Welcome to this month’s issue of Attract Mode! If you’ll all allow me to indulge, I want to focus this issue on RPG Maker games I’ve been pecking at lately:
Helen’s Mysterious Castle
A 1-on-1 RPG that focuses on rapid, volley-like combat that feels wonderfully fast and rhythmic. It achieves this by making all of its stats available to the player - weapon, shields and spells all share the three stats: Eff, Def and Wait. All of these inform the pace of battle and add to that rhythmic feeling. Real fun and a decently sized, short RPG.
Attraction: Saw some praise for the game and its combat system, and while that very much in the draw, I find that there is a snes-era charm to its default assets graphics.
Labyrinth.os (Demo)
“The rabbits are always watching you” left with that warning, or premonition, you are newly reawakened and welcomed by the Patron Spirit of the Labyrinth, who provides you with a form to inhabit and a party to form (comprised of some off-kilter classes such as Gun Witch, Bondage Paladin, Technomancer and Assassin Nurse to name a few). This can affect how smoothly battles can go, or what tools you have at your disposal when you form the party but you are free to rearrange it at a shortly later time in the demo. Furthermore, the demo conveys a wonderfully serene mood to the dungeon crawling levels, and befitting to the game’s name, are labyrinthine without feeling too long or tedious. Features many mysterious characters that fit the tone of the demo really well.
Attraction: While it’s not 100% my cup of tea aesthetically, I think there is an air of mystery about it, and a cool looking, almost mixed media effect to it’s artstyle that I enjoy.
Aozora – Ancient Abyss
Another 1-on-1 focused game where you’ll be balancing your resources (health, the limited items you acquire and turn order!) to succeed in these tense battles. Wonderfully short and engaging. Paints an enticing world with it’s limited story and brief glimpses into its characters. I hope to see more adventures with them in the future.
Attraction: There’s a charming scrappy-ness to it – I always enjoy seeing what folks focus on in smaller works like this.
Cataphract OI
Engaging in a playful and inventive feeling manner with standard RPG systems, notably the command based menu and the usage of battle formations – Cataphract OI manages to be a creatively fresh feeling game, that no matter how frustrating at time it can feel, due to its difficulty, the whole is so thoroughly engaging and inventive that you can’t help but want to keep playing it.
Attraction: I saw there was a time limit mechanic and blacked out to later find it installed onto my PC. Jokes aside, my growing fondness for specific restrictions in games did pique my curiosity with this one.
And that’s a wrap! I really enjoyed this issue and I hope you found something that tickles your fancy in here too! Next month, we’ll start pulling away from some RPGs and get going on some other types of eye-catching games. Please look forward to it and take care!