Frontier Gate Boost+ – Monster Hunter for the fainthearted

frontier-gate-comboFrontier Gate Boost+ is a turn-based questing RPG by Konami. It seems to be aimed at gamers who find the idea of Monster Hunter interesting but are too intimidated to actually play it. The idea was good so I don’t want to come down too hard on them, but making it turn-based makes Frontier Gate way too easy, even for me. After playing games like Phantasy Star Portable and Rune Factory, I can’t help feeling wistful about how great Frontier Gate would have been if it had just a little more bite to the battle system.

This isn’t a full post about FG, by the way. I’ve been playing for 16 hours, but I just don’t feel like writing about it. There isn’t much to say. You’re an adventurer, you belong to a guild, you take a mission, you do it, you take another mission, you do it, you take a third mission, you do it, and on and on it goes. You have partners who have their own backstories and agendas, but there doesn’t seem to be an overarching story, at least not yet. You either like mission-based RPGs or you don’t. I’ll talk about the two-member party battle system some other time. I just popped in to let everyone know I was still alive. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Territoire demo – Not my cup of tea

Territoire is a will-totally-come-out-one-day-we-swear game from EasyGameStation, makers of Recettear and Chantelise and some other cutesy stuff I haven’t played. A demo has been out since 2010-ish and the game itself will probably be released sometime before judgment day, but I’m not holding my breath.

Even if it does come out I’m not sure I’ll play it because it’s not really my kind of game. That’s because Territoire is an awkward melding of SRPG, a genre I usually love, with a real-time strategy game in the vein of Age of Empires (edit: apparently 4X Strategy is the correct name of this genre). That’s a genre I can’t outright say I hate; it’s one that I often find myself drawn to but also one that I now avoid after several painful experiences. As a matter of fact, I have these in my collection right now:

rts backlogI bought them brand-new from Amazon a few years ago but I can’t bring myself to play them. I love the idea behind these games: building new worlds, managing their progress, solving problems, advancing my cultural level and all the other things they entail. What I just can’t handle are the enemies! Why do there have to be enemies???? Why can’t I just have fun on my own? I’m okay with rivals but why must anyone attack me? I have yet to play a Civilization game, but I played quite a bit of Age of Empires when it first came out. I still remember that horrible sinking feeling I would get whenever hordes would pour out of nowhere and start hacking down my innocent workers. How can anyone be so cruel? ;____; Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Finished Conception. Verdict: Good dating sim, bad dungeon crawler.

Conception_~Ore_no_Kodomo_wo_Undekure!~It took me about 33 hours to finish, but other reviews claim 21-25 hours is the norm. I should have spent less time exploring the dungeons and skipped the final three seasonal dungeons once the way to the last boss opened up. The ending was brief, but quite happy. The kegare are disposed of forever, MC goes back to his world and has a happy end with his chosen girl (Femiruna). I was pretty satisfied.

As I said in the title, Conception is very enjoyable as a dating sim/visual novel, but as a dungeon crawler it stinks. A brief explanation follows.

Good dating sim

+ The character designs are really cute. The 3D close ups are not so cute, but they grow on you after a while.

+ With two exceptions (Mahiru and Ruka) the girls range from likeable to adorable. As romantic interests Tarua and Collette were a little too kiddy for my tastes, but everyone else was very passable. You’ve probably met all their types if you’ve watched even one high school anime before, but they’re well-done archetypes nevertheless.

+ Building a relationship is a low pressure, no failure affair. There are no bad ends, no jealousy events and no way to lock yourself out of a route. Even if you answer wrongly and piss the girl off, just keep talking to her week after week and you’ll eventually get her affection up. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Conception – I like the characters, but the gameplay needs work

Also the story and some of the dialogue is really vulgar. Not that I expected a game subtitled “Please Bear My Child” to not be vulgar, but I’m surprised how low they sunk. Way beyond innuendo and well into ‘rubbing your face in it’ territory. If you thought Ar Tonelico was too subtle and you really wanted them to stick it in your face – haha stick it, geddit, that’s so naughty, haha – then Conception is your game.

A One-Track Story

The writers went out of their way to make the story as tasteless as possible. For example, the backstory of the dungeon monsters, known as kegare,  is that they’re created whenever people in that world have sex. Kegare (i.e. pollution, defilement) created by Aries people goes to the Aries dungeon and so on. These dungeons are losing their function for an unknown reason, so the MC was summoned to that world to help deal with them. There’s a worldwide ban on sex until MC fixes the problem (yeah, good luck enforcing that). Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits (2)

arc the ladIt’s games like this that make me want to quit gaming. Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits is not terrible enough to quit over, but it’s not very good either, so I just keep plodding along and getting more and more annoyed and depressed. According the game clock I’m 22 hours and 58 minutes in. It feels more like 58 hours and 22 minutes. And I think my PS2 can sense my mood, because a few minutes ago when I tried to turn it on, it basically said “Not tonight, I have a headache.” I’ll coax it back to life eventually. For now, though, I’m going to take the opportunity to put this game in hiatus.

What is Arc the Lad doing wrong? Two things. First, the characters are pissing me off. Their decisions are stupid and they are annoying. Darc’s team is still superior to Kharg’s, but Darc himself is a washout. He says one thing, does another, then tries to justify what he does without admitting his true motives. For example he spares traitors and tries to play it off like they’re necessary to his ambitions, but actually he just likes having them around and is too chicken to kill anyone any more.

Example two, he just let the same villain escape for the 3rd time in a row. And that even though the villain himself warned him not to. And if Darc was really serious about unifying the Deimos and killing all humans, why not start with Lilia? Darc is just a mass of contradictions, and not in a compelling way either. Right now I even prefer Kharg to him. At least Kharg is actually serious about being a goody two-shoes.

Second thing wrong, the story is just going round in circles. Darc’s team had just invaded the enemy’s headquarters when I stopped, so maybe something major was finally going to happen, but I won’t hold my breath. Encounter after encounter with the Dilzweld army. The Dilzweld army succeeds in their evil plans regardless. Darc says one thing and does another. Kharg and co. bore the crap out of me. Lilia gets kidnapped. Lilia gets rescued. Lilia gets kidnapped. Lilia gets rescued. On and on it goes. What’s worse, the few moments of manufactured drama never amount to anything. Here’s a major reveal! Gasp! Shock! Horror! And then everything’s back to normal and it’s all business as usual.

I checked a spoiler-free walkthrough and it looks like I’m about two-thirds of the way through the game. If I was almost done I’d just push through, but as it is I’m definitely taking a break. I’m going to try the Territoire demo I’ve been planning to play for like 2 years, and then I’ll start Conception. I hope there isn’t too much talking in it, because I just want some mindless dungeon-crawling right now.