Motrya is a game with a wide variety of strengths and only a few weaknesses.  Although the demo lasts over 2 hours, it still feels too short to decide if the weaknesses will hurt the game in the longrun.  However, it is without a doubt the most professionally handled RPG for the OHR I am aware of, and I look forward to a new release.

Actually, before even seeing the title screen I opened the manual and was vaguely impressed by the organization of it, and especially by the simple choices available for difficulty.  This professionalism carries over seamlessly into the title screen, and it's clear right away that this game intends to take itself as seriously as any commercial RPG.

The graphics in Motrya are very good for the most part, making the most of a somewhat subdued style that nevertheless makes it very clear what everything is.  The scenery is wonderful and the graphics in battle are no slouch either.  Some of the enemies are better than others, but the heroes look surprisingly realistic for the OHR's resolution.  Unfortunately, this is to be contrasted with the inconsistency of the walkabouts.  Most of the characters are fine (even Dayang's big head is passable), but there are a few (Parthax comes to mind) where it was honestly difficult for me to decide which way the walkabout was facing without looking more closely.


The music in Motrya is another very strong point, despite being frustratingly incomplete.  I was particularly impressed with the stately tone of the music within the school.  Sound effects were also used well, and for whatever reason it seemed that the relative volume problems that plague most OHR games at this point were minimal in this game.

I want to discuss the storyline of Motrya next, and it's gonna take a minute because this game offers us a lot to talk about.  There is real depth to the world and the plot of Motrya, both in planning and execution.  The pacing of the game has clearly bowed to the intentions of the plot, where there really is not a lost moment.  We have the initial scenes at the school where we learn about our characters and their surface relationships with each other.  The practical examination is a chance to show off the gameplay we will discuss later, but is also used to further explore our characters.  With that understanding in place, the central mystery and conflict (at least so far) is introduced, and the invasion of the school forces the player to begin the hunt for the Forbidden Forlae right away.  I was astounded when the second Forbidden Forlum was found so quickly.  In a matter of 3 hours of gameplay, JSH has introduced characters and conflicts, AND moved the plot further along than most games (and some books) accomplish in over twice that time.

Such fast pacing can threaten to reduce the world itself to a mere backdrop, but luckily that is not the case here.  Thanks to the great attention to detail both graphically and textually (almost everything in the school can be examined, Yormus Academy feels like a real school, even including a men's and women's bathroom.  The concept of lytes and forlae is explained enough to feel like a part of the world without being too confusing.  The only aspect of the world that feels sacrificed to the torrid pace of the plot is its actual physical size, but I'm going to discuss that again in a gameplay context, so here let me remind you why it's great to have details in games.


I can't move on without bringing up one complaint here.  Some of the more emotional scenes in Motrya just don't do it for me.  This is a weakness in all video games I've played: events can be moving, but emotionally heavy character interaction just doesn't work with pixellated characters.  I understand the necessity of the parents' death scene, and perhaps the Murlor-Icebird scene soon afterwards at the creek.  But at times like these, it is facial expressions and body language that carry emotional weight, not monologues or dialogues.  Unfortunately, video games can't really deliver either of the first two very easily, and we must rely on the latter two.  Oh, and Murlor can be a bit whiny sometimes, but at least he admits it.


The gameplay of Motrya is also strong, but in my opinion, not as strong yet as some of the other aspects of the game.  With HP and lytes (MP) being restored after every battle, the clear focus is on surviving singular battles one at a time.  Even if these battles are a bit long, they are well balanced.  The idea to allow scrolls to be equipped for a weaker version of their purpose was an excellent one, and having three heroes right away made things interesting right from the get go.

This works exceedingly well for the sequence of fights in the school, AND for the battles against the invading statues and things, but the battles along the way to the cathedral feel tedious and even a bit silly.  Random (but quicker) battles would give the feeling of being in the unpredictable wild.  Pre-sequenced battles out here feel like the wild really isn't dangerous in and of itself, so to make it dangerous a few trees were brought to life, and some zombies were summoned.  Why?  If that's the power of the Forbidden Forlum, why aren't they using it to make all the trees attack?  I think it would have been simpler, more consistent, AND more fun to simply allow battles (whether random or otherwise) to occur with less explanation, but with slightly more regularity and shorter duration.


Another problem with the walk to the Cathedral is that not only does it feel rather scripted (in regards to the sequence of battles), it feels incredibly short.  And here we finally see the world of Motrya hampered by the rapid pace of the story being told.  When it was revealed that there was a Forlum 'somewhere west' of the school, I was looking forward to a chance to explore the continent to find this mysterious artifact, when it turned out it was just next door.  This was disappointing to me for two reasons.  It makes the world I'm in feel incredibly small, but that could easily be rectified by a larger northern continent in the second chapter.  But from a gameplay perspective, I'm disappointed that Motrya seems to eschew one of my favorite aspects of RPGs - exploration of a wide and dangerous fantasy world - in favor of direct objectives and danger in measured doses.  As I mentioned in the introduction, it is still too early to decide how much of a factor this will be in the overall enjoyment of the final product.

There are lots of other things I could mention about Motrya.  I loved Murlor learning a (useful) scanning attack first.  I very much appreciated the clear documentation of the attacks, something I also try to accomplish in my games.  I didn't like how doors were handled in Yormus Academy.  I didn't bother with the card game, and I wouldn't have if this were a commercial game either.  I loved the choices of where to take dialogue with my fellow students.  There was more, and I think this actually illustrates the main strength of this demo.  This is one of the most dense 3 hours of gameplay I've encountered on the OHR (and on par with most NES and SNES RPGs), full of details both large and small, and battles well cared for.  There are aspects to it that I wish were different, and it is by no means perfect, but I would have no reservations recommending this demo to anyone who enjoys fantasy RPGs.