Atelier Sophie – Garbage.

I’ve been playing a lot of Atelier games this year whereas I used to space them out more in the past. That’s because in the past I found them quite satisfying and enjoyable, so one game could tide me over for a long time. Since Atelier Ayesha, however, I haven’t been enjoying myself. That’s why I’ve been playing these games back to back, but it’s not working.

Ayesha was meh. Escha & Logy was relatively okay. Shallie was a waste of time. But Sophie? Sophie is just garbage. A step back in every way conceivable. I apologize to all the people who warned me the series was in decline for not believing them. How could I believe it was possible to muck up a series as simple as this one? You get a girl, you give her a studio, she throws different things in the pot, presto! I didn’t believe Gust would actually make a game like Sophie where they ration out the alchemy recipes like a stingy CEO with yearly bonuses, making you waste time jumping through horrible hoops to unlock each one.

By hoops, I mean things like having to synthesize items with particular traits, or having to get a particular item from the field, or get hit by a special attack from a certain enemy. One especially annoying one was having to get the friendliness of all artisans up… except there’s a certain artisan you can only unlock through an event, but the game doesn’t tell you that the event is the only way to progress, so I spent ages talking to the artisans in town to no avail. Massive waste of time. Worst… Atelier… ever…

I would be okay if they combined this system with the conventional “buy books to unlock recipes” gimmick. You can have some key, story-essential items that need special requirements to unlock, and then your everyday pedestrian items like Bombs and Neutralizers can be obtained normally. That way I still get to make a lot of stuff, and Gust still gets to “innovate” and impress the fans with their new features. As it is, Atelier Sophie is terribly boring because of the small number of recipes that you have to suffer to get.

Combat is boring too. I started out on Hardcore mode, but even the commonest enemies had too much HP so the battles were taking forever. Downgraded to Normal and then to Easy for the first time ever, and I still think the battles take too long. That’s not the big problem, though. The big problem is the enemies respawn constantly. I know I’m spoiled from the Dusk saga where you could clear out a screen and forage in peace, but even if they had to respawn, couldn’t they wait a little longer? You finish an enemy off and literally 5 seconds later it pops up again right behind you, ready to battle. The drops are meh, the EXP is pitiful and I can’t enjoy myself in the field because of the mobs hunting me down. It’s the pits.

Characters and interactions… the jury’s still out. I like the lower frequency of character events. But on the other hand everyone has turned into a Harvest Moon character. They have like, one thing to say for the longest time. Their stories don’t update, their inventories don’t update, they rarely leave their assigned spots, etc etc. Atelier Sophie is one of the more recent games, so why is it so backwards in this regard?

TL;DR I play Atelier games for the alchemy, and in Atelier Sophie the alchemy is locked behind busywork so it sucks. And normally I would add “so I’m dropping it,” but even an inferior Atelier is still Atelier. A starving camel is still bigger than a horse. Besides, it’s the first in a trilogy so there’s still time for Gust to fix the mistakes in Firis and Lydie & Suelle. Heh, I sound so desperate right now. Anyway, I’ll play a little longer and let you know how it goes. See ya!

Atelier Shallie Plus – Lousy to the end (spoilers)

I apologize for the long delay between posts. It’s because Atelier Shallie Plus was so boring I couldn’t bring myself to play it, but at the same time I was too busy to start something new. Finally I just sat in front of the TV and forced myself to finish it, marveling that the day had finally come when I would have to force myself to finish an Atelier game. The people who said the Dusk trilogy was the beginning of the end for the series weren’t wrong at all.

But this isn’t an Atelier Shallie bashing post. I’m too relieved to be done to have time for that. First let me start by spoiling the cause of the Dusk: turns out a water purification machine undernearth Stellard was malfunctioning. We turned it off and restarted it, so in a couple of centuries everything should be back to normal.

It’s not a bad resolution by any means. It’s just a bit anti-climatic. It’s like when you spend hours trying to fix an error on a computer or device and you finally call tech support and they tell you to to restart the machine and presto, it works. On one hand you’re happy it’s fine, but on the other hand… aghh, why didn’t I think of that earlier before I wasted so much time?

Yes, that’s right. That’s my problem. The whole Dusk saga was a waste of time. Especially this Atelier Shallie Plus game. There was no reason for the game to even exist, or for the Shallies to be present, or for them to be alchemists. In the end the same Ayesha and Keithgriff from Atelier Ayesha showed up and presented all the solutions. “Hey we’ve been researching everything and we found the answer right here and you didn’t have anything to do with it but we’ll let you tag along to kill the boss anyway,” the end. If anyone else contributed, it would be Wilbell, who was also present in Ayesha, so really, the other games weren’t necessary.

After all, we didn’t learn much in Escha & Logy except how someone else tried to solve the Dusk and failed. And we didn’t really learn anything in Atelier Shallie until said Ayesha and Keithgriff showed up. Gust could have just added 10 hours to Ayesha and resolved the whole plot in one game. Then they could tackle a different issue in the other games, or maybe make the next two games a prequel and a sequel, etc. No need to take a leaf from Falcom’s book and stretch a very simple story across three games.

Focusing on Shallie, I must say the “no time limit” system didn’t play out the way I had expected. I was expecting something like Atelier Judie where you’re given your objective in the first 10 minutes and then set free to fulfill it at your own pace. Having objectives every chapter that forcefully progress the story… isn’t that just like an ordinary JRPG? And they lock locations and recipes and everything interesting behind the chapters, so at some point in each chapter you run out of stuff to do and have to move on. That means it’s even more restrictive than most JRPGs, where you just keep exploring and traveling and getting stronger without any cumbersome chapter objectives.

What’s worse is, none of those objectives are goals of your own making. There’s always someone telling the Shallies what to do, when and how. I don’t play the Atelier games looking for any “Girl Power⭐!” kind of scenario, but this time their powerlessness really stood out.

Looking back, Shallotte and Shallistera were just lackeys. It’s the men like Raoul, Solle, Perriend and Keithgriff who make all the major decisions from start to finish. Keith is the one who finds the truth behind the Dusk, Raoul belittles us and orders us around like dogs, Solle sits on his behind and barks orders from Central, and at the end of the game Perriend deigns to lend a little water aid to Lugion Village, oh thank you sahib, thank you! It’s all a little humiliating, to be honest.

Well anyway, I’m not too bothered about it. I’ve already moved on and started Atelier Sophie, which isn’t too bad but a bit worrying because each alchemy recipe is locked behind a trigger. What I really want is to spend a lot of time just making stuff. Ayesha and Escha & Logy were pretty good in that respect, Shallie just failed, as it did with everything else. And right until the end I never figured out how the Chain system was supposed to work…? Oh well, no biggie.

I wanted to end with a few positive points about Atelier Shallie Plus, but nothing is coming to mind. Umm, bright happy colors? I especially liked the flashy combat effects and how much damage you could do in Burst Mode. And we finally solved the mystery of the Dusk (? if the main device is in Stellard then what about the patches of green all over the world? Why the uneven spread of the Dusk?) so I can sleep well at night. And um… that’s it! It was a lousy game and I’m glad to be done. Next please!

Dungeon Shoujo – Finished. Not that exciting

Dungeon Shoujo / Dungeon Girl,  is yet another game from Japanese indie developer inutoneko. It was released before both Soul Smith of the Kingdom and Witch Ring Meister, but I skipped it earlier because mentally I couldn’t reconcile the dungeon exploration setting with the puzzle gameplay. If it’s a dungeon crawler then I want to crawl dungeons, dammit! …is what I thought. But when I played Witch Ring Meister, it turned out the puzzle gameplay wasn’t so bad and not as complicated as I’d first thought, so I went back and gave Dungeon Shoujo a try.

Verdict: As I expected, if it’s a dungeon crawler then I want to crawl dungeons. I actually enjoyed it more than I thought I would because the controls are super simple and the enemies are pretty easy, but still… It wasn’t anything special.

Story: Monika is a member of a task force charged with exploring a new dungeon down to the 200th floor. So you explore to the 200th floor and get a “Congratulations” from your boss, credits roll, the end. But you can keep playing and try to make it down to the 1000th floor. I can’t imagine why, though.

The main screen:

You go exploring and find/craft items, then you equip up to 6 of them to give you stat boosts plus helpful effects in battle. “Weight” affects how much you can carry because better items weigh more. There’s also item cost, which is how much item power it takes to use an item. Item power refills every day in the dungeon, so in theory you can eat the same riceball hundreds of times without losing it.

Actually it’s this whole “item” thing that killed my enthusiasm. The game is supposed to have 300 items to craft and I love me some crafting. Match made in heaven, right? Umm, nah. There’s a small issue, which is the severe lack of materials to craft with. In the early stages, you’ll be forced to run and re-run lower level dungeons just to get enough materials to craft one or two new items.

Later on you’ll have to re-run for money as well as materials because crafting costs get astronomical. I won’t deny that crafting is useful. Equipping items gives you stats, a few items have useful effects, crafting items lets you reduce weight and costs, and clever crafting lets you make items with great stats and few drawbacks.

In theory the game has 300 items, so you should be able to have a great time collecting items and fusing effects, etc etc. But I already mentioned the pointless grind. What’s even worse is that fully 80% of the obtainable items are either completely useless or just duplicate other item’s effects with different stats. And the interface for comparing item effects… well there’s no such interface, really. You just have to try swapping things in and out to see what works. Useless.

So the crafting and equipment aspect are a wash. What about dungeon crawling itself?

It’s a puzzle game. Click enough of the blue “search” panels and the stairs will appear so you can go deeper. The pink “Life” buttons refill your life. The yellow “work” panels give you money. And the red/white “Attack” buttons are for fending off enemies that show up, like that mud monster thing on the left. The more blocks you break at once, the stronger the effect. Doubly so if you break a horizontal row. So for the grid you see above, I could eliminate the “Work” panel in the middle to get a long chain of Attack panels to deal massive damage to the enemy. Or I could use one of my attack items if I have enough item power. It’s not a complicated game at all.

The only slightly hard part is replacing items regularly and leveiling up often enough to stay alive because the bosses and enemies get tougher as you go deeper. If you don’t wipe them out quickly enough, they’ll quickly fill up the whole screen. Creating an item that changes single-hit attacks into all-hits can be a game changer. Or items that create more “Search” panels so you can change floors and run away.

So there’s a little bit of strategy involved in knowing when to move and when to retreat and how to make the best use of items. But it’s not really that interesting compared to a “proper” dungeon crawler RPG IMO. This is just something cute and light to pass the time with, nothing you can really sink your teeth into.

The usual Ishwald gang is around to help, as usual.

Pour Friend Points into their grids to get temporary and permanent boosts in the dungeons and unlock new classes like Explorer, Warrior, Samurai. The number and types of puzzle panels change depending on your class. A more combat-oriented class will get more Attack panels, a more commerce-driven one will get more Work panels, etc. Useful for re-running earlier levels and stuff.

As usual Tico is the hardest character to lock and gives the best boosts. +10% to all stats is simply ridiculous. I’m still skipping most story events because the status quo changes too slowly in these Ishwald games, but I did read one or two skits. In which nothing of import happened, as expected. Inutoneko is still mounting a fierce campaign to soften Tico’s image, but it’s too late. Dungeon Girl may be a disappointment, but I won’t stop playing these games until Ruvel-kun gets his revenge!

Final thoughts on Dungeon Shoujo

screenshot from shio to ayakashi no mori

Screenshot from their latest game

Waste of a good premise, really. The puzzle dungeon wasn’t too bad and was useful for passing the time, if nothing else. But the joy of exploration was zero because you don’t actually explore anything, you just click buttons. Crafting was a time-consuming pain. Most of the promised 300 items were useless. Treasure chests are locked and you have to do quests to get enough keys to open them to get more useless items.

In short it was a whole lot of work for a middling amount of pleasure. I won’t say “Don’t play it” but don’t get your hopes up either. If it’s the puzzles you like, stick to Witch Ring Meister. And you want to explore and fight monsters and collect stuff, the new Shio to Ayakashi no Mori looks more promising. Dungeon Shoujo is something you should get on sale when you’ve played all the other inutoneko games.

What’s next

Almost done with Atelier Shallie Plus. I just have zero motivation to finish it because it’s the least exciting Atelier game I’ve ever played. There’s zero reason for me to play it. The combat isn’t fun, the story is going out with a whimper, the trickle of alchemy recipes is so low it’s barely there, etc etc. The only reason I want to finish it quickly is so I can start Atelier Sophie. I’m busy this weekend, but I’ll try to muster the energy to power through to the end on Sunday.

Little progress in Atelier Shallie Plus (sizeable spoilers)

It’s been a while since I last touched Atelier Shallie Plus. At least two weeks, maybe more. I’m a bit baffled by that because usually I blaze through Atelier games no matter how busy I am. In fact they’re my favorite procrastination tools.

It just happens that I’ve hit a really boring patch where I have to crawl through dungeons to find Keithgriff so he can give me my next marching orders. Firstly, the dungeon crawling is the most boring part of the game. Secondly, I don’t like Keithgriff and don’t want to see him again. Thirdly, it’s annoying how little agency Shallie has in this game. Has she even discovered or done anything on her own? She’s always marching to another’s tune even as people stand around bawling “Discover the truth for yourself!”

All that said, there has been one development since I last posted about Shallie. We fought the Great Spirit of Water and discovered that this whole Dusk thing might be closely connected to the great spirits. Specifically the spirits of water and earth. It seems humans/the ancients may have angered them somehow? I actually kicked myself a bit when the revelation came out. Like, “Why didn’t I think of that?” If there are problems with crop failure and desertification, it makes sense to ask the spirits responsible, right?

Don’t look so smug when you don’t know jack.

Then I thought, “Why didn’t they think of that, then?” “They” referring to the characters in the game. But as far as my hazy memories go, there hasn’t been much talk of spirits in the game. Almost nobody knows about them except mages, who are rare. Even the alchemists in my party have never heard of them, we only encountered one per game in Atelier Ayesha and Atelier Escha & Logy, and both times they were treated as “these optional bosses you can fight if you really like Willbell, otherwise it’s cool.”

So I don’t know how I’ll feel if the whole Dusk thing turns out to be due to “The spirits are punishing us for angering/ignoring them.” I suppose if they spend adequate time explaining the whole ignoring/angering thing, how and why and when and why nobody put two and two together all along, it will be fine enough. Or if it turns out in hindsight that the hints were plentiful and I just didn’t see it.

But if in the end Gust deliberately kept spirits super low-key throughout the series so they could spring a “But it was us, spirits!” surprise on us at the end then I don’t like it. -____- It would be annoying to think they sent me on rabbit trails following ancients and petals and castles in the sky when the answer was hidden behind their backs the whole time.

But all this is guesswork on my part after the post-boss cutscene when we fought the Water Spirit. The real cause of the Dusk could be something completely different. Sadly it’s more fun for me to speculate than to actually play Atelier Shallie Plus so I’ll be running things over in my mind for a little longer.

Story of Seasons – I am SO over Harvest Moon

story of seasons 3ds front coverI used to be a massive Harvest Moon fan long ago. So long ago that most readers probably don’t know it, seeing as I started this blog in the twilight of my farming game career. I haven’t played one since I tried Harvest Moon: A New Beginning four years ago, and even that didn’t really count since 1. It sucked and 2. the 3DS started misbehaving for real right around that time.

The reason it’s been so long since I played a Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons game is because I don’t really like them any more. But as the years since passed, I couldn’t remember why I stopped liking them. So, seeing as I’m running out of stuff to play on the 3DS anyway, I thought I’d give the series another try, see if I could recapture some of that lost magic.

Alas, the attempt ended in failure. I wanted to play for a full game year at least before saying anything, but I couldn’t last that long. Out of respect for my past love, I won’t bash Story of Seasons too much. I’ll just rant incoherently for a few paragraphs and then conclude this post.

Oh right, before that, I should mention that although I’m using “Harvest Moon” and “Story of Seasons” interchangeably, I am aware that Natsume stole the Harvest Moon name some years back and have been producing their own games since then. IMO it was an unethical move, but the truth is, I’m not a very loyal gamer. I don’t even know the meaning of the word ‘loyal’, if a game is fun I will play it. It just happens that word of mouth on the Natsume games is very negative so I haven’t bothered to try them. So in this post both “Harvest Moon” and “Story of Seasons” refer to Marvelous’s series of farming games, not to the uglier knock-offs.

🥕Now I think of it, the beginning of the end for me and the series was the change of the in-game clock so that 1 hour is 1 real-time minute. It’s too slow for me, especially once coupled with store openings and closings. I often found myself standing outside the general store or restaurant waiting for them to open, which is a massive waste of time IMO. Then you add in that stupid thing they did with watering crops twice a day for better quality and I’m just dead.

🥕Speaking of which, the focus on raising higher level crops through fertilizer/more watering/longer harvest times is something else that turned me off. I just want to grow my turnips and sell them, why do I have to have to bother with the rest of that stuff?

🥕In general it’s because the Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons series became such a slow but fiddly and annoying game that I stopped. It’s okay to be slow and relaxing. It’s okay to be a highly complicated management simulation. But Story of Seasons barely innovates from game to game, instead they keep adding more and more annoying elements like crop levels, wild animals and swimming, unfun distractions that take away from the core of the game.

Thanks. Get out of my castle now.

🥕It’s also because they started including random elements like random shop stock and random openings that I lost interest. I woke up with excitement on Summer 1 and ran down to the general store to get my summer crops and all the old man had for sale was a single bag of onion seed. ONE bag of seed. Am I a joke to you?

🥕The game also has this trading depot place which is the only place where you can sell stuff. They show up on a pattern I can’t discern. AND their stock is random. Why did they change the perfectly good shipping box system on the farm? It slows game progression considerably when I can’t reliably get the money I need when I need it.

🥕Plus Marvelous enlarged the world of the game unnecessarily so I have to walk or ride a horse for ages to get anywhere. Sometimes I really don’t want to go into town, I just want to putter around and sleep. But to get or sell any items I have no choice but to go, and the process is just so lengthy and tedious. You see what I mean about unnecessary additions and distractions?

🥕Having to trek to town every day also dampened my ardor for the waifu and relationship aspects of the game. Normally I enjoy giving people milk and eggs and stuff so they like me more, but the distance is too far to do so enjoyably. Not to mention I haven’t met any viable waifu candidates yet. Rich girl is too high maintenance (thanks for the horse tho), the nurse is too boring and all the other women are married.

No you can’t. Not until you win some stupid competition.

🥕The last straw, and the moment I noped out of this Story of Seasons was when the guild announced competitions for rental fields. I admit I was minorly intrigued when I saw the grain fields and beehives dotted around town. Not knowing the game wouldn’t let me use them freely. Instead I would have to “compete” for the right with other farmers. And not once and for all but regularly.

Luckily I was alone when this happened, so only I heard the expletive I muttered under my breath at that revelation as I turned the 3DS off and found better things to do with my life.

TL;DR

It’s not them, it’s me. I’ve changed too much. When I play a game, I either want a simple, no-fuss affair or I want to go all in with the systems in a properly-designed game. The current breed of Story of Seasons games seem to go out of their way to frustrate and slow down the gamer. Instead of letting us progress at our own pace, they throw all kinds of obstacles in our way. Long tutorials, large areas of nothing, random stock, dating events, pointless competitions. It’s slow, frustrating, unsatisfying. The reason why I say “it’s me” is because fans still seem to be happy with it. More power to them. I’m done here.