This technically answers both: Stories revolving around princes/princesses or what have you. I’m personally fed up with whole “prince good guy” / “princess good gal” fighting “big bad country/empire” type of stories. Then again, I’m not really a story-focused guy, and can forgive/overlook quite a lot if the gameplay is solid. For me gameplay is the most important thing in a hack. If it’s a chore to play, I just won’t.
Objective variety. Many hacks play it safe with having the common Rout/Defeat boss/Survive objectives, but what if there were things like (just to name a few):
- Defeat only certain enemy units
- All NPCs have escaped
- Loot treasury (like when all treasure chests are opened the chapter is cleared)
Even if these weren’t the main objective, some variety to typical objectives would be nice.
As for the:
Top three:
- Gameplay
- Map design
- Combat and combat progression
As for the rest, not necessarily in this order:
- Overall narrative
- Music
- Animations
- Character Intrigue
- Writing/Dialogue
I’m often not very heavily invested in stories, so that’s why I’m rating it low. Custom animations, music and such are nice, but again, if gameplay sucks, I’m not sticking with your hack. Insert some random metaphor for a dish that looks nice but tastes horrible, that’s how I see the importance of gameplay over anything else. When it comes to writing, as long as it’s not cringeworthy poop-joke tier, I most likely can live with it.
Now, as for:
This may come as a surprise given everything I have said: Dream of Five.
It’s not perfect by any means, but what I really like about this hack is how I’m constantly kept on my toes. I have to focus and get in the zone. It’s really rewarding when you get to think through your choices and get rewarded for making the correct plays.
Throughout DoF I was able to see some of the design choices / intentions that the creators might have had. There were many occasions where both the player damage output as well as enemy damage output was perfectly calculated. Like, using this and that character allows you to just barely take down the Paladin, for example. This is something I greatly enjoyed. You could see the many gameplay decisions come together, the parts make the whole.