Of the things that came with the arrival of an alien being, the weakest of all of them are the slimes. Nobody knows what exactly these things are, but, as weak as they are, nobody's succeeded in destroying one of the dungeons from which they spawn. Julius Anderson, a modern day crusader, takes the job of eradicating one of these slime dens. Hired on to help him is, well, Julius refuses to learn his name, on account of him being "diseased" with magic, but he's a healer. Through teeth-clenched teamwork, can the duo reach the bottom floor and destroy the source of the slimes?
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Disclaimer: The developer of this game has a history with me. mostly them just being hostile and aggressive towards me.
A friend bought this game for me as a joke knowing my history with said developer. So I thought, well maybe I should find out what their game is actually like and play through the entirety of it!
So let's start with the good:
Julius has an interesting game mechanic.
I like the idea of of stances that effect combat abilities and having them have a limited resource encouraging you to switch off instead of wasting a turn.
And each Gun has different effectiveness against different slimes.
So other than that Slimes is 5 hour journey of repetitive non-challenging gameplay.
I encountered a super/secret boss by accident and killed it so effortlessly that I didn't know what It's abilities actually did until I read about it in the PDF.
The biggest challenge is continuing on with it's boring droning prose that feels like a middle schooler wrote. Things are shown to you then over explained to you and then done so again just in case you didn't get it.
Everything is so trope filled and basic that exactly what you think will happen less than an hour in is what happens at hour 5.
The world building is commendable but feels as though it comes at cost for our "protagonist".
Spoilers ahead, but to call Julius our "protagonist" is a stretch.
Tai gets more story moments and more motivation and establishment as a character that when it comes to the games "rug pull" of switching control over it doesn't feel meaningful, it feels expected.
One of these characters is a character the other is a vapid strawman.
Which then clashes with the themes of the game itself.
The main theme is that "Anger is just, and hatred towards evil is good"
Thoughout the game we're shown Julius anger manifest and projected towards killing slimes.
This would seem to be because of his failure to kill a Slime-infected person who went to kill others.
The difference being that Julius expresses this anger and hatred but calls it something else.
Depth could be had here with the story but it's just dropped in favor of Tai.
Tai had instead been constantly treated poorly for being slime-infected.
And as he meanders being a willing participant to Julius' genocide, he feels regret.
This manifests in him hating Julius for his actions and how he represents everything that is preventing him from living a normal life.
So which of these is celebrated by the game?
Really neither should, a much more compelling story would focus on Julius attempting to redeem himself and become better and Tai acting as a catalyst of such change, but him still seeing "humanity" as more human than Slimes a core value of his, and the conflict raising from this.
This would really amplify the irony of him being "healed" by Tai and ultimately succumbing to the power of Slimes.
Similarly Tai's narrative should have focused on him being worn down by Julius, becoming more and more jaded. He is being corrupted by Julius to do more evil acts to go against his morals and the story barely reflects that so the ending doesn't ring as Catharsis but just... Hollow.
There's an added issue with this being a video game.
Because you control Julius throughout all of his actions of genocide instead of facing the consequences of doing this.
You get to absolve yourself of your actions because "actually he's just more evil than you."
As the game says in battle "The frustration sets in"
Except.. I'm not frustrated.. I'm not angry.. I don't feel hatred...
I feel disappointed.
I hoped as much as I've heard this developer talk up this game and their abilities as a writer that there would be something interesting here underneath all the middle school edge..
And I get nothing.. I've watched bad anime with more nuance to their plots than this and it's upsetting.
I'm looking forward to "I Hate You Please Suffer" and I hope it shows some improvement.
But outside of having fun looking at an overly edgy story about how cool the writer thinks anger is, that wears it's inspirations on it's sleeve so apparently that it's almost blinding, I cannot recommend this game.
A friend bought this game for me as a joke knowing my history with said developer. So I thought, well maybe I should find out what their game is actually like and play through the entirety of it!
So let's start with the good:
Julius has an interesting game mechanic.
I like the idea of of stances that effect combat abilities and having them have a limited resource encouraging you to switch off instead of wasting a turn.
And each Gun has different effectiveness against different slimes.
So other than that Slimes is 5 hour journey of repetitive non-challenging gameplay.
I encountered a super/secret boss by accident and killed it so effortlessly that I didn't know what It's abilities actually did until I read about it in the PDF.
The biggest challenge is continuing on with it's boring droning prose that feels like a middle schooler wrote. Things are shown to you then over explained to you and then done so again just in case you didn't get it.
Everything is so trope filled and basic that exactly what you think will happen less than an hour in is what happens at hour 5.
The world building is commendable but feels as though it comes at cost for our "protagonist".
Spoilers ahead, but to call Julius our "protagonist" is a stretch.
Tai gets more story moments and more motivation and establishment as a character that when it comes to the games "rug pull" of switching control over it doesn't feel meaningful, it feels expected.
One of these characters is a character the other is a vapid strawman.
Which then clashes with the themes of the game itself.
The main theme is that "Anger is just, and hatred towards evil is good"
Thoughout the game we're shown Julius anger manifest and projected towards killing slimes.
This would seem to be because of his failure to kill a Slime-infected person who went to kill others.
The difference being that Julius expresses this anger and hatred but calls it something else.
Depth could be had here with the story but it's just dropped in favor of Tai.
Tai had instead been constantly treated poorly for being slime-infected.
And as he meanders being a willing participant to Julius' genocide, he feels regret.
This manifests in him hating Julius for his actions and how he represents everything that is preventing him from living a normal life.
So which of these is celebrated by the game?
Really neither should, a much more compelling story would focus on Julius attempting to redeem himself and become better and Tai acting as a catalyst of such change, but him still seeing "humanity" as more human than Slimes a core value of his, and the conflict raising from this.
This would really amplify the irony of him being "healed" by Tai and ultimately succumbing to the power of Slimes.
Similarly Tai's narrative should have focused on him being worn down by Julius, becoming more and more jaded. He is being corrupted by Julius to do more evil acts to go against his morals and the story barely reflects that so the ending doesn't ring as Catharsis but just... Hollow.
There's an added issue with this being a video game.
Because you control Julius throughout all of his actions of genocide instead of facing the consequences of doing this.
You get to absolve yourself of your actions because "actually he's just more evil than you."
As the game says in battle "The frustration sets in"
Except.. I'm not frustrated.. I'm not angry.. I don't feel hatred...
I feel disappointed.
I hoped as much as I've heard this developer talk up this game and their abilities as a writer that there would be something interesting here underneath all the middle school edge..
And I get nothing.. I've watched bad anime with more nuance to their plots than this and it's upsetting.
I'm looking forward to "I Hate You Please Suffer" and I hope it shows some improvement.
But outside of having fun looking at an overly edgy story about how cool the writer thinks anger is, that wears it's inspirations on it's sleeve so apparently that it's almost blinding, I cannot recommend this game.
Really good RPG Maker game, story is great and both main characters' interactions are interesting. Secrets and side content while short it's good and I would say worth it. Combat strategy is also pretty good if a little bit slow due to moving around menus. Overall it was a nice experience.
Really solid rpgmaker game and a interesting setting for the game. Like the SMT nod at the end of the game. Also you should play the developers other works on their itch.io page.
Possibly the worst game I have ever played.