Elvandia Story – So much wasted potential

Elvandia_Story_CoverartShould’ve been called El-blandia Story instead. -_- Well at least it was short, clocking in at just under 20 hours for the first playthrough. The soundtrack was very finely composed, far too good for a game like this. The voice acting was decent and battles went by very speedily once animations were turned off.

Of course, all games go by quickly when your characters are almost invincible. On top of all its other crimes, Elvandia Story introduced cheap doping agents near the end (costing 3,000 each when I had about 60,000 to my name) that allowed me to max out my MC’s stats and take both final bosses out within 5 turns. Game, set and match.

Story: Ashley is the son of the ruler of Kastol, part of the Elvandia continental alliance thingy. Only not really, actually he’s the secret twin brother of the prince of all Elvandia. Once the king and the prince both meet conveniently messy ends, it’s up to Ashley to unite the continent against Magdaf, the invading king of…I already forgot what his country is called. Anyway, Magdaf has a magic ‘Glaesum’ staff from the gods so it’s up to our troops to collect other legendary ‘Glaesum’ weapons so they can fight against him. I got the Glaesum sword after about 10 stages. A few stages later, I got an accessory that prevents weapon uses from going down. Top that off with a legendary shield on my MC and I could easily have soloed the rest of the game with him. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Glory of Heracles finished. Spoiling everything I can think of.

glory of heraclesIt’s not exactly 10/10 material, but Glory of Heracles did get much better after 15 hours or so. I liked the story and characters to begin with, and the battle system got a lot more interesting once I learned and began to make use of all kinds of interesting skills, spells and passives. In far too many games it doesn’t take long before you settle on one or two good moves per character and just use them over and over again. Here there were a few constants like casting buffs in the first turn and using Focus for massive damage, but there’s still plenty of variety in the moves and specials each characters uses.

Actions change not only depending on the needs of the situation but also on the equipment they’re wearing, the amount of ether available, enemy weaknesses and one or two other factors. I mean, I still auto-battled my way through 90% of the game (the AI is terrible, btw) and battle speed was still a little slow even with animations set to ‘Brief’, but it was an interesting auto-battle fest and the battles I did fight on my own were very enjoyable. I would happily endorse a version of this game which cut encounters by 50%, sped up battles 75% and made boss battles at least 30% harder. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Elvandia Story – A poor man’s Fire Emblem

elvandia01Elvandia Story is an SRPG developed and published by Spike for the PS2 in 2007. Most descriptions you read of it will mention the game system’s striking similarity to Fire Emblem‘s. I have FE7 in mind because I watched my brother play it recently (between my brothers and I, we’ve finished that game at least 15 times) but the resemblance applies just as well to most of the other FE games. Game design is a conscious and deliberate act that can take years, so there’s no doubt that Spike set out to copy FE as much as possible. In my book that’s not a bad thing. It’s a good thing.

After all, I love SRPGs in general and Fire Emblem in particular. If anything the world needs more FE clones and fewer clunky, slow 3D isometric FF Tactics/Tactics Ogre-inspired copies. In fact, where Elvandia goes wrong isn’t in ripping Fire Emblem off but rather in trying to diverge from the standard FE formula in several places, with less than optimum results. This is not to say that all rip-offs should be perfect clones, if that were even legally possible. I’m just pointing out that a lot of thought and care needs to be exercised whenever you adopt a tried-and-tested template and then try to add new elements. A few examples from Elvandia Story must suffice. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Glory of Heracles – I like the characters, but that’s about it

Glory-Of-Heracles_US_ESRBboxart_160wLuckily the story isn’t too terrible either, and likeable characters can take me a long, long way. Glory of Heracles still has sluggish battles (although they’re better than in the Japanese version) but if the game doesn’t drag on too long, I think I can finish it.

Having said that, it’s still not a game I can recommend. I tried it when it first came out in Japanese and gave up really quickly because the battles were slow, the story wasn’t going anywhere and the characters were dull and lifeless. I forget who did the localization this time… hold on, I’ll check… 8-4 Ltd? Never heard of them. Anyway, they did their very best to inject some life into what was formerly a very straightforward and pedestrian JRPG script, and their efforts help to lift this sub-par JRPG into almost-playable territory. Having said that, if silly character and NPC banter doesn’t float your boat or isn’t enough for you to overlook lackluster gameplay then you really shouldn’t bother with Glory of Heracles. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Atelier Lilie Plus – Not satisfying at all.

atelier lilieI started Atelier Lilie all over from scratch. I played and played and played. Killed lots of enemies, made lots of money, synthesized lots of items, maxed the affections of several townspeople. Fame 99, Popularity 1000. By year 5 I was level 50 in both alchemy and battle. I’m bound to get a much better ending than last time, right? Wrong! I passed the king’s final trial and got royal support for the academy. Result: Lilie leaves Salburg and becomes a teacher in some backwater somewhere.

All right, I’ll try again. I’ll ignore the king’s contest and fund the academy myself. Result: Lilie leaves Salburg and becomes a teacher in some backwater somewhere. It’s better than the ‘regular’ ending in that I at least got a 5-second animation to go with it, but it’s still so bleh. Do please go on, this is most interesting →