Early thoughts on Arc Rise Fantasia

I’m finding it a little hard to get into covergalaxy-arc rise fantasic front high resArc Rise Fantasia. From reading countless comments and reviews, I already knew not to expect much from the story or characters, but I was promised a cracking good battle system. Uhh, where? Still it’s very early days yet – about 5 hours, at least 1 hour of which was spent on boss battles and another 1 hour spent on getting lost.

Quick impressions so far:

The famously bad voice-acting: It’s not as bad as I was led to expect. Or rather it is that bad, but no worse than that. What I’m trying to say is, there’s memorably, quotably bad voice-acting and then there’s half-assed, phoned-in crap like Arc Rise Fantasia.

It’s a bad effort overall, but Ryfia and Niko’s VAs really stand out in a terrible, terrible way. I got used to the others pretty quickly, but whenever these two pipe up it’s like sandpaper in my ear canals. There’s an option to turn voice acting off completely, but I’m not that desperate…yet.

The story so far: Eh. Yet another mysterious pendant that holds the key to the future of the world. Next time it should be panties or something, give the jewelry a break. A bad kingdom has cut off our empire’s power supply, so my party’s heading there right now to give them what’s for. I suspect things will really pick up once I finish that and hear what the other side has to say. Maybe the conclusion will be something other than the usual Power of Mankind/Friendship/We don’t need no Stinkin’ Gods storyline, but I don’t have much hope.

The battle system: I’ve played other games (Dragoneer’s Aria, Grand Knights History, etc.) with a shared AP pool that controls party actions. Right now I’m finding combat dull and restricted, but I’m sure it will pick up once I have more AP to tinker around with. Oh, and once I get more magic gems and open up some more slots. Once I can move around, use items freely and do more Chain Attacks and Syncs, things should get a little more exciting.

It would also help if they did something about the balance. I hear boss battles are hard (I would say “cheap”) all the way through, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The map battles though, are way too easy. Mook battles are simple and fast-paced, over in 15-30 seconds on average. That’s good. But then the boss battles are marathon slogs, and apart from giving you levels the mook battles do absolutely nothing to prepare you for them strategy-wise. It would almost be the same if they just scaled your level up and threw you straight from boss battle to boss battle.

I should probably play a little more before talking too much about the combat. It just seems to me that they have the makings of a very good system, but one which they’re handling very poorly. Map enemies are so easy you can kill them with auto-battle and zero strategy. Meanwhile boss battles are so tough you’re spamming Heal Liquids 80% of the time. Neither one leaves much room for planning or experimenting with the battle system.

tl;dr: I’m only playing this because I heard the battles were great. I’ll give it another 5 or 6 hours and see what I can make of it.

Shepherd’s Crossing 2 – Not for kids!

shepherd's crossing main screenNot that anyone’s keeping score, but this is actually my third replay of Shepherd’s Crossing 2. I keep coming back to it like a bad relationship. This time, to spice things up I decided to play as a girl, i.e. hard mode. And since I was taking the tougher route, I decided to shoot for the Mayor’s son (does he have a name?). It took me 8 years and 33 pieces of wool, but I finally got my man in the end. Not a bad catch, all things considered, but dang, that’s a hefty requirement. I should have just settled for Giles; they look almost identical anyway.

I’ve been wondering this from the first time I played Shepherd’s Crossing 2 but, how on earth did this game get an E for Everyone rating? It should be rated PG at least, or even higher. There are a number of things in here I don’t fancy having to explain to my 5-year old nephew.

– The grisly murder and consumption of all manner of cute little critters. Cute bunny? Rabbit stew. Cute ferret? Tanned skin. Cute pig? Sausages, ham, bacon, lard, all manner of delicious meals. Actually my nephew is a bloodthirsty little thing himself, so maybe he’s not a good example for this.

– Starving baby animals to death. Apparently you’re not supposed to milk mother animals until their kids have been weaned. Milking them carelessly will cause them to dry up and their babies to starve to death right in front of your eyes. You can’t put them out of their misery, you can’t sell them, you can’t feed them any milk. You just have to sit there and watch them run around helplessly until their final, miserable deaths. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Finished Fire Emblem: Awakening (ending spoilers)

fire emblem validar fightWent for the ending where MC kills off Grima for good. Supposedly at the expense of her own life, but she survives just fine. The final boss was a bit of a joke, though she still managed to wipe out both Maribelle and Morgan when they got too close. This marks the first time I have ever finished a Fire Emblem with less than a full cohort, but it was too much trouble to restart the battle. Final thoughts on Fire Emblem Awakening follow.

The difficulty setting

I’m sad that I screwed myself out of enjoyment by picking the easiest difficulty to play on. Actually I should lay some of the blame at Nintendo’s feet for labeling the “Easy” setting “Normal.” There’s no way in hell that thing is Normal; it must be a joke. I like SRPGs for the “just killing stuff with my friends” feel, but when that “stuff” doesn’t even try to fight back, it stops being a game and becomes something cowardly and barbaric, like a foxhunt.

The ridiculous ease made nonsense of all the game mechanics. It doesn’t matter what weapons you use. I used steel swords and lances well into the late chapters just to keep enemies alive longer and prolong the fun. It doesn’t matter who you breed with whom, because the children will be overpowered anyway. And you don’t even need those children because the adults are more than enough to take everyone on. I completely, totally and utterly ignored skills. I never paired anyone up (as in joint attacks, not hookups) and never changed a class. The forgery system went to waste because I had more weapons and items than I could use. The list goes on and on. Playing on “Normal” takes all the fun out of the game.

The further I went, the more I wish I had restarted at a more appropriate difficulty level. Unfortunately I was playing a borrowed game and wanted to finish as soon as possible. But I really should have risked it anyway. I like to think it would have improved matters tremendously. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Fire Emblem: Awakening – Akira Toriyama called. He wants his story back.

fire_emblem_awakening_box_art_europeI’m an SRPG fan, and I have a soft spot for Fire Emblem in particular. The only reason I haven’t posted on FE since I started this blog 4 years ago is that Intelligent Systems hasn’t made an FE worth playing since then.

That said, I don’t like Fire Emblem enough to buy a 3DS for, so I just laid low and bided my time until someone I knew bought one. Then I pounced. Playing a borrowed game on a borrowed handheld means I’m on borrowed time, which means I have to finish Fire Emblem Awakening quickly. It doesn’t affect my gameplay though – I always rush through FEs. But it does mean I won’t write anything long today, just a few notes as at Chapter 18.

(Some spoilers below)

– Easiest FE since Sacred Stones. I’m not even talking about the availability of free battles. It’s more stuff like how kind the RNG is this time, and how the game throws Physics, Rescues, Master Seals and all manner of buffing items and super weapons at you left, right, center. In fact, this feels a lot like an FE8 remake, with some time-traveling thrown in.

– The opening sequence with the traitor thing reminded me of the Chrono Cross opening. Too bad that game was all downhill from there.

– “Everyone’s dead in my timeline, so I’m going to travel back and change things.” y halo thar, Trunks. Although if I remember my Dragon Ball Z correctly, Trunks traveling back in time simply created a different timeline which had no effect on his original timeline, so I’m betting things will work out the same in this case.

– Perma-death is not permanent enough. When your party members get killed, they usually mumble something like “I must retreat and live a quiet life far from the battlefield” blah blah blah. You can’t run away, that’s cheating! People should die when they are killed!

– Supports are a PITA. In most FEs I don’t go out of my way to create supports, but here I’m seemingly expected to pair people up so they can have kids. Kids I don’t even use anyway, because I’m happy with my existing crew. Plus they might break the game even further, and I can’t have that. Can anyone confirm for me, in a non-spoilerish way, whether I’ll be penalized for not producing any more kids? I just want to finish the game.

– Excellent localization as always from the Nintendo team. The dialogue really sparkles, though they did go a bit overboard with the flowery language this time. And “dastard”? Yeah, it’s a word, but who ever says that?

– Lon’qu, Virion, Miriel. Between them they probably have 50% of all in-game kills. Why are they so darned good?!

– And why is my main character so useless?! Both her magic and her physical attacks are rubbish. She’s only good for her S-support with Chrom, and I’m kinda regretting that right now. Can anyone confirm for me, again in a non-spoilerish way, if I’ll be penalized for benching her for good? I’m getting to the point where I want to finalize my party.

– Sidequests. I like sidequests. I think I lost out on something by letting all those villagers die that other time, though. ;___;

Apart from those few nagging issues I’m having a great time. I mean, it’s Fire Emblem, after all. Apart from the abomination known only as Shadow Dragon, all the other ones I’ve tried have been above-average at worst. I’ll try and post something a little more comprehensive once I actually finish the game.

Doki Doki Suikoden – Too many crotch shots

dokisui_frontIf you read that title and thought, “There’s no such thing as too many crotch shots” then congratulations! You just found the perfect video game. You can die happy now.

I first became interested in Doki Doki Suikoden when I watched a video about it on Youtube. This was shortly after I’d finished Motto Nuga-Cel, so I was amused and intrigued to learn that there’s more than one Japanese game out there where you fight by stripping girls to their underwear. In retrospect I shouldn’t have been surprised at all. It’s just typical Japan.

The decisive difference between Dokisui and Nuga-Cel is that the latter is actually a game. The former is a visual novel. In Nuga-Cel you’re trying to take over Tokyo. Stripping is just a means to that end. In Dokisui, the whole point of the experience is girls, girls, girls. You don’t have to strip the girls there either, but then there’s no other point to the game.

Sure, lots of people aren’t bothered by excessive fanservice. Some people would even buy an entire game just for that, but I’m not one of those. If the underlying game/story is good enough I can ignore the panties and focus on that. But otherwise I’m not so bored or desperate that I’ll play just anything no matter how cheap and unappealing.

And so I played Doki Doki Suikoden for for 2-3 hours and it was a real disappointment, even for a visual novel. The character designs aren’t exactly bad, and the art in general is more than decent, but not enough to make up for the lacking nature of everything else. The story is so typical it doesn’t even bear mentioning. If I recall correctly, my main character is a transfer student who just moved back to his old town after 10 years. On his way to school the first day, he runs into a girl with her skirt flipped up for all the world to see. Do please go on, this is most interesting →