Sakura Note – A study in parental selfishness (spoilers for a game no one has played)

sakuranote-600x462Sakura Note is a short game, only about 4 or 5 hours long, so I finished it quickly once I put my mind to it. I had some harsh words for it last time, but the story improved dramatically in the last two chapters and the ending was very sweet, so I feel a lot more charitable towards it now.

Charitable enough that I’m starting to wonder why it sold so poorly. I can think of plenty of games that should have sold worse than this. Even accounting for the fact that the game starts slowly and doesn’t get interesting until it’s almost over, more than 4,000 people should have picked it up before negative word of mouth got out.

This is my own speculation, but they probably didn’t market it enough to the right people. Actually it’s worse than that: there are no right people because the game is too kiddy to appeal to adults and too adult to appeal to kids. To get all technical, it’s a short reflection on the helplessness of childhood, written from an adult’s perspective. There aren’t many people who would want to play something like that. Maybe only about oh, 4,000 worldwide.

Slow beginning aside, the story was decent enough that they it would have worked out if they had cut down the adult involvement and transformed it into a Ghibli-style children’s adventure movie. It should be about 1 hour long once you minimize the unnecessary dross. This is harder than it sounds though, because “toning down adult involvement” would mean scrapping the whole story and starting afresh, since the story is powered by the selfish, short-sighted decisions of all the parents in Sakura Note. Do please go on, this is most interesting →

Picross 3D – Want… more…

picross-3dOnly 365 puzzles? That isn’t nearly enough to satisfy moi. Up till now I’ve never seriously tried to take any of my handhelds or consoles online, but now I find myself tempted like I’ve never been before. I’m going to fight the feeling for a couple of days and see if it goes away. Picross 3D is just a game, after all, or so I keep telling myself.

They kind of ruined things with the time limits on the hard puzzles, though. The limits were still generous enough that you wouldn’t get a Game Over from them, but 5 minutes to solve a hard puzzle or lose your gold star? That’s too little. It puts unnecessary pressure on that shouldn’t be there. In my opinion, a “hard” puzzle should be hard because it’s hard. Not because of the clock counting down and making you panic. It should be hard like a cryptic crossword is hard (I hate cryptic crosswords). Take all the time you want, google all you like, if you don’t know the answer, you don’t know the answer.

Then again taking the time limit away wouldn’t make a difference because of the cheating-friendly Quicksave option. Most games with quicksave delete them as soon as you reload from the save, but P3D keeps them permanently. Quicksave before a risky move, try it and reload if it doesn’t work out. Challenge = annihilated. To my credit I was pretty good about not abusing that option until the last few stages of the game, but sometimes you just have to guess. It’s that simple.

Much I enjoyed Picross 3D though, I don’t think I have a future as a puzzle gamer ahead of me. It will always be one of those genres where I try something new like once or twice a year. And I will continue my tradition of hating dungeon puzzles oh, so so much. Still it’s nice to refresh my spirit sometimes by doing something completely different. Oh well, now back to the RPG grindstone.

New half-year gaming resolutions

kids at playIt’s more like 5/12th of a year, since we’re still technically, barely in June. I’ve realized I don’t feel like playing most of the games on my New Year’s resolution list right now. When I made that list, I thought I’d never see my PS2 again, but now that it has miraculously resurrected there’s stuff I want to play on that. Not only that, but some of the games on the list, like Monster Hunter and Tales of Hearts, I wasn’t that keen on trying in the first place. Others, like Star Ocean 2 and Sakura Taisen 2, I still want to play but the first game is still too fresh in my mind. With Dragon Quest 7, there’s a good chance I’ll be able to borrow the remake on 3DS when it eventually gets released in English. And so it goes.

Plus I’ve been tossing and turning in the wind too much lately, feeling I have to play X and I want to play Y and when will I ever find the time to play Z. It’s good to get some semblance of order and create something resembling a rough schedule for gaming for the rest of the year. That doesn’t mean these are the only games I’ll play, of course. It’s more like if I only get these done by the end of the year I’ll be happy. Something like that.

July – UnchainBlades Exxiv (PSP). The prequel, UnchainBlades Rexx, needed a bit of polish in nearly all areas, but I still found myself hopelessly addicted for days on end. That’s all I ever want out of a game. In fact, I think their gimmick of having different character designers create the cast is stupid and only adds unnecessary costs to their budget, but the first game was good enough that it didn’t matter. Here’s hoping for more of the same.

August – Earthbound (SNES) – You ever have someone recommend a game to you so many times that you find yourself really, really not wanting to play it? But I tried about 10 minutes of it the other day and I was… well, it’s too soon to say “pleasantly surprised”, but I liked the atmosphere and the art was cute. I’ll give it an honest, unbiased shot as soon as I can.

Dark_Cloud_2September – Dark Cloud 2 (PS2). I was told to skip DC1 and go straight to DC2, and I’ve heard nothing but good things about this, so I’m quite looking forward to it. Back when I first got it, action RPGs used to scare me (my intention was to have someone else play it while I watched), but I think I can manage now. I hope.

October – Devil Survivor 2 (DS). For some reason I don’t quite understand, I’ve gone off the Shin Megami Tensei games and spin-offs in a major way. I suspect I played too many too quickly and made myself sick of them. Still I quite liked Devil Survivor 1. The escort missions were a PITA and the ending I got left a lot to be desired, but it was a good game. This should be decent at least.

November – Final Fantasy Type-0 (PSP). It’s been years since I played any Final Fantasy game. Let’s see, I played Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time in 2009-ish, and FFTA2 some time before that, and I replay FF8 quite frequently, but that’s about it. How much research have I done about Type-0? Almost none. It has a school setting and it has missions and being an FF it probably has some overwrought, overblown story in there. I like the first two elements at least, so it’s worth a try.

December – Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits (PS2). I’ve forgotten which of the PS2 Arc the Lads is supposed to be crap, and I can’t play both back to back, so I’ll pick this one and go for it. I’ve never played an Arc the Lad before so I don’t have any prejudices or overblown expectations.

I have to clear Sakura Note, Tokyo Mono Hara Shi and Arc Rise Fantasia (the battle system is good) off my plate before getting down to business, so that’s what I’ll devote the first week of July to. You never know what will happen from day to day in life, but God willing I’ll get the job done.

Sakura Note: Ima ni Tsunagaru Mirai – Deservedly unknown

Games like Sakura Note give the slice of life genresakura note_front a bad name. There’s no point making a game about ordinary life with a mystic twist if the result is going to be less interesting than real life. Heck, there’s no point making any game that’s less interesting than real life. After two mediocre chapters of walking around a small, dull town talking to dull NPCs, I’m all but ready to throw in the towel.

Story: The cherry tree at the local shrine is blooming out of season. Unless the main character can find a solution, it will stop blooming forever in a few days. The key to saving the tree this lies with a girl named Nanami Yoshida, who just moved to town and transferred to the main character’s school. Her tears and her blood hold a mysterious power that is a target for good and bad guys alike.

Real story: The main character’s father (the suave Lothario on the cover) is looking to start an affair with his newly-divorced childhood friend. Said not-entirely-unwilling friend happens to be Nanami’s mother. MC’s mother is understandably unhappy about this, but is far too passive-aggressive to come out and confront her husband about his intentions. It’s compelling drama, in a soap opera-ish kind of way, and if I continue playing it will be largely because I want to see this situation play out.

Characters: The main character, his family and his cat. Nanami, her mother and their dog. The strange old man who keeps kidnapping Nanami to get her to save the tree. These are the important members of the cast. There are also NPCs scattered around town who you interact with to get their tears. I like everyone except the grown ups, who are making their own lives needlessly complicated by refusing to communicate about simple matters. As I said, it’s compelling in the way only a marriage on the rocks can be, but man, I just want to punch them! All of them!

The Tears system: Walk around town, talk to people and pick choices that elicit emotions. These emotions will make them shed blue tears, which you automatically collect and use to unlock extra scenarios. You also get to view the same events from the viewpoint of your cat and Nanami’s dog. Sometimes these are interesting, but very often they just retread the same ground you’ve covered before. You can restart a chapter at any point to pick different choices and see how these affect the NPCs. Racking up enough of the right “experiences” across all scenarios gives permanent boosts to the main character’s battle stats, which is useful enough but not really worth the considerable amount of trouble you have to undergo to unlock them.

sakura note bossCombat: Sakura Note is a visual novel, with 99% of your time spent walking, reading and picking choices. For some reason, Marvelous felt the need to shoehorn an action battle against a demon at the end of every chapter. Run, dodge, attack with A or B and keep attacking until the demon drops dead. Each battle is fairly easy and doesn’t take very long, which only highlights how unnecessary they are in the larger scheme of things.

Impressions: Boring, seriously. I’m sorry Greenpeace, but you’ll have to do better than “Save the trees!” to give me a reason to play a game. In the first two chapters, the writers have established that there’s something seriously wrong with the town and that the cherry tree is only a symptom of that disease. Unfortunately they are taking so long to explain what is going on and spending far too much time on the (admittedly more interesting) adult side story that it’s hard to stay focused. The gameplay is repetitive too, going basically like this: (walk, talk, pick choice)x 10, walk, talk, get tiny snippet of story, (switch point of view to dog or cat, get a little more story)x 7, switch back, walk, talk, one last bit of story, battle.

Wikipedia tells me Sakura Note sold only 4,124 copies in 2009, which is about 4,000 copies too many for a game that doesn’t appeal to anyone. The story is too weak and slow to please a story lover, the combat isn’t worth writing home about, the main story will bore adults and the secondary plot will confuse and annoy kids. I may try one more chapter before pronouncing a final verdict., but I’m not holding out much hope.

Picross 3D – Can’t…stop…playing…

Picross_3D_CoverI’m still playing a little Arc Rise Fantasia here and there and making good progress, but I feel the need for something a little lighter and more relaxing from time to time. That’s why I started first Shepherd’s Crossing 2 and now Picross 3D for a brief change of pace. I started just three or four days ago, but I’m already up to puzzle No. 230. Not bad at all, given how much I suck at puzzles.

Picross 3D is similar to Picross and Color Cross in concept, but the added third dimension gives the gameplay a completely different feel. You use the stylus to twist and turn the puzzle slab, chipping and carving away pieces that don’t belong until you reveal the shape that’s hidden within. It can be something as simple as the puppy on the cover or as complex as a flamenco dancer or high jumper.

If Color Cross was like cross-stitch, P3D is like sculpture. Except you probably wouldn’t take wild guesses with your thousand-dollar slab of marble. That’s one thing about this game: they’ve made it much easier and much more rewarding to take calculated guesses on what your next move should be. Most natural objects are symmetrical to an extent, and there’s only so much tweaking a designer can do before a crocodile is no longer a crocodile. I’m sure every single puzzle can be solved through 100% logic, but I find guessing works tremendously well once you’ve eliminated a number of candidates. How else could I have made it this far?

To compensate for the reduced challenge compared to its predecessors, P3D has introduced time limits and strike penalties. Make 5 wrong moves or run out of time and you’re toast. A few puzzles have a one strike limit or a 5 minute limit you can only increase by chipping away tons of blocks. There’s a scoring system based on this that rewards you by unlocking puzzles if you get the right number of stars in each level. A perfect game (no strikes, within the time) = 3 stars and it goes down from there.

So far I’ve managed to solve everything within the time limit, though its presence adds an element of tension I really wish wasn’t there. I haven’t been Game Over’ed by strikes yet, but I don’t like them either. I understand why they’re necessary to deter guessing, but I think Picross had it right with strikes that didn’t lead to a game over. Next time they should consider a Casual Mode with all puzzles unlocked and no limits for people like me who play games to relax.

picross 3d screenshotThe controls are simple and easy to master. The rating says it’s suitable for 3 year olds, which I think is a bit generous, but 5 or 6 year olds could play it quite easily assuming they didn’t run foul of the above-mentioned limits. Turn the block with the stylus. Press Up and tap a block to destroy it. Press Left and tap a block to keep it. Tap the on-screen arrows to access deeper layers of the puzzle.

The only drawback is it’s all too easy, in the heat of the moment, to hold down the wrong button and get a strike for using the wrong command. When you’re fiddling around in the underside of a puzzle it’s also easy to tap the wrong cube because all the layers are in the same uniform gray color. I can’t complain too loudly, though, because sometimes those slips of the stylus leads to an unexpected bonanza. You don’t see me restarting in a rage when that happens, do you you? You just have to be careful and take the bad with the good.

Occasionally fussy controls aside, Picross 3D is a dream to play. Each puzzle takes me an average of 8 minutes to beat, I can quicksave if I need to walk away and all the completed puzzles go into a collection of related items. It’s addictive because there’s something soothing and therapeutic about quietly and patiently tap-tap-tapping away at those little blocks. That, and it’s ultra-satisfying when you’re stuck for a while, then you twist and turn the puzzle every way and that and Eureka! you spot something you hadn’t before and you’re back in the game again. I live for those little happy moments.

The 3D models, your supposed reward for completing the puzzles, are… uhh, interesting. What’s a nice word for “primitive”? Sometimes you can recognize the object before you’re even halfway done, but most of the time you have to finish and let the game paint and animate the object before you realize, oh, it’s supposed to be a globe! You know, in the same way my nephew’s “drawings” are supposed to be a ninja riding a dragon. Still I’m more into the process than the reward, so I don’t care too much what they look like.

It’s only going to get harder from here on, but I’m committed to finishing the game if I can. I might post a brief commemorative message about it if I manage it. Until then.