Another Time Another Leaf: Kagami no Naka no Tantei review

another time another leaf_frontAnother Time, Another Leaf: Kagami no Naka no Tantei = “The detective in the mirror.” I mentioned this game a few months ago when I spoke about games I gave up on very quickly. Back then I quit after about 20 minutes, but I decided to play another hour or two and give the game a chance to develop itself.

As I said last time, the game is about a girl named Sakurane Kaede who finds a lookalike of herself inside a mirror her late mother gave her. Game spoilers: there’s a good chance the lookalike (Ageha) is a younger version of Kaede’s mother, but since I quit we will never know for sure. Ageha has the power to travel into the near past, where she can investigate events and talk to people but cannot touch anything or bring it to the future with her.

For example the first case involves a camera that the ditzy principal dropped somewhere. By finding out the last time the principal had the camera, Ageha is able to go back in time and pinpoint its location, then both girls return to the present and tell the principal where it is. In the second case, involving an album stolen from the library, they travel back to various points in time until they determine that the album was taken between 18:00 and 20:00, then they question the only two people in the library at the time and find the culprit. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Tales of Legendia – Quit because of puzzle booths

Cover_LegendiaAnd after only 3 hours too. Not that I was actually playing Tales of Legendia. It’s more like I was watching it, like one would watch an anime. A long, slow, cliched anime. I had the controller in my hand and I was pressing buttons all right, but I also had combat difficulty set to Easy and all battles set to Auto. The “game” therefore boiled down to walking around, talking to people and sitting quietly through the random battles, which were luckily not too frequent.

And I was okay with that. The “kidnapped little sister” story wasn’t exactly unique (and we actually found her pretty quickly) but the characters weren’t too bad. Maybe it’s because I haven’t watched any anime in a while, but even the telegraphed jokes were amusing. I liked the treasure island feel of the giant ship, I liked the bright happy colors, Werites Beacon was a great, lively town, the bread-making gimmick made me go awwww, Shining Hearts~~ I’ve got a craving for a ham sandwich now. And on top of all that, the battles were stress-free because I wasn’t actually playing them. I got a game over once when I first fought Moses, but I just tried again and my folks beat him easily. It was like a fun and slightly-interactive visual novel. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Frontier Gate Boost+ – Finally hit my limit

frontier-gate-character-creI’ve had enough. I’m done. Level 40, 62 hours. Finally found the legendary Frontier Gate, which is just a fancy name for “last dungeon populated with million-HP enemies.” If I did a few more runs and gathered the necessary ores to upgrade my weapons and armor and did the same for one other party member I could quite conceivably finish the game within the next day or two, but it’s too late. The spark has gone out and I don’t want it to come back.

Story & Characterization: Story is virtually non-existent as far as a main plot goes. This isn’t a bad thing at all in my book, especially when you consider that the individual party member stories are pretty poor. Immature characters, unbelievable motivations, people walking around feeling sorry for themselves all day, etc. One problem is that a major source of the drama (city slickers vs. country bumpkins) is hard to get into firstly because it doesn’t seem like such a big deal and secondly because we’ve never seen the city so we have no idea what all the fuss is about. But Frontier Gate isn’t a game you play for the story or the characters anyway. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Frontier Gate Boost+ – Of course I’m still playing

frontier gate boost plus_frontDon’t worry, no whining today. After 55 hours and 221 quests, I’ve already turned in my Right to Complain card. Unfortunately I don’t have anything new to report about Frontier Gate Boost+, just more of the same.

Accept quest, do quest, accept quest, do quest, accept quest, do quest. It’s not like the quests are all that interesting either. It’s either exterminating monsters (80%),  catching monsters, finding missing persons, finding X of a certain item or delivering items to villages. Sometimes they get a little creative with the descriptions. One recent quest involved tracking down a thief who had stolen a swimsuit recipe, for example. But it still boiled down to finding him and beating the tar out of him, just as I’d done with the other 22,430 enemies before him.

I got two new party members, rather unwelcome additions at this point.

Arsha: Foreign (spy?) girl allegedly looking for medicine ingredients. I haven’t gotten much use out of her yet because she can only go on specific quests that require items I don’t have.
Kurotaki: Samurai guy. Might be a spy too, but I doubt it. Seems like a nice fellow, but I don’t have the tyrannosaurus fang I need to be able to upgrade his katana further. Which is a shame because even at a low level it’s extremely powerful. I’ve killed about 5 tyrannosauruses in vain, but I might attempt a few more captures before I give up.

Difficulty has gone up quite a bit, which is another not-entirely-welcome addition. Not because I have anything against hard RPGs but because this game is “hard” in my least favorite way: it ramps up enemy HP, DEF and ATK and arms your party members with the equivalent of cotton wool and jelly. Part of it is my fault for trying to give all my party members equal attention and another part of it is my fault for experimenting with different weapons instead of sticking with what works best (knuckles. So broken it’s not funny).

But self-imposed challenges aside, the giant leap in enemy levels and stats is still a PITA. Especially since I’m expected to farm items to upgrade my weapons and armor, which I don’t want to do. I’m plodding on as best as I can, chipping away at the harder quests one at a time, but somehow I’m not feeling the same joy one usually gets in RPGs after killing a tough boss or fulfilling a difficult request.

And yet I’m still playing. Because really, Frontier Gate Boost+ is more fun than I’m making it sound. I just don’t know how else to make it sound because I’m describing it as accurately as I can. I think it would be a good game to play multiplayer, with a real life person controlling your battle partner and making individual decisions. As it is right now, enjoyment of the game boils down how much you can stomach killing the same frogs and wolves and hornets for 58 hours in a row. Luckily I’ve got plenty of experience in that sort of thing, so I’ll be at this for a while. Don’t wait up!

Frontier Gate Boost+ – 44 hours in

frontier-gate-earlyMC level 31, play time 44 hours and 20 minutes, two weapons mastered, 174 quests fulfilled and at least another 100 to go. My left finger, wrist and elbow hurt from constantly pressing L to run. It really should be press L once to run and L again to turn it off, but game developers never learn. And the boost in speed is so slight that it would be millions of times better to make the running speed faster in the first place.

And still Frontier Gate Boost+ doesn’t have much of a story beyond “Explore and do quests until you get tired.” There are these two legendary heroes who have gone missing, and there’s mention of a “Frontier Gate” out there somewhere, but nobody’s really on my case to do anything about those. My partners have a little bit more story now that I’ve gotten our bonds up to level 4, but not much. Do please go on, this is most interesting →