For some reason this game was getting a lot of praise. People really liked it and considered it a really good Tactical TBS RPG with a decent storyline. Well those people lied because none of it was true. The game is loosely based off of the story of Joan of Arc. And by loosely I mean the only thing in common with the story is their names. For those not familiar with the Joan of Arc, basically you are playing the game as Jeanne who finds a bag off a dead guy in the forest and inside it was a magical bracelet that told her to fight the English and when demons started attacking the town she put it on the bracelet then transforms into a magical shining warrior with magical armor and killed off the demons. It turns out the demons are being controlled by the English and you must save France by killing all the English/Demons. What? That doesn't sound like Joan of Arc? That's too bad I did try to warn you. However I really wanted to give this game a shot because it was made by Level-5, the creators of the Dark Cloud and Rogue Galaxy series and the more recent Ni No Kuni.
This game has a lot of cutscenes. If that is your thing then you probably wouldn't be bothered with it, but having to sit through long boring cutscenes isn't my idea of fun. If I wanted to watch a movie then I'd watch a fucking movie. The thing is, if the cutscenes were actually interesting then I wouldn't be bothered with it but when its like five minutes of scenery then finally a guy appears who fucking looks like a Disney villain, but everyone is oblivious. Like the first person you see has a pale ghoulish white face, wearing a giant black pointy horned hood, with black robes and long bony fingers with long painted fingernails and talk in the most asshole way. You know this guy is evil. He wants to save the king and then does some evil magical ritual that takes like another 5 minutes to set up. Then all of a fucking sudden from nowhere an old guy pops up and starts attacking evilwizardman with a sword and then gets his ass kicked in less than a second. Then the cutscene is over and you move over to Jeanne in a town wandering around then suddenly evil demons attack. Oh god this shit won't stop. Long story short, the cutscenes are boring, the voice acting is bearable at best, and the story is just ridiculous.
Combat itself is simple, like any Tactical RPG really. Attacking enemy from the sides or behind deals more damage, attacking with an element its weak against will hit harder, etc etc. Only problem I find is that stuff hits really hard and you die often and your characters outside of a few do almost minimal damage. So the strong get stronger and the weak remain useless. Well you only need a few good people to win battles anyways. Every battle has a time limit. EVERY SINGLE BATTLE. You have to finish the objective in say 18 turns or you lose. So you're always rushing. Beat the big boss guy, get to the exit on the other side of the bridge, survive for 18 turns, etc etc. This basically forces you to charge stupidly into battle just to get there faster rather than setting up. Fighting bosses basically has you sacrificing your weaker members to stall for time on the other enemies while your strongest ones goes over to beat up the boss before the timer runs out. Ones where you need to reach the other side? Yeah fuck that just run you don't have time to stop and kill. If you do you lose the game anyways so keep running and a few will die but eventually you'll get there.
Outside of combat there is basically nothing to do. You can walk around the world map like Final Fantasy Tactics. Revisit old areas where you fought and it either becomes a town or a field. You can grind exp or buy items. There are no classes and everyone can only use one weapon they started off with. Jeanne can transform into a magical warrior once every battle for a limited amount of time and is stupidly overpowered. The only way to win is to have her transform then run across the map killing half the enemies all by herself then have the rest of the party move in to clean up. Later on you're supposed to meet more magical bracelet wearers but I've only gotten one other guy and he looks evil already. Evil mascara and talks like an asshole, I'm 99% sure he's going to betray me at some point.
Its not the most horrifying game ever. The combat is pretty boring yet very annoying because of the turn limit. This coming from someone who actually was ok with the dumb combat of Rhapsody. But that game has charm this game has nothing. You can't possibly like any of the characters. Everyone is either really mopey, a giant jerk, or just plain useless. I hate Jeanne. And I hate Jeanne d'Arc. The storyline is the weakest part of the game. It makes absolutely zero sense. You randomly show up at a war camp and tells everyone to attack the English and the generals are like fuck off little girl go home. Then some asshole evil mascara dude starts talking in his boring monotone evilguy voice and tells everyone to attack and they do and then you charge in and kill everyone and then you're like they'll listen to me! Then you got an arrow into the chest. The generals don't give a shit about you and your friends are "worried" about you now because you're all hurt and shit. Then the other guy gets some like some evil magical powers and cures you with some black mist and he falls sick because he's evil or something. I need to stop trying to make sense of this game. Basically, don't play it.
Monday, May 26, 2014
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Child of Light - A Playable Poem
When I first saw a trailer for this game I knew right ahead I would love this game and it would be amazing. Was I right? Hell yes I was right. This may be the best game I've played in awhile. Although that isn't saying much when all I have to play is terrible games lately. But I would put this up there on my most memorable games played. What originally drew me to the game was just the backgrounds and character art. It just oozes this creative style not often seen in games. The only other game on the top of my head that I have felt that way was Okami, which was also a great game. It may have perked my interest with the art style, but it definitely held my interest with its gorgeous music and whimsical rhymes. Yes, the entire game is spoken in rhyme. Yes, its as charming as it sounds.
Outside of that, the game play isn't bad at all. In fact, its one of the harder RPGs I've played in awhile. From what I hear, normal is more casual for everyone to beat and hard mode you'll actually get smacked around often. I started on hard and it is indeed quite difficult. I've died numerous times, and not just on boss battles but regular encounters can get you killed if you don't fight optimally. The combat reminds me a lot like Grandia, or Mana Khemia. Throughout the game you'll get many characters but you're only able to bring two with you at a time. Each character has different skills for the situation. For example, Rubella the first character you meet, has a fast physical attack with heals and is a supportive character. Finn the next person you meet shortly after has magic attacks for pesky monsters with high physical defense. You yourself is a pure offensive character with high physical power and magical burst damage. Along the way you'll meet more people like Norah, your sister with amazing debuffs like slowing the enemy by 50% and paralyzing skills that stops them for 10 seconds.
When I compared this game to Grandia I am mostly talking about the combat turn bar. Combat is turn based but all the characters will show up on a bar showing when they will attack. You move faster on the bar based on your speed until you reach the attack cutoff section where it will be based on the speed of the move you selected. During this attack portion, any damage you take will interrupt your attack sending you back in time on the bar. You can do this to the enemy as well. So combat becomes a juggle with trying to interrupt them, or blocking to avoid getting interrupted. However, some monsters or bosses will have special moves when they are interrupted like stabbing you back for lots of damage or paralyzing your team. This is to punish you for interrupt spamming. It reminds me of Mana Khemia because you are always constantly switching characters. You have all your party members with you at all times but you can only bring two of them into the field. You may switch members when its your turn to act and will not end your turn unless you are using one character to switch the secondary character with a character that is off screen. That will end your turn and the off screen character will show up at the same location on the bar as your secondary character. For long boss fights, expect to switch constantly to put up debuffs, buffs, different abilities, etc.
Outside of the combat, the game plays like a sidescroller. There are secrets to find, quests to do, chests to open, and monsters to fight. There are puzzles to solve, but they're not very difficult to do. Most of them involves using your firefly. In fact, the game can be played in co-op with another player controlling the firefly. The firefly also helps in combat by healing your allies or slowing down enemies. You start the game waking up in the mysterious land of Lemuria and must find your way home. On your way you meet a seer who tells you the story of Lemuria. Where the Queen of the Light was banished by the Queen of the Night. How the land became overrun by creatures of the night. And how a legendary princess will save them by returning the power of the Moon, the Sun, and the Stars. You'll receive your wings early on and it becomes a whole new game where you can fly around. The writers of this game wanted a fairy tale story told as an epic poem. Like the stories mothers would read to their children. I think they managed to do that perfectly.
If RPGs are your thing then don't pass up this game. The combat is really fun once you start meeting more people, the art and the music will remain gorgeous throughout the game, and the people you meet along the way will start to grow on you. You can't help but laugh when the jester says a sentence that didn't end up rhyming and another character will finish it for her.
Fiddlesticks. Left here to...fester
Pardon me Madame, but are you a jester?
Take a glance at this...note. Perhaps you mean "Letter"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45SIsoPg8K4
Outside of that, the game play isn't bad at all. In fact, its one of the harder RPGs I've played in awhile. From what I hear, normal is more casual for everyone to beat and hard mode you'll actually get smacked around often. I started on hard and it is indeed quite difficult. I've died numerous times, and not just on boss battles but regular encounters can get you killed if you don't fight optimally. The combat reminds me a lot like Grandia, or Mana Khemia. Throughout the game you'll get many characters but you're only able to bring two with you at a time. Each character has different skills for the situation. For example, Rubella the first character you meet, has a fast physical attack with heals and is a supportive character. Finn the next person you meet shortly after has magic attacks for pesky monsters with high physical defense. You yourself is a pure offensive character with high physical power and magical burst damage. Along the way you'll meet more people like Norah, your sister with amazing debuffs like slowing the enemy by 50% and paralyzing skills that stops them for 10 seconds.
When I compared this game to Grandia I am mostly talking about the combat turn bar. Combat is turn based but all the characters will show up on a bar showing when they will attack. You move faster on the bar based on your speed until you reach the attack cutoff section where it will be based on the speed of the move you selected. During this attack portion, any damage you take will interrupt your attack sending you back in time on the bar. You can do this to the enemy as well. So combat becomes a juggle with trying to interrupt them, or blocking to avoid getting interrupted. However, some monsters or bosses will have special moves when they are interrupted like stabbing you back for lots of damage or paralyzing your team. This is to punish you for interrupt spamming. It reminds me of Mana Khemia because you are always constantly switching characters. You have all your party members with you at all times but you can only bring two of them into the field. You may switch members when its your turn to act and will not end your turn unless you are using one character to switch the secondary character with a character that is off screen. That will end your turn and the off screen character will show up at the same location on the bar as your secondary character. For long boss fights, expect to switch constantly to put up debuffs, buffs, different abilities, etc.
Outside of the combat, the game plays like a sidescroller. There are secrets to find, quests to do, chests to open, and monsters to fight. There are puzzles to solve, but they're not very difficult to do. Most of them involves using your firefly. In fact, the game can be played in co-op with another player controlling the firefly. The firefly also helps in combat by healing your allies or slowing down enemies. You start the game waking up in the mysterious land of Lemuria and must find your way home. On your way you meet a seer who tells you the story of Lemuria. Where the Queen of the Light was banished by the Queen of the Night. How the land became overrun by creatures of the night. And how a legendary princess will save them by returning the power of the Moon, the Sun, and the Stars. You'll receive your wings early on and it becomes a whole new game where you can fly around. The writers of this game wanted a fairy tale story told as an epic poem. Like the stories mothers would read to their children. I think they managed to do that perfectly.
If RPGs are your thing then don't pass up this game. The combat is really fun once you start meeting more people, the art and the music will remain gorgeous throughout the game, and the people you meet along the way will start to grow on you. You can't help but laugh when the jester says a sentence that didn't end up rhyming and another character will finish it for her.
Fiddlesticks. Left here to...fester
Pardon me Madame, but are you a jester?
Take a glance at this...note. Perhaps you mean "Letter"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45SIsoPg8K4
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Blackwell Series - Detectives, Mediums, and Ghosts
About eight years ago the first Blackwell game was released called The Blackwell Legacy. However a few years before that a smaller version of the game was released as freeware. It gained so much popularity that they made it into a commercial product, and an entire series. The series just ended with the fifth game and was released a week ago. Its written by Dave Gilbert who made games like The Shivah, Gemini Rue, and Primordia. However the Blackwell series is what he's most known for. If you're a fan of detective work, mysteries, and the occult this will be right up your alley.
You start the series as a confused woman called Rosangela Blackwell, or Rosa for short, dumping the ashes of her deceased aunt off of a bridge. Rosa is a socially awkward writer of sorts for a small paper. You get a job from your boss telling you to fill in for one of the reporters who can't come in. You have to investigate and get the story about the suicide of a college girl. Around this same time, you meet the family ghost, Joey Mallone who worked with your aunt before you. Together the two of you must unravel the mystery and save lost spirits wandering the world. You start off reluctant to take up the role as a spirit medium to send lost spirits to the afterlife but eventually you start to feel like this is your true calling and grow as a person. No longer are you that scared and confused person.
Like all adventure games there are puzzles. Unlike the more common ones where you have to combine items and try weird combinations of objects on doors or fountains and other weird crap, this one is all purely information puzzles. You need information on who this lost spirit is, you then need to somehow convince this lost spirit he or she is dead, and lastly you send them off to the afterlife when you're done. You can find information from anything and it will link you to the next clue and so on. For example you could find a photograph and in the photograph will be a word, or date written on it or in the background. You can then go on the browser in game and type it in to find your next clue. Which leads you to a person. You will have all your clues written down in your trusty notebook and can select clues to combine if you think there is a link. Of course the technology also changes as it changed in real life. While playing as your aunt, you don't get a computer and have to look through a phone book, and in the earlier series you had to go home to search on your computer, while in the later series you get a smart phone to get all your clues and browsing done.
In the series, you not only control Rosa but also your trusty ghost guide Joey Mallone. He cannot actually interact with people or objects but he can pass through doors, walls, objects to look at things. Sometimes you have to send him in a room to spy on the conversation of others for clues, other times you have him look inside drawers or locked houses. Other times there would be ghosts that refuses to respond to Rosa and you must send in Joey to talk to them. Rosa cannot physically touch ghosts so you may need Joey to grab a ghost to get their attention. The duo is nice. If the game just involved Rosa everyone would be bored to death. With the inclusion of Joey the game feels much more entertaining.
Even with all the good points, a good game does have its faults. The game play of the entire series is almost exactly the same. It might not be a bad thing but it almost always involve solving a mystery of a random ghost that has almost no involvement to the story at the very start as a tutorial. Then the credits roll in, then you can go around and do whatever you want. After solving a few mysteries you realize its part of a bigger conspiracy and you solve whatever problem you have and move onto the next game of the series until the finale. The thing is, the conspiracy was never solved at all. There are plot holes that were never explained as well. From what I understand Dave Gilbert didn't want the story to be about the conspiracy, he wanted it to be about the Blackwell women and Joey Mallone. Its their story, not the story of the great conspiracy. Other than that, the story is probably the best I've ever read/played in an adventure game.
If you're a fan of adventure games, you have to try this game out. Even if you aren't you should try this out. It uses a retro graphic style that some people might be turned off from but it does get better as the series progresses, slightly better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knpNvbbqCQE
You start the series as a confused woman called Rosangela Blackwell, or Rosa for short, dumping the ashes of her deceased aunt off of a bridge. Rosa is a socially awkward writer of sorts for a small paper. You get a job from your boss telling you to fill in for one of the reporters who can't come in. You have to investigate and get the story about the suicide of a college girl. Around this same time, you meet the family ghost, Joey Mallone who worked with your aunt before you. Together the two of you must unravel the mystery and save lost spirits wandering the world. You start off reluctant to take up the role as a spirit medium to send lost spirits to the afterlife but eventually you start to feel like this is your true calling and grow as a person. No longer are you that scared and confused person.
Like all adventure games there are puzzles. Unlike the more common ones where you have to combine items and try weird combinations of objects on doors or fountains and other weird crap, this one is all purely information puzzles. You need information on who this lost spirit is, you then need to somehow convince this lost spirit he or she is dead, and lastly you send them off to the afterlife when you're done. You can find information from anything and it will link you to the next clue and so on. For example you could find a photograph and in the photograph will be a word, or date written on it or in the background. You can then go on the browser in game and type it in to find your next clue. Which leads you to a person. You will have all your clues written down in your trusty notebook and can select clues to combine if you think there is a link. Of course the technology also changes as it changed in real life. While playing as your aunt, you don't get a computer and have to look through a phone book, and in the earlier series you had to go home to search on your computer, while in the later series you get a smart phone to get all your clues and browsing done.
In the series, you not only control Rosa but also your trusty ghost guide Joey Mallone. He cannot actually interact with people or objects but he can pass through doors, walls, objects to look at things. Sometimes you have to send him in a room to spy on the conversation of others for clues, other times you have him look inside drawers or locked houses. Other times there would be ghosts that refuses to respond to Rosa and you must send in Joey to talk to them. Rosa cannot physically touch ghosts so you may need Joey to grab a ghost to get their attention. The duo is nice. If the game just involved Rosa everyone would be bored to death. With the inclusion of Joey the game feels much more entertaining.
Even with all the good points, a good game does have its faults. The game play of the entire series is almost exactly the same. It might not be a bad thing but it almost always involve solving a mystery of a random ghost that has almost no involvement to the story at the very start as a tutorial. Then the credits roll in, then you can go around and do whatever you want. After solving a few mysteries you realize its part of a bigger conspiracy and you solve whatever problem you have and move onto the next game of the series until the finale. The thing is, the conspiracy was never solved at all. There are plot holes that were never explained as well. From what I understand Dave Gilbert didn't want the story to be about the conspiracy, he wanted it to be about the Blackwell women and Joey Mallone. Its their story, not the story of the great conspiracy. Other than that, the story is probably the best I've ever read/played in an adventure game.
If you're a fan of adventure games, you have to try this game out. Even if you aren't you should try this out. It uses a retro graphic style that some people might be turned off from but it does get better as the series progresses, slightly better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knpNvbbqCQE
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