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Is it a generic horror if it's in a generic RPG setting? We attempt to answer that question here.

  • pianotm
  • 01/05/2017 11:13 PM
  • 3007 views
Name: Escape from Ritova Manor

Developer: KevinCalanor

Story: Four girls are journeying home when it gets dark and starts to rain. They can't stay out in those conditions because bandits and monsters come out, so they take refuge in a creepy mansion, and of course, as anyone could have predicted, they get locked in with psychopathic creatures.


Mr. Ritova, I've got some considerable complaints about your serving staff.


Of course, when you walk uninvited into someone's house and find a dead body, the first thing you should do is go exploring, right? #horrorgamelogic

It turns out the owner of the house is some kind of summoner that lost his mind. Throughout the house, you'll find dead adventurers and RPG gear you can't use.

Writing: Simple. Direct. To the point. It's a good way to do it because English does not seem to be the developer's first language and when dialogue gets heavy, it really stands out. I have to say that this game makes the mistake of going for the cheap scare at one point. In the upstairs corridor, there's a hall where there's a bunch of rattling and a voice saying, "You can't keep me in here forever! I'll get out! And then..." Of course, you eventually have to go into that room, and then...it's a dying woman. Completely wasted opportunity.

Gameplay: Like most horror games, this one is exploration based. There is no combat. Well, there are fights, but if you get into them, you just die. The basic premise is "go here, find this." There's really nothing in the way of puzzles, unless you count the game itself as a puzzle. There are a couple of stealth action events. The game apparently has three endings, but I'm only able to get two of them. Mostly, you're in a maze. There are no traps and only a couple of insta-death scenes. What's there was done well, but I feel like there was a lot more that could have gone into the game, even as short as it was. On the plus side, none of the insta-deaths are cheap, pointless insta-deaths; an affliction that seems to plague RPG Maker horror games.


Don't go into the light! Not the light!


Graphics: Appear to be mostly RTP with some custom RTP sprites and clashing facechips. The facechips, I can't identify, but they almost look like Marrend's Okiku style. The tiles are used to good effect. The developer seems to be a pretty good mapper.

Music: Nothing memorable, sometimes creepy, and I don't think I can identify any of it. Most of it doesn't sound RTP.

Conclusion: The game has an interesting premise that it ultimately doesn't capitalize on. What it does, it manages to do well. It's a good game to waste an hour with, though it's a bit ordinary. It's a solid 3.5 game.

Posts

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In explanation of some of the points:
- English is not my first language nor do I have any formal education on it, so yep, vocabulary does fell short sometimes. x3
- I wanted to add a few treats on the mansion but it ended up cut due time constrains, also the problem that(spoiler) as the enemies were possessed but still sentient Maids they were too powerful enemies to outrun/outsmart easily.. Maybe some traps would have helped, but I feared it would end up just slowing down the navigation instead of adding to the game.
- The tilesets are by Celianna's mixed with some RTP including charsets. Facechips are "Meduim_build_girl" by Yu, same used on Heartache 101.
- The music were imported from Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight, as it had pretty much all I needed, decided to use all from one source for consistency.

Thanks for the nice review ^^
pianotm
The TM is for Totally Magical.
32347
You are very welcome, Kevin. And thank you for the info!
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
Yeah, the Okiku face-sets were derived/edited from Pink Elephant's material. Though, I did make one Heartache custom character with that model.

Pink Elephants! Pink Elephants! Pink Elephants on parade!
Kool, this got a review! : )

Kevin? I have what might be an unusual question. How far is a let's player allowed to edit the game's footage during their playthrough? Rain would rather me ask you, than him be embarrassed, he's rather shy, even on the internet.
Like in the way of music, or footage/ speech in the game files?
author=JoshyPoshy
Kevin? I have what might be an unusual question. How far is a let's player allowed to edit the game's footage during their playthrough?
Like in the way of music, or footage/ speech in the game files?


Not sure if I got it right but, if you mean changing the unscripted sounds before recording and/or editing the footage to use customized names/speech, it should be alright as long as the audience it's aware that it has been edited, and there's no offensive/18+ material involved.
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