10.06.10 / RPGs, atlus, nintendo ds, reviews, shin megami tensei, strange journey, video game / Author: admin / Comments: (1)
Tags: mem aleph, neutral ending, shin megami tensei, strange journey, summon night, zelenin
I didn’t finish this, I watched the ending on Youtube. But I was going down the neutral route so I was right outside Mem Aleph’s door when I got into Summon Night and forgot all about this. In fact I went in and fought her once, but she kicked my ass hard so I left to regroup and never did come back. IIRC I was level 78, so with a bit of grinding I should have been able to level up a bit and teach her who was who, but somehow the spirit just wasn’t in me.
Did I enjoy the game? Hmm, it’s complicated. Like most SMT games I’ve played, it went up and down regularly. Sometimes the story was fast-paced and the action was cracking and everything was really interesting, couldn’t wait to get back to it. Other times it was so dreary, slow and boring that I literally fell asleep behind the DS. The repetitive “fetch-questy” style of play didn’t help at all: go to this sector, explore it, kill this guy, get this item. Repeat for next sector. Repeat for next sector. I mean the details of who to beat and what the dungeon looked like differed quite a bit, but the core was exactly the same. So the story parts were good, but since each piece of plot progression was surrounded by 10 hours of only fairly-interesting dungeon-crawling it was hard going sometimes.
On the plus side I liked having tons of demons to fuse and summon, I really like the creepy soundtrack, the characters didn’t exactly piss me off (not even Zelenin, who I thought I’d hate), and I enjoyed making new items and weapons out of monster parts, Atelier-style. Not to mention my favorite fiends from Nocturne are back, and the difficulty of the game was just right so I didn’t die too often, and all around it’s a very solid game.
Would I play it again? …Uh…I dunno… Gee… I think i’d have to let some time pass between replays. And it really depends on what you get to carry over and what you don’t. I don’t mind if I don’t carry levels or items over, but I insist on my compedium, etc. etc. Then again I got the only ending worth getting, ‘cos chaos is stupid and law is downright insulting, so I don’t know exactly what I’d be playing for. Short answer, no, I won’t play it again. But it’s not a bad game at all.
07.04.10 / Japanese, RPGs, nintendo ds, reviews, shin megami tensei, strange journey, video game / Author: admin / Comments: (0)
Tags: alchemy, atelier lina, atelier series, felsen, gust, hengst, jrpg, lina no atelier, nintendo ds, pesca, ryuon, strange journey, synthesis
Yeah, I know I made a post a while back calling it terrible, but that was long ago when I hadn’t played very far into it. Having played it some more and, in fact finished it 4 times for 4 different endings, I must say it’s far and away the best DS Atelier so far.
Let’s take my complaints again one at a time. First off, the money requirement isn’t as high this time as it was in Lise. Somehow I misread “hyakuman” as 100 million instead of 1 million, which is why I flew off the handle. And in fact I was more than halfway there when I realized my error.
More than halfway, you ask? You mean it’s that easy to earn 50 million cole in this game? Yup! Remember my second complaint that buying and selling is more important that alchemy in this game? Well it’s true if you want to make money, though you won’t need that much. The fastest way is to buy and sell weapons between Hengst and Felsen and Pesca, buying what isn’t sold in one town and selling it in another, back and forth. Weapons sell for most in summer, but you can spend spring, fall and winter buying and then sell in one swoop. Once you unlock the higher level weapons you can apparently make 500,000 in one trip! So yeah, you probably still need to spend one playthrough getting enough money and enough synthesis raw materials, and then you can spend the following runs getting a proper ending.
I also complained about the talking, didn’t I? Well it’s not half as bad in this one as in Atelier Annie. I think I was still traumatized by all the blabbing there and ended up overreacting. There’s still a bit of talk, but apart from Ryuon your party members don’t waylay you inside your atelier, in fact they never show up there. Even when your friendship with them is at maximum they don’t talk too much, and they don’t bug you endlessly with requests like they did in Annie. Plus they’re really likeable too, each and every one of them. Even the storekeepers!
What else did I say? Oh yeah, I said something about alchemy taking forever to produce even simple items. Unfortunately that’s true, but only in the beginning when the level of your alchemy tools is low. Once you have the right tool for the job and have levelled it up enough, you can make massive quantities of items in very little time, some of which sell like crazy (but not as much as the right weapons). Also almost all drops are fairly easy to come by, which means you can make just about every item you have a recipe for instead of grinding for hours for an item with a 1 in 2000 chance of dropping. Cool, right?
Oh, oh, and they brought back the fairy hiring system from early Atelier games, though you’ll need to fix the forest a bit more before that option becomes available. In the beginning you can only hire incompetent black fairies (come on Gust, why is black still the worst?) but by the end of the game you’ll get fairies that might be even better than you at alchemy. Sweet! They cost a pretty penny, but what’s a little money to a multi-millionaire like me?
And even better, all six endings are quite easy to get, including the best one. I’ll do a post about how to get each ending if you’d like. But that’ll have to be later because right now I’ve got some SMT: Strange Journey (oh god it’s boring, but I just learned not to judge a game by the first 2 hours) to play. Yay!
10.02.10 / RPGs, atlus, impressions, persona 3, shin megami tensei, video game / Author: admin / Comments: (0)
Tags: demon, digital devil saga, fire emblem, lina no atelier, nocturne, path of radiance, persona, ps2, rpg, 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 of 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.
03.01.10 / RPGs, shin megami tensei, video game / Author: admin / Comments: (2)
Tags: angelique special 2, apollo, chaos, digital devil saga, dragon quest 9, harvest moon, shin megami tensei, shion, strange journey, twin villages, xenosaga iii
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.
01.08.09 / RPGs, devil survivor, nintendo ds, shin megami tensei, video game / Author: admin / Comments: (0)
Tags: amane, atsuro, devil survivor, gin, haru, naoya, SDF, shin megami tensei, strange journey, yuzu
At the very last minute I decided to switch Amane for Yuzu, which resulted in my having to fight about 5 free battles to level her up. That slowed me down and made me a little bored, necessitating a short break away from the game.
Anyway, I finally finished Gin’s ending. I was not pleased. The aim of this ending is to remove all the demons from Earth permanently by becoming King of Bel and ordering them all to leave, essentially. Then the angels and the SDF lift the lockdown and everything goes back to normal.
Complaint 1: When the game ends you don’t get to see how the main characters get on with their lives. You see a quick shot of them walking down some road somewhere, nothing else. After all the whining about getting back to their families I would have wanted to see their homes/lives/families, and a longer happier ending than that. You don’t even get one of those “Yuzu lived happily after and had 10 kids” “Haru and Gin got married and had a baby girl named Aya” “Atsuro became Information Minister” blurbs you get at the end of movies. So what happens to all of them? You never find out. So disappointing.
Complaint 2: The govt. attempts to cover everything that happened by explaining it as “mass hallucinations due to gas leaks”. Somehow everybody lets them get away with it because “nobody can prove anything.” So all the people who were shot and killed? Died for nothing. All the people killed by demons? Died for nothing. Everybody suffered for nothing. I hate that. I wish I’d gone for Naoya’s ending and take over the world, or maybe Yuzu’s ending so I can at least kill the bloody SDF. Hmph.
Complaint 3: At the very end of the game you get an e-mail, a threat from the angels: “You still have the Bel powers in you. If you try anything funny we’ll kick your ass.” Hey angels? F— YOU! Butt the hell out of our business before I get over there and kick your asses. Worthless pieces of crap. I wasn’t going to play this game again after this, but now I’m sorely, sorely tempted to replay and get Naoya’s ending. Not now though, later.
All in all I’d give it about 7/10 total. The music was repetitive, the number of demons was sadly small, the escort missions were extremely irritating and that ending? Yuck! On the other hand I liked the characters, I enjoyed the battles, the story was interesting (and annoying), I liked the opening tune and Haru’s song and fusing and auctioning demons was a lot of fun. It was a good game, well worth the purchase. I’m looking forward to Strange Journey now.
22.07.09 / RPGs, devil survivor, nintendo ds, shin megami tensei / Author: admin / Comments: (0)
Tags: amane, atsuro, belial, bufudyne, day 7, decarabia, devil survivor, gin, haru, kresnik, mikazuchi, rangda, shin megami tensei, yuzu
I’m on Day 7! Just started Day 7, gotta choose my final route and see which ending I get. I really wish I could make an extra save and check out the four endings I have access to, one at a time: Gin, Amane, Atsuro and Yuzu. I hear Yuzu ending is bad end, so no need to check those out. Atsuro ending sounds lame, just controlling the demons and nothing more. Blah. I’m either going with Gin, getting rid of all demons and living happily ever after, or going with Amane and becoming the “Messiah”. It’s just that…I don’t really like Amane. I think I’ll go with Gin.
Before I do that, let me just note what I did to Belial “last night”. Frist two times I fought him I couldn’t do enough damage to him and he kept killing my MC and raining down the Fires of Sodom on my head. Not pretty. Finally I regrouped and reconsidered my strategy. Here are the essential elements:
1. Magic-based MC. Failing that, Yuzu will do in a pinch.
2. ICE DANCE. Not Bufudyne. Don’t make the same mistake I did, the Dances are always better for single bosses than the -dynes.
3. Ice Rise + Ice Jump. Apparently they stack, I never knew. This doubles your ice attack
4. Null Fire.
5. Kresnik or some other persona immune to Fire. Ranga repels physical attacks so you can use her if your level is high enough.
6. Optional: crack Phys Repel from a nearby Rangda and put it on. The likelihood of your stats being high enough to do this if you have a mag-based MC are pretty slim, but whatever.
7. Optional, but preferred: Take-Mikazuchi or some other Kishin demon, so you can hit Belial twice in a row.
What I did? First turn, took out the Decarabia in front of me with MC. Moved forward a bit. Second turn, moved forward some more, Atsuro took out the Rangda on the right and cracked Phys Repel, but never got to use it. Third turn, Belial almost in range. Yuzu takes out another enemy and cracks Mabufudyne. Fourth (? not sure) turn. MC in action against Belial. Ice Dance = 400 x 3 damage! Kresnik and Mikazuchi with Mighty Hit, 200~ish each, Mikazuchi gets Dual Shadow and hits him again. Did I get an extra turn? I think I did, another 400 x 3! Then he did some stuff with fire but with my Null Fire I just yawned and shrugged it off. Then, with Mikazuchi’s Double Up, I hit him again! He was out like a light with nary a whimper. That’ll teach you to mess with me, punk! And much fun and excitement was had.
I unlocked Occult Auctions now, so I feel like grinding a bit and fusing more demons, right after I pick a path. It’s not necessary though, I feel pretty overpowered already. Back to my DS!
11.07.09 / RPGs, devil survivor, nintendo ds, shin megami tensei, video game / Author: admin / Comments: (0)
Tags: devil survivor, fusion, GameFAQs, shin megami tensei, waira
Just a quick update on the Devil Survivor situation: so far, so good. I’ve been fighting a lot of free battles to level up, because my solution to every game I can’t get the hang of is to grind a lot. GameFAQs didn’t have any proper FAQs for this game yet so I’m on my own, but it’s going great so far. On the second day, no story battle has troubled me so far and everyone’s still alive. The auction’s fun too, and it’s easy to get the persona you need so long as you’re prepared to pay a lot of money. I’d rather overpay than lose a great persona, so I’m free with the macca. Fusion’s good too. If I learned anything from P3 and P4, it’s to never be sentimental about demons. Always get the best you can get for your level. Brilliant advice I’m taking to heart. I’ll miss Waira’s demon speed though, wish I could transfer it. Anyway, back to the game!
07.07.09 / devil survivor, nintendo ds, shin megami tensei / Author: admin / Comments: (0)
Tags: atsuro, devil survivor, GameFAQs, shin megami tensei, yuzu
I picked up Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor yesterday. I popped it in the DS expecting a looooong-ass beginning cutscene before I finally got to save, but I was pleasantly surprised. It took what, 10 minutes? Before they let me save? Yes, I think that’s about right, really unusual in RPGs these days. That’s why I never start new RPGs at night, in case I fall asleep before I can save.
Anyway, I just played the first few minutes. What I can say is: the characters look weird and cross-eyed, but they might grow on me. I like the music so far. I haven’t gotten into any battles yet. What made me stop was all the choices of where to go, where not to go. Right at the start I had the choice of going to meet Atsuro or going somewhere else. Yuzu said to kill some time before seeing Atsuro, so we went somewhere else. Suddenly the story’s moving and Atsuro’s nowhere to be found. Should I have seen Atsuro instead? Have I messed up the story? Normally I’d just keep playing and let the chips fall where they may, but since I’ve only invested 15 minutes in the game so far, it won’t hurt to take a tiiiiiny little peek at GameFAQs or something and find out if I’m on the right track. Just a tiny little peek.
See you after 20 hours when I’m done with the game!
