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Review: Children Run Freely
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By: Feros | Published: September 3, 2007 22:00 pm | RPG Maker
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As the intro to the game states, "Being lost on this isle, you decide to come into town, disturbing all the peace." Make what you will of that. Maybe you can figure out what is going on, because I sure couldn't.

My initial reaction to this short "intro," was "Why are you lost on this Isle? Why did you decide to go into town? Did you really have to disturb ALL the peace?"<br><br>

Now, I'm not just trying to be a smart-*** here--for once, my sarcasm has a point. While "Children Run Freely" was quite well rounded in the technical sense, the vague and confusing situations leave the player at a loss.
However, the game does have some redeeming values to it. Are they enough to save "Children Run Freely" from falling into obscurity? Read on.

The tilesets of RPGM2 are used to effectively create an environment suitable for gaming. The music, especially, seemed to fit the mood of the plot progression.Although the environments, and other forms of presentation served their purposes, there was nothing that was really awe inspiring. Truthfully, the environments were rather dull--capitalizing on monotonous environments.

This is where the game really began to shine. "Children Run Freely" implemented several features that you don't often see in today's RPGM games. You had the option to change any of your characters names at ANY time, you had the choice in the beginning whether you wanted to be male or female. That said, the game operated on what I will refer to as a "choice system."

As in "choose your own adventure novels," you are given choices in MANY situations that will effect how the game plays out.A few of the features, like the ability to change your name, just seemed tacked on. In fact, they actually damage the coherency of the game. If everyone's been calling you Ray and you change your name to Bob, and no one seems to notice-- that's just a plot hole.

Other than a few spelling and gramatical errors, nothing at all! I found nothing that appeared as a glitch or bug.As already stated, there were a few grammar/spelling errors.

A few of the side-quests and jokes provided a little fun, but were not enough to distract from the major downfalls.I consider the most important part of ANY game the "fun factor." You could be playing through a MASTERPIECE of visual art perfection, but if you aren't having any fun, what is the point?
Unfortunately, this is the category in which "Children Run Freely," let me down the most. More then once I was thinking to myself "just...have..to ..finish...the...game." There are WAY too many random battles, and just getting from place-to-place is a pain. Often, I would find myself running around in circles trying to find what it was I was supposed to do, and only figured it out through random coincidence. If the game is HIGHLY retuned in this area, It could possibly go on to be one of the greats.

Although the game, overall, had adequate design and features, the tedious chore of accomplishing so little just zapped the fun factor, and killed this game for me.

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