MV - Verloren [Chapter 1-4 available]

+ Cool title screen and music, even if the title screen is very... Final Fantasy of you.

+ Very good, you have keyboard config... and even gamepad configuration! Wow.

+ Oh, you have a full CG of your little faerie character. Kinda glad to see that's in the actual game. In fact, I'm pleasantly surprised at all of the full-screen CGs that depict the characters.

+ I do like how the background changes when you use certain attacks.

+ I do like the full screen CG used to show off Angel's growth. The original art that isn't the RTP is actually quite nice. Plus, it's really neat how the costume you choose changes all of her appearance, instead of just her portrait. Waynee's Equip Eval?

+ Oh nice, you have the function for Mog's menu scene where it scrolls around to the other side.

+ The ability to hotkey-summon certain menus is very cool. Especially the function to summon the quest journal if you're stuck or just want to change to another mission.

+ I do like how the music can change moving room-to-room.

+ The In Battle Enemy Status is the coolest plugin I've seen in a while. It's just so useful.

+ The fact characters make faces when damaged or under a status is cool. This isn't the Moghunter version though, is it? Because I notice you still have Yanfly's Battle Window intact.

+ The status resistance / status vulnerability thing is actually pretty cool. Get hit with a status, become resistant to it. If you whiff, the target becomes more vulnerable. (That said, I can't help but imagine how this could be abused.)

+ The effort to show the player mechanics via demonstrative screenshots is good.

+ The map of the world shown by that one weird professor is neat, including the little indicator that tells us where exactly we are in it.

+ Very nice that you have encounters be guaranteed escapes. There really is no point to having "failure rates" to escape, since it doesn't really add anything of value to a fight.

+ The animated enemies are super cool, even though I'm pretty sure I've seen these guys before in the RTP or Dragonbones.

+ The skill learning system is pretty neat, even though it feels like you're thrown so many potential skills to use at the start and so little points to buy them with.

+ The bridge summoning animations in the dungeon are cool. Also cool is that the chandelier actually has a shadow underneath it so it isn't just arbitrarily a block of metal over the characters' heads.

+ Nice detail that Edwin won't go into the ladies room for that one sidequest.

+ The manual that keeps track of all the tutorial information is pretty sick! I'd like to see this more in other games. It's also pretty comprehensive, which I can imagine took a lot of effort to compile.

+ I do like that you allow the player to skip the "talking with the NPCs" section by letting them sit on the orange circle.

+ The first puzzle room is neat, even if it is a little cheap that part of the solution is hidden.

+ The bar that changes color to indicate how close you are to triggering a random encounter is pretty cool. If you're gonna have random encounters in your RPG, you should have something like this.

+ The cannibox being like "You again!?" if you talk to it after killing it is a pretty funny bit. Also, the blood right in front of it is a good visual cue that it's not normal.

+ I like the small detail of the key actually going into the keyhole in the school dungeon. That's an Avery asset, last I remember.

+ The Phantom Camille fight where you have to answer her name correctly and buy something from her or you trigger a fight is very clever. Too bad the actual enemies you fight are dead simple to overcome.

+ Glad to see that Poison doesn't persist outside of battle.

+ "Grimoire wins by KO. Wait what?" is the most delightful pre-fight dialogue I've seen in a while.

+ Despite my gripes with the Scan skill taking up a turn, I do like that you get text based on the enemy you're scanning.

+ The flaming statue when you find all goddess statues is pretty cool.

+ Cynthia's expanding globe animation was kinda sick, not gonna lie. How'd you do that?

+ The lil story moment when Cynthia scans your characters just to get an edge on you is actually very clever. Gives me an idea, actually. Stealing her item is also a very cool way to end the battle without having to drain her HP (which I was going to do until I realized I could steal her Wonders. The fact you get 500 EXP like if you defeated her normally is very rewarding!)

+ Likewise, like how that punchy guy (forgot his name) will have a strength debuff when you steal his stuff but he won't give up anywhere as easily.

= In recent years, I've kind of gotten over having to pick difficulties for a turn-based JRPG. Since it's a huge decision made at the start of an experience, before you even know what the game is like. (I picked Classic difficulty, just to have an "intended experience".)

This isn't a con because it's not something I have against your game specifically, but it IS an observation. I'm far more on the "put in a slider that you can activate to make the game harder than normal, but not easier" side.

= Interesting. The game pauses when you click out of the screen.

= Oh. You have that Yanfly plugin that shows you the list of all the "Show Text" event dialogue.

= Black, White and Gray magic? ... THUNDAGA?! Ultima!? We sure this isn't just Final Fantasy? :guffaw:

= Question. Why are there ghosts inside of our cellar? For that matter, why is there a casino in this school? What the hell is going on here? :kaoback:

= The maps are... functional. They have a lot of things in them, but they're not very impressive visually due to looking like the usual blocky RTP maps.

= Why do the doors in the dormitory have green text?

= Oh, monstrocards is Triple Triad.

= Very niche complaint (that isn't a con, just a nitpick), but I don't see the point of having pre-made pictures for controls in a game where you can change your keybinds.

= How do you not notice that 20 hours have passed, David?

= Strange how you have the Snatch function as a separate ability from actual stealing and modified to only show the drops and not actually steal.

+/- Oooh, you can change equipment in the middle of combat... but you need to do so by clicking Item... and you can only change your weapon. Hmm.

+/- Partial credit for using custom confirm and buzzer SFX, but you still have RTP sounds when just moving the cursor around and in general. You really should go all the way if you're going to replace the sound effects.

- (!!) Oh no, why would you have the feature where you can turn off random encounters via an option in your menu? I don't think being able to turn off an entire part of the game is good design, so I kept it on at 100% to see how the game would function as a normal JRPG.

- Your options aren't configured when you're asking if the player wants to activate the tutorials. The cursor doesn't start on yes or no, only doing so when I move the button. The same thing happens on every single follow up question, yet the "Do you want to save" prompt works normally?

Instances when it keeps happening:
* It also happens when talking to Cynthia.
* At the start of the "sneaking on the director" cutscene.
* With the lone sleeping grimoire.
* When you have to pick the liar with the Illusion!Director.
* When David asks you if you want to go with him to the other side of the continent.

- Why did you feel the need to show the guards going up empty rooms instead of just having them appear at the top of the tower? That felt like padding. (I didn't even hear the noise that one guy was talking about.)

- (!!!) I like that you want to have this be an exciting opening, but the automation is INSANE. This is such a railroaded experience that it feels like I'm watching a movie, and with RPG Maker games that is not a good thing. You threw me into what, like three fights, and only one of them was a tutorial where you forced me to use exact options.

It doesn't help that the actual storytelling being done here is quite vague. In-media res type introductions are rarely done well because you really have to know how to write exciting scenarios without having to provide context.

Here's the important things we learn: Helen is a traitor. She knocks out some guards, and stole a baby. That baby is our main character. That's all we learn from that intro, despite the (likely more than) 15+ minute length of the cutscene.

- (!) That Fan of Knives move you had Helen use on that one guard is beyond silly. It's not empowering because I'm not unleashing it as a player after having built up my resources in the heat of combat, and as a story moment it feels extremely excessive for just a random guard.

I guess it's supposed to be a moment where you're showing off your action sequencing skills, but these super excessive 15+ hit combo moves are never impressive to me, since they feel indulgent more than anything else.

- Typo: "Your dearest father thought to enrol your name"

- Another issue I have is that the dialogue is very... verbose. Characters go back and forth blabbing to each other about this and that, but a lot of it tends to just be filler for the sake of conversation instead of meaningful content.

Like the conversation with Angel's dad(?) when you first get control of your character.

Example 2: The two random NPC girls you can talk to in the cafeteria.

- Not a fan of how the Gab Window covers character dialogue due to the fact all of your Show Text events are at the top of the screen.

- "I feel we have something that will interest you... interest you very much" feels very awkward as a sentence.

- I'm not sure how to feel about the "blondie" joke because... are there no mirrors in this school? Has Angel never seen how she looks like? It's supposed to be funny but it doesn't land in a way that makes sense.

- Strange how you need to press a button to make the invisible show text box go away when full screen CGs pop up.

- Extremely minor quibble, but it's weird how Sandra and Angel don't face each other when they're talking to each other.

- (!) The game has pretty poor signposting due to how large this school is. I can see your players getting very lost if they forget they have a quest journal that tells them where to go. Also thank god for those teleporters too.

(Though it seems that the teleporters don't activate plot triggers?)

Verloren is a game with a lot of cool things in it (the passive system, the indicator for random encounters, In Battle Enemy Status, the manual, the effort to have screenshots show the mechanics, etc.), as well as a combat system that tries to be a bit more robust than the usual RPG Maker fare.

But my goodness, it was thoroughly exhausting. The intro where you barely do anything but watch someone steal the child that becomes our protagonist should have been somewhat exciting, but the lack of buildup and how it was completely automated made me wonder why I was even playing.

Then we get into the actual game itself with Angel.

The game spends so much time meandering -
* NPCs that talk a lot but rarely say anything truly interesting
* lack of a proper hook to explain why we should care about the protagonist's journey (there was almost something with David and Angel's dream, but that's hardly focused on)
* Cryptic, labyrinthine map design (Not gonna mention how random encounters can slow it down, since I've already made my peace on being able to disable them)
* And several other little things that kept building up

The small victories like the funny bits between the characters and monsters were cute, but they were often rare and buried beneath the rest of the game.

I dunno, it just feels like the game kept going in circles for the entire time I played it, which didn't encourage me to keep going further, even if I did find the time to play it again.

I'm not trying to poop on Verloren, sincerely, but these are just my honest thoughts as I was playing. It is clear there is an incredible amount of love and effort here, but there were also a lot of questionable decisions (the teleport maze will never not make me upset, even after knowing the gimmick) that held the experience down for me.