I’ve had enough. I’m done. Level 40, 62 hours. Finally found the legendary Frontier Gate, which is just a fancy name for “last dungeon populated with million-HP enemies.” If I did a few more runs and gathered the necessary ores to upgrade my weapons and armor and did the same for one other party member I could quite conceivably finish the game within the next day or two, but it’s too late. The spark has gone out and I don’t want it to come back.

Story & Characterization: Story is virtually non-existent as far as a main plot goes. This isn’t a bad thing at all in my book, especially when you consider that the individual party member stories are pretty poor. Immature characters, unbelievable motivations, people walking around feeling sorry for themselves all day, etc. One problem is that a major source of the drama (city slickers vs. country bumpkins) is hard to get into firstly because it doesn’t seem like such a big deal and secondly because we’ve never seen the city so we have no idea what all the fuss is about. But Frontier Gate isn’t a game you play for the story or the characters anyway.

Sound & Graphics: Not that bad. Not the worst I’ve seen on the PSP, not the best either. I liked the abundance of clothing options, even though for practical reasons it made the most sense to pick one outfit and stick with it. The camera angles need to be constantly adjusted so you can see where you’re going though, and it’s all too easy to lose sight of an enemy and have it end up behind you. The music and voice-acting were good, but the battle voices were so annoying that I tended to put the sound off and leave it off for long periods of time.

Battles & Gameplay: Take quest, do quest, take quest, do quest. The formula isn’t much different from Phantasy Star Portable (except there’s no overarching story) or Monster Hunter (except you can’t hunt freely), but somehow the turn-based battle system makes the whole experience a huge slog.

By itself it wouldn’t be a bad system, but because of the limited number of effective skills and the limited amount of AP you have, you end up using the same skills for a looong time. Even though enemies are technically avoidable on the field, because of the poor camera and terrain features you’re likely to get into several battles per quest. 254 quests x minimum 4 battles per quest = over 1000 battles using the same skills against the same enemies. And the game isn’t even over yet.

I did try to mix things up in a number of ways. One way was using party members with different weapons. Hindsight being what it is, if I had to play this game again I’d pick one or two partners and stick with them instead of trying to level everyone equally, but using different partners did help keep things slightly fresh. Speaking of leveling, this game is STINGY with experience points. Not nearly as stingy as Final Fantasy Type-0, but getting there. I spent 15 minutes fighting a level 42 golem with a level 22 member in my party and she leveled up only once at the end. O-N-C-E.

I also tried to mix things up by experimenting with other weapons. I started out by mastering knuckles, then bowguns, then one-handed swords, then axes. I was working on katanas when I hit the final stretch and had to revert to knuckles. Knuckle skills aren’t particularly powerful, but their Full-Revive for only 3 AP skill is a life-saver when you run into a powerful boss. So it was fun clowning around with the other weapons, but the basics are still the best. After all, since the game is turn-based you don’t really feel any different when you use other weapons. You’re still just selecting options from a menu and watching them play out.

Unfortunately nothing can ultimately distract me from the fact that Frontier Gate Boost+ is an intensely repetitive and yes, I can finally admit it, boring game. It’s really, really boring. And fun. Boring, but fun. That contradiction in terms kept me playing for much longer than I should have because I was enjoying myself but somehow I was very bored as well. If the developers hadn’t made the fatal mistake of filling the Frontier Gate dungeon with slimes, crystals and golems, the worst enemies in the game, I might still be playing right now.

Other miscellaneous complaints: Drop rates are low, both for enemy drops and field foraging. Catching monsters is a pain. Magic is weak and hard to use (only does 1 dmg against resistant enemies) and yet expensive to buy. Gossip quests are unrewarding and hard to keep track of. Several stages can’t be visited unless you do gossip quests (Nikoniko Volcano, for example), though they might open up post-game. No auto-battles. No battle-fast forwarding. No skills or items to make enemies disappear or run from you. The game froze on me at least 3 times. The bathing system has only slight benefits and lunch effects wear off too quickly.

You can’t display a full-screen map and walk at the same time. You have to press START, look at the map and put it away before continuing. Running speed is low. Pressing R speeds it up only slightly and makes my arm ache. All weapons have the same stats at the same level, i.e. a level 5 axe has the same attack as a level 5 bow. Fighting golems is hell. Etc, etc, etc.

So I enjoyed it, sort of, but I’m not really sure why. What I am sure of is that I’m more than ready to put this behind me AND I don’t want to play another turn-based RPG for a while. Moving on, I’ve been trying to get a GBA emulator to work on my PSP so I can play Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and other games on it, but it’s not going so well so I’m still working on it. If I can’t get it to work today or tomorrow I’ll go back to my PS2 and see if Arc the Lad is ready to behave again now. I might also start either Atelier Lilie or Dragon Shadow Spell as well. Busy, busy, busy.

Related posts:

Finally finished Final Fantasy Type-0 (spoiling like no tomorrow) Frontier Gate Boost+ – Monster Hunter for the fainthearted Frontier Gate Boost+ – 44 hours in Frontier Gate Boost+ – Of course I’m still playing