If you animate this and run it for 21 hours straight you’ll know exactly how it feels to play this game.

This post will contain plotline spoilers. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

21 hours in, and it’s going to stay at 21 hours for a while because I’m taking a break from this game. It’s just too boring. I’ve been doing the same mission non-stop since the game started and I’m sick and tired of it. “Save the civilians.” Everything is “save the civilians.” Civilians this, civilians that. Save save save save, I’M SICK OF SAVING CIVILIANS!

I’ve played a lot of repetitive games in my time – I’m a Harvest Moon fan, after all – but Saigo no Yakusoku no Monogatari takes the cake. Every single mission plays out exactly the same way: run down hallways for 10 minutes, meet NPC, warp back to headquarters, repeat. I said this back when I was only 7 hours in, little knowing that I’d be typing the same thing 14 hours later.

Stupid excuse to prolong stupid game is stupid. Rescue civilians for 21 hours my ass. Instead of Final Promise Story they should call it Banal Premise Story.

For much of the game you don’t have a choice, though. If you don’t have 1000 people saved by a certain time (02:05, I believe), you get an automatic bad ending. Now that I have 1180 people saved, I thought I’d try a different kind of mission, an extermination one. As you might expect, it played out almost exactly like the rescue mission: run down hallways for 10 minutes, fight same enemies you’ve been fighting all along, warp back to headquarters, repeat. I thought they’d have special enemies to fight or special rewards, but it was regular items and regular rewards. B-o-r-i-n-g.

I don’t get why it has to be you doing all this grunt work anyway. You’re Messiah, the elite of the elite. Running menial errands should be the job of the ordinary soldiers and you should be on the frontlines. If you could keep the enemies from getting in in the first place, the whole rescue arc would go much smoother and faster. It makes no sense at all.

Plus if you’re so elite, surely you should be able to carry out missions more efficiently. Instead of going on one mission, coming back to report, going on another, etc, the missions should be consecutive. You’re already in wireless contact with mission control, so it would make more sense to take on several at once, do them all in a row and then progress the story. Either that or split the party into two so the three thumb-twiddlers have something to do when not in your party. Do I have to think of everything? I’m starting to feel sorry for myself, putting up these incompetent numbskulls.

Sasha, token loli

While we’re on the topic of feeling sorry for oneself, please note that Ceres is perma-banned from my party. In fact, characters named Ceres are banned from all parties in any game I play from now until forever. Right after my last post, about 15 hours in, she had a big “crisis of confidence” and locked herself in her room for several missions, forcing me to trot out and level up Sasha, a character I hadn’t used in over 12 hours. Sasha was only level 10 and leveling her up until she was any use at all was hard work, to say the least.

At first her levels rose rapidly, then they capped off and she’s been several levels behind the guys ever since. Right now she’s level 46 while they’re 50, and she probably won’t catch up till 65-ish, by which time the game will be long over. Even Cain still hasn’t fully caught up, and he’s been in my party almost forever. If I’d known Ceres was going to fail me, I would have started using Sasha way back then. She’s an excellent healer (and a terrible everything else).

And the nerve of that Ceres, after dumping me and running away to sob in her room she comes back later and is like “I’ll never run away again.” Okay, now, first off I never wanted you in my party. You wouldn’t even be a Messiah if you’d had the sense to put your little family drama on hold for just 5 minutes while we warped back to headquarters. If you hadn’t distracted Joshua and stolen his weapon at a critical moment he’d still be alive and you’d be in the kitchen where you belong so don’t give me that crap! So first you forced your way into Messiah, then you walked out when I needed you, and now you want back in? HELL. NO. The name ‘Ceres’ will never be mentioned on this blog again.

Enough about the stupid characters. The real reason I’m putting BPS on ice that I started playing Jeanne d’Arc yesterday, and I’m having a fantastic time with it. Bright colors! Missions that differ from each other! A non-milquetoast protagonist! No random battles! Music that actually fits the mood! Flaws I’m ignoring because I’ve been starved for an SRPG! It’s been so long since I played an ordinary strategy RPG with no silly gimmicks or weird mechanics. What was the last one, Luminous Arc 3? Going to be hard going back to BPS after this.

Related posts:

Saigo no Yakusoku no Monogatari – 7 hours in Saigo no Yakusoku no Monogatari – 14 hours in Saigo no Yakusoku no Monogatari – Screenshots Saigo no Yakusoku no Monogatari – Finished!