Atelier Meruru Plus, I finished you! (spoilers)

And straight away I declare Shin Rorona no Atelier the best of the trilogy by simple virtue of the fact that it let me watch all the endings I qualified for in a single playthrough without forcing me to replay.

In Atelier Meruru Plus I’m sure I unlocked an ending for getting 100,000 people in Arls Kingdom and another ending for beating Airshatter in Mt. Velus (I know because the game told me) but since I reached alchemy level 50 and made the True Potion of Youth, I got the ending where Rorona is restored to normal. I reloaded from an older save, slept till 4/1 Year 5 and got another ending where Rorona is restored to age 14 with partial amnesia. I guess the Rorona endings take priority over everything else.

This is the way it’s always been in Atelier games, so if I hadn’t played Shin Rorona I probably wouldn’t notice or care. Now it’s like, eh, Rorona end was very nice and happy but I wanted to see the other stuff. But I don’t want to play Atelier Meruru again, so it’s Youtube for me! In any case I don’t immediately replay Atelier games unless I got a bad ending (like in Lise, or Lina, or Lilie, hmm I’m seeing a pattern here) so a replay would have to wait several years. I’m off to do some research, but first a few thoughts about the game and the Arland trilogy as a whole.

Story

Atelier games don’t have stories so much as they have premises, or, these days, excuses to make cute girls run around doing cute stuff. The excuse in Atelier Meruru Plus is that the tiny kingdom of Arls is going to merge with the Arland Republic in five years and Princess Merurulince wants to be an alchemist. Somehow the two things come together and she uses alchemy to develop the country as much as she can in 5 years. Totori, Rorona (now reduced to child form due to an alchemy “accident”) and some other characters from previous games show up to help Meruru and Arls through this transitional period.

Characters

Did you know I really don’t like the “spunky princess who wants to live a free life instead of being bound by tradition” cliche in stories? You probably don’t because they aren’t too common in JRPGs. And even if they were I wouldn’t play them because, as I said, I don’t like it. It annoys the little girl in me. Like, why even have a princess if she’s not going to be princess-y at all? Where are the ballgowns? The white gloves? The state banquets? The handsome princes? Atelier Meruru doesn’t have any of that, just a spoiled little brat who complains all day about stuff she isn’t even going to do. Stupid, ungrateful brat. If you’re going to eat, drink and travel at taxpayer’s expense, at least have the decency to enjoy it, damn you.

Actually I didn’t mind Meruru herself all that much. But the “princess” setting was definitely unnecessary. It created far too many annoying scenes like Rufus lecturing Meruru or Lias whining about his duties or Meruru rebelling against hers, etc etc. I just want to get on with my alchemy, please thanks.

Suck on that, Keina.

The rest of the new cast… Didn’t like any of them. I turfed Keina and Lias out of my party super-quick. Though somehow Keina still ended up with 100 affection for Meruru within a year or two anyway. One-note characters like those really bore me. Keina is all Meruru, Meruru, Meruru. Lias is all Rufus oniichan please notice me. I started skipping all their events after a while so I don’t know how they resolved all that in the end.

For Rufus, in an otome game I wouldn’t leave him alone, but here he’s always pissing on my fun left and right. Ignore as much as possible, was my approach. Unforunately the game is set up so I can’t do any development quests without his approval. Then what’s the point of the strong, independent princess character?

Hanna, I had her pegged from the start as the game’s token Ms. Fanservice. It didn’t help that I got a random naked scene in a forest for no good reason at all. But I threw her in my party late game and her hit-all boomerang is actually super-helpful at clearing up mobs. Huh, who knew. That said, I don’t remember much about her personality besides her running a shop and occasionally giving me freebies. Did she even have a personality? Or just a skimpy top?

Away with thee, foul apparition!

For the returning characters from Atelier Totori and Atelier Rorona, I ignored Gino and Mimi like I’d wanted to do all along. I’d also had enough of Rorona and Sterk, so I didn’t use them either. However I did add Esty to my party and discovered she’s not as mean and manipulative as she was in Rorona. In fact, she’s downright nice. What happened? Maybe getting her away from the receptionist’s desk was the cause. Less stress, less opportunities to flaunt your puny power over hapless adventurers, that sort of thing. You know how certain people get when they get a taste of power.

Astrid also got hit with the not-so-nasty stick in Meruru, dunno whether it’s the localization making her softer or her just chilling out with time, either way she’s just capricious here and not outright cruel and malicious like in Rorona. But she’s still not forgiven. No matter how hard Gust tries to humanize her, she will always be Ass-trid to me.

All in all, I’d say Atelier Totori had the most appealing cast in the Arland trilogy. No Ass-trid is a huge part of that, but it’s also true that by Atelier Meruru many of the jokes and quirks have gotten old. Even the stuff that isn’t old feels old. Like there’s a weak attempt to make Meruru a fan of mushrooms, but it doesn’t really go anywhere and it’s just like yeah, yeah, Rorona and her pies all over again. And Viorate with her carrots, but that’s a different universe. Don’t force yourself, Gust.

Gameplay

Meruru collects and synthesizes helpful stuff to help the kingdom develop. Things like quality lumber and steel and weapons, that kind of thing. If there’s an enemy around, she defeats it. For her efforts she gets Development Points which she can use to construct new facilities. New facilities increase the population and also have side effects like cheaper merchandise, easier alchemy, that sort of thing.

I like the system well enough. It’s easy to understand and fairly logical. The development system also adds a number of new synthesis items I’ve never seen before, which is great. I don’t know if this feature was there in the earlier games, but in Meruru Plus, if you can’t make an item because you lack a synthesized ingredient, it lets you go straight to that recipe and make it. You can also select the exact trait you need from a list instead of scrolling through all the items/googling to find out what item tends to have what trait. It’s amazingly convenient.

I just have two little problems with the gameplay.

Problem 1: Unlike Atelier Viorate, which has a similar town development gimmick, you don’t see many tangible changes from developing the city. Sure there are some new buildings on the world map, but you can’t visit any of them. There are more NPCs loitering around, but they’re just that – NPCs. They don’t even move from their spots and they don’t dress any better when the country becomes more prosperous. The castle looks the same, your cottage looks the same, the townscape looks the same whether you have 100 citizens or 100,000.

Problem 2: The schedule is rather tight in the first two years, so you can’t make what you want or go where you want for fear of getting a bad end. The second to fourth years are great, with a good balance of stuff you must do versus stuff you want to do. Especially the fourth after I was free of obligations. However by early Year 5 I was almost out of stuff to do. Killed Airshatter, gotten 100,000 citizens, synthesized almost everything, development quests slowed to a crawl. There was a long boring stretch until I grinded up to Alchemy level 50 on Elixirs and discovered the hot springs at the same time, then I was busy to the end. Some better pacing would have been appreciated.

Battles

For most of the game I ran a team of Totori, Meruru and Esty, which worked out swell. It’s awesome that I could go beyond level 50. Might be my imagination, but the battle system feels a lot faster and less sluggish than in the previous two games. Easier too. If there are bonus dungeons and DLC, those might be tough, but I beat almost all regular bosses in one try. Healing items like Healing Bells and Elixirs are just too handy. Powerful attack items are super easy to make and replicate. And thanks to development quests you’ll get to try a lot of them out. It’s like the game is pointing a bit fat sign to those items: “Use These For Easy Mode.”

I also had a much easier time getting the traits I wanted onto my equipment. Didn’t even have to check any FAQs. There are so many useful traits even on low-level items. Plus since I don’t have to spend money on adventurers and alchemy tools and there are so few books to buy in Atelier Meruru, I was flush with cash from beginning to end. I even finished the game with almost 200,000 cole.

How do I feel about all this easiness? It’s great! I’ve already paid my dues in other Atelier games. I don’t have to prove quién es más macho to anyone, especially not to myself. And double especially since I “quit” Dragon Quest VII for punishing me for not having a particular skill. Bring on the easy games! …But I’ll be playing Atelier Ayesha on Hard Mode when I get round to it.

Overall

Hmmm… I didn’t dislike it. In fact I really enjoyed the gameplay side of Atelier Meruru Plus but wasn’t so crazy about the cast and the little interactions. I have a bit of an issue with the Arland series being too moe, too “cute girls doing cute stuff” versus being “cute alchemists who sometimes do stuff that might be considered cute but mostly just pursue alchemy and other goals” like the older games. Right from the start when I saw Meruru’s frilly little bloomers I was just like “Ughhh, who asked for this…”

So yeah, the gaming parts were great, the visual novel parts were crap because I didn’t like the characters very much. Of course, blazing through the game in record time exacerbated some of the problems. For example Rufus probably wouldn’t be so irritating if I only saw him lecture Meruru once a week instead of several times a day…

Pros
+Bright, happy colors.
+Easy and largely stress-free.
+Large selection of new items to synthesize.
+Lots to do but there’s still time to do your own thing.
+The alchemy system is smooth and highly polished, very easy to work with.
+You can unlock most locations and recipes by playing normally, no need for a FAQ.
+This is the most powerful I’ve ever felt in an Atelier game.
+Later on you can skip easy battles by whacking enemies with a stick. It’s about time.
+If the music annoys you, you can replace it with music from older games. You can do it in other games too, but this is the first time I’ve bothered.

Cons
-Too many skits and cutscenes.
-I don’t like the new characters.
-I’m tired of the old characters.
-Game froze on me more than once, but nothing catastrophic.
-Rorona sits by my alchemy pot so I’m always talking to her by accident.
-Replay value is even lower than for the other games because you’re so constrained early on.
-The kingdom development setting is hollow if you can’t see any actual development.
-The comments the characters make when you start the game piss me off. Today Meruru said, “Don’t you have anything better to do with your weekend?” Shut up, brat. If I did, would I be here? >:-[
-All this fuss about the Potion of Youth is super ageist. Thanks to Princess Maker 5 I’ve already accepted that a woman can’t be sexy if she’s not a size zero or has less than a D cup bust, but now you have to be under 20 as well? Farewell, cruel world!

TL;DR – Atelier Meruru Plus was fun but tiresome so I wouldn’t want to play it again. Now on to Demon Gaze!

Atelier Meruru Plus, I choose you!

I couldn’t decide what to play after “dropping” Dragon Quest VII last week, so I tried three different games on the VITA.

Lord of Apocalypse – Another in a line of Monster Hunter-like games for people who are too scared to actually play Monster Hunter. A couple of years ago I tried one (Frontier Gate Boost+) that was just too easy and boring. Lord of Apocalypse is interesting and as expected of Square-Enix the graphics aren’t half-bad, but it’s hard! I started out with twin blades, but I think I’ll switch to a one-handed sword and a shield for better defense and maneuverability. But the thing is, because it’s hard I’ll need to take some time to focus on it, try some different setups, repeat a few missions till I get the hang of stuff. And right now I’m looking for something to dive right into, so Lord of Apocalypse is on hold for now.

What chest? You’re one of the most covered-up characters in the game!

Demon Gaze – This is good stuff, as I knew it would be. I believe I mentioned before that I was expecting a cutesy skin on top of the usual Experience Inc. dungeon crawlers, and that’s exactly what it is. It’s a gameplay cross between Entaku no Seito and Stranger of Sword City with less clothes on all the women. Needless to say I’m having a blast. Played about 5 or 6 hours, took over all the circles in Red City and Slave Grave and promptly got Game Over’d by Mars when I tried to bully her again. She hasn’t seen the last of me! I’ll be back again once I finish Atelier Meruru Plus!

Atelier Meruru Plus – I started it a while ago and shelved it because it was too similar to Totori Plus before it. However last week Atelier Lulua was announced featuring Rorona’s adopted/homunculus daughter and reading the news made me feel all warm and fuzzy and Atelier-ish again so before I knew it I was playing Meruru again. BTW some people might want to argue with me about Lulua’s origins and father and that sort of thing. They overestimate Gust’s guts and willingness to piss off fans of other pairs if they were to put Rorona with Sterk, for example, or Cole. Besides, there’s a ton of foreshadowing about homunculi in this game, and it wouldn’t be the first time an RPG had a protagonist who was less than fully human. In any case, we’ll see when it comes out.

So that was the thought process that led to me picking up Atelier Meruru Plus for realz last week. My schedule for the rest of the year will be Meruru -> Demon Gaze -> Give DQVII another chance -> Lord of Apocalypse, unless something interferes.

Meruru Progress Report: Finished the first year successfully and got my objectives for the second year. Battle level 25-ish, Alchemy level 20. The levels really pile on early in the game, don’t they? There’s a lot to do so my head was spinning at first, but now I’ve fallen into a rhythm: synthesize till I run out of materials then go out and fulfill development quests. Rinse, repeat. Now that I have two Homs at my disposal, I shouldn’t run out of materials so easily. Current objective: explore all open areas on the maps so I can send the Homs to do more collection for me.

I should write a proper post with my thoughts about the story and characters (what have they done to Rorona?!?!) and gameplay and stuff, but Meruru Plus seems pretty short. Three years long with no room for extensions unless something happens to delay the kingdom’s takeover. At the rate I’m blazing through, I think I’ll just finish the whole thing and write my thoughts in one big post. See you then!

Update: Hit the final year and was presented with my “final” goal of getting a population of 30,000. That’s… a little too quick and a little too easy. Guess there’s going to be an extension. Wait, of course there’s going to be an extension. Of all the Atelier games with time limits I’ve played so far, only two or three of them have had no extensions. Only the DS games, IIRC? So the paragraph above was a bit naive of me, perhaps representing my desire for a game I can whizz through quickly and possibly replay. Anyway, I’ll be back after the third year as scheduled.

Dragon Quest VII – I’d rather drop it than grind

Squeenix, if you don’t want me to play your game, just say so.

Ah man, this isn’t how I wanted my relationship with Dragon Quest VII to end. I was having so much fun. Until I ran into a boss at the end of an annoying dungeon that wiped me out four times in a row. Damn you, Cumulus Vex. This is obviously a test to see if you have a Sage or a Paladin in your party so you can crank out the Multiheals. I probably need some Insulatle as well because it’s the boss’s magic attacks that are wiping me out. He does 100+ damage against a party that’s barely pushing 200 HP, it’s so unfair.

This is why I hate job systems in JRPGS. It’s not like the jobs are just there and you can take whichever ones you want. Nooo, they will always have some kind of job-check somewhere which lets you pass easily if you’re in the “right” professions but forces you to grind otherwise. I don’t have any Sage (or rather I did but she conveniently left right before this dungeon), I don’t have any Paladin, I don’t have any magic-reducing items, I don’t have nuthin’. What I do have is a character who could become a Sage given a bit of grinding. But I’m looking at a minimum of 100 battles to get Priest mastered before… wait… something just occurred to me. Maybe I can revert a certain character to an older class and get a certain skill back… Gimme a sec…

Nope, didn’t work. DQ7 confirmed as dropped. What I did was make the long trek back to Alltrades Abbey to switch Ruff back to Monster Masher so he has both Magic Barrier and Insulatle. Then I came allllll the way back through Aeolus Vale, through the cave, through the Sanctum to fight Cumulus Vex yet again just to confirm that both spells do absolutely nothing against his wind attacks. That’s only to be expected for Insulatle since the description says it only reduces fire-based and ice-based attacks. But et tu Magic Barrier? No reduction at all?

Based on all these painful experiences, it seems like I can beat the boss if I have all my troops in Tier 2 classes for the extra stats and I have at least one party member spamming Multiheal every turn. No way around it except to grind. Which is not going to happen. I already said it in the title, I’d rather drop a game than grind right now.

I don’t mind a little grinding when I’m in the right frame of mind, but I’ve already been in Aeolus Vale too long, fighting the same enemies too long. And when I think of the pain of fighting another 100 battles, marching back to the one spot on the map where I can change job classes, coming back and grinding till I learn Multiheal then making my way back to the boss… yeah, that’s not gonna happen. Never say never, but right now I have better things to do with my gaming time.

What better things? Mainly deciding whether to start Demon Gaze or continue Atelier Meruru Plus. Or to play something completely different. My heart feels like some synthesis, but these Atelier games have soooo much talking, especially in the beginning. And Demon Gaze is a dungeon crawler so grinding is guaranteed. I might take a third option and come back to both games later. We’ll see.

Dragon Quest VII – Haven’t dropped it yet

But I came pretty close just now when I got wiped out by a boss named Gracos. I thought I might have to grind to get past him and right now I’m in the frame of mind where I’d rather drop a hundred games than grind for even an hour. Luckily it didn’t come to that because I beat him on my next try. It’s largely a matter of staying on top of healing and praying he doesn’t use that Jolly Rager + All attack too often.

What else can I say by way of update? I’m 33 hours into Dragon Quest VII, average party level of 23. Just got the flying carpet so I can go save the legendary hero, wherever he is. Right now I’m exploring modern-day Wetlock before heading back to the Shrine of Mysteries to raise a few more islands. Just received a monster-clearing quest from Professor Wade. Feels like a single stone fragment is a poor reward for the work I’m about to do, but JRPGs will be JRPGs. Time to head to Highendreigh Tower again.

Wait, before that. It has just occurred to me that I could use a smartphone or a notepad to cheat at that matching game in the casino… But surely I wouldn’t… Oh yes I would. The only thing is I don’t remember where any casinos can be found. Hmm, I think there was one near the inn before Alltrades Abbey? I owe it to science to find out if my little ploy would work. Lessee…

*15 minutes later*

Nah, I’m good.

*Huff, wheeze* I did it! I won! That was harder than I’d expected. I only won one out of three game and it was all because of that darned Shuffle card. No wonder Square-Enix didn’t bother adding a timer or any other anti-cheating device. You just have to hope you’re lucky enough to get the Shuffle card right at the start or really late. Still, winning 1/3 games is better than I’ve done to date. I’ve lost 800 coins and gained… lemme pop out to the conveniently-located item store real quick… Oops, ended up selling a lot of other stuff I didn’t need. But the war hammer alone was worth 6000 coins so I’m definitely ahead.

In retrospect, it’s good I waited so long to play DQVII. Now I’m really hungry for a regular, normal JRPG so I’m having a great time. It’s probably too early to do this, but if I were to add it to my ranking of other Dragon Quest games I’ve played, it would look like this: DQIV > DQVII > DQV >>>>>> DQVI >>>infinity>>DQIX. Though DQIX was my first so maybe if I gave it another chance its standing might improve. Not gonna happen though. It’s a really close toss-up between V and VII but I married this really horrible wom– female creature in DQV and I’ve been kicking myself ever since. As irritating as Maribel is, at least the main character is smart enough not to marry her (please don’t marry her in the ending, please don’t marry her in the ending).

All right then, next plan of action – abuse the heck out of the casino for the next hour. It’s not grinding if you’re cheating. Then Highendreigh Tower. Then the Shrine of Mysteries. Then more of the same stuff I’ve been doing so far. At some point I’ll need to track down the medal king and exchange all those medals, but that can wait till later. I should also try to fight some more so I can unlock job classes faster but I don’t wanna so I’m not gonna. I don’t really like job systems in RPGs, to be honest. It’s cool if everyone has a fixed path with little variation, but too much choice stresses me out.

I’ll be back for another update when I hit 50 hours or finish/drop Dragon Quest VII, whichever comes first.

Finished Sorcery Saga: Curse of the Curry God, a cute-for-nothing game

Next time I drop a game near the end and I’m tempted to back and give it a last try, I’ll tell myself “Remember Sorcery Saga?” and then I’ll shudder and move on with my life. I am way past the point where I’m content just to finish a game. Now I ask myself what I got out of it, and in this case it’s a big fat 15-20 hours of nothing. So why did I finish it? Because it wasn’t quite bad enough to not finish. I’d categorize Sorcery Saga as “Thoroughly mediocre but not actually terrible.” Those are the games I have the hardest time with, because I’m not having any fun but I’m not not having fun so I just keep playing and feel very meh at the end.

Problems with Sorcery Saga: Curse of the Curry God

It sucks.

Yeah. I just said it’s not actually terrible, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck. It has just enough polish to lift it above that level but that’s it.

Story? The story is okay-ish. Dungeon crawlers don’t need stories anyway so the simple motivation of gathering ingredients to make the ultimate curry was fine with me. What about the characters? In rogue-likes, it’s enough if you can root for the main character. Seeing as they’ll be dying so often in your care, it’s the least you can do. But Pupuru… I can’t really get a handle on her personality. She seems a bit bratty and obnoxious to me, TBH. And because I don’t really get her, it seems kind of fake how she’s so fond of Kuu or so determined to help Etanya. Like really? Were you that nice and caring? Maybe it’s because we rarely see her interact with people who know her already, like her so-called best friend Lilica who all but disappears after the introduction.

The other characters weren’t any better. Very slightly amusing the first time you meet them, then they repeat the same jokes over and over and over again from start to end until you’re completely sick of them. Actually I was completely sick of them by the second hour. They even got downright creepy at some point, especially the stalker Gigadis and his stalker Cliora. One-note characters with one very boring note.

Gameplay: As far as rogue-likes go, Sorcery Saga is bottom-tier. The enemy density is too low, and it’s too easy to hang on to weapons that make you near-invincible from start to finish. The enemies barely put up a fight, almost none of them use long-range attacks, most traps are easy to spot, Pupuru’s HP heals at a stunningly fast rate so you rarely need healing potions, she moves like a slug even on fast-forward, and so on and so forth. I like easy rogue-likes, really like them, but I don’t want to steam-roll everybody like that. They’re probably saving all the challenge for the bonus dungeons like Shiren the Wanderer likes to do, but once the credits roll, I’m done.

Furthermore, it doesn’t even offer the stress-free experience an easy game should provide. Instead of playing smoothly through the game, you have to waste time looking out for your horrible, annoying, useless, trouble-making, exists-only-to-make-your-life-harder “pet” Kuu. I can count on one hand the number of times that thing actually helped me. Instead he’s mostly there to get between me and monsters so I have to maneuver around him. Or he’s there to stink up the cutscenes with his unfunny gluttonous ways.

On top of that, there are way too many useless items in this game. Should be a minor issue but Pupuru’s backpack is so small that within a few steps of entering a dungeon you’ll be tossing everything in sight at Kuu. Most dungeon crawlers have a limited backpack issue, but usually it’s a case of trying desperately to hang on to (potentially) useful items. What if I need that rice ball later. These arrows will definitely come in handy. Oh good, a new shield. That’s how it should be. In Sorcery Saga it’s just Junk. More Junk. Unidentified Junk. Junk Junk Junk.

BTW, since the game is called “Curse of the Curry God,” there’s a whole gimmick about making and eating curry in the dungeons, but it didn’t make that much of a difference. The full set of ingredients was hard to gather much of the time and the effects wore off pretty quickly. Pointless addition was pointless.

Any positives?

It’s short, I guess. And easy so it’s a good introduction for anyone scared of rogue-likes. Oh, and bright happy colors! And if you’re hungry when you play it, it might make you crave curry just a little bit. The music is okay except for the pseudo-Indian music in the final dungeon. I like the boss stage music, it’s very Persona. Load times were short, I didn’t encounter any bugs and the game only froze on me once. Japanese reviewers complained of bugs, but they seem to have been largely fixed for the English release. So there’s nothing wrong with Sorcery Saga from a technical standpoint. It’s just mediocre and unsatisfying when you actually play it.

Ending Spoilers

BTW, the Legendary Magic Curry you spend the whole game making? Your useless pet Kuu eats it all before anyone can taste it. It’s supposed to be funny. Laugh.