Tag Archives: RPG

Dark Cloud Review

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Dark Cloud is one of those games I’ve had on the backburner for many years now. It’s just always around but never made it to the top of the pile. Well, with less than 20 games left to get through it makes sense that it would finally step up to the plate. It’s a very intricate RPG that will take some getting used to but it is crafted rather well. The weapons breaking mechanic was also a lot better than I dared hope.

The basic plot of the game is that a Dark Genie has awoken and intends to eradicate humanity. Toan, our brave hero steps up to the plate….but doesn’t make it in time. Humanity has been destroyed and the planet is an empty wasteland. The only survive is a mysterious old man who tells Toan that he will help the lad save the world. See, the people aren’t dead but merely trapped in capsules outside of time. Toan will need to free them all while finding some way to stop the genie. He can’t possibly do it on his own so he’s going to need help.

For the gameplay, this is a 3D hack and slash. Think of it similar to .Hack where you run around in dungeons and take out the monsters. Some characters have projectile type weapons which are fun to use but for the vast majority of the game I used Toan’s classic sword. Part of the reason for this is you can only really work on powering up one weapon at a time. So naturally I focused on his since he’s always around.

That said, it did come back to bite me during the final boss since you can’t use Toan for a whole section of the fight. You have to switch to a projectile user and both of mine were extremely weak. I spent a few hours grinding up the cat girl to a level where she could fight and then the rest of the boss was pretty easy. Still, it was a tense moment so to avoid that you will want to spread your attention between two characters for a while. Make sure you have a strong ranged fighter as well as a close quarters combat user.

The final boss is also intense just because his attacks can’t be dodged. Yes you heard that right. His clap attack releases a sonic wave that is impossible to dodge or block. Your only options are to eat the attack and use a health item right after or use a stamina drink which gives you temporary invincibility. If you do that then you should be just fine.

The rest of the game isn’t nearly as difficult which is why the final boss took me by surprise. Let me get back to the gameplay though, there’s a lot to unpack here. So every time you use your weapon, part of its stamina goes down. If it hits 0 then the weapon breaks and you lose every upgrade you’ve ever put into it. To stop this, always carry an auto repair in your quick item inventory. It’s expensive but if you ever forget to heal a weapon in time this will ensure that it isn’t completely shattered.

There’s also a water mechanic here so you will die of thirst if you don’t drink enough water. It’s a good reminder to go and grab some water irl too of course. At first this will be a little tedious since they get thirsty very quickly so make sure to find as many water upgrades as possible. These are scattered around town and usually pop up after you help out a villager.

The formula for the game is pretty straight forward. You enter a dungeon and complete all of the floors you can. After a while you will be stopped which is when you need to build the village. It’s pretty easy to build but hard to make all of the villagers happy. I wasn’t able to get 100% satisfaction in any area but you don’t really need to do that in order to get the items you need. The only tricky one is the robot on the moon. I was building him upside down which got tricky.

The game explains everything pretty well though so even though it sounds like a lot of mechanics to keep track of, you’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly. It certainly does take a while so the game is around 30 hours as it promises. It took me a little over 28 so that was right up there next to the estimate. The sequel is apparently over 50 hours which sounds insane to me. I wonder how many dungeons are in that game.

There is some replay value here as well. Apparently there is a bonus world at the end which you can try to beat. I imagine that world must be super tough. You can also go back to all of the old villages to try and make the villagers happy which will get you some good items and equipment. So all in all there is definitely a lot to do here.

If I have any real issues with the game it can be that the game can become almost too formulaic without throwing in any wrinkles. For example, the first world has a cool boss fight as Seda showed up and the story started to get intense. Then there are almost no truly relevant story cutscenes with him or the Dark Genie until we approach the final world. I have to admit that I was expecting them to have more of a focus. It’s almost like the story itself went on break for around 20 hours during the game. You still do get cutscenes, but nothing big for a while.

Also, the dungeon exploring can be a bit repetitive. You will need to cross around 100 floors in order to get to the end of the game and each floor is fundamentally the same. You beat a bunch of enemies and then get to head out. I enjoy the gameplay so it wasn’t that bad but if the sequel is double the length because they doubled the floors…that could get painful.

Overall, Dark Cloud is a pretty good RPG. I’m glad that you at least have the opportunity to keep your weapons from ever breaking. That mechanic could have easily gone sideways otherwise. As it stands, I was pretty cool with it. I definitely would have liked to have had more of a focus on the story though. For smaller items I would remove the water mechanic and special levels where you are forced to play as 1 character too. A lot of thought was put into this title though and it shows. If you like RPGs, particularly dungeon crawlers then you should enjoy this one quite a bit.

Overall 7/10

Arc the Lad: End of Darkness Review

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End of Darkness continues the story of Arc the Lad which is always fun since it gives you a chance to meet some of the old characters. Surprisingly, none of the Deimos get to appear though and the leader of the heroes from the last game is a no show as well. The decisions there were a bit questionable but the characters we did get to see were pretty cool. The game is ultimately a step down from the first one but still makes for a fun adventure.

This game starts with introducing us to the world’s new status quo. Deimos and Humans seem to still live apart for the most part but there’s no war going on. They still visit each other at least and deliberate even though there are some tensions. The main character here is Edda. He’s grown up in one of the Deimos towns all his life and uses his exorcism skills to help the town. See, there is a new form of monster which keeps on regenerating whenever it is destroyed. The only way to destroy it for good is with exorcism. The island is pretty safe thanks to Edda but the rest of the world isn’t so lucky. Edda decides to embark on a journey with his friend Hemo. He’ll become a hunter and will use his exorcism skills to bring humanity to an era of peace.

Meanwhile, there is a mysterious lady named Kirika who has stolen an ominous book. It’s hard to say what she wants from it but Edda can’t take any chances. He needs to find her. Perhaps she knows why more and more monsters have been appearing lately. The hunter guild is trying to get to the bottom of this as well but they haven’t made a whole lot of progress yet. All of these plots will eventually intersect.

The story is fun although there’s not as much of it as you would expect. A lot of times the chapters won’t have any story development as you just help people out and continue on your day. the game has a set structure of how you progress through chapters as well. Each chapter is tied to your hero rank. You start out as a beginner of course. To advance to the next level you must complete 5 side missions which are fairly basic like defeating a few minions. The side missions keep on rotating so when you find an easy one, just remember the name so you can beat it again. You need to have 10 stars for side missions.

Then there are 2 story missions as well for each chapter. Once you complete those you can take the promotional exam. If you complete that, you enter the next chapter. Rinse and repeat until you get to the end of the game. I would say the final 2-3 chapters are where the story really gets going. The rest is mainly to introduce the characters and set things up. Interestingly there is no EXP system here so you can feel free to avoid all the enemies this time around. Unless you are doing a mission to defeat enemies there is no real benefit to fighting them.

You can’t leave a room if any of them are chasing you though so sometimes it is quickest to take them down. This means equipment is even more important now. You want to make sure you buy the best gear possible. You can actually buy the best gear rather early on in the story. Still, you might notice that the final boss is still very difficult to conquer. It feels like the game massively spiked up the difficulty just for that final boss which was certainly very intense.

So to deal with him you’re going to have to use the magic synthesizer. Make sure you save before doing so. You want to get a triple S rank spell and that will help you complete the game. Without it, you’re in for an extremely long fight at the very least but possibly a futile one. You really want to have those spells on hand.

Meanwhile the graphics look pretty good. It’s fun getting to recognize all of the areas from the first game. A lot of the levels seem to have been directly grabbed from the last one for maximum nostalgia. The soundtrack is also mainly made up of tunes from the first game so all in all, it’s a sequel that feels a lot like the first game except for the gameplay changes.

While I do like real time action, between the lack of an exp system, the dungeons being far away so if you lose then you have to start over, and your items all being confiscated if you lose a side mission, the other game had the stronger gameplay system. You do have a few other playable characters here which you can unlock through cards but I never really tried them out since I had Edda all maxed out anyway.

As for the characters, Edda isn’t bad. He doesn’t have as much personality and charisma as Kharg but he does well enough for himself. As an exorcist he is always trying to do the right thing. His friend Hemo is never particularly entertaining though. He never helps out when Edda is in a pinch so there’s not much reason for him to even be here. He holds the main character back without a doubt. Finally you have the mysterious Kirika. She’s a fun character although even she realizes by the end that her plan was not very good. If she had done things a little differently the game would probably be massively shorter.

As for the length, the game is pretty solid. It’s over 10 hours which is always the important part. I’d say it’s around 15. Additionally there are some more chapters you can play after the final boss which will serve as the post game. Perhaps we will see more guest stars there. So all in all there is a good amount of content to enjoy here without a doubt. It’s got replay value to keep you going.

Overall, End of Darkness is a nice way to see all of the old faces again. It tried a lot of experimental gameplay mechanics which is always ambitious even if it didn’t work out. Make sure you focus on getting some good spells pretty quickly because you will absolutely need them for the final boss. They will probably make the rest of the game a little easier as well. Until the final boss I really had just stuck with Cure since health is super important and a thunder blast of sorts. The spirit moves at the end would have certainly made the bosses quicker.

Overall 7/10

Lunar: Dragon Song Review

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What were they thinking with this one? Dragon Song easily has some of the worst video game mechanics I’ve ever seen. Another issue here is at least most titles stick to just having one awful gimmick that was thrown into the game. This has a bunch of them and we’re definitely going to have to talk about why they are an issue. There is a decent game buried in here somewhere but the game makes it as difficult as possible to try and find it. I can see why the franchise basically died with this one.

The story takes place many years before Lunar Legacy so now we can see why everyone looked up to the Dragon Master and why all of the dragons were in poor shape from the start of the first game. Well, Jian is just your average main character who looks up to the old legends of strong fighters. One day he and Lucia are on a usual delivery job from their guild when they wander into a town and fight some monsters. That’s when they find out that the town general is actually a mad man chasing power. He takes out the dragons and becomes the Dragonmaster. After that he kidnaps Lucia.

Jian has to get her back but the only one who can defeat a Dragonmaster is another Dragonmaster. Jian needs to take down all of the dragons and get some powerful friends by his side if he is to save her but it won’t be easy. Fortunately Jian is the kind of guy who learns really fast and isn’t afraid to mix it up with the enemies. In fact, he does have more character than the first game’s protagonist even if he is unreasonable a lot of the time. Get ready to hear Jian constantly talk about how he has to save Lucia and he will do whatever it takes. He says this a whole lot.

Dragon Song has a fairly weak character cast though. You won’t remember any of the heroes for very long which is a shame. Additionally, the main villain is so unremarkable that the game doesn’t even let you fight him. Yes, you have a main villain who actually goes out without a fight. If that’s not anticlimactic then I don’t know what is. It was such a bad way to go out too. Then for the heroes you have a revolving door here as your party members keep on changing. Maybe that’s part of what makes it hard to really sync up with them. They also don’t level up with you so be prepared for a level 1 guy to join you when you’re past level 10. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

While Jian’s determination to save Lucia is good, he does come across as unreasonable parts of the time. A big moment of this is when the world is at stake and he has deliveries to do but gets baited into joining a tournament to prove that humans are just as cool as the Beastmen. It wasn’t really a good time for that and he ended up being cursed for his efforts. The game has a theme about humans vs beast men similar to Arc the Lad, but it is not handled nearly as well to be honest.

Lets talk gameplay now though. On its surface this is a turn based combat game where you attack enemies and level up to victory. Here’s the first issue..you can’t choose who you attack. Yes, it is completely random by the system so get ready to always be attacking in the worst possible combinations. Enemies who you should defeat easily suddenly become an issue due to this. At least you’re earning EXP the whole time right?

Wrong! You only earn EXP if you switch to EXP mode but then you won’t earn any materials or items. Moreover, the enemies and bosses level up with you. The issue with this is that your efforts are largely wasted as the bosses get a whole lot of extra health for leveling up. Grinding up your levels just isn’t as satisfying as it usually is. Also, you don’t get money from minions no matter which route you choose so earning enough to buy the good equipment takes a long while. The best way is to just farm guild missions which is still quite slow and tedious.

It’s also worth noting that your weapons and equipment can break. Yeah, this has never been a good gimmicku and Lunar Dragon of all games was not going to be the exception here. Did I mention that you can run at your own peril? The game encourages you to walk because if you run then you will rapidly lose health points. If you get too low on health then you have to walk until you can find the nearest healing statue. It’s incredibly inconvenient when you’re at lower levels and don’t have a whole lot of health to speak of.

There is no quick travel system for each town. You can use ports to skip some areas but at the end of the day be prepared to do a lot of running. If you want to open the chests in an area you have to defeat a bunch of minions within an allotted time while in EXP mode. The game really wanted to make sure every aspect of the game was as painful as possible. Now you may be wondering, why isn’t the game a negative score then? Well, the answer is because the game still has enough interesting points where I would say it’s worth a playthrough. Even if just to see how bad these mechanics are.

The graphics are decent even if I would definitely not call them very good. I would have liked actual cutscenes or at least some illustrations instead of the hard to read text that is spammed at you. The soundtrack is pretty forgettable though so you won’t remember it for long. The game took me around 20 hours to complete which is really not all that bad. It definitely could have been a lot worse that’s for sure. There isn’t really any post game to speak of though so forget about having any replay value.

Overall, Lunar: Dragon Song is definitely what I would call a soulless RPG. A lot of the decisions are completely baffling as to why you would ever even want to add them in. They straight up take a lot of the enjoyment out of the experience. This game should have been an easy 7 and yet I couldn’t give it a positive score. The gameplay is just slowed down far too much. To run away you even have to blow into the microphone which is also horrible. There are probably even more mechanics I could mention but you get the general picture. Dragon Song was just never going to be all that good because the gameplay is a huge part of any RPG. Same with the story and that was just pretty bland.

Overall 5/10

Lunar Legend Review

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Lunar Legend is one of those games that has been buried in my backlog for many years. As I finally approach only having 20 games left though, it was time for this one to come out and have some fun. Lunar Legend is a solid RPG even if it feels like it’s running on speed mode half the time. While it isn’t quite able to match up against a lot of the bigger RPG titles, it’s a fun game.

The basic plot starts out with Alex still looking up to the old heroes of legend. There used to be a Dragonmaster who tamed the 4 dragons and saved the world. While it seems like the age of heroes has long passed, things change once Alex and Luna make it to a nearby town. See, the Evil King Ghaleon has risen and he quickly murders the 4 dragons. The only way to stop him is for Alex to become a Dragonmaster. To do so he will have to pass the 4 dragons’ tests even though they are already dead. Will that be enough to stop this new evil?

Lunar Legend is shorter than most RPGs as it is a few hours under 20. Typically you expect an RPG to be at least 20 hours although of course that isn’t always the case. This one just feels like it’s abridged though. You’ll be spending a large chunk of the game running around with Nash until they mention the Dragonmaster bit. Suddenly you beat all 4 dragons within an hour or two and are running through the climax. You can’t say the game drags on though that’s for sure. I do like the brisk pace of the game but I think it could have used a few more hours to feel like we went through all of the plot points.

Additionally, the characters are a bit weaker than most. Take Alex, he has to be one of the blandest RPG heroes I’ve seen in a bit. He has some good moments near the end of the game but for the most part there isn’t much to him. The same goes for the main heroine Luna. The two allies who do stand out are Nash and Jessica though. Both of them talk a lot tougher than the other characters and don’t mind throwing around the insults. Nash believes himself to be an elite so he always has that air of arrogance although his skills don’t back it up. Jessica’s more of a fighter so she backs up her tough talk more but together they have a solid dynamic.

Kyle gets most of the back and forth with Jessica though as they tend to bicker about everything. I can’t say he is one of the better characters though. Finally there’s Mia who is a lot quieter than the others and always tries to be super polite. She’s a nice person but not very interesting. The big villain Ghaleon was cool though. I liked his evil king persona and the guy just did a good job of taking everyone down. His plan was quite sound.

So on the whole the character cast could have been better and that is probably a factor in why this RPG didn’t manage to break through to the next level. It’s all relative though because in a vacuum this game is still quite good. The gameplay is your classic turn based system filled with special attacks, items, and physical moves. You will want to get some good level ups to deal with the final bosses. The game can be challenging but never overwhelmingly so. The game has a good balance at all times which is important.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of replay value after the main game has concluded so no big post game to talk about but the main campaign is long enough where that’s fine. The graphics are solid as well. I’m glad we got some illustrations at least even if there weren’t any cutscenes around this time. The soundtrack is decent too, nothing to write home about but it gets the job done.

For gameplay tips I would just say that your physical attacks are sometimes better than the special ones. Yeah it’s a bit odd but sometimes throwing out a normal move is just way stronger than the special attacks. I’m not sure why that is, perhaps they don’t scale up when you increase your level? Maybe it’s also that critical hits are just really good here so that helps to make up the difference. Take your average 3 hit combo. If you get no lucky hits you may deal 150 damage while the super attack deals out 170. Well, if you get a lucky hit that does around 80, then you’ve just beat out the super attack by 10 points. If you get more than 1 lucky blow, then you can see how the special attack easily gets left out.

Don’t even get me started on the final smash attacks. Those are surprisingly very weak. At one point I decided to use it for kicks and it didn’t do much damage at all to the boss. Those are best used for fighting minions since they deal damage to all units at once. It’s a good way to fight those skirmishes but I would say not to bother for bosses. Passive supers like restoring everyone’s health is always good though so that’s one I would keep at the ready. The single best passive super in the game is the one that makes your team invincible for 3 turns.

While I said the game was not crazy difficult or anything, the final boss was pretty insane. For a little while there I thought I was going to have a big issue with him but fortunately the attack of making you invincible for 3 turns was just what I needed. It allowed me just enough time to win. It was a close one but that just shows why this ability is absolutely critical so don’t waste it on minions since it takes a long time to recharge.

Overall, Lunar Legend is a solid game. It might speed through the interesting parts of the game a little too quickly but you do feel like the characters are being proactive about shutting down the villains so it explains why everything is moving so quickly. I already have the prequel DS game so I’ll be reviewing that soon but I can safely say right now that it is a big downgrade from this one. Lunar Legend played it very safe and got a solid score while the other one took some big risks but unfortunately none of them paid off in the slightest. Ah well, hopefully the Lunar series returns some day with a proper next installment.

Overall 7/10

Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits Review

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RPGs tend to always be a lot of fun because you get to have a blast hanging out with a group of characters for a while. In this case the game took me close to 40 hours so you’re not likely going to forget about these guys anytime soon. The plot is solid and the cast of characters is good. The game also has you switching between two sides which is handled very effectively. This is definitely a game you won’t soon forget.

There are two main characters as I mentioned. First you have the humans led by Kharg. He is a prince who fights for the humans against the Deimos, a race of creatures that seemingly want nothing more than chaos and to destroy all humans. Kharg has no reason to doubt this and continues slaying them all but one day he meets a girl named Lilia who is on the run from a corrupt government. She explains that there are 5 magical stones and if they are all collected then the person who has all 5 will gain unlimited power. Since the Deimos are after this, Kharg realizes that he will have to assemble them himself.

The other story follows Darc, who is a slave who lives a rather brutal life. One day his owner is destroyed by a pack of deimos and when Darc is unable to protect his furby he comes to believe that power is everything. He ends up going on a rampage and becoming King of the Deimos. He now wants to slaughter all humans and aims to collect the stones in order to do so. He also meets up with Lilia who is determined to help him see the light but it’s rather difficult since both species are so opposed to each other.

I can’t think of another game like this where you keep switching between both sides and ultimately have to pick one at the end. Certainly not any RPG that I know of so this was pretty fun. Every chapter the game forces you to change sides so you get to really see their point of view. Everything about the sides is isolated which includes your items, level ups, and money. It makes you feel like you’re playing 2 20 hour games at the same time. The stories are connected of course by the plot and such but the characters don’t actually get to meet until you are almost at the very end of the game. This allows for a whole lot of build up which is always a good idea.

Adding to the tension is that Kharg and Darc are brothers who are half human and half deimos. This is something both of them try to hide since being a hybrid in this world would certainly be frowned upon. Naturally there is also a lot more to the story than I’ve mentioned as they both accumulate a lot of allies and the story has a lot of twists. That is often the case with RPGs after all and part of why the genre is so great. It’s definitely got to be one of the best game styles out there.

The gameplay is similar to Disgaea as you move each character around the board and unleash their attacks. After everyone has made their attack then the enemy team is allowed to do so. Additionally, your EXP is based on how much damage you deal and on who gets the finishing blow. As a result you will likely end up with a very unbalanced team depending on how you fight so keep an eye out for that. You can learn skills to help you out through the game and of course you will want to make sure you grab some great equipment as well. It can be the difference between victory and defeat here.

There are a few aspects of the gameplay that could be improved though. One if that this is a game where the cutscenes are all unskippable. Trust me, it’s never fun to have to watch cutscenes again after you have been defeated. The final boss is especially guilty of this since you will likely expect to lose there a few times and getting back through all of the cutscenes takes around 30-40 minutes each time. I got beat down 2 times before winning eventually so it was a long path. It does make sure that you will do a lot of training before you try a second time though.

The gameplay can also be a bit slow and would have benefited a whole lot from having some king of speed up feature. Something to make the turns go by faster would have just been genius since the turns can take a while and absolutely add up. I’d also like to say that the final boss is incredibly cheesy. Defeating him requires a rather unusual battle style that feels like it is exploiting the battle and yet, it’s the only viable way to win. It also takes a while as a result since my team was not built for long range encounters. I had to level up my fighters like crazy.

Graphically the game certainly holds its own though. It’s a PS2 game that has a good amount of polish and definitely wasn’t just thrown together at the last second. The character designs are on point and the battles we get inside of the cinematics are good. The soundtrack is a little on the forgettable side though. There aren’t a whole lot of tracks but they get the job done.

Really the game’s biggest strength here is how good the plot was and how the game utilized having two main characters the way that it did. I thought that was a really good way to do things. The game is also long at around 40 hours. There isn’t a ton of replay value after beating the game but with that kind of length you don’t really need a lot like that. If you can get the game for a decent price then you’ll definitely want to do so. It’s a unique game with a lot of features that are different from usual and I thought it pulled this off.

Overall, Arc The Lad is a great game. I’ll admit that it could use a little more polish in some areas of the gameplay. There are things that can be improved like the speed and the design of the final boss. That being said, the story is just really solid. The game absolutely can hold its own with the bigger RPGs out there and I look forward to playing through the sequel someday. Hopefully more games use this style of two main characters some day because the build up and the inevitable confrontation is always a blast.

Overall 8/10