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POWER TRIP
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By Solosoft Studios
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"The intense 1 tale of a small military troupe2 seeking to find the truth about a massacre of immense proportion3, which destroyed any chance of a peace treaty between the east and west hemisphere4. A
great plot5 filled with ideological drama6, chakra related fun7 and very deep messages.
8"
1 False
2 True
3 True
4 True
5 False
6 False
7 False
8 False
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PRESENTATION
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Graphics
Most of them are pretty good, but they occasionally lapse into mediocrity (though they never get *bad*). There are a lot of
pictures used in the intro, a lens-flare effect when you're in the desert town, shadows cast in the castle (but nowhere else
), and a lot of other little touches like that. The CBS / CMS are modern looking, shiny, and have interchangeable skins. The
main characters are all Chrono Trigger-style, and the NPCs are taller than average... there's no RTP here at all. So far, so
good. Except that, despite them looking pretty, the maps are really boring - the palette consists of Brown and Yellowy-Brown,
they're too blocky to look natural, they're repetitive as hell AND they're huge. Walking around a massive town trying to find
a certain house which you have no way of knowing the location of gets tiring pretty quickly, and is even less fun when the
town in question is simply differing shades of yellow.
Monsters are all really obvious rips, mostly from the Breath of Fire games. And, when I said "Chrono Trigger Style" earlier,
I meant that the playable characters are: Crono with blue hair, Crono with yellow hair, and Crono with a beard. All the
soldiers are taken directly from Chrono Trigger, but some have red bits instead of blue bits, which means they're from the
kingdom of Badguyville, I think. Oh, and both the warring castles use the exact same chipset (Vector from FF6), so it took me
three viewings of the interminable intro to realise that they weren't two different rooms in the same castle. That and I
wasn't really paying attention (you'll see why soon enough).
Music & Sound Effects
This is one of those soundtracks that's so concerned with sounding serious that it never makes any impression. Very slow with
lots of 'woo-ooo-woo-ooo' noises and mournful requiems for a dying age blah blah etc. I vaguely recognise a few of them from
every other pretentious RPGmaker project, I think they originally come from FrontMission but I can't be bothered checking.
There are obviously a lot used in the customised menu & battle systems, but I can't remember many outside of them, except for
the laser-thingies used in the intro and occasional explosions.
Originality
Includes everything from Chrono Trigger rips to Chrono Trigger edits to very, very obvious Chrono Trigger edits. And some
Breath of Fire stuff. But most of it's original and blah blah I totally lack enthusiasm for this piece of crap but I played
it so I might as well review it.
Extra stuff
If you ignore the intro and everything that occurs more than 15 minutes after the intro, it's pretty good.
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STORYLINE & CHARACTERS
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Storyline
I liked The Matrix Reloaded. So, when I criticise something for being long-winded, incoherent and pretentious, it has
to be pretty fucking long-winded, incoherent and pretentious. Say hello to the intro of Power Trip!
In a perfect world, there is peace, prosperity and happiness.
With prosperity comes evolution.
Evolution creates revolution and controversy.
With controversy, there is war and pain.
OK, when did prosperity encourage evolution? Isn't it the other way around? Never mind, I'm sure it'll all make sense
later.
No longer is the world perfect.
;_;
When technology takes over, such sports as golf, hockey or tennis will be removed.
I'm picturing the NHL sending a cyborg back in time to destroy SkyNet. It's infinitely more interesting than anything in Power Trip.
When industry takes over, castles and kingdoms are replaced by corporations.
Extinction comes into play, and we start again...
A perfect world.
The eternal cycle of perfect world to golf-free society to corporate state and back again occurs in all major
mythologies, and I'm shocked Joseph Campbell never once mentioned it.
The path is a never ending circle which we will follow
once and again, falling blindly into infinity
NOTHING
Existance started with nothing.
But after the short path of nothingness repeating into infinity...
SOMETHING
All existance is based on something.
Something broke the nothingness and creation began.
All existance is based on something.
Something broke the nothingness and creation began.
Pull the string! Pull the string! Life has begun!
Into infinity.
Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into
infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into
infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into
infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into
infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into
infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into
infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into
infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into
infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity. Into infinity.
Sorry, I didn't quite catch you!
Nothing breaks the something, and something breaks back down into the simple basic nothing.
This path seems endless...
As does the introduction
But if nothing created something, there must be a break in existance.
A break...
No longer is the world perfect...
Wow. What a piece of shit.
If I said the rest of the plot involved a young soldier and his plucky comrades involved in a war between two kingdoms, one
of whom may have revived a dread destructive force known as 'magic', would you be at all surprised? They never even
touch on anything mentioned in the incredibly long (I clocked it at 17 hours, but I might be slightly off) introduction, and
the closest thing I could find to 'very deep messages' was a bunch of NPCs who told me that war was bad and fighting is
wrong. Here's a hint to all aspiring RPG developers: If you have NPCs telling your heroes that fighting is, in fact, a bad
thing, then forcing the player to fight stuff is sort of hypocritical. You know, just a bit. The demo ends before any
more plot is revealed, but if the rest is the same winning combination of horrible clichés and Philosophy For Dummies, then
we're onto a real winner here!
Characters
I couldn't even remember their names while I was playing the damn game. I'd call them ciphers, except they have nothing to
cipher, although they occasionally say something bad about "The Government". Nothing specific, just that "The Government" is
probably a bad thing. I don't know about you, but I'm convinced.
The only character who stands out is a guy called Barton, partly because he has a beard, but mostly because he speaks in an
accent that's meant to be either Scottish, Australian, Alcoholic, or a combination of the above.
"You've 'lways be'n so damn paranoid.
Don't worry, we'll b' fine. There ain't nothin'
in this cave the three of us can't handle..."
All his dialogue is like that. It crosses the line from 'characterful' to 'I have to read this at least twice to figure out
what the fucker is saying', but he does get a chance to impart some 'very deep messages':
"DAMNED governments! I cannot stand 'em."
Bastards eliminated golf! WITH COMPUTERS!
Cut Scenes
The intro, while extremely long and unaware of how stupid it sounds, at least looks sort of pretty with lots of pans across
continents, tinted screens and a excellent choreography. Then it immediately goes downhill as we witness 'a massacre of epic
proportions', which is just a bunch of blue soldiers standing totally motionless while a bunch of red soldiers stand totally
motionless and fire white beams at them.
The rest of the cutscenes are just conversations between the characters, which are really reminiscent of the Tim Robbins puppet's speech about corporations in Team America. A lot of poses are used, so they're not as boring as
they could be, but a bunch of fictional characters with no personality (and a speech impediment) talking about THE DAMNED
GOVERNMENT and how it... is a government... is not very interesting regardless of how well animated it is.
Originality
It's a totally generic RPG story with less-than-average character development. The stuff about the mystery of infinity or THE
DAMNED GOVERNMENT has nothing to do with the plot; it's just a failed attempt at looking smart. Then again, it might
have something to do with the plot, since the demo is only about an hour long and nothing happens. In either case, I don't
think Solosoft are going to bother finishing this anyway (see 'gameplay')
Script
Competent but not very interesting. Barton stands out because of his zany accent, but it's such a pain to read that I feel
like taking marks off.
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GAMEPLAY
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Event Programming
There's a lot of fancy event work here, but, ultimately, that's all it is: Fancy event work. It doesn't add any new
dimensions to the gameplay, and serves no purpose other than proving Solosoft Studios (which I suspect is actually a bunch of
high school kids named after Final Fantasy characters and not, in fact, a software development studio) can do fancy event
work. Yes, coding your own menu and combat systems that don't bug is very impressive, but they're clunky, horrible to
navigate, and nowhere near as flexible as the default ones. The menu system even requires you to link to the main menu in
order to manage equipment, so it's even more pointless than normal. There are a few bugs in the 2nd dungeon, but
nothing fatal.
Fun Factor
I had a decent time in the first dungeon, but everything before and after was a total entertainment vacuum.
Combat
Here's why I'm happy that RM2k3 has been cracked: We'll see a drastic reduction in crap like this.
This is an RM2k game with side-view combat. It uses a custom-made combat system, which does its job, but isn't anywhere near
is streamlined, fast or easy to use as the default one. But, gee, now that RM2k3's out, the novelty of having a side-view
battle system is kaput, and even "SIDE VIEW BATTLES = BEST THING EVER" people will have to admit that the combat in Power Trip is shit.
You can can fight / defend / item / skill as per normal. Every character has an amazing ONE skill at their disposal, which
costs 1MP to use (of about 20) and is stupidly powerful. Using items requires a really fucking annoying sub-menu, but the
combat is so easy I never bothered. There's also a command called "Kanzen", which does precisely jack and shit. COLOUR ME
IMPRESSED! There's no tactics, no challenge, and the combat system itself is so shallow (yet ludicrously complex) that it
couldn't even allow for either. It offers nothing new, innovative or different, and is inferior to the default combat
in every possible way except for looks. Why does it exist? To prove SoloSoft Studios can do side-view combat. They can, but
it sucks horribly and isn't any fun. Let's give 'em a round of applause, folks!
Dungeons
There are two dungeons - one is good, one is shitty.
The good dungeon is right after the intro - it's the usual 'escape through the sewers' deal, but there's a lot of puzzles and
interactivity involved. Instead of pushing crates onto switches, you have to drag them along certain kinds of tile, so that adds a dimension that isn't
usually seen in RPGmaker games. There's also a few logic puzzles and switches that need to be pressed simultaneously - it's
like something out of Zelda. I was really hoping the rest of the game would follow suit and actually concern itself with
being a game instead of a series of terrible cutscenes. After I got out I ended up in a town discussing THE DAMNED
GOVERNMENT, but the feeling was nice while it lasted.
Then there's a cave. An astonishingly boring, oddly rectangular cave. The idea is that the cave has upper and lower levels,
and you need to switch between the two constantly to find the way out, since not all the rooms on each level join up with
each other. Sounds good, but the execution is horrible - firstly, it's really, really short and contains nothing except
wandering monsters, so the premise doesn't allow you to really explore anything. Secondly, the event work is buggy - trying
to navigate the rooms in a way that the game doesn't want you to will usually end up with you being teleported to a random
location nowhere near the place you want to go. When you eventually get out, the game ends, the Ewoks start singing and I
high-five the force ghost of Obi-Wan and say "Sa-weet!".
Puzzles & Minigames
Like I said, there are a few good puzzles in the first dungeon. Then it's completely abandoned for repetitive monster fights
and meandering, pointless cutscenes.
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OVERALL
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Power Trip is a technical exercise designed to show off how smart the guys in Solosoft Studios are by having really pretty
custom systems and a lot of vague rambling about the meaning of existence (which they can't spell). As a game, it's a waste of time.
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