Today we’re taking look at Shunpu-Tei & French Bread’s Ragnarok Battle Offline (2004) which come to surface about 2 – 3 years for some reason. Credit to Sara J. Leen who made the English patch.
I can’t say much about the title screen except that’s blurred part of Prontera city, the imperial capital of Rune-Midgard Kingdom. This game is an indie game which based on the globally famous MMORPG: Ragnarok Online (often abbreviated as “RO”) which is made by Korean company Gravity Corp. I’m not sure if it’s widely known in western audience, though. Certainly, RO is famous in Asian region including Indonesia. Apparently, Japan too because this game is made by Japanese indie developer. I remember where it’s first released around when I was in middle school. I’m quite big fans of RO myself. But before we get to the game, I want to share some trivia about RO.
RO is based on Korean comic/Manhwa: Ragnarok – Into the Abyss made by Myung-Jin Lee. The story revolved around Chaos the Rune Knight, Iris Irine the Cleric, Fenris Fenrir the Warlock, and Loki the Assassin. They travel town to town to solve demonic or undead crisis with names from Nord legend. The comic lasts 10 volumes before hiatus for ages. In volume #9, Fenrir participate in mage competition in Geffen city. It has landmark of huge cone tower which also depicted in RO. There is merchant, novice, thief, and priest class among the crowd. I can easily identify them by their cloth from the MMORPG. I’m not sure whether the MMORPG is released at the same time as volume #9 of the comic. But judging by the same cities and the inclusion of MMORPG characters, I can conclude that the MMORPG has close relation with the comic. Moreover, RO implements Warlock and Rune Knight class as 3rd Job which are class of Fenrir and Chaos respectively.
You may ask “What’s the base for you to claim as big fans of RO, Werdito?”. I play RO when I was in university. Not in global server, though. The game server is local around my university only. I had fun experience whether playing solo or with group. Mostly solo. I have strange obsession with Soul Linker class/job which is underrated and secondary much like Ninja, Gunslinger, or Taekwon Master. As for the main class/job, I prefer Monk class. I like fight with fist, you know. Besides, I can heal myself and buffing myself to some extent.
Lately, I played Ragnarok Origin on my phone, which is more friendly user compared to original RO. My goal is to test Assassin class. Here’s my assassin character named “Jane The Reaper”, taking selfie before being transcended into Assassin Cross, the upgraded version of Assassin.
Ok. I won’t bore you with more sidetracking story. So, let’s go to new game.
After choosing character slot (which also save slot) from many, I get to choose my character. Unlike RO, there’s no character customization which kind of irony. All you can customize is the name. This could be problem if you play the game in (offline/couch) multiplayer mode while you and other player choose same class/character. I wish there’s hair color customization, at least. The class/character that you can pick, are the original 1st job character as follows:
In the back row from left to right: female merchant, male merchant, male archer, female archer, male thief, and female thief.
In the front row from left to right: female acolyte, male acolyte, female novice, male novice, male swordman, female swordman, female mage, and male mage.
So, there’s total: 6 character that you can pick at RBO minus the novices because what the absolute beginner can do? I mean novice is literally beginner as their skills are very basic like using emote, join party, or changing to first job. Needless to say, that novice is the 0th class/job.
I pick the OG female archer because I don’t have any experience with archer class before. Testing something new could be fun. I name her “Arcyelle” from that archer in Tactic Ogre. Arcyelle Dania here doesn’t look like happy to see me. That’s understandable because of my incompetence that I made in TO. My mistake is so bad that she deserts from my army. I hope we’re getting along well this time.
Anyway, once you pick your character. You’re tasked with distributing stats and skill points. Maybe there’s explanation stats on the manual but I rely on my basic knowledge on RO and hopefully it’s transferable to this game. I like to suggest you to distribute each of stats to 5 first before putting more point for specific build. Strength, determines melee attack power and weight limit. Agility, determines dodge rate, movement speed, and attack speed. Vitality, determines maximum hitpoints, and physical defense power. Also, duration of poison and stun. Intelligence, determines maximum spirit points (SP), magic attack power, and magic defense power. Dexterity, determines ranged attack power, attack accuracy, skill casting time, and smaller attack power range. I explain the latter aspect. Attack power in RO is not in constant number. It has lower and upper number. Strength increases overall number but Dexterity also important because it reduces the gap between those lower and upper number. For example, a character’s attack is 3 – 12 points. If their Dexterity increased, it will become 7 – 12 points. Luck, determines critical chance, special dodge (called “perfect dodge”) rate, and special loot drop especially monster card.
As for the skill point distribution, I take double strafe and arrow crafting. Because ammo is important.
After making the character, you have 3 options: Deploy, redistribute stats (but no point reallocation, sadly) or exit the game. Choosing “deploy” take you to this world map to select level you play. You can straight choose extra stages from the expansion but with level 1 character that’s pretty much suicide. So, let’s go to stage 1, the practice stage.
So here, I am Arycelle right at the gate of Prontera where bunch of adventurers hang around. Hold on! Is that Acolyte has cigar on his mouth! Blasphemous! Then there’s iconic Kafra Maid who provide players with storage, save point, and teleportation service. I can recognize every Kafra Maid in RO. I believe this purple haired one’s name is Pavianne.
The control can only be changed from setting outside of the game. I use the usual W, A, S, and D keys to move Arycelle or make her jump or crouch.
Look at that novice run in Naruto style-like. Is that wizard, Kobayashi from Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon? Why that knight tapping his feet? Is my action too boring for you? Meanwhile thief besides him, looks hyped watching me fight these Poring, the iconic pink slime.
I’m about to ask why an archer fight with fist and kick, instead of using her ranged weapon? But then I remember my all-time favorite 2D shooter/beat em up: Gunmaster so I give her a break. I have button for: light attack, heavy attack, block, and special. To deal with this poring, I just push light attack button repeatedly. Doing so, doesn’t make some proper combo, sadly. There’s only elbow strike every after connected light punch. It’s not proper combo finisher because it doesn’t knock enemy away but it’s stronger than the light punch.
Look at this stupid knight who can’t handle group of Poring which is the weakest monster in RO! Novices kill them relatively easy for leveling with their puny knife. If he’s full-fledged knight, he can use Bowling Bash which send enemy bouncing between their friends. A perfect skill for group control. If he -somehow- doesn’t acquire Bowling Bash, he should at least keep Swordman’s Magnum Break which create explosion around him and harming enemies around him. Although Magnum Break requires some hitpoint cost (akin to desperation attack in any side scroller beat em up game), he should cast it regardless! The pain from Magnum Break is nothing compared to damage on his pride because he can’t handle group of Poring whiles being watched by his comrades.
After clearing more Poring, I’m allowed to move further and fighting first sub-boss: 3 Willows! This dashing kick is quite powerful! Activated by pressing forward twice and then light attack. By the way, I haven’t figured how to use bow which is embarrassing. But not as embarrassing as Knight who can’t handle poring. Let me check the manual on the folder…
Well, sog! It’s in Japanese. It’s in HTML and not in PDF. I need assist from Google Translate for this. But I can read Hadou Ken motion input for sure.
So Hadou ken motion plus heavy attack is how I cast Double Strafe, where I fire arrow twice consecutively with some SP cost. If you’re new to Archer Class in RO, you probably ask why bother casting this skill when I can shoot arrow twice and doesn’t cost SP? Good question. At level 1, Double strafe deals normal damage. However, each next level, increase the damage for 10% for every arrow. So, at level 10, Double strafe deals 380% damage more than a single arrow.
By pressing special button, Arycelle will crafting 3 arrows at arrow crafting level 1. It goes without saying that this skill essential because where else she get arrow? Normally in RO, archer buy arrows at shop but there’s none in this game. The Arrow Crafting skill is not Archer’s main skill. It is obtained by doing special quest and requires...What is it, Arcyelle? I’m digressing, again? My bad.
Next sub-boss: Rocker, a bipedal violinist grasshopper. He will start playing the harmful tune, once he gets on the tree stump where he sat and practiced a bit. I can absolutely safe if I stay on the corner and start firing arrows from there. Apparently, arrow from Double Strafe can do critical damage. The critical damage in RO is not multiplier value of normal attack. It’s damage value ignoring target’s defense power. I feel like the critical damage is less interesting if it’s not in multiplied value but that’s just me.
Look who’s back as sub-boss? It’s the stupid knight along with those Poring. I can’t hurt the running knight but he can run over me. In fact, he’s the most dangerous part of this boss fight and not poring. They do so little harm, compared to the stupid knight. Lucky, I pick archer so I can jump and fire my arrow diagonally like this. It’s done by pressing forward and heavy attack after jumping. Finally, I know to fire my arrow regularly. Kind of.
Why report me, you stupid schmuck? I saved your armored backside. Imbecile!
I don’t remember there’s giant snail in world of RO. But maybe I’m just not so adept at bestiary list in RO. Anyway, I can only hurt him when I hit his head.
I destroyed a pupa and huge Creamy comes out. He looks cute compared to him in the origin. He has huge eye of anime and also long tongue to sweep around. Once again, picking archer character is the best against sub boss because Creamy here 90% on the air and hard to reach with melee attack. Moreover, I know how to fire my arrow straight in mid-air. It’s done by pressing light attack and forward when jumping.
I thought Creamy is the end of level boss because I had hard time defeating it for the first time. Turns out the real boss is Eclipse the mother of all lunatic rabbits. They all look very adorable in this game, to be honest. However, Eclipse can deal serious damage once she tries to run me over. In panic, I accidentally discover that I have double jump all along! Scout_apexofjump01.wav
Ok, I can defeat her. For
first boss level, Eclipse is pretty tough. She like to frolic around harmlessly
but when she does flying body splash or running she delivers hurtful damage.
She can also shoot fur balls that can slow me down. I’m about to complaint why
I can’t sit to regenerate my health and SP faster but here it is: I’m
sitting…after finishing a level! It’s pointless then. At least, I get a level
up completed with the fanfare and the angelic figure above my head.
As I return to this tavern that I believe in corner of Prontera city, I can add more point to my Dexterity. As for 2 extra skill points, I put them Double Strafe and Owl’s Eye. The latter is passive skill that add Dexterity. Can’t go wrong with more Dexterity. For archer, that is.
2nd level takes place in Sograt Desert. I’m kicking and punching these picky, baby desert wolf, and muka with ease. I really like this dashing kick because I can follow it up with multiple jump kick.
This picky acts as sub-boss. After defeating his pawns, I defeat him with a single critical kick. You may ask if he’s weak why he’s a sub-boss? It’s because of the egg shell that he wears, you see? But he’s able to escape despite the critical damage that I gave him.
Sograt desert also home to giant scorpions called Scorpion. Simple naming. What is not simple is how you deal with them in this game. You can only harm them if you hit their tail. The thing that like huge kitchen knife. Yessire! You have to hit it. Doing that is so counter intuitive, right?
The sub-boss this time is Golem. A pair of them. In original RO, Golems are sitting duck for Archer because they’re very slow. But in this case, they’re more difficult to deal with because one Golem has very long arm to smash me with while the other constantly throwing pillar! Also, the screen is limited in size. My strategy is shooting arrow at the melee golem and you can retreat to the location of the pillar thrower because he can’t do melee attack. Thus, you’re relatively safe on his vicinity.
Look who’s back! It’s the eggshell head bastard. But this time he acquired help from his Peco Peco father. If you hit his father which you’re forced to because he wants to murder you, the rest of PecoP eco in the background will become hostile and proceed to attack you. As for the picky, he’s still push over.
But here comes the real threat. Not the sand monster: Sleeper there. Those ants (Pierre, Deniro, and Andre) are the serious threat because of their small size. Not only I have hard time to hit them but also, they’re obscured by sand dune on the foreground. Although there’s warning “Enemies hide behind the sand dune”.
Next sub boss is: Hode, the giant worm. He can jump in and out of sand but that’s about what he can do. If he’s armed with bazooka, and grenade like Andy Davidson’s Worms, I’ll be more intimidated.
As Hode defeated, he created a hole and I fell from it. Now, I’m in Ant hell a dungeon in Sograt Desert. But before I get the chance to delve further into Ant Hell, I have to defeat Phreeoni here first. I heard he’s the easiest boss monster in the original game. But in this game, he’s pretty dangerous as he like to fill the screen with massive sand spike or sand wave thus, I have hard time to dodge those attack. Probably he wants to test me how well I’m blocking attack. Blocking offers temporary invincibility. However, there’s limited blocking gauge as I hold the block button. The gauge drains over time and also decreased as I block attack. So, forever blocking is a no go.
Then I meet an acolyte and bunch of Swordsman bots! I can tell they’re bots because they have robotic line across their dead eyes and mechanically doll mouth. As what’s the purpose of these bots, I believe they’re farming for Vitata’s (that black ant with big abdomen) card which has effect allow the wearer to cast level 1 heal magic. It’s certainly useful for mages who have big pool of SP and high Intelligence stats which effect the power of heal magic. I don’t think the card is valuable for other class than mages and acolytes (who naturally have heal magic). Those other class can sit down or use potions for more efficient way to refill their health.
By the way, I’m not sure why Acolyte is doing here? She should be leveling up in place filled with undead monster instead in Ant Hell, because Acolytes has passive skill to reduce damage taken from undead and demon monsters, and most importantly they can use heal magic to harm undead monsters. Am I digressing, again? I’m sorry.
The end of level boss is obviously Maya, the queen of ants. Naturally, the ants will assist her throughout the fight. By the way, why do I have to break her abdomen first?
After long time I finally figuring out what’s the command for fire my arrow straight on the ground. It’s just simple forward and heavy attack!
Her attack is spore spread and deadly blade that grows on her arms. The last ones deal the most damage and I can’t block the attack. I think if the enemy’s attack is unblockable, it’s telegraphed with the red shadow effect like this. There’s no dodge roll, so I have to rely on dash which kind of lackluster for this situation.
I destroyed her abdomen and thorax, but she’s not defeated yet. Now she uses her blade more often, including using it as most deadly stilts. Look at her go. Her highness jauntily walk with the damn stilts like no worry in the world even though, I have killed dozens of her children.
However, I managed to defeat her with just sliver health remaining. I gain more level up which means stats and skill points. By leveling up Double Strafe to level 5, I unlock arrow shower skill! This is like in the original MMORPG where some skill is unlocked by leveling up other certain skill. I think you can see the prerequisite skill on the detail of skill you want to unlock in original RO. However, in RBO you don’t get any clue about it. Maybe the developer assumes the player have experience with RO beforehand.
Stage 3 is located in Payon cave. Payon is a town where archers raised and trained, so Arycelle has obligation to clear this dungeon.
Payon cave is filled with skeletons so this place is where that Acolyte should farm for experience. These skeletons kind of annoying because they are knocked out everytime I hit them but they’re not defeated yet. So, I can’t rely on melee combo to defeat them. Creature on the right is Eggyra. He has high defense power but luckily doesn’t have much health. He can also put “blind” status on me thus my vision become limited like this. Luckily, the “blind” status doesn’t affect my attack accuracy.
The i encounter the duo jiāngshī: Bongun and Munak as sub-boss. Suddenly, a flash of their image appears as if they do super combo move. As for where I am, I think I’m currently in blinking invincibility state so that’s why you can’t see me here.
Munak is content with jaywalking along the ground but Bongun keep kicking my head everytime I jump. Douchebag!
Arrow shower is perfect to deal group of enemies. The input command for it is: down twice and heavy attack. You can do it either on ground or air. The air version is basically the downward arrow shoot but multiplied. Both versions end up with the archers posing for a while, leaving them defenseless. Thanks for that, Arycelle. You smug archer.
Next sub-boss is the sentient totem: Greatest General. In original RO, he’s easier target for Archer than Golem because he doesn’t move at all. But it’s bit harder to take him down because I can only hit him in the head and the straight arrow shoot has limited range if I do that while jumping.
I got careless. This greatest general can fire Power Wave like Terry Bogard from Fatal Fury, that deal tremendous damage. You can call him Tree-ry Bogard, if you will. -_-
I encounter Moonlight Flower along with her nine-tails friends. The foxes are pretty easy to deal. I can kick multiple of them at once, see? Ran Yakumo probably don’t like what I do here.
Although my kick deals one hundred damage points, my arrow can deal 6 – 8 times than that because I invested on Dexterity stats big time. So, I have to fire more arrows instead of kick enemies and I realize that pretty late. I’m not so smart, indeed.
The foxy girl escapes. As I chase after her, she activates a mega rock that roll at me. Very slowly, though. The game instructs me to destroy said rolling rock and I did it with ease. Maybe the more dangerous thing than the giant rock is the fire spirit: Horong that randomly spawn on the left side as you can see one behind me. It’s painful to touch and I can’t block it. If only Indiana Jones carried a bow and arrows instead of his usual whip, the boulder chase scene in Raiders of The Lost Ark would go in different way.
Next sub-boss is Sohee who keep floating along the ground nonchalantly. But if you look very closely, she hides a knife behind her right sleeve. I got instantly killed when she stabs me with the knife. Other than that crafty attack, she doesn’t do anything else. Once I defeat her, her spirit flies above which mean she can rest in peace now. However, she left her entire cloth on process so she’s stark naked while ascending to heaven. Good thing, she is fast enough to cover her shame with hand.
Moonlight Flower activate another button on the floor. This time spikes rise from the ground. That’s lame compared to anything in Kagero – Deception II. I don’t have to deal with these undead enemies, I just have to double jump past them and the spikes.
Finally, I get to fight Moonlight Flower herself. Like in some boss on video game, she can have clones. To be more accurate her fox friends turn to be copy of her. The real one is in the back until I defeat her fakes. I must admit these foxes have cunning disguise. They look the same as the real ones. Except, they have a leaf to cover their shame while the real one doesn’t bother to cover her shame. I feel grateful to the developer to not include sexual detail on naked Maya and Moonlight Flower so I don’t have to put censor on them.
When Moonlight Flower decide
to fight me by herself, she can either swing her heavy bell or hit the bell
that I assume, is an attempt to stun me. Nice try but I’m fairly far from the
bell, fox. She and her nine-tailed fox friends, are no match for my arrow.
They’re quite push over. Leaving the nakedness and the evilness of Moonlight
Flower aside, she’s pretty cute in my opinion though.
Stage 4 takes place in Orc Village. Me can’t wait to get hundreds of teeth so me can buy Wartrukk. Oh, wait. Wrong franchise.
There’s some plot involved here. Orcs kidnap a small girl for some reason and I have to rescue her.
Apparently, Goblins join the fray, which kind of acceptable because Goblin and Orc Village are located side by side. However, why there are some Poring here too? You just completely pushover. Go away!
If you pay attention to Arycelle’s level, she’s level 10 now. That’s because I replay previous stage to farm experience before going here. You will get obliterated if you just play the stage once for the sake of speedrunning or whatever because making your character stronger is very important here and also in original RO. Thankfully replaying stage 2 and 3 consistently give me a level up for each successful run.
I encounter these barricade that frequently spawns goblins. Arrow shower does wonders here.
By the way, I forget to tell you about those 3 icons on left top corner. The most left is coin, presumably Zenny which is common currency in RO. As far as I know, there’s no shop in this game. So, I assume it’s used for Merchant’s skill Mammonite which is heavy melee attack that cost both SP and some Zenny. Then the middle one is quiver. It’s obviously arrow count. Only important for Archer character. Then the most right is Yggdrasil Leaf which is life reserve. Each mission, you start with 2 of Yggdrasil Leaves. Everytime your Hitpoints goes zero, you will use them automatically. So, you have 3 lives before Game Over. Once you have depleted all of your lives, you will be kicked out to the tavern and earn small amounts of experiences as consolation prize. It’s better you replay the previous level to gain bigger amounts of experience than playing the hard level and fails over and over again.
I think I don’t like this stage because there are many areas that don’t offer me enough safe distance. The laundry pole that takes lots of space, certainly contribute to my lack of space. The game tells me to break it. I will do so, after killing these schmucks.
Obviously, the owner of the laundry pole is pissed. You would be angry if someone broke your laundry pole which make your clothes fall to the ground and dirty. Those struggling hours of cleaning your cloth, becomes vain because some stranger breaks your laundry pole with kick and arrows. She did blow some kisses to me, but it’s dangerous. Orc lady’s kiss is known to be dangerous to human so avoid it.
Finally, some worthy adversary of archery: group of Orc Archer although I can’t easily relate Orc with bow. Usually, they go with axe or dakka dakka, I mean some mechanically flimsy submachine gun. Actually, I met some Skeleton Archer in Payon Cave but I forget to take a picture of that moment. Oops! Orc Archers are certainly tougher than the skeleton ones. I kick you in the groin, so give me your powerful Orc Archer Bow! Now!
There’s another barricade that constantly spawns goblins. But this time there’s well that can spawn goblins as well. I take goblin over Sadako. But maybe I can defeat her with my bow because it works pretty well against Sohee.
So, I enter an Orcish house where the girl’s scream come from. I find her…along with bunch of Orcs. It seems they use her as bait to lure me and it works wonderfully. Remember when I said “There are many areas in this stage that don’t offer me enough safe distance”? Well, this place takes it to whole next level. I’m surrounded left and right from the beginning. With lots of jumping and dashing, I manage to survive this kunnin’ brutal trap. Just barely.
The boss of this level is obviously Orc Hero, with High Orc escorts. To be honest, I always mixed up between Orc Hero and Orc Lord because I never fight either of them back in the day. I only went to their territory to farm experience point from High Orc. When I did see Orc Hero or Orc Lord, I use fly wing to escape to random point and resume my hunt for High Orc. Rinse and repeat.
I destroyed all of High Orc escorts but 2 High Orcs spawn frequently from above to replace them. At least 2 is less than 5. As for The Orc Hero, he’s not serious threat from distance, until he charges with his shield across the screen or fires Terry Bogard’s like Power Wave. Both moves deal very heavy damage and must be avoided at all cost.
As you can see on Yggdrasil leaf count. It’s zero. I’m down to my last life. Through careful distancing and tons of arrow, I fell The Orc Hero. Now I’m da boss, every boiz in this whole orc village iz my boiz. WAAAAGH! Excuse, me. No more Warhammer 40K Ork’s reference or impression for the rest of this article. I promise.
Next level takes place in Byalan Island, aquatic themed dungeon. As far as I know, there’s no boss monster in this dungeon. The strongest monster in the dungeon is Merman and he’s not boss monster.
After I level up Archer’s passive skill: Owl Eye (Increase Dexterity stats) and Vulture Eye (Increase Agility stats) to level 5, I get to pick Improve Concentration which activated by pressing down twice and light attack. It’s self-buff skill that increases Dexterity and Stats for duration. The problem is there’s no buff’s duration indicator like in original RO so I don’t know when Improve Concentration’s buff ends. Anyway, I stop here.
Medic_positivevocalization02.wav. This opening is very gorgeous. Why the male merchant smoking cigarette though?
I usually don’t like 2D beat
em up game. However, Shunpu-Tei & French Bread’s Ragnarok Battle Offline
(2004) gets an A grade recommendation from me. Mainly because I’m fans of Ragnarok
Online. The main thing that quickly get my attention is the main
characters. They’re just 1st job characters. There’s pros and cons to that. The
cons first, 1st jobs are lack of interesting skill set. Most of them just
slightly advanced. Except Mage, though. Mage’s skill set is quite complex and
fun. I can come up the reason why the main character only in their 1st job. The
most sophisticated reason is: maybe the developer wants to teach us how awesome
the 1st job is. Or something like going back to the roots while RO’s class is
expanded to 4th job. To be honest, I was shocked that there’s 4th job when I
read the wiki just recently. Back then, I only know there’s just 3rd job. For
the technical reason: it’s simple. The developer can only include 6 x 2
possible characters, male and female. If they decided to put 2nd job characters,
the number of characters will be doubled because 2nd job is where the job/class
is branching into 2 branches. For example: 1st job Swordsman can change into
either Knight or Crusader. Knight job/class emphasizes more on offensive
physical skills while Crusader emphasize more on tanking and dealing with demon
and undead monsters. On to the pros. It’s funny to see a 1st job/class single
(or more if you play the game with other player) adventurer clearing those
dungeons. I remember from watching a stream where there’s huge crisis and only
the player with skillset of 1st job/class can resolve it while other adventurer
with higher class/job tier barely can do anything. Then there’s the first level
where I can easily defeat dozens of poring while that imbecile knight can’t
fight back Poring attacking him. I can tell that the story premise is cute and
fun. Although your character can be very strong surpassing those who have
higher job/class, you have to amass tons of experience and earn very high level
in order to do so. So, you’re forced to replay stages many many times and I
don’t think I have time to do so. I mean I have time for that but I have to
move on to other game for my personal pursuit of iseng writing more
articles.
As for the gameplay. It’s
pretty well and serviceable. But I bet the badblood Gunmaster can do all of
those stages with quite ease unlike my archer here. Sorry Arycelle but I have
to be honest here. By that, I mean Archer’s skillset feels very lackluster
compared to Gunmaster. With hadou ken input command, Gunmaster fires large
fireball that hit multiple time whereas the archer only fires 2 arrow
consecutively. Look. It’s pretty fair to compare Gunmaster with archer’s RBO
because both are 2D hybrid beat/shoot em up game. Maybe add Gunslinger or Ninja
job can make the game better. That’s my harshest judgement toward the game. The
only one. The gameplay design is brilliant. It translates RO mechanic gameplay
into 2D action RPG pretty well. Then there are some extra that feel realism
like Lunatic throws slowing furballs or Phreeoni conjures spike or tsunami out of
sand. The music design also brilliant. I dare say that whoever the music composer,
they’re on same level as ZUN (Touhou Project maker). What might be problem is
mean of healing. Without acolyte accompany you, you are relied on whatever enemies
drop after defeated. Be it: green herb, pumpkin, grape, or Yggdrasil berry. It’s
too random and unreliable. There’s automatic health regen (determined by
Vitality stats) so you can regenerate health by idling but you waste time quite
unnecessarily. If you waste time too much, your score at the end of level will
be low and that leads to lower experience gain. The sound effect is kicky [pun intended].
As I mentioned before the music is brilliant. Here’s the example, the music in
first level:
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