Finished Fire Emblem: Awakening (ending spoilers)

fire emblem validar fightWent for the ending where MC kills off Grima for good. Supposedly at the expense of her own life, but she survives just fine. The final boss was a bit of a joke, though she still managed to wipe out both Maribelle and Morgan when they got too close. This marks the first time I have ever finished a Fire Emblem with less than a full cohort, but it was too much trouble to restart the battle. Final thoughts on Fire Emblem Awakening follow.

The difficulty setting

I’m sad that I screwed myself out of enjoyment by picking the easiest difficulty to play on. Actually I should lay some of the blame at Nintendo’s feet for labeling the “Easy” setting “Normal.” There’s no way in hell that thing is Normal; it must be a joke. I like SRPGs for the “just killing stuff with my friends” feel, but when that “stuff” doesn’t even try to fight back, it stops being a game and becomes something cowardly and barbaric, like a foxhunt.

The ridiculous ease made nonsense of all the game mechanics. It doesn’t matter what weapons you use. I used steel swords and lances well into the late chapters just to keep enemies alive longer and prolong the fun. It doesn’t matter who you breed with whom, because the children will be overpowered anyway. And you don’t even need those children because the adults are more than enough to take everyone on. I completely, totally and utterly ignored skills. I never paired anyone up (as in joint attacks, not hookups) and never changed a class. The forgery system went to waste because I had more weapons and items than I could use. The list goes on and on. Playing on “Normal” takes all the fun out of the game.

The further I went, the more I wish I had restarted at a more appropriate difficulty level. Unfortunately I was playing a borrowed game and wanted to finish as soon as possible. But I really should have risked it anyway. I like to think it would have improved matters tremendously. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Fire Emblem: Awakening – Akira Toriyama called. He wants his story back.

fire_emblem_awakening_box_art_europeI’m an SRPG fan, and I have a soft spot for Fire Emblem in particular. The only reason I haven’t posted on FE since I started this blog 4 years ago is that Intelligent Systems hasn’t made an FE worth playing since then.

That said, I don’t like Fire Emblem enough to buy a 3DS for, so I just laid low and bided my time until someone I knew bought one. Then I pounced. Playing a borrowed game on a borrowed handheld means I’m on borrowed time, which means I have to finish Fire Emblem Awakening quickly. It doesn’t affect my gameplay though – I always rush through FEs. But it does mean I won’t write anything long today, just a few notes as at Chapter 18.

(Some spoilers below)

– Easiest FE since Sacred Stones. I’m not even talking about the availability of free battles. It’s more stuff like how kind the RNG is this time, and how the game throws Physics, Rescues, Master Seals and all manner of buffing items and super weapons at you left, right, center. In fact, this feels a lot like an FE8 remake, with some time-traveling thrown in.

– The opening sequence with the traitor thing reminded me of the Chrono Cross opening. Too bad that game was all downhill from there.

– “Everyone’s dead in my timeline, so I’m going to travel back and change things.” y halo thar, Trunks. Although if I remember my Dragon Ball Z correctly, Trunks traveling back in time simply created a different timeline which had no effect on his original timeline, so I’m betting things will work out the same in this case.

– Perma-death is not permanent enough. When your party members get killed, they usually mumble something like “I must retreat and live a quiet life far from the battlefield” blah blah blah. You can’t run away, that’s cheating! People should die when they are killed!

– Supports are a PITA. In most FEs I don’t go out of my way to create supports, but here I’m seemingly expected to pair people up so they can have kids. Kids I don’t even use anyway, because I’m happy with my existing crew. Plus they might break the game even further, and I can’t have that. Can anyone confirm for me, in a non-spoilerish way, whether I’ll be penalized for not producing any more kids? I just want to finish the game.

– Excellent localization as always from the Nintendo team. The dialogue really sparkles, though they did go a bit overboard with the flowery language this time. And “dastard”? Yeah, it’s a word, but who ever says that?

– Lon’qu, Virion, Miriel. Between them they probably have 50% of all in-game kills. Why are they so darned good?!

– And why is my main character so useless?! Both her magic and her physical attacks are rubbish. She’s only good for her S-support with Chrom, and I’m kinda regretting that right now. Can anyone confirm for me, again in a non-spoilerish way, if I’ll be penalized for benching her for good? I’m getting to the point where I want to finalize my party.

– Sidequests. I like sidequests. I think I lost out on something by letting all those villagers die that other time, though. ;___;

Apart from those few nagging issues I’m having a great time. I mean, it’s Fire Emblem, after all. Apart from the abomination known only as Shadow Dragon, all the other ones I’ve tried have been above-average at worst. I’ll try and post something a little more comprehensive once I actually finish the game.

Doki Doki Suikoden – Too many crotch shots

dokisui_frontIf you read that title and thought, “There’s no such thing as too many crotch shots” then congratulations! You just found the perfect video game. You can die happy now.

I first became interested in Doki Doki Suikoden when I watched a video about it on Youtube. This was shortly after I’d finished Motto Nuga-Cel, so I was amused and intrigued to learn that there’s more than one Japanese game out there where you fight by stripping girls to their underwear. In retrospect I shouldn’t have been surprised at all. It’s just typical Japan.

The decisive difference between Dokisui and Nuga-Cel is that the latter is actually a game. The former is a visual novel. In Nuga-Cel you’re trying to take over Tokyo. Stripping is just a means to that end. In Dokisui, the whole point of the experience is girls, girls, girls. You don’t have to strip the girls there either, but then there’s no other point to the game.

Sure, lots of people aren’t bothered by excessive fanservice. Some people would even buy an entire game just for that, but I’m not one of those. If the underlying game/story is good enough I can ignore the panties and focus on that. But otherwise I’m not so bored or desperate that I’ll play just anything no matter how cheap and unappealing.

And so I played Doki Doki Suikoden for for 2-3 hours and it was a real disappointment, even for a visual novel. The character designs aren’t exactly bad, and the art in general is more than decent, but not enough to make up for the lacking nature of everything else. The story is so typical it doesn’t even bear mentioning. If I recall correctly, my main character is a transfer student who just moved back to his old town after 10 years. On his way to school the first day, he runs into a girl with her skirt flipped up for all the world to see. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Summon Night 3 – Fine game, but a little too long

summon night 3_frontAlso the story needed a bit more work. Before I proceed, I must confess that I haven’t finished Summon Night 3 and don’t intend to do so. I hate bosses with endlessly spawning minions, so I quit the boss battle 3 turns in. It’s not like I care how it ends any more. That’s what tends to happen when a game drags on too long.

Story (spoilers)

Narrator: Attie, our protagnist, has washed up on a island with her student and a magic sword. It is an awesome magic sword. Everyone wants her awesome magic sword. But first…

Pirates: We hate you.
Attie: Let’s be friends.
Pirates: Ok.
Student: I hate you.
Attie: Let’s be friends.
Student: Ok.
Island Guardians: We hate you.
Attie: Let’s be friends.
Island Guardians: Ok.
Other pirates: We hate you.
Attie: Let’s be friends.
Other pirates: Ok.

[End Part 1] Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Ookiku Furikabutte: Hontou no Ace ni Nareru Kamo – Okay for one or two playthroughs

ookiku furikabutte_frontI’m not a mega-huge fan of Ookiku Furikabutte (known in the west as Big Windup!) but it’s definitely one of the best sports anime I’ve seen so far. I liked it enough that I even bought the series after watching it for free on Funimation’s youtube channel. So despite my misgivings about anime spin-off games, i.e. they usually suck, I decided to give this DS game a shot.

For a cheap tie-in to Season 1, it’s not half bad. It’s less a sports game and more a collection of slice of life skits involving the Nishiura baseball team. Maybe it was designed to satisfy those fans who would have preferred less baseball and more team interaction, especially in the latter half of the show.

What you have here is a day by day, blow by blow look at Mihashi’s life from after the Mihoshi practice match all the way until the end of the Tousei match. He goes to school, after school he goes to practice, then he walks home with his buddies and goes to bed. Next day, the same. Next day, the same. Every once in a while they have a practice match. There’s a long interval where you have to study because the coach won’t let you play if you flunk your tests. And she really won’t – you’ll get an instant game over.

screen_game_01_bThe “game” part is a collection of mini-games which raise 4 team stats: trust, strength, batting and fielding. There’s one where you polish balls, another where you pick up balls, there’s pitching and batting, skipping rope, tossing the ball back and forth and some other stuff, all of which you play with the stylus and touchscreen. Easy, fun stuff. If you want more, you can play those games from the main menu screen and they’ll still count towards your stats.

Whether you win, lose or draw practice games and the final match depends on whether your stats are high enough or not. I have to stress that this is not a baseball game, so you won’t be playing the matches yourself. They might let you “pitch” or “bat” once, but that’s about it.

There are also no penalties for losing a practice game and no rewards for winning one, but that shouldn’t surprise anyone. Also if your stats are too low going into the Tousei match, they don’t bother letting you play, you automatically lose 6-3. I learned that the hard way. If your trust with one particular character is high enough you supposedly get their end. I focused too much on raising everyone’s trust equally, so I got an “Everyone is happy, Mihashi is the ace” ending instead. That’s okay with me.

screen2_game_01_bStuff that bothered me a bit: All 7 schools you face use the exact same pitcher, who throws the exact same pitch. They should have invented 7 new pitchers instead, just for the fun of it. Speaking of which, Junta from Tousei looks horrible when he’s pitching. Another thing: not being able to skip or forward scenes on the first playthrough sucked. Thirdly there really should have been more mini-games. They get kind of boring after a while.

Still, as I said, the point of Hontou no Ace ni Nareru Kamo is to enjoy scenes and minor events that aren’t present in the anime/manga in addition to the regular anime events. Sorta of “official fanfiction”, if there’s such a thing. It’s very much a character game, just like Ookiku Furikabutte is very much a character show and the sports, while very well done, is just there as a medium of expression. So if you’re a fan of the characters and you can read simple Japanese and you really want to see, say, Tajima, Mihashi and Izumi hanging out after school or Sakaeguchi and Suyama fooling around before practice or 10 extra scenes of Abe yelling at Mihashi, this is your game. For everyone else it’s a cute collection of minigames, but not really worth going out of your way to play.