A Short RPG with Cute Anime Art About a Dragon Girl Who Can Eat Lies. A Simple RPG Puzzle Game With Some Thought Provoking Parts.
Salam (Peace)
The game is actually three serialized short games (1 hour long each) that were released for free in Japanese and other languages, If you want to understand the story you must play them in order. The steam version combines those three parts and it has achievements/cards, but it's not free.
Link to Steam Version
GamePlay And Graphics
The game graphics are retro-like and it has a traditional RPGs game-play with leveling system. But instead of focusing on exploration the game focuses is on the puzzle solving, The game is too linear and each part can be finished in less than hour if you found the solution to its puzzles quickly.
While most of the game is on the map with 8-bit styled sprites, there are some CG and movie scenes with unique art-style. They are the charm of this game.
While the RPG battle system can be challenging but with a bit of grinding (there's max though) it can be turn easy.
Did I mention the Amazing Soundtrack ?!
The Story And Characters
The game follows Efina a dragon girl who can eat lies, and Theo a con artist who changes his name with every job. She treats him as her father as her egg appeared to him and he takes care of her.
The story follows them as they travel around the world and solve mysteries in towns they visit. Along the way they learn secrets about the dragons and slowly find out the reason Efi's egg appeared before Theo.
The Lie-Eating Dragon & the Vermilion Vampire
"LiEat I" introduces the characters... How Efina can manifests people's lies then eat them and her playful nature. Her papa (Leo) was sent to this town to solve a mystery is a good liar whom she can't eat his lies for some reason.
They both solve a mystery of a friends death and vampires.
Efi meets another dragon for the first time.
The Lie Eating Dragon & the Azure Dreameater
"LiEat II" tells how Efina and her papa (Hal) investigating a romur about strange things happening in a resort. And find something about memory loss, and learn more about dragons and theirspecial powers.
This part shows how Efi matured since "LiEat I".
The Lie Eating Dragon & the Gold Thief
"LiEat III" is the final part and the climax of the game. Efina (now a bit older) with her papa (Sid) try to stop a master thief from stealing the treasure of a rich person, less they know about how related all of this to Sid's past.
The reason Efina's egg appearance in front of him is finally revealed. And Sid Theo has to fight his most dreaded enemy: His "Lies".
Would Efina be able to save him in the end?
Cute Art x Dark Themes
The game's cute art is offset by the darker topics it covers. The character deaths seem the normal occurrence. But it still manages to have an idealistic edge overall mostly due to the art of it.
There's multiple ending for each part of the game, you get bad ends mostly by losing or doing something stupid and I assume the later games follow the "Good endings" of the entries before them.
I loved the progression of Efina's life between the games.
A Game That Can Stay Close To Heart
I still remember it over a year after playing it. I wanted to review this after I play all the games by the developer (Alicemare, and 1Bit heart) but as I saw it in Humble Bundle I thought this is the perfect time to review this lovely game.
The story and the cute drawings is the best things about this game, the mystery compels you to try finding out what happens before the game reveals it. There's nothing new in the gameplay or the graphic but the story is while has many cliche points is still well paced.
- I RECOMMEND for those who want to play short game that's different. For the lovers of the cute and for RPG puzzle lovers (though other than Lieat III the puzzles are easy).
- I DON'T RECOMMEND it for those who want exploration as the story is too linear. Or full fledged RPG since this is very short experience.