Another Chance

Intro

"Another Chance" is a turn-based RPG that was being developed by B3i using RPG Maker VX. Unfortunately this project died rather early in development so the only demo available contains very little content. In fact, you can probably experience everything the demo has to offer in about 10 to 15 minutes. As for why this project ultimately died early on in development I couldn't say for certain, but my educated guess is the developer ultimately bit off more then they could chew with the smithing system.

B3i
Mining and Smithing system - This is very painful... This will take a long time to complete this, but I have started on teir 1 of 5.

At any rate I should focus on the content that is available in the demo. And that content leaves a lot to be desired in my opinion.

Story
Summary

We kick the game off in a cave where great evil was once sealed. Though it appears our girlfriend and her research group accidentally shattered the seal and unleashed a demonic horde upon the land. Thankfully were still alive, but it's going to take a lot of effort to take down the seven leaders of the demons, but before we can start on that we need to report to our boss first. And reporting in and agreeing to save the world is where the demo ends.

Minor Issues

The game includes a room that is meant to be used for a mini-game about breaking rocks, but said mini-game is nonfunctional. My gripe isn't the inclusion of this room, but that the developer left a note saying the mini-game isn't ready in game. It would have made more sense to have the operator state the mini-game was closed for repairs or something in my opinion.

I suppose a slightly less minor gripe is that some of the text suffers from cut-off issues due to a lack of proper returns on the developer's part. And I say this is less minor since some of the missing text seems to include important information about what your supposed to be doing.



Gameplay

On the gameplay front the game appears to be your standard turn-based RPG with random encounters and a front-view battle system. As such you have your usual staple of options such as attack, skill, guard, item, and run away in combat and will find yourself jumped by enemies at random while traversing through an area. In fact, the only notable difference between this game and most is that dual attack both costs MP to use and only attacks once. Though why we need a dual attack skill when the main character is able to dual-wield swords by default is beyond me since most RPG Maker games where you can equip two weapons allow you to attack for each of your weapons.

As far as combat balance goes the game is rather easy, but to be fair the only enemies accessible to the player are those found in the first area. So we have groups of slimes that can't hurt the party at all if you've gained a few levels and picked up a feathered hat in the maze mini-game. We have slightly more annoying groups of orcs that can try and stun the party with leg sweeps, but struggle to hurt the second character that joins your party for more than a handful of points in a game where your starting HP is in excess of 500 points. And we have a blue orc that can spam status conditions such as confusion and stun, but tends to be rather unlucky at landing either.

While the game does contain a mining and smithing system. That system isn't particularly useful to the player. This is because the only things you can smith in the demo are additional copies of your starting weapons. To make matters worse the process of forging ingots and turning them into weapons is way more tedious than it needs to be. This is because you have to forge each ingot and weapon one at a time. Though I suppose this system is useful for making large amounts of money if your willing to dump enough time into it considering there is an infinite amount of basic ore located near the forge.

Graphics

For the most part the game appears to rely on the RTP for RPG Maker VX. As I've mentioned previously there isn't anything wrong with these assets per se, but the developer doesn't use them particularly well. For the most part the developer tends to make his maps overly large. As a result the world tends to feel rather empty since you'll enter rooms or areas with large swaths of the same tile forming large blocks. To make matters worse the few inside areas you can enter have the snowing effect going off inside of them which makes no sense. And it's pretty obvious the mining system needs more tweaking since the blocks your mining change colors based on which direction your interacting with the block.

Sound

On the sound side of things the game is rather odd in my opinion. This is a game set in a fantasy setting but the music being utilized is comprised of techno beats. To make matters worse a lot of areas in this game lack background music altogether. So I hope you like listening to sound of blowing wind.

Conclusion

In my opinion "Another Chance" wasn't going to be a good game if it was finished. It has a lot hallmarks of it being either B3i's first game or one of his early projects. And let's face it most of those tend to be a hot mess. After all, it takes a while to master these sorts of tools as well as learn the fundamentals of making a good game. So while I can understand why this project is rather rough around the edges. My ability to understand doesn't make this demo any better. It just means I'm not upset about it for being the way it is, as for if you should play it or not. I figure the answer is pretty obvious, but my answer is no. The only reason to play this game is if you want a short project to play and review in order to farm some makerscore.