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vs. JSH357
Thank you, genius Keeblers.
RedMaverickZero
Download: 22B
V.S.
JSH357
Play Time: 3 hours and 30 minutes
Review # 12 for JSH357 Thank you, genius Keeblers.
Them's Fightin' Words
    Once again, here I am reviewing a Mr. Triangle game. I'm not entirely sure why the creator of this game continued this series, but at some point he must have decided that he wanted to scar small children or something.

This game is bad. It isn't even that much better than the original game; the only difference is really its length. This is a game in a series, and it refers back to the previous games- two of which I haven't lowered my standards to play. This game is also filthy content-wise. There's graphic language, nudity (disgusting nudity, not porn, you sick freaks), and a general lack of common sense.

Even if you like sick, twisted humor, this game will not be your cup of tea. It's so repetitive and unentertaining that whatever merit its humor system had disappears. One scene in the game made me laugh this time around- but it was fairly early on in the game. I rushed through the end of the game; it was just too boring.
Graphics
    Graphics are the best thing about this game, and wow, they aren't even very good. Don't get me wrong- some of the graphics look OK. All in all, however, the entire game looks sloppy and rushed. The backgrounds are plentiful, but reek of MSPaint syndrome. The hero graphics and walkabouts are detailed fairly well, but animated horribly. The maptiles are blocky as all-get-out and extremely repetitive. The only graphics that I liked in this game were the general outlines of things. The entire game has little to no use of shading, which helps so much more than some people think- I can't draw well myself, but learning a little bit about shading helped my graphics quite a bit.

Putting aside the bad areas, there are reasons that I give graphics the highest score out of all categories. This game was very long for an OHR game and had a verisimilitude of different maps- everything from glaciers to deserts. Although they look pretty bad, the variety between maps was fairly nice to see. My favorite map was the 'inside the computer' map toward the end.

Another high point in this game is its font. Changing your font can work wonders, surprisingly. It isn't a BIG plus, but the font was actually pretty interesting.

A little glitch with text boxes: sometimes I could not see the text because of the map in the background. I'm not sure why RedMaverickZero did not correct this error, as it is pretty obvious, but then, judging by the quality of the game in general...
 
Storyline
    From this point on, I will split this section into two subsections: Story and Dialogue.
Dialogue is an integral element of story-intensive games, and deserves to have its own section. And so it shall.

Story
Mr. Triangle's Shitty Adventure 4 has essentially the same story as the original game. To recap: you want to kill the creator. And that is what you do. That's about all that you do, really- most of the THREE HOURS of the game are spent gathering uninteresting characters to help kill the creator. Please refer to my review of Mr. Triangle's Shitty Adventure for any and all explanations about why this story idea is horrible- there is no point in repeating myself.

The characters in this game don't really have any point being there. Most of them require X condition to get, and then they just follow you around with no real purpose. At least some of them join you with some semblance of a reason this time... Lots of characters from older games in the series make return appearances, but I didn't recognize and/or care about any of them. The whole game seemed like a bunch of filler scenes.

As I said before, this game is three hours long. You would think that the story would stretch out long enough with that many hours to be interesting, but it doesn't. At one point in the game, you are actually tricked into thinking that it's over... then the game essentially restarts. I almost screamed in boredom when this happened- the game is so mundane!

This game turns all Final Fantasy IX and stops making sense altogether toward the end. The reasons that the creator keeps gaining new abilities make no sense at all! It frustrated me.

In any case, check my review of the original game for my essay on its evil. This game isn't that much different in this respect.

Dialogue

This game has bad dialogue. Most of the characters say the word "fuck" in some form every other sentence. It's like South Park without humor or political satire. Several words are misspelled, shock dialogue is rampant, and multiple characters speak in the same text boxes. Whoo. This game had one funny scene involving the wolf from The Three Little Pigs, but other than in that scene, the game's dialogue is dry and vulgar.

I must point something out in screenshot 1. Aside from the crazy grammatical errors and the horrible sentence presentation, we have a case of the omniscient NPCs here! Do not put these in a serious game or even a non-serious game! How did the fairy KNOW that the bear could only be woken up with the clock? It doesn't make sense.
 
Gameplay
    This is split into sections, so I will do it as instructed.

Here is my new disclaimer for the 'Gameplay' section. My reasoning for several attacks may be based upon what is written in the disclaimer.
These can be taken both literally and in a figurative sense.
Also, my disclaimer will change as I write reviews, since I pick up new rules along the way.
1. No game should be played 'just for fun.' That's like taking drugs.
2. Shock value is useless.
3. Effort/Length does not equal quality.
4. The movie can indeed be better than the book.
5. Most games are just bad remakes of other games.
6. A game should explain its features without a manual.

Before I move on, here are some bugs:

-There are items that don't link to their spells when trying to learn them.
- The stats are not named! They use the default OHR settings... maybe I'm just being nit-picky, but can we say laziness?
- NPCs that aren't supposed to be visible yet can be seen early if you go to the right parts of maps- this is a foolish error.
- The pilot dinosaur does not take you back to his house as he says that he will. This is a door link error, most likely.
- At one point, the game displays that it has a major bug that the creator didn't bother learning how to use plotscripting to fix.
- There are items you can buy for free that are meant to cost money.
 
  Battle
    Mr. Triangle's Shitty Adventure 4's battle are not well designed at all. In most instances, they are so easily won that you are better off running, and in some instances the enemy will flat-out slaughter you. Of course, you don't have to worry about this at all because when you die in battle, you just go back where you were before you died. That's right- a game over script error. I managed to cheat my way into all kinds of items using this trick, not that any of them were helpful. Hey, I'm human! I exploit bugs.

Not only are the battles uninteresting- they are too great in number! I started running and eventually control-F4ing out of random battles toward the end of this game. There just wasn't any point in having so many battles.

Also, this game had a battle that loaded up with enemies that had zero HP. Instant win for me! You know what this shows me? RedMaverickZero didn't playtest his own game very well.
 
  Map Design
    The majority of the maps in Mr. Triangle's Shitty Adventure 4 are griddy and linear. Nothing really stuck out to me, and aside from variety in graphics, everything was just bleh.

The NPC-activated battles were not well designed. You can avoid most of them by simply not talking to the NPCs.

Also, vehicles did not return to their spots when leaving maps. Chests don't tell you what item you found.

Finally, I must point out how many plot boulders this game has. If you don't know what a plot boulder is, it's a device used to stand in your way until a condition is met. While they are logical to use, putting blockades in front of everything kind of ruins a game's sense of freedom.
 
  Balance
    Megaman syndrome alert! Mr. Triangle's Shitty Adventure 4 has an issue that many series also suffer from: characters start out fresh, even if they had abilities in the previous game(s). This makes no logical sense and despite making sense design-wise, it is best to avoid nuking a character's spell list. Instead, make new characters!

This game is extremely easy. Most of the characters are useless- I just used the same four once they were all gathered. Equipment is poorly balanced for the most part. The stat increases and decreases generally make no sense, and some armor will lower speed so much that any stat gain at all is nullified.

Here's my biggest problem with this game balance-wise: spells that cost more do less damage. This isn't always the case, but for the most part, I noticed low-cost spells doing greater damage than the more expensive ones. This is not a problem in Arfenhouse, but in any other game it is.
 
Music
    N/A  
Enjoyment
    I can't believe I wasted so many hours playing this game... There isn't really anything enjoyable about it unless you like, pardon my French, "shitty" games. And I don't think that you do. Do you?  
Final Blows
    Not as bad as the original, but still pretty bad. This game has length and way too many sidequests, but there's no point in doing any of those since the last boss is so easy. I would have preferred that this game had ended at its 'big plot twist.' (Mainly so I could have stopped playing it)
And he knew this... how?

And he knew this... how?
Final Scores
Graphics: 3.5/10.0
Decent at points, but not good overall.
Storyline: 1/10.0
Stupid storyline, and horrible dialogue.
Story score: .5/5
Dialogue score: .5/5
Gameplay: 1.5/10.0
Its length is a NEGATIVE factor! This game is almost painful to your space bar and consists mainly of mindless fetching and plot boulder removal. The characters are too unbalanced for the battle system to be good, too. At least you actually DO something in this game though... I'll give it a pity half-point.
Music: 10/10.0
Nil
Enjoyment: 1.5/10.0
It's just way too long. If it were shorter, it still wouldn't be interesting, but I might have given it a higher score. I can tell that there were some decent ideas present, but none were executed well and the game focuses so much on shock dialogue... It isn't fun.
Overall Grade: F
Final Thoughts
    Don't bother with this game. It isn't really any good; you might as well just play the first one since it will waste less time.  


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