Issho ni Gohan. – No thanks, I’m full

issho ni gohan. front coverIssho ni Gohan. Portable – Apartment Dinner Show (lit. Let’s Eat Together) is a forgettable otome game about the relationship between a bunch of college students and their female dorm manager, more or less. They’re all studying at a college of nutrition and food sciences or something like that so a lot of their interactions revolve around dinners, parties and other food-related events.

Issho ni Gohan. was originally a drama CD series which got adapted into a video game and a manga which I should have read instead and saved myself the time. With most otome games I like to clear at least one route so I can have something more concrete to write about, but at last in my old age I’ve finally learned to cut my losses and quit games while I’m ahead. I haven’t learned to keep my explanations short and to the point yet, but I’ll try to be less wordy while I explain why I dropped this. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Little Witch Parfait – Didn’t really enjoy it

little witch parfaitLittle Witch Parfait: Kuroneko Mahouten Monogatari is an alchemy/shop/relationship simulator about student magician named Parfait whose mother dies leaving her with a magic shop that is 1,000,000g in debt. To work her way out of this hole, Parfait has to drop out of school and devote her days to producing and selling enough magical goods to pay off her debt before the entire shop is repossessed.

Since she’s still a student magician she doesn’t know that many recipes, so in the early stages of the game you’ll have to divide your time between studying at home/the library, foraging in the wild and making stuff to sell in the store. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Nothing to report

littlewitch parfait cityI haven’t started anything new, and I haven’t played much of the few games I’m currently working on. Unless you want a long post filled with Ring Dream, Rakuen Seikatsu Hitsuji mura and Candy Crush Soda updates, that is. I’m guessing you don’t.

I said last time that I would write about Littlewitch Parfait this time, so in preparation for that post I actually started reading all those long, pointless conversations the characters kept having and you know, it’s not so boring after all. I mean it’s still completely useless as an alchemy/shop management simulation, but it’s a pretty passable “cute girls doing cute stuff” game. Plus I’m on the verge of hooking Parfait up with the reasonably good-looking prince of the kingdom so I’m getting my otome game fix on at the same time.

In other news, I’m slowly beginning to understand why mobile games took over Japan so easily. On my part at least, a lot of it has to do with physical and mental inertia. Before you pick up a controller or a handheld you have to switch into gaming mode and get a certain “Okay I’m going to drop everything and play some video games now” mindset going on. With a smartphone on the other hand, you’re just checking your emails, making a few calls, then you slide easily into a gaming app or two and back out again without having to think about it too much. Less mode switching, more game playing.

The only catch is I haven’t found any non-crappy mobile RPGs yet (I haven’t really looked, to be honest) but the same principle applies to browser games. Just tab into a game, fight a few battles, water a few plants and get back to work. I complained before about having to wait hours to play a few minutes of a browser game, but when you’re busy working it’s not like you’re just sitting around waiting for that stamina bar to fill. You’re getting your work done and getting a little game on the side, versus interrupting your work for a gaming break which is a lot harder to justify. Unfortunately the catch again is I haven’t found any satisfying browser RPGs. I’m 100% sure they don’t exist because the freemium gaming model doesn’t exactly encourage gamer satisfaction. In fact I’m not even going to bother to look.

If you’re wondering what the point of all this is, it’s all just to say I’m really busy these days and every time I think I can carve out a chunk of time for some serious gaming, something or someone always crops up. So if I don’t post as often as I used to it’s because I’m busy playing Ring Dream, Hitsuji mura and Candy Crush Soda instead. So there.

P.S. But we’re still on for 7th Dragon III later this year. My body is ready.

Ring ☆ Dream – Do you like busty women?

Don’t bother answering. Success has already decided that you do, that’s why they’ve made Ring ☆ Dream, a game full of scantily-clad “pro-wrestling” ladies for your viewing pleasure:

ring dream top banner Ring ☆ Dream was the surprise hit of the whole Hangame x Success campaign for me (a long defunct campaign where you could earn virtual rewards for trying certain Japanese browser games). I really wasn’t expecting to enjoy a game about collecting pictures of scantily-clad anime girls, but now I find myself playing it every day. The reasons are simple and many:

1. Bright happy colors! Especially after the darkness of Pazuruka and the dullness of Eiyuu Chronicle, it’s a breath of fresh air.

2. Very, very simple gameplay. Walk around town, collect powerful cards, fuse them together and sic them on a variety of AI and human enemies. There aren’t many distractions, there aren’t any intricate leveling techniques and the tutorial takes all of 5 minutes to complete before you’re set free to roam.

3. Wrestling matches versus the AI don’t take any skills or smarts. It’s a pure numbers game, all about how good your deck is. Okay, there’s some luck involved in the boss battle roulette, but that’s about it. It makes things easy because the game usually gives you a choice of enemies to fight with their HP displayed up front. That way you can look at your own numbers, look at theirs and decide what to do. Like in the screenshot below…

ring dream AI battle…my combined deck power of 786,046 means I can do a minimum of 786,046 HP damage to an enemy. In other words I can beat those lovely 150,000 HP lasses with both hands tied behind my back. But since they’re so weak they’re hardly worth my time, so I chose not to fight them.

4. Player-versus-player battles are also mainly about luck and good decks. You can’t strategize, after all, because you aren’t given any information about your opponent in advance. The only general guideline is that players above your level have usually been playing longer than you have/spending more money than you have –> they probably have better decks –> it’s a good idea to pay 5 stamina points to roll a different enemy. The only time strategy comes into play is when you fight PC characters masquerading as PVP, since they respawn frequently and always use the same deck. Even then it’s just a matter of having a better deck, the end.

tl;dr Ring ☆ Dream is a very simple game of numbers and levels, which is just the way I like it.

ring dream battle5. Junk cards don’t look quite so junky. I mean it’s clear from the start that anything under Super Rare is just fodder for strengthening your main deck, but they’re still nicely designed AND the mook card characters regularly show up in skits or moonlight as sub-bosses so they actually have personalities. TBH I’ve been skipping 90% of the story because they talk too much, but it’s nice to know all the cards have a story behind them.

ring dream nameko6. The first 20 levels really draw you in because there’s no stamina cost at all. You can play and play and play and play as long as you want… until you hit level 20 and then suddenly stamina points take 3 minutes each to refill. If you don’t know it’s coming it’s like Whoa, what happened?! The nice thing about Ring ☆ Dream, though, is that you get to decide how to allocate your bonus points every time you level up. Put enough points into stamina (my ideal is 160) and you can ignore the game for up to 8 hours at a time without feeling like you’re missing out on EXP, perfect for busy gamers like me.

I actually like the range of skin colors and body types in the game.

I rather like the range of skin colors and body types in the game.

7. The game is very generous with the paid gacha (Japanese term for valuable in-game items, can’t think of a good English equivalent), giving out free gacha tickets almost every day. I haven’t spent a cent so far, but I’ve still managed to get some really good cards from gacha spins and login bonuses. You don’t the same sense as you do from other games (*cough* Rakuen Seikatsu Hitsujimura *cough*) that you might as well not bother unless you’re a paying customer.

8. You also get a lot of money and “friendship points” through events so you can actually level any super powerful cards you get. It’s not grindy like Pazuruka where it can take hours to earn enough money and cards to nudge up one card a tiny little notch. Here you can level them up a lot and they actually feel like they’re getting stronger with every level because the numbers are on plain display.

ring dream practice2In short Ring ☆ Dream looks nice, is easy and satisfying to play and doesn’t make too many demands on my time so I don’t feel under any pressure to play/not play depending on how I feel. The fanservice isn’t as bad as I’d expected going in either. I’d say like 50% of the outfits are just normal bikinis, 40% are a little risque and the last 10 are… well, just look at this:

Just glue some tennis balls to your chest, spray-paint some "clothes" on and presto!

Just glue some tennis balls to your chest, spray-paint some “clothes” on and presto!

Part of me thinks the game would be just as good with less emphasis on cleavage, another part of me realizes it’s a game about professional wrestling and these aren’t too different from the outfits female pro wrestlers sorta-wear so…yeah. Kinda comes with the territory. I wouldn’t complain about all the water in a sailing game, would I? At least I think I wouldn’t. Actually I’m just nitpicking to find something to complain about so I’ll seem all objective and stuff. Mission accomplished!

And with that my attempt at all 4 Hangame x Success collaboration games is complete. 3 of them sucked, 1 of them was good and that’s fine because I don’t have the time to play more than one or two browser games at a time. In more regular gaming news, I think I’m almost done with Littlewitch Parfait, so I’ll probably do a quick roundup on that next time. I also got the 3DS back over the weekend and almost started Rune Factory 4 but decided to get some sleep instead. The story of my gaming life these days…

Disappointed in Eiyuu RPG

eiyuu rpg top imageYes, I did say I would try Ring * Dream next, and I did just that. I ended up liking it quite a bit so I’ll probably play it on and off from now on. There’ll be plenty of time to post about it even after the Hangame x Success event is over, so there’s no need to rush. Instead I’ll focus on the last game in the event, Eiyuu RPG – Seiiki no Boukensha (Adventurers of the Sacred Land). This shouldn’t take long, because I dropped it quickly.

I was all set to like Eiyuu RPG too, since it was marketed as a dungeon crawler, and I love dungeon crawlers. It’s also a shinier, more polished, simplified and updated version of Eiyuu Chronicle, and heaven knows that game needed updating. What I’m happiest about is that they actually used a proper font for the menus now instead of going with the Japanese equivalent of Arial/Times New Roman. A good font adds a lot. Now the main screen looks like this:

eiyuu rpg main screenAnd your character sheet looks like this:

eiyuu rpg character sheetFewer stats, bigger letters, easier to understand all around. There’s still a lot you can do with your character by way of recreation, reclassing, skill point distribution and so on, but now you at least understand what you’re trying to do.

In short Eiyuu RPG looks snazzier and is much easier to understand than Eiyuu Chronicle. The question now is, does it play better? Or more to the point: does it play at all? Clunky as it was, Chronicle did at least let you fight all those SRPG battles yourself. Eiyuu RPG just makes you sit back and watch as your adventurers go out exploring/fighting/treasure-hunting. It’s much like how Ore ni Hatarake or FFCC: My Life as a King play out where your focus is on training and equipping adventurers rather than on battling yourself. Except those games were honest enough not to market themselves as “dungeon RPGs.” I feel silly that I was ever excited about this game.

Look but don't touch!

Look but don’t touch!

It’s not like that kind of game is bad or anything, but if I’m going to waste time waiting for a browser game to load, waiting for dungeons to load, waiting for stamina bars to fill up, tweaking stats, buying potions and weapons and armors and skills and all the other little annoyances involved in a free-to-play game then I want a proper satisfying experience, not just “You beat some trolls in a cave, the end” kind of messages.

I’m not going to tell Success what kind of game they should or shouldn’t create, but I do know the kind of game I will or won’t spend my time on. Dungeon crawler, yes. Dungeon-looker, no. I didn’t even bother giving it a chance, I just finished the tutorial and hightailed it out of there. Waste of time. Neeeext!