Phantasy Star Portable – Surprisingly fun!

I thought I would have quit by now. I wasn’t expecting to be still playing this game after 5 hours and three story missions, and I certainly didn’t think I’d be enjoying myself. Proof, if any were needed, that I am a seriously poor judge of my own tastes.

Phantasy Star Portable is billed as an Action RPG. It’s 95% action, 5% RPG, and I’m not even sure about that bit. There’s a story in there somewhere, and you level up and you do play a role as a newly-qualified guardian, but most games have that kind of framing device. This is very close to a pure action game. You show up, they give you your mission, you kill random monsters for 30 minutes, beat the boss, clear the mission, go back for more.

On a normal day I wouldn’t even think twice about tossing this aside. I play video games to relax and unwind, not to stress myself out. And yet somehow Phantasy Star Portable is one of the most relaxing games I’ve played all year. It’s the right game at the right time. After playing several talk-fests in a row, there’s something oddly therapeutic about just running around mashing buttons blindly without anyone getting on my case. And a simple story about a terrorist on the loose and a KOS-MOS clone that wants to know what love is is just what I needed after all those “deep” and “clever” stories.

Plus the game is easy, too. I told myself I’d quit when I saw my first game-over screen, but I haven’t even come close to being wiped out yet. I haven’t had to grind either; it seems just doing all the missions as and when they become available is enough to keep you properly leveled so you can progress. I’ve also got more weapons and healing items than I know what to do with right now. The game is a completionist’s wet dream, with what seem to be hundreds of weapons and items and arts to be collected, but I’m getting by just fine with my basic human fighmaster and his dinky little swords. I’ll still quit if I get wiped out, but it’s looking less and less likely with every passing mission.

Real men fight with meat!

All isn’t rosy in paradise, though. I have a problem with the story. Yes, it’s refreshingly straightforward and concise, but there are two things that are bothering me.

1. The Stranger’s Family Reunion issue. Apparently this is a spin-off of a PS2 game called Phantasy Star Universe, so they throw around terms and make reference to events and characters like I should know them all already. Instead of explaining thing properly, the game just expects me to be familiar with the Gurhal system, the species/races in the system and their mutual relations, whatever SEED are, whoever the Alliance Military are, whoever Captain Curtz is, and so on and so forth. And they have these “emotional” scenes and stuff, featuring people I’ve never even seen before. I feel bad telling them I don’t care, but… I DON’T CARE!!!

2. Visual novel-like choices along the way. The KOS-MOS clone I mentioned is a robot (CAST) named Vivienne, and you’re supposed to help her develop emotionally by making the right conversation choices. Only they don’t tell you what’s right and what’s wrong, or give you any hints so you can figure out what she wants to hear. So far the prevailing wisdom seems to be “Don’t be a douchebag,” but if I get to end and find out I got a bad ending because I picked “Don’t agree” instead of “Agree” at some point, I’m going to be pissed.

So far, so good. I’m still ready to quit at any time if the game gets too hard, but otherwise I’ll keep playing PSP in small doses and report back when I’m done.

Atelier Annie – So-so

I’m supposed to be playing Phantasy Star Portable right around now. But I still hadn’t had enough item synthesis after Atelier Elie last week, so I played Atelier Annie instead.

This is actually my third or fourth playthrough of Annie. I played it quite thoroughly when it first came out in Japanese, but I didn’t (and still don’t) have a very good opinion of it. Still, I wanted to see what NIS did with the English version, and my memory of most of the events was quite hazy, so I gave it one last go.

Playing it immediately after Elie was quite an experience, because they’re so different. I played all the Atelier games out of order so I didn’t notice how radically the items had changed over the time. I’d say roughly 50% of the items in Annie didn’t exist in Elie, and vice-versa, and those that are present have very different designs. Only a few basic staples even look anything like they did back then, mainly the bombs, buffer, pure water and supplements. Very interesting.

That aside… Yeah, I got nothing. While I’m usually a blind fan of anything Atelier, this game has never done it for me. First, there’s Annie herself. I don’t know why NISA picked the game with the least representative heroine for localization. Most of the other Atelier heroines are hardworking, focused and determined. They love alchemy, they have a sense of adventure and their main goals in life do not necessarily involve “marrying a rich guy so I can live in luxury.”  Yet it’s the game starring the whiny, unattractive, gold-digging slacker that made it over. Made it over and poisoned the well so none of the other, better handheld Atelier games could follow it. Way to go.

Second thing I’m not crazy about: the rest of the cast. They’re even pushier and crankier than I remembered, barging into your workshop any time they please with all kinds of unreasonable demands. It’s especially jarring after I just finished Elie, where your friends and party members respect your time. They knock before they come in (and if you’re busy you can ignore them), they don’t touch anything, they state their business quickly and politely and they don’t get mad if you refuse their requests or fail to turn it in on time. It’s the same/similar in all the other Atelier games I’ve played and even Nora was the same. Basic respect and decency cost nothing.

Third problem, and an issue I have with most of the other Atelier games: not enough time for alchemy! They kept me busy from start to finish fulfilling contest assignments, resort quests, guild quests and character quests and grinding in battle to unlock new gathering points and get the other characters to like me. The resort quests were particularly time- and money-consuming and spectacularly unrewarding. Not to mention I dreaded even entering the workshop because for 90% of the game the cast likes to waylay you there and boss you around while talking your ear off. You know it’s really weird, but when your Amity (friendship) level with them goes up to “Best”, all of a sudden they leave you alone and stop hounding you. In other words they were pestering you before because they didn’t like you? What a bunch of ***holes.

Anyway, I’m done with this game. Although I didn’t get to synthesize nearly as much as I wanted to because I was too busy currying favor to get a good ending, I still got the alchemy bug out of my system. The next games I plan to play are, in order, Phantasy Star Portable (already started, will probably soon quit), Harukanaru Toki no naka de 4 and Saiyuki: Journey West (gotta have my SRPG fix). These should keep me busy through the end of March.

Atelier Elie = Fantastic!

Atelier Elie was sooooo much fun. It’s exactly what I was looking for. I wanted to synthesize different items for 20 hours straight, and that’s exactly what I got to do.

That’s why Marie, Elie and M, E & Anis (the Salburg games) are the best Atelier games in the series, period. All the other games since then have had some kind of overriding goal, something you’re supposed to or strongly encouraged to do. E.g. In Viorate you had to run a shop, Lise had the debt to pay off, Annie had some stupid contest thing. But the earlier games just threw you into the game with a little money and a cauldron and left you to your own devices. You want to be an alchemist? Go for it! Do whatever you want, or do nothing, it’s entirely up to you. I just love that completely open-ended nature of the game.

Best of all, with 10 normal endings and 2 bad ones, unless you deliberately plan to suck it’s hard to end up unhappy. You don’t even have to become an alchemist if you don’t want to. You can become a warrior, or a millionaire, or just graduate normally from the academy. Some of the endings need FAQ’ing and planning, but it’s still not like, say, Lise or Nora to Toki no Koubou where I can all but guarantee you a bad ending if you play normally.

The story: There isn’t one, but Elie does have a back story as a girl Marie saved from a deadly illness in Atelier Marie. Out of gratitude and admiration, Elie decides to become an alchemist and enrolls in the same academy Marie was in. You can meet Marie and even hire her as an adventurer if you go to the right place, but the game does not revolve around that little subplot, and Marie is only involved in 2 of the 12 endings. Elie’s days are instead consumed by alchemy, alchemy and more alchemy. When she runs out of stuff to synthesize, she heads out of town to scavenge for more. She also takes jobs at the local pub to pay for reference books and materials.

When she gets a little more skilled, she can hire fairies to do much of the grunt work for her. I realized long ago that the Atelier games with employable fairies were far superior to those without, and Atelier Elie just confirmed that theory. When I pick up a game about item crafting, I want to craft items, DUH. Traveling, looking for items, fighting enemies and filling quests are all fun activities, but they can’t help but waste precious time that could be spent synthesizing instead.

That’s where the wonderful little fairies come in handy, taking all the pain out of both synthesis and foraging. Not only can they work even while you’re away but also they never fail a job, so you can set them to make time consuming items like Comets and Megaflams and take off on a trip around the world without a second thought. I love those little creatures!

Other good stuff about Atelier Elie…

1. Almost fully voiced. Even NPC dialogues are voiced, which is quite an achievement for a 1998 PS1 RPG.

2. Lovely character designs. I don’t know who the designer is, but I liked her Atelier art and character designs best. The current piss-and-watercolor style employed by Rorona and co. isn’t even worth discussing.

3. Very decent drop rates. Even “rare” items are drop more often than not, so you can make just about every item on the list.

4. Cheap battles. Normally this is a bad thing, but this time I gladly abused the Tablets of Time to make fights go by faster.

However I must be objective. Atelier Elie is not a perfect game, because…

1. Since it’s set in the same town as Marie, a lot of the characters, events and locations are the same, so it lacks a bit of freshness. As a character Elie is also simpler and duller than flashy, feisty Marie. I’m glad I let a few years pass between playing the two games.

2. The music can get annoying, especially in your atelier. I already forgot the ending theme and I just finished it a few hours ago.

3. <minor peeve> Traveling to some places takes forever before you get a flying broomstick.

4. Most endings can be gotten normally, but there’s no way you’d even know about some of the others (especially the “Elfir” ending) without a guidebook or FAQ.

5. It’s a teensy-bit too easy. Money’s easy to come by, especially if you don’t care about your reputation. With money comes fairies, with fairies come tons of items, freeing you to craft to your heart’s content. More crafting = more items + higher rank = even more items + even higher ranks, and it just spirals from there. And with the stupidly useful Tablets of Time, even if you do venture outside, no one can stand in your way.

6. Even after fusing and collecting two hundred different items, I still wanted more!

Endings: I got two endings out of one playthrough. First I declined to become a meister at the end of the four years and opened a small studio in Salburg. Then I reloaded and became a meister, which gave me an extra year to fool around and use a FAQ to create those few items the game wouldn’t tell me about. The advent of the internet must have put a real damper on the strategy guide industry.

Alas, all good things must come to an end. I finally finished the game, and since I made almost every item there’s no room for a second playthrough in my mind. When I started Phantasy Star Portable just now, I named my character “Atelier Elie” without even thinking. *sigh* They don’t make games like they used to.

Finished Persona 2: Innocent Sin (spoilers galore)

…I don’t get it.

At long last the struggle has ended. I vowed not to touch another game or write another post until I’d put Persona 2 behind me, now the day is here at last. I feel so relieved!

I must have written like 20 different posts whining about a game that no one was forcing me to play, so I’m going to go easy on the negative stuff today. Let’s see, positives… positives… I liked the soundtrack. And I think I might have liked the story if the pacing had been better and the writing had been less heavy-handed.

I’m used to JRPGs that preach to the player. Most of them have one or two “main” messages (usually “You Are Not Alone” or “Believe In Yourself”) that they stress, and a few other messages that are up to you to interpret for yourself.

Innocent Sin, on the other hand, has a lot it wants to say, and it’s very, very anxious lest you miss any of it, so the characters keep hammering the same points in over and over again. “Did you get that? Should we say it again? I don’t think you got that, let’s go over it again.” If they’d simply moved the game along and left me to make sense of things, maybe, just maybe, I would have had a better reaction. As a matter of fact, I read an anecdote the other day that illustrates what went on between me and Innocent Sin over the past couple of weeks:

A woman bought a bottle of cod liver oil to give to her dog so he could have a healthier and shinier coat. Every morning, she pried the dog’s jaws open and forced the liquid down his throat. He struggled, but she persisted. He doesn’t know what’s good for him! she thought. Faithfully each day she repeated the process.

One day, however, the bottle tipped over and she released her grip on the dog for just a moment to wipe up the mess. The dog sniffed at the fishy liquid and began lapping up what she had spilled. He actually loved the stuff. He had simply objected to being coerced!

The woman is Atlus, the oil is Innocent Sin‘s story, and the dog is… not me. I’m too pretty to be a dog. But you get the point. I wish they’d just spilled the story and let me see for myself how I felt about it. The forced repetition just brought on stress, boredom and annoyance. Not to mention it also made the story move at a snail’s pace because they kept going over each point several times before introducing something new. Plus it also made character conversations awkward because they had to stand around spouting stilted, unnatural lines about dreams and ideals and friendship just for the player’s benefit. I started taking screenshots after a while:

You’re gonna be a what now?

Oh, so you knew how to spell “dependent” all along, huh?


What does it take to shut this girl up?

These aren’t just isolated incidents, it’s been like that all through the game. If you take a shot of vodka every time someone says “dreams” or “ideals,” you’ll be dead long before the credits roll.

I resent being treated like an idiot with the attention span of a parakeet, like I’ll miss the grand messages if they don’t keep bringing them up. Whatever happened to Show, Don’t Tell? Especially since in the end it turns out eeeeverything was caused by a pair of elder gods just messing with mankind for the lulz. This makes the real final message: “Dream all you want and struggle all you want, without a god on your side you’re still screwed.” Not very grand, is it?

And of course, all the way to the end they kept doing that thing. That thing I hate. That thing where they know what’s going on but they won’t tell me:

No, dammit! Explain yourself NOW!

What, you can’t walk and talk at the same time?

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

But anyway, I’m feeling much more charitable about the whole affair now that I’m actually done with the game. I said I wasn’t going to complain, so I’ll stop here.

When I think back on Innocent Sin, I’ll probably have more bad memories than good. I’ll probably remember the cruel encounter rate, the torturous, badly laid-out dungeons, the irritating characters, an interesting story poorly told, how long it took me to finally get round to finishing it, the bullshit “amnesia” plot twists… but I’ll also remember that I somehow managed to finish it despite all those flaws. I don’t think I can ever play it again, but I don’t hate the game, I don’t hate the characters and I don’t rule out playing Eternal Punishment one day in the future.

Right now, it’s time to finally start Atelier Elie!

Hexyz Force – Levant’s Tale (spoilers)

An ordinary turn-based RPG from Sting. 5 years is a long time to hold a grudge, so I decided to try another game they developed, the more “normal” the better.

Unfortunately Hexyz Force is perhaps a little too normal, making it hard to write about. I didn’t not enjoy it, but I wasn’t crazy about it either. I’ll list a few of the good and bad points and then call it a day. Before you read any further, just note that it says “spoilers” at the top for a reason. I won’t be holding back.

Oh wait, the story. Hexyz Force features two stories, one with a cleric named Cecilia and another with a knight called Levant. They live on a continent where various races are at war, and every couple of centuries there’s an Hour of Judgment that determines whether the world will be wiped out or allowed to continue. In Levant’s Tale, the emperor he serves basically goes nuts and plans to wipe out all the other races. It’s up to Levant and his friends to find out what went wrong and try to bring peace in their own way. Not a bad story in general, though it’s astonishing how quickly and easily the emperor is forgiven in the end after burning and slashing his way across half the world.

Good points

  • The game is fast-paced, because you can press the R button to fast-forward all cutscenes (except FMVs) and battles, boss battles included. All RPGs should have such a button.
  • Levant’s Tale is fairly short, clocking in at around 20 hours IIRC.
  • With one exception, all dungeon and town maps are displayed in full, preventing wasted trips down dead ends. They look like this:
  • No random battles. Enemies can be seen on the map. They aren’t always easy to avoid though.
  • Battles are easy. This is both a good and a bad point, as I shall elaborate upon below.
  • Levant and his party members are easy to get along with. His portrait makes him look a little arrogant, while Irene’s makes her look spoiled and high maintenance, but actually they’re all very nice people. When bad things happen they mope a little, but then they snap out very quickly and move on. I admire that. I also like the fact that while Irene and Levant have a romantic relationship from the start, it’s never allowed to take over the series, and Levant never has one of those idiotic “Trade the world away to get my main squeeze back” moments.
  • Not too preachy or heavy-handed. There are a few “Never underestimate the power of people” and “You are not alone” lines, but for the most part they gave the usual RPG dialogue cliches a miss.
  • Linear plot progression. Usually it’s a bad thing for me, but in this case I liked being able to progress quickly and efficiently.

Bad points

  • The story. The missing bits. Because they divided the game into two, there are a number of things in Levant’s Tale that do not make sense and are never sufficiently explained. At the end of the game Cecilia’s party joins you and they trot out lines like “Grandz at Altair” and “the Force Stone” as if the player knows them already. Unless you play both routes (and maybe even not then) you’ll be left in the dark.
  • The story. The cryptic crap. This is why I hate stories with mysteries in them, because there’s always one or more characters who know what’s going on or know more than they’re letting on, but just won’t say it. This numbskull named Philia always promises to “explain everything later”, but she never does.

My feelings exactly!

Hint: it’s not a good idea to remind the player how stupid your story is

  • The story. The futility of it all. As you progress the story, you are confronted with choices that determine whether the balance of the world will tilt towards Creation or Destruction. It’s bad enough that the game doesn’t give you any clue which choice does what. It’s even worse that you get to the final boss and find out that he was going to gimmick the balance to tilt towards Destruction no matter what you did. For 99% of the game I was unwillingly and unwittingly doing everything Azul wanted me to do.

    Way to make me feel like a genius, Sting.

  • The battle system. It’s nice that the battles are simple and go by quickly, but sadly that means the battle system goes largely untested. There’s a damage bonus system affected by the elements you use, a weapon-leveling system and tons of items and accessories and status effects, but all of them can be safely ignored in favor of just whacking away with your strongest attacks from start to finish. It’s a bit of a shame, because I thought they had some good ideas in there.
  • The fusion system. I don’t know which game pioneered item fusion in RPGs (Star Ocean, maybe?) but they’ve done the world a great disservice. It is rarely done well. Either it’s a completely unnecessary addition, or the source materials are hard to find (as in this game) or the process is tedious and fraught with failure or all three. The problem is compounded in Hexyz Force because there are no shops and you have to fuse all weapons, items, armor and accessories from scratch. It’s just as well that the game is so easy you can get by with a few basic items.
  • The endgame. You go through most of the game with Levant and three other characters, then the game dumps about 5 new party members and a ton of new weapons on you in the last hour.  And they’re under-leveled to boot. What am I supposed to do with these? The game’s pacing could be a lot better.

Aaaand that’s about it. It’s not a bad game at all. The story is the worst part, and even that isn’t a deal breaker, mainly because the game is short. In fact I’m not entirely opposed to replaying the game to see Cecilia’s route later on. Right now it’s almost March I haven’t finished a single thing from my Resolutions list, and it’s all that durned Persona 2‘s fault for holding me up. I’m going to concentrate on finishing it (if possible) so I can move on.

[Returned to my original WP theme now. I feel so much better]