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| Creator | Jopettajah |
| Engine | FE8 |
| Download | Here |
| Score | 38/80 |
| Rank | 16th |
| FEU Link | Here |
Reviews
Judge 1: Darrman
Gameplay: 6/10
The premise of Baseless Experience is to throw away the notion of statistics. Everyone has zero in every stat aside from HP, and the stat screen has had the stats cleared away in favour of having more skills. The entry revolves entirely around skills. All units on both sides have large amounts of skills, and failure to heed them will result in unit death. Even though it is easy to lose units, it’s not particularly punishing: I lost two units on my winning run and still took the boss down without too much trouble.
Some mechanics changes appear to have been made behind the scenes. As far as I could figure out weapon weight increased enemy AS since negative AS doesn’t exist in GBAFE, but attempts did end to miscalculations here. I do dislike skill bloat, and the whole premise of the entry is having skills everywhere. Still, the idea of disposing of statistics almost completely is interesting.
Presentation: 3/5
The character portraits look good, the music sounds good, and the map looks good. Nothing here blows me away, but nothing here actively annoys me.
Story: 0/5
There is no story in this entry. The only dialogue is the creator congratulating the player on victory at the end.
Total Score: 9/20
Judge 2: Rivian
Gameplay: 7/10
I enjoyed the fresh skills on the playable units. While there wasn’t much incentive to push, charging enemies shake things up a bit. Each class also comes with fairly powerful skills that require some consideration. The final boss showing with 10 skills was pretty funny, but she “failforced” off my designated tank after a miss and immediately murdered my backliner, which was especially funny. Pretty solid map. I should also mention the central gimmick of removing all visible base stats. This wasn’t an issue for me because I don’t have enough brain cells to count to two digits. I do wish the hack went even further and removed the total attack and hit as well for maximum confusion.
Presentation: 3/5
Pretty solid map, mugs and palettes. I can’t think of anything else to say, so here is a sentence to fill the space and make this part of the review look more detailed.
Story: 0/5
There was none here. I will, however, mention the mysterious generic great knight with the same class and skills as the playable great knight. Who is he? What is he up to? Does he have a lifelong rivalry with playable great knight? These are things I need to know.
Total Score: 10/20
Judge 3: Legend of Loog
Gameplay: 6/10
The gimmick of this chapter is that your units have no stats, gaining all power from their items and their skills. These skills average around 4 per unit and introduce a decent amount of complexity to the gameplay, as you must exploit these to secure an edge against the enemy. The map keeps you on your toes, but I mostly felt that you were incentivized to take the map slow due to this lack of straightforward power in your units. There are a few units that you can use with strong enemy phase skills to help counteract this, and the lord’s suite of stat boosting skills when adjacent to an ally help significantly here, especially with the boss.
However, I would say that at times, the glut of skills brings the chapter down. 1-3 skills per enemy tend to exacerbate this feeling. GBA is just not a great avenue for them in comparison to modern FE, since you can’t just check skills on the map. This necessitates frequent checks on enemies, which drags out the pace of the map a bit. Still, the chapter is an enjoyable experience overall.
Presentation: 3/5
The portraits chosen are generally solid (the gorilla guy is a highlight), and there are some unique skill icons created for skills in this project. Also, the first page of the statscreen has been rearranged to emphasize the many skills that are necessary to track. The music was well-chosen, also. However, there are some noticeably lacking areas. The water on the map doesn’t move due to a lack of tile animations, and both the statscreen and title screen are just FE8’s. Overall, the presentation is solid but could use a little more effort.
Story: 0/5
There’s no story here due to time constraints, so there’s nothing to say on this.
Total Score: 9/20
Judge 4: Levin64
Gameplay: 7/10
What if your skills become one of your core calculations for combat? This hack does that in an interesting way using stat manipulating skills, like Stances, Oaths, Hones, Blows, and several other custom skills that directly influence combat. I dislike skill bloat, yet since now skills do ‘replace’ stats, I think it’s an acceptable change. The flow of the map itself isn’t too demanding, it has some highs and lows.
Presentation: 3/5
Portraits and battle palettes are clean (also hell yeah gorilla warrior ooga booga), custom skill icons and custom stat screen too (to facilitate the new gimmick). Music is also a nice change, I love the music change after you engage the boss the first time. Map is fine, but the water animation is gone…?
Story: 0/5
No story due to time constraints, I see. Yet, some flavor texts are dropped here and there for the characters and the enemies; specifically the boss. I relate so much with the mage (unfinished project and the name… did you doxx me or something?) But then, those don’t really help on this part of the scoring, so… alas.
Total Score: 10/20
Results
| Category | Darr | Rivian | Loog | Levin | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gameplay | 6 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 26 |
| Presentation | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 12 |
| Story | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 9 | 10 | 9 | 10 | 38 |