Nnnn… so sleepy… Let’s make this quick. I reloaded from the Kakeru save I made midway through Kariya’s route and used that to get Kakeru’s happy end. As I’d suspected, meeting him for the after-school chat does make things awkward for a while. Especially since Kakeru doesn’t actually confess. He admits he’s had feelings for Yui for years but says he doesn’t feel ready to formally ask her out yet. So it’s a refusal to confess, more or less. You interrupted my busy schedule for that?
Later on he talks to Yui about why he’s going through a slump in his soccer game – he broke his leg before and is subconsciously terrified of breaking it again. She offers some trite words of encouragement, Kakeru is suitably gratified and he goes on to bend it like Beckham once again. Then he confesses, then she gives him the “I’ve loved you all along too but wouldn’t have known it if you hadn’t said anything” speech and then they start dating. The same making-out-on-every-street corner that Kariya’s route suffered from.
It’s even worse than Kariya’s route because at least Kariya and Yui had new and exciting things to talk about. With Kakeru and Yui every other conversation starts with “Hey, remember that time when we…” and goes on for ages blah blah blah childhood memories blah blah it was so much fun blah blah blah. I call it the “Stranger’s Family Reunion” problem. It really makes the gamer feel left out when the characters are always in their own little world going over their own little memories we are not privy to. Once would be enough, but every single conversation is just depressing. This has put me off playing any other childhood friend routes in other otome games. I am soooo sorry for intruding on your happy memories.
Well, enough of that. Kakeru’s a nice guy. Really nice guy. What does he see in that Yui girl anyway? Hmph. Moving on, I’m going to give Hatsukare Renai Debut Sengen a break and play some other stuff for a while. And by ‘other stuff’ I mean I can’t wait to start Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy. I want to do some dungeon-crawling, the more mindless the better. But first I need some painkillers and a nap. Too sleepy…
Non-update: Managed to play an hour of Operation Abyss and haven’t been able to touch it since. I’m just too busy ;____; And it looks like I’ll be busy till early June at the latest. Waaah…
Further non-update: Played a little Fire Emblem Echoes as well. Less than an hour. Most of that was spent watching the characters talk and talk. I think I’ll prioritize Operation Abyss over this, I’m not in the mood to be talked at right now.
Regarding the New Tokyo Legacys… I doubt it’ll turn out to be much of a problem to you, but keep in mind these are remakes of the older Generation Xth indie games, which in and on themselves was Team Muramasa copying their own Wizardry Xth games after losing the rights to the franchises name. So there is a bit leftover clunkyness even in the remakes. It’s easy enough to get over once you expect it being there.
Yah, that’s pretty much how I felt about it as well; if you go into it expecting the clucky controls you kinda get used to it after awhile. I found that lack of documentation on some game mechanics to be way more vexing than the control issues. For example, I didn’t know Type were basically the same thing as Race in other Experience games and there are tons of weapons with personality, Blood Code AND Type restrictions so it wasn’t until a few missions into the game that I found out my Priest couldn’t use half the hammers in the game. Also, the game doesn’t tell certain details such as you things like you need 25 SPD to dual-wield without a damage penalty to the sub-weapon, that Academic’s abilities scales with 4 different stats or that maximum amounts of points you can put into a single stat is the starting value+20. Still, I’m half way into semester 2 and still am enjoying the game a lot.
I didn’t have that much damage to relate their teminology to what I’m used to (e.g. Blood = Alignment, Type = Race), but I also tried (with strong emphasis on this word) playing the first Generation Xth a couple years ago when the fantranslation happened.
It’s also not so unfamiliar to Class of Heroes, but I think that one uses a lot of the Wizardry Xth code too, so it makes sense.
It isn’t well documented, I agree, but they also made the difficulty of the remakes more lenient so you don’t have to play perfectly and know all the ins and outs from the word go either :3
“25 SPD to dual-wield without a damage penalty to the sub-weapon” and “starting value+20” for stats both happen in Stranger of Sword City, don’t they? I played a little bit last night but didn’t really get far. I’m using the generic starting party they gave me. So far, so good.
Yep they did, it’s just a bit of nitpicking on my part really since I went through their in-game user manual and they make no mention of those things.
The starter party is quite solid except one little thing; they’re all aligned good. To make the most out of the Unity system in this game, you need 3 neutral+3 good or 3 neutral+3 evil. It’s not a huge deal and you can change character’s alignment later at the Clinic by using therapy. They tell you how to do it in the in-game manual.
I opened up the in-game manual, eep, wall of text! Closed it again. I should really read that thing… when I get stuck.
Finished exploring the first dungeon (Gakudo Sewer). All enemies can be beaten by mashing Attack. Nothing new to report. Over and out.
can’t beat the good old mash attack method of beating an Experience dungeon crawler! I just reached post-game of Abyss myself, that strategy pretty much work all the way past the ending. Maybe the post-game stuff will be harder but I doubt it. 😀
What, already?! (o____o) What’s your total play time?
46 hours in, but I haven’t done the post-game dungeon and quests yet. I think it’ll probably be around 55~60 by the end if I don’t suddenly go mad and decide to grind to level 99 or something.
Ah, okay. Then I’ll be done in… 46 more days, at the pace I’m going. I thought the game was super-short or something. I need meaty dungeons!
The game’s not that short because they bundled first two Generation Xth games into this one. In case you hit an early max level, don’t panic – that’s why and once you reach what was the beginning of the second game, it goes away.
I’m still level 1 ^^;; I won’t have to worry about level caps for a long time.
Level 3 now, whee!