A recent indie Chrono-Trigger style RPG was released called Jin Conception.
Let’s ask some questions about it.
First, a question from Reddit asks:
oh this looks good – looks like sea of stars a bit.
is this made on RPGmaker?
The developer says…
It is made with SFML.
Really?
Then why did the developer post an in-game development thread on RPG Maker? You can see it HERE.
“But Malstrom,” the reader says. “That may not have been the developer posting that thread. Maybe it was a fan of the game.”
Whoever posted that thread created an account and wasn’t seen since posting it. Remember, you have to own the engine of RPG Maker to post on their forums.
For all I know, maybe it was a marketing person. Jin Conception certainly had someone start threads about it all the major reddit groups such as RPGgamers and PCgaming. The game got some higher profile Youtube personalities to play it (gameplay is so boring, I had to shut it off hahahah).
It LOOKS like it is using Moghunter plugin for RPG Maker MV. That would explain why the animations were so slow in the initial trailer. But whatever.
Finally, the game is released. What do actual customers have to say about it?
One customer says…
I’m really hoping more work is done to this title in the future. There’s no settings menu so discovering the controls was a pain. I don’t recommend the game solely on the fact that in the 45 minutes I was playing the game, it crashed 4 times during fights.
Customer was so satisfied, that he had his money refunded.
The developer responds:
I added a controls and help section in the title screen explaining all the controls and what they do. I would like to resolve the issues with the four crashes in 45 minutes that you experienced. Please contact me at jinconception[at]gmail.com, reach out to me on the Jin Conception twitter/facebook/instagram or reach out to me at the Jin Conception discord server at https://discord.gg/9fEeSFP6mj
OK…
Another customer says…
Game is real rough around the edges. Spelling mistakes, constant crashes, the UI is quite clunky. There are no tutorials in the game and the game often doesn’t tell you what to do besides vague mentions of locations of places you’ve never seen or heard of. There is barely any world building or exposition and the story just consists of characters talking to each other for a couple of seconds.
I’m six hours hours into the game and the “social aspect” of the game hasn’t shown up yet despite being advertised as a big feature of this game. The battle system tries to be Chrono Trigger-esque but it comes off as a bad middle ground between turn based and active-turn based. There is a turn-based bar but it fails to fill up on your turn. Double/triple techs can only be performed when your party members have a filled up ATB bar but the game does not tell you how to make your teammates ATB bar fill up because waiting on your turn does nothing. So why is it not turn based? Because enemies can randomly interrupt your turn when you’re in a menu and chain their turns together despite your bar being full. The worst part about this is it kicks you out of the battle menu EVERY SINGLE TIME this happens and you have to navigate back to where you were.
This game desperately needed more QA before releasing
EDIT: There is a wait button. It is not explained well at all in the game and the only reason I found about it was by browsing the steam discussion for this game.
EDIT2: Beat the game. Didn’t touch the voting system out of the fear of ruining the “balance” of the game. Still wouldn’t recommend it to anyone unless the dev takes a deep look into the criticism of the game and makes some real gameplay/story/quality of life changes. Until then, I’d wait for a discount if you’re really interested in it.
The developer responds:
Your assertion of “the story just consists of characters talking to each other for a couple of seconds” is 100 percent false. We have many cutscenes in the game where the characters talk more then a couple of seconds. The game does not have “social aspect”. The game has social deduction because when one play the game they need to figure out who is friend and who is foe.
A third customer says…
Jin Conception is a Social Deduction JRPG, or so we’re told. What I believed would potentially have loops, betrayals, and other sorts of mind-boggling narratives certainly fell short in delivering those aspects. Narrative and exposition is non-existent. Character development and motivations are flimsy at best and often times very shallow. Some elements of the story could only be understood by reading the “Story” summary function in the menu. Many elements of the game design and concept are obscure or even unexplained (and possibly unexplored). I don’t believe we found a single comma in the entire script…
The combat is not balanced and not well-explained. The initial reaction to seeing the elements of the HUD would lead anyone to believe that the battle system would resemble a Chrono Trigger style ATB, it even shares dual and triple tech style spells. In truth, the battle system seems like a weird buggy turned-based system that uses an “attack turn” bar that works independently of enemy turns/AI (speculation). It was common to see enemies using single attacks followed by tag-team skills in quick succession, while your own characters had yet to act. The game is painfully difficult at points purely from sheer damage numbers greatly exceeding reasonable or realistic maximum HP totals of your party.
But there’s much to appreciate in Jin Conception. The artwork is reminiscent of classic Phantasy Star games (I see a bit of Wren and Nei/Rika in some of the portaits), the sprite work is excellent, and the monster designs are all pretty fun and interesting. There are a handful of strong tracks in the OST (when they’re not getting played on top of each other). The entire concept of the game and the desire to provide unexpected plot beats has merit regardless of its success. While I’m sure it’s not intentional, the script is actually hilarious at points.
Even the battle system (as unbalanced as it currently stands – 5/16/21) has a lot of interesting concepts with a strong focus on traps, status effects, and other aspects providing multipliers to skill damage. The amount of play around skill and teammate synergy is interesting and certainly shows a level of care and thought that might not be found in more generic indie JRPG’s.
If anything, I’d say this is a pretty good effort for what I’m expecting is a first-time developer. They certainly found some strong staff for visuals and soundtrack and the concept is certainly worth exploring.
As for recommending this game, I will unfortunately have to vote “Foe.”
edit: Response to the Developer comment – Yes, I’ve beaten the game. I’m still not entirely sure what the voting system actually does, and I’m not sure what proof you want of me confirming I beat the game… maybe some spoiler talk?
The developer replies:
Your statement “What I believed would potentially have loops, betrayals, and other sorts of mind-boggling narratives certainly fell short in delivering those aspects.” has incorrect information. I can tell you did not finish the game. I cannot comment further about this because I don’t want to spoil anything about the story.
Edit: If one votes correctly they can unlock a reward/prize as mentioned in the Jan 22 update. The voting system also does other things and they are clues about it in the game which can be found by talking to NPC. I have included a summary of the Jan 22 update into the game just recently in the help and controls section.
Edit Two: I can assure you the combat is balanced. There are a few other people who mention the combat is not balanced but later on within a day they come back stating they beat the boss they thought was overpowered. The entire game can be beaten without any grinding whatsoever. I did nerf two boss fights recently for PC because its not reasonable to have people figure out the tricks to beat those bosses.
All that is required to beat the bosses is finding a good strategy. Some harder bosses need a good strategy and 1-2 tricks. Some monsters in the game that seem overpowered early on because they one shot is just trying to teach the players to not always fight everything they see.
Edit Three: I reread your comment “certainly fell short in delivering those aspects.” and thought you meant it was not done at all but instead you mean it was done poorly. That is fair. I marketed the game with the starting sentence “Eight playable characters stories intertwine..” I believed I successfully achieved that. I also believed I achieved a social deduction fantasy thriller story. Everything I promised on the store page I delivered. It seems like you were expecting more.
This is so fascinating to me. The developer is arguing with the reviewers! Hahahaha.
This entire game is fascinating to me for reasons the reader may suspect. A developer decides to make a RPG in the style of Chrono Trigger. Clearly, everyone is thinking Chrono Trigger with the trailer. The developer contracts the art and music out. Hilariously, those two are the only things people praise. Everything else, especially the writing and programming, is trashed.
And the developer wants to argue with his customers. It’s hilarious. It’s as if Miyamoto sent me an email telling me how I was so *wrong* in not enjoying his 3d Mario or Aonuma that I didn’t like his Visual Novel Puzzle Zelda.. I’d be like “WTF!?” haha.
It’s the first time I’ve seen an indie developer put out ‘press kits’ hahahaha. I’d never do that. I’d make the press work dammit. They can download and make their own screenshots. I won’t give them a ‘kit’ hahahaha. But doesn’t the idea of a ‘kit’ imply some sort of heavy handed manipulation? As if someone is trying to force or massage something?
Jin Conception is a great game… until you try to play it.
This is an interesting review of the game…
The simple fact of the matter is that Jin Conception is a bad game. Like pure shovelware bad. It’s a real shame because the core concepts are neat, the sprite design is outstanding, and the music isn’t half bad. This could have really been something if it had been through another year or two of beta testing and some customer panels. But unfortunately, it is very nearly unplayable, due in a large part to the writing and some severe technical and design flaws. And worst of all, it’s simply not fun. I just didn’t give a crap about any of the events or characters because I had no idea who they were, what purpose the story had, or what was even happening. No engagement means no one will want to play, and that’s probably the case with Jin Conception. If a great game is hiding in there somewhere, it’s hiding very deep . Even on sale, Jin Conception is a game better avoided unless significant game-changing revisions are made. Do yourself a favor and skip it entirely. There are way better indie games on the Switch than this.
Another satisfied customer.
This begs questions from me. I don’t understand how a developer could ever release a game in such a shoddy state. If the developer loved Chrono Trigger, how’d we get THIS?
Here is what I suspect. The developer, along with others, never truly PLAYED their game for FUN. They PLAYED it to TEST it. They never said, “Oh, I have a few minutes of free time. I might be able to get in some Jin Conception.” No.
There used to be a rule with RPGs that it is OK for RPGs to not look cutting edge in graphics because RPGs take so long to make. By the time an RPG is done, graphic technology has greatly surpassed them. When RPGs come sporting fancy graphics, suspicions go up. It means work wasn’t done underneath the hood. When Ultima began focusing on audio-visual technical edge (Ultima VI, VII, VIII, and IX) coincided with a decline in RPG quality the further it got along. To put in context, Ultima V was on the Apple II in 1988! (Not too many people were using Apple IIs in 1988 which is why it got ported to IBM clones.)
You can make the same observation for Wizardry or Might and Magic or other such games.
The reason why indie devs do not make Chrono Trigger clones is because of the high production costs associated with Chrono Trigger. Not even Square Enix bothers.
So it is such a shame that a developer could put out the production costs but was completely retarded in everything not production related.
Every game I’ve worked on or even modded, people say, “This is fun.” That is why I want to try selling something I’ve done to see if there is a market for it. If I didn’t have a favorable reaction to what I did, I wouldn’t even be bothering with game development.
Game development is extremely labor intensive work. I somewhat wished I didn’t have any potential to make anything cool with it because the work is so much.
The ultimate question I have is why did the Jin Conception developer bother making the game if he wasn’t interested in making an RPG? Was it an overestimate of his abilities or was it thinking plastering sweet audi-visuals would sell? He’s finding out that gamers are not stupid. Gamers are a very savvy bunch… especially the non-FPS crowd such as RPG gamers.
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