Apologies for the long delay between posts. I was trying to force myself to play more Mind Zero so I could write a more concrete progress report, but the game is even more boring than the reviews made it out to be. It is frightfully boring and I just can’t bring myself to play any more. I actually get a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I think about playing it. That kind of feeling should be reserved for surgery and root canals, not turn-based RPGs. So for my own sanity I’m going to put it on permanent hiatus. If I find myself missing it I’ll go back, if not, I’m out.
Btw, for the record I did play several more hours after making the last post. It’s not like I just dropped it after that. I finished the Lament of Death dungeon and unlocked Yokohama, which also gave me my final party members and unlocked skill enhancing and upgrades. A group of mind users who seem to be antagonists showed up and I even got a bit of story. By rights this is where the game should have all come together and become fun, but it’s not happening. There are still only like 5 enemies in the whole game, just palette swapped, and their strength has been jacked up to match my supposedly enhanced skills, so battles are still as ploddingly-paced as ever. It’s the thought of going through another 100 or so of those battles to get to the next tiny bit of story that’s making it so hard for me to go back to the game. I can’t do it.
So that’s it for me and Mind Zero until further notice. I would have quit even earlier if Mind Zero hadn’t been so obviously patterned after Persona 3, another game I found slow and boring in the beginning but stuck with and was really glad I did. Even then it took about half the game before everything clicked so I thought I’d give MZ that much leeway. But urgh, just thinking about fighting one more lion makes my stomach do flip-flops. No can do. I’m going to try some other stuff for a while and maybe if I feel like playing a turn-based RPG again I can pick up where I left off. On to better things!
Btw, I’ve been informed by now that the story goes nowhere anyways. Apparently they wanted to make a sequel, so they ended Mind=0 on a cliffhanger. And that one will probably never happen (I don’t think the company has done anything but mobile phone games since Mind=0 came out two years ago).
Have you every played Elminage Gothic? Haven’t touched it yet, because Elminage Original was too hardcore for me, but Gothic would be another turn based Dungeon Crawler available on PC. There’s also a port of Conception II coming in mid-August.
I had heard the same thing, that the story ends on a cliffhanger. That’s another reason why I quit forcing myself to keep going.
Which Elminage is on the PSP again? It’s pretty high on my To Play Soon list. I’m just not ready for another dungeon crawler just yet.
If we are talking English ones, Elimange Original is the one on PSP, while Elminage Gothic got released on Steam. But in Japan you can get the whole series (1-3 are medieval fantasy, Gothic goes for a Lovecraftian vibe, Ibun mixes an anime school setting and ancient Japan enemies) on PSP.
>>> an anime school setting and ancient Japan enemies
Waaant. I like anime school settings! But yeah, Original is the one I have so I’ll start with that. On beginner mode if available.
Buckle up, Elminage is a vicious little bitch xD I played Original a couple years ago for a good dozen hours but hadn’t any fun ultimately, it’s just too oldschool hard for my liking (Starfish are the developers behind the Wizardry Empire games, and Elminage is basically just that after loosing the rights to the Wizardry name). There’s no difficulty select either. But I’m way more causal a gamer than you are, so take my assessment with a grain of salt.
I am ridiculously casual these days because I just don’t have the time to slog through stuff. In the olden days I would have finished Mind Zero by hook or by crook (and regretted it too). I’ll give Elminage a try. If it doesn’t click, *shrug*.
You can always try Ray Gigant (drpg by exp inc) that was just released on pc, its supposed to be much better then mind 0 but not as good as the rest of exp stuff. Btw, i am playing Stranger of Sword City on vita and your mini-walkthrough is helping quite a bit.
It’s out already? I only found out it was coming to Steam last week or so. This should be fun.
Came out on the 10th. Tried it out a bit. It is somewhat similar to Mind=0, because also fixed characters, but also a lot of VN-styled story cutscenes. More interesting on the outset at least, and with less shitty artwork to boot.
For some reason the battles are really pixelated, tho. Like they are just gifs or FMVs playing in the background, so they couldn’t be upscaled like the other art assets. Too bad, because the fluid animations of the battles were one of the bigger draws to this.
Bad port, huh? Well there’s always the option of getting it on Vita later if it’s that big of a problem. I’ll start Ray Gigant myself next month after I’m done with the two games I’m working on.
You found Persona 3 boring? Will, that okay I guess.. umm, but that’s besides the point. Anywho, instead of blaming the game, have you tried considering the fact that you’re a noob?– a hopeless jrpg failure perchance? Will, you could try starting from Pokemon red and yellow and then go through the gen 2, 3 games and all that stuff perhaps and play all the other downright amazing (albeit boring to pseudo gamers) out there in order to help cultivate that meagre patience and bland imagination of yours? Hope this helps. Cheers mate.
Based on your suggestion I did give earnest thought to the possibility that I might be a noob. But then I looked at my track record on this site and I’ve easily finished over 100 JRPGs in the 9 years since I started this blog. I may have meagre patience and a bland imagination but a noob I am not.
That aside, if you re-read my post carefully, you’ll notice that I ended up absolutely loving Persona 3. I was drawing a comparison between a game I started out disliking and ended up loving (P3) and a similar game (Mind Zero) that was so boring I couldn’t stick it out long enough to start liking.
It’s too much work to go into why I didn’t like P3 at first. It’s enough that I saw the error of my ways in the end.
I apologize for my absolute crassness on how I responded to your post. I sincerely apologise and hope you’ll overlook that. It was partially because of when I saw “boring” being used with regards to an RPG which I kinda liked. My last experience of that was when a guy I knew ended up calling nier boring and the RPG genre childish…
Anyhow, I don’t mean to make excuses, but I do hope you’ll forgive my insolence that last time.
Now coming to a question I’ve had: is it just me, or is there not a single viable walkthrough or material related to Mind Zero on the net?
Ah, I can’t be too hard on a fellow Persona 3 fan. Go and sin no more.
As for Mind Zero, the reason for no walkthroughs is most likely because… it’s a bad game. It’s really bad. I’m sorry. Here’s a Japanese walkthrough: https://games.gaym.jp/PSVita/mind0/
Mhmm. Thanks a bunch. Excuse my curiosity, but mind zero being a vita game reminds me of another Vita game: the Chaos Rings series. Have you been through those? There are a bunch of things bugging me that I was looking for somebody to clear up.
Hey, uhh, I tried replying, but my replies just wouldn’t show up, so I was wondering if it was something on my end it the site in general.
Btw, are you on any social media? There’s a great many stuff I’d love to talk about.
Sorry about that. If you post too many comments in a row they get flagged as spam. I’ll reply to them at the same time:
– Other social media: I left Facebook years ago and never really bothered with Twitter, Instagram, Discord and the like. If you have any questions, just ask them here.
– Chaos Rings: never played it. I’ve only vaguely heard of it because I don’t really follow smartphone games. In fact I just found out by googling right now that they got ported to the Vita. I might try them someday but right now I know nothing.
Actually, nevermind that first part of my comment not showing up. Anyway. Mind zero being a vita game kinda brought another one into my mind. I was wondering if you’re familiar with the Chaos Rings series by Squeenix. There’s a bunch of stuff about that series that’s been bugging me, and I’d really appreciate of you could help me a but with that.
And there’s also a bunch of things that’s been bugging me about another vita game: the Chaos rings series I mean. I’d like to pick your brain on that a bit if you don’t mind.
Ah, I see. Well, the Chaos rings series is pretty damn good. I mean, it’s got quality story there. I played 3 as it was available on the play store. But my luck completely ran out with CR1. I’d played 2 and Omega(that is, 1.5, or a sequel to cr1), but I just can’t seem to get my mitts on Craigslist. I’m not in possession of a vita so it’s kinda now an option to buy the vita pack of the CR series. One thing I’ve found after rummaging through the net is that cr1 only seems to be legit available in that vita pack. As for the version of the app that I’ve found on the net after probably a whole day off searching, it doesn’t really work on the phone. Installs fine and all, but whenever I start it up, it just crashes after a brief black screen. I’ve read that it only works on Android 4.4 and earlier or something. Any clue as to how I can play this one? I tried reading up on that and came across some emulator talk and all, but it really did just go right over my head. PC or phone doesn’t want matter as long as I just get to play it, cuz it’s apparently the best in the series.
I’m not an expert in Android games/emulation at all, but CR sounds interesting so I’m downloading an emulator and the game files now. I’ll let you know if I manage to get them to work.
Mhmm. Okidokie. Thanks a bunch! 😀
The emulator I tried wanted me to sign in to Google through it. I’m reluctant to give my email address and password to a mere emulator so the search for a less intrusive emulator continues.
Mhmm. Its better to be safe than sorry. No need to shell out email just to run a game. I’ll try over here on my end too.
Actually, could you telp me the emulator you tried out, the one that wanted you to sign in?
Also, found this one page pertaining to a certain project : https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/64a30s/chaos_rings_preservation_project_xpost/
Hope it is of some help.
It’s called Koplayer.
Ah, i see. Well, I’ll let you know if i find any worthwhile lead on the emulator gig.
Thanks. The more I read about CR, the more interesting it sounds, so I’ll look into playing it in Japanese on the PSVITA instead. That… doesn’t really help you, does it? ^^;;
It’s okay. You should satisfy your curiosity first XD
Though I’m curious as to how to go about playing it on the pc with an emulator. That’s what’s bugging me XD
But anywho, you get a good feel for the game on the vita. Btw, i think you’ll get the English translation on the vita.
You got anywhere with your psv gig?
Nope, too busy playing SMTIV: Apocalypse
Oooh. Is it any good? It’s for the 3ds, right?
I just started so nothing much has happened so far. It’s pretty laidback, standard SMT fare. You really need to have played SMTIV first though.
Ah, i see. I don’t have either 3ds, or an emulator at the moment, but u think I’ll get an emulator soon and try it out. For the while, i just finished mind zero and I’m rushing through Fate extra so i can move on to extella. After which I’ve got berseria and zestiria left. After which i plan to go for the 4th installment in dot hack. Not before doing a re-run of persona 3 and 4 on the ps2 though. So I’m pretty packed as you can see XD
Wow, what a schedule. There’s no room to squeeze any Chaos Rings in there!
I’ve got some stuff lined up in my head, but I’m so lazy these days that I just take it one day at a time.
And I finished extra, so now I’m confused whether to go for extella first, or the p3 and p4. I’ll probably do extella first while going through p3p on the psp when I’m not on the laptop XD
Well, I’ll manage to squeeze in cr2 and crΩ somehow within July 2nd. But i haven’t high hopes for cr1. I’ll check that out later 🙂
Summer break lazy sleep is eating up a huge load of my time tho. Wanna play, but can’t deny lazy sleep XD
I didn’t like the idea of being able to control your party members in P3P so I never bought it. Uncontrollable AI makes them feel like “real” characters. Like you could almost see them thinking. P3 FES forever!
I only seen my bro play p3 on the ps2, i never had a ps2 now did i get a chance to play on his console all those years back, so i kinda settled for p3p some 2 years back, but now that I’ve got the lappy, I’m like jumpy and giddy that I’m finally getting my hands on fes. I’m like “floopin’ yeah!”. Wait was worth it XD
It took me 4 playthroughs of p3p on a legit psp(the sheer torture of grinding and farming for the quest weapons tho XD) to max all the s.links out and get telos. Then another one to max telos out. And two more just for fun XD
I’ll tell you what was tougher than 7 playthroughs one after the other tho, it was getting satan to have both black viper and morning star along with megidolaon and telos with ragnarok, panta rhei, niflheim and thunder reign in his skill list. Luckily i got it, but took me some 200 tries XD
Sometimes I think I’m a masochist when it comes to gaming XD
I’m the lazy type, I played without thinking the first time, then started a second run using a FAQ to get all S. Links. I love P3 but 7 playthroughs? The only game I’ve come close to doing that for is FF8, and there was at least a year between each run. You are definitely a masochist.
Ahahaha.. ^^;
7 runs definitely would put me there, huh? Well, i tend to go through games i love quite a lot. I’m gonna go do ff13 and lrff13 again. Crisis core got 5 playthroughs too. Uhh, i dunno what else I’ve dug into that much. Nothing really comes to mind. Will, I’ll just keep replaying lrff13 every time i finish cuz it’s just Lightning all throughout the game. 100% pure Lightning indulgent gameplay. Honestly, i couldn’t ever ask anything more from squeenix. =\\u\\=
Welp, this place got dead XD
Rest… In… Peace… *thud*