Xenoblade Chronicles – Last break before the end (spoilers)

xenoblade bionisWoo hoo! Finally reached Agniratha! I say “woo hoo!” because I’ve spent at least 20 hours supposedly trying to get there, but actually exploring as much of the world as I can. I killed my first ‘red’ mobs too, though they were just harmless sardines and flamingos. I tried to take on a level 74 caterpie with my level 68 party, and we were doing pretty well. Then some Vangs got involved and the whole thing turned nasty, but I’ll get them yet!

In story news, I kinda got annoyed at the cheesiness and ‘accidentally’ skipped a couple of cutscenes in the Hidden Machina Village, so I’m not too sure what we’re doing in Agniratha. If I recall correctly my party’s there to waste some kill-everyone-but-my-people Egil guy, but that’s about it. He might as well be Necron, for all I care about him.

I’ve also been doing a LOT of quests. It’s funny, because I was adamant when I started Xenoblade Chronicles that I wouldn’t bother with any non-mandatory quests. Yet here I am, running and jumping and hiding and swimming for 30 minutes to get one drop of water to a lazy adventurer. Whatever happened to my willpower? Then again I’m the same person who spent the first 20 hours of a story-heavy RPG doing nothing but quests, thereby semi-ruining the game for myself. I should have known it would turn out this way.

xenoblade agnirathaAs for my opinion of the game, it hasn’t changed much in the past 70 hours. I love the exploration. I’m enjoying the quests. I’m not sure when the timed ones will expire, so I’m focusing on those for now. I still don’t care much for the 7th party member, but I’ll survive.

Battle-wise, the battle system itself got stale a few hours in, but I’ve been keeping things fresh by switching my party around. I got tired of Shulk, Melia and Riki, so I’m trying Dunban and Reyn as mains now. One of them should have been the main character instead! Story-wise… yah, I still don’t care. And I’m okay with that. Let’s just get this over with, but not too quickly because I have a lot of exploring left to do.

And so it is with the utmost reluctance that I enter my final break before I finish Xenoblade Chronicles. This time I don’t want to stop playing, but there’s a lot going on around this time of the year. The sad thing about console gaming is the time and energy commitment involved. You can’t just roll over on your side, flip a switch and play for 15 minutes before bed. You need peace and quiet (well, I need peace and quiet) and at least a solid two hours if you really want to enjoy a console RPG. Once the hue and cry of Christmas and the New Year is over I hope to get the time to devote to finishing this dang thing already.

Gamebook DS – Aquarian Age: Perpetual Period = meh

aquarian ageAn average, seriously-cliched visual novel that I somehow found myself enjoying. I’ve been reading it on and off for the past couple of months.

Characters: Lazy, orphaned slightly perverted brown-haired protagonist, always comes to the rescue of the ladies, who treat him like dirt. Lives with his typically violent, tsundere, terrible cook of a  childhood friend/cousin/love interest and her saucy but competent little sister.

I’ve already forgotten his name, but he has an equally perverted loser best friend who may or may not be up to something sinister behind the scenes. Either that or he’s a rapist. Or both. Then there’s a blue-haired loli of mystery and a white-haired not-loli of mystery and some other assorted characters that you’ve already met if you’ve watched even one Japanese anime.

I liked it so much I read it twice. I’ve given up pretending I have good taste when it comes to video games. The simple truth is that I took a shine to the characters, and that’s usually enough to carry me through any game no matter how terrible. In this case it was Kokona, the blue-haired kid in the middle right, that caught my fancy, so I played through twice to try and get her ending. No luck, and I’m too lazy to use a FAQ, so I give up.

What was good: What can I say, I liked the characters, stale as they were. The character designs were generic-cute, and the characters themselves were amusing in an “I already know what you’re going to say, but say it anyway” kind of way. There was also a murder mystery involving strange fires which I found fairly interesting. Thirdly, Aquarian Age is a fast-paced, dialogue-based visual novel and each playthrough barely took three hours, possibly because I got the bad ending both times.

What made me quit: This might be just Kokona’s route, but it’s impossible to get a good ending without a FAQ. There is no affection system and no sound or visual to indicate whether the choices you’ve made are wrong or not. Sometimes you get an insta-end after choosing wrong, but for the most part the game progresses normally until BAM, a bucket falls on your head and sends you back to Day 1. I could have solved that by using a FAQ, but after playing it twice on my own, I didn’t fancy a third run glued to my computer screen. It doesn’t help that the dialogue crawls by at a snail’s pace even on the fastest Skip setting.

…Ah. Now I’m starting to regret deleting the rom. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so hasty. But no. I can get pretty much the same experience by watching any random harem show, and when it comes down to that I’ve gotta better things to do with my time. *toss* It was kinda fun, though…

Zero no Kiseki – TL;DR

znkThis is the game that never ends
It just goes on and on my friends
Some people started playing it, not knowing what it was
And they’ll continue playing it forever just because
This is the game that never ends…

…Actually Zero no Kiseki was ‘only’ 60 hours long, but it felt like an eternity. You can’t see it right now, but I’ve packed up my PSP and shut it away in my desk. I don’t even want to look at it for a while.

The last time I wrote about the game, I gloried in the fact that there was no main baddy and no real story. Of course I wasn’t naive enough to think I’d get through the whole game without one. However I never expected there to be game developers who, knowing they had a 20-hour long story to tell, would waste the first 40 hours on absolutely nothing and only then get around to their main point. I’m more exhausted than mad at this point though, so I’ll just scribble some stuff and walk away.

What was okay

1. At least it wasn’t Fails in the Sky.

2. It doesn’t end with a brother tongue-kissing his sister and then running away in a fit of teenage angst.

3. Cassius Bright doesn’t show up. We do have two obligatory “I wanna have Cassie’s babies” scenes, though.

4. Battles are mostly fast-paced and fun. The enemies also start out closer to your party so you don’t need a passport and visa to reach them any more. The battle system just needed an auto-battle option and an animation skip button for magic and joint attacks to be near-perfect.

5. Weak enemies will run from you. They can also be whacked for quick Sepith.

6. I liked my party, there were some interesting NPCs, and even the last boss was more funny than evil. Lloyd is a terrible but typical main character, but the other characters make up for him.

7. It ended well. There are a few unanswered questions, but I’m satisfied enough that I’m not going to bother playing Ao no Kiseki.

znk partyWhat sucked

1. 60 hours of BS, of which only 10 was indispensable. Way too long game was waaaaay too long.

2. Some of the jobs/sidequests were really boring. I know it’s the S.S.S.’s job to do minor tasks like finding kitties, but it got old after the first few.

3. Too many references to Snails in the Sky. Some were references to SC and TC, which I haven’t played. What’s worse, those foul, disgusting Bright kids showed up again and even had the nerve to *vomits* join my final party.

4. Too many rescues of my party, too much kill-stealing. I know we’re supposed to be rookies but every other boss battle ends with someone jumping in to save our hides or even the odds. Thanks but GTFO.

5. Too much talking. The party members take turns repeating answers and facts just to pad out the text. Or maybe it was a misguided attempt to ‘flesh out their characters.’ “He must have gone out.” “You mean he’s gone out?” “But how did he go out?” “Yeah, we didn’t see him go.” “Yeah, he must have gone when we weren’t looking.” “Yeah, that must be it.” etc etc etc.

6. It’s a story about a corrupt city with two rival mafia groups. Mafia that never kill or even hurt anyone. Mafia that the story somehow still tries to present as a threat to Crossbell’s stability, even though they never actually do anything to threaten said stability. Not until the last 10 hours, anyway.

7. Magic is useless for most of the game until the final boss. Then suddenly it’s uber-useful. Also there are way too many useless items and accessories.

8. Wasn’t good enough to justify being 60 hours long. Wasn’t Good Enough, period.

That’s it. That’s enough. No more Legend of the Heroes games for me. I still have Ys DS left to try before I give up on Falcom entirely, but I’m not expecting much.

In other gaming news, I’ve hit the 75 hour mark with Xenoblade Chronicles. I need to stop exploring and move on with the game, but exploration is just so much fun! I also started Date ni Gametsui wake ja ne: Dungeon Maker Girl’s Type on the DS. Gameplay-wise it’s exactly the same as Master of the Monster Lair, but the story and characters are completely different so it’s been good so far. Since the year’s almost over those will probably be the last two games I play till 2013.

I haven’t gone anywhere

And I don’t have writer’s block or anything funky like that. I’m busy playing Xenoblade Chronicles and Zero no Kiseki, but I haven’t reached anywhere worth writing about.

Xenoblade Chroicles: 67-ish hours. Just reached the Fallen Arm and got the ‘final party member’. Do Not Want. I was doing so well raising affinity and mixing and matching my teams. Melia and Riki are actually pretty useful in battle, especially when you control them yourself. I just don’t know what they want me to do with this new character. Well, whatever. Exploring is still fun, and we’re FINALLY getting round to the core of the story, so that’s good.

Zero no Kiseki: Longest. Final Dungeon. Ever. I’ve been trying to finish the game for the past 5 hours, but they just keep sending me deeper and deeper into some ancient ruins. Then I finally killed the last-but-one boss and thought, oh well the last boss must be in the next room, right? Noooo, the dungeon’s going on. And on. And on. At present I don’t have a list of game developers I instinctively avoid. If I did, though, Falcom would be at the top of it.

I think, or at least I desperately hope, that I’ll finish ZnK soon, and then I guess I’ll have to write something about it. *sigh*

I also figure since my PS2 is already dead, there’s no harm taking it apart in a last-ditch attempt to fix it, so that’s what I’ll do tomorrowish.

Haretari Kumottari N – Not bad for a free game

I’ll start by giving out a link to the developer’s website where you can download this game and try it for yourself…HERE. It doesn’t need installing. Unzip, play, delete when tired.

Haretari Kumottari N (Sometimes it’s Sunny, Sometimes it’s Cloudy N) is billed as an adventurer sim. Having played it, however, it comes across as more of a life sim, where the main character just happens to be an adventurer. I say that because the majority of things you can choose to have Fill do have very little to do with adventuring. The only character in-game who gets to have real adventures is Theo, an adventurer you hire to go dungeon exploring for you.

Check out some of the things Fill can do every day (hardly an exhaustive list):

Laundry, take a bath, go to the library, paint, admire painting, cook, think about cooking, take a job, train, polish his sword, wear perfume, talk to friends, hang out with friends, flirt with friends, give friends presents, run a lunchbox shop, go adventuring, take quests from the guild, go swimming, take a class, look at the sky, go fishing, go shopping, clean his room, etc etc etc.

And every week/month:

Play the lottery, visit neighboring countries, take part in cookery/exercise/fitness/painting/swimming contests, sign up for classes, visit the forest to progress the ‘story’, buy/expand a farm, visit the guild to pick up his paycheck, etc, etc.

You notice “traditional” adventurer activities like, you know, adventuring and doing quests form only a tiny part of his day-to-day life. But of course, that’s the choice you make as the gamer, picking which of the many, many available actions you want Fill to take part in. After all, you have to juggle a couple of stats at the same time. First, Fill’s finances. He starts out 5000£ in debt and pays interest every day. He also needs a LOT of money to buy and upgrade weapons, upgrade his farm, upgrade his lunchbox shop, enter certain contests and all the other things your average adventurer needs money for.

Secondly, you have to watch his hunger, since Fill has a metabolism that would put many Harvest Moon protagonists to shame. If he gets hungry he can’t take quests (though he can do everything else just fine) and if he outright begins to starve his happiness and popularity drop like a rock after Shio bails him out.

Which leads me to the third and fourth things you have to watch: happiness and popularity. TBH I’ve never let them drop too low, so I don’t know what happens if you’re unhappy or unpopular. If you’ve very happy, you get to throw a party, or just enjoy your happiness. Parties raise your friends’ affections and your abilities at cooking, swimming, etc. If you’re very popular, you get to be Mayor for a day, which actually improves the town. Somebody fire the regular mayor already!

That leads to the seventh, eighth, ninth…I’m losing count. Basically you’re expected to improve the city by improving safety, increasing the population, beautifying the place, etc. Being Mayor is one way to do it. So is donating money to various collectors. So is taking quests.

I haven’t even gotten round to talking about quests and Guild Rank yet. And then I have to describe weapons and how to improve them and how combat works. And there’s a story in there as well. Phew. Okay, I’ll try to keep this short.

The Guild: You take quests. Some involve fighting. Some don’t. They all increase your hunger and popularity while decreasing happiness. Quests are ranked 0-6. 0 quests have no fighting, 1+ quests have increasingly difficult fights. In addition to the immediate compensation you get for quests, you also get paid a monthly salary depending on how many Guild Points you earned in combat. On top of all that, you can purchase Guild Rank licenses, from Rank G to Rank A. The higher you go, the better the stuff you can buy in stores (especially weapons) but the harder enemies and quests get. However you can switch ranks at will. This means you can go up to Rank A, buy Rank A weapons, then lower your level and fight Rank G enemies.You can also switch between (IIRC) 15 different classes, from swordsman to priest to playboy. I’ve only unlocked about 10 so far.

Weapons: Fill’s stats depend almost entirely on the weapon he has equipped. Weapons come with basic stats. You have to pay money and use Mana Points, intrinsic to weapons, and Mana Bonuses, which you get by leveling up, to improve ATK, HP, MP and Speed.

Skills: The marketing copy boasts of “over 100 equippable skills.” Cutting, thrusting, pounding, magic, recovery, etc. This is probably the worst part of the game for me. I just can’t figure out what makes one skill better than another. The stats are just too horribly obscure and hard to read. I followed basic RPG logic and assumed the later you get a skill, the better it must be. It’s worked out pretty well so far.

Combat: Fill equips up to 8 skills. At the stat of a battle, the CPU chooses one skill at random. Say, skill no.3. Then for the next 5 turns Fill works his way through skills 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. If the battle still hasn’t ended by then, the computer chooses another skill at random and the cycle begins anew. If Fill runs out of HP or 20 turns elapse without a winner, he loses and forfeits all rewards. It’s not a bad system, and for a doujin game they actually have a reasonable selection of enemies. I know I would have enjoyed it way more if they had used a regular turn-based battle system though.

Story: Not much to start with. Fill is a fresh immigrant to the city of Ishvald. He has to try and survive as best as he can, that’s it. A little way into the game, he is beset by a fairy named Rakish, who requests his help to drive monsters out of nearby Mellow Forest. This turns out to be caused by the evil fairy Lily. Lily’s trying to release some evil dragon god sealed somewhere. Needless to say, this story progression is done entirely at my discretion. I’m more interested in having Fill eat Chinese food and go to the circus than in saving the world, but I’ll get there.

Characters: The developers Inu to Neko seem to use the same characters in all their games, but this probably the first game where they all appear together. I say that because this time they actually explain things like why Ruvel has a crush on Yayoi, and what kind of relationship Fill has with Shio (more than friends, less than lovers, also Shio is not a trap 0_0), that sort of thing. As you increase your friends’ affection by giving them gifts and talking to them, you’re treated to character skits and short character-specific sidequests that teach you more about them.

Blah blah blah, and so on and so forth. TL;DR there’s a LOT to do in Haretari Kumottari N.

Enough about that, on to what really matters: Is this game any good?

Why yes, yes it’s good. For, say, two or three days. There’s so much to do and so many activities to try that it’ll keep you busy for a short while. Also this is just me, but I really liked the characters and enjoyed hanging out with them. The reasons why it doesn’t last longer than a few days are:

1. That’s how long it’ll take you to max everyone’s affections, reach Rank A, win most contests and complete the story. It’s a short game.
2. Apart from battles, everything plays out text-only, no animations. You don’t get to see Fill picking up trash or giving elderly people massages. This makes it easy to get tired of doing things.
3. Battles are aight, but not much fun. That means a big chunk of the game – fighting, weapon upgrades, skills, can and should be ignored most of the time.
4. Having so much to do and so little time to do it in is first exciting, then frustrating, then boring. Especially when you combine it with #2.

So it’s a good, short, fun diversion, which is exactly what I was looking for when I picked it up. I’ve gotten the sim game bug out of my system for a little while now. Back to Zero no Kiseki (geh) and Xenoblade Chronicles (urgh) now.