official Oc Reviews: Tryandine Effect

[Ocedic 249]

Game Title: Tryandine Effect

Game Author: Jens of Zanicuud

Version: Demo Days 1-5

Review by: Ocedic

 

Note: This project has been updated since this review; this review may or may not reflect the current state of the game.

 

 

Introduction

 

Tryandine Effect is a sci-fi cyberpunk RPG. It's made in RMXP and focuses on investigation and detective work.

 

Graphics

 

TE is something of a mixed bag in terms of visuals. In some cases, the graphics are mesmerizingly beautiful and well-built. On the other hand, there are a lot of pieces that feel out of place or downright ugly. The part that stands out about TE is its acute attention to detail. RPG Maker games are often visually vague, leaving much of the on-screen action left to imagination or exposition. In this game, the world is brought to life with cutscenes and animations. If the devil is in the details, Tryandine is a product of hell. Scientists are seen typing at their keyboards, turning their heads to speak with the protagonist. Lights streak outside your window as you ride a train in thoughtful contemplation. Your main menu, accessed via a personal smart phone-like device, is uniquely dressed up to look like you're peering at the screen of your own personal device. I'm usually not impressed by visuals in RM games, even those with 'good art.' Perhaps that's because animation is more impressive than still art, and the author of TE uses that to bring his world to life.

 

With this in mind, it's definitely a shame that this game doesn't have 'good art.' The biggest culprit are the facesets, in particular the main character Veckert's. He's an eyesore to look at, and I don't mean that he's ugly since in the context of  the story he's covering his disfigured face with a horrendous mask. But rather, the graphic itself just feels of low quality and either poorly drawn or scaled and edited in a way that ruined it. It's hard to make out any details, and even after spending a few hours with a game I'm still unsure of what I'm looking at exactly. The only thing I am sure of is that I don't like the look. While this may seem like a superficial complaint, it really hampered my connection to the character and proved to be a large distraction from the other elements of the game. There's a good reason why protagonists are generally good looking. And if not attractive, then at least cool. Veckert is neither and simply looks like a mess.

 

And while that bit is the worst offender, the rest of the graphics seem to suffer from the same qualities of amateurishness. The custom menu mentioned above, for example, has cool animations and details but ultimately looks like it was drawn in MS Paint with poor depth and shading. Things generally looks okay, especially with the special effects used to bring things to life, but it's disappointing because they could look stunning if the author had better assets. There's definitely a lot of potential here, the author just needs to find a way to unlock it.

 

Verdict:

 

Mapping

 

Tryandine uses tileset mapping to great effect. There is a good sense of space and mapping direction throughout the demo. Maps feel just the right size and look distinct yet cohesive. There are a troubling number of pathing bugs, mostly associated with walkable walls. I also noticed a slight lack of grit and detail in the mapping. Things look a bit too uniform and clean for the setting. There's no grime on the wall, faded posters or general messiness. Too much order for an unsterilized environment. However, it never looks bad and this is just something that could be improved in order to make the world feel more alive.

 

Verdict:

 

Audio

 

The music of TE has a fair amount of Ace RTP with some MIDIs thrown in. Generally, music sounds great and is used well, but at times it feels like the same few songs repeat over and over, creating a sense of repetition. Other than that, the author uses well-chosen songs to set the tone and mood, although some scenes come across as melodramatic when the intense beats don't necessarily match the intended gravity of the situation. In terms of sound effects, the game does an adequate job but can be improved. A lot of effects are RTP, which isn't a bad things but they feel out of place. For example, the very first scene depicts a shooting and the sound of a gun being cocked just doesn't sound right. There's plenty of free resources for sounds, so the author should really put some extra effort into getting the right sound effects for each situation.

 

Verdict:

 

Gameplay - Investigation

 

The part that helps set Tryandine apart from the typical RPG is its investigation-style gameplay. You take the role of a detective whose job is to solve murders and crimes. This boils down to interacting with objects and talking to people until Veckert has found enough clues to continue. While it works to a degree, it feels very lacking and on-rails. You can't really fail these sections; you're basically walking around until you've spoken with every character and checked every object. Sometimes, it can be unclear what you're supposed to do next and the game becomes an easter egg hunt as you start trying everything in order to advance to plot, including backtracking. This gets especially painful with the slow move speed and apparent lack of a dash option. There was never a point where I got utterly stuck, but some sections seemed to drag out much longer than they should have and at least a few times it was solely because I missed one small detail somewhere.

 

This gameplay just feels very uninspired and if it weren't for the well-written dialogue, I don't know if I could have stuck with this game. There really needs to be puzzles, deduction or interrogation of some kind. Make us actually feel like we're a detective instead of watching a movie.

 

Verdict:

 

Gameplay - Battles

 

There are a few battles here and there, usually spaced out in intervals and used in the plot. There are no random battles or even on-map encounters, just pre-defined battles based around the narrative. The combat system uses a unique Pain and Blood system combined with side-view battles, in which you have a Pain meter and health bar. Abilities either inflict pain or blood damage, and pain will cause you to lose turns or bleed out. It's kind of like a guard break system of sorts. While it is interesting and adds a small amount of depth and strategy to battles, because of how severe pain penalties are it boils down to an extension of your health bar. Your basic strategy will almost always be causing as much pain damage as possible before resorting to regular attacks or blood-only damage once the enemy is incapacitated. Your ability options to reduce pain are de-facto non-existent. There's a Rest ability that reduces less pain than one attack will inflict, so in that situation you're basically delaying the inevitable by using it. It needs to reduce pain by about 5-10 times the current amount it does in order for it to be a practical choice in combat.

 

The battle system has a flaw in that the pain system really slows down gameplay and promotes an unfun mechanic. Have you ever played an RPG where the miss rate was too high and it frustrated you? Well if you take too much damage in this game, you won't even be able to act 50% of the time. It's avoidable in that you simply have to abuse the pain mechanic on your opponents rather than let them use it on you, but it feels broken and imbalanced right now. If all of your characters have 90% or more pain, you might as well just reload your save file than deal with that mess. Having said that, battles were on the easy side which I didn't mind. They never got in the way and I felt like the number and frequency of battles was balanced fairly well. The pain and blood idea is a refreshing take on the standard battle system, but it could be better executed.

 

Verdict:

 

Story

 

The plot of TE follows a detective who is investigating the death of his friend, a famous and well-respected scientist. Though he believes that there's more to the case than meets the eye, his colleagues don't agree due to a lack of evidence and his superiors try to shut down his inquiries for what is presumed to be a cover-up. The story is moderately gripping, but somewhat predictable. You almost feel like the game is going through a checklist as the government writes off the case as solved and your superior officer tells you to stop your investigation immediately. Then of course it's up to the cop who won't play by the rules to bring justice to the situation. It seems like most of the 'surprises' the game intended are too easily read beforehand. In spite of this, I was still interested in unraveling the mysteries presented.

 

The world of the game is fleshed out in a fair amount of detail. Classism plays a major theme in the story, and it's an issue that affects Veckert on a day-to-day basis due to his origins in the lower class district. Though this aspect of his life is well developed and you get a feel for the discrimination that these people experience, I don't like how the game goes about it in a very black-and-white manner. Basically, the rich people are painted as arrogant and ignorant while the poor people are almost all friendly. None of the poor people seem to resent Veckert for his success, even though that's a fairly common and natural reaction. The world and NPC's ends up feeling a bit one-dimensional and thus unrealistic.

 

Having said that, the dialogue is cleanly written and flows nicely. Most of it came across as natural and purposely, each bit of dialogue serving to further the player's understanding of the world or give us insight into the thoughts of the main character.

 

Verdict:

 

Polish

 

Like I mentioned earlier, there are some mapping bugs in which you can walk around in spaces you aren't intended to. These are relatively few, but still noticeable. Starting on Day 2 and beyond, it seemed like a lot of dialogue was cut off by the message box. I wasn't sure if this was a font issue as it seemed to happen a lot, but if it's not then Days 2 and 3 badly need some proofreading. On a similar note, there are a few spelling errors as well that should be stamped out. Finally, and most importantly, my playthrough was ended by a game breaking bug in which obtaining the torch on Day 3 crashed the game. Considering the length of the demo, it's fairly well-tested and polished, though there is certainly room for improvement.

 

Verdict:

 

Overall

 

Tryandine Effect is an interesting experience, and almost worth playing solely for its clever cutscenes. The story is on the grittier side, but never gets so dark that it loses its JRPG feel. The tone and atmosphere reminded me of Final Fantasy 7's Midgar in a way. Combat is okay and has an interesting idea, but could be better executed. The game doesn't throw many battles at you, which is very refreshing. So if you're a fan of sci-fi and detective stories, Tryandine is worth the try.

 

Score: 7.0/10

[Jonnie91 1,149]

Great job Ocedic. Thanks for reviewing this one. No comments about my apsolutely amazing music that is featured How dare you  

I'm actually in the process of creating a few additional bits of audio, and also possible a few SE to counteract the RTP. I've just gotta get my butt into gear. I personally have played this game myself, and i love it, but I help out on it so I'm highly biased. 

 

A brilliant high quality review Ocedic. Great Job  

[Jens of Zanicuud 2]

@Ocedic

First of all, thanks for your review

 

I'm sorry for the game breaking error... 

The problem with the fonts is related to the OS you're playing on. 

I'm building it on my WinXP and the text has no overflow. When I transfer it on my brother's Win7 or later, text overflows cases.

I don't know how to fix it.

 

As regards the bug, can you be more precise?

What is the error message you got?

 

Jens

[INDOJIN 70]

The smiley verdict was a nice touch. You and Arin are doing a great job in the review section.