Metal Saga
Feb. 20th, 2012 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroCivilization fell because of the Great Destruction, but humanity’s pulling through just fine. There’s lots of old tech out there just waiting to be found, and lots of outlaws that’ll fetch a big reward for the Hunter that brings ‘em in. Salvage a tank for yourself out of the old junk heap and get to it!
It’s a wide open sandbox game, with a lot of events (most of which are optional) and a lot of customization available (in theory). In practice, there can be a lot of wandering around, running into beef gates and not really knowing what you’re supposed to do next. Wander until you find a scene, a dungeon or a new town. Loot. Repeat. Occasionally you’ll run into the outlaws you see on wanted posters, and you can kill them for rewards.
This is not to say there nothing appealing in the subplots or the characters—it’s an Atlus game, and there’s a wanted monster called “Optimus Swine,” after all—just that teasing out those interesting bits takes some doing. And possibly an FAQ.
[Loading…]
You basically jump right into it--Not a lot of plot straight off. You want to be a hunter, so go buy some equipment and search the junk pile (read: Noob Dungeon) for treasure and a vehicle. And that starts slow, because the first dungeon has no map and all looks the same (a common theme of dungeons), you have no allies or special abilities, and your equipment is crappy.
This has the honor of being the first game I’ve ever seen where you could get an ending during the opening scene—you’re given the choice of being a hunter or a mechanic, and if you say mechanic…The End!
[Loading…]
Almost everything costs money—specifically, using your special skills, even if they activate automatically in battle, costs money! The exception is that, if you die, you’re automatically revived and don’t even lose any money. However, if your vehicle is busted up in the process, it gets stuck wherever you died and you need to hike out there (on foot, if you don’t have another vehicle) with a repair kit!
Your vehicle has a max weight, which includes any vehicle weapons or parts you don’t have equipped, so if you find a new weapon in a dungeon, you need to discard armor tiles (vehicle HP, essentially) in order to pick it up. If you don’t have enough carrying capacity, your vehicle just can’t move. This is particularly annoying when you want to buy new stuff without first selling your old stuff. (When your tank takes damage, it comes off your armor tiles. If you run out of armor tiles, the individual parts of the vehicle can get damaged or broken. If the engine, chassis or C-unit gets broken, the vehicle is disabled and can’t move.)
Similarly, despite the huge amount of vendortrash and assembly items you can end up carrying (collectable big medals, junk to trade for items, items to assemble, ore to trade for different items, extra weapons, healing items, attack items, spare protectors, scrap armor to trade in…) you only have 64 slots in your inventory, and nothing stacks.
[Loading…]
Characters not in tanks can (and should) equip “protectors”, which are disposable armor. They reduce damage taken but break very easily, which means constantly going to the menu to replace scrap armor with a new protector. And you can trade in the scrap armor for good stuff, so you don’t want to discard them until you get back to town.
There are a lot of different “defense modes” enemies can have, that you really need special weapons to overcome. (Without them, you miss a lot.) These include airborne, underground, long-range, and some elemental defenses (beam, electricity, sonic, etc.). Now think back to the limited inventory and tank weight. See how this might be a problem?
The minigames are all kinda thrown in—there’s a drinking game, a posing (memory) game, a couple of video game machines in the bars; but nothing is plot important and nothing is particularly exciting. I’m not entirely sure why they’re there.
[Loading…]
But the biggest problem is, unquestionably, the loading. Oh, the loading. It’s annoying on the field because you have a few seconds of loading after every battle, but worst in towns, because the game pauses the music to load every time you enter or exit a building.
There are several other optional ending sequences you can find during the game (the “true” one involves saving the world or somesuch), and I eventually opted to take one of them. My character joined the Church of Father Muscle, and will spend the rest of his days working out and eating beef, praise be to bod.
Overall: Meh. The game lacks a strong narrative thrust, any particularly noteworthy characterization, or anything standout in the system. It’s generic hunt-and-grind without anything special about it. And you probably lose ten minutes of every hour of play time to loading. Don’t bother.
Also, note to game designers: If your playtesters like the idea of a fast-forward button for battles, then your battles (and/or the need to grind) are too frequent and too repetitive.
It’s a wide open sandbox game, with a lot of events (most of which are optional) and a lot of customization available (in theory). In practice, there can be a lot of wandering around, running into beef gates and not really knowing what you’re supposed to do next. Wander until you find a scene, a dungeon or a new town. Loot. Repeat. Occasionally you’ll run into the outlaws you see on wanted posters, and you can kill them for rewards.
This is not to say there nothing appealing in the subplots or the characters—it’s an Atlus game, and there’s a wanted monster called “Optimus Swine,” after all—just that teasing out those interesting bits takes some doing. And possibly an FAQ.
[Loading…]
You basically jump right into it--Not a lot of plot straight off. You want to be a hunter, so go buy some equipment and search the junk pile (read: Noob Dungeon) for treasure and a vehicle. And that starts slow, because the first dungeon has no map and all looks the same (a common theme of dungeons), you have no allies or special abilities, and your equipment is crappy.
This has the honor of being the first game I’ve ever seen where you could get an ending during the opening scene—you’re given the choice of being a hunter or a mechanic, and if you say mechanic…The End!
[Loading…]
Almost everything costs money—specifically, using your special skills, even if they activate automatically in battle, costs money! The exception is that, if you die, you’re automatically revived and don’t even lose any money. However, if your vehicle is busted up in the process, it gets stuck wherever you died and you need to hike out there (on foot, if you don’t have another vehicle) with a repair kit!
Your vehicle has a max weight, which includes any vehicle weapons or parts you don’t have equipped, so if you find a new weapon in a dungeon, you need to discard armor tiles (vehicle HP, essentially) in order to pick it up. If you don’t have enough carrying capacity, your vehicle just can’t move. This is particularly annoying when you want to buy new stuff without first selling your old stuff. (When your tank takes damage, it comes off your armor tiles. If you run out of armor tiles, the individual parts of the vehicle can get damaged or broken. If the engine, chassis or C-unit gets broken, the vehicle is disabled and can’t move.)
Similarly, despite the huge amount of vendortrash and assembly items you can end up carrying (collectable big medals, junk to trade for items, items to assemble, ore to trade for different items, extra weapons, healing items, attack items, spare protectors, scrap armor to trade in…) you only have 64 slots in your inventory, and nothing stacks.
[Loading…]
Characters not in tanks can (and should) equip “protectors”, which are disposable armor. They reduce damage taken but break very easily, which means constantly going to the menu to replace scrap armor with a new protector. And you can trade in the scrap armor for good stuff, so you don’t want to discard them until you get back to town.
There are a lot of different “defense modes” enemies can have, that you really need special weapons to overcome. (Without them, you miss a lot.) These include airborne, underground, long-range, and some elemental defenses (beam, electricity, sonic, etc.). Now think back to the limited inventory and tank weight. See how this might be a problem?
The minigames are all kinda thrown in—there’s a drinking game, a posing (memory) game, a couple of video game machines in the bars; but nothing is plot important and nothing is particularly exciting. I’m not entirely sure why they’re there.
[Loading…]
But the biggest problem is, unquestionably, the loading. Oh, the loading. It’s annoying on the field because you have a few seconds of loading after every battle, but worst in towns, because the game pauses the music to load every time you enter or exit a building.
There are several other optional ending sequences you can find during the game (the “true” one involves saving the world or somesuch), and I eventually opted to take one of them. My character joined the Church of Father Muscle, and will spend the rest of his days working out and eating beef, praise be to bod.
Overall: Meh. The game lacks a strong narrative thrust, any particularly noteworthy characterization, or anything standout in the system. It’s generic hunt-and-grind without anything special about it. And you probably lose ten minutes of every hour of play time to loading. Don’t bother.
Also, note to game designers: If your playtesters like the idea of a fast-forward button for battles, then your battles (and/or the need to grind) are too frequent and too repetitive.
