Yes, I did say I would try Ring * Dream next, and I did just that. I ended up liking it quite a bit so I’ll probably play it on and off from now on. There’ll be plenty of time to post about it even after the Hangame x Success event is over, so there’s no need to rush. Instead I’ll focus on the last game in the event, Eiyuu RPG – Seiiki no Boukensha (Adventurers of the Sacred Land). This shouldn’t take long, because I dropped it quickly.
I was all set to like Eiyuu RPG too, since it was marketed as a dungeon crawler, and I love dungeon crawlers. It’s also a shinier, more polished, simplified and updated version of Eiyuu Chronicle, and heaven knows that game needed updating. What I’m happiest about is that they actually used a proper font for the menus now instead of going with the Japanese equivalent of Arial/Times New Roman. A good font adds a lot. Now the main screen looks like this:
And your character sheet looks like this:
Fewer stats, bigger letters, easier to understand all around. There’s still a lot you can do with your character by way of recreation, reclassing, skill point distribution and so on, but now you at least understand what you’re trying to do.
In short Eiyuu RPG looks snazzier and is much easier to understand than Eiyuu Chronicle. The question now is, does it play better? Or more to the point: does it play at all? Clunky as it was, Chronicle did at least let you fight all those SRPG battles yourself. Eiyuu RPG just makes you sit back and watch as your adventurers go out exploring/fighting/treasure-hunting. It’s much like how Ore ni Hatarake or FFCC: My Life as a King play out where your focus is on training and equipping adventurers rather than on battling yourself. Except those games were honest enough not to market themselves as “dungeon RPGs.” I feel silly that I was ever excited about this game.
Look but don’t touch!
It’s not like that kind of game is bad or anything, but if I’m going to waste time waiting for a browser game to load, waiting for dungeons to load, waiting for stamina bars to fill up, tweaking stats, buying potions and weapons and armors and skills and all the other little annoyances involved in a free-to-play game then I want a proper satisfying experience, not just “You beat some trolls in a cave, the end” kind of messages.
I’m not going to tell Success what kind of game they should or shouldn’t create, but I do know the kind of game I will or won’t spend my time on. Dungeon crawler, yes. Dungeon-looker, no. I didn’t even bother giving it a chance, I just finished the tutorial and hightailed it out of there. Waste of time. Neeeext!
