Ending a Mad Dream

Here we are again; a final dungeon.  I already tore my way through the thing and walked back out, so I can bit of extra grinding and fiddling with the crafting system.  Talking Sword Sauron is probably quite bemused at my antics.

I've always found the Temple of Creation to be something of a disappointment (except for the kickass soundtrack Battle in the Sunlight), since it goes right back to generic looking pillars and tiles, with only a hint of unique elements, and recycling a much earlier tileset (granted, it's the cool looking giant runestone tileset).  It stands in contrast to the characterful Vintavne dungeon most players have just been through.

Otherwise, things are progressing quite well, and really i'm just holding off beating the game again so I muck about a bit.  I've actually progressed a fair bit faster than normal, to the point where I don't have the main character's final weapon and best move unlocked, and thanks to the lessons I learned from Rorona, I've actually managed to make several of the more expensive-to-make combat items a lot more practical to produce.

It's been a blast, and playing a game that relies on harvesting materials and making your own gear just has its own special charm.  There's a lot of things to love in this game, and though there are some rough spots (the storyline is usual JRPG fare, the dungeons are blocky and like to recycle graphics, there's a couple of battle backgrounds that do weird things if the screens gets too busy or flashy) it's still very much a joy to play.

I'm probably overthinking it and speculating a bit too hard, but there's just enough hints and similarities to make me wonder if Gust (the developer behind Atelier) wound up with a bunch of old Square employees that wanted make good World of Mana games really bad.  The colorful drawn backgrounds, the emphasis on quirky elemental spirits (with some really freaky elements represented), and the emphasis on Mana and a goddess-like figure that controlled it (complete with a great disaster that ultimately sealed her away); there's just too many paralells.

In any case, the game is coming to a close, and I'll pull out a new one as planned.  As I've already mentioned, I pulled out Iris 2 for a bit of walking down memory lane and as a mental palate cleanser, and it was very much worth it.  I'm still not sure where the Harvest will go next, maybe something involving space pirates or a guy who punches demons or fantasy Western gunslingers or something.