BRB restarting FFXIII

It’s been so long since I played Final Fantasy XIII that I’ve forgotten how the battle mechanics work. Especially what Paradigms are used for and double-especially whatever that mechanic I was supposed to use to beat some scorpion-like mecha that wiped me out about 5 times. So I thought I’d start again, skip all the cutscenes till I get there and then resume my old save once I’m sure I have the hang of things again.

Incidentally the reason I stopped playing FFXIII was because of the controls. Somehow the keyboard controls just didn’t feel right even after several hours. I entertained the thought of buying a controller just for it, but it didn’t seem worth the trouble so I just quit. Recently it occurred to me that I could get one of those USB doohickeys that let you connect your PS2 controller to a PC. So that’s what I did. It’s not perfect – I’m going to need to remap the keys and the analog sticks to make them point where I want them to, but it feels much, much better than using the keyboard. As a bonus I’ll be able to use the controller when I’m emulating PSX games on ePSXE in future.

The problem right now is… replaying FFXIII is a dreary experience. TBH I haven’t missed it at all these past months. But my memory tells me I was starting to enjoy the battle system and the Crystarium thingy when I quit. Besides I’m not replaying the whole thing, just a little bit until I’m back to speed. Skipping all the cutscenes really makes you realize the “Corridor Simulator” claims aren’t far off at all. Run run run, fight, run run run, fight, run run run…

While that’s going on, I just remembered I haven’t finished Ace Attorney Investigations 2 either. I’ll be playing it on the side as well and will probably finish it long before I catch up in FFXIII. Details on this story as it progresses.

Oukoku Shoutengai – Being a mayor is more boring than I’d thought.

Oukoku Shoutengai is a 2010 simulation game made by Japanese indie developers inutoneko. I’ve had a blast playing their earlier games and was really looking forward to this one, but it wasn’t quite what I was hoping for. A marathon 5 hour session yesterday was enough for me. I’ll explain why in a second, but first the story/premise:

The city-state of Ishwald is in dire economic straits. Sister Sophia and her superior at the church of Ishwald decide to revitalize the rundown local shopping district in order to create jobs, generate funds and raise public morale. Unfortunately her superior has to leave almost immediately on official business. It’s all up to Sister Sophia to save the district, with a little help from her friends and a lot of bribery.

The reason I didn’t enjoy Oukoku Shoutengai as much as the others is because it requires much less micromanaging. There’s always something to do every day when you’re farming or running a restaurant or a shop. Managing a shopping district is a lot less labor-intensive and thus a lot less fun.

At the beginning of the season you have two main jobs to do. The first is to lease shops to interested businesses. In selecting the best fit for the spaces, you must consider a number of factors. Can you afford to pay them to set up shop? You pay them a signing fee and make it back with a cut of their profits, so you’ll be looking for profitable shops with a high demand for their services.

The percentage sign shows the level of demand. You also have to think about store quality, target demographic (young, old, male female), seasonal popularity (e.g. a swimsuit store will do better in the summer) and a few other things along those lines. You want a good mix to keep different people coming in. But in the end it’s all stuff you get out of the way on day one of the season.

After that you just kind of sit there and watch the customers roll in for the next 30 days. Morning to evening, morning to evening, just sitting and watching customers going in and out and slowly making money. Morning to evening, sitting and watching, sitting and watching, sitting and watching, sitting and watching, sitting and watching… If you don’t get the picture I can repeat “sitting and watching” another hundred times until you do, feel free to ask. It will be more interesting than actually playing Oukoku Shoutengai, I guarantee it.

The other thing you do at the start of the season is meet the newest members of the City Council and try to establish friendly relations with them. That’s a euphemism for “bribe the hell out of them so they’ll pass the legislation you want.” Oh wait, it’s only called bribery when it’s done in third world countries right? Lobbying, that’s the word. You lobby the fine upstanding ladies and gentlemen of the Council once a month.

The star next to a member’s name means you’ve already “taken good care” of them that month. The percentage shows how much they like you, which goes up faster if you get them stuff they prefer. Some of them want money (err “political donations”), some of them want land, some want free labor, others want your hard-earned Guild points. It’s not really optional either, since you have to go through the Council to get a lot of things done. Want a grant? Pay us. Want more land? Pay us. Better security? Pay us. They’re like the Mafia but even more blatant.

The higher a council member’s level (D > E > F etc.) the more weight they carry at council meetings, so you want to lobby them first and foremost. You can pass legislation to raise the level of the members, but this is a bad idea if you do it too soon. I learned that the hard way. More powerful members can give you bigger benefits, but they also have outrageous appetites. Stick to the petty criminals at the start.

Council meetings take place on the 14th and 28th of the month and you can see above that they rejected my humble appeal for more GP because they didn’t like me enough. No refunds for the money I spent wining and dining them either. Plus the council gets shuffled every season, presumably to prevent corruption, so you have to work with a largely new council every season. The good news is that affection is cumulative AND the pool of members is limited. Keep up the bribery long enough and eventually everyone will hit 100%. Phew!

So those are the two main activities Oukoku Shoutengai offers. I’ll admit that bribery lobbying is kinda fun, but it only takes a few seconds here and there. Same with picking shops. The other 95% of the game is just sitting and watching and sitting and watching. Oh sure, there are a few more things you can do like:

  • They added half-body portraits for cutscenes, which is nice. But Tico’s chest is just… ???

    Play mini-games and chat with people who stop by. The characters have made a bit of progress in their relationships (Eve is finally getting the message that Fill doesn’t like her) but the story moves so slowly that it’s not worth reading.

  • Expand your stores using forage materials like sticks, stones and water.
  • Buy maps and send adventurers to forage for items. This is an extremely dreary process you have 0 control over. Adventurers will pick up very little at the start and will frequently die to bosses, resetting exploration progress to zero.
  • Occasionally assign extra staff to stores to cope with demand.
  • Research forage items so you can make your own via a magical garden.
  • Do a little meaningless alchemy with items you have lying around.
  • Do a little shopping for items to expand your store.

But all these still take up only a tiny fraction of your time. The rest of the game is spent sitting and watching. And I don’t play games just to sit and watch. The developers should have added the option to skip up to a whole season at a time and give you a rundown of your profits. They could also have added more things to manage like sanitation, inspections, advertising, hiring assistants, charity work, active participation in festivals, taxes, etc etc etc.

This is one of Inutoneko’s lazier efforts and barely qualifies as a game. I’m happy to cut them a lot of slack in recognition of past achievements though. After all even the late great Imageepoch of Time and Eternity fame made the occasional dud. Besides, meager as it was, Oukoku Shoutengai did scratch my simulation game itch. I’m ready to get back to more robust game systems now.

Next up: We’re into the last quarter of the year, which means it’s time to clean up loose ends. Time to take another look at games I stopped playing but haven’t definitively dropped yet. Off the top of the head I can think of Final Fantasy XIII, Legend of Legacy, Summon Night 5 and Operation Abyss. The point is not necessarily to finish them but to arrive at some sort of conclusion with each one. First up is FFXIII.

Granblue Fantasy – Of sparks and men

Welcome to another update on Granblue Fantasy, the game I allegedly quit 9 months ago! And I did quit… for about two months. Then my mind told me “Come on, it wasn’t so bad…” and I started checking in every other day. Then every day. By the Golden Week celebration I was back in full force. “I’m only here for magnafest,” I told myself, but I haven’t left since.

I don’t play too seriously outside magfest but it has been 9 months since my last post so I’ve definitely made some progress. I’ve unlocked Tier IV classes and FLB’ed several weapons. I can post updates on my grids another time if anyone is super-interested but today I’m here to talk about sparking Summer Zooey!

Why a spark? TBH I didn’t really need to save up for a spark. I have decent gacha luck and serviceable SSRs in all elements. But other people have sparked and I haven’t. I’m missing out. I must spark too! Why Summer Zooey? Because other people have her and I don’t. What kind of world would this be if everyone were content with their lot? I must have S. Zooey and that’s final.

And I could have had her way back in the July Legfest but I got greedy and decided to wait. Thus I fell victim to the Great Zooey Switcheroo of Summer 2017. That’s why even though I’m tempted to wait and see what’s available at Halloween, Christmas and New Year, I’ll stick with the certain and spark now.

What I want: Shiva-tier summons. Korwa! I’ve always wanted Korwa. Altair because I need a Water buffer that benefits from my Baha dagger. Ayer because my Earth team needs more firepower. SSR swords and daggers to reduce for my Earth/Water FLBs. That’s it, I guess. I told you I had good teams already.

What I’m getting: Summer Zooey. If I manage to pull her before the end, Mahira. If I pull both, Lecia.

Here are my most recent characters before the spark:

And here we gooooo. 110 single ticket draws and 57,000 crystal pulls. I’ll stick to posting the SSRs only.

Sweet, a dagger! Can’t wait to reduce it. Oh wait, it’s a sword? A sword is fine too!

Oh. The new SSR. I was afraid of this. But the melee weapon will come in handy when it’s time to FLB another Celeste Claw.

A reward? Or punishment? for skipping Baalfest. I’m overflowing with Earth quartz so I’ll stick him in a stash for now.

My second Lich. I like his design a lot, it’s very “fantasy.” But because of the way Granblue works I don’t have much use for him in my parties. Stash for now.

I just realized rare crystals glow slightly as they pop out if they contain a + mark. That’s nice.
…Gold moon. That’s nice too.

I’m almost done with my grids. I can’t, I won’t go back to the mines now. *stash*

200 more sword stones get! FLB Ygg Sword, here I come! I’m not sure if Beatrix is any good or not. Will check later.

Yes! YES!! Vortex Dragon! I’m not even kidding, I really need light quartz! Thank you for coming home, please come again!

Another gold moon. And it’s the same Fusion Mobius as before. Clarisse must really like me, but I don’t need any harp stones. …Ah, yet another gold moon. This time it’s Eugen’s AK-4A. I reduced the first one. Better hang on to this just in case.

Welp, that’s it for the 110 single tickets. So far I have 7 new SSRs, 3 gold moons and two or three new SR and R characters. Stan, Rosine, Philosophia and maybe someone else too. Time for the crystal draws.

1st: Nothing good.
2nd: Junk.
3rd: Silver moon, bronze moon.
4th: Silver moon, two bronze moons.
5th: My second Anubis:

Anubis-sama, I haven’t forgotten how you carried me when I was a tiny little scrub just starting out. I will never reduce you but will treat you kindly and tenderly until the day I finally MLB you. Please rest quietly in my stash for now.

If Granblue Fantasy ever releases a must-have harp weapon, I’ll be ready to FLB it on day one.

6th: Gold moon, SR Dante, R Feather and…

A sword I can’t reduce and an SSR I don’t really need. Nice try Varuna, but it’s not gonna happen.

7th:

No Agni, you and me aren’t going to happen either. Not until Granblue provides a way of getting Sunlight Stones that doesn’t involve grinding like a madman for one week straight.

8th:

Another potentially-useful sword I can’t reduce. I hear Dark Jeanne d’Arc is a powerful character though. I’ll put her through her paces in a bit, right now I have a spark to finish.

9th: Beatrix gold moon, more sword stones for me. And…

In retrospect it’s a good thing I didn’t spark back in July. I would have missed the increase in summon draw rates and missed all these good summons. I don’t run much difficult content nowadays but Europa has a place in my water party at least.

10th: Bronze moon, Dorothy and Claudia gold moon.
11th: Silver moon.
12th:

Don’t need staff, don’t need dark healer, but I’ll take the 50 crystals.

I said, I don’t need staff stones and I don’t need dark healers. Listen when I’m talking to you, GBF!

13th:

Awesome! I like those piercing blue eyes, very cool. My Earth team was lagging behind the others so this is just the pick me up I needed. Xeno Cocytus, here I come!

14th: Nothing, not even a moon.
15th:

More sword stones! I don’t really use my Dark party all that much so I can’t think of any battles that really need a Veil… Hmm. Well, let’s keep moving.

16th: Two bronze moons.
17th:

Sword stones up the wazoo! And I might actually have a place for Siegfried on my earth team. Welcome aboard!

18th: Two silver moons, one bronze moon.
19th (final): Silver moon.

And done! It won’t let me draw any more until I’ve traded the sparks. Last chance to change my mind and get Mahira or Lecia instead…

But no, I too must become one of the Zooey-endowed elite! Here goes nothing~ …Wot, they just sent it to my crate. No sparkly rainbow crystal and cool music? No ticker tape parade for getting 300 sparks?

Guess not! Well, that was pretty satisfying anyway.

Final haul

SSR characters: Albert, Dorothy & Claudia, Beatrix, Arriet, Katalina (water), Jeanne D’Arc (dark), Cagliostro (dark), Marquiares, Vira, Siegfried, Summer Zooey.
SSR summons: Baal, Lich, Varuna, Vortex Dragon, Anubis, Agni, Europa, Godsworn Alexiel.
SR characters: Carren, Sarya, Dante, Mimlemel.
R characters: Rosine, Philosophia, Stan, Dante, Feather, Ryan.
Moons: 29 bronze moons, 16 silver moons (at least 5 of which are Sarya’s weapon) and 6 gold moons.
Plus marks: +10 for summons, +20 for weapons

Most recent characters after spark

Most recent summons after spark

9/10 would spark again

You’ve poked me with that thing for the last time, Luminiera!

Was it worth the wait? Yes and no. “Yes” because I’ve had a lot of fun today. It may look like I pulled everything all at once, but I actually spread the spark out over a couple of hours. It was great getting a rainbow surprise every hour ^_^. In an ideal world I would have spread it out over the entire weekend but knowing myself I’d forget to log in on Sunday and then (o)___(o)”” T_____T So it’s better this way.

Plus I got 19 SSRs (25 if you count gold moons), which is about right for the 6% SSR rate. Way more than I was expecting. I’m not too disappointed I didn’t get any character on my wishlist because now I have future draws and sparks to look forward to. I already have 13,136 crystals and 5 single tickets waiting for the next Summer Zooey-level gamebreaker.

“No” because I think I waited a little too long to spark. My parties are mostly finalized and it will take a lot for a new character to break into the frontlines. Apart from Summer Zooey and maybe Siegfried and Dark Jeanne d’Arc, everyone is going straight to the bench. I’m pretty happy with the great summons I got, but again at this point I mainly use sub-summons for their stats. Those without good auras or calls are going straight to the stash. Except Vortex Dragon, he is already dead.

Plus waiting for a spark as a free-to-play player can limit your grids because you lack weapon stones for final uncaps. Of course there’s no guarantee you will get them if you pull normally, but if you don’t pull for 7-9 months then you’re entirely at the mercy of Cygames and the occasional free pull.

I’ve been so desperate for sword and dagger stones that I’ve been buying all the SR weapon tickets Rise of the Beasts has to offer. And it’s still not enough. Oh, how I’ve regretted making a Skofnung for my Class Champion Weapon. Thanks to the spark I’m finally swimming in sharp pointy sword stones ouch ouch ouch but it’s been a long time coming.

Final thoughts

Sparking is fun~ When can I spark again? It took 7 months last time because I had a lot of unfinished quests and trophies. Now I estimate another 8-9 months, so probably May, June 2018. No guarantees I’ll still be playing Granblue Fantasy then but if I am, please join me for another spark. Thanks for reading!

Tinctura – I was expecting an alchemy simulation, instead I got… nothing.

Tinctura ~ Hazama no Machi no Monogatari (ティンクトゥラ～はざまの街の物語) is an otome game slash alchemy simulation slash stat-raising game made by an indie group known as Seventh Quark. It’s freeware, so you can download it from this site, though you need some Japanese skill to play it. Right now I am drowning in unplayed otome games, plus Atelier games have spoiled alchemy for me, so it takes something special to turn my head in that direction. As the post title suggests, Tinctura didn’t have “it.”

It didn’t have anything, in fact. Not that I expect Atelier-level production values from a free game, but that’s where an enterprising developer would fill the gap with addictive gameplay or good writing or funny characters. Like my favorite indie developer inutoneko does, speaking of which it’s high time I played another of their games. Let’s get this “review” over with so I can get right on that.

The story behind Tinctura

Dill is an apprentice alchemist who moves to a new town with her master. The master takes a huge loan in exchange for providing the guild with a panacea that can cure any disease. Unfortunately her master goes missing and Dill carelessly uses the drug to cure a random passerby’s disease. Now she’s up to her eyeballs in debt to the rapacious guild master. Oh who will save poor Dill from this cruel fate?

….. Well… that’s kind of the story I wish Tinctura had. It would be more interesting that way. Stuff I made up: Dill’s master does go missing with a huge loan on his head, but the guild master is very kind and understanding about it. If Dill hadn’t insisted on paying the loan in his stead (why???) she would be scot-free. When you’re paying off a debt you don’t really owe just because your main character has a false sense of martyrdom, it’s like nnngh…. this girl is dumb…

That’s why she needs to study so hard

Also she used the medicine on a passerby with a very dangerous and infectious disease. If she hadn’t the whole city would have been in danger. Thus the guild master agrees to waive any interest on the loan AND to give her as much time as she likes to pay it off. There’s a creepy villain lurking about with a strange doll, but apart from that everyone’s very nice and sweet. I’m cool with that, but then nothing really pressures me to play the game.

Gameplay, a.k.a. the Dealbreaker

Your dark and gloomy studio looks like this:

Dill can take three actions a day. Mainly she will be doing research to raise her alchemy level so she can work faster or taking on jobs at the guild to pay off her loan. The red 9965 in the upper right is your current debt. Not too bad. The 200 is how much money you have. You spend 5 gold a day on everyday expenses so Dill is fine for the next 40 days.

At least I hope so, because I quit after 6 days for one main reason: Dill is supposed to be an apprentice alchemist, but she never gets to make anything. Instead of crafting items, jobs in this game run on a “points” system. The more you select the “Work” command in your studio, the more points you get. I’ll illustrate with a screenshot:

Even if you can’t read Japanese, you can see the numbers 10.00, 5.000 and 5.000 on the second line of every job posting. You pick a job, go home, “Work” and get assigned a number of points depending on your alchemy level. Maybe 3 points the first time, 2 points another time, 3 points the next time, etc etc. For a 5.000 job that’s two sessions of points-earning. That sort of thing.

Once you get a sense of your work rate you can pick jobs you know you can finish within the deadline. However if you push yourself too hard your fatigue will get too high and you’ll be forced to waste time resting. Research, raise your level, take on tougher jobs, repeat, until you pay off the debt completely.

It’s not a bad system in itself but… It’s not really alchemy, is it? Not to be fussy or anything, but… IT’S NOT ALCHEMY!!!!! There’s no synthesis, no foraging, no tools, no exotic ingredients, no nothing! And the few items in the game aren’t even illustrated, they just use the same placeholder image every time!

What’s the point of making Dill an alchemist if she’s not going to make anything?! Oi, Seventh Quark! You do know how weighty the word “alchemist” is, don’t you? Are you making fun of me? Oh, it’s on now! >:-[[[[ …But realistically speaking there’s nothing I can do to them except quit their game in a huff, so that’s what I did. And that’s why I only played 6 days of Tinctura.

Otome aspects?

Oh yeah, there were supposed to be some dating aspects too, weren’t there? When I quit, Dill had met three love interests. Flavian the pretty-boy priest:

Friedrin the pretty-boy nobleman knight thingy:

And Dill’s childhood friend Leo who I didn’t screenshot because meh, childhood friend. Unfortunately I have no idea how I’m supposed to go about winning these fine gentlemen. I only just met them and each initial interaction is 5 minutes of reading boring text in a hard-to-read font. They’re cute, but maintaining my eyesight is even cuter. I’ll script an ending in my head where Dill paid off the debt and married knight guy and lived happily ever after and… There, done. I should do this more often.

Next game: Oukoku Shoutengai from inutoneko. After that maybe I’ll have the patience for a standard RPG.

Trails in the Sky 3rd and matters arising

To cut straight to chase, I just can’t bring myself to play Trails in the Sky 3rd. I started it up all, played through the prologue, turned it off, just can’t play it again. My body rejects it. You know that thing where every time you try to do Action A your mind immediately comes up with a thousand other things you could be doing instead? It’s like that, for the past 18 days. I wanted to get through at least 5 hours and write some preliminary thoughts about it, but my hand refuses to click on the icon on the screen. Trails 3rd is not going to happen. At least not any time soon.

I’m not 100% sure why I don’t want to give Trails a chance, but four likely reasons come to mind:

  1. The battle system is a step back from Zero and Ao‘s. It’s sluggish and lengthy and we’ve gone back to the era where enemies had to spend a turn just getting into range before they could attack. I don’t want to go through 40+ hours of this.
  2. The encounter rate in the prologue was too high. Too many enemies everywhere you turn. It made sense for story reasons but it was annoying to play. And Kevin’s level is high already so there’s no satisfaction of leveling up to go with it.
  3. I don’t like Kevin. He’s kinda gross. Those “playboy type with a secret serious/dark side” characters are always a turn-off. And that spiky green hair is just so… blergh.
  4. Leftover trauma from Trails in the Sky FC and Zero no Kiseki. They’re both games I started with a lot of hope and vigor and enjoyed for a while, but they just dragged on and on and on and on. And then FC had the nerve to end on a cliffhanger, I still can’t believe it. Zero was much better, but I still don’t want to go through that experience where you play for 40 hours, okay that was pretty good, now it’s time to move on, then Falcom goes “Wait, don’t go! The story’s just about to start!” WHAAAAAT?! I can’t… no more, please… please!

I think the sluggish battle system is the biggest thing holding me back. I want something fast and snappy, whap bang pow! Kevin’s supposed to be so strong and so elite but he can’t one-shot a simple Rottweiler? Pitiful. I need to really really be in the mood for an RPG before I can do this. Not quite there right now. However since The 3rd is supposed to be a complete self-contained experience, I probably will return to it someday…? No promises, though. I need a little more time.

So what now?

I’ve been dissuaded from playing Dragon Quest 7 by the kind readers of this little blog. Apparently it’s Falcom turned up to 11 on the “Nothing happens until you stop caring” scale when it comes to slowness. I believe them, but the warning came a little too late… -_-;; Not to worry though, I have a handy-dandy guinea pig in the form of my DQ8-obsessed brother. If he can’t finish DQ7, no one can. And I didn’t even have to ask him. The conversation went like:

– What’s that?
– It’s…
– DQ7!!!! *yoink* See ya! *zoom*

And I haven’t seen him since. Last I heard he’d taken a whole week off work, so it’s either going really well or very, very badly. I could call him and find out, but I’m rather enjoying this Schrodinger’s Gamer state of uncertainty. >:-DDD

Since he has my 3DS, that leaves me with my PC, DS and PSP. I’ve almost exhausted the playable options on the latter two, so… Current plan: clear up the various demos and freeware titles clogging up my hard drive and start something more serious in October. Plan B: sleep the rest of September away and start gaming again in October. A break is fine too.

Let’s go with plan A for now. First up is Tinctura ~Hazama no Machi no Monogatari~, another Atelier-inspired otome game in the vein of Eternal Wish and Densetsu no Kusuriyasan, but without the adult elements. See ya!