My World, My Way
May. 8th, 2011 10:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroMy World, My Way is effectively a sequel to Master of the Monster Lair. It was made by the same team, uses a lot of the same monsters (with updated, more 3D-ish art), and keeps most of the systems (including your partner being a Mimic Slime). Only this time, instead of building a dungeon, you're playing a spoiled princess who's going on a quest to impress an adventurer with Level 99 in Handsome.
Princess Elise can use her "Pout Power" to change the terrain, weaken monsters, force open chests and get townspeople to do her bidding. It’s even used when you die—you can choose to lose half your gold, lose half your XP, or declare “Both options stink!”
Beyond that gimmick, though, it gets repetitive pretty quickly. The game is very straightforward about its love of “kill 10 monsters” and “gather 10 vendortrash items” quests. The dungeons auto-map and there aren’t any traps or hazards besides the non-random monsters. Most of the game is grinding and button-mashing your way through repetitive combats, hoping that the Random Number God lets you finish the quest quickly.
Okay, that’s harsh. There is some strategy: While Elise gets some benefits from leveling up, most of her stat gains come from eating food at the various inns; you can choose whether to make her good at magic, fighting, defense, or all three. Each monster Pinky can mimic can only use one type of weapon, so choosing the right set of arms can make a big difference to your battle effectiveness. Knowing elemental weaknesses can really make a difference in how hard most battles are. For heavy hitters, I often found myself taking advantage of the “frozen” status effect (caused by ice spells, reduces attack power temporarily). And the “stunned” effect (which many weapons have a percentage chance of causing, and certain armor/rings can increase it) can be used to great effect in the late game, stun-locking opponents for entire battles while you whittle them down.
Plot-wise, there’s a bit more than Master of the Monster Lair, but not by much. Elise and a few supporting characters get some development, and they do explain what's going on in a reasonably timely manner. My World, My Way often is barely pretending to have a fourth wall, and that informs the actions of most of the characters. It’s pretty funny, though, I’ll give them a lot of credit for that. “I bet this was a dragon robber, on the run from the dragon police! I’ll just have to play dragon judge, dragon jury and dragon executioner!”
There’s plenty of game, about 30 hours, though it’s rather back-loaded. The last chapter has as many dungeons as the entire rest of the game, including the five-floor final dungeon. You can clear most towns’ quests in half an hour, but mapping out a single floor of the final dungeon can easily take an hour, and you’ll need several extra runs to grind up to the point you can take the final boss.
Protip: There’s a minotaur boss in the last chapter who you meet in a dungeon, and Pinky can mimic its body. At 900+ HP, it has more than twice the hit points of the next-strongest mimic-able body. Save before fighting that boss, reset if you don’t get it, and keep it until the end. (A few more points of defense are not worth losing 400+ HP permanently!)
I enjoyed it as a non-thought-intensive diversion, but I’m not sure I can really recommend it. It really needed a bit more variety, a few more combat options, or a greater plot-to-random-battles ratio. Just a little something more, y’know?
Princess Elise can use her "Pout Power" to change the terrain, weaken monsters, force open chests and get townspeople to do her bidding. It’s even used when you die—you can choose to lose half your gold, lose half your XP, or declare “Both options stink!”
Beyond that gimmick, though, it gets repetitive pretty quickly. The game is very straightforward about its love of “kill 10 monsters” and “gather 10 vendortrash items” quests. The dungeons auto-map and there aren’t any traps or hazards besides the non-random monsters. Most of the game is grinding and button-mashing your way through repetitive combats, hoping that the Random Number God lets you finish the quest quickly.
Okay, that’s harsh. There is some strategy: While Elise gets some benefits from leveling up, most of her stat gains come from eating food at the various inns; you can choose whether to make her good at magic, fighting, defense, or all three. Each monster Pinky can mimic can only use one type of weapon, so choosing the right set of arms can make a big difference to your battle effectiveness. Knowing elemental weaknesses can really make a difference in how hard most battles are. For heavy hitters, I often found myself taking advantage of the “frozen” status effect (caused by ice spells, reduces attack power temporarily). And the “stunned” effect (which many weapons have a percentage chance of causing, and certain armor/rings can increase it) can be used to great effect in the late game, stun-locking opponents for entire battles while you whittle them down.
Plot-wise, there’s a bit more than Master of the Monster Lair, but not by much. Elise and a few supporting characters get some development, and they do explain what's going on in a reasonably timely manner. My World, My Way often is barely pretending to have a fourth wall, and that informs the actions of most of the characters. It’s pretty funny, though, I’ll give them a lot of credit for that. “I bet this was a dragon robber, on the run from the dragon police! I’ll just have to play dragon judge, dragon jury and dragon executioner!”
There’s plenty of game, about 30 hours, though it’s rather back-loaded. The last chapter has as many dungeons as the entire rest of the game, including the five-floor final dungeon. You can clear most towns’ quests in half an hour, but mapping out a single floor of the final dungeon can easily take an hour, and you’ll need several extra runs to grind up to the point you can take the final boss.
Protip: There’s a minotaur boss in the last chapter who you meet in a dungeon, and Pinky can mimic its body. At 900+ HP, it has more than twice the hit points of the next-strongest mimic-able body. Save before fighting that boss, reset if you don’t get it, and keep it until the end. (A few more points of defense are not worth losing 400+ HP permanently!)
I enjoyed it as a non-thought-intensive diversion, but I’m not sure I can really recommend it. It really needed a bit more variety, a few more combat options, or a greater plot-to-random-battles ratio. Just a little something more, y’know?
