Today we’re looking at Handsome Ransom, by blankd. You are a 21-year old kobold that is turned into a princess by her Fairy Kobmother to fulfill her dream of attending a royal party. Naming herself Kosette in a cursed reminder of the Bowsette era, she attempts to attend a party, but is quickly seen through as not being actual royalty. In order to become royalty, she decides to conspire with a dragon to kidnap actual princes and princesses to acquire the wealth needed to be considered legitimate!

There’s one big issue with the game that’s glaring from the start and it’s that there’s little to no music. The sound is clearly there, there’s just no music set to anything – either that or RPG Maker MV has tried my patience for the last time (like how it’s erasing text on subsequent playthroughs, for me). It’s just kinda weird that there isn’t even RTP music, considering that the creator has no problem using the RTP graphics alongside their original art (which, by the way, is pretty cute).

Going in though, you’re greeted with some fun writing. After Kosette accidentally kills a man, she becomes a wacky, arrogant cartoon villain – in a good way. She meets up with other kinds of kobolds that will lend their aid, all of them offering amusing dialogue as they negotiate pay; there’s even a few interludes where they get to babble as you storm the castle of the demo’s royal. Said royal, the Rose Prince, also turns out to be a huge likable weirdo, which makes his knight upset. Handsome Ransom‘s writing is generally full of character and charm and was easily the best part of the game.

As you meet up with your teammates for the first time, an overwhelming weight is placed on your shoulders: team customization. There’s a whole bunch of characters to recruit and there’s a whole lot of skills to buy. Your shadow kobold friend could be built up as a poison expert or into a glass cannon that could wipe the floor with anyone you set them against; your chef can easily become a healer, but can also be retooled to be a strong attacker based on the amount of meat they have. There’s plenty to play around with, though the demo, covering a plant based area, encourages you to bring fire and cutting skills. The team building potential actually reminded me a lot of YOMOTSU, which was the winner of the last IGMC, so I went in with high expectations.

Unfortunately, going into the demo proper, I’m going to have to be honest: this does not seem like a game that was playtested.

You enter the Land of Roses and go into the next room. But it’s not the next room, because for some reason the teleporter takes you to the next room over. Enemies approach you. But their conditions are set up wrong and they only fight you when you touch them, not when they touch you, making them chasing you feel pointless. You get into a battle and you get poisoned during the battle. The poison carries on after battle and for some reason healing at save points does not remove it.

And the fights themselves are poorly balanced. The Busy Bees can attack with a move called Dazzling Speed that hits in the hundreds. Multiple times. And you typically encounter them in groups of four. To contrast, they’re paired up with Shine Flowers that have mundane attacks, only good for finishing you off if the bees haven’t already. The final boss of the demo has an attack called Thorn that does 0 damage, while also having a group attack that can hit into the hundreds.

Your attacks are no different. As Argeth, a commenter on Handsome Ransom‘s page says, the bees seem to ignore damage randomly. For me, this was a general problem. I brought out the fire breathing party member against the plant monsters and for some reason, attacks either did high damage or no damage whatsoever. On the plus side (in a bad way), if you have the cook and a bunch of regen spells to stack, you can pretty much heal all damage after every turn, as long as you aren’t just flat-out killed during the enemy turns (…which is entirely possible).

I had high hopes for Handsome Ransom. It had the set-up to be really engaging and I dig the original art and fun writing, but it is perhaps the most poorly balanced game I’ve ever personally played. I know that it’s supposed to be a prototype, but this is supposed to be a prototype representative of a bigger experience and I’m sorry to say that it leaves a poor impression. I can personally see myself playing this as a visual novel because as I said, I dig the art and writing, but as an RPG in this state, I wouldn’t rank it highly.