I forced myself to finish Aoi Sora no Neosphere
Still, I’m not going to complain too much this time. Neosphere is one of those games where objectively-speaking I can see the quality, but I can also categorically state that it’s not my kind of game. The visual novel : sim game balance was skewed way too much in favor of the former.
Despite being marketed as a town-building game rather than as a visual novel, Aoi Sora no Neosphere is definitely a game you play for the story and the characters. Any alchemy and sim elements added are just for whiling away the time while waiting for the next bit of story to unlock. I had all segments of the country at 100% by December, and I submitted the necessary papers to the castle to 100% the country shortly afterwards. The remaining 4 months of the game were just torture.
On the plus side, Neosphere has a story far better than any loli yuri visual novel has the right to possess. Those parts I didn’t mash O through were interesting enough that I was looking forward to getting some kind of conclusion to the whole queen vs. council power struggle at the end. No such luck though. The story itself was fairly serious, but the side events (those I didn’t mash O through) could be very amusing. While I liked Nanoca and her workshop crew best, the other characters are both memorable and likeable, even those like Nene and Elincie that I expected to hate. On the alchemy front, while the item selection is a bit anemic for an Atelier veteran like me, there are still almost 300 items to collect and/or synthesize. And I mustn’t forget a shout out to my favorite bright happy colors! And cheerful music!
If only the story-alchemy ratio had been 20-80 instead of vice versa. And if only there had been more to reconstruction than just researching, making and selling stuff. The developers started out well by making it so that different areas would grow more or less depending on what you sold there, but you can basically ignore all that and sell everything everywhere with no trouble.
For all that, your efforts have absolutely no effect on story events, at least prior to 1st April. Not only that, but you’ll probably regret it if you clear too many ruins and allow the townspeople to rebuild their city too soon, because you won’t be able to construct a lot of public facilities (which contribute nothing to the country’s development, strangely enough). By the time I realized my mistake it was too late.
It’s not like Neosphere ever became bad, but for the last few months of the game there was nothing meaningful to do because all the towns were already at 100%. The towns need to improve at a slower pace, and recipes need to be doled out more sparingly so you’re getting new things at every stage. There also needs to be more to do besides read-read-read-make stuff-sell stuff. I’m not asking for combat, necessarily. Maybe mini-games. Actual exploration. Off-beat uses for some of the more unusual items I make. For example I get to make a number of (toy?) cars over the course of the game. Let me race or ride them, or both. Let me decorate my studio with the bed and candles and jewels. Let me take pictures with the mini-camera. Not necessarily any or all of these, but just add more interesting elements to the game.
Anyway, tl;dr, Aoi Sora no Neosphere is a below-average simulation game but a pretty good visual novel. Depending on your tastes and expectations, you might either enjoy it thoroughly or ultimately find it as disappointing as I did. For my part, it’s just as well that Kogado isn’t making any more of these. I don’t want to be any more let down than I already am.
Wow, it’s a shame you didn’t get the “True ending”, all the resolution to the whole “Queen vs Council” plot is ALL there in that ending and I was personally satisfied with how it ended.
The Normal ending is just so poorly done and unsatisfying I just want to slap someone (“Well, I’m done with reconstruction, time to ditch everyone in this town, bye!”)
I dunno, maybe in a couple of years time you can get the PSP version and fast forward all the text or something, I doubt anyone put up the true ending on Youtube.
Other than that, yeah, pretty much agreed with a lot of the post’s sentiment: the reason I want to see a sequel is because I still think its “Town simulation/Atelier” concept could be improved and made more fun.
Heck, I wouldn’t mind if Gust bought up the license and made some kind of crossover, I mean they were doing that whole Nora Time Studio and Atelier Idea Factory thing in the past… plus Gust’s a lot more qualified in game making.
Maybe in a couple of years I might think about playing it again, but then I’ll just fast-forward the whole game to get to the ending, making it a waste of money.
One thing I don’t want it for Gust to get the license. I love Gust and all, but I really want to see what other developers can do with the “crafting game” idea, even if they do fall flat on their faces in the attempt.
Well, as far as wasting money goes… ahem ahem “alternative methods”, yes.
You know, I got a feeling Gust really cornered the market on Item Crafting Simulation games, they still manage to release them yearly, which is pretty shocking in today’s gaming industry. Is there any other companies even making attempts at it?
Not among the major publishers AFAIK, though I know at least one indie publisher (Inutoneko) that releases crafting/trading sims. Nothing against Gust, more power to them. One just gets tired of eating steak and potatoes every day.
It’s the same reason why I’m so interested in Shepherd’s Crossing. I’ve seen what Marvelous has to offer in terms of farming games, and I really like it, but I can’t help wanting to try something new sometimes.
Recently I decided to replay the first game of this series.
It’s interesting to see what they fixed in Neosphere and what weaknesses they left.
Both games have really unsatisfying endings if you don’t trigger the conditions for True Endings. Apparently, each game has two different True Ending splits and it kind of boggles the mind that they expect anyone to play multiple times because the gameplay is kind of dull and simple compared to how complex Atelier’s crafting system is. I mean, for me I need like several years in between plays (I got the “Regular Ending” the last time and got discouraged). At the very least maybe the ending criterias shouldn’t involve reading an FAQ to figure out.
It’s also kind of strange that the True Ending conditions don’t really seem to care about your town-rebuilding efforts at all, just triggering certain conditions like crafting a specific item. Once I was locked onto the ending, I actually crafted a few items, then went “wait, why the hell am I wasting time?” and just slept through the “game” parts while reading the plot.
I feel like the simplistic crafting system does kind of hinders the plot a bit at times. Like, if the problem the character needs to solve is “Someone has space cancer and will die soon”, then a “NEW: Space cancer cure” item will pop up, you craft it, and congratulations – you cured them and they won’t die. I imagine if the gameplay was a bit more complex that you have to struggle a little bit to accomplish your crafting task, it would probably be more rewarding rather than trite.
Neosphere made a game only slightly more complex (in Tristia you didn’t even need to care about which order you sell items in… like at all) but it added a whole bunch of quality of life features, like being able to “quick-travel” to newly unlocked items instead of scrolling through 7 pages in late-game just to find the one item that you have to craft because your friends are annoying you to do something for them.
(I was tired and missed out on one, which I got a rude awakening when an “hey, you failed the task” event popped up and locked me out of an ending. Had to replay hours because of that)
Tenzan clearing rubble and some of the new research methods weren’t in the original and changed things up a little, I think, but not enough to last the length of the game.
Nene, Faury and Rafale (sp) first show up in this game and in retrospect, it feels kind of pointless to add them to Neosphere (in a storyline sense, rather than “it’s fun to have them around” sense) since they already completed their arc in Tristia. They sort of just show up and leech off Nanoka for a while before going off in Neosphere.
I still like these games, but boy would either one of 1)way better gameplay or 2) ability to just skip all the gameplay parts once you beat the game once would really improve them.
Wow that’s a lot of words on a game I doubt most people care about.
Also Cyberfront who published the PSP version of the game went bankrupt for quite some time, oh well.
I’m in favor of solution 1) much better gameplay. The story was interesting and all, but even if you skipped the gameplay it would still take hours to replay the game. I’m not *that* crazy about visual novels and the story wasn’t *thaaaat* good so I doubt I would ever replay it. I’m interested in playing the Tristia PSP remake, but I’ll probably use a FAQ from the outset and save myself the trouble.
Still all the flaws wouldn’t be as tragic if the series wasn’t completely dead, because then I could hope for better sequels. Though then again if the first two games had been that good to begin with maybe the series wouldn’t have veered completely off track and then disappeared. I hope someone revives it someday. It’s no fair Gust having a monopoly on “cute girls making stuff” games.
Replayed this recently.
Oh, and I can confirm that the PC version has a text fast forward feature.
The ending criterias is kind of wacked – there are supposedly two ending variations that doesn’t end with like a stupid sudden stop but I can’t find anywhere which lists the exact conditions and the one I can’t get is the one which you apparently have to play “good, but not TOO good” – I can never reach that breaking point without getting the canon ending of the game.
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There’s a bit of stir on Japanese boards because the parent company is actually releasing a (unrelated to this series) new VN when their last release was like 3 years ago which means that they aren’t completely dead and some people are crossing their fingers for a revival of this particular series.
That being said, VNs are way easier to make and less complex than Crafting Simulations so it’s still a bit doubtful. JP people seem to mostly hang around and kind of make fun of how the series is kind of in a zombie-like “merchandise production only” state like Sakura Wars (actually, I have no idea whether any merchandise of that is still being made anymore)
Visual novel creation is like the basics of the basics, plus they sell pretty well in Japan regardless, so why put in the effort of making a proper game when they’ll lap up a VN just fine? The company is still dead to me for now.