I did say Luminous Arc Infinity wasn’t that bad, but it’s not that good either. With my new “It is enough to play a little bit” motto, I don’t see the need to force myself to play the whole thing when I’m not really enjoying it. Everything it does has been done better by Stella Glow, Ar Tonelico, the other Luminous Arc games and basically any other harem RPG in existence. “There’s this guy and all these girls are gonna fall in love with him and then they’re going to save the world.” Aight, I get it. If the battles weren’t so sluggish and the music was actually good like you’d expect of a music-based SRPG I might stick around, but LAI doesn’t have any of that so it’s time to bail.
Currently playing: Chaos Rings III. Normally I like to play games in release order, but I’ve heard very mixed things about the earlier Chaos Rings games so I’m starting from the end and working my way backwards. Except not really because CRIII isn’t impressing me so I’m not motivated to play the others.
When I say “not impressing me,” I don’t mean it sucks. I really like the super-generic “Boy wants to go adventuring” story, and the idea of teaming up with like-minded buddies to explore an unchartered planet is right up my alley. There’s just one small problem – Chaos Rings III was originally a mobile game, so it has some unpleasant mobile game characteristics left over that make it a chore to play.
Chief among them is the fact that MP only recovers at a rate of 1 MP per minute. MINUTE. There are a few MP refilling items but they can’t be bought in stores (yet?) and I have no money anyway. Seems like originally you were supposed to pay real-life money or grind for in-game coins to get around that but 1) You can’t pay money in the offline VITA version and 2) Grind? Me? Don’t you know 2019 is my Year of No Grinding?
I’ve heard of workarounds like resetting your VITA clock for coins and stuff, but I’m not into the game enough to bother with all that. And of course, since MP is majorly time gated, they made the game so magic attacks and hitting enemy weaknesses does much more damage and ends battles much faster than trying to auto-attack your way out. Even more cleverly, instead of your MP cap rising as you level up, it only rises once your party unlocks a certain number of “Genes” (summon cards) – i.e. either spend money or grind, there’s no way around it.
Chances are high that this is the first and last post I’ll make about Chaos Rings III, so I’ll say everything I have to say once and for all. It’s a very charming, by-the-book RPG and they’ve got some good combat ideas like chaining combos and joint-casting magic and stuff. The stages are very colorful in an anime kind of way and all the characters I’ve met so far have been very nice. Even the music and voice-acting is above-average.
It’s just that the MP thing is a near deal-breaker. I understand that this game came out in the early days of mobile game development when developers were still fumbling around for a monetization method. This is better than gacha for sure. But the result is still an awkward mix of regular RPG and irritating time-gating for time-gating’s sake which interferes with the simple fun I’m trying to have. You get all these cool Genes and abilities but can’t use them freely because you’re conserving MP. Or you shoot everything off in the first two or three battles and do scratch damage for the rest of the stage. Either way it sucks.
All that said, there’s the definite possibility that things might improve once I get more powerful Genes and a higher MP cap. Or if I can get enough money to buy some good equipment so I can do real damage with regular attacks. Though, this being a mobile game, the way to get good stuff is clearly to earn it through daily login bonuses, grind for it in the Coliseum (no, please, no) or grind it out in quests. I don’t know if I want to do all that for a nice but very ordinary RPG. Which is why I say I’m most likely done with Chaos Rings III and the rest of the Chaos Rings series. As long as there are other RPGs in my VITA, 3DS and PS2 backlog, I’d rather focus on those and leave the mediocre games for later. Or never, never sounds good.
This reminds me of what I hated about Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner. You strengthened your monsters by fusing them with quartz. As a hurdle to not get too powerful ones too quickly, instead of something feasable like Megami Tensei level restrictions or storyline gating or something, the fusion took real time. So unless you cheated via the PSPs internal clock, you had to wait between 30 minutes and 9 Hours for you monster to be baked.
Lol, I remember. I totally cheated with the clock a few times. But in catch-em-all games like that, you regularly replace monsters with new ones anyway, so I didn’t try too hard. Just like I’m not going to try too hard with Chaos Rings III.
Happy New Year, Kina! (Better late than never. ^^)
Chaos Rings III has been on my radar for years now, going in and out of my Vita wish list. It sure looks gorgeous enough, and I dig simple, straightforward RPGs as a rule, so maybe I’m going to cave in in the end. I have to ask, though: are MP-based attacks mandatory to win fights, or can you force your way through by spamming regular attacks? I don’t mind if battles are slower with magic, as long as I can progress unhindered.
You can totally brute force your way through with normal attacks and save the MP for boss fights. And you can grind up magic refilling coins through side quests and the Colosseum. You will probably have higher MP the later you get into the game as well. It just happens that I have other games with less irritating systems on my To Play list right now so Chaos Rings is low on my priority list.