This is the two hundred first entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Our two hundred first random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality has changed the protagonist on us. It’s Benjamin of Blackstone Edge, by criacuervos, and its tagline in the bundle reads:

Exploration, stories, fights!

I can confirm that it contains all three of those things.

Attentive readers will remember that I actually rolled Benjamin of Blackstone Edge for the last entry, but upon discovering that it’s a direct sequel to Moonstone Deep, which is also in the bundle, I decided to play that first. Now, I’ve played through Benjamin of Blackstone Edge as the next pick. It has a lot of similarities to Moonstone Deep, so if you haven’t read my post about that game, you may wish to do so before proceeding. Here’s that link again.

Like its predecessor, Benjamin of Blackstone Edge is made with RPG Maker VX Ace, and is styled after classic Japanese-style role-playing games from the 16-bit console era. It still runs in a small window by default, which only partially expands when using the ALT+ENTER keyboard shortcut to toggle fullscreen. It uses many of the same art assets, retaining the juxtaposition of chibi-like incidental characters and much taller, more realistic looking main characters based off of 3D models. The stock RPG Maker menus make a return. So does the battle system, with the same first-person perspective and animations. Combat works the same way too, with characters generating “TP” during battle to unleash their powerful skills.

But this time around those skills are separated into several categories based on different weapons: characters might have sword skills, dagger skills, and bow skills, for example. This is nice because Moonstone Deep gave characters skills that were supposed to be linked to specific weapon types, but in practice could be used with any weapon. Here, skills are actually properly linked to weapon types, although there are many weapon-independent skills that are still listed under “sword skills”. Ideally this design would encourage characters to specialize in a particular weapon, but I found myself gravitating towards whatever was most powerful at any given time, and accepting that this would change the skills available in battle.

Also similar to Moonstone Deep is the fast pace. Players will once again explore small, dense locations filled with treasure chests that offer meaningful upgrades, and characters will level up swiftly and learn new skills. I appreciated this about Moonstone Deep and I still do here. This isn’t a game that pads out its runtime with sprawling locations and repetitive battles. In fact, I believe battles only occur in specific spots within each location, and many cannot be repeated. That made the opening of the game pretty tough, when I was controlling new protagonist Benjamin (Benji to his friends) as he ventured forth alone, with a limited supply of healing potions. Things are easier once he’s recruited some allies, but even then there are some tough battles. With no way to wander off and train for a bit, that could easily have been frustrating, but I liked it. Most games in the genre tend toward the easy side, so it was refreshing to face foes that required careful use of special skills and items to defeat.

Where Benjamin of Blackstone Edge starts to stand apart from its predecessor is in its branching story, full of different routes and outcomes. Moonstone Deep had a lot of choices too, notable since the genre norm is completely linear, scripted narratives. But in Benjamin of Blackstone Edge the branching design is more confident and better executed, with a lot more things that can happen. Not that players would know, at the start. The premise is a classic role-playing cliche of a young farm boy dreaming of heroics. When bandits raid Benji’s village and capture the women, including his crush, he vows to seek aid to rescue them, ignoring everyone’s warnings that the corrupt government will do nothing.

What could have easily been a tale full of tired tropes escapes this fate by hitting Benji with a dose of reality. He soon learns that justice is not always upheld, and that those in the right do not always win. Luckily, he also runs into Ryan Manolesta, the protagonist of Moonstone Deep, who has a more pragmatic approach. From there, players have a lot of say in how things turn out. Does Benji stay true to his naive ideals? Or does he take after Ryan’s thieving ways and get his hands dirty? While many of these choices have only minor impacts on the story — like taking sides in a conflict between two merchants, locking one off forever — they’re pleasingly murky, with no clear right answers. Players used to “solving” quests, knowing they’ll find the just path, will be confounded here. I’m still not sure which of those merchants was guilty, and which was trying to take advantage of Benji’s trusting nature.

And then there are the big choices. Optional side quests take Benji’s party to entirely new locales, with their own sets of smaller choices within. None of these went the way I expected, and I was constantly second-guessing myself as to what I should do next. Like those quarreling merchants, every story in Benjamin of Blackstone Edge has at least two sides, and it’s never clear which — if any — is the true one. Even the central story follows this pattern. It’s soon clear that the current rulers are bad people, in cahoots with the raiders who attacked Benji’s village. But later there are hints that they had suffered similar injustices under the old regime. Who to trust? I soon got into the habit of going with my gut, a mindset I rarely need in role-playing games.

Through this, I came to appreciate Benji as a protagonist. His earnestness means he’s less interesting than the other characters he meets, all of whom have more developed personalities. But, like me, he knows little about the world. All he knows is what those around him say, friend and foe alike. People manipulate him, even those in his own adventuring party. His experience matches mine, as the player, trying to choose the right path when I simply don’t have enough information. He, like me, has to go with his gut. And it can get him into all sorts of trouble.

The biggest choice in the game comes midway through, when all of this uncertainty comes to a head. Fresh off of some new revelations, Benji must decide if he wants to continue in his fight against the usurper king, or if that’s actually a folly. His allies are at odds about it, in what would be an excellent scene but for one detail: an incensed character shouts a slur at another, in a moment that honestly felt shocking. Especially for a game in this bundle, with its focus on justice and equality. I’m not sure if this was intended to vilify that character as a bigot, or if it was a quirk of the English translation and never intended to sound so harsh, but it soured me on the game. The scene could have worked just as well without it. An unfortunate moment, and one that means I must temper any praise I give with a big caveat.

But I will give that tempered praise, due to what happens after this choice. Continuing with Benji’s original purpose is clearly the intended canon ending, but I tried the other path first, and was amazed at just how reactive it was. This path is full of references to the events of Moonstone Deep, but depending on my choices, different endings from that game were assumed to have happened. One branch might dwell on the death of a certain character from Moonstone Deep, while in another that character is not only still alive, but joins the party. And speaking of death, it’s possible for members of Benji’s party to die too, including Benji himself! There’s an ending where the title character of the game perishes, and life goes on without him. Wild.

As cool as that is, though, the canon story path is even more impressive. Benji’s struggle against the usurper is hardly the fairy tale story he imagined as a kid, and it leads to a perfect, bittersweet ending. It’s far more affecting than I expected, and almost (but not quite) makes up for that mid-game scene.

So I found myself appreciating Benjamin of Blackstone Edge a lot. But it certainly has some problems. Players who simply play through once, make their choices, and reach an ending might find themselves unsatisfied; this is a game that really rewards exploring all the options and seeing all the different directions the story can go. I recommend keeping saved games in different slots before each decision, so you can return and see what happens if you do things differently. And you’ll want a lot of saved games anyway, because Benjamin of Blackstone Edge is a bit buggy, as its predecessor was. I ran into two separate game-stopping bugs — which criacuervos graciously fixed after I reached out to them via itch.io — and several smaller ones. Things like the game getting stuck in “night time” colors so I couldn’t see anything, or entering somewhere I wasn’t supposed to go yet and being unable to leave without re-loading an earlier save.

The bugs aren’t the only rough edges either. At several points there are unwinnable battles that players are required to lose, and I definitely burned through all my healing potions trying to win one of these before realizing it was pointless. The larger story scope means players will travel across the kingdom this time, instead of staying in the single town where Moonstone Deep was set, but the zoomed-out world map doesn’t work like one might expect. Players can’t freely roam and explore other towns like in Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy. There’s usually exactly one place the party is allowed to go, leaving me wondering if the world map might have been better handled as a non-interactive cutscene. And the branching story often means that these locations and their associated story lines drop in abruptly, which can make some sections feel random.

Then, of course, there’s that central scene, which may bother others even more than it did me. In a similar vein, both Moonstone Deep and Benjamin of Blackstone Edge uphold certain gender norms, which are never really discussed. With a single, minor exception, every female character who can join the party is a mage, while the males are all physical fighters. Are women the only ones able to use magic, in this world? If so, it never comes up, making me wonder if the games are instead falling back on old stereotypes that women cannot be warriors themselves. As discussed above, I was able to enjoy Benjamin of Blackstone Edge despite this, but prospective players should be warned going in.

If you can forgive these shortcomings and rough parts, however, Benjamin of Blackstone Edge is an interesting ans surprisingly adaptable tale, one I’ve found myself thinking back on more often than I expected. Of the two games it’s certainly the more accomplished, and it can be enjoyed without playing Moonstone Deep first, but playing both helped me appreciate the characters and world all the more. A definite recommendation if you, like me, have fond memories of playing weird, experimental RPG Maker games. If you missed it in the bundle, Benjamin of Blackstone edge is sold for a minimum price of $6, as is Moonstone Deep.

That’s 201 down, and only 1540 to go!