Phantasy Star Portable – Final thoughts (spoilers)

All right! I beat the final boss again and watched the ending this time. Vivienne repels the bad guys with the power of her heart (no, seriously) and reseals the SEED in the void, where they will lie waiting until the sequel. After all that drama, my character and Vivienne wind up homeless and unemployed, making their living as armed robbers and extortionists that roam the galaxy in search of the Illuminus. And that’s the good ending.

New free missions opened up after I cleared the game. I did one, but it’s better to leave on a high note than to play so much that the game gets stale, so it’s time to quit. Final thoughts on the whole experience:

Why I liked Phantasy Star Portable

The story-mode was short and sweet. My save game file says 25 hours, but at least 60% of the time was spent doing free missions. Not every game has to be 99 hours and 99 minutes long to make a good impression.

Game flow is easy to understand. See monster. Kill monster. See terrorist. Kill terrorist. There’s only one major twist in the game, and they don’t go around hyping mysteries they don’t intend to tell you about until the final dungeon.

The challenge level is just right. For me, anyway. The last dungeon had some tough battles, but nothing I couldn’t handle. At the same time it was never so easy that I got bored or frustrated.

Very kind to people who suck. Like me. Offers free missions to grind on if you need to. I did each one once, did a few twice and I was at just the right level to take on the final boss. Enemies also drop tons of weapons and useful healing items, and almost every boss has a healing and recovery station right outside its door so you can get into fighting shape before taking them on. Story missions also give you regular chances to go back and save and outfit yourself before continuing.

Fast loading times. Normally I take fast loading for granted, but I appreciate it doubly this time because I’m playing Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 4 at the same time. Even with a data install it still loads like mack truck on every new scene.  PSP manages to do waaaaay better without taking up precious space on my memory stick. This must be…love.

Ooh baby, that red is so “you”!

Accommodates a variety of playing styles. I forget the exact number, but there are about 5 races and 10 classes you can choose and a LOT of weapons and skills you can give them. You can use magic, guns, fight at long range, fight ultra close-up, focus on speed and accuracy, tank your way through, all of the above, it’s all up to you!

I stuck to just two classes (Hunter -> Fighmaster), but I got to fool around with various weapons and change my style as the game got tougher and tougher. Started out with a single sword, moved on to twin swords, dabbled around with greatswords and guns (useless) and finally finished the boss off with double blades. In a single dungeon I would use the greatsword to clear out small mobs, twin swords to take down tough single enemies and double blades to do damage very quickly to the bosses. If I’d had more time I would have liked to experiment with axes and claws as well. Normally in multi-weapon games (e.g Rune Factory) I just pick a weapon and specialize, but there are so many types of weapons in PSP that it seemed a shame not to play around a little.

No annoying characters. There were some who could have been annoying if they’d been given the chance, but none of them hung around long enough to get on my nerves. Vivienne’s heart-fetish is so corny it’s cute, and Helga the bad guy is so cheesy and over-the-top that she’s actually funny.

You get to play dress up! Enemies drop money and sellable items like water, so I was rich. Rich! With nothing else to spend the cash on, I turned on my inner coordinator and decked my character out in a variety of fashionable duds. No self-respecting adventurer would be caught dead repeating an outfit. Not on my watch!

Why Phantasy Star Portable is not very good

My Granddad once said this, almost word for word

Very much a spin-off (of Phantasy Star Universe and Ambition of the Illuminus). This is a good thing if you’ve played and liked those. Otherwise you’ll feel a bit left out as they go on and on about who did what when. The story is skimpy enough that I was never confused, but they took a lot of things for granted.

Might be too easy for some. If I found it “just right” then it’s bound to be too easy for the more hardcore kind of player.

No deep story or complicated plot. I liked this about it, but anyone looking to play a typical RPG will be disappointed. It’s an action game first with the story very much tacked on at the end.

No engaging characters. I didn’t dislike anyone, as I said, but I wasn’t crazy about anyone either. Except maybe Vivienne, she was kind of sweet. Since the protagonist is actually mute (and not just pretending) this time round, his/her interactions with other characters are extremely limited. Mostly he just gets talked at instead of talked to, so it was hard to develop affection for anyone.

Battles can get messy. It can be hard to see what your character is doing when the screen is full of characters and enemies executing all kinds of flashy moves. There were many, many moments when I didn’t know what was going on. I just tapped the triangle and square buttons like mad until something died.

Occasional slowdown for busy battles. A little irritating, but not so bad as to be unbearable.

Stupid visual-novel choices. I must have done something right, since I got the “good” ending, but there was frequently no way to tell which the “good” choices were, and no easy to go back and redo them if you thought you’d done something wrong. Consider the choice in the screenshot on the right. What’s the difference?!

Visuals are very dark. I thought it was my PSP that was on a low brightness setting, but looking at the screenshots I took, dang, that’s a dark game. On the plus side, the game itself isn’t depressing at all, it’s fairly upbeat.

Little variety in the missions. They’re highly monotonous and always play out the same way. Enter dungeon, beat up monsters to unlock keys, open doors, go to next block, go through three or four blocks in the same fashion, beat dungeon boss, end of mission. The exact same pattern for Every. Single. Mission. A little more variety, e.g. escort missions, rescue missions, timed missions, search-and-recovery missions, would have made things much better. Not that I didn’t enjoy myself, but there’s definite room for improvement on that score.

And so on, and so forth. I’m going to order Phantasy Star Portable 2 and give that a go as well, once a little time has passed. I can’t stay stuck on the same game forever, so it’s time to move on. If nothing else, it’s given me the courage to try games I normally wouldn’t bother with because “they’re not my type” so I’ll try to be a little more adventurous in the future.

Finished Phantasy Star Portable, but…!

NOOOOO! This can’t be happening! I just killed the final boss of Phantasy Star Portable. It was a hard fought battle, my teammates died like flies and I completely ran out of healing items near the end, but I did it. I did it! I was so proud of myself I thought, “This deserves a screenshot!” And so I tried to take a picture of the boss in its dying throes… and of course the PSP froze… I know, I was totally asking for it, but it still hurts. I wonder if my save data is okay.

I think I’m beginning to understand the appeal of action RPGs, though. Turn-based RPGs can be challenging in their own way, but there’s something extra satisfying about running and dodging and hiding and putting the finishing touches on the boss through your own skill. It might be just a Phantasy Star Portable thing, but winning that last battle felt sooooooo good. I think I’m going to try it again and pass on the screenshot next time. Won’t it be funny if the first time was a fluke and now I can’t beat the boss any more? (hint: no, no it won’t be funny)

I’ll leave you with this summary of 75% of the dialog in this game: my partner KOS-MOS Vivienne and her friends waffling on and on about hearts like a bunch of Care Bears:

 

 

I can’t help thinking the game would have been 10 times better if they’d stopped trying to shoehorn moral lessons in there and just let me enjoy wasting monsters. Not every game has to be “inspirational” or “uplifting” you know.

Now then, I seem to have gotten my second wind. Time to see if I can put paid to the boss for the second time before I sleep. Hopefully the euphoria will have worn off by the time I wake up, and I’ll be able to write a more objective post about this game. I worry I may have inadvertently given the impression that it is good, or even interesting, when the reason I like is precisely because it’s so bland. For now, less talking, more boss-killing!

I aten’t dead

Still around, still playing games. Still trying to finish Phantasy Star Portable and Harutoki 4. I’m playing them in turns, so it’s delaying the completion of either one. Since I’m determined not to start anything new until I finish one of those, I’m going to be out of circulation for a little longer. After I finish them, I want to play Saiyuki, and then Grand Knights History. I was hoping the latter would have come out in English by now, but it’s been delayed till who knows when, so I’m just gonna go ahead and do my own thing.

PS Portable & Harutoki 4

This is going to take much longer than I thought, because I’ve been super-busy this week and will be even busier next week. Back when I was in college I used to look down on people who complained about being “busy.” I had SO much time on my hands back then, even after climbing five mountains on my way to school, 7 days a week, uphill both ways in 100 feet of snow, you young people have it easy, blah blah blah. If you’re still in school, enjoy it while it lasts!

Who? In fact, who are you guys?

Phantasy Star Portable: I’ve almost forgotten what the story is, I’m so busy doing the free missions. We’re still chasing the same terrorist we’ve been dealing with since chapter 1. This is shaping up to be the first RPG I’ve ever played where the initial bad guy turned out to be the ultimate baddie after all.

The mindless slashing is just the balm I need after a hard day at work, too. I’m just worried that I’ll spend so much time on this that I’ll burn out and be unable to play an ARPGs for the rest of the year. I should get back to the story missions.

Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 4: Haven’t progressed much from where I left off. Our heroine and her bishie troops are going around defeating the four “gods.” I beat Suzaku and just beat Byakko, so I know what the next couple of hours are going to look like.

I still haven’t found a guy in the game that moves me, and then there’s the little problem of Chihiro being too front-and-center. You’re supposed to be able to put yourself in the heroine’s shoes a little bit in romantic games. This game is more like an ordinary RPG: you either like the protagonist or you don’t (I don’t). Plus she hasn’t shown any romantic interest in anyone yet (or vice-versa, come to think of it) so I’m just going to play it like a normal game and let the chips fall where they may.

I’m going to play an hour or two of PSP now, and then we old people need our sleep.

Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 4 – Hmm…

This is shaping up to be another one of “those” games. Those games I spend hours playing and then can’t write anything about because they didn’t make an impression on me at all. After 7h 40m, very few things have happened and even fewer of them have been important. I’m probably asking for too much, looking for tension and excitement in an otome game. I kind of had hopes for this one too, but oh well.

Harukanaru Toki no Naka de 4 is about a girl named Chihiro who finds out one day that’s she’s the princess of a country in another world. She warps back with her guardians, finds out the place has been conquered by another state and starts a journey to take it back. In typical Neoromance fashion, nearly everyone in the series is a bishie. Even the bad guys are easy on the eyes. The game seems to share an artist with the Angelique series, so it’s got some gorgeous background and character art.

The game itself is billed as an otome game with RPG elements. You have a lot of party members (all bishies), skills, random turn-based battles, boss battles, an overworld, elements, etc. Fighting raises your characters’ affection values for you, and making certain choices in battle, e.g. killing off your enemy early and helping a guy with his, raise them even more. For an otome game it’s very well thought-out and the battles are a joy… when they let you fight. Which is almost never.

95% of the game is a standard visual novel, they just throw an easy fight or two my way every 30 minutes or so to keep me from falling asleep while they prattle on and on and on. I wasn’t surprised to hear they made an anime out of the first game in the series. If it’s anything like this one, it’s very anime-like, especially when it comes to character interactions and the story development.

Aww, look at his widdle ears~

It’s even anime-like in how chicken**** the bad guys are. RPG baddies usually don’t hold back on the terror and tyranny. Burning down villages, stabbing corporate employees at their workplaces, killing people’s girlfriends, that’s how they usually roll. Here, because there’s a gettable guy on the bad side they had to neuter all the evil. The worst the baddies have done so far is bully a few old people and throw a few dissenters in jail. What kind of weaksauce tyranny is that? It makes my job as liberator all the harder, because everyone’s actually pretty well off. The fields are green, the weather is sunny, the villagers are fat and well-fed… I should just pack up and go back to Japan.

Enough whining though, I knew what I was getting into when I picked this up. The more important thing is… which guy will I pick? I’ve got about 8 love interests so far, and I don’t like any of them. There’s a furry shota named Ayuki. I like him the most, but the game won’t let me have him. Second and third best: Tooya and Futsuhiko. Tooya was actually leading the pack until he took off his mask. He should have kept it on a little longer to build up the suspense.

Futsuhiko I don’t have a picture of right now, but his Kofun hairstyle makes him look like he has cat ears, and that’s cute. You know, maybe I just want to play a game about catboys, that’s what the problem is. I wonder if there’s one out there. Something tells me I’ll regret asking that question.

On, on we go. I really wish they’d let me fight though. I could grind on the random battles, but it’s just not the same if they don’t throw any challenging story battles my way. *sigh* Well, that’s what I have Phantasy Star Portable for. I’ll be alternating between the two until I’m done with either/both. When I need more story, I’ll come back to this one. Win/win. I hope.