Ring ☆ Dream is shutting down

A couple of years ago, I posted about Ring ☆ Dream (リング☆ドリーム 女子プロレス大戦), a rather mindless browser game from Success Corp that I was playing at the time. I used to play it avidly every day, but dropped it and switched to very intermittent play after they disappointed me. I’ll explain more about that incident later, but first let’s talk about the game shutting down. Apparently the announcement was made on December 19, 2019, almost 7 years to the date Ring ☆ Dream launched (Dec 20, 2012).

I won’t get to stare at this boring screen any more…

I completely missed the announcement, firstly because I’m not the kind of person who reads announcements and secondly because I wasn’t playing at the time. I only dropped in on Jan 1st to see what free New Years’ goodies I could score, then I felt nostalgic so I stuck around for a while. It was only after the New Years’ event was over that I sensed something was wrong.

Ring ☆ Dream made its money by releasing new character cards almost every week so that players could gacha or grind to gain an advantage in the latest event. But no new cards came out after the usual New Year trio, not even on Valentine’s Day. Once I realized that, I was just waiting for the end to be announced, not knowing it had already been announced without my knowledge.

I might still be waiting even now if I hadn’t glanced down and noticed this message that went out on March 12th:

It’s the usual “Thank you for playing, best of luck” message, saying service will end for good on the 26th of March. The final event has also been giving out regular and premium gacha tickets like crazy, and the long lead time to shutdown is more than enough to time for fans to take screenshots and try to pull the characters they’ve always wanted.

As for why Ring ☆ Dream is going down, nobody is saying anything officially. 4gamer speculates that it might be due to Adobe ending support for Flash, and by extension Flash games, by the end of 2020. The timing right before the end of the Japanese fiscal year might also be Success Corp cleaning up unprofitable loose ends so it can start the next quarter on a fresh note. The game was so generous with the free gacha tickets that I don’t think it made a lot of money.

I don’t really mind whatever the reason is. It’s not a game I was playing all that regularly, and I never spent any money on it. Plus 7 years is a really good run for such a simple game, especially when you consider that some mobile games barely last a year before folding. If there’s anything I will miss, it will be the simplicity of the experience and a few of the characters like Mary Norton, Kobayakawa Pohi, Hoshizora Kogane, Spider Kikuchi and my very favorite, Takizawa Izumi.

Mai Takizawaifu

In a game filled with ridiculous gimmicks and outrageous outfits, a serious character who was like, “Look, I just want to wrestle and wrestle well,” really endeared herself to me.

Apart from that, normally I would have missed the story-telling, but that’s what disappointed me and made me drop out of being a regular player, so I won’t miss it. The gimmick of Ring ☆ Dream was that the story would develop on the fly according to fan reaction. The outcome of championship and other matches all depended on fan votes. You picked which character to support and the character with the greater number of battle points (earned by supporting players) won the battle and changed the outcome of the story. It’s like if Wrestlemania operated purely on fan votes instead backstage decisions.

Unfortunately, something happened to change my faith in the legitimacy of this process. I don’t remember the year (2016? 17?) but Spider Kikuchi had a year-end title defence. After steam-rolling all her enemies for months, suddenly all the writing started to hint heavily that she was going to lose. And lose she did, and by a landslide too. After handily beating all her competition that year, suddenly the fans didn’t like her any more? IIRC her enemy was Yuki-onna who is really popular, but even so she shouldn’t have lost so badly. And what was with all the foreshadowing? Hmmmmmmm… 🤨

Farewell my lovely

Once that seed of doubt took root, it rapidly sapped my motivation to follow the story and support the characters. What’s the point of getting so heavily invested if the writers are just going to push who they want anyway? Of course I have zero proof that any shenanigans went on. Maybe the fans were tired of Kikuchi, maybe Yuki is just that popular. But the timing, the mood, the result, it was really fishy… and once trust is lost, it’s next to impossible to get it back. It’s not like the game had much else to offer anyway, so that was effectively the end for me and Ring ☆ Dream.

Having said all that, I am a little bit sorry to see the game go. Like the late Paradise Bay, it was a very simple, relaxing, no pressure game that you could check into every once in a while. And that same laid back nature probably led to its demise. Welp, it had a good run, and it was fun while it lasted. Farewell, Ring ☆ Dream! On to new experiences!

Atelier Firis – Okay, that’s enough!

As I mentioned in the previous post on Atelier Firis, I’ve been having a good time with the game, but at the same time I’m eager to try other games. Atelier Firis is a super open and open-ended game with no clear storyline besides your initial objective of getting Firis to become an alchemist in one year. After that, it’s up to you how much finding, fighting, foraging and fusion you want to do before you’re completely sick of it.

Firis is actually the kind of liberating, free-exploring game I was hoping Atelier Shallie would be, so it has been a largely satisfactory experience and I have only minor complaints and pet peeves about the game. Which I will explain if I ever get around to doing a proper round-u. Which will not be today. For now, I plan to shelve this game briefly for three main reasons.

  1. I already said it in the first paragraph, but I wanna play other stuff! I’ve had enough of crafting and of turn-based battle for a while, so next up will either be something non-combative like an otome game (actually I’m going to play La Corda d’Oro next, but I mean after that) or something with more intense combat like an action RPG. I want new sights, new music, new colours and new characters!
  2. The supply of new alchemy recipes has dried up so I haven’t made anything new in a long time. Atelier Xenoblade is all good and nice, but in the end when I play a game about alchemy, I want to do a lot of… alchemy! Especially since the story of the game is about helping a girl become an… alchemist! I’ve mentioned before how different Atelier games have varying ratios of combat to synthesis to interaction, etc. This one is heavy on the exploring and collection side with a lot of items to pick up, so if that’s your thing, definitely give it a try.
  3. Navigation got tiresome after a while. The way travel is set up, you can warp around within a map from landmarks and campfires, but there’s still plenty of running in-between. You also can’t warp from map to map, which is incredibly tedious when you have to go see Sophie at Reisenberg or Norbert at Grau-Tal or whoever, and they’re on the opposite side of the map. This takes out a lot of the fun of questing and exploring. I can understand them wanting you to suffer a bit early on, but the flying ship recipe should have been auto-unlocked after the alchemist exam, regardless of how little sense it makes story-wise.

I wanted to do a little more of this stuff

Free tip from me (minor spoiler): Try to get the flying ship as soon as possible after the exam. When you land back in Ertona after the exam, go to the place where the light shines and fish up two Worm fish. When Meklet and Atomina give you the quest to make the Elixir of Laawe, make it and hand it in ASAP. Check out the island at Moon Catcher Pass when they tell you to, then make your way to Flussheim to do the rest of the ship quest. Phew!

TL;DR: I’m tired of going to the same places, collecting the same items, fighting the same enemies and fusing the same items. And I’m actually tired of writing about it, TBH. Not so tired I don’t want to play any more forever, but so tired I don’t want to play any more for now. When I come back to Atelier Firis in a couple of weeks/months, I’ll need to:

-Turn down the difficulty and fuse better armor so I can beat the dragon on Liane’s storyline
-Finish exploring the Floating Island to complete Meklet and Atomina’s storyline
-Explore the extra maps: Riesentrain and Holy Vestier Land
-Fulfill any easily fulfillable requirements to unlock new recipes

That’s all and then I’ll call it a day. See you when I get round to doing all that!

Atelier Firis – 42 hours, starting to wind down (spoilers)

Contrary to my fears after finishing the exam, no real story has showed up in Atelier Firis since I started. Firis wanted to become an alchemist, she became an alchemist, now she’s just having fun here and there. This is the kind of Atelier I wanted to play, so I really like this game.

Sure, there’s something going on with the twins Meklet and Atomina and something they need my alchemy help to create, but they haven’t seen fit to share the full details with me yet, so I’m just chilling. They were annoying in Atelier Sophie and I never got to beat them up, so I’m not really interested in helping them.

There’s also a sub-story involving helping Firis’s sister Lia find her homeland. For once a Japanese game plays down the “not blood-related” aspect and insists they’re real sisters anyway. Good, Gust, good. But we still have to find her origins anyway, because she’s curious about her past, which is understandable enough. I’m not particularly curious, but it seems like it’s the only way to get access to certain parts of the map, and I’d really like to get to 100% or as close as possible before I drop the game (currently at 66% of the map explored).

Current stage: head to Grau-Tal to talk to Norbert and see what he knows about the earrings that are the only clue to Lia’s heritage. I’ve been doing quests and defeating enemies along the way, but those level 70 bosses… where the heck do they come from? Well I’ll just avoid them, it’s not that big a deal. If the story doesn’t move quickly after I talk to Norbert, I might just drop Atelier Firis and play something else. I really like it, but I’ve seen enough. For some reason I really want to play La Corda d’Oro again…

Atelier Firis, Firis, Firis the Explorer!

She’s a super cool explora-firis~♪

Small update to say I’m still exploring and exploring and exploring in Atelier Firis (in fact, I’ve taken to calling it “Atelier Xenoblade” in my head :-p). I’m slowly making my way over to Reisenberg to see Sophie and discover whether Atelier Firis actually has a story or not. Very slowly, though. For most of this week I was nowhere near my destination. Instead I was way off on the other side of the world map, getting closer and closer to the Floating Island only to finally discover that I need some kind of flying vehicle to actually make it there. Boooo.

I’ve forgotten all the places I went to before Flussheim, but once I got to the Claudel Prairie I went north and discovered Leafy Laforet. Didn’t even know that area was there. From there I explored Moon Catcher Pass and the whole area around the heavenly tree thingy… Ein-something. Once I’d 100% explored all those areas, I returned to Claudel Prairie, crossed the bridge which I had no part in repairing and then ended up in the Weist Plains. I would have finished that area by now, but the game froze on me the other day and I’m a bit annoyed about that so I’m taking a short break.

Saying “I explored” is really revisionist history though, because most of the time in Leafy Laforet and its environs, I was just running for my life. I don’t know if the enemies were scaled up to match me or if these areas were meant to be post-exam only. Either way, the mobs in those areas are pretty high leveled. Not only that, but my equipment and weapons have barely changed since the start of the game. If not for some lucky chest finds, Firis would still be carrying her starting staff, it’s that bad.

Thanks to Firis’s attack items, my party can do good damage given half the chance. Apart from a few overpowered bosses, most enemies don’t have that much HP either. It’s just that my party’s speed and defense are so low because of their shoddy gear that they don’t get the chance to show off that attack power. “If only I could attack a little faster!” “If only I could take more than one hit!” I walked away from countless battles with such regrets in mind.

I could have been a contender

That doesn’t mean I’m completely helpless or ready to give up, however. There’s plenty I can do. In the first place, I have quite a bit of money, so buying better equipment from various merchants is an option.

Secondly, I haven’t put much effort into optimizing my current equipment. The way the alchemy system in Atelier Firis works means that you can’t put traits on items right way. You either have to use catalysts or make the item over and over again until you master it. I haven’t tried doing either one for my weapons, armor and accessories yet. At the very least I should be able to raise my speed and defence with traits like Dragonscale Defense and Speed of Skanda. Forging lots of weapon and armor mats might also unlock new recipes and recipe hints.

Thirdly, there’s a greater than zero chance that actually heading to Reisenberg and progressing the story dutifully like I’ve been told to might open up new dungeon areas, quests, items, etc. that may make my party stronger overall. However I don’t think this is very likely given the unrestricted nature of the game so far. A game that has been letting you do whatever you want in whatever order you please so far isn’t suddenly going to lock key progress behind a story event… or is it?

Fourthly, there’s a Break feature in the combat system that I have been ignoring so far. I’ve also been triggering Chain Mode by accident and not really doing anything with it. It might be worth my while to spend time studying options like Chain Burst, Chain Finish, Combination Attack and whatnot. Learning how to take advantage of them might make it easier to beat strong enemies at a lower level – assuming I can stay alive long enough to trigger those things.

Aaaaanyway, all that is to say that I’m still playing Atelier Firis and still have a lot left undone. I think I’ve got most of the map explored by now, and despite all I just said above about fighting and getting stronger, that’s not the main attraction of the game for me. Depending on how things go once I hit Reisenberg and talk to Sophie again, this game might be over sooner than you think. See you guys in another week or two!

Atelier Firis – Hello, freedom! (exam spoilers)

Yay, I passed the alchemist licensing exam! I nearly bombed it, but a pass is a pass. The doctor who graduates at the bottom of her class and the doctor who graduates at the top, at the end of the day they are both doctors!

The exam has three parts. Part 1 is the Written Exam where you answer questions like “Which of these is not a color of Puni?” I got 11/20. Part 2 is where you synthesize the highest quality item in your arsenal. I synthesized a measly Scale Vest with a quality of 42, which was terrible. Better to go for one of the recipes you have made repeatedly with higher quality. Part 3, they trot out a level 999 slime and you have to use your strongest item to damage it. Meh. After that, no matter how well or poorly you did, Ilmeria will turn out to have the exact same score, so you have to battle her and lose miserably like I did.

After that lengthy ordeal, you pass the exam and go through a looong sequence of credits and further events, during which you cannot save. During which my controller stopped working briefly and made me panic like only faulty technology can. Eventually the game sets Firis and Liane free again, this time for realsies. There’s still day and night and time still passes, but there’s no deadline any more. There’s no goal or objective either, except “Go to Reisenberg and talk to Sophie.” Except I was in Reisenberg just now and the game forcibly returned me to Ertona, and now they want me to travel all the way back? How about “Not until I bloody well feel like it”?

Now that I have my long-awaited freedom, I’m going to enjoy it to the fullest. If there’s a grand story, it’s bound to be rubbish anyway and will almost certainly ruin my mood. So first I’m going to explore all the places I skipped over in my haste to head to the exam – Southern Plains, Quiet Forest, Silent Labyrinth, several field bosses – then, after all that, if I still have the energy, I’ll see about possibly thinking about heading to Reisenberg to maybe consider seeing Sophie. Perhaps.

What I like about Atelier Firis so far

➕The sheer size of the game, especially compared to Atelier Sophie. There are at least 5 settlements and a ton of NPCs to talk to. There’s also a wide variety of environments, from deserts to icy wastes.

Plus unlike Xenoblade 2, the map isn’t filled in already, so you get to run around and hug all the walls to discover new landmarks, camping sites and foraging spots. And you’re even rewarded for completing your collection with some great cash rewards. Having quest locations clearly marked out on the map is really helpful as well.

➕It’s easy to unlock recipes now, and you can even buy a couple from stores. Not only that, but doing sidequests gives you points you can use to unlock recipes as needed. This really comes in handy when you need something desperately but can’t get the recipe right away, e.g. Alchemic Clay to unlock the (Elixir) category. I’m still not a fan of having recipes locked behind requirements, but this is a much more flexible system so it’s not half-bad.

➕I love the high degree of freedom. I got to dilly-dally and shilly-shally around for ages, traveling from one corner of the map to the other, and I still had plenty of time to spare before the exam. You’ll have to try really hard to waste a lot of time in order to miss the exam. And now that all that jazz is over, I have even more time to explore. Mezase, 100% completion!

➕Alchemy is fairly straightforward. It’s not that different from Sophie’s system but it’s easier to understand what you need to get what kind of result. Even the catalysts and their effects are clearly spelled out so you know what you’re doing right from the start.

What needs improvement in the next game, but I’m not holding my breath

➖Firis’s squeaky voice and childish attitude is annoying. The side characters are dull and colorless. Pretty sure I’ve said this before.

➖Navigation is a pain. You can warp around places on the same map but not between maps. So if I want to get from the Parched Plains to Reisenberg, I can’t go there directly. I have to warp from one edge of PP to the other, run into the next area, warp to the edge of the next area, run to the next area, etc etc. I hear this will all be resolved once I do some sidequests in the post-exam world, but I would have preferred to have it unlocked from the start.

➖The day and night schedule is annoying. It makes quests a pain when people and stores aren’t available at certain times of the day.

➖The camera is a bit wonky. I’m always having to adjust it to show what I want it to show. It’s not bad in wide open spaces, but terrible in towns and cramped places like those useless cave dungeons.

➖The environments are varied, but the enemy variety is extremely low. Palette swaps, palette swaps everywhere. And I’ve been using the same old weapons, armor and items for the past couple of hours so combat is a bit dull as well.

That’s it. I don’t have many complaints about Atelier Firis. It’s good, solid fun apart from a few annoyances, and I’m looking forward to playing to my heart’s content over the weekend and dropping it when I’ve had enough.