Lost Heaven

I was pretty certain what game I was first going to review, as it was the best game that I knew of in development before I left: Lost Heaven. It had an all around solid story, good resources, and was basically fun to play! I went through the entire demo a year later, and am generally happy with all the changes and additions that took place. Honestly, I think Lost Heaven shows there's hope for RMVX as a medium for quality, community generated games. I was very glad to play through all the way, and will recommend everyone to give Lost Heaven a shot!

Gameplay

The interface and eventing is smooth and lets me forget that I'm playing from RMVX and not a good classic RPG. Everything seemed rather well balanced; there were mini puzzles and winding paths, just enough treasure chests and abilities to work on. The characters are rather different for one another and have an equal part to play in battle, which is nice, as lots of RPGs have a couple of characters you could fair rather easily without using. I liked the mini quests that came along with this game, especially nearer to the end.

I felt like there could have been a little more concept-wise with the gameplay or battle. Right now, I see this as a very solid game, but could use a little more flair. I think there should be more abilities that players would actually want to use, as a lot of them just boost stats or prevent ailments, and once they start to spread around, everyone has similar skills. It was good for the beginning of the game, but later on, it was easy for everyone to have all these skills. As well, each character's battle skill (Flurry, Pious Strike, etc) started to phase out in usefulness after a while, I didn't really need to use them.

We still get some errors from files that corrupted or missing, and before it wasn't a big deal, but the character in question shows up a little more in the game to where it can get a little annoying.

Gameplay: 9/10

Story

The game felt compelling from the get-go. I was hooked and wanted to learn more going through the game. The characters were all entertaining in their own manner, and nothing felt too random or unexplained. I didn't find anything wrong with the length or amount of cut scenes, all of them were informative and not a waste of the player's time. And, of course, lots of plot twists to keep the players on their toes! The dialogue got better as well, it wasn't that distracting other than a few too modern joke references.

There are some clichés this story falls prey to, but it isn't anything that makes your groan when watching the story unfold. I feel like if the story holds strong and we get some good growth in the future, most can be forgiven. The dialogue in some places can be worked over as well, taking out modern jokes and cliché sayings.

Story: 8/10

Graphics

The whole game seems rather well put together. Even if it's not all custom work, enough resources were used and wisely put together. The mapping was organic, and even the starting city was interesting to run through (I imagine the city in the end will be buffed out in future releases), and all of the wilderness that you go through are fun to navigate, I liked it all. The sprites, battlers, facesets, all pretty good, they seemed to run well enough together, and the animations were fine. I wasn't distracted by any errors, and thought the world was created well.

The only hitch I have is when you have more than 3 party members and go to a shop. You can't cycle down to see the armor differences for everyone in your party, so I had to go in separate times to see what was worth buying and such. Not a game changer, but something to work on.

Graphics: 9/10

Sound

Thankfully, this game has plenty interesting sounds and pleasant ambience music. What I like the most, for some reason, are the quality footstep sounds, and how they change over different surfaces. Nice details like that keep the game feeling real.

Sometimes there were sounds that were too loud and repetitive, and are rather jarring. These few SFs need to be found and toned down, as it isn't really necessary to have such loud noises. And I remember for the last demo there being battle music, but there wasn't any this time around... And there weren't any themes or music that I could really find distinct to moments happening in the game, and having good music for these scenes would make them more memorable.

Sound: 7/10

Originality

I felt like a lot of effort and thought went into this game, and it's turning out to be rather solid. I find the spark of the game to come through the characters and their unique interactions, and some of the history behind the game. But overall, I think more pizzazz could be put into Lost Heaven. Most of the game felt reminiscent of other RPGs I've played, and while they were good ones, it was more of the same. I feel like there's a lot of potential for another mechanic or concept to be put in. The most unique feature I really find are the character's sub skills in combat, and that starts to fade as you get further in the game. The abilities as an idea could be expanded into something more creative, or something with equipment, or anything. Something a little different would make this game stellar.

Originality: 5/10

Overall

I definitely think everyone should play through Lost Heaven. It's a great game as an example of how to make something from RMVX. It definitely has faults and has room for improvements, but I'm pretty confident this project will only get better. I enjoyed the changes from the last demo I played, and feel like Ashvir will continue to produce a quality game for the community to enjoy.

Overall: 8/10