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| Creator | BigMood |
| Engine | Lex Talionis |
| Download | Here |
| Score | 65/80 |
| Rank | 3rd |
| FEU Link | Here |
Reviews
Judge 1: Darrman
Gameplay: 7/10
Untitled Costco Project does not mess around. You have two units, although one of them can freely summon a clone of herself and the other has conditional Galeforce. There is absolutely no room for error: poor placement will result in death. There isn’t much room for experimentation either: it comes across as a puzzle chapter. Playing around with a disposable summon is fun, however. The map also keeps you moving rapidly: trying to take things slow will result in one of your units bleeding out or the pursuing enemies catching up.
Turnwheel is available and the map does come across as being designed around it, though I did successfully finish the map without using it. Was the AI meant to ignore Raksi in the final hallway?
Presentation: 4/5
I have little to say here. Aside from the minor discrepancies in feel between Lex Talionis and GBA FE that stop this from reaching a 5, everything else looks excellent, and being allowed to wander the hotel is the sort of detail GBAFE would struggle with in comparison. The persistent music also works pretty well in this chapter.
Story: 5/5
The story is certainly bizarre, but I think it works pretty well. Diane, direct descendant of a founder of Costco, is on her way to a board meeting. Accompanying her is Janus the wealthy yet lazy businessman. Also, it’s 2065 and the world has discovered magic, resulting in firearms and fire tomes co-existing. The characters and dialogue are funny, and it’s worth checking everything everything in the hotel lobby. After exasperating the receptionist and with plenty of banter between everyone, the plot thickens: a dispute in the Costco board over raising hot dog prices have led to assassination attempts. An unexpected thing happens at the end of the opening, resulting in an escape having to be made. The punchline in the ending had me laughing, and everything ended neatly. I didn’t see any major typos anywhere, and I have no problems.
Total Score: 16/20
Judge 2: Rivian
Gameplay: 8/10
Only two (three really) units might seem pretty dull, but the mechanical complexity makes this not only work well, but perhaps maybe ideal. We start with Diane. She swaps between four stances after every combat which shifts her role from tank to damage and more, and also makes enemy phasing require a lot of planning. This in combination with her four different weapons of varying ranges and utility dependent on her stances makes optimizing her usage quite the challenge. This is before we mention she can summon a clone as a free action that shares her stances. Fully understanding her kit is not optional, it is necessary to make it out alive.
Thankfully, Ratsi is much more mechanically simple. The drawback is that she loses HP on every action and is effectively the project’s anti-turtle, making her every use a resource decision. Enemies loadouts on this map are varied and the map is paced such that if your unit usage is suboptimal, you will die. Having an extra life and Ratsi having a smokebomb that increases avoid and stops bullets gives some leeway. I found this quite the challenge, but given the array of options at your disposal, it was a fun one. It is definitely more of a puzzle than your typical FE, but it is a dynamic and open-ended one rather than rigid one, which suits my preferences.
Presentation: 4/5
I found the portrait selection, battle palette and music to all be pretty appealing. There is some visual mismatch due to using non-FEGBA tiles, but it is more successful at convincing me this is a hotel.
Story: 5/5
You might be forgiven for thinking “Untitled Costco Project” sounds like some kind of low effort shitpost story, but it wasn’t the case. The free roam section before the map starts gave a lot of strong characterisation for Diane and Janus, and their odd boss/employee and student/mentor relationship, making the end of the start event hit harder. The receptionist dialogue was especially a delight to read. I found the short story told to be quite compelling, even if the plot synopsis of a Costco founder blood descendant being targeted for assassination over hot dog prices sounds absolutely ridiculous.
Total Score: 17/20
Judge 3: Legend of Loog
Gameplay: 8/10
Untitled Costco Project’s objective is simple, as all you need to do is defeat the boss at the entrance of the hotel. This is for the best, though, because the chapter has complexity in other areas, most notably in that you only have two units. One of them is very injured and takes damage every time she makes an action, so she has to avoid counters as much as possible. Each of your units has methods to get additional actions, and the lord can create a clone to take hits for her and help change her active skill, which cycles based on combat. There’s a lot to track, and I did end up using one Turnwheel use, but the difficulty was fair on the whole, and the lack of units made it so that the map wasn’t overwhelming. Overall, it was fairly enjoyable and flowed well.
Presentation: 4/5
Before the battle, the chapter is very casual, with the music enhancing the initial wandering around a hotel. The map for the hotel is fairly well-made for its purpose, though it would’ve been nice if there were water animations for the pool. There’s also a decent amount of cutscene eventing in the start event, and while it’s nothing crazy, it does its job well. Once the battle is about to start, the tone shifts pretty harshly, aided by the map theme being very intense in comparison to the prior vibe. The shift is a bit jarring in its speed, but it’s executed well enough to ignore this. Outside of this, everything else (portraits, etc) were solid, so I have no major complaints here.
Story: 4/5
Our main character is an executive of, unsurprisingly, Costco, and she’s preparing to be deposed from her position soon. However, an assassination plot commences, with her former teacher and ally being in on it. Honestly, the plot was pretty bizarre, but the character writing is solid throughout and I enjoyed it despite how unorthodox the premise was. I also appreciated the initial interlude and how it characterized Janus before his betrayal, since it made it a bit more impactful.
Total Score: 16/20
Judge 4: Levin64
Gameplay: 7/10
Too many rewinds due to difficulty (Sigma, I had to rewind 16 times!), but still fun! Although that means I have to remove points due to the game needing savestate/rewind in mind. The skills are honestly a very unique spin, very polarized gameplay with the skills combined with the weapons provided. Raksi bleeding out is actually a nice way to urge players to hurry up and be creative. Enemy density is a bit overkill, but in a way we are provided with skills needed to clear the wave. Made a mistake of running into the fray too early, got flanked; ended up taking it nice and slow anxiously monitoring Raksi’s health. I’m all for the gimmicky gameplay and finicky skills, but it’ll definitely improve the score if enemy density is slightly toned down (especially with the annoying armors, I needed to be creative in dealing with them).
Presentation: 4/5
I’m not really a big fan of Lex Talionis, but I can say this is a great medium for whatever you plan for the gameplay. The music choices are superb (I am writing this review while listening to Blue Lady, thank you for the epic music), and the portraits fit the setting, too! Great picks all around, even the splice is very fitting. Basically, the scoring is almost perfect; the thing that holds it all down is just Lex Talionis’s jankiness. But I’m sure if you’re putting this on FE8; it’s gonna be more hassle compared to Lex Talionis.
Story: 5/5
Magic and pistol coexisting together and those things being normal in this premise, that’s something that can’t be easily implemented, but this fangame easily delivers! The premonition is ominous, and then the mold breaks as three characters are introduced, one being an NPC (that I can really relate to). I really REALLY enjoy the conversation, every single dialogue is filled with [SOUL], as expected from BigMood / Sigmaraven, obviously. I didn’t expect the plot twist; and the outro is superb.
Total Score: 16/20
Results
| Category | Darr | Rivian | Loog | Levin | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gameplay | 7 | 8 | 8 | 7 | 30 |
| Presentation | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 16 |
| Story | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 19 |
| Total | 16 | 17 | 16 | 16 | 65 |