Gamelist Review List Song List Watched Journals Forum IRC Gamelist Song List Review List Forum Articles IRC Log Out Add Game Edit Games Add Reviews Edit Reviews Add Songs Edit Songs Log Out Edit Games Edit Reviews Edit Songs Sign Up Log In My Journal My Game Journals Watched Journals All Journals Journal Settings All Journals About Us Staff FAQ
Castle Paradox
Title Bar
Log In Box
 
______  
[more]
    1) Discontinued game by FnrrfYgmSchnish
    2) 8-Bit Graphics Set by FnrrfYgmSchnish
    3) Spoonweaver by Spoon Weaver
    4) Bok's Expedition by FnrrfYgmSchnish
    5) Vore Day RPG by Ronin Catholic
The Seventh Day vs. RedMaverickZero
The Seventh Day Your kids won't ask to come back to this zoo. Heh.
Shadowiii
Download: 630 KB
V.S.
RedMaverickZero
Play Time: 2 hours and -- minutes
Review # 38 for RedMaverickZero Your kids won't ask to come back to this zoo. Heh.
Them's Fightin' Words
    There are champions scattered around the world who train everyday for an event such as the Olympics. There are scientists who work day and night to make a breakthrough and find the answer in their research. This year, was the Olympics for OHRers. And I can plainly see all of Shadowiii's training in the 7th Day. Combinations of his artwork, his scripting talents, and his story telling, at it's best.
Graphics
    Shadowiii has a unique style, as I have mentioned in other reviews of his games. And it seems to me that dispite all the games that he has worked on, that their graphical quality is pretty much the same. At least the walkabouts are. One thing Shadowiii loves to do, which I learned through Stop, is to make clever cutscenes. In Stop, my biggest suprise was when Joesph sliced that person up. In this one, it was when Elly busted a cap in Nicholas (I don't remember how to spell the name so I'm calling him Nicholas). His animations are grand. The walking sprites are divine too. And just think, all of this was made in 48 Hours. There were a fair amount of sprites in this game too. Every area you went to visit had a decent amount of enimies to fight. And they all looked neat. And what made them all cool was unlike a standard OHR battle, where they pixelate out of the fight. These enimies fall down into a puddle of their own blood and then, only then do they disappear.

One thing I am not particularily fond of, mostly because I suck at it. Is using black outlines. They look so very nice and save so many colors to use for detail than using a darker color to outline the character. In all of the games that Shadowiii has made that I have played he has displayed this. And he has done a great job at it too. But what I did notice, is that the NPCs were all done in black outline, the maptiles were not.

Maptiles had a very nice variety in them too. With a fair amount of detail. However, towards the end of the game I think Shadowiii was a bit rushed for time because of the fact that the entire final map was consistent of tealish tiles. I suppose considering the area of the game that it made a bit of sense. Anyways, the maptiles were very nice. Professional quality practically. And to top it off there were so many unique tiles too. In the NYPD office was where it was the most impressive. Everywhere you went it looked detailed. In the armory where you bought your power ups and medicine, there were crates on the floor, guns hanging on the wall. And in the main room where you talked to Max there were computers and such. It's safe to say that the maptiles were above average for this game.
 
Storyline
    I have come to the conclusion that Shadowiii is perphaps the best story teller I have been able to converse with. Although, I am sure that he planned a lot of this game before hand and was cleverly able to work it all into the theme. Which the them for the contest, which you probally are aware of was Fairy Tales. Altering a fairy tale to tell the same plot with different characters and what not. Anyways, the story for 7th Day is divine. And it never gets boring either. Combined with the graphics and the gameplay the whole game goes hand in hand.

You are a girl, which is typical because Shadowiii has used females as main characters in the majority of his games. But anyways. You are this girl named Elly. She's not the best cop, but she's good enough to know injustice when she sees it. And like most main characters you play as, they are either super smart, or really dumb founded. Well, Elly is a combination. She knows what's going on, only because she has witnessed it all. The game follows the story of Creation. Where God made the world. And I don't want to give away the story because it is really really good. But the way that Shadowiii's fairy tale of choice, Chicken Little, worked into this was actually quite nice and suprising. Elly was in the movie theater with her boyfriend Richard when she went to get popcorn. Coming back to see that everyone was killed and laying on the floor in pieces. What's a girl to do? First moan over the dude and pull out your pistol and search for the culprit. Finding out a sick dude with wings who is hung up on the creation story and showing the world that all forms of religion are fiction and that science is correct.

I think making stories about religion are difficult. Considering the fact that it is such a sensitive topic. People can easily get offended by this. But in the way Shadowiii told the story, it didn't seem offensive at all. It told a very nice story, it was creepy at times. But it was still very well told. One thing that bugged me, was that Elly seemed unsensitive to Richard dying. I mean come on! She's on a date and the guy died. Then she falls for this dude Chris. I don't get it. That's my only problem with the storyline really.
 
Gameplay
    A while back, there was the 528 Hour Contest hosted by MulticoloredWizard. MCW's entry was called Deer Hunter XTreeme. Using guns and such to shoot up animals. That game took a month to make too believe it or not. And Shadowiii has by far beaten that game in all areas with 7th Day in just 2 days. The battle system for this game is so very unique and cool. Something you completely unexpected too. There have been many types of games on the OHR. Sidescrolling Platformers, Zelda Styles, Sidescroller Shooters, but never a gun type game of this magnitude.

This game was not just script wise impressive. But the way everything was portrayed was so awesome. First of all, as I learned through Pitch Black, Shadowiii set up an "instead of random battle script". Which can allow ANYTHING to happen randomly. In PitchBlack, it was the changing of music and then a game over script if you moved. In 7th Day it was worlds better. The screen went black and white to signal a fight. Then, enimies sprouted up onto the map and you had to shoot them and kill em. Experience points weren't neccessary. But what was good was the fact that you scored money off of every enemy you killed. And in the NYPD office you could spend all of your dough to buy upgrades, clips (MANDATORY!!!XD), healing items, and ummm.. that's it. Heh. But as annoying and tedious as it may have seemed, it made you have to play the game through and get money from fighting random battles. And Shadowiii made a clever tip. Informing the player that crabs give off the most mullah. So to get all the gun upgrades I had to spend like a good hour or so busting up on the beach shooting crabs. But once I got all the shot upgrades the game was a breeze.

Like all games, there's a good and the bad. The good was listed above. Now... the bad. I believe that this was an understandable bug. And it made a lot since if you think about it. When you shoot your gun off, it disables the walls. Which allows the bullet NPC to glide accross the screen and shoot an enemy. However, if you are up against a wall and press an arrow key in the direction of that wall, you walk right through. I'm sure there is a way to disable this. I'm no scripting expert, but it wouldn't have looked as nice, but you could have probally made it so that when a bullet is being fired that the hero is unable to move. Like maybe a shock from the gun ya know. Anyways, that made the game a bit easier. One particular boss was the octopus. There was little space to wander around and avoid the tentacles and then get a clear shot to bust up the octopus's head. So... I shot through a wall, walked through it. And took full advantage of the bug. I admit that I did it. But heck, I died at that thing like five times before thinking of this. And often times if you shoot and get hit at the same time the scripts "OVERLOAD". Which doesn't mess up the game any, it just shows an unfriendly text box. To be honest, I didn't believe this game could have been possible in this area. But Shadowiii pulled it off with a few minor bugs. There are possible solutions for these Shadowiii, just get some sleep and THINK.
 
  Battle
    The battles were mostly described in the gameplay section. But I'll bring up some things that weren't mentioned there. As said, there was a 528 Hour Contest. And my team, made SmokeyMcGoo. A Zelda Style game with tons of bugs (being fixed now). Anyways, this game operates a lot like that one. Except for McGoo we had every enemy have 1 HP. As in one swing of your mighty ax and then the player kills an enemy. Shadowiii implemented something better. There was a taser, which I didn't use. But I can say it's safe to say that it's just like the ax in McGoo. But unlike McGoo, the enemies you fight in 7th Day had HP. As in it took several shots to kill an enemy. Even something as dumb and simple as a Minnek Fly. Even after you purchased every upgrade it still took several shots to kill an enemy. Nice use of plotscripting there.





 
  Map Design
    Maps were how can I say this... Well done? I suppose. They were nice at times, but at other times they were very annoying. For instance, a good example of good map design was the NYPD office. Everything was at a fairly decent distance apart. And it all looked nice and well done. However... The zoo and the beach. The design of the zoo was very straight forward. Walk left. Then beat the boss, then walk right. Straight forward. And there wasn't much variety in those graphics either. And as for the beach. It looked very nice. But there was this rather gritty maze. There were these boulder/rocks/things in the sand that were one tile. They looked alright by themselves. But making a maze out of it looked kinda bad. And on top of that, the map wasn't quite that big. The maze was simple, and there weren't random battles there for obvious reasons because of Shadowiii's gunner engine.  
  Balance
    Okay, this game has it... and it doesn't. Enemies give a generous amount of money when you kill them but there's a problem. Not with the money. Because that's all good. It's the random battles. As in Pet Peeves section we discussed that random battles being set too high are very annoying. And as cool as these battles were... there were too many. But mostly in one area. The zoo. Every 3 steps you take in that humungous map, you fight two to three zoo animals. It's not a humungous deal, but you should have added more variety to the zoo creatures. The ape was good, but I think rhinos, snakes, and... a zebra would be a bit more threatening. But back to balance. The reason the random battles were bad was because of the fact that the easiest way to kill them was with the pistol. Yet it takes a lot of clips to shoot down anything. And to trudge through the zoo and then get all the way to the boss and kill that is a bitch. I mean I needed like 30 clips or so to get to the end of the zoo and be victorious. I don't know just how difficult it would have been without all my power ups though.  
Music
    As I was told from Shadowiii, it was "Borrowed" from people who made it. I give credit to Shadowiii though, as I am too lazy to go out and actually ask people to use their midis to convert to BAM. He supposedly did to make a grand soundtrack. The music really fit the mood of the game too. Often times it did sound a little too good for the maps they were placed in. Like the beach area, the music didn't sound so very... beachy? But other than dumb little things like that, the music was great. My personal favorite theme was when Seraphim (spelling?) would talk. It always meant two things. Finding out about the story some more. And then a boss fight.  
Enjoyment
    To be honest, at first, when I saw how badly the game lagged I didn't like it. So I opened up game.exe again and it sped up a bit. It didn't run as fast as other games, but it still ran fast enough for me to have an enjoyable OHR experience. Every aspect of this game was fresh and unique and I might add, that it was fun. Bugs can be bad, and they did hinder enjoyment a little bit. But not enough for me to lose interest.
 
Final Blows
    Shadowiii, you have done it again. You have made another masterpiece. But continue to check your scripts for bugs. And check for possible solutions around certain obstacles and this game will be perphaps one of the best games on the OHR. One thing I like about your games though, Shadowiii, is that everyone of them is different. RPG, Dating Sim, Puzzle Game, and now a shooter. My question for you is... What's next?!
Walking on water? Bugs galore!

Walking on water? Bugs galore!
Final Scores
Graphics: 7/10.0
As Shadowiii said in his LJ about this game, "Standard Shadowiii graphics".
Storyline: 10/10.0
The part of the game that gets a gold. Every bit of it follows through and adds up to a delightful ending. Good job.
Gameplay: 6/10.0
Buggy? Yes. Unique? Yes. But don't let the bugs ruin your good time.
Music: 7/10.0
Original, dispite the fact that Shadowiii didn't make it. Well placed all the same.
Enjoyment: 8/10.0
I enjoyed every part of the game, but the story was my personal favorite.
Overall Grade: B-
Final Thoughts
    Trully an accomplishment for it's time frame. Definitely worth your time.  


All games, songs, and images © their respective owners.
Terms of Service
©2008 Castle Paradox