Beloved Rapture Demo
This is an RPG Maker 2k3 game? No way. The only reason I believe it is because I’ve worked with RM2k3 and recognize the RPG_RT.exe file you need to open to start up the game.
The game opens up with this Secret of Mana-esque scrolling image with some text over it. The mood even gave me huge nostalgia vibes. The map design is also top notch. There were little things everywhere that really added to the immersion. Little butterflies, birds, scrolling backgrounds. I think the only thing missing was some overhead clouds and reflective water. I really enjoyed all the music tracks as well. Some tracks really reminded me of Mega Man X and tons of SNES JRPGs.
There were some neat mechanics as well, such as being able to push objects and jump from bridges or cliffs to shorten the “backtracking” lots of retro games would have suffered from. The battle system here is completely custom and I have no idea how much time and patience it must have taken to craft it in this engine. There’s a neat twist to the battle system here where attacking restores a little MP and defending restores HP. You’ll definitely need to jump back and forth between attacking and defending here to keep the edge in battle.
The writing was very well done, only noticed a couple of typos here and there that I’m sure will be ironed out in the next demo/final release.
One thing I couldn’t sort out, was early in the game. I got a quest from a lady in the item shop asking for lavender and while I had one, I couldn’t give her one. By the time I collected another she was no longer there. I think the addition of a quest log with more detailed information may have been of some use.
Overall I am very impressed with this title. Even if it wasn’t made in RM2k3 I would still be impressed with it, as it was a fun little demo and ended on cliffhanger immediately wanting more! It has the potential to be a very good homage to SNES JRPGs of a time I have very fond memories of!
You can check out details and progress on the developer’s twitter here @BelovedRapture.
