 |
|
| Creator | Obni |
| Engine | FE8 |
| Download | Here |
| Score | 37/80 |
| Rank | 19th |
| FEU Link | Here |
Reviews
Judge 1: Darrman
Gameplay: 4/10
Dark Cells has some interesting ideas, but it fumbles the execution. It’s a prison break: kill the warden, and use highly limited door keys to see what hides inside the cells. With one cell being mandatory to get the good ending, this means the player can open one cell of their choice. Each cell has a different reward, but aside from the telegraphed good ending cell, there are no hints as to what you will find. The chapter is initially unforgiving, with no units consistently one-rounding enemies, and nor are there any particularly bulky units. Skills can be stacked to provide +6 defence on units, which generally alleviates most damage. Many reinforcements pour in, which encourage the player to hurry effectively.
However, things start falling apart near the boss. Once the master seals begin to roll in, an Astria-like general starts chasing. However, he is vulnerable and can be killed by promoted magic users, removing any time pressure. The boss is also dangerous. If there was a Hoplon Guard, I missed it, and Astra means Nihil is required to fight him. My sage with Nihil died to a 12% crit with no mitigation, and I was forced to throw bodies at the boss until he died. For that boss fight, I have to dock this entry several marks.
Presentation: 2/5
The mugs are a bit messy and some of them have glitched mouth frames. The Jugdral music on player phase is a favourite, but enemy phase battle just uses vanilla music. The map appearance is fine, and it also uses a cutscene map where the story needs one. The “Fall of Renais” title card and “Defeat O’Neill” objective are vanilla, and should have been replaced with accurate ones.
Story: 2/5
In some ways this entry did try to put effort into the story, but it could do with some more work. The chapter is set on a prison island off the coast of Yorkshire, the name of a kingdom, and proceeds to give details about Dark Prison and how nobody could escape. Two prisoners were ordered by a corrupt guard to fight to the death for his entertainment, but the guard is then killed by another prisoner and an escape is launched.
Two endings are available, which is interesting. I earned the good ending. There is an attempt to build the world: a lot of country names are dropped and each character has a full name in their description. It’s mentioned at the end of the good ending that this is a prequel to a full hack, with no name given. However, the text needs a proofread, with typos ever-present and punctuation often lacking. Most bosses have no quotes at all and almost all player units just use the same “I must retreat” line. The occasional emoji and asterisked swear also take away from things. There is potential here, but another proofreading pass is desperately needed.
Total Score: 8/20
Judge 2: Rivian
Gameplay: 6/10
The map presents interesting options where there are many doors, but only 2 keys. They either give out a hoard of powerful items or units, and there weren’t any doors I regretted opening. There is however a clearly ‘correct’ door to open as it gives the good ending. I got both endings across multiple attempts. The early turns felt quite brutal as the party seemed ill equipped to deal with enemies, especially as thief was almost complete deadweight. The promoted later joiners do make things much smoother. Pavise on generals was incredibly frustrating (even if it is vanilla behaviour in FE8) as it dragged out some turns where only 2 of my units could do damage. I didn’t feel like it was possible to get the good ending cell while outrunning the general anti-turtle, but if slaying the general was intentional, I also felt it was difficult actually doing so due to pavise and low damage on the magic users before he destroys someone with a killer lance. I think the map flow was good overall but there were some rough patches.
Presentation: 3/5
I like the outside island view of the whole prison in the start event. The map is an impressive depiction of a prison. Combat palettes are solid. There is some mug frame glitches and chapter title and objective are unchanged. The title screen also seems glitched.
Story: 3/5
Believe it or not, it’s a prison break story. It does feel like a bit of let down that the bad ending is just a tutorial box, I’d had hoped for some tragic character interactions at least. In good ending does expand on each character slightly with some interesting reveals. There’s also a good chunk grammar errors which I usually wouldn’t notice.
Total Score: 12/20
Judge 3: Legend of Loog
Gameplay: 4/10
The initial stages of the map are problematic, with many enemies around who can give your four units a lot of grief. Once two prepromotes show up, you can make decent forward progress thanks to some of the skills you have access to allowing you to EP effectively (Inspiration, Rally Speed, and Drive Def). In theory, choosing what door to open with your 2 keys is interesting, though one is heavily pointed to so you can get the good ending.
However, the map is generally a bit of a slog. It’s very large, there’s a Bolting Sage who makes the center sketchy, and there are multiple General bosses with Great Shield, which can drag out an already long map. The final boss exacerbates this, as only a couple ranged units do good damage without getting blasted by Astra triggering. This requires frequent Rescue Drops to avoid him switching to Tomahawk, which adds to the tedium. Along with the high presence of proc skills/critrates/shaky hitrates, the chapter felt like it needed more testing to ensure that it was enjoyable from start to finish.
Presentation: 2/5
The cutscene eventing at the start was the main highlight for me, and the battle palettes are also fairly nice. However, many of the new portraits have broken blink frames or palettes that look off. Additionally, the map music is inconsistent, with there being some vanilla map music that immediately follows custom themes, which can be a bit jarring. Also, the chapter name and objective text is unchanged from FE8’s Prologue chapter, which makes the objective more confusing than it needed to be.
Story: 2/5
While the premise of a prison break is initially interesting, and the characters are mostly solid, the litany of typos plaguing the script really take away from the experience. This makes it difficult to take the story seriously, which is unfortunate because there is potential here. There are multiple endings, but the good ending is heavily hinted towards, so most people will probably get that one.
Total Score: 8/20
Judge 4: Levin64
Gameplay: 5/10
A prison break chapter! The chapter starts with 4 units that are really lacking, but then 2 other units join 2 turns later. Every unit has their own skills to help ease the difficulty. Early on, the units don’t really do much and don’t really take much from the enemy. As the later units join, the chapter gets slightly easier. You only have two keys to open cells, which is a bit tricky; but there is one cell being alluded to as important, so in the end, you have one mandatory cell and one extra cell (which I assume is only a storage cell that helps the party).
The whole chapter feels slow, I have to play carefully and the anti-turtle can still be defeated with a tint of luck; very unreliable. Great Shield/Pavise on generals are annoying, though. The final boss can also be cheesed with magic units, as the final boss initially equips a 1 range weapon. I didn’t dare to make him switch to his ranged weapon due to the difference between his stats and my party’s stats. I’d say the chapter needs a lot more testing so the experience can be smoother.
Presentation: 2/5
The intro cutscene is nice, yet some portraits have glitchy frames. Some of the music choices are fine, but the chapter card and the objective is still vanilla. The title screen looks glitchy too, from what I’ve seen.
Story: 2/5
Prison break is nice, but the typos are way too many until the point where I just want the conversation to be done. The wrap-up is nice, but again; the typos are the main offender here, which takes away lots of enjoyment here. The good ending is heavily hinted, and although I appreciate that, it shoos away some of the surprises here and there.
Total Score: 9/20
Results
| Category | Darr | Rivian | Loog | Levin | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gameplay | 4 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 19 |
| Presentation | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 9 |
| Story | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 9 |
| Total | 8 | 12 | 8 | 9 | 37 |