Hoshigami and Dawn of Mana reviews
Jan. 5th, 2009 10:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroSo, remember when I was discussing experience gain rates as a difficulty modifier in RPGs? Not too long after, I started playing Hoshigami Remix for the DS, which took that train of thought almost exactly.
Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth is one of the most impressively hard tactical RPGs for the PS1. A typical battle is your 7 mercenaries versus 15 same-level, better-equipped enemies. If someone dies and you don't revive them immediately (and revival magic isn't available until late in the game), they're gone forever. This includes plot-important characters. Replacement characters always start at level 1, and there's no equivalent to the FF Tactics "crystal" system where you can steal the abilities from a dead character and cut down on grinding. Most of the game time is spent in the towers, where you can fight more evenly-balanced battles over and over again to build up your levels.
Hoshigami Remix comes with two additional difficulty levels: The original version is now called "Hard". "Medium" mode gives you a revive spell at the beginning of the game and increases experience gains a little. "Easy" mode gives you a revive spell, automatically revives dead characters at the end of battle (so they're no longer lost forever) and greatly increases experience gains. This makes the game so much more playable, I cannot begin to say. When I tried to play the PS1 version years ago, I had forgotten the opening sequence by the time I'd leveled enough to pass the first few battles; and I'd forgotten the plot thus far when I gave up grinding in the second tower so as to try to pass the second set of battles. This was all in the first chapter (of six) of the game. Playing the remake in Easy mode, I've been grinding more than I have to (but it's actually fun when you can go up a level in two turns, as opposed to ten or fifteen), and tearing through plot at a comfortable pace. There's still some strategy to battles, in terms of where you send your wizards to keep them away from archers and the like, but there isn't the meticulous defensive play-style the original demanded. And the plot is pretty standard (random hero turns out to be chosen one, must save world from certain doom) but there have been enough twists to it to keep me interested.
The other game I've been playing is Dawn of Mana for the PS2. I've enjoyed pretty much every other game in the Mana series (particularly Sword of Mana and the venerable Secret of Mana, but Final Fantasy Adventure, Legend of Mana, Secret of Mana 2 and Children of Mana have all been strong games in their own right). Dawn of Mana is an attempt at a 3-D platformer with ragdoll physics scenery, and the experience system uses that: In order to get experience from an enemy, you need to "panic" them by bouncing pieces of scenery off of them, then kill them with your sword. The plot is the standard excuse plot (the evil empire wants to control the power of mana; as the hero with the mana sword, you need to save it).
This would be clever except for three problems: 1) Each chapter is a separate area, and you start each area with no experience, so you need to level-grind in all eight stages in order to beat the bosses. 2) The jump physics are problematic at best, with a slow-motion effect that feels like NES slowdown, because you can't change your direction in mid-jump enough that the slowdown makes sense. Combined with a complete and total lack of edge gravity, the platforming aspect of the game is a huge pain in the ass. 3) The menu screen doesn't tell you how leveled-up you are, or how much more experience you need to unlock the next set of spells or moves (which only last until the end of that level, but still). You also don't have an inventory screen, so you may find yourself frantically searching for healing items (you can't stock them) or forgetting that you've already picked up a key.
I probably won't finish my play-through of this one. It's the sort of game that's more about the system than the plot, and because the system is frustrating me, I'm losing interest rapidly.
Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth is one of the most impressively hard tactical RPGs for the PS1. A typical battle is your 7 mercenaries versus 15 same-level, better-equipped enemies. If someone dies and you don't revive them immediately (and revival magic isn't available until late in the game), they're gone forever. This includes plot-important characters. Replacement characters always start at level 1, and there's no equivalent to the FF Tactics "crystal" system where you can steal the abilities from a dead character and cut down on grinding. Most of the game time is spent in the towers, where you can fight more evenly-balanced battles over and over again to build up your levels.
Hoshigami Remix comes with two additional difficulty levels: The original version is now called "Hard". "Medium" mode gives you a revive spell at the beginning of the game and increases experience gains a little. "Easy" mode gives you a revive spell, automatically revives dead characters at the end of battle (so they're no longer lost forever) and greatly increases experience gains. This makes the game so much more playable, I cannot begin to say. When I tried to play the PS1 version years ago, I had forgotten the opening sequence by the time I'd leveled enough to pass the first few battles; and I'd forgotten the plot thus far when I gave up grinding in the second tower so as to try to pass the second set of battles. This was all in the first chapter (of six) of the game. Playing the remake in Easy mode, I've been grinding more than I have to (but it's actually fun when you can go up a level in two turns, as opposed to ten or fifteen), and tearing through plot at a comfortable pace. There's still some strategy to battles, in terms of where you send your wizards to keep them away from archers and the like, but there isn't the meticulous defensive play-style the original demanded. And the plot is pretty standard (random hero turns out to be chosen one, must save world from certain doom) but there have been enough twists to it to keep me interested.
The other game I've been playing is Dawn of Mana for the PS2. I've enjoyed pretty much every other game in the Mana series (particularly Sword of Mana and the venerable Secret of Mana, but Final Fantasy Adventure, Legend of Mana, Secret of Mana 2 and Children of Mana have all been strong games in their own right). Dawn of Mana is an attempt at a 3-D platformer with ragdoll physics scenery, and the experience system uses that: In order to get experience from an enemy, you need to "panic" them by bouncing pieces of scenery off of them, then kill them with your sword. The plot is the standard excuse plot (the evil empire wants to control the power of mana; as the hero with the mana sword, you need to save it).
This would be clever except for three problems: 1) Each chapter is a separate area, and you start each area with no experience, so you need to level-grind in all eight stages in order to beat the bosses. 2) The jump physics are problematic at best, with a slow-motion effect that feels like NES slowdown, because you can't change your direction in mid-jump enough that the slowdown makes sense. Combined with a complete and total lack of edge gravity, the platforming aspect of the game is a huge pain in the ass. 3) The menu screen doesn't tell you how leveled-up you are, or how much more experience you need to unlock the next set of spells or moves (which only last until the end of that level, but still). You also don't have an inventory screen, so you may find yourself frantically searching for healing items (you can't stock them) or forgetting that you've already picked up a key.
I probably won't finish my play-through of this one. It's the sort of game that's more about the system than the plot, and because the system is frustrating me, I'm losing interest rapidly.
