RPG Maker Review: Ruptured Souls

A Somewhat Short Review on Ruptured Souls

Game Title: Ruptured Souls

Author: Max McGee
Platform: RPG Maker 2003
Status: Production (All Hallows Demo)
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As you can see the title screen is quite disturbing but it’s something I got used as I played this game more.

The story is well presented with accompanying images and it’s quite compelling. The gist of it is that a detective called Mason (the character you play as) is investigating the disappearance of a girl which also happens to involve other girls going missing. Obviously something fishy is going on so it’s up to you to get to the bottom of this case.

I noticed the music playing in the background was done by KRG who posted a handful of original music on the rpgmaker.net forums. The single track that was used went well with the game.

The gameplay involves a lot of exploration for example, finding items to opening locks; there are a lot of keys to find by the way.

This room was locked.

You get to make decisions which could result in an instant game over. I’ll try not to spoil anything but one particular example is when someone’s chasing you and you have the option of hiding, confronting them or running away. This is where the game really shows a strength in depth as the choices branch out in abundance. Max (author of this game) claims there’s over 10 different ways of finishing the demo so thankfully you can save anywhere.

This is a life-or-death situation!

There’s no HUD system. Instead you get to call up your HP meter, save and quit your game via keyboard strokes. It would’ve been nice to see a constant health display on-screen but from what I’ve played Mason’s HP never was called into account.

The graphics aren’t a talking point of the game as it looks like a regular rm2k3 game. Having said that, the lighting effects (achieved by using overlays) helped a great deal giving the environment that desired horror setting.

There was one occasion where I did actually “jump” and I was completely caught off-guard, it was a sudden sprite movement so if you decide to play this game just be prepared for that.

Playing the demo the “right” way is quite short but it’s a good start of what’s to follow later on in the Medical Centre which I look forward to playing.

Overall rating: 73%