Hello!
I managed to pull off a glorious victory in Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of The Cursed King, and finally can put that game to rest for a while. The final boss battle was actually quest fun, staying just tense enough to keep me on my toes (most turn-based games suck at this, being heavily in my favor or that of the boss). The ending itself was fairly satisfying, and had the added bonus of being playable, letting the hero tear around a bit and revel in accolades and a bit of daring-do.
Now that we've reached the end of the main game (there's some serious post-game content, but I'm staying away for now), I have some final thoughts to share.
The Alchemy Pot mechanic is horribly flawed; I know I've been beating this poor mummified horse, but in the end this mechanic stretched what have been a 60 or so hour game into just shy of 90. Thirty hours devoted to grinding and keeping the equipment up to snuff. I'm grateful that they fixed it in the remake.
The Monster Arena is far more enjoyable, letting my collect a few critters and conquering other critters. The final rank was very enjoyable, with some fun cameos, spectacle, and a very tense final battle (with Hackzilla the dinosaur lumberjack snatching victory in desperate combat for my team, all hail Vanguard Critters). This was a side-game done right!
Speaking of which, the monsters themselves were an absolute blast, with just the right combination of ebullient silliness and danger to keep things fresh. They were part and parcel of how this game and the series advocates that video games should be fun. Fun fact: Most of the spells are funky onomatopoeia, and there's an explosive elemental set (!) named Bang, Boom, and Kaboom. Yes we have a game where you can spam Kaboom to harvest your foes if you so wish (or you can Fizzle, Sizzle, Crackle, Zap, Woosh, or Whack them). And you can summon a swarm of angry geezers to trample your foes!
In any case, it was an absolute blast; The Harvest Has Triumphed once again. I'm staying away for overwrought angst-fest RPGs for a little while longer, and playing Atelier Iris 2: The Azoth of Destiny once again. Bring on the crafting!
Showing posts with label beat the crap out of a bed and sleep on the corpse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beat the crap out of a bed and sleep on the corpse. Show all posts
Thursday, July 27, 2017
Thursday, February 23, 2017
Piledrive the Ocean!
As could be expected, matters are well in hand for Tales of Legendia. I've handled the 'main' quest and now moved on to the 'character' questlines. The final series of boss battles proved to be just plain mean this go-around, to the point that I believe that my party wound up underleveled somehow. This wasn't that much of a problem, but thanks to the GRADE scoring system, I managed to get punished pretty good for daring to use healing items in combat, on top of being punished for succumbing to Final Boss Death Moves of Cheese. But I got to throw and body slam the embodiment of the damn ocean, so it's all good.
The character quests...well, they're far from bad, but they feel like they've been tacked on more than anything else. I've heard the reasoning. They didn't have the budget to get everything polished just right. They didn't think this was going to be primary plot material for a while. They had deadlines. Yadda yadda. But what is comes down to that the character quests are by and large a series of sidequests, with attendant sidequest characteristics. They're primarily unvoiced (outside of nice little animated cutscenes at the end of each). They take you the all the same dungeons and locations you've already harvested your way through for often flimsy reasons. While the final payoff is worth it, I can understand why a lot of player frustration comes from here.
It takes a wonderful, quirky and thoughtful PS2 RPG and reduces it to a dungeon crawl from two or even three consoles generations prior with PS2 production values. I happen to like old-school dungeon crawling, and I'm still getting my fun out of it, but I admit that it cheapens the experience somewhat. At least I get all sorts of sweet shinies to play with and eventually get to beat the snot of out a goddess of despair. The Harvest Never Rests!
The character quests...well, they're far from bad, but they feel like they've been tacked on more than anything else. I've heard the reasoning. They didn't have the budget to get everything polished just right. They didn't think this was going to be primary plot material for a while. They had deadlines. Yadda yadda. But what is comes down to that the character quests are by and large a series of sidequests, with attendant sidequest characteristics. They're primarily unvoiced (outside of nice little animated cutscenes at the end of each). They take you the all the same dungeons and locations you've already harvested your way through for often flimsy reasons. While the final payoff is worth it, I can understand why a lot of player frustration comes from here.
It takes a wonderful, quirky and thoughtful PS2 RPG and reduces it to a dungeon crawl from two or even three consoles generations prior with PS2 production values. I happen to like old-school dungeon crawling, and I'm still getting my fun out of it, but I admit that it cheapens the experience somewhat. At least I get all sorts of sweet shinies to play with and eventually get to beat the snot of out a goddess of despair. The Harvest Never Rests!
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
That Bed Is Clearly Evil, Power Slam It!
Just a quick post this time. After some minor shenanigans deciding on which game to unleash the Harvest upon, I went ahead and trotted out my copy of Tales of Legendia.
This game is a bit special to me since it helped kickstart my resurrected passion for RPGs and started the longest and most consistent string of video game victories, plus it introduced me to the wonders of the Tales series; a bit ironic since this supposedly one of the black sheep installments among fans.
Legendia is still proving to a blast to play. The graphics and sound are absolutely gorgeous, using bright, almost toy-like pre-renders and some of the most serene and outright delicate scores I've ever encountered. That's no to say there's no tunes to get your blood flowing; this game is home to In Pursuit/Pursuing Shirley, one of the funkiest pieces I've ever encountered (and the track seller, by the way), or locations that are awe-inspiring and crazy-awesome.
The combat is also still pretty fun, especially with a main character that actually tears around beat the snot out of the local freaks with martial arts. The throw mechanics are especially amusing, leading to situations where you unleash the judo on things like dragons, whales, freaky battleship tortoise things, and giant maneating canopy beds. That's not even going into the boss line-up, which includes the personification of a water-worlds entire freakin' ocean and a death goddess. Yeah, welcome to Tales. The Harvest Never Rests!
This game is a bit special to me since it helped kickstart my resurrected passion for RPGs and started the longest and most consistent string of video game victories, plus it introduced me to the wonders of the Tales series; a bit ironic since this supposedly one of the black sheep installments among fans.
Legendia is still proving to a blast to play. The graphics and sound are absolutely gorgeous, using bright, almost toy-like pre-renders and some of the most serene and outright delicate scores I've ever encountered. That's no to say there's no tunes to get your blood flowing; this game is home to In Pursuit/Pursuing Shirley, one of the funkiest pieces I've ever encountered (and the track seller, by the way), or locations that are awe-inspiring and crazy-awesome.
The combat is also still pretty fun, especially with a main character that actually tears around beat the snot out of the local freaks with martial arts. The throw mechanics are especially amusing, leading to situations where you unleash the judo on things like dragons, whales, freaky battleship tortoise things, and giant maneating canopy beds. That's not even going into the boss line-up, which includes the personification of a water-worlds entire freakin' ocean and a death goddess. Yeah, welcome to Tales. The Harvest Never Rests!
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