Disgaea DS – I’ve played enough, thank you.

disgaea ds_frontAfter the last post I made about Disgaea, I received some very helpful comments that made me decide to give the game one last chance. To that end I also switched from the PS2 version to the DS version in the hopes that this would make the game feel more accessible.

Changes I had to make to be able to play this game:

– Ignore Dark Assembly apart from picking up canon fodder at the start
– Ignore Item World apart from the mandatory trip in Chapter 3
– Ignore Geo Symbols as much as possible
– Laharl basically solos. The rest toss him Candy or distract enemies long enough for Laharl to heal.

Thanks to these changes I was able to make it to an all-time high of 5 hours and 30 minutes played. I reached Episode 5 (Jotunheim) for anyone who is familiar with the game. Unfortunately being able to play that far just deepened my realization that Disgaea just isn’t for me. I still don’t know what it is about the game that I dislike so much, but at this point I’ve given up on finding out.

Since I had to completely gut and neuter the system to make it even remotely playable, however, I suspect it might have something to do with my innate dislike for fussy battle systems, especially in SRPGs. I’m also not that crazy about grinding, so the idea that I’d have to dive into all my weapons and armor (the shops never seemed to update) and fight at least 10 battles each to power them up just a little bit is off-putting, to say the least. The story and the characters were also a little too kiddy for me. What is love~ Baby don’t hurt me~ don’t hurt me~ no more~♫

No need to kick a game while it’s down. Thanks to all who helped me figure out a way to play a little more of this before quitting. I’m sorry all your efforts were in vain, but I gave it my best shot. I really did. And now, at last, it’s time to move on.

Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja – Hurray for easy rogue-likes!

izuna front coverIzuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja was developed and published by Success and Ninja Studio, the same publisher-developer team that brought us the wonderful must-play title Tactical Guild. Luckily for us all, the two games don’t have anything else in common. For one thing Izuna is actually pretty good. I’m going to borrow the plot description from Wikipedia to save myself some time:

Izuna and her ninja clan are looking for a place to settle down after their old master Mugen decided that ninjas were obsolete, and booted them from his castle. Upon arriving at a village that’s suitably out of the way for their “Grandboss”, Gen-An, they decide to stay at an inn when Grandboss wanders off. While trying to find Grandboss, Izuna manages to offend the gods of the village, and everyone in the area starts behaving strangely. Now Izuna has to descend into the various shrines for the gods in order to set things right.

And that’s all the plot any rogue-like ever needs. Izuna is similar to other rogue-likes in most ways: randomly generated dungeons, enemies make a move when you make a move, item drops galore in the dungeons, lose all items and money when you die. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Atelier Marie, Elie & Anis: Message on the Gentle Breeze – Quick review + screenshots

atelier marie, elie and anisAll right, there’s still time before the interesting matches start, so time for a quick post. And it’s double quick in this case because I’ve already played Atelier Marie, Elie & Anis Message on the Gentle Breeze (Soyokaze kara no Dengon) before, long long ago. I played it quite a while before tackling Atelier Marie, Elie and Lilie, which was bit of a mistake because this is more or less a direct sequel to Elie. That doesn’t necessarily mean the Elie+Marie endings are the only canon ones in that game, though. They could easily have gotten together again later down the line after whatever end Elie picked.

So much for the introduction. What is Atelier Marie, Elie & Anis about? A new library is going to be built in Salburg and Ingrid has asked Marie and Elie to write new alchemy books for the library. The two ladies have kindly donated all the alchemy tools and books they already had to the library, which is why you have to start collecting everything all over again.

To produce books featuring brand-new recipes, Marie and Elie turn to a new method, Image Synthesis. This means they imagine the kind of item they want to make, e.g. a toy, a fragrance, an accessory, see what they already have in those categories and combine them to make new things. There are only about 250 items in Marie, Elie & Anis, but quite a lot of them are unique to this game because of the new method. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Record of Agarest War Mariage – 50% grinding, 50% fanservice

I haven’t played any of the ‘regular’ Agarest Senki SRPGs, but I heard this was a standalone game so I approached it accordingly. Record of Agarest War Mariage fits into a long tradition of what I call “harem RPGS.” This genre mainly covers RPGs that feature one clueless male protagonist with a party full of beautiful, economically-dressed ladies who are falling all over themselves to win his affections. If you’ve played Shining Hearts/Blade or any of the Ar Tonelico games, you’ve played one of these.

While some harem RPGs introduce one or two other male party members for those gamers who like an extra sausage with their eggs, the most brazen ones (Tactics Layer and Motto Nuga-cel come to mind) don’t even bother letting the main guy take part in battle at all. Sometimes they don’t even show his face. He just functions as a “tactical adviser” or supervisor or something. Either way he’s still the leader of the pack and everyone else exists to please him. Now that I’ve said all that, you should know what to expect from a game like Agarest Senki Mariage. If you still don’t, a picture speaks a thousand words: Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Infinite Loop: Kojou ga Miseta Yume – Fun, but could have been better

infinite loop kojou ga miseta yume_frontStory: Kojou ga Miseta Yume = “The Dream the Old Castle Showed Me.” This visual novel from Nippon Ichi Software tells the tale of a prince who dies right before his crowning ceremony and finds himself cursed (or blessed) to relive the next few days over and over again as a ghost. By silently haunting the remaining inhabitants of the castle, Will hopes to solve the mystery of his own death and prevent multiple tragedies from befalling his family, his friends and the rest of the country at large.

Gameplay: Prince Will can only haunt people, he can’t actually possess their bodies and force them to do anything. But by following them on their daily routines over the next 28 days, he can learn their plans and problems and gather certain “keywords” from their conversations that can be shown to them as dreams, influencing their actions. Will can also jump from body to body using the L/R buttons, thus moving around to various places in the castle. This is essential because some people almost never interact. Princess Vanessa (Veene for short) never talks to Chancellor Nells in the next 28 days, for example. So if you want to get from Veene to Nells, you might have to jump from Veene to Jimmy the palace guard and then to Nells. Or Veene -> Mary the Maid -> Nells. That sort of thing.

Since the game really does loop infinitely as per the title Infinite Loop, permanent failure is impossible. If you do something wrong and get someone killed or fail to stop the tragedies on Day 4/10/16/22, you just get sent back to day 1 to start afresh. That said, it is all too easy, especially for people like me who are terrible at this logic thing, to get stuck in a pattern where you know what is wrong, but you don’t know how to stop it. That’s where a FAQ comes in handy: http://gamepukka.com/guide/g165_infiniteloop/il02-chart.html If you can’t read enough Japanese to follow the FAQ, you can’t read enough Japanese to follow the game either, so nothing of any value will be lost. Do please go on, this is most interesting →