The title of Rock Lou's ambitious RPG The Awakening is pretty apt, since the game begins with our amnesiac hero jolting awake in alone in a strange forest with one heckuva headache. What are the odds he's got a big destiny, do you think? With a character customization so deep you can choose your level of squint (though bizarrely not your gender) and battle system that adds some twists to the turn-based formula, The Awakening is a huge and ambitious RPG that is sadly still unpredictably buggy, so a full review will have to wait, though it's clear a massive amount of love and talent has gone into its creation.
Nothing quite breaks the fantasy fourth wall like plagiarism! Haha, yeah, I'm in the library and I don't think they've quite grasped how tributes work. Admitting you're ripping something off in the middle of a hugely original narrative is kinda odd. But otherwise, this combat system is amazing. It's so intuitive! And the place just sprawls and sprawls. The tiny little details that make the landscape breathe are very much appreciated. I have yet to fully test out my dealbreaker, the inventory, but so far so good.
Awesome Game!! way too short, though. 4/5. beat it on ND.
Spoiler alert! The game sprawls into a dead end. You get about
2 cities and 25 side-quests
then the creator gives up.
He personally says so in the game. I'm not being facetious.
It's too bad, as it seemed to be scaled reasonably, a la Sonny.
Final tally is every woman is either criminally insane or needs a man to exist. Well, there is one who's both, and also one who's bent on revenge.
So overall a big win for the combat adventuring side, and a big drive off the cliff for the narrative side. Essentially an invitation to write fanfic about the main character and Caleb choosing furniture and living together, eh?
I know he said he quit, but I'm hoping that he will pick up where he left off in future!
I wonder what his next game offering will be.
Nice to have known more about the antagonists history so the ending was disappointing. Shows how much I enjoyed it. The battling was fun. Loved all the little side quests and mini games.
I will play again to finish all side quest (found 21 thus far). I didn't like how slowly the character crawls over the world map but that is normal in RPG games. On the other hand, the indications of where to go to get the side quests moving a little too obvious although not showing anything would've been frustrating.
Next time maybe have some participating female characters. Even in history women were teachers, healers, pirates even.
Update