Story:
The Story of Red Moon Lost Days (RMLD) is a rather interesting and compelling one. The game tells the story of a Chinese general named Kyou Tan Wa along with her best friend and Vice General Kaine Hei Kun. Together they explore their pasts, meet interesting people and work out their place in the conflict along the way.
Gameplay:
First and foremost, the game is a visual novel with rather light RPG elements, playing like an interactive story with a few isometric sessions that you can explore. The core game is played by reading a series of dialogue telling the story with player choices coming up and having you choose a response which in turn, affects how the story progresses and ultimately completes. Depending on dialogue choices made when they are presented, it may lead to the isometric areas to explore. These consist of the main character being able to walk around the area presented and being able to interact with things around you just like you would see in something like Chrono Trigger or Shining Force.
These sections are few and far between and don’t offer much outside of filler for the story. You get to interact with objects and buildings which will cause your character to reflect on various aspects which in turn will spark a small conversation or lead back to the main story and toss you right back into the visual novel side of the game.
Graphics and Performance:
RMLD is graphically impressive given it’s on the Saturn, and the scenes presented that are used to illustrate what you’re reading are done very well. Character portraits have a lot of detail and gives the game a comic book like feel to it. When taking control of your character in the isometric sections, the game looks just as good with the attention to detail of the character and surroundings, and since the majority of the game is a visual novel consisting of still images and text, the game performs very well.
The exception to this is with the transition from visual novel scenes to the isometric sections and this is in regards to the load times. The load times when going from the visual novel side of the game to the isometric game is a bit longer than I had hoped for, given the game is a 2D game and not a full 3D game and there isn’t a whole lot going on graphically speaking. Same goes for the load times between the one or two isometric areas or screens that you can go between while exploring and the load times there are just as bad if not even a little bit longer.
Sound:
RMLD has some great music in the game that fits the game well and gives life to the story being told. It does a good job of feeding emotion where it’s needed into the dialogue and gives an edge to the battle scenes, but the music in the game is about the extent of what the game offers. There are no character voiceovers, full-motion video sequences, or even much in the way of sound effects, but thid does fit the genre of the game.
Conclusion:
Sound effects of battle, voiceovers for character dialogue, more fleshed-out isometric sections with more player interaction, and optimized load times could have made this game an experience one would never forget. As great as all of that sounds, I don’t know that the Sega Saturn could handle all of that, and if it could, it would have to be on about eight CDs just to fit it all. I could only imagine how many people would complain if that was the case. It would be a chore to have to swap all of those CDs every five minutes, but it would be a great feat to be the only Sega Saturn game or any game for that matter to have that many discs needed to play it.
At the end of the day, RMLD is a visual novel. It doesn’t need fancy graphics or a soundtrack done by an orchestra. What the game needs is a compelling story, deep and compelling characters that can be related to, and makes you feel like you want to keep going to see how the story concludes. RMLD has all of this and was by a team for five people. Five people for a platform that was notoriously difficult to make games for during it’s life cycle.
I am not one that cares for visual novel games at all, but this game is one that everyone should play at least once. The story is very well done and is a game that is a fantastic addition to the Sega Saturn library of retro indies.
Disclaimer: A review copy was provided. You can purchase the game here.
