Ain't Ultimate 3D something?

Hepolite really makes good use of the myriad features of Ultimate 3D in this game, with lush terrain, organic-looking models, and generally smooth animations. The texture and model detail is something you might find in a typical PS2 game, but the animations only wedge the characters' appearance into the uncanny valley, where things look too realistic to be stylized, but not realistic enough for people to recognize it as a living creature. This is mostly apparent in the cutscenes, which, despite having the cinematic quality of the PS2 generations (their lips even move!), show the characters' faces in action, which looks like an alien combination of mechanical motion and organic grace.

I expect no more from a game made with Game Maker; though Ultimate 3D is an amazing tool with huge potential, the work that has to go into making realistic animations is one of the primary factors that drove up development team sizes and cost as proprietary games became more and more complex. An indie developer cannot be expected to fully animate past the uncanny valley; the fact that Hepolite even reached the uncanny valley is a credit to his skills. The world you can explore in this game is vivid, lush, and detailed, and my frame rate never dropped even once (though I have yet to try this on an older computer). This game is rather unique in the regard that it is styled after a PS2 adventure game, and not in the Super NES level that is typical on Yoyogames.

Now, regarding the sound, I must argue that it is all very high-quality, but not exactly tuned to my preferences. I was impressed that there was voice acting at all, and it was well-acted, but the sound was too low and I could barely make out what they were saying (glad there were subtitles). My brother, who started watching me play after I got halfway through, thought the protagonist's voice didn't suit a dragon very well, but I myself don't mind that much.

The music is in a nice high-quality format, and greatly enriches the world. It is not, however, very memorable, but extremely ambient. You won't really pick out any letimotifs or recurring themes in the music to hum casually; the music is just there. This may be for the better in a game like this, where memorable music might be distracting, but I'll leave it to the individual player to decide for himself. I'll say this: the music is not bad.

The gameplay consists of exploring a world as a young dragon and fighting the occasional spider of varying degrees of gigantism. It is thrilling to glide, climb, and hop around the landscape, and I really appreciate the smoothness of this aspect. While the controls for the platforming and exploration segments are about as good as you can get, the combat actions are severely lacking. The final boss (a giant spider about twice your size) is not defeated by any sort of skills, but by lucking out when the spider gets wedged between you and the wall, with its face towards the wall. The other enemies are defeated by tapping one of the attack buttons randomly, and are not really any significant threat. The real appeal in this game is in going forward to see what comes next, not the thrill in defeating enemies. This doesn't have to be a bad thing, but I suggest that if the game will become more combat-oriented as the story progresses, the combat actions should be revised to allow for greater depth.

If you haven't played this game, you might want to stop reading now in case of spoilers, though there isn't any super-surprising revelation that would really ruin the experience. The young dragon sets out, armed with a necklace that is SUPPOSED to let him talk to his father at great distances, but the only time he tries to use it ends in failure. He crosses a river, flies through a cave, descends a mountain, and navigates a forest, learning new move sets to negotiate the terrain and the scattered enemies. Eventually, he gets kidnapped by these weird bipedal lizard things, and must escape. He kills one of his captors in a cutscene, and you are able to defeat the other laughably easily by spamming your fire-breath. His wing is now injured, so he is unable to glide as he could before. I found this slightly disappointing, as gliding was pretty fun. He then goes back the way he came, but a cave floor collapses, leaving him stranded in a different part of the cave. He then finds a cavernous chamber where he learns to go to destroy certain rocks with fireballs, and suddenly a giant spider appears. Upon defeating this spider, you are notified that you have beat the game.

Because this is a work in progress, I don't think this is all the story was meant to be, especially with the long cutscene at the beginning introducing elements that weren't developed. Provided this game is continuing to be developed, I'd say things are going in the right direction. Overall, I highly recommend this game, just to show you how powerful Game Maker can be when you use the right DLLs. I hope this game will inspire people to try new things with Game Maker, but with the proviso that they don't adhere too rigidly to the PS2 adventure game formula, and rather explore new ideas. Congratulations, Hepolite, for making the most of the tools at your disposal to bring us this imaginative and beautiful game!