Zero no Kiseki – Hmm…

Just passed the 40 hour mark and finished Chapter 3. Apart from that I don’t really feel like writing about this. More like, I can’t think of anything to say. I like Zero no Kiseki quite a lot. Even though it drags on even more than Trails in the Sky did, at least it’s meant to be a slow-life game. A slice of life RPG about the lives of 4 new police recruits in a new department. No overarching mystery or final bad guy so far, which is fine with me. I don’t mind finding lost kids and retrieving library books and other menial tasks like that. And at least the play this time was about 20,000 times more interesting than that awful, awful school play in TITS.

That’s about it. I’m playing it. It’s nice. I like the characters (except the irritating ones who should have died back in TITS like Joshua and Estelle). The battles are a lot faster this time round. I’m starting to get tired of all the talking, but I’m soldiering on. I’ll be back if anything unusual happens.

In other gaming news I feel like playing either a simulation game or an SRPG. Something very short and light. I had it narrowed down to either the Territoire demo (new game from the guys that made Recettear) or a free doujin game called Haretari kumottari N from the guys that made Lemuore no Renkinjutsushi. It’s supposed to let you play as an adventurer, taking on quests, interacting with the townsfolk, trying to balance your happiness with your popularity and juggling 8 stats and over 100 possible different skills as you fight various enemies. I flipped a coin and Harekumo won, so… yeah.

Suikoden II – Not interesting enough to finish

It’s been a while since I last wrote about Suikoden II, but in the meanwhile I have made my way slowly and painfully to Rockaxe Town, home of the Matilda Knights. My save file reads 11 hours and 36 minutes.

My verdict is just as the title says: it’s an interesting game, but not interesting enough to actually finish. By which I mean I am fairly interested in what’s going on and how the game ends, but I don’t want to go through the trouble of playing for another 20-30 hours just to find out.

The characters are bland, the battles are tedious, and the backtracking… oh lawd, the backtracking. Before going to Matilda I spent time in Greenhill City, and it was crazy. Walk to the hideout, warp back to town, walk to the hideout again, walk back to town again and then walk back to the hideout AGAIN before getting out of that bloody town. That was the final straw.

I did get some entertainment out of finding typos in the script though:

Nanami: If I thought Riou and Jowy were kiiled by the state
Nanami: I could never have forgived them.
Storekeeper: Don’t waist you money, okay?
Don’t talk to me over familiar. Got it?
Nanami: What? I’m going to! [too]
Circuret
Nanami: Goodnight, Riou
Don’t make decision for me
How can you say that I’m loafing off!
Shu: […]for the blood that has flown[…]
If you see a shinning ball, please buy it for us, okay?
This weather isn’t good for an old man bones…
Runemaster: Attach were?
Blacksmith: Dettach which?
Shin: Lord Teresa. [when did she have a sex change?]

Etc. etc. But minor diversions like that can only take you so far. Luckily for me Suikoden II is old enough and famous enough that there are tons of videos and Let’s Plays out there. Like this one, which recaps virtually every line in the game. The internet is so wonderful.

And that’s it for me and Suikoden II. I think maybe, just maybe, the Suikoden series isn’t for me. I really enjoyed the first game, but III was excruciatingly boring. So much so that I still haven’t finished it. Meanwhile I fairly enjoyed Tierkreis, in spite of all the howling and crying about how it’s not a ‘real’ Suikoden game. At least I managed to finish that. I might check out the new one that came out on the PSP earlier this year, but apart from that I think I’m done with the series as a whole.

~Fin~

Update, i.e. not so Fin+ spoilers – Finished reading the Let’s Play. I am so glad I didn’t continue this game. You know, I actually thought Luca Blight was a pretty awesome villain. Turns out he’s not even the final villain. He goes down 2/3rds of the way through (epically, but still) and the final boss is some stupid rune boss. There’s no way beating down some random monster Necron-style could ever match the satisfaction of taking down the omnicidal maniac of the century, srsly.

Not only that, but once his crazy ass is gone, but you’d expect the war with Highland to be over, right? Sign a treaty, stick to it, everyone’s happy, right? But noooo, for some reason I will never understand, Jowy insists on keeping the war going unless everyone surrenders to Highland. WHAT IS HIS PROBLEM? All the deaths after that are completely his fault. All the Highland and other soldiers that die, Nanami if you don’t get all 108, Silverberg, those two generals of Solon Jhee, everything’s all his fault. AND. HE. HAS. NO. REASON!!!!! Unless his aim was to destroy Highland and cause as much collateral damage as possible while doing so. In which case he succeeded brilliantly and should be applauded. Standing O, smart guy.

Urgh, I’m still raging. The sheer stupidity of the situation is mind-boggling. Konami was obviously prolonging the game just for the sake of prolonging it. It’s the only explanation I can come up with. And I can’t come up with any explanation for the fact that the “best” ending has Riou, Nanami and Jowy all together again, all buddy-buddy like nothing ever happened. “After reuniting in Kyaro, the three friends continue to journey together merrily.” What. The. Hell?! And what about Jillia and Pilika, sent off into exile like nobody’s business, and who he refuses to even talk to in the “good” ending even though it would make them so much happier? Screw them, eh? Screw everyone as long as you’re happy, eh Jowy? Geez.

I don’t think I’ve hated a videogame character like this in quite a while. Why is this game so popular again? =_= Well, no matter. Enough Suikoden for now. As I mentioned above I’d like to try Suikoden: Tsumugareshi Hyakunen no Toki, and since I like SRPGs I’d also like to try Suikoden Tactics. Apart from that I don’t think the series is for me. I can live with that.

Xenoblade Chronicles – Taking a short break (spoilers)

46 hours in. Just hit Sword Valley. Fatigue is starting to set in, you know the drill.

I won all the bets I made in the last post, so testicles the world over can heave a sigh of relief. Not only was I proved right, but I was proved right in the very next gaming session after I wrote all that. It’s like Xenoblade Chronicles looked over my shoulder and went “Okay, okay, you figured it all out. No sense hiding anything any more,” and just spilled its guts.

So yeah, Fiora is the same as Nemesis, only she’s a Mechon with amnesia now, and still probably dead. Dunban, Reyn and Shulk are determined to get her back somehow, but this leaves me with the same problem I had right at the beginning: I don’t care about Fiora. I don’t want her back. I don’t want to see anyone pining over her. I don’t mind if I never find out what happened or how she turned into a Mechon.

Which also brings me to the same issue I’ve been having with Xenoblade Chronicles for the past 40 hours or so. I like the setting and the environments. I like most of the characters. The music is great in places, as is the voice-acting. I’ve made my peace with the battle system and I’ve even started dabbling in item-giving to raise Affinity. I’m happy with everything except the story.

And that is why I don’t dare take anything longer than a short break, even though I’m seriously tired now. I feel like I’ve already experienced the best the game has to offer. Like I wouldn’t be missing anything if I quit here and now. Settings, exploration, fights, characters… after 46 hours I’ve seen plenty of all of them. The only thing that keeps me going is the hope that Sword Valley is either the last-but-one or last-but-two stage before the end of the game.

I’ll take the next couple of days off, play till the 60-hour mark and reevaluate things at that point.

Growlanser – Lost interest

I haven’t actually dropped Growlanser yet, but it’s going back on the shelf for a while. I still like the characters and the setting, and the story has just taken a rather interesting turn. If only I liked the battle system better things would be wonderful.

Unfortunately the following things are bothering me quite a bit.

1. The battle winning conditions grate on my nerves. On one hand I’m happy to have something to do other than “Beat everyone to death.” On the other, bigger hand, some of those battles are serious pains in the ar$e. “Hide behind the rocks, spring out, cut the ropes to the bridge on the left before Julian comes back, cut the ropes on the bridge to the right before the princess escapes, kill everyone except the princess and teleport away.” PHEW. And that isn’t even the most complicated battle so far.

2. Point #1 wouldn’t be so bad if the tempo of the battles wasn’t so terrible. First, once you enter a command, the character keeps carrying it out until they either complete it or you interrupt them. E.g. if you say “Kill the Boss” then they’ll attack the boss f0rever and ever, even if their HP is getting low or another character needs help. This is kinda bad, because I prefer being able to direct my party turn by turn.

Interrupting is also harder than it seems, because you have to do it right after someone has finished acting but before someone else starts moving, and you have to take cooldowns into effect.

More annoying than all that, though, is the dumbness of my party AI. If I send, say, Misha to attack an enemy, and Wallace is the least bit in her way, she won’t stop and ask for fresh instructions, or use magic or distance attacks. She’ll run in place for the rest of the battle unless a) there’s another enemy close by, in which case she’ll hit him instead, or b) I notice and ask her to do something else, or c) I manually direct her to move to Point A, then to Point B so she can get around him. It’s all too stupid for words.

Not to mention the animation of each person’s commands interrupts the counter for everyone else. So Misha will take two steps, *pause* MC attacks *unpause* Misha takes another two steps *pause* Ruise uses magic. Ruise comes back for fresh instructions. *unpause* Misha takes another two steps. Etc. etc. etc. The pacing is terrible.

It also doesn’t help that I got lost in a rather short dungeon and spent a lot of time wandering around fighting weak monsters over and over again, making me thoroughly sick and tired of the battle system.

Since I like everything except the fighting, though, I have two options. 1. Give up on playing Growlanser and read spoilers or watch a playthrough instead. 2. Take a break and come back later when I’m fresher and ready for more frustration. I’m going with Option 2 for now.

Xenoblade Chronicles – Move on, already! (spoilers)

Last time I checked I was 33 hours along. Just arrived at Prison Island, currently making my way to the top to watch the Emperor get killed. Shulk had a vision 20 hours ago that he was fighting Metal Face over there, but it’s taken this long for the vision to actually come to pass. Hopefully he can get this out of his system now we can start FINALLY having some new visions and some actual story progression.

Meanwhile it seems the Mechons in Xenoblade Chronicles and the machines in Final Promise Story are even more similar than I’d thought. Not only do they have similar designs and not only do they both “eat” people, but they are also both capable of absorbing the skills and personalities of the people they “eat”.

Xenoblade hasn’t spelled it out yet, but it’s pretty obvious that’s the direction they’re going in, simply because:

1. They make a big show out of the Monado not being able to harm humans. It can’t harm faced Mechon either. Put the two together already, Shulk.
2. We fight a faced Mechon named Xord, with a giant hammer. Later on we talk to an NPC named Desiree, who talks about her father who was also named Xord and who also wielded a giant hammer and who died fighting the Mechon. Put the two together already, Shulk.
3. Metal Face talks and acts a lot like Dunban’s cowardly friend in the prologue, I forget his name. It hasn’t been revealed to be him yet, but I’d bet my left testicle it’s him.
4. If that’s the case, then the new Mechon Nemesis is bound to be Fiora. I’d bet my right testicle it’s her (I don’t actually have any testicles but I’d totally bet them if I did).

However, while “Machines are absorbing people!” was the only major twist Final Promise Story had, I’m expecting better things of Xenoblade Chronicles. They have some other things going on like the Monado and Alvis and whatever that giant Kimahri-clone on Prison Island is, and I bet the Mechons are going to turn out to have been not-so-evil after all. In all my life I’ve only played one (1) RPG where the bad guys at the very beginning were the same bad guys at the end.

But seriously, I’ve had enough of Alcamoth and enough of Eryth Sea. Things were moving along so briskly before, but everything just came to a standstill once I arrived at the top of the Bionis. Also this whole Melia palace intrigue stuff just dragged on too long. Way too much time was spent on a character I really don’t like and really don’t intend to use. I’ve been getting some good use out of Riki though, once I got used to his annoying voice. My main parties now are Shulk/Dunban/Riki and Dunban/Riki/Reyn.

Apart from Xenoblade Chronicles, I have also been making good progress in Growlanser and Trails of Zero, which I started a few weeks ago but didn’t get into until just this weekend. I’ll give an update on one or both of those next time.