Xenoblade Chronicles – Move on, already! (spoilers)

Last time I checked I was 33 hours along. Just arrived at Prison Island, currently making my way to the top to watch the Emperor get killed. Shulk had a vision 20 hours ago that he was fighting Metal Face over there, but it’s taken this long for the vision to actually come to pass. Hopefully he can get this out of his system now we can start FINALLY having some new visions and some actual story progression.

Meanwhile it seems the Mechons in Xenoblade Chronicles and the machines in Final Promise Story are even more similar than I’d thought. Not only do they have similar designs and not only do they both “eat” people, but they are also both capable of absorbing the skills and personalities of the people they “eat”.

Xenoblade hasn’t spelled it out yet, but it’s pretty obvious that’s the direction they’re going in, simply because:

1. They make a big show out of the Monado not being able to harm humans. It can’t harm faced Mechon either. Put the two together already, Shulk.
2. We fight a faced Mechon named Xord, with a giant hammer. Later on we talk to an NPC named Desiree, who talks about her father who was also named Xord and who also wielded a giant hammer and who died fighting the Mechon. Put the two together already, Shulk.
3. Metal Face talks and acts a lot like Dunban’s cowardly friend in the prologue, I forget his name. It hasn’t been revealed to be him yet, but I’d bet my left testicle it’s him.
4. If that’s the case, then the new Mechon Nemesis is bound to be Fiora. I’d bet my right testicle it’s her (I don’t actually have any testicles but I’d totally bet them if I did).

However, while “Machines are absorbing people!” was the only major twist Final Promise Story had, I’m expecting better things of Xenoblade Chronicles. They have some other things going on like the Monado and Alvis and whatever that giant Kimahri-clone on Prison Island is, and I bet the Mechons are going to turn out to have been not-so-evil after all. In all my life I’ve only played one (1) RPG where the bad guys at the very beginning were the same bad guys at the end.

But seriously, I’ve had enough of Alcamoth and enough of Eryth Sea. Things were moving along so briskly before, but everything just came to a standstill once I arrived at the top of the Bionis. Also this whole Melia palace intrigue stuff just dragged on too long. Way too much time was spent on a character I really don’t like and really don’t intend to use. I’ve been getting some good use out of Riki though, once I got used to his annoying voice. My main parties now are Shulk/Dunban/Riki and Dunban/Riki/Reyn.

Apart from Xenoblade Chronicles, I have also been making good progress in Growlanser and Trails of Zero, which I started a few weeks ago but didn’t get into until just this weekend. I’ll give an update on one or both of those next time.

Xenoblade Chronicles – 20 hours gone

I’m still on the fence about whether I like Xenoblade Chronicles or not. Whenever I think I’m starting to get into it, some stupid cutscene pops up that irritates me to no end. First there was there whole Xord thing, then the whole Metal Face thing, then after running for ages and ages I made it to Makna Forest and had to put up with first Alvis, then Melia, then Riki all pissing me off.

Plus I now have two more party members to deal with just when my party was starting to gel. I’ve been shuffling Shulk/Dunban/Reyn/Sharla around and getting through things just fine. Got some affinity built up, got some Skill Links set up, learned lots of Arts, figured out how to use everyone. Now they’ve tossed two more characters in there. What on earth do they expect me to do with those? See, this is why I like games that let you switch party members into battle at will.

Story-wise, I haven’t actually made any progress since last time. Well, it’s hard to make progress when there isn’t much of a story in the first place. First we’re seeking revenge on a particular Mechon named Metal Face. Shulk had a vision that he takes down Metal Face near a tower. So we’re climbing a giant robot in order to find that mythical tower. I started climbing about 12 hours ago and I’m still climbing now. And people complain about the giant tower in Persona 3…

I would be further along, but I went back to Gaur Plains and the Bionis’ Leg to do some running around and exploring. I love that scenery, it’s so lush and verdant. I also did some swimming around in Colony 9, exploring the anti-air batteries and almost getting taken out by rabid level 71 flamingos. Satori Marsh was okay except for the dark swamp. Makna Forest though, I can’t wait to get out of there. At least it’s prettier than that hateful Ether Mine. In general I’m enjoying having lots of ground to cover and places to explore if I choose to do so. I also love being able to warp backwards and forwards at will.

I’ve also gotten the hang of the battle system at last. I still spend 80% of the time staring either at my HP or at the commands in the bottom, but now I can tell from my party’s yells and cries the sort of stuff that’s going on. After that I just have to make sure my level is the same or higher than the enemy’s (though I have taken down the occasional stronger monster) and that my arts are up to date. If I find nice armor I put it on. If I don’t, I don’t. Simple enough.

So far, story = 0. Characters = 5 (would be 8 without Riki and Melia, and I hate that I had to spend 5 hours rescuing dumb Juju). Graphics = 6. Music and voice acting = 6. Battle system = 6. That’s about right. I’m not too crazy about Xenoblade yet, but I don’t hate it either. I’ll be happy if it ends around the 40-hour mark though. I think fatigue is starting to set in.

Growlanser – So far, so good

Growlanser is one of those series I’ve always heard of but never played. For some strange reason I’ve always believed the Growlanser games were SRPGs. I confess I approached this PSOne remake with more than the usual excitement because of that, but while it’s slightly disappointing that is not the case, I’m still having a good time so far.

The battle system is more like a severely watered down Grandia, or a more crowded (but no less slow) Trails in the Sky. Enemies can be seen on the field and there is no battle transition. When you give a physical attack command, the character has to run across the field until they are within range before delivering the attack. There is also a cooldown period for each attack before the next one becomes available. Magic has both a charge time and a cool-down period but better range and multi-hit abilitites for the most part. Both phys attacks and magic do pathetic damage so far, possibly because weapons are so expensive that I rarely update.

The story and the characters are really good so far. I’m loving my little party and their interactions, and the character I expected to turn evil (Ariost) has been pretty good so far. Everyone gets along, everyone works together and no one has made any cheesy “power of friendship” or “you are not alone” speeches yet. Even the clumsy ditz character with a crush on my main character hasn’t pissed me off much.

It also seems like my emo-looking main character might either be possessed by evil or have an evil twin brother or both. There’s something really interesting going on in that regard that I’m very eager to find out more about. It also seems like MC’s little sister, one of the first non-annoying video game sisters I’ve encountered so far, is going to end up dying at the end in order to save everyone. She said as much quite early on. Can’t wait to see how that plays out.

In short, Growlanser clears all the important hurdles for me so far, and the first 10 hours have passed by in a flash. I wish the battles were a little faster and less crowded, and I wish there wasn’t so much backtracking (the teleport spell is a life-saver). Apart from that I’m having a really good time. I hope to be able to say the same thing next time I write about this game.

Xenoblade Chronicles – First impressions

Hmm. Dunno. I’m only 6 hours in, and I only started figuring the game out in the last hour or so.

In fact, maybe it’s too soon for me to write this post, because I don’t really have much to say about Xenoblade Chronicles right now.

Uhh, the graphics are okay. Like, late PS2 kind of okay. The Wii has never really been a graphical juggernaut. The character designs are something on the fugly side, especially with those weird noses they’ve got.

The sound/music is… whatever. Nothing notable, for better or worse. The voice acting is okay, if a little slow. Some of the dialogue is as cheesy as hell (“Oh Shulk, I’m so glad we’re friends!”), which I actually look forward to because it breaks up the monotony.

I couldn’t make head or tails of the battle system before, but now I’m starting to get the hang of it. The only other auto-attack RPG I’ve ever played was Contact for the NDS (terrible game, btw), which was far less complex, so I didn’t have a clue what was going on for the longest time. You can’t call it an Action RPG because you’re not doing much, but it’s not exactly turn-based either.

There’s this bar with commands at the bottom that you can execute. Half the time I’m busy watching that thing instead of paying attention to the fights. I can’t even tell what’s going on when I do look, next thing I know Shulk and Reyn are half-dead and need healing. I heal, I mash a few other commands while waiting for the heal gauge to fill again, heal some more, and then we continue in that vein until something drops dead. Hey, it works. I just got a medic named Sharla on the Gaur Plains, but I haven’t done much with her yet. If she works out like I’m hoping, I’ll be able to take a more active role in battle with Shulk.

Then there’s all these Arts and Skills and Affinity and Trades and Slots and Gems and other bizarre stuff going on. I fiddle with them here and there. Not going to spend too much time with them unless the game forces me to, though. I also accept all quests without reservation, but I don’t go out of my way to do any of them. Go kill your own Field Ponio, you slacker.

Story~~~~ From what I understand there’s these humans and then there’s this machines named Mechons who eat humans. The Mechons look and act an awful lot like the machines from Saigo no Yakusoku no Monogatari, especially the eating people thing and the blue-and-gold designs (brown-and-gold in SYM). Not sure what’s going on there, but the resemblance is uncanny sometimes.

Anyway, right now I’m on a rather odd wild goose chase for revenge. It’s odd because my in-game characters are really into it but as the player I frankly cheered when the incident they’re seeking revenge for happened. I was like that 4-panel shot with those IGN guys. One second I’m just sitting there, blah blah, the next moment… oh no they wouldn’t… they did! Hell yeah, they really did it!!! AWESOME! This game rules!!!

…And now they want to get revenge? I dunno if I’m down with that. Whatever happened to forgiving and forgetting? Well anyway, I’ll play a little longer and see if the story takes a different direction soon (if you know, please don’t spoil). I’ll give it another 6 hours and then decide whether to finish Xenoblade Chronicles or not.

Princess Maker 5 review

I spent over a week playing Princess Maker 5 and took several screenshots in the process. I’m going to post a few of them today, along with some comments.

First, unlike PMs 1-4, Princess Maker 5 is set in modern Japan. Your adopted daughter is a princess candidate from another world, brought over to Japan by demon butler Cube after surviving an assassination attempt. She starts out with amnesia but regains her memory around age 14 IIRC. As usual you play a retired hero. For the first time in the series you can choose to play as a female instead of a male, but I chose to stick to tradition.

There you have my daughter’s starting stats. Physical strength 33, mental strength 35, stress 0. My first point of order was to raise the first two stats so she can work harder and longer without passing out from the strain. Since she’s only 10, I set her curfew at 5pm and went easy on the part time jobs so she could get lots of rest.

This is the scheduling screen. It lets you set up to 3 after-school activities every day. Since the game is set in modern Japan, not sending your child to school is not an option (alas). The 41,329 yen in the upper corner represents the money I currently have. 80,000 yen is my monthly salary as a freelancer, which can dip as low as 20,000 yen depending on the year. 24,000 yen is what the drama class I have scheduled for the week is going to cost. I can also go into debt to sustain my lifestyle, to the tune of ~200,000 yen. Cube hints darkly at severe consequences for this, but I never experienced any.

And so I set her weekly schedule and Momoka obediently goes out and does it. The corresponding increase in her stats/stress is dependent on how well she carries out her tasks. Failing at karate like she did her gives her a smaller increase in fighting and strength and a larger increase in stress. It also decreases an invisible stat called Pride.

Through school and various activities, Momoka can make friends like clingy, codependent Hiroko here.

Walking to and from school with these friends raises friendship points. However if you hang out with certain people at the expense of others, some of your friends will get madly jealous and break off their relationship with you entirely. It’s a lot like the bombing system in the Tokimeki Memorial games.

If you manage to suffer through the arguments and petty jealousies and raise a character’s (hidden) friendship stat to a certain level, you get a special CG. You also get to become best friends forever with that person, and they give you a special item. While this means they won’t get jealous if you hang out with others, they will still get upset if you blank them in public or refuse too many requests to hang out.

Cube can give you the rundown on how your relationships are progressing. Purple orbs represent friendship. That pink orb in the upper right stands for romantic feelings. Since the guy in question is a 36 year old talent scout macking on my 18 year old daughter, we can and will ignore him. The brightly shining orbs belong to bosom buddies. Dull orbs belong to mere acquaintances. The grey orb in the upper left means Momoka is on bad terms with Asakura Kenichi, who is mad because Momoka spends too much time with Kuroda Hitoshi right below him. I spent quite a lot of time trying to get Kuroda to view my daughter romantically, but to no avail. ;_;

Back to the stat-raising business, I get to check how Momoka is growing every weekend. Above are some of her stats at ages 12, 14 and 17 (early and late) Because I focused so much on her strength and mentality, by the end of the game she could take up to 700 stress without batting an eye. Those little icons at the bottom show proficiency in skills like singing, drawing, fighting and swordsmanship. IIRC I maxed out singing, dancing, hand-to-hand combat, acting and trade.

I also get to check battle stats like HP, MP, ATK, DEF as well as what Momoka currently has equipped. Cyberfront and Gainax brought back the battles they took out of Princess Maker 3 and 4, but in simplified form compared to what I know of PM2. You have to send your daughter to a special dimension on weekends to get any adventuring done.

Adventuring means Momoka walks along until she encounters either a treasure chest or an enemy. Battling means she fights an enemy with weapons and skills. That stat below MP is “the will to fight,” and reducing it to zero wins the battle as surely as depleting the enemy’s HP does. Since 1) Will to Fight never goes above 100 and 2) you can knock it down by 20 every turn just by singing and 3) Singing is always accurate whereas attacking misses like crazy, you can guess which strategy I favored. Going adventuring is a good way to make money, though it wreaks havoc on your Morality stat. Unfortunately I stopped triggering new dungeons after the first three, so I never gave the battle system a proper workout.

Back home, I also get to chat with Momoka on weekends to find out how she’s doing. Talking to her may also raise stats and increase the bond between us. You might notice that she’s looking a little more… robust in the first picture compared to the second one. Alas, I fed her a few too many shortcakes to reduce her stress and she swelled up like a frog. Nothing a few yoga classes in a few weeks couldn’t fix, though.

The dress she’s wearing may look familiar to PM2 players. Before her weight gain she was wearing a “sexy outfit”, but according to Japan you can’t be sexy if you’re not a size 0, so the game forced her to take it off. =___= Also while you can wear the sexy outfit when you’re slim, you can’t get the “sexy” effect unless your bust size is D or higher, because according to Japan only busty women are sexy. I never knew.

The M.O.E. system allows me to watch her in her room doing things like dancing, training, playing with her dolls and playfighting with Cube, as depicted above. The activities she engages in depend on her current hobbies. If she likes to be active she’ll be training, fighting and doing press ups. If she likes to talk, she’ll be on her cell phone, in an internet chatroom or talking to Cube. It’s very cute to watch.

In March, June, September and December, one of the characters publishes the “Emirin News” newsletter. This tells me about sales and events going on around town. Cube can even mark certain events on the calendar so we don’t miss them. On weekends I get to take Momoka out to these events or to the amusement park, the cinema, the beach, or even the doctor’s or the dentist’s. I can also send her to visit her friends at home.

I forgot  to get a shot of the town or of any events. Here’s the contents of the anime store, though. Yes, I can choose to dress my daughter up in Asuka or Rei’s plug suit from Neon Genesis Evangelion. It’s a Gainax game, after all. Look at that price-tag, though… At the cinema I can watch thinly-disguised movies like “The Lord of the Necklace” and “Star Trekking,” and I can go see “CR Succession” and “T.M. Recreation” and “The Yellow Mickey” perform at the concert hall. I loved those silly little parody events.

End of the month. Here’s faithful Cube with a rundown of how my daughter’s stats have changed as a result of my masterful leadership. The last shot shows the beginning of the month. I get to make decisions once a month about my daughter’s diet, curfew, pocket money, attitude towards schoolwork, attitude towards others, etc. These mostly affect invisible stats like Pride, Mindset, Independence and Sociability. I hate hidden stats.

Yearly vacation time! Foreign trips like this one take off a lot of stress and build up a lot of stats. They also cost a minor fortune, but that’s what my daughter is there for. Just have her slave away at a couple of jobs for the next month and presto, debt paid back in full. The security guard job pays the most at 9,000 yen a day. The sleaziest job you can get is in a cabaret, which… isn’t that sleazy at all, really. But I guess sending your daughter to work in a soapland or “delivery health” center would be too real, even for Japan.

After 8 long years, I finally got an ending. I played PM5 blind, so I had no idea what was coming up. Momoka graduates from high school and decides to be a singer. After 6 years of training she finally makes her debut. Her debut single is a smash hit, but she gets tired of being told what to do and what to wear. She also feels the fans are too focused on her appearance and not enough on her music, so she quits her agency and hits the indie scene. Eventually she finds minor success as an indie rock star. Not a word is said on the fates of her friends, so I’m sorry I wasted all that time on relationships. And on study. And on pretty much anything that wasn’t music. So much for my 999 strength and 999 knowledge. Ah well, if she’s happy, I’m happy.

And that was that for Princess Maker 5. Because scheduling is done weekly instead of monthly, this one playthrough took well over a week of real time to play. I estimate I spent at least 20 hours on it. It was slow going in places, but lots of fun in other ways. It was certainly a much more enjoyable ride than the lackluster Princess Maker 4. Given the length of a single playthrough and the meh-ness of the ending I got for all my trouble, however, I don’t have the energy left to play any more. I’ll see if I can find other endings on youtube and call it a day. Very good game, though.