Developer: Jerseyware Gaming
Publisher: KISS ltd
Platforms: PC
Tested on: PC
The Dark Stone from Mebara – Review
The Dark Stone from Mebara is Jerseyware Gaming’s latest project. It features an adventure inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, old-school gameplay with a modern approach and an intriguing story. It might be a bit hard to get into for many, but once you get settled, it can be quite fun!
Story
The Dark Stone from Mebara starts as what seems to be a simple case for many detectives. Someone died and you have to find out why, but the truth is far from easy to uncover. When you go to investigate the case with your partner Webley, you find some sort of ellipsoid gem with blackish edges and a dark, slightly purple core. Together with this gem, you find some sort of device where the gem fits in. Having no other leads, you and your colleague detectives decide it’s time to see what the gem does when it’s placed in the device. Little do you know, it’s one of the biggest mistakes you’ve ever made… You are now chased after by cultists and monsters trying to get the gem back, and you’ll have to fight you way through them in order to uncover the secret of “The Dark Stone from Mebara”.
Story wise, The Dark Stone from Mebara is pretty convincing and interesting. It delivers a mysterious story with a lot of plot twists and dialogue. It can also get pretty confusing at times, so you’ll have to keep up with the story before you get lost in it!
Graphics
When it comes to graphics, The Dark Stone from Mebara looks like a very old-school game. It runs at a very slow resolution (which can be made full-screen if you like) and has awful framerates. The game usually runs at about 25-30 fps but it drops to 10 or lower very often when there’s a lot to render. Other than that, the game looks rather mysterious, but some areas should have gotten some more attention because they look absolutely dreadful.
Sound
Sound wise, The Dark Stone from Mebara doesn’t deliver a good performance. Most music is very short and is therefore looped around over and over again, to the point of annoyance. The sound effects could use some more work as well. Most of them are pretty basic and boring, but the loud beep that you get when someone in your party levels up is just deafening.
Gameplay
As a last discussion point, we’ll look at the gameplay, and this is probably one of the strongest features of Dark Stone. The Dark Stone features ATB combat, which means Active Time Battle. It’s believed to be first introduced in the Final Fantasy series and a lot of other RPG’s have adapted this combat mechanism, but more about that later.
The game features rather simple controls, using the arrows or WASD to move and space or enter to interact. The speed of the game can also be increased by holding down shift (which helps immensely). This is about the only controls I could find, since there is no explanation or a control-remapping scheme to be found anywhere, which is rather frustrating.
Dark Stone features a leveling system, where you simply gain some basic stats and a skill now and then. Other than that, the leveling doesn’t really give you any benefits rather than stat increases. Equipment wise, you can equip each party member with a weapon, but no armor or anything else. You can also learn spells with books you find scattered across the world, allowing for more versatile combat.
Each character has 4 different stats in battle. Your hit points, Sanity (used to cast spells), TP (tech points – used to perform abilities) and ATB, which was talked about very briefly. With ATB, characters don’t necessarily have a turn ratio of 1:1, but they rely on their charge time. The ATB bar charges up over time by skipping turns or being attacked, and when it’s full you can perform a move. This makes the combat less turn-based and a little bit more dynamic. Sanity can be regained by using items and Tech Points build up as you attack and get attacked, allowing you to perform more powerful moves the more full it is.
Other combat abilities include putting an opponent to sleep, paralyzing him, stunning him and many more. Characters can also miss, avoid, dodge, critical hit and counter an attack. This is all determined purely random, which is kind of sad, having items that boost each of these stats would greatly improve the combat in Dark Stone.
The game also features puzzles now and then, which are sometimes very challenging. You’ll have to keep an eye on the books you collect and the items you find, as they may give you clues that point you in the right direction!
Conclusion
The Dark Stone from Mebara is definitely not a gem of a game, but it can get pretty fun once you get into it. At first, the combat may seem overwhelmingly hard, but once your party members hit a decent level and you find good weapons, a lot of the challenge of the game is gone. The music and graphics might be a turn-off for many, but those brave enough to still head into the game might be surprised by the fun combat and story.
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