RPGM - Dezato Wasteland [v0.0.6] [Midnight-A]

I wanted to like it because of the girls and the setting, but even with the admirable editing the Rpgm clunkiness kills it for me. The world is nice but too big with a bad quest tracker and no tp, combat is meh. The writing can be good or average at times.
If this was a VN with a more character driven story it'd be a gem

[v0.0.5]

I want to like this game. A lot. Character designs are great, visuals on the town, the UI, and overworld are great. Gyon, which is designed to be a large and confusing city, manages to be that, while being pretty straightforward once you figure out the town layout. I like the main character and I like the theme of the game overall. It's all very high quality and high effort.

But, I'm always getting kicked down every time I really start liking the game. While not as bad other RPGM games of this kind, there's still some of that RPGM jank around, breaking the game down if you happened to wander in to the wrong area at the wrong time and sequence breaking the game and possibly bricking the run, or a monster not taking it's turn in combat and soft locking the game. Character personalities are very bland and I found there wasn't really any trait to latch on to with any character. Even while fast forwarded, combat is slow, meticulous, and often times encounters feel too saturated.

Worst of all, and the main reason why this game is a 3/5 is how bad the quest tracker is. This is the kind of game where you pick up 3-7 quests in one batch, then go out and try to do as many as you can in one go, so little details given to you through dialogue is easily lost. A good quest tracker would help here, but this one almost worthless. The quest tracker would you where you need to get rent from a guy, but it turns out you need to be in the area at night, and he's in an alley, not even in a house that he's paying rent for. Or the main quest of the game telling you to "find a village far away" and the quest doesn't even tell you which direction you should be looking in the gigantic desert overworld map that you move veeerrry slowly in. Or a quest telling you to return to the NPC you picked the quest up from, and I don't even have the faintest clue on how to find her again. All of this leads to so much time wasted wandering around trying to find out where you need to be. If this quest tracker issue alone was resolved, I feel this game would be a 4.5/5 (5/5 rounded up).

TL;DR: A fantastically high effort high quality RPGM game marred by a quest tracker written and/or translated so poorly, you'll have no idea what you're supposed to be doing, which makes you waste a bunch of time wandering around.

I think there's a really good base here, but it definitely needs some work.


Very similar to the first 2 fallout games in that it's a zany post apocolypse setting, the dialogue has personality for sure and the renders are v good for koikatsu(which I'm not usually a fan of). Combat is fine, which is more than I can say for most rpgm games, and I like the ui a lot. It is a bit buggy, clicking to move during transitions to cutscenes can break the game, and this game desperately needs sound. A soundtrack, more ambience, anything. A final minor point is that the English isn't perfect and it needs some editing.

It's rough around the edges but shows a lot of potential, and if the developer can improve these aspects and make good on initial promise I think this can be a v good game.

Updated Review for v0.0.6

Returning to this game over a year later, I'm sad to say it's losing me a bit. In a way it feels a little criminal to give this three stars, since in the world of lewd RPGM games specifically it's really not the worst I've played. But my issue with this game is that it's coming up just short in most aspects, stopping it from reaching that "good" status. After sinking some hours into it, I ended with a feeling of boredom more than anything else.

There is effort going into the game for sure. The style almost feels reminiscent of Fallout games. Post apocalyptic setting aside, it's a bit more exploration and quest driven as opposed to constantly moving through a big story. You have an overarching quest that even pushes you to explore essentially. There's a nice amount of attention to detail in the world, and just a lot of little details in general that all add up into a fun experience. Gets you immersed pretty easily. I have no problems with the setting.

So the world does inspire you to want to delve into it, but once you do is where the problems start appearing. The writing is the first area that falls short. In a way it seems like the dialogue is intentionally dialed back in favor of the RPG stuff, but I think there just isn't enough of it because of that. Girls have an affection system, and the only time you really sit down and interact with them is after triggering events from reaching certain levels of it (dislike having to spam gifts btw). These events often play at as little, admittedly cute, dates where you either have some lame flirting or a lewd scene and usually ends right after. None of the characters go deep enough for me to really be attached to them.

You really spend most of your time doing quests. Problem there is even ones that could be interesting end up feeling, for the most part, like filler. Go kill animals in the mine. Go deliver this letter. Go talk to these three guys. Go kill these bandits. etc etc. Maybe you'll get a cool reward or find some nice loot? Nope. Here take some money and find ANOTHER consumable. I could get past it if the quests had some interesting writing going into them, but they mostly don't. I'm going to use one of the main quests as an example. You end up in an underground android base to find a code. After bringing your party into it, the MC decides "actually I'm gonna do this solo you guys just stay here" which turns it into a stealth mission basically. Since if you get caught by robots, now you're in a solo fight and just get your ass kicked. You run past all the patrols, end up getting the code, and then walk out. That's it? That's it. Nothing to find, no boss to beat, no lore to hint at anything going on with these strange robots, or just anything that would peak my excitement really. Though to be fair the very end of the quest has a sort of tease that gets you thinking. It's not 100% bad, but most of it is boring.

As for other general parts of the game it's still the same deal. Sex scenes are short with some relatively basic animations (lots of clipping). Exploring feels kind of pointless when you can sequence break and mess up a save. The quest log often doesn't give enough detail. With how expansive the map is, it needs a fast travel. Translations aren't the best. Combat, another frequent aspect of the game, felt like a slog. I wasn't the most kitted out but with some of the better weapons, a full party, and being around level 9, bandits both slightly above and below my level are still wiping me. I suppose the solution is to spam health items? I didn't experiment too much. But there's not a ton of variety to experiment with in the first place.

I think this game really does want to be a fun RPG more than a strong narrative driven experience. I think that's great. But the RPG elements themselves are just a bit too lackluster to make up for the lack of compelling writing. The game has a really nice foundation, but that foundation really needs to be built upon in most areas.

I enjoyed playing your game and I think you have done a great job creating an immersive and engaging experience. However, there are some aspects of the game that I think can be improved. Here is my feedback:

• The game world felt empty and lifeless, even though there were many NPCs around. Maybe you can add more environmental details, sounds, or interactions to make it more lively and realistic.
• The game lacked music in the background, which made it less immersive and exciting. Maybe you can add some rock or punk metal themed songs that suit the setting of the game.
• The UI was not user-friendly and intuitive. It was hard to navigate through the menus and options, and the sound effects were annoying when switching between dialogues. Maybe you can redesign the UI to make it more simple and elegant, and use a soothing sound for the dialogues.
• There was no map or indicator to guide me through the quests or locations. I felt lost and confused most of the time. Maybe you can add a map feature or a quest tracker that shows me where to go and what to do next.
• The dialogues were hard to follow because the MC’s frame was always on the screen and the names were not clear. I could not tell who was talking at some points. Maybe you can change the MC’s frame depending on who is talking, or use different colors or fonts for the names.

On the other hand, there were also some things that I liked about the game:

• The MC was interesting and his banter with the girl was quite amusing.
• The other characters in the game had good dialogues and personalities, and the story was not bad.
• The fights were decent and challenging, but I would like to see more bosses in some areas.

I hope you find this feedback helpful and constructive. I look forward to seeing more updates and improvements on your game. Keep up the good work!