Kamiyo Gakuen: Makouroku Kurunugia – A terrible rip-off of a terrible rip-off

kamiyo gakuen_frontNot content with merely dreaming up bad ideas, Idea Factory now resorts to stealing them. Far from being shocked or upset, I’m rather pleased to see this side of Idea Factory. Up till now I’d heard the tales of their horribleness, but I’d never personally experienced it for myself. The games I played were either unexpectedly enjoyable (Ore ga Omae wo Mamoru, Wand of Fortune, Motto Nuga-Cel) or so immediately off-putting that I quit within an hour, thus keeping the damage to a minimum (Hiiro no Kakera, Generation of Chaos, Blazing Souls). This is the first time I’ve encountered a bad !f game and stuck it out to the end. It’s been… quite the education.

First off, what is Kamiyo Gakuen ripping off? If you saw “Gakuen” in the title and guessed the Tokyo Majin Gakuen series, you score 5/10 (+1 for even knowing about that series). I’m sure they would have copied Tokyo Majin if they could have, but a company named Asmik Ace beat them to the punch years earlier with Tenshou Gakuen Gensouroku (2004) and Tenshou Gakuen Gekkouroku (2006). The canonicity/otherwise of the various Majin/related games is a little confusing, but I’ll try to sort them out as best as I can.

– Tokyo Majin Gakuen series (1998-2008) – Developed by Shuuho Imai and Shout! Designworks, published by Asmik Ace. Canon.
– Tenshou Gakuen series (2004-2006) – Developed and published by Asmik Ace. Disowned by original creators. Not canon.
– Kowloon (Kuuron) Youma Gakuenki (2004) – Developed by Shuuho Imai and Shout! Designworks, published by Atlus. Canon.
– Tokyo Mono Hara Shi: Karasunomori Gakuen Kitan (2010) – Developed by ??? published by Atlus. Official spin-off (?)
– Kamiyo Gakuen: Makouroku Kurunugia (2008) – LOL Idea Factory.

Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Give me another day or two

monkey-scratching-headI’m playing a very… uh… nice… uh, I don’t know how to describe it… “game” from Idea Factory, everyone’s favorite game developer. I thought I’d be done by now, but I keep falling asleep when I try to play it. I was going to write about it now, but it’s not really the sort of …game that lends itself to an interim report. The story is fairly interesting though, and I’d like to see how things turn out, so I’ll tough it out a little longer. Everything else, including a Disgaea re-attempt, is on hold until I get this finished. See you in a day or two.

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness – Why can’t I bring myself to like this game?!

Disgaea Hour Of Darkness COVERIt’s worse than not liking Disgaea: I can’t even bring myself to play it. Three times I have tried to play this game, and three times I have gone down in defeat. The first two times I barely made it past the hour mark. This time I gave it “the mother of all college tries” as I said I would and managed to play 2 hours and 30 minutes before throwing in the towel. This is just not the game for me.

Of course, there’s no need to force myself to play something I don’t like, and even less need to do it three times. The only reason I gave it so many tries is because I love SRPGs, and I’m always on the lookout for new series. If Disgaea had been a success, that would have opened up the way for me to play the original plus the three sequels as well as other related games like La Pucelle (which I have also tried and failed to get into) and Phantom Brave. So it’s a bit unfortunate, to say the least, that things didn’t work out between us.

What makes this particular failure so baffling, though, is that I was certain I could do it this time. I analyzed my past two failures and concluded that I quit so soon because I got intimidated by all the game features. Item world, mentor-pupils, Mana, Dark Assembly, Ranks, Geo Symbols, Geo Panels, Transmigration, Rarity, etc etc etc. I read the in-game tutorials on all those and got turned off before I even gave the game a proper chance. This time, I determined, was going to be different. After all, multiple fans and even an in-game NPC had told me I could ignore all that stuff and just play the game ‘normally.’

Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Dark Cloud 2 – STUCK! :’-(

dark cloud 2 ridepodNot stuck as in I don’t know what to do next. Stuck as in Dark Cloud 2 freezes when I try to move forward. 29 hours, chapter 5, 100% Heim Rada and the game freezes every time Galen starts to launch Paznos. I turned the game on and off three times, tried doing things in a different sequence and tried skipping the cutscene, but to no avail.

According to my Google research, this is a rare but fatal bug that can possibly be solved by:

1. Opening and closing the disk tray (didn’t work)
2. Buying a new power cable (hmm… I’m pretty sure mine is fine.)
3. Buying a brand new copy of the game (for $80+? I don’t think so.)
4. Resurfacing the disk (Hmm. I’ll think about it.)

Or I could just drop the game and forget it ever existed. 🙁 I’m sad. Most of the game I could take and leave, but I was having fun kicking enemy butt in the tremendously repetitive dungeons. Mt. Gundor was nice and long too, and I was hoping maybe I could get another colorful stage like Starlight Canyon next. Now all my hopes have been dashed.

If I write a review now, I’m sure it will be marred by my disappointment at not being able to finish this game. To be honest, I don’t have anything to write yet anyway. “Battles are fun. Everything else is *shrug* Whatever, just let me fight.” The story has more holes than Sonny Corleone’s corpse, but it might make sense once we meet Griffon and hear what his sob story is. However I’m not interested enough in the story to read a summary or watch a playthrough. If I can’t play it myself, then there’s no point. I’ll keep fiddling with the game and with my PS2 to see if I’ll get lucky, but I don’t have much hope. What a sad end to a promising game. >_<

Dark Cloud 2 – Great, but slightly grindy

Dark_Cloud_2I’m so glad I cleared my schedule just to spend time on Dark Cloud 2. In addition to the five-ish hours I’d played already, I also got about 10 hours of playing done yesterday and today. Right now I’m almost done (I think?) with chapter 3, with around 15 hours played. I’ve done as much of Starlight Canyon as the game will let me. Now I’m busy fulfilling the requirements to cure Lin and revive Lao Chao’s bistro and the Starlight Temple. I’d still be playing right now, but the candle puzzle in the church has me stumped, so I took a break to FAQ it. I was trying to play as FAQ-free as possible, so I hope there aren’t any more such puzzles coming up. Btw, the solution to the candle puzzle is to put off candle 1 and 5 on the right and 3 and 7 of the left, working from the door inwards.

The first few hours of the game were a bit rough, but I’ve gotten the hang of the battle system now. In fact, my cocky side is beginning to rear its ugly head. Sure it was hard going at first, when Max had 32 HP (he now has 72) and the Ridepod had 80 Fuel and they both kept getting downed all the time, but right now they’re all both unstoppable (cocky, cocky) and Monica is the only liability in the party. Apart from cutscenes and Red Seal stages, I almost never see her. Why is she in the game, again?

However the reason why I called the game “grindy” in the title isn’t because I’ve been fighting to get stronger. It’s because I spent a lot of time repeating stages so I could earn enough money to complete the Sindain Georama. Things are better in Balance Valley because the enemies are more generous with their money and the chests give lots of materials, but Rainbow Butterfly Wood was just annoying. Fight, fight, buy a couple of logs, fight, fight, buy a few more logs, build one measly house, fight some more, build another measly house, do it again and on and on for 3 or 4 hours and then finally get enough to clear the chapter. I’m a dungeon crawler veteran so I should be used to this sort of thing, but even I was getting a frustrated by the time I revived Jurak (also I’m mad the “boss” didn’t give me any EXP, grumble, grumble).

Do please go on, this is most interesting →