Given that this is the Japan-exclusive game Alpha Dream made for Nintendo before they made the first Mario & Luigi game, I went into this game expecting it to be an okay sort of proto-M&L experience. While to a certain degree that is absolutely true, I was nevertheless routinely surprised at how mechanically interesting and narratively clever this game was. It's not super long at only 15-ish hours, but it was still absolutely worth the time and the 700 yen I paid for it on the Wii U Virtual Console.

The story of Tomato Adventure is about Demiru, a little rabbit-like boy in a vegetable/food land of the Tomato Kingdom. While on a search for his girlfriend Pasaran's robot, she's kidnapped by the evil King Abira, who plans to use her energy to turn the kingdom from food into toys. Fighting through his 6 Super Kids one at a time, you aim to save your girlfriend with the help of some wacky friends you meet along the way. The story is fairly self-aware, irreverent, and silly, with a tone that struck me as something between an early 2000's gag anime and a Loony Toons cartoon. It's got a tone more irreverent and less serious than Superstar Saga, for example, and that combined with the relatively short length keep it from getting stale. Being a 2002 JRPG aimed at kids, it doesn't have any sort of serious message to get across, but its protagonists and antagonists were fun and silly enough that it kept the story interesting for me regardless.

The presentation is a bit of a mixed bag. I didn't have as much of a problem with this playing it on a wide-screen TV on my Wii U, but this game must've been a nightmare to play on the original GBA in 2002. Demiru is quite small on the screen, and the environments themselves tend to be very colorful and loud in their presentation. That on top of relatively small text made me routinely thankful to not be playing this on an unlit 3" GBA screen XD . The music is also really nothing to write home about. The boss themes are pretty nice, but there's only one or two, a standard battle theme, and then the final boss has not one but TWO unique tracks. Each area you go to has one or two themes for its main areas and dungeon parts respectively, but nothing really memeorable. The music and sound design sounds much closer to something like Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire than Superstar Saga in terms of quality and style (at least to my ears). Very much Early GBA Chic.

The gameplay is where the ideas that would go onto make Mario & Luigi start to really shine through though. There is no jumping or platforming the way the M&L games have in the overworld, and first strikes on enemies aren't a thing, but there are still environmental puzzles galore and no random encounters (enemies walk around and you touch them to initiate combat). This game has tons of puzzle and action mini-game segments that, while some are pretty pants, all tend to be very different and you'll rarely see something similar more than once. There are some that are so frustrating the game definitely would've benefited from an option to just skip them and move on after you'd failed a bunch, but that's difficult to reasonably expect from a game from 2002.

The combat, like M&L, revolves around fulfilling action commands around the "Gimmick" (literally what they're called) devices you find throughout the game. Demiru meets 3 party members over the course of his journey, and while only one of them can be active at a time (Demiru must always be in your party), each of them has their own gimmicks only they can use, with Demiru having the most as to give him more variety. The gimmicks themselves are subject to power creep pretty badly (really no reason not to at least try out new ones as you get them as they tend to be reasonably more powerful than your old ones), but none of their timed mini-games are the same. Some are quite similar, but no two are exactly alike, even between characters, although the instructions on how to perform their mini-games are sometimes quite annoyingly vaguely explained. The game rolls out the gimmicks pretty slow at the start as well as their related mechanics, and the game has a pretty dang slow and easy start in general, but you'll have dozens of gimmicks by the end of the game and the final boss or two really don't mess around.

Very similar to how Superstar Saga has difficulties for Bro Moves that you can increase to use less BP and deal more damage, you can change the difficulty of gimmick's action commands between battles to deal more damage at the risk of failing the command. It creates a neat risk/reward system that incentives getting really good at the newest gimmicks to do more damage. Additionally, very similar to what would be used for Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story's Bro Badge mechanics, you have "Incredible" points that you can build up by successfully completing gimmick action commands, and you build them up far faster by completing higher difficulty gimmick commands. You only unlock this feature once you get your first party member, but each of the 3 party members has two possible Incredible Actions they can do (one at 3/4ths Incredible bar, one at full bar) for different effects ranging from a full-party heal to massive AOE damage to your enemies. To balance this, each gimmick has a certain number of times you can use it before you need to use other of your 4 equipped gimmicks (you must have as many as you can equipped up to a maximum of 4), which balances out the risk/reward by encouraging you to use gimmicks you can complete reliably, and not just ones that do a lot of damage.

However, this is where that mechanic stumbles a bit. If you fail an action command JUST one time, your entire stock of Incredible points drops to 0, meaning you are punished pretty hard for not succeeding at an action command. There's also no way to practice action commands outside of real combat, meaning there's no way to tell for sure what a new gimmick's action command will be, let alone exactly how upping the difficulty of a certain gimmick will affect the possibility of its completion. One or two gimmicks (including Demiru's 4th acquired one) are entirely down to luck, which can make building up Incredible points super irritating if you lose your entire bar because you guessed wrong. Some have higher difficulties that are absurdly difficult and bordering on impossible to complete on purpose, and there were many I found I had no chance to complete even by accident on power levels past 4 (each has 7 levels of difficulty). This is further complicated by the strange way this game decides to do character leveling.

Leveling your actual character through combat only ups their speed and maximum health. Your defense is tied to the armor you're wearing, and you'll rarely find new armor outside of buying it at the new town's shop (although money is basically never an issue if you just fight everything you see like I did). And your attack power is tied entirely to the gimmick you're using, and gimmick power level is decided by 3 things: the specific gimmick (some are simply more powerful than others as their base power rating), the 1-7 action command difficulty you've chosen for that gimmick, and finally how much you've increased that gimmick's power through batteries.

There are 4 types of gimmicks and their action commands revolve around the theme of their type: Timing, Renda (button mashing), Speed (do commands within a time limit), and Dokidoki (basically an "Other" category, usually revolving around memorization and/or abject luck). You can find in chests and from enemy drops (and in the much later game, outright buy for large sums of money) batteries that will increase the power level of a gimmick. It can't be done infinitely, but it's a good way to make a gimmick you like continue its usefulness even when other newer gimmicks have higher base power levels. This also smartly incentivizes spreading out the types of gimmicks across the characters you use, as while you may be able to very reliably do the action commands for most button mashing gimmicks and speed ones, that means you'll have a ton of unused timing and dokidoki batteries and relatively underpowered overall gimmick strength. Ultimately, all this means that while you can't necessarily grind levels for more power, you can grind money to power up your favorite gimmicks for the end-game (and the final boss is a proper blighter, so you'll need them at max power, lemee tell ya). It also fortunately means that you aren't really punished that much for avoiding combat, since levels don't affect your overall power level that significantly (compared to traditional JRPGs at least).

Verdict: Highly Recommended. I was very pleasantly and regularly surprised by the quality of this game. The slow and very easy start had me a bit worried it'd be pretty boring, but I hit a stride around the first boss of the game that really had me hooked. While the last two dungeons go on for a bit too long, the game otherwise has really nice signposting and good overall pacing, and a nice difficulty curve to boot (although the highest spots of it are a bit weirdly high for a game that says its geared towards kids). This is now one of my favorite games Alpha Dream has done, and one of the Japan-exclusive games I've most enjoyed playing. It's absolutely worth your time with a fan translation or to help practice your Japanese ^w^

Evil emperor forces local population to eat tomatoes and everyone that dislikes tomatoes is banned to a secluded village, also he kidnaps your girlfriend and you must travel the world acquiring MacGuffins to enter his castle and rescue her. This game manages to feel both creative and cliche at the same time. But while there isn't much of a story, the game still has a charming simplicity, fun characters/dialogues and colorful locations, just don't expect anything more than that- unlike mother series or legend of the seven stars, this game never takes itself seriously, as such its hard to really care about anything that is going on.

The combat relies on the gimmick system, in which before you attack, you must play a mini-game that can vary from memorization, to tapping a button really fast, or stopping a circle in the right spot or even inputting a specific sequence really fast. And you can adjust the difficulty, making more damage to the enemies the more difficult you set the gimmick, that is, if you succeed. Sadly I can't say the gimmick system is much of a success, as the gimmicks get progressively more intricate and the enemy encounters keep getting more frequent, thus the combat gets annoying. A faster and simpler timed button press system like the ones used in Shadow Hearts or SMRPG are still the better option imo. The two character party(there are three partners, but only one can be active) is also naturally restrictive and there isn't much in terms of strategy.

The level design also tries to be constantly innovating, but it only can do so much against the inherent repetitiveness of long JRPG dungeons in a game with very simple turn-based combat & mini-game repetition. And the dungeons are huge. It also doesn't help that the game was originally made for GBC, so the maps are more limited, feeling somewhat flat and horizontal.

Overall it's enjoyable, but far from the best.

In 1999, various game developers from Square helped build a new video game division at the AlphaStar construction company. By June of next year, the team had rebranded themselves as "Alpha Dream," intentionally comparing themselves as the "first dream" compared to their origins working within "Final Fantasy." In 2003, they released the game "Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga." In three years, they had sold one million copies in the US alone, earning around $30 million in profits. The success quickly ingratiated themselves within the Nintendo company. While developing smaller titles such as Hamtaro or PostPet DS, AlphaDream would firmly dedicate itself to the Mario and Luigi rpg franchise. One year prior to its grand success as a company, however, came Tomato Adventure.

Its hard not to compare Tomato Adventure to AlphaDream's later works. TA is just proto-Superstar Saga from top to bottom. Vegetable themed kingdom, strange nonsensical villains, a funny bandit, the occasional deliciously mean gag designed to tease the player, a few less delicious and more just mean fat jokes... All the pieces are here. Its a clear proof of concept piece more than anything. The team has a gameplay idea with these action commands and they're showing off to prospective companies like Nintendo to illustrate how it can work. Its a necessary stepping stone if they're gonna get the funding and direction towards a project like Superstar Saga.

Trying to hold it on its own merits is... hard. This version of action commands abandons the idea of MP or any special move system in favor of "Gimmicks." Gimmicks are the tools necessary to make your attacks. There's dozens of gimmicks to assign to each character, but the pcs can only hold four at a time. Each gimmick has limited uses, but they'll recharge if your character has used ALL the gimmick uses currently assigned to them. Shorter version: you better only pick attacks you like doing, because you'll be required to do them a lot. Its a great way to ensure the player tries out all the moves they have at their disposal, but its also exhausting to figure out the perfect set-up in terms of attacks and general enjoyment.

The M&L characters weren't exactly complex, but the TA crew doesn't have much going for them either. They have one goal and that'll be their focus for the whole game. And it doesn't even need to be more complex than that. But it just leaves the core story pretty lacking and its hard to keep the story engaging with the basic "collect all the toy parts" storyline. I was already kind of worn out by the half-way point of the game and that's only seven hours into the game. You can really see the advantage of Mario and Luigi as protagonists in comparison. They're company icons, they don't have characters that need to be established. They were born to make silly noises and if they had to deliver exposition or react verbally to gags, the appeal is gone.
DeMille has too many "well THAT just happened" Chris Pratt-esque lines that dilute the jokes that M&L would have to leave hanging just by the nature of M&L as relatively silent heroes.

Honestly, the most interesting parts of the game are when its child-like tone gives way to darker ideas they want to play with. It manages to carry that perfect innocent cruelty that comes to childhood. One level involves a mirror gimmick, where you go through reflections of the same museum. On side one, a bird resists getting plucked before finally relenting so it can just go back to sleep.. On side two, the other bird stays stubborn and becomes a miniboss. It dies from the battle. The museum host informs you "well, both sides need to be equal. Better go defeat the other bird." Half expected the guy to give me a knife and whisper a Thanos line.

Still, even if I didn't love the story, incredible credit has to be given to the translation team that created TA's fan translation. Even with all its problems, its a miracle to even be able to play this game at all. Part of the problems in this game's very mechanics makes it a difficult game to translate at all, much less as a fan group outside the company. All the puns and jokes are coherent and consistent in tone and that's what really matters in a localization.

AlphaDream went bankrupt in 2019. There's a number of places to put blame, but it just seems to me like it had nowhere else to grow. It already perfected its format in M&L franchise and it just never quite branched out further. But you can see that potential for growth here. How its ambitions and goofy sense of humor started and the places it could grow towards from there. It makes me want to revisit and chart the path of AlphaDream over the decade to see if you can a consistent improvement tragically cut short, or if it just ran out of steam.

originalmente desarrollado para la GBC con el nombre de Gimmick land, el cual fue presentado a los directivos de nintendo y quedaron fascinados con el producto que les ordenaron que desarrollaran para GBA con el nombre de Tomato adventure, mientras que la versión GBC nunca fue lanzada oficialmente (hasta hace poco tiempo que fue leakeado pero eso es otra historia) y dicho juego proyecto les quedo tan bien que al final se les dio la responsabilidad para el desarrollo de mario y luigi y dedicarse completamente a esa nueva rama de la franquicia de Mario.
Si hay una palabra con que definir Tomato adventure es Caos, al momento de iniciar la partida, lo primero que presenciamos es una trasmisión en vivo del rey de tomatoland ,presentando su nuevo proyecto que tiene como objetivo es hacer que lo niños nunca crezcan y en medio de la presentación se corta la señal, y el escenario pasa a presentarnos al protagonista viendo la televisión de la cual fue cortada la señal y obviamente cual reacción creen que tendría en una situación así? mandar al televisor a mecánico? salir a curiosear? nah lo intentara arreglar a base de puñetazos contra su televisión y nos dan control para que pulsemos repetidamente el boton A hasta que hagamos explotar la TV.
luego de dicho acontecimiento salimos para mandarlo al mecánico y lo primero que descubrimos es que vivimos en una zona de exilio para la gente que odia los tomates y justo ese dia es el aniversario del tomate y se puede salir de dicha zona, habíamos quedado con nuestra novia ,Pasaran, a salir al bosque para buscar su juguete que había perdido hace bastante tiempo, eventualmente entramos a una ruinas y llegando a la cima de esta y seguir buscando ,de sorpresa aparece un ovni y secuestra a Pasaran con la intención de succionarle el alma para activar la maquina que apareció en la trasmision, despues de una pelea sorprendentemente complicada demille es arrojado cerca del castillo tomate para rescatar a su amada pero no hay acceso y de la nada aparece un Topo y dice que la única forma de entrar al castillo es derrotando a los tiranos de diferentes zonas del reino ,los 6 super kids y al derrotarlos tendremos acceso al castillo y cada que derrotemos a cada uno de los super kid ,dicho topo aparecerá y nos dará información sobre que hacer y videos sobre la situación de Pasaran en cautiverio.
Las situaciones que pasaremos en cada zona de los super kid son tan únicas de unas de las otras, en una tendremos que cruzar una montaña para que fluya una corriente de mayonesa para un spa ,en otro entraremos a un coliseo en otro exploraremos un barco abandonado con su propio parque de atracciones en su interior, en otro literal tiene el momento mas creepy del juego pero su mayor momento peak es el anteúltimo super kid donde su zona es literalmente 2 dimensiones dentro de otras 2 dimensiones, fácilmente el dungeon mejor diseñado de todos y luego esta el dungeon final, dios que hermoso y doloroso es dicho dungeon final, tan larga pero muy variado en cuanto a zonas, gimmicks del escenario y varios cambios de gameplay fuera de los combate y ya que menciono el combate.......
La palabra que definiría el sistema de combate de este juego es APUESTA, mientras avancemos en la historia o recogemos binkis que están escondidos en todo el juego obtendremos ataque nuevos llamados ´´Gimmicks´´,dichos ataques tiene un limite de uso hasta que los vacíes todo los que tengas equipados y luego automaticamente se recarga, el tema con esto es que cada gimmick tiene su propio mini juego con limite de tiempo por ejemplo, con el yoyo: tienes que apretar A cuando el punto amarillo toque la zona roja marcada en forma de linea, en otro seria que con la chatarra debemos apretar A repetidamente hasta llenar la barra antes de que se acabe el tiempo y así con todas las demás ,uno puede decir ´´des equípate todas y quédate con la que te parece mas fácil de maniobrar y punto´´ pues nope porque cuando las obtienes se equipan automáticamente y las que te sobran(porque el limite de equipamiento es de 4) solo puedes cambiar dicha gimmick,por lo cual si o si tendras que adaptarte a las gimmick que tengas equipadas, de todas formas el juego te da la opción de bajar la dificultad de los mini juego a coste de perder daño, eventualmente al obtener a la primer party menber se activara una nueva mecánica que son los ataques duo que es una barra que se carga poco a poco cada que haces bien un minijuego, mientras mas difícil es el mini juego mayor será la carga pero si erras una vez pierdes toda la barra y además si tenes la barra llena también se puede utilizar para comprar binkis (aunque la cantidad puede ser aleatoria ,entre 1 a 5).
Ahora hablemos de los bosses ........son muy buenos en general ,cada uno tiene su forma de ataque y mientras que mas le bajes su vida cambian completamente su forma de lucha, sobre todo los super kid, al menos los 3 primeros tiene partes de cuerpo y dependiendo de cual destruyas primero cambiaran su patron de combate o pueden multiplicar sus turnos de ataque
y los últimos 3 alteran dicha forma y son de lo mas creativo, por ejemplo el super kid satelital para poder hacerle daño tienes que atacar su brazos para que tomen forma en Negativo y luego atacar el nucleo pero si haces que sean positivo te hace un ataque poderoso,otro seria la super kid Libel ,mientras mas daño le haces mas parte de cuerpo le saldran aumentando su cantidad de turnos y etc, en el apartado de jefes el titulo cumple con ser un reto pero controlable dependiendo de los gimmick que tengas equipados(porque cada gimmick tiene su propio efecto,otro hacen mas lento al enemigo,otro los duemen,otro bajan defensa,etc)
sobre los personajes en si, son un grupo de lo mas curioso, tenemos a demille que es el mas serio del grupo y tambien el que mas cuestiona toda la extrañez del juego, esta Alessa que tiene como objetivo en conocer al rey y ser su novia, esta Sofubi,una rana gorda que nos acompaña en nuestra aventura para que pueda perder de peso , y luego esta rellek ,no dire nada sobre él porque es una sorpresa.
talvez la mayor sorpresa del juego fue el mismo rey de tomatoland,y en cierta forma sentí algo de pena por él y cual fue su motivación por todo lo que hizo, lo cual lo hace mas lastima porque el juego termina en un cliffhanger chungo y 2 plot points quedaron medio al aire.
Realmente estuve enganchado con el juego y la verdad estaba expectante por cada extrañez que se mandaba pero dentro de lo raro de la situación hay cierto encanto que alpha dream supo dar tanto en los combates y en diferenctes situaciones (por ejemplo si lees los diarios en barco hundido,leeras que el capitan estaba feliz por celebrar navidad junto con su tripulacion pero al encontrar el ultimo, solo queda una nota melancolica ,donde acepta su final ) y es una lastima que esto no llego a mas porque el potencial que tenia era bastante grande

This game is magic, but it's kind of like a magic show that goes on for too long, where you want the magician to stop and let your parents take you home.

AlphaDream's pre-Mario & Luigi outing is somehow even zanier than a lot of things in that series.

(I'll get this out of the way too, the final dungeon goes on for waaay too long.)

However, this feels like unfiltered creative energy, while Superstar Saga feels like it's more filtered, polished and focused creative energy. Like water put through a sieve and partially de-mineralized, thus more digestible.
As a result, the game can fly too close to the sun with regards to how nonsensical and unapologetically left-field it is - and it often wears thin later on in the game. It felt like they were a desperate street magician always pulling thousand of tricks out of their hat in order to get passerby's attention. Impressive, but ultimately 'clingy' if that makes sense as an adjective for a game.

The story is interesting but majorly confusing - and not that it has to be the most well written for a JRPG intended to be excessively lighthearted. Still, I came out of this at the end kind of bone-weary of all the jokes, and really, really wishing for some of the plot points to be explained or even a dredge of character development. Characters like Rellek and Sofubi (names in the wonderful English translation) don't really have that much depth to begin with, or motivations other than "this journey sounds cool, I'll join you now K?"

The battle system is not all fun and games either. You basically attack only with techniques called Gimmicks, and you get more Gimmicks as you progress through one way or another (there are multiple ways to attain them). All of the Gimmicks require you to do a kind of Warioware-esque microgame in order for them to have much power.

Yet, I just really wasn't a huge fan of this system. Imagine a Mario & Luigi game where you can only use Bros Attacks. Then add that there are like (at least) 35 different Bros Attacks to choose from and ones for each character + you have multiple party members to juggle. I don't think this is the most optimized or polished RPG system, not by a long shot.

Yet, despite all these faults, it's a three star game because it's quite amazing, for AlphaDream's "first" attempt at this kind of thing. Yes, they had another amazing debut game for the Game Boy Color, "Koto Battle", but I'd say this is the first game of theirs in this kind of extremely zany style. I wonder how they managed to imbue this game with the kind of stylistic organization that would become a hallmark of all their later games (until the companies sad alleged going-away recently)? It's undoubtedly wondrous. It's really hard to describe, and you can only understand by playing it. The bouncy music, the feeling that I'm in the imaginings of a strange and unique child (like I was). Whimsical, almost mad genius-like (like I wasn't). Daydreaming their own strange fairy tale based on the ones they hear in school.
It's not without cliche though, and it actually has a lot of those damsel-in-distress plot points, but overall for it's stylistics alone it's bumped up half a star from what it would be.

Overall, I'd recommend you play this after you experience at least a few of the Mario & Luigi games - for then you will appreciate how far AlphaDream had come since this release, and you'll also see a lot of the lineage of those games here.
It's ultimately a pretty imperfect and sometimes annoying game - but endlessly charming, surprising and enjoyable. If the PS1 game "moon", as the story goes, was a deconstruction of RPG's from without, this game is a deconstruction from within and using RPG mechanics. It's about as flawed as something attempting that can be - yet it's worth taking a look at, even a brief one, for seeing an attempt at that sort of thing, a really colorful attempt.

(My play time upon completing the game was about 14 hours 53 minutes)

feels like superstar saga literally from the first sound effect lol. This probably has some of my favorite combat of any turn-based game. They get really unique with the attacks and being able to change the difficulty of them is really cool. There are some attacks where it's like I meet my limit and others where it pushes me to get better at the gimmicks, it's fun. Also the vibe is just so colorful, I love it. Oddly enough, this game reminds me of the feeling I get during the ending of TTYD when you get that one cutscene you know the one. It really is a tomato adventure <3
My only complaint is it feels like it drags on for like one zone too much, maybe.

I feel like the sole word you could use to describe this game is "quirky". The characters, areas, plot, dialogue, and gameplay all fall under that banner. That being said, the game wears its quirk on its sleeve, and is surprisingly endearing as a result.

The character designs are simplistic and charming, and the world is bursting with color and creativity. At first I thought the variety was confusing and jarring, but I quickly got into a groove where I just embraced how out-there the game can be. Accompanied by a peppy soundtrack, the game just becomes delightful to experience.

Overworld navigation is as simple as it gets, comparable to the original Mother on NES. Top-down camera where you move with the d-pad, press A to interact, hold B to run. The battle system is definitely the main attraction (gameplay-wise, anyways). All of your attacks are performed using gadgets, appropriately titled "Gimmicks". Every single gimmick has its own brief minigame that you're required to perform in order to determine the power of the attack. Not only that, but in-between battles, you can adjust the difficulty of each Gimmick from levels 1-7. Level 1 is the easiest to perform, but has the lowest attack output. Level 7 is extremely difficult, but has the highest attack output. You can also practice the various difficulty levels from the same menu, making it easy to test which difficulty is right for your personal experience.

The difficulty you choose for your Gimmicks also plays into another system: your "AWE" meter. By successfully performing consecutive attacks, you fill up your AWE meter. Once it passes a certain threshold, you can use an AWESOME attack. Fill the meter up completely, and you can use an entirely different AWESOME attack. The trick to filling the meter quicker is that higher difficulty Gimmick attacks pay out more AWE meter when successfully performed, incentivizing you to practice and master the higher difficulties of the Gimmicks. Be warned though, missing a single Gimmick attack is all it takes to bring your meter back down to zero.

The one point I could knock against this game is that battles never feel particularly difficult. As long as you're successfully performing your attacks (and they're above level 1 difficulty), most enemies die in 1-2 hits. The battle system hinges entirely on whether or not you enjoy using the Gimmicks (thankfully, I do).

I would be completely remiss to not mention this game's extremely charming, self-referential humor. Every single line of dialogue and scenario had me smiling from ear-to-ear with how it kept surprising me.

Alright, time to bring up the elephant in the room. This is the RPG that Alphadream made prior to developing Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (and every M&L RPG onwards). Simply playing it for a little bit is enough to see that pre-M&L DNA shining through. Everything this game does is repurposed in that series, from the gameplay mechanics to the humor. It doesn't make Tomato Adventure any weaker though, I feel like it still stands on its own merits.

All in all, if you're looking for an out-there RPG that won't give you too hard of a time, or if you're an M&L:RPG fan who's still lamenting the bankruptcy of Alphadream, you owe it to yourself to give this game an honest shot.