still catching up around here

So I have briefly checked out the Three Musketeers game I mentioned earlier.

It's pretty cool so far. It's enough like a console/JRPG to feel familiar, but everything is completely new... the art, the way combat works, and so forth, so it's NOT just another RPG Maker thing.

It's based on the classic novel and uses a lot of text from it, so the writing is quite good. (Although probably VERY familiar if you've read the book recently! I never read it myself, I admit. I've seen bits and pieces of the story in movies.)

One interesting feature is the 'footprints' that guide you to your next objective. Because of this, you can never get lost like you are in some games, floundering around on huge maps. On the downside this can make the game feel very linear, if you're just being dragged from point to point... HOWEVER, you don't actually have to follow the footprints all the time. You can wander off on your own to find treasure and new sidequests, and get back to the footprints later. The game will even encourage you to do this eventually. (The built-in hints are very helpful, and give you little bits of information at a time so that it's not overwhelming while always leaving you feeling like you know what you're doing.)

Demo is available here, if you're interested... that's the PC link, there is one for Macs here as well.