I said I would be busy until early June and I was, but I’ve been relatively free for about a week now. In that time I’ve been trying to get into Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy. Trying, and not exactly failing but not exactly succeeding either. I’m about 6 hours in, finished several missions, beat two Wanted Variants. Level up my troops to level 5 thereabouts. Picked up some new skills, etc etc. The usual early game stuff.
The story goes that you’re members of some secret group tasked with taking down some monsters. That’s it. Love it. Love it when dungeon crawlers don’t bother me with too much talking. They also let me roam around the dungeons as long as I like without constantly calling me up on the phone or dragging me back to headquarters (*cough* 7th Dragon 2020 and sequels *cough). There’s some blah blah intrigue going on with some TPF group or the other, but no one seems bothered about it right now.
But that’s it what I love. As for the rest, waaah… The NPCs are lifeless, the enemies are lifeless, the graphics aren’t nice, the gameplay is a clunkier copy of Entaku no Seito and Stranger of Sword City, the soundtracks are almost identical, and so on and so forth… And it’s… so… easy! I’m sure it will get harder later, but right now I’m just mashing Attack, Attack, Attack all day long and getting through just fine. For the boss fights I break out a few spells and a couple of healing items. One time I did Hit Up, Hit Up, Hit Up for three turns. All right! Time to get serious… but the boss was already dead. Awww…
I’m also a little tired of exploring the same two dungeons over and over again. Morimoto High-Rise, Gakuto Sewer. Morimoto again. Gakuto again. And I had to fight the same old same old goblins and trolls everywhere I went. I want new enemies!
And more whining and more bitching and more moaning.
And that’s why I’ve been avoiding posting about Operation Abyss, because I don’t have anything nice to write yet. It doesn’t have the charm or spaciousness of Entaku no Seito and it lacks the polish and smoothness of Stranger of Sword City. It’s just a very mediocre dungeon crawler. I mean I was warned not to compare it to the later games but… Well, I’m only 6 hours in and it’s a pretty short game. I’ll give it my best shot and maybe it will grow on me. Yeah…
Yah, it’s definitely a bit too easy. It doesn’t really get much harder until later on. (2nd semester) While the characters are pretty flat, I did find myself somewhat interested in the plot, what little is there anyway. While the enemy variety aren’t too great, the dungeons do get more varied later on though, so that’s a plus at least. Anyway, just give it a few more hours and if it doesn’t seem to get better I guess you can always drop it in favor something more interesting. The fact it’s a remake of Team Muramasa’s early game really shows and I can understand getting frustrated at how it seems a huge step back from Entaku and Stranger.
Whoa whoa whoa, nobody said anything about dropping any games. Sure I’m not enjoying it nearly as much as I thought I would, but it’s just a matter of adjusting my expectations accordingly, not throwing in the towel. I’m not forcing myself to play or anything. I think it’ll grow on me if I give it a little more time.
Oh, my mistake then 😛 But I do agree with most of your complaints, I just didn’t mind them as much as I haven’t played a dungeon crawler in awhile and really needed my dungeon crawler fix.
Same here, really needed the fix and not about to give it up despite a few disappointments.
Might be interesting to look into the original Generation Xth releases. Pretty much the same game, but with more challenging encounters and shite character designs.
無理。 I’m too addicted to eye candy. I can’t play games that are too ugly.