01.01.12 / Nintendo DS, PS2, PSX, Sony PSP, Video game / Author: Kina / Comments: (12)
Tags: 7th dragon, atelier elie, disgaea, dragon quest vi, innocent sin, ni no kuni, persona 2, phantasy star portable, shining hearts, suikoden 2, summon night 3, tales of innocence, wild arms 2
Happy New Year! This was the quietest New Year’s Eve I’d ever spent in my life, thousands of miles away from friends and family. I didn’t even notice when the clock struck twelve because I was too busy reading morbid articles about pythons swallowing people. Don’t ask.
Still, yay, 2012! There’s something nice and round about that number that makes it seem like it’ll be a good year, right? So happy new year to everyone!
Now, back to the important stuff. For the past couple of days I’ve been playing Blade Dancer: Lineage of Light, which like TOLUCT, is not quite bad enough to quit playing over. I’ll write something about it when I either finish it or give up, whichever one comes first.
Since I don’t plan to buy a 3DS, Vita, 360 or PS3 any time soon, the games I plan to play this year are mostly games from my massive backlog dating back at least 10 years. Twelve games should be reasonable enough.
1. Persona 2: Innocent Sin (PSP) – I started it last year and didn’t get far. I’ll try and finish it once and for all in 2012. No news of an Eternal Punishment remake so far, so I might jump straight into the PSX version of that when I’m done.
2. Summon Night 3 (PS2) – First PS2 troubles then TV-unavailability problems kept me from playing this last year, but this time I’ll try to make it happen. I’d like to play SN4 too, but first things first.
3. Dragon Quest VI (NDS) – On Feb 14th it’ll have been exactly one year since I finished Dragon Quest V, making it as good a time as any to move on to the next one. I’ll probably be desperate for a good, old-school RPG by that point anyway.
4. Tales of Innocence (NDS) – I played this very briefly after finishing Tales of the Tempest. To be honest I thought it was even worse, all the flaws of ToTT but with some reincarnation bullshit thrown in on top. But I only played an hour, so I’m going to restart and give it a proper chance later this year.
5. Wild Arms 2 (PSX) – I haven’t touched my PSOne in years. I think it’s still working, but I’m not going to risk it, so I’ll just play this on an emulator. I played WA1 almost 10 years ago and liked it. Now I’ll get to see if the rest of the series is worth bothering with.
6. Suikoden 2 (PSX) – Same deal as with Wild Arms 2, except I skipped S2 and played S3 and it was really kinda bad. Still, Suikoden 2 is one of those legendary “OMG you have to play this, I can’t believe you haven’t played it yet” games. It should be playable, at the very least.
7. Atelier Elie (PSX) – Also to be emulated. It’s the only “main” Atelier game I have yet to play, apart from Lilie, which I dropped after a few hours because it was frustrating. Atelier Marie was my favorite one of the “real” Atelier games, and Elie is supposed to be a much-improved sequel, so this should be good.
8. Disgaea (PS2) – I’ve had this game for years. I’ve tried to play it several times, but I always quit before too long. Too much stuff to think about, not enough excitement. This year I’m going to give it the mother of all college tries to find out once and for all whether the game is just not for me or whether it’s really as bad as I’ve felt it to be so far.
9. 7th Dragon (NDS) – My love/hate affair with ImageEpoch continues. Luminous Arc 3 was amazing, Criminal Girls was fantastic, Sands of Destruction was so-so, Final Promise Story made me want to nuke Tokyo. What will 7th Dragon be like? I’m quite excited about this game, tbh. There’s a PSP sequel, so if I like this I’ll order that as well.
10. Ni no Kuni: Shikkoku no Madoushi (NDS) – I’ve been waiting and waiting for this to come out in the West. That’s obviously not going to happen any more so I’ll have to import it. And when it’s time to import something, I always ask myself, “Okay, do I really want this game that badly?” Thus far the answer’s been “No” but I think this is the year I’ll finally take the plunge. Maybe.
11. Shining Hearts (PSP) – It looks nice. The heart-collection system sounds…different, I guess? And I haven’t played anything Shining since Shining Force Feather in 2008, so I might as well.
12. Phantasy Star Portable (PSP) – Phantasy Star, this, Phantasy Star, that. I’ve been hearing about you for years. Bring it on, let’s see what you’ve got.
Aaand that’s it. Of course I’m being super-optimistic and just taking it for granted that I’ll have the life, health, time and resources to play all these, but if you can’t be over-optimistic on the first day of the year, when can you be? As for life resolutions, I only have three. One, go to church more often (I only went twice in 2011, for shame), Two, buy more and pirate less, and Three, spend less time playing video games! One hour less a month still counts as less, right? ;-D
16.07.11 / Action RPG, Nintendo DS, Otome game, PS2, RPG, Simulation game, Sony PSP, Strategy RPG, Video game, Visual novel / Author: Kina / Comments: (0)
Tags: allison & lillia, astonishia story, Berwick Saga: Tear Ring Saga, breath toiki wa akaneiro, destiny links, harvest moon, hiiro no kakera, hoshigami remix, houkago shounen, inugami, Legend of Heroes, mimana iyar chronicle, remindelight, the world ends with you
I play a lot of games from start to finish. I play even more from start to whenever-I-get-tired-of-it. However every once in a while (…actually pretty darn often) there’s a game that I try to play only to give up very quickly for one reason or another. I usually don’t even mention them here firstly because I have nothing to say, and secondly because I have better games to write about, but I’ll list a few recent victims of this practice here.
Remindelight (DS) – Long intro, cliched story about rescuing sister from forces of evil, meh graphics, massively squashed-up text that’s incredibly difficult to read, terrible battle system that consists of slashing randomly at the screen, etc. I don’t think I got even an hour into this one.
Houkago Shounen (DS) – One of the games you have to be Japanese to appreciate, I guess. It follows the life of a little boy in 80s Japan as he goes to school, comes home, plays with his friends and tries to avoid moving away with his family at the end of summer. It was heartwarming but, frankly, extremely dull, and none of the mini-games he plays seemed like any fun. Instead of me playing a game about him, he needs to play the game about my childhood.
Astonishia Story (PSP) – I played about an hour last week, and it reminded me of Tactical Guild in terms of sheer terribleness. Even the samey-looking bad guys, walk-up-and-attack battle system, forced humor and paper-thin characters are similar. I could grow to love this game, I know I could. But I’ve already played one so-bad-its-good game this year, so AS will have to wait till at least 2012 to get its turn. If ever.
Inugami DS, Allison & Lillia DS – Not games, just books put on the DS by publishers out to make a few extra bucks. I thought reading light novels on the DS might be more fun than reading scanned copies on the screen (Buy? what is this “Buy” you speak of?), but this probably only applies to books that are worth reading in the first place, i.e. NOT Inugami.
Destiny Links (DS) – Shame, it’s a really promising game. Destiny Links had lots of elements I love in an RPG (quests, item crafting, world exploration, multiple character scenarios to play through), but I just couldn’t get past the pure action RPG battle system. I can handle ARPGs with level ups because then I can just grind till I’m strong enough, but systems that require me to actually show some skill and dexterity are a no-go. I managed to finish the first island, then threw my hands up after that. The tiny characters and the mostly-hiragana text didn’t help either.
Mimana Iyar Chronicle (PSP) – Plays like Tales of the Tempest, feels like a Grandia II rip-off. If I had a dollar for every grumpy mercenary with a chip on his shoulder… I made it to the first boss, who promptly wiped me out. Now I either have to grind or actually get the hang of the battle system, neither of which appeals to me right now. Dumped until further notice.
The World Ends With You (DS) – I’m giving it my best shot, I really am, but… It’s not doing anything for me. I’m just getting more and more stressed by the moment. Not only is the “story” not going anywhere I care to follow but also the battle system is all over the place. Which part of this is supposed to be fun? If it’s the 7-day Lockdown in Tokyo thing, I already did that in Devil Survivor, thank you. And can I get another couple of dollars in here for the “Everybody just leave me alone” protagonist? I haven’t thrown in the towel yet, but…
Hoshigami Remix (DS) – From the makers of my beloved Stella Deus, but this one is a wash. The battle screens make me claustrophic and the battle pace is downright catatonic. The characters on the screen are tiny (I complain about tiny characters because I have bad eyes, true story), the character designs are fuzzy and awful, the story is boring, the music is unremarkable, etc. Basically everything that can be wrong with a game is wrong with Hoshigami Remix. But I like SRPGs enough that I’ll probably play it on and off for a while to come. I especially like the Tower of Trial being unlocked right at the beginning. Maybe I’ll even finish it, eventually.
Harvest Moon Boy & Girl + Hero of Leaf Valley (PSP) – I shouldn’t have to repeat how much I love Harvest Moon games, but both original versions on the PS2 were a bit of a failure for me (I liked Innocent Life though, for some strange reason). I don’t know what I expected from the PSP remakes, but what I got was a whole lot of nothing. Hero of Leaf Valley seems to have a bit of potential – I did play quite a bit of Save the Homeland – but Boy & Girl is definitely out.
Breath – Toiki wa Akaneiro (DS) – I probably haven’t mentioned this before, but I don’t really like visual novels. Every couple of months I give one a shot just to see what’s going on, but it never works out. Breath would have been bad enough on its own, but the existence of several stupidly irritating games that force you to blow into the DS mic repeatedly was the last straw.
Hiiro no Kakera (DS) – Like I said, I don’t like visual novels. I gave this a shot because it’s one of the few otome ‘games’ for the DS, but I sorely regretted it. None of the male character designs appealed to me. The main character was whiny, ungrateful, stubborn, bitchy and mean. My dream was to lead her to a painful, ugly death, but I quit long before I got the chance. The story seemed to have potential, but every single scene, no matter how petty, dragged on for ages and ages so I gave up. This is a feature of all visual novels, btw, which is part of the reason why I don’t like them.
Berwick Saga: Tear Ring Saga series (PS2) – Gave up right in the middle of the first mission. I love SRPGs, but the hexagonal model was too confusing and the battles were hard. It would probably have turned out well if I’d pushed through to the end, but it came at a time when I was up to my nose in other SRPGs, so it just couldn’t compare. I looked around to see if it had gotten stellar reviews or anything, but “meh” seemed to be the general response so I dumped it.
Legend of Heroes I & II (PSP) – Nothing wrong with them, they’re just boring. I should have played them 15 years ago along with BoFII and Lufia I, then they’d have fit right in. I tried both LoH I & II in turn, but I think I’m going to have to save them for when I’ve run out of other PSP RPGs to play. Gotta say, I love Falcom’s character designs though.
Now back to the stuff that is working out. I really need to get off my butt and just finish Saigo no Yakusoku no Monogatari and three or four other games I’m almost done with but never got round to posting about.
04.06.11 / Action RPG, Nintendo DS, PS2, RPG, Sony PSP, Strategy RPG, Summon Night, Video game / Author: Kina / Comments: (2)
Tags: jeanne d'arc, nora to toki no koubou, persona, shining force feather, summon night 3, the world ends with you, tokimeki memorial 4, unchainblades rexx
I forgot to make New Year’s gaming resolutions this January, but better late than never. Last time I made them I managed to play all those games before the year was out, so I’m hoping I’ll have the same luck/leisure this time round. There are only six months left till 2012 (where does the time go?) so I’ll limit the list to six items for simplicity.
1. Nora to Toki no Koubou (DS): I’ve stopped following the news on this. Apart from cancellation there’s nothing they can say or do that would stop me from playing it. Even if they come out tomorrow and announce it’s now an FPS, I’m still going to play it.
2. Jeanne d’Arc (PSP): I hear it’s an excellent SRPG, and that’s all I need to hear. To be blunt, I don’t know anything about it except that, but there’s no way on earth it could be worse than, say, Tactical Guild, so I’m going to play it, and soon.
3. Tokimeki Memorial 4 (PSP): I love the Girls’ Side games, but apart from the first TM game on the SNES, the others haven’t done anything for me. It’s not that I don’t enjoy chasing girls, just that TM2 and 3 looked and felt clumsy so I’ve never played more than a few “days” of each. Maybe the 4th time is the charm.
4. Summon Night 3 (PS2): It’s been over a year since I played Summon Night 2 (which cooled my Summon Night ardor for a while) so I’m ready to jump back in the fray. With a few exceptions I’ve gotten used to playing my SRPGs on handhelds so it’ll be a bit of an adjustment to make, but I’ll get used to it soon enough. I just hope my old PS2 can take it.
5. Persona (PSP): I seriously overdosed on Shin Megami Tensei and related games in 2009 and 2010, which is why I haven’t even looked at one so far this year. I was going to play Devil Survivor 2 instead, but I just can’t work up the enthusiasm. The lame-ass ending I got (Gin route) in the last game still rankles a bit, plus I want to get it in English if possible so I’ll add that to my 2012 list.
6. The World Ends With You (DS): To be honest, I don’t really want to play this. Nothing I’ve ever seen or heard about it even remotely implies that it’s something I’d enjoy. But someone’s been nagging me for years to give it a shot, so I’m going to do it just to get it over with. If I get a pleasant surprise, cool, but I’m not holding my breath.
I’ll fit other games in there when I get the chance, like the upcoming UnchainBlades Rexx which I’m more than a little excited about. The main character’s design looks more than a little “inspired” by Jin from Shining Force Feather.
I was going to say Sega should totally sue but it turns out they have the same (evidently unimaginative) character designer. One more reason to look forward to it.
02.11.10 / Namco, PS2, RPG, Video game / Author: Kina / Comments: (0)
Tags: also sprach zarathustra, xenosaga iii
Security in all the installations in this series has been bad, but I think Labyrinthos takes the cake for WORST ever in video game history. It’s a very important building handling all kind of top-secret experiments and materials, and they’re expecting an attack from the Federation at any moment! They even said there were Federation moles around, didn’t they?
So from the second we took those guards out on the first floor, every single door, lock, window, everything in the building should have been locked down tight and a non-stop flood of security should have poured in. Labyrinthos shouldn’t have keycards just lying around for people to pick up, and every elevator should be guarded tightly, especially in an emergency. And haven’t they heard of fingerprint and retina scanners? Well actually they have, because Kevin had some in his room, so why don’t they bloody use them!!!? Haven’t they heard of encryption? How can I just stroll casually up to the Vessels of Anima, enter a few commands and have full access to the system? And when I do that, they still wait till I’ve stolen 3 of them and outfitted the E.S. before having any sort of reaction to my intrusion. Ridiculous.
I was flabbergasted, all the way through the dungeon. I was expecting some sort of trap or ambush at the end, like “We saw you coming all along, now die!” ‘cos they have to have security cameras in a place like this, right? I know they do because I saw the footage, but somehow they’re incapable of tracking us on the cameras and blocking us off, or setting traps for us? Who runs this installation, a bunch of muppets? No wonder they got wiped out, with intelligence like that.
Anyway, I’m having fun finally finishing this series off. It would help if Shion wasn’t such a stubborn, whiny bitch, but that’s what the Mute button is for. What an annoying bitch.
This game needs more chaos!!
02.11.10 / Namco, PS2, RPG, Video game / Author: Kina / Comments Off
Tags: angelique special 2, digital devil saga, dragon quest 9, harvest moon, shin megami tensei, strange journey, twin villages, xenosaga iii
[Obviously an old post (3rd January 2010), now appearing here because of site crash and recovery. Happily enough I managed to play every single one of these games]
Finally finished Xenosaga III, and with it the whole series. I thoroughly enjoyed the gameplay in all three games, even the undoubtedly inferior II. I also liked most of the characters, except that stubborn, idiotic, moronic Shion. People talk about how fresh it is to have a female character as the lead, but Shion only makes girls look bad, being dumb, weak-willed, dishonest, helpless, only finding meaning in and being redeemed by the males in her life (Kevin, Allen, Jin). But apart from her I enjoyed all the other characters, especially chaos. Throughout the series I was hoping he had a really unique backstory and interesting powers, but we find out everything about him in the last 30 minutes of the entire series and it’s not that interesting either, so…yeah. I learned a lot more about him from reading wikis than I ever did from the game itself. That’s the sure sign of bad writing and an overly-complicated plot.
Real life kept me from playing a lot of games last year, so I’m going to be much less ambitious in my gaming plans this year. There are only a few major games I want to finish, and then I’ll leave the rest to chance, or to whenever something I just *have* to play comes out. Here’s what I want to get done, ASAP:
1. Saga 2. I just killed Apollo, I think I have just one more boss to go.
2. Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey – I’ve had it for a while but I haven’t even started it yet.
3. Harvest Moon: Twin Villages. When it comes out, I’m gonna be all over it!
4. Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2: Almost done with 1, I just went back to kill a few side-bosses and now they’re kicking my ass.
5. Angelique Special 2: Old game for PSX, but it’s been on my mind lately.
6. Dragon Quest 9: I’m a few levels into this. It’s interesting, but not especially gripping. But I’ll get to it sometime.
7. Atelier Lina: Lise and Annie were pretty much fail as far as I’m concerned, so I haven’t been in a hurry to get to this one. I wish they’d go back to the pure alchemy-centrism of the older games.
If I manage to finish just these by the end of the year, it’ll be enough for me. Yeah, I’m that busy.
02.11.10 / Atlus, PS2, Romance game, RPG, Video game / Author: Kina / Comments: (2)
Tags: persona 4, shoji meguro
Meh. Whatever. I liked Persona 3 better.
There, I said it. No one will deny the gameplay elements in P4 are better. In particular it feels really good to be able to hit Square to move around the map. When exploring you can count on an easy supply of Goho-Ms to get out of the dungeon at any time. You can control your party directly. You can control your party directly. You can control your party DIRECTLY. Etc, etc, it’s improved over P3 is every way you can imagine.
When it comes to other elements though, I find it sadly lagging behind P3. Firstly the story feels really trivial. In theory a serial killer in a small town should make for a really tense and gripping game, but nobody really cares in the game. When someone close to them dies, they don’t even attend the funeral, and only one or two people seem to care. The townspeople go about their business just as usual and let their children run around town like nothing’s going on. For your party, which has appointed itself unofficial detectives, solving the mystery involves entering the TV once in a while, saving someone, then getting on with the rest of their lives. There’s never a sense of fear or urgency about the whole thing.
The characters are boring too. In fact I’m bored just writing this because it was such a dry game. I didn’t find the lame attempts at humor amusing at all. The crossgender beauty pageant was a flop, Teddie was just annoying, Chie was a faint shadow with no real presence, Yosuke was meh in battle and meh outside, it just goes on and on. Not to mention if you don’t do their S. Links then their character development stops right after you face their shadows and is never referred to again. Haa.
The soundtrack was another let down. P3 was one of the few games where I rushed out and got the soundtrack right after finishing it. To be honest P3′s soundtrack got on my nerves in the beginning, but in some sort of perverse Stockholm Syndrome way, by the end of the game I loved it. P4…I remember the battle tune, god knows I heard it often enough. That’s it. Yah.
The graphics and colors in P4 somehow managed to be grayer and blander than P3′s, maybe to showcase the fact that it’s set in the boring countryside. The whole thing looks washed out, the blurry dungeon effects gave me a headache and writing this review is giving me another headache so I’m quitting.
I didn’t dislike P4, but I didn’t quite like it either. Plop down, do some S. Links (only good one was Death, IMO), do some more S. Links, fight and clear a dungeon in one day, do some more S. Links. Dating sim with fighting, I can live with that. And now that it’s over I can live without it.
02.11.10 / Japanese, Otome game, PS2, Romance game, Video game, Visual novel / Author: Kina / Comments Off
Tags: under the moon
Porting an ero-game to the PS2 whenever it’s the least bit successful on PC is the modus operandi of Japanese game companies. Not to be outdone by its peers, Dimple is bringing their 2006 game Under The Moon to the PS2 on June 25th 2009.
Under The Moon ~Crescent~ falls under the category of “otome games”, basically romance games aimed at a female audience, meaning you play a girl who has to woo a variety of bishies. In this game you play the role of Ashe, daughter of the King of Devils. Ashe is a pure, innocent demon girl that’s never left the demon realm before and doesn’t know much about guys. However she’s too weak magically to take over Daddy’s throne so it becomes Ashe’s accidental mission to find a potential successor and get down to some serious loving with him.
Hmm, that doesn’t look too loving to me.
Anyway, the PS2 version includes some extra events, improved CGs and a whole new scenario. Mainly you’ll be romancing the twins Lenny and Seiju, but expect some surprises in there. Under the Moon is termed an “adventure” game, which is just a fancy term for a visual novel with lots of choices. Expect a variety of endings and unlockables depending on which options you pick.
Under the Moon ~Crescent~
June 25th 2009
02.11.10 / Atlus, PS2, RPG, Video game / Author: Kina / Comments: (0)
Tags: atelier lina, digital devil saga, lina no atelier, nocturne, persona, shin megami tensei
I finally finished Digital Devil Saga 2, and it was a complete disappointment (more on the whole game if and when I can ever be bothered). Also finished one round of Lina no Atelier, though I didn’t get a good ending it wasn’t that bad after all. More on that as well later.
However, I just picked up SMT: Nocturne, I’m only 2 hours in and I’m having a great time! I missed fusing personas/demons from the later games, and the Magatama system looks remarkably fun. It’s not that hard either, so far anyway. I’m guessing part of the legendary difficulty comes from the fact that it was the first SMT game for a lot of people. That, and if you throw a skill away it’s gone forever. I’ll have to be careful about that, but Fire Emblem Path of Radiance was kinda like that and I managed it just fine, so I think I’ll be okay.
But I like the post-apocalyptic landscape so far, and the relative lack of NPCs is fun too, especially the lack of dumbass party members slowing you down, whining, bitching, moaning, leaving your party at the worst time. This game is awesome! Well, 2 hours of it is awesome anyway. So if you don’t see any posts for a while, you know what I’m getting up to.
02.11.10 / Atlus, PS2, Strategy RPG, Video game / Author: Kina / Comments: (0)
Tags: alchemy, gate of eternity, persona 3, review, shigenori soejima, stella deus
Or The Catacombs of Eternity, as I came to call it. But we’ll get to that in a moment.
Stella Deus is a strategy RPG released in 2004. Developed by Pinegrow (I feel like I’ve played another game by them but I can’t remember which) and published by Atlus. Many have heard of it, few have played it.
I’ve had it in my collection for a while, but I always found something else to play when it was time to choose a new game. Then one day, shortly after finishing Persona 3, I looked at the cover and thought…wait, these character designs really look like those from P3. Really. So I did a little digging and yup, Shigenori Soejima did the designs for both games. And that’s what it took for me to finally put this game in and play it.
I’m prone to making snap judgments about games in the first few minutes. Sometimes that proves to be wrong, but often I’m right. Rarely, very rarely, I am both right and wrong at the same time. My initial impression about SD was that it was bland, boring, preachy and colorless and had some of the worst voice-acting I’ve ever heard in a video game in my life.
That’s all true, to a great extent. I’ll give the game props off the bat for the cast. Apart from the dull, goody-goody Spero, the barely-there Gallant, the annoying Tia and the idiotic Lumena, most of the cast is lively, funny and interesting. The overall voice-acting is so flat and awful it’s also easy to forget that a few voices are really well done, Grey’s and Adara’s for example. The battle system is also decent, definitely won’t disappoint fans of the strategy RPG genre. Plus the story is very simple and straightforward, which might be a plus or a minus depending on what kind of gamer you are. Since the story takes place in a world that is gradually being swallowed by a strange mist called Miasma, even the washed-out color palette is strangely appropriate.
Where does Stella Deus go wrong, then? Pretty much everywhere else. The story about trying to revive a fallen world is disgustingly cheesy and preachy. Much of the late-game dialogue is the usual “We’ll never give up!”-”Humans are brave and resilient!”-”Never give up hope!” stuff that you’ve heard about 5,000 times before. As usual the enemies are extremists who have lost all faith in humanity, and then there’s the usual evil deity…who wrote this scenario? Was s/he even trying? *yawn*
The music is meh, so I won’t even talk about it. Over the course of the game you get to visit a lot of towns and cities, but you never get to explore them and you almost never get to interact with ordinary townspeople. You know, the same townspeople you’re trying to save? Might be nice to get to know what they’re really thinking, get them on your side and stuff, don’t you think? What’s more, interacting more with the world around usually leads to greater immersion in the game, giving the player more incentive to save the world and finish the game. As it is, it’s very easy to lose motivation and stop playing, because you really don’t care.
Most of gameplay time in an SRPG is made up of battles though, which is why it sucks when the battle system is really slow (FFTA2, I’m looking at you) or excessively complicated. Thankfully Stella Deus’ system is neither of these. In particular the enemies don’t waste time thinking, so their turns move relatively quickly. The system works like a regular one with a twist: every character starts their turn with 100 Action points that deplete when they move on the map or select an action. When they run out, you can’t move/act any more and have to end their turn. In the beginning it feels really restrictive, but once you get used to it it adds a fun element of planning and strategy. Will you spend your whole turn approaching the enemy? Will you approach, hit, and retreat? Will you hit them with magic, hit them physically and then heal your ally? There’s a lot of thinking to be done once you get into it.
Then there are combos you can do with your party members, some of them extremely powerful. Before too long, your regular attacks will be hitting for more than the combos, but it’s still fun and flashy. Then there are Zone Effects, which are buffs and debuffs or status effects you automatically use on any enemy/ally who gets in range. By equipping ZSkills, you can, for example, boost the evasion of all allies in range/heal them a set amount every turn/cast darkness on enemies/cast Fear on enemies…etc, etc. etc. On top of all that, there are other stat-boosting/reducing skills you can equip on yourself to get stronger.
As you can tell, I had a lot of fun with the battle system. So much so that I quickly abandoned the main storyline to focus on the 100-level Bonus Dungeon called the Catacombs. It’s just 99 battles against powerful mooks, but somehow it’s the most addictive thing in the game. Seeing as it’s automatically unlocked right from the beginning, I believe the game makers anticipated that players would get into it really quickly. How else do you explain the fact that unless you’re a level or two higher than every boss you face, they will usually wipe the floor with your face?
Off to the Catacombs I went then, happily fighting my way down each level. Some of them were tough, I tell you, especially the oddly designed ones and the ones where your party is spread out all over the map. Whew! But clearing each level gives you a sense of achievement that the battles in the main game rarely do, plus you later get all these cool weapons and armor that you can use in alchemy. …Wait, alchemy? Why didn’t I mention that earlier, you ask? Because…alchemy in this game sucks. Without buying or downloading a guide, you won’t be able to make most of the good stuff except by chance. Also since you can only make goods one at a time, you’ll be selecting, deselecting and reselecting items over and over and over again until you’re sick of it. But it’s the only sure way to get really good weapons if you plan to go beyond level 50-ish of the Catacombs, so you have no choice. Blerrrrgh.
I had fun playing this though. The main game was below-average, but I got into the bonus dungeon and the battle system with a vengeance, so it was a worthy purchase. If you like SRPGs, like endless battles, like grinding and don’t mind bad voice-acting, I actually recommend this game. I don’t want a sequel, but I hope to find other games like it soon.
01.11.10 / Idea Factory, Japanese, Otome game, PS2, Romance game, Video game / Author: Kina / Comments: (0)
Tags: idea factory, L2 Love x Loop, tokimeki memorial
I’ve been so caught up actually playing games I haven’t been following game news as much as I used to. Nothing too big going on right now, but an upcoming PS2 otome game caught my eye on Famitsu just now. It’s called L2 Love x Loop. If I tend to focus on PS2 and DS games in this blog it’s because those are the two main things I play on, though I also own a PS1 and a Wii.
Anyway, Love x Loop’s premise is like this: the heroine Nanami lives with her older sister in a futuristic setting where robots are at war with mankind and humans have been reduced to living in ruins. On Nanami’s birthday her sister is kidnapped in a robot attack, and she finds a mysterious robot just lying around. Now through the powers of this special robot she resolves to go back in time and change the past so that the future won’t have to be so crappy any more.
I remember someone with a plan like that, I think his name was Trunks and it didn’t work out quite as planned. Then again it did work out for someone else named Crono so we’ll see how things turn out 
Anyway, this wouldn’t be a real otome game without bishies, would it? Yup, so somehow Nanami finds time out of her very busy time-travelling sister-saving world-changing schedule to romance a few cute guys. What I’m really worried about, though, is that old guy in there.
See him? Right in the top right corner with the beard. He’s creeping me out. I can’t 
imagine…you know…even though I did hook up with the headmaster in Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side, but that’s different! Really! *ahem* According to the official blog he’s the man who gave the robot to the main character, so maybe we’ll be spared the geriatric kissy face.
Old guy worries aside (or maybe because of them) I’m really looking forward to this game. The story sounds fresh, the bishies look fresh and different and screenshots I’m seeing look lovely.
L2 Love x Loop from Idea Factory comes out August 20th in Japan. I’ll probably get it a month or two afterwards, based on the reviews.
