SaGa 3 – I’m mad

I’m almost finished with SaGa 3. I just have to go to the final mountain, hack my way through the weaklings and wipe out the final boss, who should be a pushover like all the other bosses before him. This game is way, way easier than SaGa 2, at least on the Normal setting. It’s got an Easy setting as well, which must be on the Ar Tonelico-level of easiness because nothing could be easier than this so-called Normal.

Come to think of it, SaGa 3 would be a good game for Square-Enix to bring over. Not too hard for Westerners, fun gameplay, lots of sidequests, story is decent (and time travel is all the rage these days), and the party interactions are awesome. Some of their snide comments actually made me laugh out loud.

I’m mad at the game, though, because I had no idea that doing certain sidequests “correctly” would unlock the “True Ending,” with a true boss fight after the last one. Not knowing this, I just did the sidequests anyhow I wanted to without checking a FAQ. That’s how I usually roll. Then right before the final dungeon I thought I’d take a quick look and make sure I hadn’t missed anything. There were, and still are, a number of gaps in my Free Scenario (sidequest) notes, but since most of the sidequests weren’t that rewarding, I wasn’t going to bother. But I took a quick peek at a Japanese FAQ just in case and WTF?! True Ending?! And if you choose the wrong option in three particular quests, you won’t get it?! You mean I’m screwed?! Whaaaaaat?!

Looking back, maybe I should have seen it coming. I started this game shortly after Radiant Historia, after all, which may have been some cosmic warning “Watch out for the sidequests!” But at least in RH you could go back and fix your mistakes. In SaGa 3, once the quest is cleared, there’s no turning back. Even if you go back into the past, it will always be right after you finished the quest, and somehow you can’t use the Time Gear to go back in time and stop yourself from making the wrong choice. Btw, I won’t spoil the sidequests you need to get right, but they involve Dior, Nemesis and Freya so be careful when doing any quest involving them.

Man, I’m so mad. I’m mad at myself for not doing enough research and I’m mad at the game for being a time traveling game that doesn’t let you fix your own mistakes. Most of all I’m mad that I’d have to spend another 30 hours replaying this game, fighting all the battles, killing all the bosses, doing all the random stat level ups, if I want to see the true ending now. Rubbish. I’ll just wait for it to pop up on Youtube. (EDIT: New Game+ lets you carry over your levels and items, but you still have to play again from the start. =.=)

Right now I have lost any and all will to do the other sidequests so I’m just going to stomp a mudhole in the last boss and call it a day. Most of the bosses are so weak, they barely survive long enough for me to take my anger out on them. Don’t disappoint me, Laguna!

Itsumono Shokuzai de Dekichau Suteki na Sweets to Gochisou review

I mentioned a little while ago that I was going to try a cooking game next because I had bought lots of groceries and didn’t know what to do with them. I downloaded this DS game at random: Itsumono Shokuzai de Dekichau Suteki na Sweets to Gochisou, which means something like “Great Meals and Desserts you can make with Everyday Ingredients.”

Of course, in this day and age of the internet, no one needs to download a game to find a recipe. It was just an excuse to try a random cooking game. Itsumono Shokuzai did have a tasty-looking pork belly recipe though. It involved cutting the pork belly into thin slices and frying it up with red, yellow and green peppers and soy sauce. That’s a ‘subuta’ recipe in Japanese IIRC. Even the picture looked delicious (unlike most of the other pictures), but I didn’t have any green peppers and I couldn’t be bothered to go buy any. In the end I just googled “pork belly” and came up with two different recipes, both of which I tried last night.

The first one was Daikon and Pork cooked in soup, which was going along great until I added a lot of green onions to it. TBH the onions were going bad and I wanted to get rid of them, but maybe I should have sliced them up and frozen them instead, or saved them for fried rice. I mean, the soup tastes okay now, but definitely not as good as it did before. Also I think I went a bit heavy on the ginger thing, because I had a ton of ginger that was going bad (see a pattern here?). Btw, rotting ginger smells really, really bad, take my word for it. The other thing I tried was Braised Pork Belly, which I again added a ton of ginger to. I think I overdid it on the five spice powder through, the whole kitchen still smells of the spice. It was in a bag and I was tipping it slowly forward when whoom! a whole lot came out! Still delicious, though.

Anyway, what this means is that Itsumono Shokuzai didn’t help me at all. I only got one good recipe out of it, and I didn’t even use it. There were a number of other things that could be made, all dressed up with fancy pictures and descriptions. I’m a meat kind of person, so the sheer number of fish dishes was a bit surprising… and off-putting. I don’t really like fish. To me, the presentation of the dishes was seriously pretentious as well, but thinking again it might be perfect for someone hosting a dinner party at home. Arrange a few veggies artistically on a white plate, drizzle a simple sauce all around it and voila! How does it feel to be a Michelin chef?

Navigation was a simple, straightforward affair: forward, back, repeat. You can look at ingredients with quantities and the utensils used before you start, and each stage of the recipe comes with actual photographs. The text was very small, but the directions are helpfully read out (in Japanese) by a cold, digital voice reader.

Despite the colorful, cartoony cover, I don’t think this game is for beginners. There are too many unexplained steps, for one thing. For example, they don’t explain the different ways of cutting ingredients. They don’t explain what a water bath is. They don’t explain how to sift flour or even why you should. The steps are short, too, sometimes just “Cut everything, fry it up, serve” without detailed directions on exactly to cut it, how long to fry it for, how to tell when it’s done, etc.

Another thing: the “Everyday Ingredients” part of the title was misleading, especially for the desserts.  I’m not referring to the fact that I don’t live in Japan and so what’s “everyday” for them is rare for me. What I mean is that half of the ingredients are “store-bought” this and “store-bought” that. The very first recipe is custard cream. What could be more “everyday” than eggs, sugar and milk? But no, the recipe calls for store-bought pudding, which is then mixed with a bit of flour. Eww. I love all kinds of custard, but this is just insulting. Then, as you can see, their version of millefeuille is just store-bought wafers, sandwiched with the aforementioned ‘custard’. Do they even know what millefeuille is? And their cakes all call for store-bought castella. Again, I love castella, but what could be easier to whip up than a simple sponge cake? A little flour, some eggs, some sugar, a few minutes in the oven and it’s done! And you can customize it to suit your tastes!

Strangely enough, their tiramisu recipe calls for mascarpone cheese, which is probably not something most people buy regularly. The recipe also uses plain white bread instead of biscuits or even castella, which just sounds gross. Their swiss roll uses bread instead of cake as well, which is, quite frankly, disgusting.

In summary, Itsumono Shokuzai de Dekichau Suteki na Sweets to Gochisou is a collection of very pretty-looking but very unappealing and unappetizing recipes, presented in a fairly easy-to-follow but highly impersonal format. If you’re looking to impress people with the outer appearance of your food, you might get some good tips from this. If you’re looking to impress them with the taste, however, keep looking.

Master of the Monster Lair review

Another game I couldn’t get into. I was bored stiff within an hour. In Master of the Monster Lair, you play a jobless teen who finds a magical shovel that can be used to dig dungeons. Your local mayor appoints you dungeon digger and asks you to turn the local caves into a dungeon as a tourist attraction.

Well, I can’t say I was excited by the premise to begin with, but if the gameplay had been the least bit interesting, maybe I’d be making a completely different kind of post. Unfortunately, dull doesn’t even begin to describe it.

In the morning, you wake up, go to the dungeon, dig some holes. You put beds and fields and rooms in the dungeon so the monsters will move in. Do until you run out of HP, go home, eat and sleep. Next day, do the same, except you now have to fight the ungrateful monsters who moved into the rooms you so nicely prepared for them.

Each battle will play out the same as well. You either whack them to death slowly and methodically, or you use a magic bomb to wipe them out. Also fighting enemies one-on-one will rarely produce item drops. You have to group them together in twos or threes using dungeon design, take them all out, and then the last one will drop an item. This may be a weapon, a food item, or some other random junk that a townsperson may or may not be looking for. Fight some more enemies, dig, some more holes, go home and repeat the whole process all over again.

I managed to finish the first floor of the dungeon before giving up. Once I’d gotten enough monsters to move in, a boss showed up and I beat it. My reward was the ability to go down to a new floor which was even bigger and more yawn-inspiring than the first. At that point I started having doubts. Is this really what the whole game is about? I paused to do a little research and dammit, I was right. It’s just digging holes from morning to evening to house monsters who don’t even appreciate your efforts. As if that wasn’t bad enough, you have stay in the same town throughout the game, interacting with the same people throughout, and all they use you for is to run errands and get them new kinds of food from the dungeon. What would I have gotten if I’d kept digging down through 10 levels of dungeons…nothing? Dunno, don’t care.

To be honest, I only tried Master of the Monster Lair because I’d heard it was similar to My World, My Way, and I liked that game. MWMW was repetitive in its own way, but at least you could move from place to place and it had the trappings of a story. When it was over, I felt good, having put that cocky adventurer in his place. And it was nice to trace my progress all over the map, looking at all the towns I’d been to and thinking of all the bosses I whooped. When MoML is over, I’m sure all I’ll feel is, “Gee, I just dug a bunch of holes! Yay, me!”

Or at least I imagine that’s how I’d feel, because I just decided that I’m not going to finish it. I have absolutely no motivation to do so and I’m already deep into playing Saga 3 anyway, so I’m not exactly starving for games. No proper story, no proper gameplay, same 5 or 6 characters, same enemies I already saw in MWMW? There’s nothing in this particular game for me.

On the other hand, the other day I saw the cover of a spin-off/sequel to this game, with an emotional-looking bishie on it. It was called Date ni Gametsui Wake ja ne! Dungeon Maker Girls Type. This version was developed by Idea Factory (I think?) and the premise sounded a little more interesting: a grumpy, money-hungry mercenary named Hugo stumbles upon a strange village and is roped into becoming a dungeon maker by a half-human white mouse bishie (<–feel free to reread that till it makes sense) so I was tempted to hold out hope for it. I’m still tempted, because it’s got some seriously nice looking bishies:

…even though your main character is male, uh-oh. I’m a sucker for nice character designs anyway [The one with red hair in the middle. The one with red hair in the middle!!!] And it looks like there might be some good character interaction in this game. However, screenshots of the actual gameplay make it look like the same old crap I just suffered through. The gameplay description on the official site is what I was dreading: accept an item request, make a dungeon that has monsters that will drop that item, beat those monsters, get the drop, fill the request. On the other hand, it could be something like Rune Factory, where carrying out quests leads to character development and romantic relationships. Wait, not “it could be”, that is how it works! That sounds great!

I’ll have to think about this for a while longer, while I try to finish Saga 3, which has finally gotten interesting. If I do try Dungeon Maker Girls Type, I’ll write about it eventually. Until then, goodbye to Master of the Monster Lair.

Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns!

Natsume is bringing Harvest Moon: Twin Villages over as Harvest Moon: Tale of Two Towns! When exactly it’ll be published stateside? Sometime in 2011 is all they’re saying. Natsume have been known to postpone release dates before, not to mention Twin Villages itself was delayed at least once before release. Anyone who’s read my posts about TV knows I wasn’t a big fan of it, but it did great sales in Japan and I hope it does great sales in America as well.

Marvelous has been putting a lot of effort in the Rune Factory franchise these days, which is good (I want Oceans!!), but I don’t want them to forget HM entirely. As long as the success of TV doesn’t mislead them into thinking that once-a-day saves and repetitive contests and rampant store closings and bland characters and forcefully slow progress are the way to go, no problem at all. Plus Harvest Moon: Grand Bazaar was a disappointment to many HM fans, so maybe they’ll like TV better.

As for me, it’s too soon to replay Twin Villages The Tale of Two Towns, so I’ll be saving up for when RF: Oceans comes stateside. I suppose could also buy RF: Frontier while I’m waiting, but everything I’ve seen and heard of the runey system sounds so frustrating that I don’t really want to get involved. In the meantime, back to my other games.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time review

I mentioned that I had started Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time earlier. Well I didn’t get very far before I quit, just about two or three hours into it. I was on Fire Mountain, for those of you familiar with the game.

Why did I quit?

1. Action RPGs are usually not my thing. When I do play them, I like them to be simple affairs like Rune Factory. The minute I start having to think and plan, I get stressed out and frustrated. FFCC:ET was easy enough that I didn’t get wiped out even once, but it was no fun at all.

2. Magic was next to unusable. First you have to select a particular type of magic on the bottom screen, then press a button and align the circle with the enemy, then let go to cast the magic. What if the enemy won’t stay still? What about all the other enemies whaling away at you at the same time? So it’s much faster to just hack away at random.

3. Your allies are confusing and just get in the way. Jumping all over the place like jackrabbits, falling in the water at random, failing to come to your rescue when you need them the most, doing the same thing over and over regardless of which AI strategy you pick, etc, etc. When I tried to pick stuff up, I’d end up picking them up instead. Sometimes enemy drops would end up on their heads and they’d run all over the room with them. Not to mention your allies are characters you create, so they have no personality or relevance to the story at all. I have no idea why they are with you, unless the final boss sent them to sabotage you. I considered ditching them all, but I didn’t have the confidence to go it alone.

4. Story? What story? It’s been a bunch of fetch quests and dungeon crawls so far. This is my first Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles game (apart from My Life as a King), so maybe that’s how they all play out. I don’t know, but I don’t like it. I like it even less when the main character has a dream about an evil character, then meets said evil character, then proceeds to do his bidding without stopping to look at the huge, flashing signs saying “VILLAIN ALERT!” “VILLAIN ALERT!” “VILLAIN ALERT!”

5. I hate the dungeon puzzles. In fact, I hate dungeon puzzles in general, especially ones that involve any form of running or jumping or platforming. This is why I can only love Zelda games from afar, i.e. I get other people to play them while I watch. There were all those crate puzzles and block puzzles and set-this-pot-on-fire puzzles in this game, all the things I hate in one convenient package. It’s a wonder I even got as far as Fire Mountain.

6. I don’t know whether it’s an FFCC:ET flaw, or whether it’s more of me just sucking, but the camera is impossible. I kept falling into holes and crevasses because I couldn’t see properly and the camera wouldn’t let me change the view to a more amenable one.

7. The game world is bland and insipid. I was attracted by the cute characters, but once I got in there, it had no content. One village, one city, massive wasteland and no room for new cities as far as I could see. Having the NPCs change their lines from time to time was a nice touch, but they didn’t have anything interesting to say to begin with, so it makes no difference. Plus you can’t enter their houses and plunder their goods either. What, you don’t trust me? I’m hurt. 🙁

8. The quests suck, plain and simple.

9. I couldn’t get the hang of the armor and weapon system. Let’s see, you buy them, then you equip them for a while, then they level up, then you take them off and turn them into jewels and equip those jewels on your new weapons and armor and repeat the whole process. It sounded complicated and off-putting. Don’t fiddle with the basics too much.

10.You can’t save at any time. There isn’t even a Quick Save function. Once you enter a dungeon, you have to keep going until you’re right before the boss. If you have to save, then you have to go back to town and do so. When you come back, you have to do aalllll those puzzles all over again. That’s close to a dealbreaker for me. I do most of my gaming late at night before bed, and sometimes I get really sleepy. If you won’t let me save anywhere, then either keep my progress in the dungeon or dole out the save points more generously.

In short, it just wasn’t my kind of game. I’m just glad I didn’t end up wasting more time on a game I wouldn’t have liked anyway.