評論

• gamedeal user

  Aug 7, 2016

  Oh my God, where do I begin with Haven. I'm aware that RPG Maker games usually have a bad rep because people usually affiliate games made in RPG Maker to be complete trash because (as the traielr for the engine describes) it's so simple that a kid can use it. However I'm always open minded when I go into these titles as there have been true classics made in the engine varying from games like Corpse Party and even the surprise that was The Deed. However Haven fits into the category of what most people tend to think RPG Maker titles are affiliated with, complete trash and then some. Gameplay in Haven is the typical sort of thing you can expect for a game made in the engine. You walk around, interact with things and get into battles. Now usually the gameplay in RPG Maker games are quite hard to mess up but somehow it's messed up in this particular title. The main issue with this is that you could probably just spam the attack button and win. I remember there was a notice that came up before a boss battle saying "It's best to save here, you're probably gonna die" (litterrally that's what it says, I'll be talking about those messages a bit later.) So I saved and guess what happened? I spammed the attack button and I won. "Designed for RPG veterans" my a*s. Now I also want to talk about the messages. One of the games main promotions that it features is that there's "No handholding" that is compeltely false. This game tells you absolutely everything. It reccommends points where you save, litterrally saying along the lines of "This is a challenging battle, may I reccommend you save." Also not only that, there's a 3rd screen that appears after a battle saying "This is here only to prevent a crash." Usually when this happens in other games, the screen is converted into something else. This is common practicie among huge developers as well, they take a glitch and then make it into it's own unique thing. A great example is the Creeper from MineCraft. The Creeper actually came from a bug when the develoeprs were designing the pig, so instead of covereing the design up saying "Error, this thing wasn't meant to load" they actually converted it into something new for the game. That's what could have easily happened here, you could have added in a new aspect to the gameplay with the menu or you could have made the player obtain loot and that menu could show it. Anything could have done, not just a piece of text saying "This is here to prevent crashes." The story is both the best and the worst part of the game. For most RPG and Adventure game titles, the story is what carries the game, it gives the player a reason to continue. Now Haven has a pretty good setup for a story but the execution isn't quite there. The story is you are basically playing as the main character called Cleril and you're exploring his psyche and he's trying to explore for something I guess. He's accompanied by other personalities that he has and when put together they make up the actual person when they're actually just divided personalities helping the man actually discover something. In case you didn't realise my complaint when explaining the plot, my main issue is that it's confusing. It let's you in on the plot well enough but the the more you head into the story, it just becomes more confusing. You might be thinking that that's the main point of the story and even though it is, it should be explaining things better because I realised that the main character seemed to be all caught up with everything you needed to be. I feel like if the main plot is to explore the main psyche of a character, I should be exploring it along with him but at the start of the game, he seems to know more than I do. The graphics are sort of hard to sum up. The graphic style seems inconsistant. Now I wouldn't mind if you just kept with your primary graphic style that you were using for the characters and the environment, even though those in general look sub par, at least it would be consistant. There are these random out of place looking images that look like they were just stuck onto the screen (look at the 4th screenshot for the game as my example.) Now the sound, when the game started the sound seemed pretty good but then it took a turn southwards around 40 mins into the game when there was suddenly lyrics thrown into the music which made the music seem really out of place. If you want an idea of how out of place it seems, just imagine fighting a dragon in Skyrim and instead of having that epic music playing, replace it with the Incy Wincy Spider nursery rhyme being sung by kids. Yeah, that's how out of place it seems. It's hard to really find much to like about Haven because the majority of it is bad but when there is something good in it, it quickly disregards it and swaps it out for something bad or when there is potential for something it just seems dissappointing when it reaches the pay off. Pros + Potential for a good plot Cons - Simplistic gameplay - Handholding - Out of place messages - Confusing plot - Inconsistant graphics - Out of place music Final verdict: 1/10 My Steam Curator group: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/MellowReviews
• gamedeal user

  Aug 12, 2016

  Haven is...bizarre but not in a bad way to say the least. I played a bit of the game while it was in demo and thought it was relatively interesting so I think it was worth paying the five bucks to see how the rest of the game would go. Now whether it was worth my five bucks is kind of the point of this review by a guy with an avatar of Kurisu with a banana. I should note this review might have some mild spoilers. Haven is a RPGmaker made RPG game about Cleril who is travelling through the various parts of his mind in a war against his own subconscious. The concept in itself is enough to make it a little different from your average RPGmaker fare otherwise I probably wouldn't have considered trying this game at all. Helping Cleril are his alter egos, other figments of his mind who aid him in this war. If you haven't brushed up on your psychoanalysis terms you might want to read the opening chapter of an intro to psychology book but otherwise it's very accessible. That said I think it was really enjoyable getting to explore the mind itself. While the game isn't a 1080p AAA sexy beyond belief title I wouldn't say it's hideous, especially considering it's a game with a zero dollar budget. The art is fairly nice and hand made but some levels are more memorable than others but I wouldn't call any of them ugly. The characters and enemies designwise are actually pretty memorable parts of the game. I particularly like the design of the Alter Egos and the bosses although Cleril himself is give or take for me. The gameplay is a variety of clicking on things, solving puzzles, exploring around, and turn based RPG combat. If you're not into RPGs this more than likely won't be the game that suddenly makes you fall in love with the genre. The puzzles range in difficulty and the later puzzles will take more thinking power but most won't leave you absolutely stumped. The only exception to this would be the very first puzzle in the Hippocampus which was stumped the hell out of me. I'm not exactly sure how many sidequests there are but I did play Jester's. The Stranger's was not finished however and a message is even left in the game saying as much which is disappointing. Combat at first glance runs like any ol' turn based RPG but what makes this different is there is a skill tree system where Cleril and the alter egos can learn new skills and abilities which can change how your playstyle works. Think something like FF10's sphere grid or Digital Devil Saga's skill system but not as large. That said I do think some of the things you can get is very conditional and I never see a real need to ever use them so you'll likely be sticking to only certain skills. This does make experimentation a little interesting though for those who like to try different things. As for difficulty it definitely isn't blistering hard like a SMT title but it isn't piss easy either. You'll find some of the later bosses especially making you think a bit. There isn't a need to grind though so for those who hate grinding will enjoy this. There's even a button to have the alter egos at the same level as Cleril. You could grind if you really wanted to but I don't see the point. Haven's music is a very mixed bag. It definitely has a variety of sounds from dubstep to blues to NIN esque industrial but it doesn't always fit every instance in the game to me. I think the music after The Hippocampus tends to be better in general. The lyrics in some of the songs can also be a little distracting. Overall though the music (mostly) does what it's supposed to be doing and I guess it's better than silence. The writing seems to be one of the main points where the dev prides himself for this game. The story is definitely very philosophy driven and while I didn't necessarily agree with the arguments they were written mostly well but at times I felt like the philosophy talk makes the story confusing at times. For example there's points where all of the characters get philosophical and I find it gets confusing on what they're even talking about. As for conversations between characters they're fairly decent. The Jester ended up being my favorite character but I also came to find the rest interesting enough. That said I never felt a huge connection to any of the characters so I never felt a personal investment. It felt more like I'm an outside observer more than anything. Earlier I mentioned how The Stranger's sidequest was not complete which leads into perhaps one of my main issues with Haven. The main story is complete but everything else seems to not be. The Stranger's sidequest wasn't done and I honestly have no idea if The Bookkeeper had one and if he did I somehow missed it despite talking to him before every level. There's also a part where you learn about an alter ego that no longer is around called The Flirt that Cleril says he no longer needed. I honestly wish this character was actually in the game though although it was interesting in itself that alter egos can disappear. After battle you'll also notice the victory spoils screen says "This is just to prevent a crash." I would have rather seen the dev make use of this screen somehow either through an item system or just some kind of money system and you could buy unlockables or something. If you've noticed Haven updating several times part of that was me finding little issues here and there but the dev was extremely quick at fixing these issues. I will definitely give props to the dev for actually making sure to fix these issues so quickly and he's very approachable about any possible issues. So for all of this long winded writing written is Haven worth it? I would recommend this game. It's definitely not going to get an indie GOTY award from Geoff "Dorito Pope" Keighley but I would say it's a mostly solid title. I wish it had a little more content, achievements would've been nice, and perhaps a bit more polish wouldn't have hurt. Five bucks is fair enough to me but if you're on a budget I wouldn't say you should feel guilty about waiting for a sale. Overall it wasn't a waste of my time, I had fun, and I hope the dev learns from this and only improves from here. Don't believe some weirdo on Steam though, go play it for yourself and give your own review. Final Score: 7/10
• gamedeal user

  May 27, 2017

  Haven is an adventure RPG with a psycho-analytical plot: you have gone insane, and must find a way to regain control of your mind from various psychological structures, which have turned against you. Game progress is linear and the game takes 4 hours to complete. Battles are varied and interesting, and strategy is useful. Visuals are artsy and weird, but professionally done. You have a choice of three characters to bring with you as party members for each quest, and you may switch between them, as needed. These characters represent different aspects of your personality, and are entertaining in theory, but lack emotional depth - their primary function is to participate in constant intellectual banter. As the game progresses, there is an increase in the number of party members you can have. Each quest consists of a map in which you must make your way to the final boss, while fighting random encounters along the way. There is variety in each level and there are unexpected obstacles to your path that might take a while to solve, but nothing that will really discourage you. There are waypoints to save your progress, so you can leave the map and not have to start at the beginning. You are allowed at any time to travel back to Haven (your home base), which replenishes all stats. There is also a special room you can access that allows you to buy new skills with currency collected while on missions. All parts of this game are satisfactory, and the biggest issue to consider for your purchase is whether you appreciate the kooky artwork, and the psycho-analytical content of the narrative.
• gamedeal user

  Jul 30, 2018

  No
• gamedeal user

  Jun 15, 2019

  SIGH.... I didn't want to write a negative review, but I'm going to have to. This game Haeven is a short little RPGmaker game, one with a lot of custom assets built into it. Custom assets that are all quite pretty. It must have taken quite a bit of work to make. This game has a really interesting concept, you are Cleril, a poet on a journey to reclaim your mind from your subconscious. The problem is the second mission of the game has you heading to a neural center point, to put yourself into a coma. My problem with this is that soon after the coma begins there is a boss fight called The Monster. This fight I do not understand its purpose. It is quite easy to beat all the other parts of it, then the head just heals constantly. The head heals for around 8-10k damage a round while you can only do around 100. I stopped caring at this point. Needless to say I won't be coming back to this, despite the spooky atmosphere that chilled me to the bone. I'd write more but I don't know how to elaborate here.