World Neverland: The Olerud Kingdom Stories – I am 7 years old and what is this?

The final event may have unlocked in Rune Factory 4, but it’s still firmly dropped. Not only that, but the 3DS itself is on an extended timeout. That’ll learn ya. However, I still felt like playing something simulation-like where I can live and work and get married and stuff. I figured this was as good a time as any to get into the World Neverland series I’d heard so much about. And here we are.

A tiny bit of background: the World Neverland series is a franchise of 5 simulation games and one mobile game published first by Riverhillsoft then, upon its demise, by Althi. The gameplay varies widely between games, but the common thread is a life simulation system where you train, fight, grow, do different jobs, earn lots of money, get married, have children and die. Think Fantasy Life, or Animal Crossing, or Harvest Moon.

I don’t want to act more knowledgeable than I am, so I’ll stick to talking about the one I’ve actually played – Olerud Kingdom. The first game in the series, first released in 1997 for the PSX and re-released as a 2-in-1 version on the PSP in 2008. None of the main games have been localized, but the mobile game does have an English version if you are so inclined. I really want to play it, but I’ve decided to play the series in chronological order first so it will have to wait.

So! World Neverland: Olerud Kingdom. You start out as a 7-year old emigre to Olerud Kingdom. But… where are your parents and guardians? Did they really let you travel across land and sea by yourself at such a tender age? They certainly did, because in World Neverland you’re a full-fledged adult at age 6 (!). It’s a bit of a shock to talk to 9-year olds and realize they’re all married with kids already, but it helps to pretend that everyone’s true age is “Game Age x 3”. That makes the age of adulthood (6 x 3) = 18, very reasonable. And you’re actually (7 x 3) = 21 years old, just ripe for starting a new life. This also explains why I haven’t met anyone in their 30s yet but have heard lots of funeral announcements for people in their late 20s.

Thanks for welcoming me. Geezer.

So I’m an adult, and that’s why on the first day of the game, my so-called advisor took me to the town square and abandoned me there, never to be seen again. It took me three days to find my way back home. Good thing I don’t need to eat or drink! In fact you don’t need to do anything in this game, you can just exist meaninglessly from day to day until you keel over dead at the ripe old age of 28. It’s your decision.

But since I’m going through the trouble of playing this game, I decided to make a serious go of it. But a serious go of what? There are no clear goals in this game. You’re not the chosen one, you’re not specially talented, there’s no overarching story or big bad, there’s no threat to the kingdom, there’s just the everyday grind of NPC life in an ordinary kingdom. Surrendering and dying in obscurity is very much a valid life choice. Your life is meaningless, so it’s up to you to find a reason to live for.

But first you have to find your character in a sea of identical others. HEEELP!

Thus I decided to at least try working like an honest citizen. Every citizen in Olerud Kingdom must join one of three organizations, the Ban Org, the Yurius Org or the Peat Org. The Ban specialize in fist fighting, the Yurius in magic and the Peat in sword fighting IIRC. And there’s a weapon triangle of some sort where fists > swords > magic > fists. Or something like that.

As an Org member, you start out as a non-ranking grunt. Slave away in the organization’s fields long enough and you become a D-ranker. Slave away some more and you become a C ranker, where you stop working in the fields and become a glorified gofer. Do that for a while and you rise to B rank, still a gofer. Then A rank where you get to do more responsible stuff, and finally – if you’re able to defeat the other A-rankers in combat, you become the head of the organization. Then, at last, the money cash & hoes start to flow. Or so I’m told. Promotion only happens once a year so I’m going to be D-rank for a long time.

Along the way, you can befriend a number of NPCs and eventually marry and have babies. I’d love to do all that, but the relationship aspect of Olerud Kingdom needs a LOT of work. It is extremely hard tell NPCs from each other because they are very very small with near-identical designs. And they rarely stand still but keep dashing and darting all over the map like their tails are on fire. There’s a free-for-all singles mixer held on the 20th of every year, but 90% of the participants are female. -_- I knew I should have played as a guy. I have a strategy for breaking through this impasse though. It involves my next-door neighbor’s 4-year old son (don’t shoot, officer, I can explain everything).

Oh, he’s 5 now. That makes everything okay.

The main draw of marriage is the cross-generational gameplay it affords. Simply put, you can play the game forever by possessing your children as soon as they turn six. Not only do you carry over your levels and skills but you also get the chance to pick up new aptitudes that you wouldn’t normally have. For example if you’re from the Ban Org then you have good fist growths. Your son could inherit those growths then join another Org to get, say, magic growths, and pass those on and on and on. It would make a nice plot for a scifi novel where a man tries to become an Übermensch by passing his consciousness down through hundreds of generations. In Olerud Kingdom it’s just a way to avoid a game over, or a way of quitting when you get tired of being a life vampire.

I’m all alone. I’ve eaten all the others.

The only potential complication in this generational gameplay is something called the “emigration” system. I don’t fully get it, but it sounds like instead of going forward in time, you can back in time with your current stats and character to an earlier generation… And get married there… To your own mother or father. But why would you ever… Oh, it’s a Japanese game. Never mind, carry on.

You work your way up through the ranks and earn money in exchange for your work. Not much money at the start, but enough to buy occasional doping items. As you work and train, you build up tiredness and stress. Tiredness goes away pretty easily by drinking water, but stress only goes away by sleeping – or by using items. There are items that make it easier to raise stats, items that make the opposite sex like you more, items that make good gifts, items you can use to dope your kids, etc. But they’re all optional, so you can just hoard money like a miser till you die.

Last thing I should note is the leveling and battling system. See the training dummies on the right of the screen above? You go up to them and spam X whenever you have the time to slooowly accumulate EXP. Training dummies in different Orgs raise different stats. You also get EXP from running around the map.When you have enough to level up, you go into the level up screen and choose to level up. When you accumulate enough levels, you can also learn new special attacks.

Attacks and levels are only one part of combat, though. The other part is popularity. Before your match, you’re supposed to go round town drumming up support from your friends and acquaintances. As you continue to win, your popularity will grow naturally and you’ll find it easier and easier to win. In theory, anyway. In practice I haven’t bothered to fight any official battles yet. *shrug* I think fighting becomes more important when you reach the higher ranks. As a grunt it’s better to just keep your head down and keep tilling the fields.

The numbers on the left and right show popularity. The more popular fighter wins.

So them’s the basics of World Neverland: The Olerud Kingdom Stories. Now for why it sucks, in point form:

  • Relationships are hard to build because NPCs are hard to identify. They’re so small on the screen!
  • There needs to be some kind of color distinction or other marker so you don’t waste time talking to married men when you’re single. Shoo! Go away!
  • The screen itself has too much wasted space on the sides. The Save, Map, Help, etc. icons shouldn’t be that large.
  • There isn’t much to do besides work and train all day. Later games supposedly have various job professions and fishing and farming, etc. but as the first game in the series, Olerud Kingdom is really rough.
  • Work is boring. You’re just doing the same thing day after day after day with no autonomy. It’s too lifelike!
  • Training is also boring. Either hold R to run forever or mash X for hours on end. Inb4 “Just like all other RPGS.”
  • Nothing against properly-designed auto battle systems, but this is just tedium. A popularity contest? For realz?
  • You can’t change your clothes, you can’t decorate your room, you can’t buy weapons or armor or furniture, you can’t do nothing. I like my life sims to be more customizable.
  • People have no personality at all. They say the same four or five lines forever. This makes friendship and romance pointless. This is my biggest complaint because it’s the one thing a life sim has to have – fun and meaningful interactions! Or as meaningful as a video game life can be, anyway. Agh, you know what I mean!

 

…If I didn’t know this was a whole series and if I didn’t have hope of better games down the line, I would condemn Olerud Kingdom as the most boring thing I’ve ever played… Which it probably isn’t but it’s up there for sure. Sorry, this review is a bit all over the place. The game itself is all over the place and it’s hard to pull my thoughts together. The TL;DR is that it has some good ideas and the concept is pretty neat, but this first game isn’t really playable. I’m going to play one or two other things then dive into the sequel to see all the improvements they made and why this series is so enduring.

I declare Rune Factory 4 “finished”. It was killing my buzz

I haven’t gone anywhere, I haven’t been playing anything other than Rune Factory 4, just trying to unlock that elusive final event. No dice. The event isn’t unlocking and RF4 is blocking the way so I can’t start something else. Putting story-critical events on a random trigger was a terrible, terrible idea. I’ve been playing RPGs for decades and I don’t think I’ve ever encountered anything quite so motivation-sapping before. Especially in an otherwise excellent game.

In a bad game I would have quit without a second thought, but here I keep playing and playing and playing… I can’t even enjoy the events I do trigger because I’m waiting for “the one,” it’s so sad. What’s worse is I’ve had a good run of games going since the start of the year, playing everything smartish and sharpish, and now it feels like I’ve been bogged down in mire for the past three weeks. But enough, this ends here.

No reviewish type writings for Rune Factory 4 this time. For one thing, despite the title, I don’t really consider myself finished. I haven’t beaten the final dungeon and I haven’t forged, fished or cooked enough to be satisfied with stopping here. Yet stop here I must, before I lose all motivation to play anything else.

And because I’m not satisfied with the way the last few hours have played out, I don’t think I can write anything fair or objective about RF4, nor do I even want to attempt to do so… nor am I known for my fairness and objectivity in the first place, come to think of it… Anyway, I can’t be bothered. I just want to play some other stuff for a while and maybe come back to this later.

Next up… I don’t even want to play anything any more… Wahh… Umm, on the 3DS I still have Legend of Legacy and Dragon Quest VII to play. And some other stuff on the DS and PSP and PS2. I’ll pick something and start, maybe tomorrow. Wahhh…

Update: Of course, a few hours after I posted this, the “Memories” event finally triggered. Tip to anyone having trouble unlocking Rune Prana, just whine about it on your blog and the game will see the error of its ways. ;-p Alternatively you can raise Dylas & Amber’s affections to 7, stick them in your party and sleep day after day after day until they get tired of watching you snore and run off to the flower shop. Then you can tail them secretly and eavesdrop on their conversation to set the event in motion. At last. I’m not even happy, but I’ll take it.

Rune Factory 4 – Finished the second arc (spoilers)

Rune Factory 4 is divided into three arcs. Every time you finish one arc,  you fight a boss, the credits roll, music plays and you’re deposited back in town to enjoy the love and adulation of your fellow villagers until the next crisis arises.

There was clearly unfinished business left at the end of the first arc, but the second arc is a full, complete experience. I don’t know if I want to keep playing after this or just call it a day while I’m still feeling good. Help yourself to some spoilers while I figure things out:

It turns out the “last” boss was some random old dude named Ethelberd who just wanted to be a dragon. Yeah, we all have our fantasies, but that didn’t work out too well for those who tried it in 7th Dragon 2020. Just FYI. And it didn’t work out too well for Ethelberd either, I made sure of that.

When I finally cornered him and started asking questions, he went on and on about how much he hated Frey and how badly he wanted to be immortal, blah blah blah. Apparently he had a grudge against Frey and other “Earthmates” like her because they defeated him a long time ago…? Eh? Is this about the time I foiled the Sechs invasion attack back in Rune Factory 1? I’m sorry, I’ve killed so many. For me, it was Tuesday.

NO U

Still, he wasn’t about to back down, so I had to do what I had to do. You’d think one ass-whooping would be enough for a lifetime, but you know how greedy some people are. Don’t worry Ethel-baby, Auntie will take good care of you. Come over here for a sec… *POW!* *SMACK!* *KA-POW!* And then Ethelberd was a Runey.

Aaaah, that was fun, I thought. 55 hours is a nice good length. What should I play next? Eh? There’s more? You want me to go save Ventuswill? Eh? But you don’t want to trigger the arc that will let me save her? Eh? You want me to keep playing forever until it maybe triggers by itself? Ehhhhh?

So as I said at the start, I don’t know if I want to do that. I don’t know if I want to keep dating Arthur and get married either. I was thinking of playing through till the end of winter to get the full year experience, but now I dunno about that either. I turned the portraits and voices back on and that really helps with getting to know the characters but it’s not enough to make me want to keep going. The guys are still pretty boring. The only ones I kinda wanna date are Volkanon and Porcoline and whaddya know, they’re not available. That’s ageism and sizeism, Japan. They’re not old and fat, they’re “mature” and “full-bodied”!

Porcoline especially is just a cutie-pie, he makes me laugh so much. ^_^ He has great chemistry with Frey and he’s always “jokingly” asking her out. His advances are always treated as repulsive, but why don’t you let me decide that for a change? I mean, look at the size of the rings on those fingers! He has a huge house and a thriving business and he makes a mean omelette to boot! What’s not to like? You want to me to date a bunch of freeloaders and high school kids instead? Haa…

As for Volkanon I don’t have any special feelings for him. I just want to see him blush >:-D And hear his confession :DDDD And to see him in a wedding tuxedo XDDDD And that’s all there is to it. It’s not because I’m closer to his age than to any of the younger guys or anything like that. Anyone who suggests such a thing will be shot.

Okay, I’ve decided. I’ll play RF4 till the end of the first year or until the end of the third arc, whichever one comes first. Don’t get me wrong, this game is still all kinds of fun, but there are other games I want to play as well. I can’t spend all April waiting for an event that might never trigger. I’ll google around about the last arc and work on marrying Arthur (meh) for the next couple of hours and see what turns up. See you next time for the final rundown!

Paradise Bay – Sun, Sea and an Endless Stream of Quests

I won’t have any Rune Factory 4 updates for a while, so I thought I’d fill the gap by talking about some of the casual games I kill time with here and there. I may be a filthy casual, but I’m still an avid gamer so I play not one, not two but six casual games to pass the time. In no particular order:

Rakuen Seikatsu Hitsuji Mura (now mostly dropped but I still log in occasionally)
Ring ☆ Dream
Candy Crush Soda Saga
Scrubby Dubby Saga
Blossom Blast Saga
Paradise Bay (the subject of today’s post)

Paradise Bay comes from King, developers of Candy Crush and all the other ‘Saga’ games you see in the list above. Unlike the others it is not a puzzle game. It’s more like… maybe Harvest Moon meets Animal Crossing? Or Anno but a very very dumbed down version? It’s a slice of life game where you fish and farm and craft items to trade through quests so you can get money and EXP to unlock new island areas and recipes and production mills.

In between all that you do events and develop relationships with the islanders by crafting even more items and doing even more quests. That’s the second best part of the game for me. The best part is the laid back low-pressure beach atmosphere. I loved the seafaring aspect of Anno 1404, it always seemed so watery and beachy and seagully and stuff, but there was time pressure and danger and a life-or-death aspect to it that stressed me out a bit. It’s comforting to know that no matter how many weeks I keep Finn waiting for his raft and grilled fish he’s not going to devolve into a peasant and start burning down my settlement.

But as I said, second best part, building relationships. I didn’t expect to like the cast as much as I do now, but they’re all kinds of fun. In a very laid back snarky-but-they-really-love-each-other kind of way. The original cast of Keani, Finn, Wesley and Pike have the best interactions. Finn as the lovable scamp, Pike as the lovable grump, Wesley the voice of reason who is not so above it all, Keani the voice of reason who is above it all but who manages to seem friendly and relateable anyway because she doesn’t nag too much.

That’s why I made the comparison to Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing, not just because of the farming and fishing but because a large part of the fun comes from hanging out with the characters. Without the cast, Paradise Bay would be just… blargh, not worth playing. You don’t actually talk to people as much as the promotional blurbs would have you believe, but there’s an ongoing story (of sorts) and each character has an ongoing character arc you reveal by grinding their affection up.

Best part is, it’s… uh, third best part is, it’s all 100% at your own pace. It really is paradisaical, nothing bad ever happens to anything or anyone. I don’t even log that often, maybe two or three times a day unless I’m doing the occasional timed dive. I’ve never been penalized for that. No bad weather, no withering crops, no dead pets, no angry guilt-tripping neighbors (Animal Crossing, don’t look at me, I haven’t mentioned your name) or weed-ridden town, nothing like that. There’s no stamina or HP system either, so you just play as and when the mood strikes you. Perfect casual fare for casual scum like me.

This is where I would normally post screenshots of my farm and show you guys around but… I can’t figure out how to take screenshots on my tablet. -_-;; I’m supposed to hold down the volume key and the home button at the same time… nope, no good. It sends me back to the home screen. You’ll have to settle for official Paradise Bay promo images instead. Official promo images like the one on the right where Keani’s skin is a few shades lighter than it actually is in the game. I’ll figure screenshots out and prove it one of these days.

In the meantime, no game in perfect, so time for the flaws:

Flaw 1: You can’t play it offline.
Flaw 2: Every time you leave Paradise Bay and come back you have to load the game from scratch and it takes anything from 30 seconds to 30 minutes depending on your connection and on whether there’s a new update or not.
Flaw 3: Updates are not optional. You have to install them before you can keep playing. I understand the reasoning but some of them take so long to download, it’s quite annoying.
Flaw 4: A lot of thing in the game are either very expensive or take a very long time to do. For example a well-paying quest will give you about 1000 gold as a reward. The most expensive item you can sell nets about 1600 gold. I’m at the stage where I need 100,000+ to buy new mills and clear new areas, so you can imagine how long this is going to take. The “solution” as you may have guessed, is to pay money for purple crystals to bypass such inconvenient requirements.
Flaw 5: The island is a bit oddly shaped so it’s hard to get your farm looking all neat and tidy like you want to it to be.
Flaw 6: You have to use Facebook to add friends. You can’t pay me enough to use Facebook again (though if you insist on trying…). There’s a non-Facebook ‘friend’ option, but that’s more like glorified stalking where you stake out their stores and visit their islands without them ever knowing about it. Kinda creepy tbh.
Flaw 7: There isn’t really much to do outside of quests, crafting and deforesting a small island. Occasional events are a breath of fresh air but they still involve more crafting and questing. At the same time I don’t want them to add so much stuff that the game feels “busy” so I guess it’s okay as it is.
Flaw 8: Needs more story. I’ve caught up with the story so far and it takes too long to raise character affection these days. Maybe they should do some story-heavy events to pass the time.

Aaand that’s about it for Paradise Bay. I’ve been playing it since early December, I think? Couple of months. And unless they mess up somehow I’ll be playing it casually for months to come. I’m a little worried they’ll take it down for non-profitability since it’s so easy to play for free but, eh, not my problem. Until then it’s more sun and surf and quest after quest after quest for me.

Rune Factory 4 – Slight progress (and slight spoilers)

I had played almost 14 hours of RF4 last time, now I’m around the 23 hour mark – or more like 30 hours if you take lost progress due to freezes into account. Rune Factory 4 is a slow-moving game so I won’t probably be doing too many updates on it. You’ll just have to take my word for it that I’m playing it and having a fairly good time. Some quick notes:

  • I figured out why the townspeople are so boring: it’s because I turned their portraits and voices off. It’s hard to get a hold of someone’s personality when you can’t see or hear them. They might as well be NPCs. At the same time, turning portraits and voices back on would greatly increase the number of freezes I incur so… uh… dunno, maybe I’ll risk it once I’m done with the story… only I’ll probably quit the game at that point… uh… yeah.
  • Rescued Dolce and Pico, now I’m doing the Rune Sphere quests. I already got the ones in Yokmir Forest and the Water Ruins and just entered the Autumn cave for the first time. According to the placard I should be level 30 and I’m actually level 40 so it’s fine. I just happen to have an Aqua Sword too. This should be a breeze.
  • I’ve been using mainly Short Swords, but I tried a spear recently and really liked it. The nice thing about spears is they keep the enemy away so you don’t take as much damage. I still pull out my sword for boss battles and new areas, but I’m going to try to forge more powerful spears and use them instead. I’ve sworded my way through most RF games anyway, it’s time I tried something new.
  • Summer time! Beach time! But there’s no beach so we go to the lake instead. IT’S JUST NOT THE SAME!! Plus I have portaits off, so I can’t see anyone in their swimwear anyway. I haven’t caught any new fish in a while either. My life is so… empty…
  • I’m not sure I like what they did with seasonal crops this time. It’s nice that you can grow things like sweet potatoes and spinach outside the usual fall season, but this makes new seasons far less exciting. Normally after a full season of growing turnips I’d be seriously looking forward to harvesting new crops in summer, but it’s just the same old things I’ve been growing since day one. It’s closer to real life, I’ll give them that, but from a gameplay perspective, farming is a drag. I can’t wait until my pets like me enough to take over the farm completely.

That’s about all I have to report for now. Unless anything super-exciting happens I’ll hold off on any further reports until I’m done with Rune Factory 4. This will take a while so don’t wait up for me.