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vs. Fenrir-Lunaris
RedMaverickZero
Download: 22B
V.S.
Fenrir-Lunaris
Play Time: 4 hours and 30 minutes
Review # 4 for Fenrir-Lunaris
Them's Fightin' Words
    I played this out of curiousity, and for the fact I heard it was good. Not great, mind you, but good. It's filled with subquests, plenty of characters, and truckloads of swearing and pixelated MSpaint nudity. But at least it won't suck out your soul like some OHR games... maybe.
Graphics
    God, it's like Arfenhouse. The graphics are good when they need to be, and bad when they aren't. Most maptiles suffer from a lack of detail though. As with much of the game everything is limited to a major color, say green, and it's darker outline which in this case would be dark green. Most everything has a neon feel to it though. It's blinding in some areas, especially near the end when everything has a bright neon feel to it.

The enemy sprites are colorful, and detailed enough to where you can distinguish what they are. The Big Bad Wolf (pictured below) is one such example of RMZ's style. That style in particular is 'angular', another play off the theme of the Mr.Triangle game series. While it probably wouldn't work in any other game series, it somehow fits the feel and story of the game that the enemy sprites should be comprised of angles. However, the lack of good shading is something that bugs me, and the use of a third brighter color for each sprite set's palette would have added more depth to what otherwise is a very two-dimensional game.

The interiors of some buildings are actually well decorated. Beds, fireplaces with animating fire, and even what looks like a stove in one house are nice touches. Compared to previous installments of the Triangle series, this is a nice touch, and is something that many games seriously are lacking in. A larger variety of objects would probably be called for, but without a greater effort payed to the shading and color scheme of the tiles, it would probably be for naught. The Arfenhouse-like floors and walls of many locations would definately be begging for a touch-up with highlights, shadows, and other low level tricks that could easily be accomplished by adding a darker shade of the same color per each tile.

 
Storyline
    The premise of most of the Triangle Series of games is that the characters in that world would rather NOT be in the game, AND most of them are morons. It's like adding a character to Arfenhouse that's Housemaster AND Joseph in one; they're an idiot AND don't want to be there. To rid themselves of being in the game, Mr.Triangle and his companions fight against the creator, who may or may not pose a passing resemblence to Dr.Wily in one scene (UFO anyone?). Along the way, the characters deal with friendship, loss, and most importantly their frustration at their creator's attempts to prolong the game even further.

This being said, the major difference between this, and the previous three Triangle games is that locations, characters, and the plot of the game revolves around backtracking through the storylines of each of the three installments before the final showdown with the creator. There's a bit of a backstory with some characters, specifically the pimp ghost, who's lost his will to live (unlive?) because his hoes left him. Though it's not much, it does provide an inkling that the game's author is developing the skills needed to tell a good story/game, and future games by him should take note of this.
 
Gameplay
    RMZ likes his games balanced, and this one proves that while his skills as an artist may not be so finely tuned, his skill at balance in battles is. And it gets harder as the game progresses... which is a good thing. There is no plotscripting that I am aware of, which may or may not be a good thing as it detracts from the experience slightly, though it's not really needed.
 
  Battle
    Most fights at first will take half a minute to beat them, with the bosses actually being more difficult and being actual boss battles for a change. Most enemies have an elemental weakness as well... it's just finding that weakness and exploiting it is that really matters. Also towards the end of the game you can swap in or out any of your collected party members up to that point to form which teams will be needed for upcoming bosses. There's a few battles that are ridiculously hard, for instance the Sand Eater, near the end of the game.
 
  Map Design
    RMZ is a master of the infamous 'fetch quest'. Throughout the game, it becomes nessecery to go to each house, defeat a boss to gain some trivial item which is then needed to get to the next town/forest/dungeon or whatever where the process repeats again. Usually there is some obstacle in the way which must be removed by completing said quest. And this occurs over, and over, and over.. and quickly gets tedious.

The maps themselves aren't so much as problem as the fetch quests. Throughout them are scattered boxes whose contents are still unknown until you check your item menu. In many of the maps are scattered vehicles of one type or another. A dogsled, tank, rocketcar, balloon, even a giant albatross thing. The problem therein is that none of the vehicles stay put, something only plotscripting can do, and without it, there are dozens of copies of the same NPC on the worldmap.
 
  Balance
    It helps a lot to have your characters leveled up very high, fight every battle, never run, and go around on as many subquests as possible for the final confrontation. Mr.Triangle's secondary attack, which works along the lines of a free 'mug' attack is very useful in gaining the needed items to complete this game, and should be used in preference over the standard attack. Once the bloody triangle (or whatever it's called) is gained, his standard attack also drains HP from the enemy. From the start, the supply of healing items is given liberally, and the characters level up at a fair rate, but after a while it becomes more difficult to survive. Fortunately, most of the items in the game have a useful explaination in the item list, so when in doubt, consult it.
 
Music
    Most of it is taken from Greenday, from what I understand, and more or less fits the feel of the game. However, since I'm tone deaf, I can't tell trumpets from strings because of the horrid VDMS bam emulation. The standard battle music is FF7's fight music, and the various boss battles are from Final Fantasy games as well. They work, but they've been done to death and it quickly becomes tiresome. Thankfully there are a lot, and I mean a LOT of boss battles, which breaks up the monotony.
 
Enjoyment
    The cursing and the graphics brought down my enjoyment though. It's probably not appropriate to have a main character who swears more than Barret Wallace from FFVII. And there's points in it that just make me shake my head and ask why I started playing. Specifically the poorly drawn hentai... the contstant gay bashing... and then the kangaroo obsessed with masterbation REALLY overdid it. I found myself rushing through and stopped reading after a while. The constant use of F*ck killed the experience. In RPGs nowadays, only one character (the black one, sadly) is usally allowed to swear, and the word of choice ends up being either "Damn!" or "you heartless bastard!" like Zidane kept saying to Kuja in FFIX. Take a page from those games and tone down the swearing in your next game please, and it'll make the game that much more enjoyable.
 
Final Blows
    The gameplay is solid, though the graphics generally lack detail, and the story is rehashed but still workable. The profanity does a number on the enjoyment factor, and the lack of scripting becomes an eyesore when seeing the same NPC 'airship' on the worldmap over and over.


Final Scores
Graphics: 3.5/10.0
The fact that it's got an anthro wolf gives bonus points, but the Penisaurs likewise take them away. That much black pixel hair is simply... disturbing to say the least.
Storyline: 3.5/10.0
It's been used in so many of RMZ's games, it's not even original anymore, but if any of the first four should be played for their story, this is the one to go with.
Gameplay: 4/10.0
It's actually fun, and addictive to a degree. There's enough powerups to spare, plenty of equipment and healing items, and more than enough subquests to play through. Though the fetch-quests get a bit boring after a while.
Music: 7/10.0
Greenday isn't exactly my thing, but Mr.Triangle wouldn't have that feel without it. The music fits in every case, is consistent, and is very upbeat.
Enjoyment: 3/10.0
The swearing ruins the experience, as do the overly bright colors. Granted, they fit with the scenario, but you'd need a really dark monitor to really enjoy it.
Overall Grade: C-
Final Thoughts
    Are you absolutely SURE this isn't parodying anything?  


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