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Sacred Reviews: Black Blob Adventure (Demo)
thesacredlobo- 04/09/2024 10:38 PM
- 54 views
Intro
"Black Blob Adventure" is a turn-based RPG that was being developed by Ratty524 using RPG Maker VX that was initially created for RMN 2011 Summer Games competition. A competition whose theme was surrealism. A theme I'm not sure this game really meets since none of the enemies are particularly surreal in appearance in my opinion. I suppose the story was meant to capture this theme much like "Sister's Storybook" did with the player exploring a series of worlds created by a little girl, but the demo is utterly devoid of story elements. Though oddly enough this entry in the contest is kind of unofficial since Ratty524 apparently failed to submit the demo in time.
Story
As mentioned in the above section the demo doesn't contain any narrative elements. As such, I don't have anything to discuss about the narrative beyond it's absence.
Gameplay
On the combat side of things this game isn't an action RPG, but a turn-based RPG. As for why it's listed as an action RPG I have no idea. I can only assume the original intent was for this game to feature an active battle system, but it was scrapped in order to try and get this demo ready in time for the contest. As for combat itself it's your standard side-view battle system with the typical options of attack, special, defend, items, and flee. In fact, the only notable difference between this game and most turn-based RPGs is that every enemy you kill is guaranteed to drop a stat booster. A decision I consider unwise.
The main problem with stat boosters is they tend to utterly break games if they are easy to obtain. After all, an obsessive player like myself can and will grind out an insane amounts of them and end up so over leveled and stat buffed that the game will become boring simply because I'm too strong for the enemies to deal with. Admittedly one could counter this by having enemies base their stats on the player's, but that would make the inclusion of such buffs pointless. Albeit one person that played the demo appears to think this was actually implemented.
The sad part is I'm pretty sure bicfarmer is wrong, since when I got to the boss it couldn't even hurt me.
Seriously the most damaging thing the demo's boss did to me was slap mute on my character in order to prevent me from using my special skills on it. After that it was utterly powerless as I slammed into in order to inflict 50+ points of damage with my regular attack. As a result I was able to take down the boss with just four regular attacks in a row and took zero damage in return. And stuff like this is why having stat boosters being easy to obtain is just a bad idea in my opinion since it makes balancing the bosses and regular enemies an absolute nightmare if you want the game to still be challenging.
Graphics
Graphically the game is a mixed bag in my opinion. On one hand I do like the custom enemies which tend to be on the cuter side of things in terms of design. On the other hand these enemies also tend to clash a bit with the RTP assets that were used with this project. As a result the game isn't as visually pleasing as it could have been in my opinion.
Sound
On the sound side of things the game was merely average in my opinion. I really don't have any complaints, but I don't have any compliments to offer up either. In other words the sound side of the game was just serviceable in my opinion, but at least this demo utilized music outside of the RTP.
Conclusion
I have mixed feelings about this one. On one hand I do enjoy buffing my characters with stat boosters and will farm a ton of them in order to do so in games like "Breath of Fire II". At the same time that game at least has a solid narrative driving it. So even if my characters are utterly overpowered the story is still engaging. Admittedly this may have been the case with this project too if it had been finished, but considering this project has been on hiatus for over a decade at this point. The likelihood this project will ever incorporate a narrative that would help overcome the boredom that results from getting too strong is pretty unlikely. Though, I'll admit I'm probably one of the few people that would ever do enough grinding to end up as broken as I did. It does make me wonder if I can potentially take on that high level enemy in the second area at this point if I get the jump on it.
"Black Blob Adventure" is a turn-based RPG that was being developed by Ratty524 using RPG Maker VX that was initially created for RMN 2011 Summer Games competition. A competition whose theme was surrealism. A theme I'm not sure this game really meets since none of the enemies are particularly surreal in appearance in my opinion. I suppose the story was meant to capture this theme much like "Sister's Storybook" did with the player exploring a series of worlds created by a little girl, but the demo is utterly devoid of story elements. Though oddly enough this entry in the contest is kind of unofficial since Ratty524 apparently failed to submit the demo in time.
Story
As mentioned in the above section the demo doesn't contain any narrative elements. As such, I don't have anything to discuss about the narrative beyond it's absence.
Gameplay
On the combat side of things this game isn't an action RPG, but a turn-based RPG. As for why it's listed as an action RPG I have no idea. I can only assume the original intent was for this game to feature an active battle system, but it was scrapped in order to try and get this demo ready in time for the contest. As for combat itself it's your standard side-view battle system with the typical options of attack, special, defend, items, and flee. In fact, the only notable difference between this game and most turn-based RPGs is that every enemy you kill is guaranteed to drop a stat booster. A decision I consider unwise.
The main problem with stat boosters is they tend to utterly break games if they are easy to obtain. After all, an obsessive player like myself can and will grind out an insane amounts of them and end up so over leveled and stat buffed that the game will become boring simply because I'm too strong for the enemies to deal with. Admittedly one could counter this by having enemies base their stats on the player's, but that would make the inclusion of such buffs pointless. Albeit one person that played the demo appears to think this was actually implemented.
bicfarmer
Anyway despite all the horrendous stat boosting the boss almost killed me. The difficulty seems to account for how strong you are plus boosters so the boss was hitting me for more damage than my 20HP heal spell. Meaning I narrowly beat him with less than 20 HP remaining.
The sad part is I'm pretty sure bicfarmer is wrong, since when I got to the boss it couldn't even hurt me.
Seriously the most damaging thing the demo's boss did to me was slap mute on my character in order to prevent me from using my special skills on it. After that it was utterly powerless as I slammed into in order to inflict 50+ points of damage with my regular attack. As a result I was able to take down the boss with just four regular attacks in a row and took zero damage in return. And stuff like this is why having stat boosters being easy to obtain is just a bad idea in my opinion since it makes balancing the bosses and regular enemies an absolute nightmare if you want the game to still be challenging.
Graphics
Graphically the game is a mixed bag in my opinion. On one hand I do like the custom enemies which tend to be on the cuter side of things in terms of design. On the other hand these enemies also tend to clash a bit with the RTP assets that were used with this project. As a result the game isn't as visually pleasing as it could have been in my opinion.
Sound
On the sound side of things the game was merely average in my opinion. I really don't have any complaints, but I don't have any compliments to offer up either. In other words the sound side of the game was just serviceable in my opinion, but at least this demo utilized music outside of the RTP.
Conclusion
I have mixed feelings about this one. On one hand I do enjoy buffing my characters with stat boosters and will farm a ton of them in order to do so in games like "Breath of Fire II". At the same time that game at least has a solid narrative driving it. So even if my characters are utterly overpowered the story is still engaging. Admittedly this may have been the case with this project too if it had been finished, but considering this project has been on hiatus for over a decade at this point. The likelihood this project will ever incorporate a narrative that would help overcome the boredom that results from getting too strong is pretty unlikely. Though, I'll admit I'm probably one of the few people that would ever do enough grinding to end up as broken as I did. It does make me wonder if I can potentially take on that high level enemy in the second area at this point if I get the jump on it.
