Antagonist – Review
Admit it: when playing games you often ponder how it would be to be the bad guy, to be able to mess up your own plans by yapping on and on about how you’re going to kill the hero, instead of getting it over with quickly, or use your diabolical laugh at every turn. Well, in Antagonist, you’ll have the chance to play as D’Vil, a true villain, at least as a part of his acting job. Nonetheless, he’ll soon learn that there’s more than meets the eye to his acting, as the fine line between reality and fantasy is slowly being erased.
Story
As this game is rather short and completely story driven, we’ll keep the story portion a bit basic, simply not to spoil the fun plot of this one. Simply put, you’ll be playing as D’Vil, an actor who plays the part of the villain in a set of movies. When during your last gig you are thrown in a situation where your co-star, the hero Ralph, suddenly gives the impression he’s not acting at all, but taking it all seriously, you’re a bit baffled. When even later, you’re actually fighting for your life, together with Ralph, against a massive lava monster, you know things are off.
Even though you’ve teamed up with Ralph, he keeps calling you the Dark Lord that burned down his village and killed his friends and family, you try to explain to him that it’s all just an act. When more and more people accuse you of the gruesome things you’ve supposedly done, you know you’ll have to prove your innocence, but many don’t even want to hear you out, safe for Ralph, who you’re slowly convincing you’re actually not a bad guy.
Overall the story remains simple, yet likeable, crammed full with witty and funny dialogues to keep everything lighthearted. It’s clear that the developer wanted to make something funny, as he is constantly referring to other franchises, by inserting a silly version of said franchise’s protagonist/antagonist.
Graphics
Graphically Antagonist is fairly pleasing to the eye, albeit in its genre. This visual novel-like game has fairly decent artwork, even though it sometimes feels a bit lazy, as random villagers or non-important characters are simply represented as shadows, which takes back a bit of the otherwise qualitative character designs and colorful art. The game is filled with tons of referrals to other known genres, by adapting said main characters into something ‘punny’.
Sound
While the music is rather decent, fairly adventurous actually, the sound effects are sometimes just horrible, with in particular the speech sound being just extremely annoying. We understand a small title like this has to make do without voice acting, but the actual SFX for speech is hauntingly crappy. It slowly digs into your skull, easily giving you a headache. Luckily, in a reasonable amount of scenes this is overshadowed by the otherwise still enjoyable soundtrack.
Gameplay
Antagonist is a rather simplistic visual novel with a reasonable amount of RPG elements. You’ll mostly be scrolling through text, with the option to choose between a fixed amount of answers, which will provide you with a set of different dialogues. The biggest part of the game will consist out of witty conversations, which are always followed by a turn based battle.
The conversations in this game are all predetermined, and you’ll never actually be able to stray off the linear path. You will be able to choose a different response now and then, but overall they won’t mess with the plot that is being laid out for you, which makes this a fairly brainless title you can enjoy without worrying too much about what you say or do during the dialogues.
You’ll notice that the combat in this game is rather easy, especially if you have some experience with turn based games. If you stack up on health and revive potions and use these at the right times, the battles will be easy work, and provide little challenge, safe for a handful. You’ll be able to choose between basic attacks, skills, guarding and items, and later, you’ll be able to use your set of ‘darkness’ skills, which pack a heftier punch. That being said, the overall combat system is very simplistic, yet enjoyable to work with.
Conclusion
Even though Antagonist is rather short, as you’ll wade through it in a matter of two hours, it doesn’t change the fact that you’ll still get your money’s worth out of this title. If you’re in for a title that pokes fun at a massive amount of known franchises, just for the hell of it, with a rather simple yet original storyline, you’ll certainly love this one. It’s not overly great, but it’s one of those decent and likeable in-between games.
Antagonist - Review,
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