RPGM - Completed - The Djinn Chronicles: Erenon [v1.07.012 - Beta] [Black Hood Games]

This game barely has any content.
Almost all the dev time is going towards porting D&D 5e into RPGM
D&D on RPGM is terrible. much worse than RPGM default system.

There are also multiple aspects where things got reworked from 5e D&D in a bad way.
For example you only get XP for killing bosses. Something that neither D&D nor RPGM condones.
Only XP for bosses results in utterly miserable experience

The game does not care about the player's time at all.
For example, to skip 1 time slot I need to:
esc, enter, up, enter, enter, enter, enter

I need to repeat the above 3 times in a row (21 clicks total) to go from morning to night.
Which I need to do because the inn will only allow you to rent a room and go to sleep at night. (which takes more clicks)
And when that is done, the game forces you to walking simulator to the spot where you must return your inn room key.

In a normal game I click on the inn keeper in the morning. I am told "sleep? yes/no". I click yes.
fadeout and suddenly its the next morning. 2 clicks to skip a day.

overall this game is a pass

Way too much efforts required, for no rewards, is how I'd sum this game up.

The idea of rarely getting any exp, is absolutely ridiculous when the game has all RPG mechanics needed to do so.

As a result, it ends up taking you even longer to reach a level at which you can stand a chance in some combats.

The events makes no sense, when you seem to be entirely unable to succeed even the easy even (seems to a result set, without any check.)

The amount of "action" the mc get, is ridiculously low considering the amount of time you've got to do things in that game.

The renders are ok, but just barely.

As long as the dev continues with his idea of virtually never gaining exp, I can not recommend this game.

I ended up extracting the pictures to see if there's anything worse the trouble, and I can safely say, there is not.

A shame, as the story was on the interesting side.

Updated Review for v1.07.012

Update: After reading that development on this is already ending and the devs are moving on to a different game, I'm moving this down a star.

The Djinn Chronicles takes a lot of inspiration from Dungeons and Dragons. Combat is based off a dice system, where the damage you deal is a result of a rolled number plus anything that may factor in. You don't level up by fighting monsters, but rather by completing certain quests and defeating certain bosses. There's stat rolls/checks. Lots of randomized loot from killing mobs and such. I think this part works well for RPGM.

My biggest problem is that there's a general lack of depth and complexity with pretty much everything outside of combat. Characters are very shallow, the MC kinda sucks, the few quests I did don't have much going on with them, and even the map designs leave a bit to be desired. Whether the dialogue is rushed, placeholder, or genuinely amateur, I couldn't tell you. It just isn't good.

The game presents itself as a very open ended "go off and explore the wrold!" style of RPG. This system relies on the game/world being compelling enough for you to want to go and do that. The issue is, there is literally nothing making me want to explore this world. I don't care about any of these characters. I don't care about the MC. I don't care about any of it. Why? Because the game isn't giving me a reason to.

There's a moment where you're introduced to one of your new companions and proceed to have a conversation getting to know them. But instead of us actually seeing that, it gets immediately off-screened and we are given a quick summary from a narrator? Like why suck any semblance of life out of the game like that? That feeling about sums up the game in general.

One other thing to mention is while the DnD style combat can be cool, it's ruined by what feels like literally 40% of your parties attacks missing. This can often completely ruin fights, forcing you to reload.

The game had some potential, but seeing as development on this is ending, it looks like that potential will not be reached. There are better lewd RPGs you can spend time on.

I give five stars despite the demo being quite short because I believe that the game has great potential:
- the 3D characters are good and I like the variety of poses
- renders are pretty good but I think they should be full-screen
- I like RPGs and the game is a good one
- I like the illumination of the maps and the atmosphere
- I didn't understand much of the story but it seems pretty solid, I'm eager to see what's coming next
- the devs are pretty fast in fixing reported bugs and I think this is a very important thing