| Them's Fightin'
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Moon Pie: Crumblin Dreams begins with an interesting concept. The player starts in a basically black area but with three white gateways/archways/doorways, each with a path of what looks like stars leading up to them. The first door leads to a tutorial, the second to an introductory story, and the third to the main game. I like this concept, because it gives the player the option of learning the basics, which can always be useful to newcomers, and the option of reading the story for those that want to while not forcing the player to do so.
Moon Pie: Crumbling Dreams seems to have been meant to be of the semi-serious, somewhat humorous variety, but doesn't pull it off very well. Battles can be encountered by running into the enemy walking around on the maps, but the enemy does not vanish once the player leaves the battle, meaning that the player could encounter the same exact one repeatedly, intentionally or by accident.
At least a few design flaws and/or bugs exist in the game, like when I managed to accidently run through the same introductory sequence found once the player begins the actual game, which ended up adding at least a second of the Moon Pie character to my party and might have added a duplicate of the third, too (I didn't check). The map design seems somewhat on the basic side, though many backdrops accompany text boxes. These backdrops seems to be to blame for the game's monsterous file size, which weighs in at a whopping 12.7 megabytes unconpressed. This file size is not only bad for hard drive space, but also causes the game to lag when loading the game and when it tries to save (I got a text message telling me it was loading when I stepped onto a save point).
The graphics are fairly average in the OHRRPGCE universe, though the enemy graphics seemed fairly decent for the most part. When OHR games are made, the creators are often tempted to recycle hero graphics, copying and pasting and then making only slight changes for the various frames, and that is very obviously the case here. The hero's seem almost like lifeless mannequins, with barely any movement as they attack (For example, the sword will swing while the arms remain still.).
I am not sure exactly what to say conclusively about the game, for I neither love it nor hate it. It is not terrible, but I simply found little interest in it. That is not to say at all that it is bad, but that my personal curiosity or interest was not stimulated.
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Final Scores
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Graphics: 8/10.0 |
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The graphics were basically average in the OHR universe. The lifelessness of the hero in battle graphics is a minus.
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Storyline: 6/10.0
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The storyline isn't exactly crying out to be made into a movie, but it nevertheless is still there, however subtle. Basically, everything revolves around Moon Pie creatures. |
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Gameplay: 7/10.0 |
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At least early on, the player does little other than wandering and talking to people. Such things make not the greatest gameplay. However, to definite credit, various battle options are available to the character other than the basics (attack, magic, and item).
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Music: 7/10.0
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The music is decent and I have not noticed any familiar tunes (in other words, they don't seemed to be "borrowed"), but there seems to be several silent areas. Sometimes silence may be the desired effect, but I am not sure that so much was intentional, and even if so maybe not an entirely good idea. |
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Overall Grade:
B- |
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| Final Thoughts |
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This is an overall average game, not terrible but not outstanding. |
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