official [Oc Review] - The Melado Rain

[Ocedic 249]

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Title: The Melado Rain

Author: sk8migas

Version: Demo 1.5

 

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I'll let you in on a secret: I really enjoy simple, RTP-style RM games. As long as the story is charming and it has passable gameplay, I take guilty pleasure in spending a few hours wandering around someone's game with Ralph or Erik as the main character. The Melado Rain comes across as such a title; I went into it hoping to have a relaxing JRPG romp. Like opening your McDonald's bag and discovering that they forgot your fries, this is an example of going into something with low expectations and still feeling horribly disappointed.

 

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The title is basically full RTP, with some out-of-place Thalzon battlers thrown into the mix. If You Are Not the Hero was an instruction manual on how to utilize RTP graphics to their fullest, Melado Rain stands on the opposite side of the spectrum. The mapping is very blocky with large maps that follow no sense of design or logic. Objects are scattered around shops and buildings for the sake of being there, yet somehow there are wide, open spaces pervading through the entire game. In addition, something has to be said about the lime green UI, which makes reading a pain. There's also a scrolling text sequence that displays a large wall of text with no background.

 

 

The audio is equally haphazard, with different tunes for different buildings, again consisting largely of RTP content that fail to interest the player. For some reason, every interior has an ambient clock sound, even rooms without clocks. There's no clear vision in the presentation overall; it makes the game come across as a mess.

 

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In battles, all I can say is prepare to attack a lot. It's basically your only option, as you lack special abilities and I didn't pick up many consumable items. Dungeons are a maze-like design that combine with random encounters to create a tedious dungeon crawling experience.

 

 

Exploration is boring, with NPCs breaking the fourth wall and rampant lampshading trying to be humorous. Ultimately, there's no incentive to keep playing and nothing in the game is fun or interesting.

 

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It feels like the developer spent a lot of effort on the story, but all you need to know is that it involves crystals and the main character is arbitrarily a chosen hero. Sound familiar? The narrative makes no sense and the main character lacks any personality.

 

 

The writing is riddled with grammatical and spelling errors. It's so ridiculous that the writing comes across as satirical, leaving you shaking your head in disbelief that someone wanted to write a story without a basic grasp of the English language. The end result is that it leaves the player with an impression that the author doesn't care about the quality of his writing or game; if that's the case why should the player care?

 

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I didn't want to give out a failing grade lightly, but it feels as if this title has had no effort put into it whatsoever. Every aspect of the title is woefully broken. Normally, a review of a poor game can at least offer some insight to the author and others on how to improve, but this title leaves me at a loss. It isn't just poorly executed, but I can't find a redeemable aspect of the game that would make it worth salvaging.

 

Grade: F