Finished Phantasy Star Portable, but…!

NOOOOO! This can’t be happening! I just killed the final boss of Phantasy Star Portable. It was a hard fought battle, my teammates died like flies and I completely ran out of healing items near the end, but I did it. I did it! I was so proud of myself I thought, “This deserves a screenshot!” And so I tried to take a picture of the boss in its dying throes… and of course the PSP froze… I know, I was totally asking for it, but it still hurts. I wonder if my save data is okay.

I think I’m beginning to understand the appeal of action RPGs, though. Turn-based RPGs can be challenging in their own way, but there’s something extra satisfying about running and dodging and hiding and putting the finishing touches on the boss through your own skill. It might be just a Phantasy Star Portable thing, but winning that last battle felt sooooooo good. I think I’m going to try it again and pass on the screenshot next time. Won’t it be funny if the first time was a fluke and now I can’t beat the boss any more? (hint: no, no it won’t be funny)

I’ll leave you with this summary of 75% of the dialog in this game: my partner KOS-MOS Vivienne and her friends waffling on and on about hearts like a bunch of Care Bears:

 

 

I can’t help thinking the game would have been 10 times better if they’d stopped trying to shoehorn moral lessons in there and just let me enjoy wasting monsters. Not every game has to be “inspirational” or “uplifting” you know.

Now then, I seem to have gotten my second wind. Time to see if I can put paid to the boss for the second time before I sleep. Hopefully the euphoria will have worn off by the time I wake up, and I’ll be able to write a more objective post about this game. I worry I may have inadvertently given the impression that it is good, or even interesting, when the reason I like is precisely because it’s so bland. For now, less talking, more boss-killing!

I aten’t dead

Still around, still playing games. Still trying to finish Phantasy Star Portable and Harutoki 4. I’m playing them in turns, so it’s delaying the completion of either one. Since I’m determined not to start anything new until I finish one of those, I’m going to be out of circulation for a little longer. After I finish them, I want to play Saiyuki, and then Grand Knights History. I was hoping the latter would have come out in English by now, but it’s been delayed till who knows when, so I’m just gonna go ahead and do my own thing.

PS Portable & Harutoki 4

This is going to take much longer than I thought, because I’ve been super-busy this week and will be even busier next week. Back when I was in college I used to look down on people who complained about being “busy.” I had SO much time on my hands back then, even after climbing five mountains on my way to school, 7 days a week, uphill both ways in 100 feet of snow, you young people have it easy, blah blah blah. If you’re still in school, enjoy it while it lasts!

Who? In fact, who are you guys?

Phantasy Star Portable: I’ve almost forgotten what the story is, I’m so busy doing the free missions. We’re still chasing the same terrorist we’ve been dealing with since chapter 1. This is shaping up to be the first RPG I’ve ever played where the initial bad guy turned out to be the ultimate baddie after all.

The mindless slashing is just the balm I need after a hard day at work, too. I’m just worried that I’ll spend so much time on this that I’ll burn out and be unable to play an ARPGs for the rest of the year. I should get back to the story missions.

Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 4: Haven’t progressed much from where I left off. Our heroine and her bishie troops are going around defeating the four “gods.” I beat Suzaku and just beat Byakko, so I know what the next couple of hours are going to look like.

I still haven’t found a guy in the game that moves me, and then there’s the little problem of Chihiro being too front-and-center. You’re supposed to be able to put yourself in the heroine’s shoes a little bit in romantic games. This game is more like an ordinary RPG: you either like the protagonist or you don’t (I don’t). Plus she hasn’t shown any romantic interest in anyone yet (or vice-versa, come to think of it) so I’m just going to play it like a normal game and let the chips fall where they may.

I’m going to play an hour or two of PSP now, and then we old people need our sleep.

Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 4 – Hmm…

This is shaping up to be another one of “those” games. Those games I spend hours playing and then can’t write anything about because they didn’t make an impression on me at all. After 7h 40m, very few things have happened and even fewer of them have been important. I’m probably asking for too much, looking for tension and excitement in an otome game. I kind of had hopes for this one too, but oh well.

Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 4 is about a girl named Chihiro who finds out one day that’s she’s the princess of a country in another world. She warps back with her guardians, finds out the place has been conquered by another state and starts a journey to take it back. In typical Neoromance fashion, nearly everyone in the series is a bishie. Even the bad guys are easy on the eyes. The game seems to share an artist with the Angelique series, so it’s got some gorgeous background and character art.

The game itself is billed as an otome game with RPG elements. You have a lot of party members (all bishies), skills, random turn-based battles, boss battles, an overworld, elements, etc. Fighting raises your characters’ affection values for you, and making certain choices in battle, e.g. killing off your enemy early and helping a guy with his, raise them even more. For an otome game it’s very well thought-out and the battles are a joy… when they let you fight. Which is almost never.

95% of the game is a standard visual novel, they just throw an easy fight or two my way every 30 minutes or so to keep me from falling asleep while they prattle on and on and on. I wasn’t surprised to hear they made an anime out of the first game in the series. If it’s anything like this one, it’s very anime-like, especially when it comes to character interactions and the story development.

Aww, look at his widdle ears~

It’s even anime-like in how chicken**** the bad guys are. RPG baddies usually don’t hold back on the terror and tyranny. Burning down villages, stabbing corporate employees at their workplaces, killing people’s girlfriends, that’s how they usually roll. Here, because there’s a gettable guy on the bad side they had to neuter all the evil. The worst the baddies have done so far is bully a few old people and throw a few dissenters in jail. What kind of weaksauce tyranny is that? It makes my job as liberator all the harder, because everyone’s actually pretty well off. The fields are green, the weather is sunny, the villagers are fat and well-fed… I should just pack up and go back to Japan.

Enough whining though, I knew what I was getting into when I picked this up. The more important thing is… which guy will I pick? I’ve got about 8 love interests so far, and I don’t like any of them. There’s a furry shota named Ayuki. I like him the most, but the game won’t let me have him. Second and third best: Tooya and Futsuhiko. Tooya was actually leading the pack until he took off his mask. He should have kept it on a little longer to build up the suspense.

Futsuhiko I don’t have a picture of right now, but his Kofun hairstyle makes him look like he has cat ears, and that’s cute. You know, maybe I just want to play a game about catboys, that’s what the problem is. I wonder if there’s one out there. Something tells me I’ll regret asking that question.

On, on we go. I really wish they’d let me fight though. I could grind on the random battles, but it’s just not the same if they don’t throw any challenging story battles my way. *sigh* Well, that’s what I have Phantasy Star Portable for. I’ll be alternating between the two until I’m done with either/both. When I need more story, I’ll come back to this one. Win/win. I hope.

Phantasy Star Portable – Surprisingly fun!

I thought I would have quit by now. I wasn’t expecting to be still playing this game after 5 hours and three story missions, and I certainly didn’t think I’d be enjoying myself. Proof, if any were needed, that I am a seriously poor judge of my own tastes.

Phantasy Star Portable is billed as an Action RPG. It’s 95% action, 5% RPG, and I’m not even sure about that bit. There’s a story in there somewhere, and you level up and you do play a role as a newly-qualified guardian, but most games have that kind of framing device. This is very close to a pure action game. You show up, they give you your mission, you kill random monsters for 30 minutes, beat the boss, clear the mission, go back for more.

On a normal day I wouldn’t even think twice about tossing this aside. I play video games to relax and unwind, not to stress myself out. And yet somehow Phantasy Star Portable is one of the most relaxing games I’ve played all year. It’s the right game at the right time. After playing several talk-fests in a row, there’s something oddly therapeutic about just running around mashing buttons blindly without anyone getting on my case. And a simple story about a terrorist on the loose and a KOS-MOS clone that wants to know what love is is just what I needed after all those “deep” and “clever” stories.

Plus the game is easy, too. I told myself I’d quit when I saw my first game-over screen, but I haven’t even come close to being wiped out yet. I haven’t had to grind either; it seems just doing all the missions as and when they become available is enough to keep you properly leveled so you can progress. I’ve also got more weapons and healing items than I know what to do with right now. The game is a completionist’s wet dream, with what seem to be hundreds of weapons and items and arts to be collected, but I’m getting by just fine with my basic human fighmaster and his dinky little swords. I’ll still quit if I get wiped out, but it’s looking less and less likely with every passing mission.

Real men fight with meat!

All isn’t rosy in paradise, though. I have a problem with the story. Yes, it’s refreshingly straightforward and concise, but there are two things that are bothering me.

1. The Stranger’s Family Reunion issue. Apparently this is a spin-off of a PS2 game called Phantasy Star Universe, so they throw around terms and make reference to events and characters like I should know them all already. Instead of explaining thing properly, the game just expects me to be familiar with the Gurhal system, the species/races in the system and their mutual relations, whatever SEED are, whoever the Alliance Military are, whoever Captain Curtz is, and so on and so forth. And they have these “emotional” scenes and stuff, featuring people I’ve never even seen before. I feel bad telling them I don’t care, but… I DON’T CARE!!!

2. Visual novel-like choices along the way. The KOS-MOS clone I mentioned is a robot (CAST) named Vivienne, and you’re supposed to help her develop emotionally by making the right conversation choices. Only they don’t tell you what’s right and what’s wrong, or give you any hints so you can figure out what she wants to hear. So far the prevailing wisdom seems to be “Don’t be a douchebag,” but if I get to end and find out I got a bad ending because I picked “Don’t agree” instead of “Agree” at some point, I’m going to be pissed.

So far, so good. I’m still ready to quit at any time if the game gets too hard, but otherwise I’ll keep playing PSP in small doses and report back when I’m done.