74 hours and 49 minutes there-ish. Got the Hilda ending, which was kinda meh. Ryuga x Dianne = One True Pairing. I’ll have to be more careful next time I play this kind of game.
Story: Silly people wasting their once-in-a-lifetime wishes on very silly things. The goddess Clunea has been sealed, and wishes help to revive her. Also – stop me if you’ve heard this before – there’s a sealed evil guy who wants to take over the world. Unchainblades EXXiV
Why so low? I’d like to avoid spoiling too much, but 1) 80% of the game is spent helping morons fulfill idiotic wishes. 2) Far too much time is wasted on shoehorning romantic dialogue and events in where they don’t fit. The one character who does have romantic chemistry with the main character has no story relevance. 3) The bad guys are a joke. Zero menace, zero seriousness and zero loyalty to their cause. Once you defeat them, they join you so fast it’ll make your head spin. They shouldn’t even have been in the game. 4) “The bonds we have made will allow us to fight evil if we work together!” Shut up.
Characters: Unlikeable failures all around. 0/10. Just once I’d like to play a harem game or watch a harem anime where I can actually understand what the girls find so attractive about Mr. Loser. The other characters get their meaningless wishes fulfilled very early and are relegated to unimportant filler thereafter. I kept forgetting they were still in the party.
Graphics, character design: Individually almost everyone looks good. Together they just don’t mesh at all. Backgrounds and monster designs are serviceable. There’s certainly no point complaining about palette swaps in a dungeon crawler, and I think Unchainblades EXXiV had more variety than Rexx did. No rating, I’m not really a ratings person, I was just kidding about the previous scores.
Sound: Pretty good except, again, for the fire dungeon music. The main theme was done by Nobuo Uematsu again, and my reaction again is “There was a main theme?” The final boss battle theme was good. Voices were great all around, though there wasn’t much voice acting.
Challenge: Quite hard in the beginning, and stays fairly challenging throughout. Burst attacks have been nerfed and enemies have better status defense, but you can still take them down with a little patience and caution. The final boss could have used more variations though. You fight his right hand and left leg, then left hand and right leg three times in turn. Cutscene. Fight his heart. Fight right hand and left leg then left hand and right leg again. Fight his head. Boom blam kapow, you win. I unlocked the Infinite Ark bonus dungeon, but it’s just the same old enemies with their HP and DEF boosted to ridiculous levels. Waste of time.
Improvements over Unchained Blades (Rexx): A few. I think I’ve mentioned them before: vastly improved alchemy so you can get and make more stuff even earlier. Simplified unchain system. Fewer and easier judgment battles. Larger item and monster storage. More monster variety. Link skills are easier to use, but weaker, Great weapon/armor/items in dungeon chests. System-wise it’s much easier to play than Rexx. Dunno, guess I’m an ingrate or maybe I’m used to dungeon crawlers, but the only thing I really appreciated was the better alchemy.
Overall: It’s a pretty good game in all regards. The story and characters pissed me off, but objectively speaking they weren’t that bad. It’s an above-average, very user-friendly, fairly challenging dungeon crawler RPG. I did enjoy the gameplay, and that’s what most of the game consists of. Play it if you liked Unchained Blades (Rexx) or just like dungeon crawlers in general. If you have a choice between Rexx and EXXiV, I personally would pick Rexx because the story is less annoying (i.e. barely exists).
Bonus: floor maps and tips
Here’s the first floor of al 7 dungeons. I could have screenshotted all the floors of all dungeons but that would ruin the entire point of playing a dungeon crawler. Also I’m lazy.
 Abyss Gate |
 Arctus |
 Bouval |
 Daris |
 Heavenly Palace |
 Nahash |
 Quito |
Another tip: during the initial split, do Sophia’s route last. Her party is made up of weak mages with limited MP, so it helps tremendously to have unlocked better weapons and armor in the alchemy shop. I did Ryuga -> Hilda -> Sophia and it worked out perfectly.
Hilda is ridiculously strong, Sophia’s healing can’t be beaten, the other two characters in your final party are up to you. I used Ryuga with a sword, Hilda with her double katanas, Reisled with cards and Sophia with a bow. Use MP for healing where possible. Don’t sell monster drops or forage items, do sell outdated weapons and armor. Don’t bother grinding for money; it’s not practical. Save very, very, very often. And enjoy yourself, life is short.
Next up, since I still have a few days before I start Earthbound in August, it’s time to finish Arc Rise Fantasia.
I purchased this one, as well as Rexx… Using your Amazon Affiliates links, of course. 😀
They didn’t catch my attention the first times I read your (numerous) posts about them. However, I’ve discovered first-person dungeon crawling in the meantime and basically fallen in love with that subgenre, and I’m now eager to get my paws on as many of these games as I can. These two will be more than welcome in my ever-growing collection!
Thank you ^_^ But you might want to canceled the Rexx order and buy the digital English version on the PlayStation Network instead. Just a suggestion.
I’ve been reading your posts on Class of Heroes, and I’m amazed you managed to get so much fun out of it. I did not like that game at. all. The blandness of the dungeons did me in within an hour, but you sound enthusiastic and you’ve given so many tips. Maybe I’ll give it another try sometime, though Entaku no Seito is the next dungeon crawler on my list.
Thank you for the tip! The Playstation Store won’t let me purchase it, though: this is a North-American exclusive, and Europeans cannot buy it. Even though it’s a digital version. Ah, the woes of localization.
I did enjoy Class of Heroes quite a lot, indeed, despite the undeniable blandness of the dungeons. It certainly helped that the gameplay was so dynamic: with a single character, battles were short and fun affairs, and the removal of the necessity to grind allowed me to concentrate on exploration and move forward without a second thought. The game also offered a lot of freedom and the possibility to play it your way, which is something I always appreciate. 🙂
And that’s how localization companies throw away free money…
After much thought I’m going to gamble of CoH2 being a much-improved sequel and buy that instead. No sense in frustrating myself unnecessarily.
Tell me about it! We are waiting in line to get some games and they won’t let us buy them, no matter how hard we beg. And then you read about gaming companies complaining that mobile games are treading on their turf… Well, at least mobile games can be downloaded anywhere in the world. *snicker* But I guess I should still be glad: at least, the Playstation Store is available in my country, unlike the stupid Nintendo E-shop. Which reminds me that I should get my hands on one of these Atelier games for the Vita.
Class of Heroes 2 is supposed to be much better, and I fervently hope it will be the case. Then there is the Japanese-only third instalment, which I will pribably purchase sooner or later, if only for collection purposes. And maybe a future Vita entry, who knows?
A CoH4 isn’t completely out of the question. First-person dungeon crawlers are a niche in Japan, but far less nichey than in the West. Quite a few new ones have come out recently, like Demon Gaze and Operation Abyss (and its sequel Babel) and Stranger of the Village of the Sword, so someone must be buying them.