml

Haven't had time to blog... have a comic!

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:34:00 +0000

Haven't had much time to blog recently. Sorry about that...
Here, have a one-page comic to make up for it. I can't make
any promises right now, but I do plan to start reviewing
regularly sometime soon.

Bulletgba - Free Danmaku Trainer for the GBA

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:36:00 +0000

Overview

Bullegba is a free, downloadable danmaku trainer for the gba. (psp in my case thanks to emulators) Unlike other bullet-dodging trainers, this game simulates one long boss fight for each level. Think of an extended version of the Tohou bosses on normal and you'll get a pretty good picture of what I mean. I'd recommend playing the game on a real GBA, a DS, or a PSP if you can for maximum enjoyment.

Game Modes

The game features multiple modes of play. There are five "shooting levels" with different bullet patterns and increasing difficulty; there's a 'BulletsMorph' mode where you cannot shoot back and are forced to dodge random bullet patterns, but wherein you can't die either. "Select Barrage" allows you to practice on bullet patterns from various danmaku style games including, but not limited to Noiz2sa, Progear, Storm Caliber, Strikers and the cult-favorite, Tohou. You can also view and save replays for the bragging rights :3

Graphics

The graphics are very basic and it feels like the creators just put them there as representations and nothing more. That said, they do their job well and do not affect the gameplay one bit. You control an orange '@' symbol and get constantly assaulted with the different shaped green bullet sprites with a constantly scrolling black and gray screen background.

Sounds

The usual blip blips you'd expect from a modern 2D shooter; nothing really fancy, but they do their job just like the graphics. The music is a mix of techno and old school 8-bit nes style. The tracks are very upbeat and fit the fast-paced action of the game very well.

Homepage: http://www.pqrs.org/tekezo/gba/bulletgba/

Wings II Promotional Video

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 05:19:00 +0000

Can't have a new free English visual novel release without a promo vid. (Also, I haven't typed up any reviews, so this is an excuse to procrastinate. :P)

Typhoon Fengshen/Frank!

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 06:16:00 +0000

Ehehe! Sorry, my reintroduction to doujin game blogging/reviewing got delayed a bit. A huge typhoon hit my area, Iloilo City, Philippines. A dam broke and three major bridges collapsed causing massive flooding in many areas. At least 40,000 were stranded on rooftops, thousands missing and hundreds dead at this point.

Luckily, we didn't get hit that badly and all we suffered in my part of the city was one uprooted tree in our front lawn. Pics from the badly damaged parts of the city attached.

Wings II

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 06:48:00 +0000

Man, that was long hiatus, eh? It's been months since my last update. Construed broadly, this little project of mine should qualify as a doujin game even though I'm not Japanese. Please read with all your heart.

http://wings.animerd2k2.net

Also, I'll be blogging about the english visual novel community a lot more from this point on, along with the usual doujin gaming reviews.

Hey Look!

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:56:00 +0000

Courtesy of M12 I've been featured in a dlsite interview along with some of my fellow OELVN creators from the lemmasoft forums. Check out lordcloudx interview on dlsite here. Thanks again dlsite and M12.

Warning: In case you haven't noticed. That's a dlsite link and that means, Absolutely Not Safe For Work! That is all.

On the doujin gaming review side of things, I've been a bit busy playing.... gba titles on my psp lately, but don't worry, I plan to add more reviews real soon. (or at least one review before the end of this month)

Also, check out my new gallery of my freeware character and music contributions for the 5th anniversary of lemmasoft.

Brave Story: New Traveler - PSP Rpg

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 16:00:00 +0000

Just started playing Brave Story: New Traveler for the PSP. I believe this one game is based on the movie by GONZO and a series of Japanese novels or was it one novel? Aww... who cares! It's nice to see a standard

console-style rpg with the slew of SRPGs such as Disagaea, Jeane D'Arc and FF Tactics War of The
Lions for the system. Ok, on to the review, I'll do this one like a gamefaqs review.

Graphics

I'll start with the graphics. Everything is rendered in 3D from the characters, to the towns,
dungeons and overworld map. While not being particularly impressive, the graphics do
look nice enough (especially considering that this is a handheld) and looks almost as good as FFX
for the PS2. So far, I've seen quite a few palette swapped sprites of the main characters
themselves which I think was a bad idea because it takes a lot out of their individuality.

Gameplay/Story (I find it hard to separate the gameplay from the story in this game)

For the gameplay, this is the part that veteran console rpg'ers will absolutely eat-up. Why? RPG
Clichés galore!

You start the game as a normal boy named Tatsuya (or whatever you named him) who is (by no
coincidence) totally engrossed in playing with his psp, much to the dismay of his female friend
Miki whom he has promised to accompany whilst walking her dog (Aww! Ain't that sweet?)

Ok, let's fast-forward a bit. Hero-kid's little Miki falls into a coma of some kind and by some
twist of fate, he is sucked into the world of Vision where all travelers may have one wish upon
meeting with the goddess; but in order to meet said goddess, the traveler must embark on a
journey all over the rpg-tastic world of Vision exploring towns and dungeons, searching for some
kinda gems because the goddess dropped her precious jewelry all over Vision (ok, I made some of
that up, but you get the general idea.)

Beep! Beep! "#3. Thinking With The Wrong Head (Hiro Rule)" Check! Hero sees helpless loli-neko-girl
armed with a bow being ganged up on by a group of wolves. Naturally, he jumps in despite never having held a real sword before.

Beep1! Beep! "#14 Garrett's Principle" Check! You are actually encouraged to barge into every open household and search the premises for any jars that might contain treasure. Yuno (aka loli catgirl) even has a treasure sensor ability that detects how many treasures you still haven't taken from a particular village or dungeon.

Well, I guess I'll stop there with the clichés here lest this review gets too spoilery. Let's talk about the gameplay a bit. There are random battles galore in this game, I'd say about the same frequency as FFIX for the psone. The battle system is nothing any gamer hasn't seen before. Turn-based with HP/BP indicators for each of the three characters in your party. BP (not blood pressure) is like the MP of this game which allows you to perform special moves and the kinda innovative (if you haven't seen this in Suikoden before) unity attacks which are team techniques which can be performed by two or more team members with varying effects like stat boosting or just doing massive damage to the enemy. The good thing is that you can recover BP by simply using normal physical attacks so that means you'll hardly find yourself in a game-over situation with no BP, no item while deep inside a high-level dungeon.

Almost all enemies have this "crazed" form where they transform into an uber version of themselves which can be triggered in different ways depending on the type of enemy.

On the field, there's this crafting system which is basically allows you to make accessories as long as you have the "diagram" and the raw materials required by that diagram (ho! hum! been there seen that.) Oh yah, some diagrams are only available through sidequests. Right now, I'm only up to chapter six but there are already multiple sidequests available this early in the game.

There's also a goldfinch brawling mini-game which has multiplayer functions that I haven't tried yet. Goldfinches are the mascot characters of Brave Story. They're small, cute and fat birds of varying colors that you can catch in habitats scattered througout the game. You can then pit your goldfinches against that of the goldfinch brawlers within the dungeons of Vision in order to get a "goldfinch feather" ... unfortunately, I seem to be in the early parts of the game so I'm not sure what good collecting goldfinch feathers are.

Sound

Pretty good actually. The bgm are nice and catchy, though not too flashy nor memorable (kinda reminds me of Wild Arms... same publisher maybe? Too lazy to check.) There's voice-acting in some special cutscenes and of course, in battle. You can even choose between the Japanese or English voice-overs.

Minor Complaints

-The difficulty level is a bit on the easy side
-Colors are a bit washed out
-Animations are good but could be smoother (I'm spoiled by FF VII: Crisis Core)
-Too many random battles
-Palette Swapped Main characters is a nono!

Over-all

Brave Story certainly isn't the best rpg of its kind, but it is a good, solid console-style rpg that uses old-school rpg elements with an easy to moderate difficulty level and charming, though kinda trite story. This one is an excellent must-have title and perhaps the first true console rpg(numerous ports aside) for PSP owners.

Mai Room!

noreply@blogger.com (lordcloudx) — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 04:57:00 +0000

I thought I'd show my readers a few pics of my room in response to m12's post

Below are my collection of english manga.

This was my first gaming system ever. The Sega Game Gear. The thing still works even though it's about 11 years old now.

My latest gaming system. My family could've gotten me the slim version for a little bit more cash... but the clerk said something about the fat one having more "features." ^_^

My second gaming system, the PS1. It still works too.

Some ps2 games. Notice the logo is DVD game 2. I wonder why? :)

Some dvds I use for backing up my anime/doujin games collection

A pic of misuzu on my wall

Some of my anime collection. One dvd in the background is NSFW. Luckily, it's too blurred out to be noticeable.

Some of my sketchbooks.

Recognize this one lemmasoft people? One sketch in the pic above is NSFW, but again, it's too blurred to be recognizable.

It is delicious kona-chan. I must sketch it.

And... this is why people who argue with me have been mysteriously dying of sudden, violent heart-attacks.