It's a little bit Dungeons & Dragons, a little bit Army of Darkness, and a little bit Sliders blended together with the retro feel of the old Final Fantasy games for the SNES, and it comes out as a wonderful butterfly of complete and utter amusement.
The game itself begins with a choice of difficulty settings before throwing us into the story of a woman trapped in a pentagram, surrounded by four magic crystals. Apparently, she is to be the instrument in some white-faced evil man's plans to enter the "Ultraworld". Unfortunately because she's not a virgin (after having some worries about how this experiment would go and deciding to have a party and inviting the entire science team), the lab is blown to smithereens.
We begin with the first chapter "Cellars and Lizards", where we're introduced to four friends heading over to a friend's house to being a new D&D campaign. Their Game Master, Benjamin, is apparently wanting to do something different and has called the four of them - Nigel, Mike, Johnny, and Francis - over to get started. When they arrive, however, they find the front door locked from the inside and decide to enter the house via Benjamin's cellar, where they find a locked door to the DM's playroom and several source books for a new roleplaying game.
Looking it over, it's a standard RPG. Going around, collecting keys, opening doors and chests, and apparently even wardrobes and closets, kill monsters, and gain levels. Your vanilla set of actions for any RPG-based hero. Between them, they end up picking up the traditional adventurer classes of fighter, rogue (ninja), healer (paladin of the Flying Spaghetti Monster), and mage.
There's a brief tutorial level where they mull around through Benjamin's basement...though the lines between reality and fantasy have clearly begun to blur. When they do finally complete the main objective of getting the key to the DM's Playroom, however, they find that it's not the room they remember, but are immediately sucked into a dimensional portal to another world. Brought before the King, they are assumed to be great heroes because of their ability to survive travel from a parallel dimension. The King decides that they can prove that their Heroes if they're bad enough dudes to save the princess from the evil Orcus.
And then, they can go recover the Necronomicon...I mean, go and fight the sinister "Unnamed".
Who is, in reality, named Dark Eidous!
...my apologies to whoever was just struck by lightning from the heavens.
Though really, this doesn't come as a huge shock (ha!). While they react to this with the amazement you would expect, they clearly are bad enough dudes to rescue the princess. After all, any skill you get from a role playing game clearly translates into the real world. It's the same reason why I'm a ninth level fighter, a sixth level swashbuckler, a thirteenth level bard, and a fifth level wizard with a necromancy specialization.
Y'know, in real life.
Joking aside from there, the world is largely open as the mighty foursome journey out partaking in the traditional RPG activities of traipsing around opening containers, killing monsters, earning loot, and gaining levels in their respective classes. Standard stuff. Unfortunately, that comes with the same problem as many RPGs - grinding. Which, at the very least, this game bothers to make somewhat fun much like in the Symphony of the Night way with making it bright and colorful. And of course, with leveling up and killing things comes with taking their loot and adding it to your own.
Your main attributes are split up into four categories - Might, Charisma, Grit, and Dexterity. Each attribute governs two stats - Might covers Hit Points and Strength, Charisma covers your Mana and Special Attacks, Grit governs Resistance and Critical Hits, and Dexterity lords over Evasion and Speed. If you've any inkling of Dungeons & Dragons, you can likely translate to which you need to work on for which class though, top tip, make sure you're putting points into Strength and Charisma on level up as well.
Hit Points and Mana Points are used by everyone, yes everyone, and the Special Attacks are pretty awesome to boot. You're gonna wanna use them often.
Beyond that, it has the mechanics of any RPG of the Final Fantasy variety. The combat system is turn-based, which I have issues with normally, though as it's homaging the original FF games...no, I still can't really get over it. People don't fight like this, they just don't. Of course, I'm not going to hold it against the game.
Really, I can't hold much of anything against this game. The humor is absolutely smashing. As I said before, it's a homage to the likes of Final Fantasy games of old, but it's so much more than that. There are references peppered all around to various things such as Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Dragonball Z, Huey Lewis and the News, and so, so much more. Really, I could make an entire review out of just all the references I was able to catch, that's how many there are!
Needless to say, with great reference comes great responsibility, and there's a lot of work done in that regard. As well as being a deconstruction of Western RPGs, JRPGs, and just about everything in between, and showing a extensive love of many, many fandoms, and yet it never feels like it's overdoing it when they dev team threw in winks here and there, some far more blatant than others and to glorious effect.
That's all I can say and all I really need to say for this. It has a fairly easy to learn system, it has good humor, and it's definitely some of the best entertainment I've ever had for five bucks. Also, there's a wonderful sequel out now. Hmm...I guess I'll just have to get on that...
Doom & Destiny is now available from Heartbit Interactive and Benjamin Ficus Productions for Xbox 360, various mobiles, Windows 8, and Steam.
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