I wanna talk about Master of the Wind some more.
The game's setting is quite detailed. It's not a medieval fantasy, because the world of Solest reminds me more of Renaissance Europe more than medieval Europe. (the setting of most old tyme RPGs.) What is unusual is that the Evil Empire in MOTW is . . . already destroyed. The world is at relative peace. The Gallian Empire (Not to be confused with the Gallia of Valkyria Chronicles) has been destroyed for so long, most of the races of the world live together without fear of oppression. This makes the game a little unique; usually, prejudice in fantasy settings is always something like elf against dwarf, or vampire against werewolf, or human against non-human. ("The only good non-human is a dead non-human." So sayeth Garithos from Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne . . . . . . DOES ANYONE REMEMBER THE WARCRAFT GAMES PRIOR TO WOW!?!?!?!?) Here . . . all of the races get along. The first town is populated with humans, elves, orcs, goblins, kobolds, fairies, and even reanimated skeletons. Usually, undead characters in fantasy works that aren't vampires are mindless automatons. Not so here.
If the Empire is dead, where does the threat come in? You see, the villains of the game are trying to reinstate Gallian values by force, values of ethnocentrism and bigotry towards non-humans and anyone who hasn't sworn fealty to Arcadius, the god favored by Gallia. The game makes a big issue about prejudice, and while lots of writers (myself included) have spoken out against the ills and dangers of prejudice, it bears repeating again and again. Some Anvils Need To Be Dropped, remember? The game explores other issues, and overall, I have no complaints about the narrative.
I do, however, have an issue with the battles. This may just be a limitation of RPGMaker XP, but the battles, particularly the boss battles, seem to be more about luck than strategy. There are times that when I did a boss fight, I got trounced in like three turns. Then, I'll reload, do the same exact fight without leveling up, use the same exact tactics . . . and I'll win! The AI often just picks its attacks at random, and sometime, I've won only out of dumb luck. Your stats don't go up much when you level up, and it takes a long time to level up, too, so while that option is viable, I just don't have the patience. I'm at arc IV now, and I'm stuck on a boss fight with no clue of what to do. I can't find a walkthrough for that part of the game anywhere. I'm either gonna have to devote a whole day just to level up my party just to get anywhere from where I'm at.
Other than that one flaw, I've been having a good time thus far. Most of the music picked for this game is good, too.
