Laxius Force Now Available At Rampant Games
In my tireless efforts to pay for my videogame addiction provide more convenience to you, the customer, the indie RPG Laxius Force is now available at the Rampant Games store.

Laxius Force is the newest release in a long-running series of RPGs using the RPG Maker engine. The game engine uses a perspective and game system highly reminiscent of the old 16-bit era console RPGs from Japan. French indie game maker Indinera Falls has been a hobbyist developer for seven years, and has now turned pro with Aldorlea Games. Even though it is a sequel of sorts, and does reference some characters and situations from earlier games, no previous experience playing the previous titles is necessary to enjoy Laxius Force.

Now, I confess - I haven't (yet) finished playing this game myself. It is frickin' huge. Yeah, we're talking at least Aveyond 2 huge. One thing I noticed early on is that this game is a big difference from most jRPG-style games: You are less on rails, and the encounters are not all custom-designed to let you knock them down. Even in the "tutorial" section in the pyramid, I discovered areas that I couldn't get through because the enemies were just too tough. Saving the game as you go is important. Encounter difficulty isn't parceled out strictly by area for your progression convenience.

This is deliberate. And kinda old-school cool. In these kinds of games, getting your butt solidly handed to you like that means one of three things: You need to be more careful with your tactics and resources, you forgot something that would turn the tide in your favor, or you just aren't ready to go there yet. It's a little more challenging, but not overwhelmingly so. I'd still say this is a decent title for first-time players.

Non-linear or open-ended aren't the type of descriptions that normally get applied to this style of RPG, but it was a goal with Indinera - at least, once you get past the introductory segments. And it features a metric buttload of playable characters. Well, okay, 17 playable characters, which is more of an imperial buttload than a metric buttload. But still - that is a lot.

There are some interesting things going on here.

I will suggest that the introductory sequence (the pyramid) is probably not the strongest part of the game - it gets better further along. But at does provide you with a tutorial on how to play, and a taste for the flow of the game. It is just a prologue, and I'm not yet sure exactly how it ties in with the game other than introducing the evil organization that is promising to be the villain throughout the game. But the prologue comes to an end quickly, and you soon get to the "meat" of the story and get introduced to the main character(s), Random and Sarah.

Anyhow - you can find this all out yourself, for free. Give it a test-drive, and see what you think:

Download Laxius Force at Rampant Games

Enjoy!

Labels: Game Announcements

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:21 AM (Permalink)