Lemma Soft Forums

Alright, I'ma say it straight up. I'm too lazy to want to go through each thread to look for the reviews, and I bet half of you guys are as well. So, I figured we should set up a thread for game reviews. I know, not the brightest idea, but once again, laziness. I guess we should set up some kind of basic fomat for reviewing games, so here's what I think, to make it easier for game-makers to find the reviews:

Name of the Game
(Obviously, also, with this, you should just be able to Ctrl+F to find a review about a certain game.)

Important information about the game.
Things like the creator of the game, and the location you can find the game at.

With all that squared away, let's get cracka-lackin on the first game I reviewed for the Nanio-whatcha-mahoozits.

Reconstruction 01

Created by Dre, can be found at Allugic (http://allugic.angeltowns.net/) under the Projects section.

Now then, the general setting of this story according to the game, is in the year 2309, 30 years after the beginning of the Earth rehabilitation project, Reconstruction 01. With Earth under rehabilitation, it has now become a restricted zone, with no one allowed to return until Earth is stable again. Mankind has used up all the resources the Earth had to offer, and now we are scattered across the galaxy, making habitats out of other local planets.

You are James, a young treasure-thief kind of person. Living against the law and what-not, you fly down to Earth regularly to steal valuable treasures that you can sell for money.

Game

Alright, this game, has spelling/grammar errors. Sorry, I just had to get that out of my system. Well, the idea of exploration is definitely a cool idea, although it was very very confusing to work my way around without a map (I would've settled for being able to create my own map as I explored like they use in the Persona series...). Although the area you explore isn't really huge, so it should only take maybe one run through to get around.


Graphics

The game uses some pretty simple looking graphics, but they do a miraculous job on the feel of the game. Although sometimes perseption feels a little off, it doesn't take away from the overall appearance.

Characters

James is a pretty slick guy. For him, it's pretty much all about the money (His computer buddy has to talk him into a few things here and there, which you'll probably see depending on the path you took.)
Personally, I like Rick. Rick is one cool dood. It's also because Rick's the only dood you have a visual of. Though, don't think this is bad. You only get to see two characters, Rick and **********.

Gameplay

Standard Ren'ai format. Point, click, continue. Though it does have a pretty cool dungeon exploration element going for it, it doesn't capitolize on this and the dungeon actually feels tedious (Until you figure out exactly how James moves around...).

Time/Replay

This game should only take maybe 15 min. to beat if you can speed read. The replay value is pretty low, should only take you about 4 runs to get through the game.

Endings

So far, I've managed to get through both endings, and I've taken all the possible routes available for this version of the game. The endings are a bit of a disappointment, considering how one just happens (Although it does add a real-life kind of element, which explains that feeling of disappointment.) and the other isn't really much of an ending, more like something to get the taste buds warm.

Overall

Considering this took only a month to make, I have to say, it's a very tasty sample of what could very well be a huge series. Dre, you get props, this is some deep stuff you've got boiling, all ya gotta do now is serve it up cajun.

Here's two *short* reviews I put on my LJ. Probably not enough content to make them real reviews. Sorry.

1. Amatire

A fantasy story about a ranger and a girl he meets. The character art is rough, but that can be improved with others' help. Same with the spelling. Most of what should be done with this one is making sure the story is coherent. There were a lot of discussions about people from the main character's past, and I can't say I understood most of them. I think effort should be made to tell the story in clear, chronological order if possible.

2. Reconstruction 01

A few segments of this one reminded me of Chrono Trigger - a great RPG from ten years ago. (Sigh.) Then again, so did Anonono - but I'm getting off track. In any event, Reconstruction is a science fiction story about some trader looking for goods on an Earth that's slowly returning to life.

There is definite potential in Reconstruction. During a sequence in which the hero goes through some computer files, there is a back story which is fascinating. Good themes are brought up, such as personal sacrifice for the greater good of humanity. This should be emphasized over the first few rather bland scenes, which mostly just show the main character clowning around or doing business.

Right now, I'm just hoping more will be revealed in this story. The best ending I've seen out of three thus far made me say "What? But - no - it didn't--" Frustrating, yet enticing.

And there was one part that reminded me of Phantasy Star 1, a game I didn't play until well after it became retro...

I think that it probably makes more sense to have game reviews go into the thread associate with the games themselves, and keep the completed games forum free of threads that aren't associated with individual games. The idea is that a user should be able to find all of the discussion regarding a completed game in the thread for that game. Laziness isn't a good excuse, and in fact having multiple threads with reviews for a single game is an exercise in anti-laziness in the long run.

I'll be moving this thread over to the game makers corner when I get a chance.

Yeah, I think it's a good idea as well, it keeps the Completed games section simple and gives more value to "official" threads.