Treasure Hunter G
Sep. 25th, 2010 09:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroThis weekend I finished playing Treasure Hunter G, the last game Square made for the SNES before they broke up with Nintendo for a while. (Which, of course, meant it was never released in the states and needed to be fan translated.) It's somewhere between Super Mario RPG and Final Fantasy Tactics in both art and play style, and it's overall pretty goofy, featuring two treasure-hunting brothers, a mysterious girl, and a pet monkey.
I played MetalHawk's translation, which isn't perfect, but it's quite good. There are still alerts when you use items that pop up in Japanese, but overall, everything you'd need to know is in English, and I suspect that several of the puzzles are easier because of the descriptive text the translators inserted.
The system takes elements from Chrono Trigger (I think it actually uses the same world map engine and a bunch of the same graphics, and you can see enemies outside of battle and enter battle by touching them), Final Fantasy Tactics (a grid-based, turn-based battle system) and Super Mario RPG (pseudo-3D graphics, action commands outside of battle and a more action-y approach to the battle system). Unlike the various FFT games, it's easier to play with a controller than a keyboard because it uses the shoulder buttons to rotate your characters. Actually, it seems like they wanted to make a more action-oriented version of FFT, but lacked the computer power to do it quite right, the memory space to fill it with the stuff they'd want, and the time to really expand and balance the system. So it's kind of a mini-action-Tactics. There are relatively few weapons and spells--especially when compared to FFT--so your options during battle are fewer. The battles are also shorter and a lot more frequent, and can get annoying because of that.
The gimmick that sets this system apart is the way the battlefield is set up: Each space is colored differently (blue, yellow, red) depending on how close to an enemy it is, and the closer you are to an enemy, the fewer actions you can take in a turn. A lot of the strategy in the game is based around which enemies generate the most red spaces and how you can kill them first. This also means that the longer-distance weapons can be quite a bit more useful, because you can stand in the yellow areas and get twice as many attacks as if you were in the red areas. Ponga (the monkey) is by far the most useful character for the mid-game because of this. In the late game, playing elemental rock-paper-scissors becomes more important and Red (eventually having access to a sword of every element, with the highest attack power by far) overtakes him.
That rock-paper-scissors thing isn't well played, though, as it generally means you end up stockpiling weapons and needing to switch between them and only using MP on the non-elemental Meteo spells and healing magic. You also have access to status-ailment-inducing traps, but I found that they weren't particularly useful because by the time you lured enemies into traps, you could have just stabbed them to death.
Despite all this, the game isn't very hard. Monsters in dungeons don't respawn until you leave, so you can walk back to the save point and recovery point after every battle if you want. Stat-up seeds are common and XP is easy to come by, and unlike FFT, the monsters don't scale to your level.
My biggest compliant about the game would be the item-management system. Start with a general lack of storage space (20 items per character max, including equipment) and a lack of central "bag" to keep items in, and an annoying way to "Hand" items to other characters. Then add the annoying shop system: You can only sell things to "traders" who are often hiding in corners of towns unrelated to the stores, and given the amount of vendorcrap and aftermentioned storage issues, you'll want to find them often. In the shops themselves, you need to pick up the items you want off the counter and bring them to the clerk. Want four of an item? You need to buy one, exit and re-enter the store, buy one more...
The story is silly, but fun. The brothers, Red-G (the tough older brother) and Blue-G (the sensitive younger brother) have a fun and endearing interplay and even have little scenes they'll play out when you stay at the inn. ("Mumble mumble snore" means "good night".) They actually have character development and growth with logical, consistent characterization.
The supporting cast doesn't disappoint, either, starting with the boys grandfather, Silver-G, who is totally badass. At one point, you break into a mad scientist's lab and his giant teddy bear robots go berserk. He has a parrot that repeats the last word of everything he says, including when he insists you call him, "The world's last mad scientist, Dr. Hello!" ("Hello!")
Overall, it was fun and I'm glad I had the opportunity to play it. Not quite to Terranigma's level of a "lost treasure of gaming," but still good. It feels a bit short until you get to the very end--I followed along with a FAQ expecting to be done in about 14 hours, but the length of the final dungeon and the zillion endings stretched it to 17.
I played MetalHawk's translation, which isn't perfect, but it's quite good. There are still alerts when you use items that pop up in Japanese, but overall, everything you'd need to know is in English, and I suspect that several of the puzzles are easier because of the descriptive text the translators inserted.
The system takes elements from Chrono Trigger (I think it actually uses the same world map engine and a bunch of the same graphics, and you can see enemies outside of battle and enter battle by touching them), Final Fantasy Tactics (a grid-based, turn-based battle system) and Super Mario RPG (pseudo-3D graphics, action commands outside of battle and a more action-y approach to the battle system). Unlike the various FFT games, it's easier to play with a controller than a keyboard because it uses the shoulder buttons to rotate your characters. Actually, it seems like they wanted to make a more action-oriented version of FFT, but lacked the computer power to do it quite right, the memory space to fill it with the stuff they'd want, and the time to really expand and balance the system. So it's kind of a mini-action-Tactics. There are relatively few weapons and spells--especially when compared to FFT--so your options during battle are fewer. The battles are also shorter and a lot more frequent, and can get annoying because of that.
The gimmick that sets this system apart is the way the battlefield is set up: Each space is colored differently (blue, yellow, red) depending on how close to an enemy it is, and the closer you are to an enemy, the fewer actions you can take in a turn. A lot of the strategy in the game is based around which enemies generate the most red spaces and how you can kill them first. This also means that the longer-distance weapons can be quite a bit more useful, because you can stand in the yellow areas and get twice as many attacks as if you were in the red areas. Ponga (the monkey) is by far the most useful character for the mid-game because of this. In the late game, playing elemental rock-paper-scissors becomes more important and Red (eventually having access to a sword of every element, with the highest attack power by far) overtakes him.
That rock-paper-scissors thing isn't well played, though, as it generally means you end up stockpiling weapons and needing to switch between them and only using MP on the non-elemental Meteo spells and healing magic. You also have access to status-ailment-inducing traps, but I found that they weren't particularly useful because by the time you lured enemies into traps, you could have just stabbed them to death.
Despite all this, the game isn't very hard. Monsters in dungeons don't respawn until you leave, so you can walk back to the save point and recovery point after every battle if you want. Stat-up seeds are common and XP is easy to come by, and unlike FFT, the monsters don't scale to your level.
My biggest compliant about the game would be the item-management system. Start with a general lack of storage space (20 items per character max, including equipment) and a lack of central "bag" to keep items in, and an annoying way to "Hand" items to other characters. Then add the annoying shop system: You can only sell things to "traders" who are often hiding in corners of towns unrelated to the stores, and given the amount of vendorcrap and aftermentioned storage issues, you'll want to find them often. In the shops themselves, you need to pick up the items you want off the counter and bring them to the clerk. Want four of an item? You need to buy one, exit and re-enter the store, buy one more...
The story is silly, but fun. The brothers, Red-G (the tough older brother) and Blue-G (the sensitive younger brother) have a fun and endearing interplay and even have little scenes they'll play out when you stay at the inn. ("Mumble mumble snore" means "good night".) They actually have character development and growth with logical, consistent characterization.
The supporting cast doesn't disappoint, either, starting with the boys grandfather, Silver-G, who is totally badass. At one point, you break into a mad scientist's lab and his giant teddy bear robots go berserk. He has a parrot that repeats the last word of everything he says, including when he insists you call him, "The world's last mad scientist, Dr. Hello!" ("Hello!")
Overall, it was fun and I'm glad I had the opportunity to play it. Not quite to Terranigma's level of a "lost treasure of gaming," but still good. It feels a bit short until you get to the very end--I followed along with a FAQ expecting to be done in about 14 hours, but the length of the final dungeon and the zillion endings stretched it to 17.
