Saturday 17 August 2013

RM game review - Undeniably Sexy: A Thief's Tale

Developer: Chad Sexington



Here’s a review of another RPG maker game that I’ve played through recently. Undeniably Sexy: A Thief’s Tale is based off of the setting of Ultima Online and hence can be considered as a fan game. However, despite that, it follows its own storyline and has its own set of colourful characters. I personally have never played Ultima Online and could still get into the story of a Thief’s Tale very easily.

The central protagonist is Chad Sexington who appears to have a very light-hearted attitude to everything in life and simply seeks a prize behind anything he comes across. His greatest goal is to simply find the greatest treasure, and somehow as if brought together by fate, he bands with 6 other quirky characters, all of which embark on the same quest. This is perhaps one of the best parts of the storytelling in this game – there is a very well-developed and funny chemistry between the team members. Just when it seems the group grows closer to each other, they end up drifting apart, and just when you think they’ve grown apart, they come back together.



Another thing I enjoyed about the storytelling in this game is how unpredictable it can be at times, managing to maintain a great element of surprise and to keep you hooked to know what happens next. All this is spiced up with tonnes of silly jokes and other humourous moments.

Most locations look very beautiful and manage to convey a good sense of atmosphere, and the soundtrack is very fitting too. Although many of the tunes are from the RPG maker XP RTP, there are some new ones present as well, and I personally thought even the RTP tracks were well suited in the places they were put.



The entire game is split into 3 acts, and overall takes a linear approach until the late stages of 3rd act, when the player gets a chance to revisit previous locations as well as travel to some new optional ones for side adventures. The amount of optional content is very impressive and should satisfy the completionist type players. The game’s overall length is easily over 30 hours, not to mention that there is also a chance to go into a New Game +, where the player starts from the beginning but with all of the experience, skills, gold, and items transferred over. According to the developer, this feature was planned from the very beginning and is meant to drastically change the core gameplay, giving a more open-ended approach.



During the game we get to visit a lot of stunning-looking cities and a variety of dungeons of different themes. Many dungeons contain very interesting puzzles that require the player to think carefully in order to solve them. In fact even to progress through the story in many of the cities the player is required to do something, like to acquire a certain item or to play with the disguises in order to fool the guards. Oftentimes the hints are given in the in-game books or from the NPCs even. The overall level design of each location is great and every level is quite memorable in its own way.



The only major criticism really that I can give is that at times it is easy to get stuck because a solution to a puzzle at hand might not always be so obvious. However, the developer, Chad Sexington, has been making very frequent updates to the game and adding new hints at various points in order to guide the player along.

So to summarize, I’ve had a great time playing through a Thief’s Tale. With the huge amount of different skills and a variety of enemies and bosses, the gameplay is rich, puzzles are aplenty, and the overall feel of the story is light-hearted and fun.


You can find more info and download the game HERE.


Or you can simply visit its site right HERE, which also includes a video walkthrough.