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Millennium 4: Beyond Sunset
PC (Steam)
Episode 4 of 5
2.5/5 stars
“Millennium 4: Beyond Sunset” is the fourth part of Aldorlea’s episodic “RPG Maker” creation. There is actually very little worth mentioning that is different from the first three episodes, so instead of rehashing the aspects that have remained the same, I will direct anyone who is interested in this series of games to read my reviews of “Millennium: A New Hope,” “Millennium 2: Take Me Higher,” and “Millennium 3: Cry Wolf” before proceeding.
Presentation
“Millenium 4’s” graphics and sound are largely identical to the first three entries. Marine, the heroine of the game, has a new character portrait and a slightly modified sprite with a shorter haircut, but otherwise nothing has changed. Pallet swapping is still in action with regard to the monsters, though significantly less obvious than in episode 3. The unimpressive dynamic cutscenes from “Millennium 3” have both improved a (very slight) bit in quality and decreased in number.
Thankfully, “Millennium 4” is as glitch-free as the first two episodes. Unfortunately, it is also the shortest and most linear episode by far.
Story
Resuming directly from the end of “Millennium 3,” our headstrong heroine, Marine, finds herself and her ragtag band in need of three more warriors to fill out the roster for their side of the Martial Law contest in which they will attempt to wrest control of their nation’s government from the idle rich in order to provide much-needed assistance to the rural citizens who are at the mercy of sudden, violent changes in the environment. With only 5 more days to find these warriors before the deadline, Marine and company begin following any leads toward potential fighters, no matter how far-fetched or desperate.
The last remaining portion of the Nation of Mystrock Marine hasn’t scoured for allies is the deep South, which is in the process of being swallowed up by the sea and encroaching swamps. Marine’s main hope is to find and recruit a terrifying warrior known only as The Bear who disappeared into the Southern lands years ago.
All of the characters from previous episodes are available for use in “Millennium 4,” with Marine’s party bolstered by a number of new recruits as the current episode moves along. Along with The Bear and long-time ‘running’ gag NPC, Bokden (whose character portrait looks like Anime Matthew McConaughey), Marine recruits an unemployed handyman named Wolfgang (whose character portrait looks like Anime Hugh Jackman as Anime Wolverine) just because he’s not doing anything more important. Yes, the writer’s inspiration for finding 13 Warriors officially ran out of steam before the train reached the station.
In addition to the main mission of finding The Bear, the story arc involving Marine’s missing mother from “Millennium 2” returns… and receives a really fast, sloppy, unsatisfactory resolution. However, it doesn’t really make that much difference, since the entire episode covered by “Millennium 4” feels rushed, sloppy, and incredibly linear. There is little to no freedom given to the player to explore or deal with the ‘Millennium’ series’ traditional string of side quests and hidden secrets. Every single one of them is missable thanks to an extremely early Point of No Return written into the plot and the fact that the player’s freedom to backtrack is stripped away just a few hours in. “Millennium 4” is also the shortest episode so far, clocking in at under 10 hours for players who get caught up in the one-way plot and miss all of the side activities.
The short play time of “Millennium 4” is significant to the plot, however, as the running theme of this episode is a race against the clock. For the first time since the beginning of the series, the fact that Marine and company do indeed have a deadline to recruit the required number of people looms large. Almost every scene begins with a textbox stating the date and time of day. However, due to the fact that none of the previous episodes impressed timeliness on the player, and simply due to the fact that, as separate episodes instead of a uniform whole, everything that came before “Millennium 4” feels disjointed and disconnected from the frantic need to hurry presented in this episode.
Gameplay
“Millennium 4” provides the player with the opportunity to import a save from “Millennium 3.” Again, gameplay balance seems to expect the player to come into the episode with a good amount of imported supplies in order to avoid some tedious gameplay early on. However, “Millennium 4” goes the extra mile to nerf the player’s previously collected equipment by changing the battle mechanics significantly.
Since the Mystrock Tournament will be a hand-to-hand martial arts contest, Marine unilaterally decrees that anyone participating can’t use equipment that is disallowed in the event. Thus every character who previously wielded weapons and fancy armor is reduced to wielding their fists and wearing one of three special Kimonos handed out at the beginning of the game. Three Kimonos is not enough to cover the asses of 4 party members, so either a non-combatant character needs to fill the fourth party slot, or one of the party members will be stuck with a sub-par defense score for the entire game. “Millennium 4” also loves to randomly jack around with party composition, but doesn’t bother to de-equip characters that temporarily leave, thus it is incredibly easy to see a couple of Kimonos walk off with no way to get them back aside from reloading a previous save.
Due to the fact that characters can only use generally weak equipment, “Millennium 4” doesn’t have particularly interesting battles. Even bosses and hidden bosses feel weak, boring, simplistic, and unstrategic compared to the three prior episodes. To add the final insult, however, “Millennium 4” also adds a new type of grinding to the mix via Fist Levels. Each character that fights hand-to-hand can increase their damage output by leveling-up their fists. Fist Level maxes out at level 6, but getting that high requires the character to hit 1000 enemies. According to my in-game statistics, throughout all of the first three episodes, Marine (who was always in the party) only killed around 2000 enemies. Running around the environments of “Millennium 4” in order to allow all 13 Warriors to get 1000 hits is the embodiment of tedious, un-fun RPG design. Aldorlea should be ashamed of coming up with such a bad idea and by executing it so poorly.
Overall
After getting off to a strong start in its first two episodes, the ‘Millennium’ series has taken a precipitous nosedive. “Millennium 4: Beyond Sunset” is the least impressive episode so far, with its short, linear gameplay, weak combat, lack of strategy, and sloppy writing. With only one episode left to redeem itself, I’m not hopeful that ‘Millennium’ will leave a positive impression in the end.
Presentation: 3.5/5
Story: 2.5/5
Gameplay: 2.5/5
Overall (not an average): 2.5/5
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