I'd like to thank Wise Dad Games for the review key to this pre-release title.

Sometimes, role-playing games are less about fighting a great evil and doing great deeds than they are about telling a story. And sometimes, they even pick very unlikely characters to role-play as. The Majesti is a game that dares to do both.

In The Majesti, you start as a gnu named Gnuoot. Set just as the Ice Age begins on what is Earth in its distant past, Gnuoot and many other animals found after being touched by the "blue powder" from the skies, have become intelligent and sentient, and this causes them to awaken to new ideas about their purpose. Eventually coming to be known as "The Majesti", Gnuoot and the other animals seek to find answers as to why they became intelligent.

On the surface, this game uses the RPG Maker MV engine. It uses a top-down, 2D engine, has RPG-style combat, and otherwise appears to include all the standard trappings of a turn-based role-playing game. However, this game features far more storytelling and exploration than combat, with the few combat scenes being rather easy and serving to move the plot forward. According to the developer, they wanted to focus more on telling an interesting story and less on level grinding and the other tedious aspects of role-playing games.

Graphically, this game features another interesting deviation from the RPG Maker engine. Most RPG Maker games are built on a tile-based engine, as is the default engine setting. This opts instead for a parallax map superimposed on the background with collision settings for most maps. This allows for most areas to look stunning, many of which use scenery from photographs and high-quality art that looks far more detailed than can be achieved with tile-based graphics. On the flip-side, it can be hard to move around, as it's not always apparent where you can and cannot move on the maps, which can result in some trial and error exploring.

Sounds and music are a definite highlight. Using a lot of instrumentals with an African feel (given the game appears to be set there, rather appropriate), most music fits the mood of its Lion King-esque setting like a glove. Controls can be either keyboard or PC gamepad-based, the engine supports both and there is no serious difference between the two.

Stability is generally excellent, given it is based on RPG Maker MV. It had one major crash bug, which was PROMPTLY fixed when I contacted the developer about it during testing, so I can confirm they are extremely attentive to bug testing reports. That aside it runs fine, and MV games run well in Proton on Linux.

Morally, there is not too much to complain about.

The violence is of the RPG "give orders and watch the result" type. This is generally bloodless and sterile and given it's between anthropomorphic animals with no gore, not too bad overall, and the general rationale is always self-defense of some sort. There are no language concerns or sexual content anywhere.

As for the supernatural and occult, terms like magic do get thrown around, but this is generally shown as "primitive thinking for a rational event that cannot be described any other way". The animals who become part of the Majesti are given intelligence and abilities they ascribe to "magic", but is shown to have a rational basis in what is depicted as a mutation based on material from outer space.

Later in the game, when humans do appear, they do mention a few African superstitions about magical animals and related legends about the Majesti, and while there is again a more rational explanation, it's shown as "primitive superstition as an explanation for something they cannot explain via another concept" in intent. Otherwise, there is little to nothing else of concern.

Most of the game has the player as animals who have developed sentience and intelligence on par with humanity, and most conflict is due to natural differences, like how carnivores and herbivores are natural predators due to their innate natures, a theme that persists even for the animals who developed intelligence. Ingame, there is a theme of animals wanting to find some sort of concord despite all this, which is shown as noble if largely doomed to failure.

Overall, given this has yet to be released, it's a mix of good and bad. It has an interesting and unusual premise that tells an interesting story. On the other hand, it needs more technical polish and bug-testing, so while I'd recommend it on release, it would be with the caveat that I'd only recommend it to fans of RPGs heavy on telling a narrative over anything else. Morally, there are few issues other than violence and some minor references to the supernatural, but nothing any older child couldn't handle.