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&(And)

  By: Rinku/Rydia and Charbile
Homepage: http://homepages.go.com/homepages/e/r/e/eressoft/
Download: 173 KB

Reviewed by: Pepsi Ranger

   And is the story of a young forgetful girl named Ampersand who forgets everything about her, from where she lives, to how she lost her memories, to why her name is Ampersand. In order to regain her memories, or at least a set of random memories, she must kill a wise and clear-headed monster, in effect taking its memories and making them her own. Of course, this may mean having pleasant memories of maulings and digging holes, but they're still memories, and the in-game narrators and shopkeepers tell her that it's the only way to discover something about herself, or at least think she's discovered something about herself. So, for the entire game, Ampersand fights increasingly difficult battles to reach that one monster who will have the memories she needs, meanwhile remaining to be the epitome of the world's worst blind date by only responding "Okay," "Maybe," and "Why?" to other people's questions and answers.

   So, that's the plot, but not the true intents of the game. Rather, the game is designed as a leveling-up adventure, in which the player must keep leveling up and gaining money if he or she wants to finish. I think it's a neat idea to try, but looking from a distance, I don't know why a game should be just about leveling up. Fortunately, when I started playing the game, I realized that when made by the right hands, a game about leveling up can be pretty fun to play. And so is And, a leveling up paradise. So, how is a game about leveling up a good thing? Here's the breakdown--the battles are designed painstakingly and perfectly. The player starts with practically nothing and must set out into the forest to kill stuff. The first battles are weak enough to help the player gain some experience, but strong enough to let the player know that he or she is in for a rocking as the game goes on. As the player progresses, literally step-by-step, the battles get gradually tougher. Eventually, the player will find that the enemies lurking near the forest entrance are total pansies compared to the enemies in the depths. One may think that this is no big deal since the main character will naturally get stronger and keep up with the pace of the fights, and in many ways this would be true. But, the game was not designed to blaze from one end of the map to the other and make it into the next area. It's designed in such a way that the player must keep returning to the item shop at the start of the area to buy the latest available sword (4 in the first area, 2 in the second). What this means is that as Ampersand gets into higher levels, the weaker enemies at the start of the map won't help her experience grow all that quickly. They'll still attack, and she'll still use spells on multiple enemy groups, but it will take longer to get to the next level, meaning her stats won't reset any time soon. Even though this wouldn't make a difference to her health, since there are two types of cure potions to help her, it makes using her spells a difficult task because once it's depleted, it's depleted until the next level up. That adds up to trouble for anyone who thinks they're going to win the game by doing mass single-hit destruction. It also adds a new challenge to leveling up. Frankly, I think the method of the game works, and it works really well...up to around Level 30-something.

   Which brings us to the downsides of the game. Even though the game is designed very well, keeping the difference of battles balanced near perfectly, it starts to change pace near the top of the second map. Here'e why--the enemies are way too strong. That's okay because Ampersand hits as much as seven hundred points a swat when she finds the last sword, and can defeat most enemies, even the strong ones, with a maximum of three hits. The part where the problem arises is that Ampersand's health does not grow as quickly as her strength, and the enemies she must face in the later part of the game attack in groups of eight, and occasionally have the option of hitting her more than once a turn. This essentially means that a player with over three hundred points of health (which is about how much the player will have around Level 30), can still be beaten to death before the hero will have the chance to attack. The player can also forget about defeating the last two bosses, assuming he or she reaches them. The simple solution is to keep leveling up until Level 99 is reached, but that would demand days and days of playing, since the most experience a player will get out of a single battle is still under three thousand points. Fortunately, the experience cheat is enabled, so leveling up can be done each battle, but I'm not sure that's the purpose of the game. But, even if it was, becoming stronger means dealing with a much bigger problem. The way to beat some enemies is to take as many out in the first hit as possible. To do this, the player must use the "Flash" spell. This spell, as awesome as it is, can freeze the game if Ampersand gets up to a higher number-of-hits rate, which she will do from time to time. So, basically the battles in the upper regions of the snowy mountain will either end in Ampersand's defeat, or the program's defeat. This is not to say that the game is impossible to finish. I did finish, after many, many defeats, but I had to go into the custom editor and change some stats (hero health and Sword 6 price) to do it. Even then, the game was still very difficult. I used the level up debug key to get to Level 50-ish, got my health up to 1400, and still took a pretty bad beating. So, the simple solution to playing the game without cheating is to keep leveling up to 99 and hope for the best. But, since the peak health as a default is a little under 1100, the fight is still a risk, and the enemies still stand a very high risk of beating the hero before the hero has a chance to do anything. The only thing that may make it easier is the possibility that Level 99 defense is really high, where Level 50 is not. All in all though, the game is very good for something made in forty-eight hours, provides a tough challenge, and is the best role-model I can think of for those who are looking to make a great battle system. Adding armor might be a nice way to maneuver the challenge, and a couple extra stages would be good for variety and story, especially since the story doesn't really go beyond the initial setup, but with or without some additions, it's still a fun game. Hopefully, the authors will decide to make an alternate story of Ampersand simply entitled "Or."

Scores:
Graphics: The maptiles are decent, and the walkabouts are nice, but the battle graphics are incredible. The only drawback to the graphics is that the forest battle background looks more like a desert than a cluster of trees. Impressive enough to win some kudos.
7.5/10
Music: The music comes from a variety of different games, from Zelda to Ecco the Dolphin, but sets the mood very well. The music from the first stage is especially haunting in that the player first learns of Ampersand's amnesia as a saddening melody orchestrates in the background. It's almost heartbreaking. Of course, then you remember that the game is about slaying monsters to a rocky soundtrack, so you get over it. Still, the music is nicely chosen.
8.5/10
Storyline: Even though the story is very thin, the underlying relation to the game's purpose is clever, not to mention it sets a ground for something deeper, should the authors decide to expand on it some time. Therefore, it's worth a decent score.
7.0/10
Gameplay: The map designs are nice, but the battle design and layout is what makes the game shine. There is so much challenge in something made so fast that to say the gameplay is horrible would virtually be punishable. The only reason why gameplay would not deserve a top score is because of the annoying factor that the game freezes when attacks get too strong. Other than that, what's not to like about it?
9.0/10
Overall (Not an average score): A fun game is a fun game, whether there's depth or not, so play this game if you want some fun. Also, play this game if you want to control a hero named Ampersand.
8.0/10
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Operation: OHR is owned and maintained by Kevin W. (Aethereal)