Tokimeki Memorial 4 – Itsuki GET!

As I’d predicted, the sporty girl was incredibly easy to get. I joined the soccer club and worked on my exercise stat. I also took her to the stadium to watch soccer matches and took her to the “recommended” date spots whenever they opened up. Itsuki likes anything active, so the pool, the beach and the bowling alley were good as well.

Itsuki’s a sweet girl, in the cliched sporty tomboy kind of way. Like sports, lives with dad and brothers, dresses and acts boyish, blushes heavily when she likes you, drags you from place to place at the school festival, etc etc. Nothing unexpected or untoward. She was mine before the second year was up.

And not just her, but most of the other girls at least liked me by the end of Tokimeki Memorial 4. I raised all my skills like crazy, which somehow made me utterly irresistible. I even ended up getting chocolate from 7 of them on the final Valentine’s Day. Maki Hoshikawa in particular was only one or two steps away from tokimeki by the final year. I made a second save so I could dump Itsuki and get Maki’s ending instead without having to do her whole route, but now that I think of it, she deserves better. I’ll give her a proper go.

I’ll also do all the other routes in turn except the following:

1. Haru. Nothing against her but reading her diary entries gave me a serious case of the yawns. So you want to become a pâtissier, big deal. One vapid, brainless high school girl (Yanagi) is enough for me.

2. Elisa D. Naruse. Daughter of two naturalized weeaboos. I don’t have a problem with that, in fact it’s rather cute. But I can’t live with that backwater Miyagi dialect she speaks. Trashing Miyagi Prefecture may be low in light of what happened there recently, but I’ll come right out and stay it: their accent sounds like ****.

3. Miyako. I’ve watched, played and read a lot of series, and she is hands down the most unfriendly childhood “friend” I have ever encountered. What’s more, I strongly suspect her of pulling a fast one with my allowance. A measly 8 rich raise over three years? Really, Miyako? Really? The real deal-breaker, though, is that she hit me at the start of the game. We all called Saeki an abuser when he hit the MC in TMGS2, and rightly so. So why should Miyako get away with it just because she doesn’t have a penis? Start saying things like “crazy is cute” and “yanderes are great” and it will be you in handcuffs 10 years from now because your crazy girlfriend broke her own nose and told the police you did it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

4. Satsuki-sempai. Ehh, I dunno. Yamato Nadesico types bore the crap out of me so unless she’s going to turn into a raging temptress once she melts a little, there’s nothing in this for me. But on the other hand I would like to join the Student Council and try to get by without a part-time job. Hmm. Okay, I’ll save her for last and then decide.

Jeanne d’Arc + Tokimeki Memorial 4

I was hoping to have Jeanne d’Arc finished by now, but I’ve been too busy fighting Free Battles and binding Skills instead of progressing the story, so I haven’t gotten very far. The Human Barbeque scene is long over, and it played out like I’d predicted ~_~. Right now I’m fighting reapers while slowly learning who the real bad guys are. My last game ended at the start of the Luxuria battle.

I’ve never played it before, but I’m estimating I’m at the 3/4th mark, because that’s the point where things always start to fall apart for me. Not that I’m sick of Jeanne d’Arc or anything. Au contraire, I’m having a blast. It’s just that the flush of the new has worn off, I’ve gotten used to the good stuff and slowly the not-so-good stuff is starting to bother me juuuust a teeny little bit.

For example, I’ve fallen into a gameplay rut. My party is largely finalized (Jeanne, Gilles, Marcel, La Hire and Richard, with Colet and Beatrix as subs) and they are pretty strong so a bit of complacency is setting in. There are lots of skills around, but most of them are useless, especially given the tiny number of slots, so my skills are finalized as well. Unless something wonderful comes my way, only upgrades I see myself making are updated versions of current equips, e.g. HP Recovery III instead of II, etc. So since I use the same party and the same skills, it’s only natural that the battles feel the same after a while. It’s not just Jeanne d’Arc, this happens to me a lot in other SRPGs as well.

Little things like frequent loading screens and enemies taking their time thinking before they move are also dragging down the experience a bit. Again this has been present from the start, I was just too excited to be bothered by them at first.

The story is also dragging on a bit for me. From the start I was mainly interested in who would get burned at the stake. Stuff that’s happening now with possession and evil royals and kings with mommy-issues and stuff is barely enough to elicit a yawn from me. I don’t care how it ends, but luckily the battles are still fun enough to keep me moving on. As far as SRPGs go, it’s one of the better ones I’ve played so far.

In other news, I seem to be relapsing into my old habit of starting a new game when I’m about to finish another and then abandoning the old for the new. Jeanne d’Arc supplanted Saigo no Yakusoku no Monogatari, and now Tokimeki Memorial 4 is threatening to take Jeanne‘s place. Only it’s not that interesting so far, so I’ve been able to keep the change at bay for now.

I love proper dating sims (i.e. not visual novels) but the girls I’ve seen so far in TM4 all look rather homely. And they have near-identical faces, unlike in TMGS or even the original TM. I hope they have unique, likeable personalities to make up for it, or this isn’t going to take very long. It would be a pity though, because the game interface is beautiful. The DS TMGS games don’t come anywhere near the level of polish this game displays. I’m like a country mouse that just went to the city, playing . Too bad there’s more to making fun games than just graphics, eh?

But really, I only just started. I’m only about a “month” into the game. It’s more complex than Girl’s Side – a few more stats to raise, your cellphone battery dies if you make too many phone calls, there are all kinds of items and skills to juggle, etc. I’m planning to use my first run to get a general feel for it, then I’ll spend subsequent playthroughs actually getting a girl. Usually the sporty character tends to be the easiest, so I’m raising my sports stats as well, just in case. More updates on the story as they occur.

Jeanne d’Arc – Fun SRPG

My mood has increased about 189.3% since I dropped Saigo no Yakusoku no Monogatari and picked up Jeanne d’Arc. There’s this phenomenon on the internet where whenever you complain about a game someone always pops up and cries, “If you hate it so much, stop playing it!” We all know this is internet code for “How dare you criticize a game I like!” but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

When playing a game that’s not going very well, it’s important to pause to consider whether what you’re getting out of it is worth what you’re putting in. No game is perfect, but I should have known something was wrong when I found myself getting angry just looking at the PSP. Instead of spending those 21 hours being increasingly frustrated, disappointed and infuriated, I should have put it aside way earlier.

Better late than never. Banal Premise Story is going on the shelf until I finish Jeanne d’Arc. It’s possible I will never pick it up again, but I think (or rather I really, really want to believe) that I’m close to finishing it, so I’d like to see it through to the end. It’s not so much a bad game as a one-trick pony with one very boring trick.

Putting that behind me and looking at the present, I’m about 8 and a half hours into Jeanne d’Arc. For anyone who has played it, I just finished taking back the three bastilles and I’m on my way to the Cathedral de Reims with the Dauphin. Even if I hadn’t been starved for a normal SRPG, I’d still think this was a great game. The battles are challenging but not too difficult, your characters are strong but not broken (yet?), and there’s a ton of customization available in the form of skill stones. As if that wasn’t good enough, I recently got the option to fuse stones together to create even better skills. I love item fusion.

Playing with a mentally-unstable main character is a delight as well. Serdic on Rondo of Swords Path B seemed to be going that way before he corrected himself, so I hope Jeanne never gets all sane on me. Lithium hadn’t been discovered in the 15th century, so one second the poor girl is charging maniacally into battle, the next moment she’s upset and depressed for no good reason. And then right back again with the charging. I wonder what the French think of this portrayal of their heroine.

In general I don’t like games based on historical figures, but I make an exception where the gameplay is enjoyable. Not to mention I am a little bit curious about whether Jeanne is going to end up flambéed like history says or whether they’re going to push the une autre histoire thing to the max and let her get away. As long as they don’t go all The Tale of Twin Cities on me and have Liane take her place at the bonfire (I hated that book. I’m still traumatized even now) I can live with it. Historically speaking, I should probably keep Marcel away from Gilles de Rais, just in case…

No game is perfect, as I said, but I’m not seeing any potential deal-breakers in Jeanne d’Arc so far. Sure it’s frustrating that I can only use 5 or 6 characters in battle, and the camera can be a bit wonky sometimes, and the characters are a bit small on the field, but those are all things I can live with pretty easily. Barring any extremely stupid plot twists or spectacularly insane decisions on Jeanne’s part, this should prove to be a delightful experience.

Saigo no Yakusoku no Monogatari – 21 hours in

If you animate this and run it for 21 hours straight you’ll know exactly how it feels to play this game.

This post will contain plotline spoilers. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

21 hours in, and it’s going to stay at 21 hours for a while because I’m taking a break from this game. It’s just too boring. I’ve been doing the same mission non-stop since the game started and I’m sick and tired of it. “Save the civilians.” Everything is “save the civilians.” Civilians this, civilians that. Save save save save, I’M SICK OF SAVING CIVILIANS!

I’ve played a lot of repetitive games in my time – I’m a Harvest Moon fan, after all – but Saigo no Yakusoku no Monogatari takes the cake. Every single mission plays out exactly the same way: run down hallways for 10 minutes, meet NPC, warp back to headquarters, repeat. I said this back when I was only 7 hours in, little knowing that I’d be typing the same thing 14 hours later.

Stupid excuse to prolong stupid game is stupid. Rescue civilians for 21 hours my ass. Instead of Final Promise Story they should call it Banal Premise Story.

For much of the game you don’t have a choice, though. If you don’t have 1000 people saved by a certain time (02:05, I believe), you get an automatic bad ending. Now that I have 1180 people saved, I thought I’d try a different kind of mission, an extermination one. As you might expect, it played out almost exactly like the rescue mission: run down hallways for 10 minutes, fight same enemies you’ve been fighting all along, warp back to headquarters, repeat. I thought they’d have special enemies to fight or special rewards, but it was regular items and regular rewards. B-o-r-i-n-g.

I don’t get why it has to be you doing all this grunt work anyway. You’re Messiah, the elite of the elite. Running menial errands should be the job of the ordinary soldiers and you should be on the frontlines. If you could keep the enemies from getting in in the first place, the whole rescue arc would go much smoother and faster. It makes no sense at all.

Plus if you’re so elite, surely you should be able to carry out missions more efficiently. Instead of going on one mission, coming back to report, going on another, etc, the missions should be consecutive. You’re already in wireless contact with mission control, so it would make more sense to take on several at once, do them all in a row and then progress the story. Either that or split the party into two so the three thumb-twiddlers have something to do when not in your party. Do I have to think of everything? I’m starting to feel sorry for myself, putting up these incompetent numbskulls.

Sasha, token loli

While we’re on the topic of feeling sorry for oneself, please note that Ceres is perma-banned from my party. In fact, characters named Ceres are banned from all parties in any game I play from now until forever. Right after my last post, about 15 hours in, she had a big “crisis of confidence” and locked herself in her room for several missions, forcing me to trot out and level up Sasha, a character I hadn’t used in over 12 hours. Sasha was only level 10 and leveling her up until she was any use at all was hard work, to say the least.

At first her levels rose rapidly, then they capped off and she’s been several levels behind the guys ever since. Right now she’s level 46 while they’re 50, and she probably won’t catch up till 65-ish, by which time the game will be long over. Even Cain still hasn’t fully caught up, and he’s been in my party almost forever. If I’d known Ceres was going to fail me, I would have started using Sasha way back then. She’s an excellent healer (and a terrible everything else).

And the nerve of that Ceres, after dumping me and running away to sob in her room she comes back later and is like “I’ll never run away again.” Okay, now, first off I never wanted you in my party. You wouldn’t even be a Messiah if you’d had the sense to put your little family drama on hold for just 5 minutes while we warped back to headquarters. If you hadn’t distracted Joshua and stolen his weapon at a critical moment he’d still be alive and you’d be in the kitchen where you belong so don’t give me that crap! So first you forced your way into Messiah, then you walked out when I needed you, and now you want back in? HELL. NO. The name ‘Ceres’ will never be mentioned on this blog again.

Enough about the stupid characters. The real reason I’m putting BPS on ice that I started playing Jeanne d’Arc yesterday, and I’m having a fantastic time with it. Bright colors! Missions that differ from each other! A non-milquetoast protagonist! No random battles! Music that actually fits the mood! Flaws I’m ignoring because I’ve been starved for an SRPG! It’s been so long since I played an ordinary strategy RPG with no silly gimmicks or weird mechanics. What was the last one, Luminous Arc 3? Going to be hard going back to BPS after this.

Half-year resolutions

I forgot to make New Year’s gaming resolutions this January, but better late than never. Last time I made them I managed to play all those games before the year was out, so I’m hoping I’ll have the same luck/leisure this time round. There are only six months left till 2012 (where does the time go?) so I’ll limit the list to six items for simplicity.

1. Nora to Toki no Koubou (DS): I’ve stopped following the news on this. Apart from cancellation there’s nothing they can say or do that would stop me from playing it. Even if they come out tomorrow and announce it’s now an FPS, I’m still going to play it.

2. Jeanne d’Arc (PSP): I hear it’s an excellent SRPG, and that’s all I need to hear. To be blunt, I don’t know anything about it except that, but there’s no way on earth it could be worse than, say, Tactical Guild, so I’m going to play it, and soon.

3. Tokimeki Memorial 4 (PSP): I love the Girls’ Side games, but apart from the first TM game on the SNES, the others haven’t done anything for me. It’s not that I don’t enjoy chasing girls, just that TM2 and 3 looked and felt clumsy so I’ve never played more than a few “days” of each. Maybe the 4th time is the charm.

4. Summon Night 3 (PS2): It’s been over a year since I played Summon Night 2 (which cooled my Summon Night ardor for a while) so I’m ready to jump back in the fray. With a few exceptions I’ve gotten used to playing my SRPGs on handhelds so it’ll be a bit of an adjustment to make, but I’ll get used to it soon enough. I just hope my old PS2 can take it.

5. Persona (PSP): I seriously overdosed on Shin Megami Tensei and related games in 2009 and 2010, which is why I haven’t even looked at one so far this year. I was going to play Devil Survivor 2 instead, but I just can’t work up the enthusiasm. The lame-ass ending I got (Gin route) in the last game still rankles a bit, plus I want to get it in English if possible so I’ll add that to my 2012 list.

6. The World Ends With You (DS): To be honest, I don’t really want to play this. Nothing I’ve ever seen or heard about it even remotely implies that it’s something I’d enjoy. But someone’s been nagging me for years to give it a shot, so I’m going to do it just to get it over with. If I get a pleasant surprise, cool, but I’m not holding my breath.

I’ll fit other games in there when I get the chance, like the upcoming UnchainBlades Rexx which I’m more than a little excited about. The main character’s design looks more than a little “inspired” by Jin from Shining Force Feather.

I was going to say Sega should totally sue but it turns out they have the same (evidently unimaginative) character designer. One more reason to look forward to it.