One Hour Review: Octopath Traveler – It’s good!

Long-time readers of My RPG Blog may remember a brief period of time two years ago when I co-owned a Nintendo Switch. I managed to finish Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and even played the Octopath Traveler demo before the ownership partnership was dissolved due to scheduling conflicts. To be honest, Xenoblade 2 was the only thing I super wanted to play, so I haven’t really thought about the Switch in a while. But recently one thing led to another and I ended up borrowing the Switch for a while.

So if you’ve been wondering where I’ve been for the past two weeks or so, I’ve been playing Picross S4. Along with my usual casual fare like Atelier Online, of course. I’ve played all the normal puzzles, now I’m working on Mega Picross. After that S4 also has Color Picross, which I haven’t seen since the DS days. And once I’m done with all the S4 has to offer, naturally I will have to revisit S, then play S2, S3, and also Picross e8 and e9 on the 3DS…

But I felt like playing only Picross all the time might make me sick of it, so I decided to cut in with some “regular” video games as well. Apart from Picross and Octopath Traveler, my bro also owns fine games such as Tales of Vesperia, Ys VIII and Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition (I want to play it but I don’t want to play it). There might be other titles as well, dunno.

All that background to say, I’ve played about two hours of Octopath Traveler now and it’s pretty nice. I started with H’aanit and almost quit, though.

Firstly because of the weird accent they gave her which was just like WHAT IS THIS. I couldn’t imagine playing a whole game full of such garbled nonsense. Luckily it’s only H’aanit and her people who speak that way.

Second reason, her Chapter 1 was really boring. Talk talk talk, walk through forest, kill monster, back to town, more talk. Practically nothing happened. They could have just let her set out straight to look for her master and nothing would have been lost.

Third reason, the game’s battle system is very boring when your character is weak and alone. Every battle takes a long time and you’re just spamming the same moves. It’s interesting to see that this is a direct reversal of how I felt when I played the demo. Nowadays I don’t have the patience for any video game system that feels like unnecessary work. If it’ll take party members to make the battles move faster, bring ’em on!

showing how little damage characters do in octopath traveler

Such puny numbers

Once I got out of S’warkii and met up with Therion in the next town, things got more interesting. The weird accents have gone away, Therion’s adventure was funnier (way to walk into a totally obvious trap, dude) and now that I have two party members, I feel invincible. Especially since I’m finally getting some use out of H’aanit’s Capture skill with more useful enemies. It’s pretty great. Tip: get as many Ice Sentinels as you can in the Ravus Manor. They make short work of the boss on Therion’s chapter 1.

This is why you should really give games at least one hour if possible. Now I’m about 2 hours into Octopath Traveler and starting to really enjoy it. Just arrived in Clearbrook and saw another story character. Once I recruit him and have three characters in my party, battles should become faster. I hope. It’s a bit of a pain having to target weakness and Break enemies all the time. Sometimes you just want to steamroll the easy field mobs, y’know? But that’s the only problem I still have with the game. Apart from that, Square-Enix fixed all the complaints I had about the demo, so I’m looking forward to exploring the rest of the Octopath world.

Before that, though, more Picross! And more One Hour Reviews of the rest of the Switch games, just as a formality. Though I do have some expectations from Ys VIII. What about the Tokyo Xanadu eX+ I was enthusiastically playing until recently? Picross happened. I was really enjoying it, though. I should post something about it sometime, but I keep feeling like I’m almost done. Also I don’t plan to hang on to the Switch for very long (I learned a bitter lesson about borrowing consoles some years ago) so I’ll go back to TX soon enough.

I really want to play more Octopath Traveler as well, though… I’ll try to finish at least one character’s full route before returning the Switch.

One Hour Review: Atelier Lulua – Rather boring start

As we all know, I was scheduled to play Atelier Lydie & Scumbag after finishing Atelier Firis, in order to round off the Mysterious series of games. But for various reasons I am shelving it for the meantime and will return after I’ve finished Atelier Lulua and maybe Ryza and maybe replayed one or two other games.

So I tried Atelier Lulua ~The Scion of Arland~ for an hour last night and… nothing really happened. Yeah, it’s only the first hour and nothing much is supposed to happen, but still it was extremely bland. Long introductions of Lulua, Arklys and Fellsgalaxen, as is common for the Arland series – that took around 10 minutes of the total time. Then gathering, walking around, fighting once or twice, synthesized one Craft, got to meet Lulua’s mentor Piana, then just like that the hour was over.

I suppose it’s a good thing. Even though I didn’t particularly enjoy that first hour, when it was over I felt like it wasn’t nearly enough and I wanted to play for another hour. None of the characters turned me off, the battle system is nothing new, and for some reason I really like the font they used for everything. Why the font? I dunno, but I liked it. The alchemy system was a bit confusing, but I may get used to it as I keep playing. Or I might be confused all the way and still muddle through somehow, you never know. It’s too early to tell.

Alchemy in Atelier Lulua

I don’t understand a single thing I just read

Because of the early experience with Lydie & Scumbag, I was little apprehensive when there was a scene about giving Father Benon a piece of their minds. I thought it would end up with them giving him a piece of their feet instead, but luckily Lulua is seems to have a normal brain and to be fairly well brought up. Guess I’ve got nothing to worry about.

Is the Atelier series misandrist?! Nah.

Another scruffy, ineffectual father figure? Someone at Gust has daddy issues!

Since Atelier Lulua is the game I feel the most like continuing, once I’m done with Tokyo Xanadu eX+ (which is going swimmingly), I’ll jump back into it and then decide where to go from there. See ya.

One Hour Review: Atelier Lydie & Suelle – What the hell

Aight, so I mentioned a while ago that I wanted to try Atelier Lydie & Suelle ~The Alchemists and the Mysterious Paintings~ because I pulled Suelle in Atelier Online and she looked cute. BIG MISTAKE. Don’t judge a character by her cutesy design. What the hell is wrong with this girl’s head, and what is wrong with the Gust writers who put this insanity on my screen and expected me to like it?

I only played one hour, as previously agreed upon. An hour doesn’t seem like very long, but it was more than enough time to meet some major characters, see the town, get an idea of the story, go through tutorials about gathering and synthesis and even fight my first battle.

Up till right before I quit, I thought it was an okay-ish game. It still runs sluggishly on my desktop so I’ll have to Google some fixes, but I’ll get round to that sometime. The tiny town reminds me uncomfortably of Atelier Sophie, that garbage game, and I’ve already heard that the scale of the game is much smaller than Atelier Firis. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as long as it’s not too small. And really, as long as there’s enough alchemy and the story isn’t too annoying I don’t mind the size of the world map much.

The problem came right before the hour expired. All along I’d been bothered by how rude Suelle was towards her father, even calling him “dummy-daddy” like it’s funny or something. But I figured the writers were just trying to create a “livelier” and “spunkier” heroine in contrast to the bland Sophie and cutesy Firis. And some people do have this casual, faux-adversarial relationship with their parents, I don’t get it myself but whatever.

Someone wash her mouth out with soap

So far so bad, but then right after Lydie and Suelle got back from the world of the painting, the game went crazy. There was a scene where their father Roger spent all their money – a measly 300 cole – on paint and then Suelle… I couldn’t believe it… that crazy cow KICKED HER OWN FATHER!

Don’t go “Guwah!” Thrash some sense into the little brat!

No “poked,” not “picked,” not “tricked.” K I C K E D! Kicked her own father. When did fathers turn into footballs for any brat to kick them around anyhow they please?

What kind of no-good, low-level low-life do you have to be to kick another human being?

What kind of ill-bred, disrespectful, putrid piece of garbage do you have to be to raise your foot against your own father?

And not for any good reason but over 300 cole?!! I thought I was hallucinating or something, maybe I sniffed too many paint fumes from the game. I mean, HOW????? I can’t stop shaking my head. Haa…🤦

So that soured me on the game in a major way. You can’t just kick people like that. I wouldn’t even kick my neighbor’s dog, and he’s a bad dog. Bark bark bark from morning to evening, bark bark bark even at 2am. But the night a burglar stole my laptop, it slept like a baby, zzzz. Even then, I wouldn’t kick that hellhound. How much more my own family member, the father who raised me from birth. This is nuts…

From now on, this game is no longer called Atelier Lydie & Suelle; it’s called Lydie & Scumbag. As for whether I’ll continue to play it or not… ugh, I don’t wanna. I’m probably going to, eventually, but I’ve moved it to the back of the queue automatically. I’ll play the more sensible ones with heroines with an actual moral compass first, then I’ll circle back to Lydie & Scumbag in the future. See ya!

One Hour Retry: Tokyo Xanadu eX+ (minor spoilers)

tokyo xanadu ex+ banner headerHiiiii guys~ Remember two days ago when I said I would be playing various games for an hour each? Yeahhh, that plan is kinda on hold now~ Just for a little while so I can finish or definitively give up on Tokyo Xanadu eX+. Don’t blame me, blame Atelier Lydie & Suelle. I was trying to install and run it on my laptop and it was giving me all kinds of troubles. Slow framerate, controls not working, flat out not responding to anything.

I blame the laptop mostly, but either way it was a frustrating experience. Eventually I put the game aside and concentrated on getting the controller working. And after that, naturally I had to test the controller. And Tokyo Xanadu eX+ was right there on the desktop. So I set the alarm for an hour and dived back in and now I’m hooked again.

After all, it’s not like I dropped the game because I disliked it. My save file reads 25 hours for a good reason. When the game actually lets you play, combat is a lot of fun. Enemy density is a bit low, but the dungeon lengths are getting nice and long and the puzzles aren’t too annoying yet, so I look forward to every dive into the Eclipse. When they let me dive, that is. I timed today’s session and approximately 20 minutes of it was spend in the dungeon while the other 40 was spent watching cutscenes before and after the dungeon run. That’s rough.

IIRC the reason I stopped playing was because I took a long break, and when I came back I couldn’t remember any of the controls, or any of the story. I still barely remember the story except we’re trying to save an idol singer from ‘angel’ possession. And we’ve formed some kind of monster-busting team. Now I think of it, I was very annoyed back then because Falcom made me play for 20 hours THEN began to introduce the main story. But that’s just Falcom’s way, so I dunno why I bothered being upset.

So anyway, if not for the one hour alarm, I would have felt too lazy to jump back into Tokyo Xanadu eX+. This is like the third or fourth time I’ve walked away and every time I have to memorize all the controls again. This means jump, this plus this means jump attack, this is a power attack, this is a strike, and on and on and on and on. I’m terrible at keeping those kinds of things in mind. I prefer the Rune Factory kind of “mash X to slash” attack. But, as with most good ARPGs, once you do master the controls, it feels amazing running and dashing and hitting, racking up the combos and finally, finally shaving that last point of HP off a boss. There’s nothing like a good ARPG boss battle.

All this is to explain why I have to put the One Hour Review plan on hold so I can finish/drop Tokyo Xanadu eX+. I will play and comment on Atelier Lydie & Suelle ASAP if I can get it to run on my desktop. However if I wait too long, I’ll forget the controls in TX for the umpteenth time. Sure I could still go ahead and try other games for an hour like I said I would, but I don’t see the point. After all, the ultimate goal of the exercise was to find something I wanted to play, and I found something I want to play. Better to clear this out of the way first and then continue.

Also to be perfectly honest, I really don’t want to play FFXIII again. And The Alliance Alive, eh, if it weren’t from Furyu I wouldn’t touch it. That chibi graphical style reminds me too much of games like Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Final Fantasy 3 DS, Bravely Default and Legend of Legacy. All of those memories churn up unpleasant feelings in me, so I’m not so hot on reliving them again by playing AA. I’m better off using the 3DS to play Picross e8 and e9 instead. Ooh, Picross💕

In summary: Tokyo Xanadu eX+ time! See you later!

One Hour Review: Sword Art Online Hollow Fragment

Kirito fights Philia because she doesn't instantly cave to his charms

Join my harem or die!

I’ve realized now that if I don’t force myself to sit down and try some actual video games, I’ll be playing Candy Crush Soda Saga till the end of the year. At the same time, however, the thought of committing to another 40-hour slogfest doesn’t appeal to me at all. I mean yeah, in practice I’ve spent waaaaay longer than that on casual games, but it’s the thought, you see?

So I thought about applying a productivity hack to video game playing. Instead of saying I would “start a new game,” I set an alarm clock for an hour and told myself I would “try something new for only one hour.” My plan is to do this for a couple of games and then see which ones I want to pursue and which ones to drop.

First up, Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment. I watched the Sword Art Online anime and it really wasn’t that bad despite the many negative reviews online. I even watched season two, and I’ve been meaning to watch the rest someday. While I didn’t have much success with the first SAO game I tried (Infinity Moment), the idea of a colorful RPG with a different take on the usual turn-based system was appealing-ish. In theory-ish.

sword art online hollow fragment screenshot

How? Tell me how!

Results

I started playing around 3pm, and stopped around 4:30. A little longer than I had planned, but I also spent a bit of that time eating lunch and playing with my phone, so it all evened out. And I must say, the “one hour” limit of focused play is a really good thing. Left to my own devices, I wouldn’t have made it past the 10 minute mark.

There was no tutorial for what different attacks did until the end of the first dungeon, so I was going through this dungeon, fighting weak mobs which nevertheless have a lot of HP, and mashing buttons without any idea what they did. My party member Philia would be begging me to stun the enemy and I’d be like WUH? Stun? Huh? Even worse, my main character Kirito is already level 100 with 32000 HP, so the puny EXP dropped by the enemies didn’t do jack for me. All in this really really boring featureless dungeon with no items or treasures to discover.

Luckily at the end of the dungeon, they finally provided some clarity about skills and how and why to use them. Also I realized too late that enemies in the first dungeon won’t attack you if you don’t aggro them, so just ignore them and run towards your target.

TBH I still don’t think I fully understand the system yet, and the game has been talking non-stop since then so I haven’t had a chance to fight again. The endless talking is a little more bearable than usual because I’m familiar with the characters. Just that IMO they’ve made Kirito too much of a typical harem protagonist. You know, the type who is always bullied and pushed aorund by girls and can’t ever tell them off or stand up for himself. The Kirito I know had much more of a backbone of that. Furthermore he was clearly a one-woman man and everyone knew it. But whatever, it’s not canon and I don’t care that much.

Oh yeah, story. Well so far Hollow Fragment is a blend of Infinity Moment and a new plot. As in IM, the characters beat the boss on the 75th floor but instead of clearing the game they’re still stuck inside. Now they’re aiming for the 100th floor. Oh, and for some completely improbably reason, Leafa and Best Girl Shinon were also warped into the game. How possible? Leafa almost makes sense because she’s related to Kirito, but Shinon literally dropped from the sky with no explanation. How does this even work when they’re not wearing the gimmicked NervGears Kayaba sold? Improbable fanservice is improbable and fanservicey!

Also in the midst of all that, Kirito got warped into a special area called the Hollow Area which only he and one other party member can enter. And now he has to deal with two girls, Philia and Strea, who will of course fall in love with him because he’s a harem protagonist. The goals of the game seem to be two fold: get up to the 100th floor and explore the Hollow Area.

Will I keep playing? I’ll give it another hour before making up my mind. The first hour was frustrating at first, then promising, then the characters have been talking ever since so I don’t know any more. It will all depend on whether the battle system “clicks” with me or not. So far it seems like a watered down Xenoblade Chronicles where your character auto-attacks until you make them use skills or items. I hear old school MMORPGs played like that in general but I wouldn’t know.

Depending on how the skill trees go, how complex battles get, how annoying the enemies become and how interesting the dungeons turn out to be, the next hour could be the last. Or I could decide to make a proper go of Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment. That second hour will have to wait till I’ve One-Hour-reviewed some other games, though.

Other games in the One Hour series:

Atelier Lydie & Suelle
The Lost Child (just discovered that all the versions are incompatible with the PSTV. Cancelled for now)
The Alliance Alive
Final Fantasy XIII

There are about 200,000 other games I want to play (conservative number), but these are the candidates I’m most serious about right now. I’ll play all of them for one hour each, arrange them in order of desirability and play all the non-dropped ones. Then I’ll scrounge up another batch of games and process them that way. Let’s see how things go.

Last note: just in case you’re doubting whether one hour is enough to properly see what a game has to offer… it probably isn’t. However the point isn’t for them to show me everything. It’s enough if they give me a general idea of the story, gameplay and characters and entice me to keep playing. Any game that can’t do that in one whole hour isn’t for me.