Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner – Decent (spoilers)

Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner is a passable game. I would even have deemed it “pretty good” if the endgame hadn’t dragged on interminably. It’s one of those games where you approach the final dungeon thinking “I’ll be done in about 5 hours” and then that 5 turns into 50 before you know it. As happened with Persona, the playing time is all screwy because the clock keeps going even when the game is asleep. Except  this time those 311 hours actually feel like 311 hours. I am slightly burned out right now.

Story

Monsters and humans lived in harmony, then the monsters inexplicably turned into jewels after some Great Disaster. Humans known as “jewel summoners” can summon monsters from their jewels and use them to fight. Our main character, Vice, is looking for a winged monster who killed his mother… and that’s about it for the preliminaries. In the process he ends up losing the monster his mother left him, and then joining the Order of jewel summoners to get it back (he never did on my playthrough) while finding out that there’s more to the Order and jewel power than he’d originally thought.

The story isn’t great to begin with, but it’s made a thousand times worse by some of the most stilted, disjointed English dialogue I have ever had the displeasure to read. It’s seriously bizarre, because most sentences usually make sense on their own, but it’s like someone tossed them all into a bag and shuffled them together, so once you string them together it’s like, WTF? It looks like the writers (or translators?) didn’t have the first clue about cohesive devices and coherence and, you know, plain old Making Fricking Sense.

And there’s a bigger problem: once you slog through all the nonsense and make it to the end, you’re still left with a ton of unanswered questions. E.g. What was Grey doing at the lighthouse at the beginning (I get the feeling they accidentally used Grey’s portrait instead of Bargus’s), why hasn’t Zygard aged all this time, what exactly is that evil thing we fought in ending 1 and what does it want, why did the Abomination go after Maera, where does Zygard and Vice’s special power come from, what exactly (if anything) is so special about Vice’s jewel, etc etc. …Come to think of it, I don’t care to know all that badly. It’s that kind of game.

Characters

Squall and Paine had a baby!

Vice starts out as your typical cocky main guy with a bad attitude, and quickly devolves in your typical shocked-at-everything-cares-about-everyone kind of hero. I didn’t hate him as much as I thought I would, mainly because he was so obviously playing it by the book.

A few hours in you’re made to choose two other party members who you are then stuck with for the rest of the game. There’s Elly the Dumb, and Grey the Stupid, then you’ve got Lynn who is nice but nuts, and Bargus who is nice but suspicious. AFAIK there’s no real advantage to picking any particular person, so I went with those I could stand, i.e. Bargus and Lynn.

The supporting cast isn’t much to write home about. No particularly memorable villains or NPCs, though the reveal about Professor Anhj certainly blindsided me. Always be suspicious of unnaturally large boobs!

Gameplay

Third-person dungeon-crawling: Speaks for itself. You also have field abilities like Hover, Decode, Trap, Reveal, etc. that help you make your way through and solve the switch and platform puzzles you come across. While the dungeon layouts were occasionally confusing, I did manage to figure everything out by myself – apart from the bloody awful final Monolith dungeon.

Element triangle: Dark elements (Ice, Water, Earth, Dark) overpower Light Elements (Fire, Thunder, Wind, Light) and vice-versa. It goes like this: Dark <-> Light, and Fire > Ice > Wind > Earth > Electric > Water >Fire. When you hit an enemy with an attack it’s weak against, its turn moves back in the queue, same if they do it to you. It goes on until the monster gets mad (literally. They get pissed) and attack anyway. It’s not too different from the Press-Turn system in some Megami Tensei games otherwise.

Normal turn-based battles: The monsters take to the field, not the summoners, but any damage done to them is drawn from the summoner’s LP (aka HP). When a monster runs out of JP (aka MP) it is removed from battle and replaced with another equipped one. Chaining attacks together gives percentage bonuses to attack. “Escape” works a surprising 75% of the time. I hardly ever used “Guard.”

Monster capture: Beat them within an inch of their lives and then use the appropriate element prism to capture them. It beats the “unchain” mechanic in Unchainblades Rexx, at any rate. Captured monsters are sent to the Jewel Bank and can be equipped and used, though it sucks that you have to exit your current dungeon and return to the Order to do so.

Amalgamy: Where you use quartz and AP to strengthen and level up your monsters. You can make things significantly easier for yourself by giving monsters abilities they normally wouldn’t have naturally or that early in the game. For example, you can give electric attacks to a water monster so it can fight other dark/water monsters more effectively. You can also boost the strength of your attacks, add an ability slot and even evolve certain monsters, though this aspect is hardly explained in-game. Personally, I ended up ditching all my previous monsters in favor of the high-level high-attack monsters I caught in the final two dungeons. Why do monster-capturing games always end up this way?

That’s about it for battle strategy, but the game got a lot more fun and the battles got a lot faster and more interesting once I stopped trying to power my way through and actually took advantage of the element and chain bonus systems. Things got a little too easy towards the end, but hey, I earned it.

Graphics and Music and All the other stuff I don’t care about

The character designs you see on the cover and in the intro are slightly different from the ones that are actually used in-game, which is a real shame. The battle themes were pretty good, but I don’t remember any other tunes – and I just finished the game one hour ago. The screams and croaks of the monsters got on my nerves a bit. Voice-acting was so terrible I turned it off about 5 minutes into the game. I’ve never heard anything so bad. Nothing else worth reporting.

What I think of this game

If not for the half-assed story and the terrible writing and the horrible final dungeon, I would have rated Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner fairly highly. When you actually get to play, it’s actually pretty fun and even challenging in parts. It’s just a shame that my final memories of this game are the painfully bad Monolith dungeon, the pathetically weak final boss and the most insulting excuse for an ending since Blade Dancer. It’s worth playing if you can find it cheap, but don’t expect too much. In summary:

The Good
– Interesting battle system
– Fast transitions to battle
– Short/no loading times
– Decent music
– Easily navigable dungeons (except the Monolith)

The Bad
– Poor story
– Horrible writing/translation
– Meh character design
– Laughable voice “acting”
– Shoddy ending
– Difficulty falls off a cliff near the end
– Amalgamy takes forever unless you cheat
– Insufficient explanation of gameplay elements like stats and amalgamy
– Insufficient differentiation of monsters: all monsters with the same element learn the exact same attacks at the exact same levels.
– The Monolith dungeon SUCKS
– Post-game content is worthless, as usual

Next up

Finally made it to the 9 hour mark in Suikoden II. Also finally patched my DS together so I can continue Iron Master and Aquarian Age. And I’d like to start either Tales of Innocence or 7th Dragon sometime this month. Oh, and I also want to play an SRPG and maybe another otome “game.” So much to do, so little time…

What I’m up to right now

I haven’t posted in a couple of days, which is unusual for me. It’s not because I haven’t been playing any games but rather because I’m playing a few at the same time but haven’t gotten far enough to post about any of them.

Suikoden II – At the 7 hour mark, just got Shu from Radat and beat Solon Jhee outside my new castle. I realized there’s nothing wrong with the game. It’s me – I’m not in the mood for a sit-down RPG. There’s a reason why I’ve shifted the majority of my gaming to handhelds, and it’s because I’m getting increasingly too lazy to play games sitting up. That’s not to say I’m giving up on Suikoden II, but I don’t see myself going much faster than my current pace of 2-3 hours a week.

Iron Master: The Legendary Blacksmith – My DS betrayed me! I may have mentioned this before, but it has a cracked right hinge that I managed to patch together with a hideous but effective combination of epoxy and superglue. A few days ago that mixture finally came apart and the crack opened up again. The broken hinge doesn’t actually affect gameplay, but it bugs the hell out of me and ruins my concentration, so all DS gaming is on hold until I can repair the hinge again.

Aquarian Age – A “gamebook”/visual novel I’ve been reading on the DS. It’s as generic as they come (lazy, perverted boy with dead parents, living with female childhood friend, blah blah.) but I’ve taken a shine to the characters, so I read a few “pages” from time to time. Will continue once my DS is back to normal.

Popolocrois – Started this two or three days ago. I like the cutesy designs and the fast pace of movement. Apart from that it’s not a very remarkable game, but admittedly I haven’t played very long.

Monster Kingdom: Jewel Summoner – Sounds like the title of a Saturday morning cartoon. Started this one yesterday morning. Kind of liking it. For various reasons I don’t enjoy Pokemon itself any more (they’re all the same game, I don’t like the new mons, etc etc.), but I’m not opposed to battle mechanics that involve capturing, training and fighting with monsters. Speaking of which, I need to start saving for Unchainblades Exxiv. Oww, my credit card.

And there you have my current gaming list going into August. I’ve got one or two others on my mind as well, but first things first.

Iron Master: The Legendary Blacksmith

Why are these simple simulation games always so addictive? I started Iron Master three days ago and it’s been slow at times and frustrating at (many, many) times but I haven’t been able to put it down.

The story and premise are simple: there’s a war going on, and you’re a blacksmith. Blacksmith+war = weapons+money. There’s a background story about empires at war and legendary weapons and blacksmiths being killed or kidnapped, but it doesn’t have much to do with your activities so far.

Iron Master is part selling sim, part item creation game. It’s quite similar to games like Recettear and Lemuore no Renkinjutsushi (the latter more than the former) in that you are not a fighter or an adventurer – though there are plenty of those in the game – you’re a a creator and a salesperson. Your objective is to make weapons and armor, sell them to buy more material to make more weapons and armor, keep doing that until you get access to new weapons and armor, make and sell more of those, and on and on and on until you get tired of the game.

The sales part is very simple and straightforward. Make the item, display it in your store, people come in and buy what they want. Adventurers also place orders sometimes, which you can accept or refuse as you see fit. Nothing difficult about that. The blacksmithing process, on the other hand, is pretty complex and highly failure-prone. I’d explain, but there’s an Engrish trailer out there (a leftover from a failed localization attempt), so I’ll let that do the talking:

If I had to liken the process to another DS game, it would be… Lost in Blue, I guess? I remember chopping and carving and sharpening a number of items in all three LiB games. This is far more complex though. Casting, chopping, cutting, tempering, stretching, hammering, melting… and it seems like there’s more I haven’t unlocked yet. I’ve only unlocked bows, knives, spears, clubs and axes, nary a helmet or piece of armor or jewelry in sight. I haven’t even made half the stuff shown in that video, so I still have a loooong way to go.

Unfortunately the fact that you have to go through these same steps every single time you want to create something is a huge drawback that may very well prevent me from completing the game. It’s all great fun the first 20, 30, 40 times you saw a piece of wood, after that, well it’s still fun right now but I can see the clouds on the horizon. It would have really helped if they made it so you could “register” mastered weapons and make them faster next time. Or have helpers like in the Atelier series. Or at least cut out some steps, since you’re supposed to be a master of weapon making.

Still, I get to make new things at a steady pace, and the process is always slightly different for every weapons so it’s still quite interesting. I’ll quit when it gets too much for me, but I’m still really, really into this game right now.

As for Suikoden II… well… Yah. I’m still playing it. An hour here, 30 minutes there, whenever I feel like it. Nothing new to report on that score.

Suikoden II – Tiring

Suikoden II. 3 hours in. Been betrayed twice and seen three destroyed villages/forts. This is about par for the course for a Suikoden game, I guess. I’m trying hard not to get attached to my MC’s childhood friend Jowy or his sister Nanami because either one or both of them will be killed/will switch sides and force me to kill them. I’m not even spoiling here, this is just basic Suikoden logic.

Obviously I can’t get into a game when I approach it with such a pessimistic mindset. Every step I take on the map just depresses me even further. Every village I enter just has me counting the seconds until something unpleasant happens. Every NPC with a portrait just has me groaning when I imagine what ridiculous, unnecessary hoop I’m going to have to jump through to recruit them. I’d forgotten how much I dislike (apparently I’m alone on this) the recruiting aspect of the Suikoden games.

I should really just give up and use a FAQ to make things easier on myself. For one thing it would have saved me a lot of time wandering around trying to progress the story when what I was supposed to do was remove 2 members from my party and then visit Toto Village. How the ****ing **** was I supposed to know that? *sigh*

Still, it’s only been 3 hours. I normally don’t even write impressions this early. It’s just that it’s taken me three days to get this far because I play a few minutes, then I do something else. Then I play another couple of minutes, then I do something else again. In fact Suikoden II has helped me rediscover my love for Freecell and Solitaire (G.O.A.T.) and the game itself isn’t a lost cause. I haven’t even gotten a proper castle, and no True Runes have shown up yet, so there’s still a long way to go. I’ll write more at the 10 hour mark, if I ever make it that far.

Played Really? Really! DS. It’s aight.

Really? Really! is one of the games I was somewhat interested in playing when I first started this blog, but I forgot about it pretty quickly and never tried it until now. Shuffle! is one of the few anime harem shows I actually enjoyed watching, and even though I hated, and continue to hate Asa-sempai, it made perfect sense to me that she and Rin ended up together.

I’ve almost entirely lost interest in the series since then, though I do clearly remember all the characters. There’s also a bonus character in the form of a “forgotten childhood friend” known as Sakura. Pretty sure she wasn’t in the anime.

The wiki description says it all. Kaede has lost her memories and is in a coma. Rin and all his buddies have to dive into her subconscious and help her regain it. Alas, due to the magic accident that caused her amnesia, those memories have been fragmented and falsified in parts. Your job, therefore, is to pick up ‘keywords’ that represent the truth and then ‘present’ them at the correct moments in order to correct Kaede’s memory.

It’s 95% visual novel, but you do get to make a few moves here and there. When Rin comes across a contradiction, he goes “Objection!” Phoenix Wright-style (complete with cheap suit) and the game allows you to pick one of several keywords to straighten things out. On your first day at school, for example, Itsuki appears as a particularly hideous girl. Rin couldn’t correct that fast enough. Shortly afterwards Mayumi=Thyme shows up as a busty(!) idol, which completely crashes Kaede’s “system” with its sheer impossibility. And so on, and so forth.

All in all it reminded me of a less-complicated Time Hollow: you go through a scene, you see what’s wrong, the game prompts you to fix it, and you fix it. You keep moving, you find something else wrong, you fix that. There’s no confusion anywhere, there’s no chance of invoking the system at the wrong time and it’s pretty obvious what you’re supposed to use at each point. If you proceed far enough with a scene, you end up fixing everything there is to fix in that ‘memory’ and then you get to see the events of that day from Kaede’s point of view.

I played for 3 hours, including the lengthy prologue, and unlocked the first memory. Lost interest after that because even though I imagine the story will get more and more twisted and the choices less and less obvious as the game progresses, I sadly feel nothing for Kaede and have no personal stake in getting her back to normal. If it had been Primula on the other hand, we might have had something to talk about. Fans of the Shuffle! series might enjoy it. Fans of regular visual novels, not so much, because this game assumes you know all the characters and at least some of the storylines from the main game.

It really didn’t help that the game’s jokes were old by the 30-minute mark but they just wouldn’t stop repeating them. Kaede loves Rin, we get it. Midoriba likes girls, we get it. Mayumi is flat-chested, we get it. It’s funny the first few times but after that, come on. I like snarky protagonists, in moderation, but when the years pass and the jokes stay the same, it’s time to hang it up.

Moving on, I would have started Suikoden II by now, but I took a few hours to recap the first game by reading a Let’s Play of it. As usual I’m surprised at how clearly I remember games I enjoyed playing, even after 10 years have passed. I even remembered where all the sucker punches were. Mathiu! ;______; IstillSad. Thanks to that I am now slightly psyched to start the next one, though I just know it’s going to depress me. More on that as the tale unfolds.