Bio Armor Quest – Review by Anon

By: Anon
Originally posted: 14.08.2016
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I think it's a bit too short for a proper review, but here.

Bio Armor Quest
550 posts read of the first and only thread as of writing. Mild spoilers ahead.

>Synopsis
You are a Japanese woman who is secretly a giant armored beetle monster that sucks energy out of the environment. Also metaphysical things.

>Camp
A warning to preface: I haven’t watched a single 80’s anime OVA in my life. It took me a few posts and the introduction of the theme music to really drive home what’s going on. Dramatic monologues, awkward sort-of-deep one liners, finishing moves being shouted, it’s got them all, and it uses them proudly.

>Exposition
A bit ridiculous but the “Roll to remember” bit was something I liked. Tying our memories to current events and slowly learning about a hidden world was neat. Shortly after meeting more people in the know, the setting is plainly presented in an interactive infodump, a really long, boring one too. I’m sure there’ll be more interesting reveals in the future, seeing as how it’s only the first thread.

>Characters
Perhaps subjective, but the characters are ridiculous. Twice the main character suddenly turns into a screaming psycho and then back normal at the drop of a hat. It’s not black and white; there are mental states between mildly confused and raving lunatic. Another character takes things way too personally and warms up to you equally as fast. To boot, interactions sometimes feel very contrived.

>Words
The quality of the writing is like a wave. Sometimes it’s interesting, other times subpar. Same thing with grammar, except overall it has improved since the beginning. It’s too hard to gauge anything with its length. A lot of the time the structure is boring and similar, making it glaringly clear that sentences starts with “You” or “Your” far too often. Switch up the subjects, spice it up a little. Though, descriptions are wonderful.

“You spear your horn right down his gullet. He makes a horrible sound as you scatter red tissue and white teeth for miles from the impact.”

Lovely. Despite having exceptional word choice at times, there are moments like “stretchhhhhhhhh,” “you were just a dumb normal,” and also bluntly “normies.” Average citizen, an everyman, or the public are all fine alternatives, by the way.


>Mechanics
Prompts are given through ALL CAPS, ALL THE TIME. Everything offered so far seemed to have a decent enough impact. Options are also incentivized through the modification of stats, which is a nice way of making players do things they may not want to do. Stats are still relevant so I have high hopes.

In combat, the QM rolls a die to give a DC. It’s interesting when in combination with modifiers. No crits. I can’t gauge this too much, though. Despite two extended action sequences, I don’t remember anything spectacular or mindboggling resulting from the rolls, although that can only be expected when using average of 3.

Update time is something only Cosmic knows. Is it going to be a short reply that comes in 10 minutes, or will it be a 3-parter that takes hours to write? Good luck finding that out.

Final Thoughts:
You get exactly what you asked for: some kind of old campy anime with a soundtrack to boot. The humor is pretty much exactly what you’d expect it to be from the QM, and by now the score should be obvious too:

COSMIC GOING HAM/10

There’s a solid backstory, engaging fights, and neat mechanics. Do check it out if you’re interested in this sort of thing. Now, to wrap it up.

“You want to scream but your lungs are filled with fire.”