Treasure of the Rudras
Jun. 19th, 2012 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroEvery 4,000 years, a destroyer called “Rudra” appears and wipes out civilization. In 15 days, that time will come again. The stories of three heroes will come together as they each try to discover the truth of the Great Cycle and locate the Treasure of the Rudras.
Apparently the "multiple scenario" rpg was hot in Japan in the SNES era, but somebody decided Americans just wouldn't like them. (See also: Seikan Dentetsu 3, Live-A-Live, the three Romancing SaGa games.) This game was fan-translated by Aeon Genesis about a decade after its initial release. The setup is similar to Suikoden 3 in having three protagonists (and a fourth secondary protagonist), though you can switch among them every time you save and resume, rather than at set chapter ends.
I played through each scenario in full before starting the next, which made this feel more like three interconnected games that use the same system, rather than three parts of the same game. Each character's quest feels like a contained whole, and each with a different style to it. Yes, everyone discovers the Power of Friendship and ends up fighting a god, but the way they get there is different. Sion is a knight on a quest, guided by a mysterious mentor and mostly at odds with an evil cult he believes is summoning a destroyer god. Surlent is a scholar and explorer, looking for the truth behind ancient events, who learns a great deal about the world’s mythology firsthand. Riza is the prophesized Chosen who sets off in her mother’s footsteps to try to cleanse the world of pollution and discovers a lot about history along the way.
The stories are all happening at the same time, so you see encounters between the parties from both sides and events from different perspectives. Mysterious events (some prophesized, some that seem like classic “end of the world” fare) from one character’s perspective usually end up either being the fault of another character, or at least totally explainable from their point of view. Sion has no idea why the pollution is being cleansed or death is raining from the heavens, but Riza does. Also, playing all three scenarios lets you track the path of treasure hunters Cid and Dune—Dune holds the fourth Jade, and he weaves among the stories before becoming a main character in the endgame.
Each scenario progresses in "days", though this can be even more at odds with game mechanics than usual--only advancing the plot makes days pass, but you can cover the continent a dozen times while grinding and never have night fall. (Though I suppose that's better than the alternative--can you imagine if you had to choose between grinding and doing sidequests or tearing ahead with the plot? That has the potential to be the most frustrating game ever.) The real time spent in any given day can vary wildly, with some days taking ten minutes and some taking two hours.
The plot is very linear, as should be obvious, and there's very little opportunity for free exploration. They do a nice job of providing each character an opportunity to visit every location, and the non-plot-required ones function as bonus dungeons and grinding spots. (The forest that is Riza's noob cave is also Sion's best mid-game grinding spot). This means that you only briefly get active control of a vehicle; the closest the game comes to free exploration is Riza's Day 11, when you can do a little "world tour" before continuing the plot. (Even when Surlent is give access to a network of teleport spots, there are a lot of broken bridges that keep him from backtracking.) Every chest in the game is full in each scenario (though some are jade-locked to specific characters), so it pays to revisit dungeons with each set of characters to open the same chests three times.
Graphics are late-SNES-era, on par with FF6 or Secret of Mana. My biggest complaint about them is that it can be hard to tell which things are doors. I spent 45 minutes wandering Riza's final dungeon convinced I'd done something wrong, because what I thought was a shadow was, in fact, the path I needed to take.
Menu and Battle system is fairly standard Final Fantasy style. It looks like it'll be ATB, but it's actually just turn-based, which works just fine. The battle animation moves quickly and smoothly. Grinding is still a chore, but it's about on par with the SNES Final Fantasy games. (Though in most cases, grinding won’t get you past bosses. Having the right elemental equipment and mantra setup will.)
A random and kinda awesome feature of boss battles (that I'm not sure I've seen in an RPG since) is that bosses turn red as you damage them, making it more obvious how hurt they are and how much further you have to go.
There's a 9-item limit for healing herbs (and other consumables), which is unusual for this style of game. The worst status ailment, by far, is "pollution", which prevents you from using magic, doesn't wear off after battle (like every other effect), doesn't heal at an inn and doesn't have any spells that cure it. You need a special, expensive item to cure it. Sion's scenario sees mercifully little of it, but in Riza's scenario, plenty of enemies can inflict it with their normal attack. (At least they often drop the curative item, too.)
The game’s big gimmick is the magic system, where each spell is a "mantra" made up of syllables that you can discover and manually input. "IG" is a fire spell, but "IGNA" or "IGNUS" are both stronger versions. You can learn new spells from townspeople, chests, watching enemies use them (so all magic is effectively FF-style blue magic) or just read them out of a FAQ. Creative stacking of syllables learned as the game goes on can allow you to make top-level spells that cost 1 MP to cast. (Even if you don't use a guide, you can play through one scenario, write down all of your mantras, and input them for the other scenarios to have more powerful/more efficient spells earlier on.) Choosing the right spells for each situation is the game’s big strategic element, as using the right elements and elemental defenses are the key to most battles; and buff/debuff spells are a necessity for late-game bosses.
On that topic, the translation really is glorious. The fact that this particular magic system could be fan-translated at all is super-impressive, but the dialogue localization is also excellent. Characters have linguistic quirks (Ture likes to EMPHASIZE words; Sork threatens to "hackify" and "bludgeonate" foes) and get distinct characterization.
The other interesting gimmick to this is that your entire party has access to the same spell list. Given that there aren't any other special abilities or limit breaks, from a system perspective characters end up interchangeable except for their available equipment and their MP totals.
This is a game that requires a lot of writing things down. Mantras, obviously, but you'll also need some good notes on who all the characters and places are, and all of the prophecies that get spouted. And keeping notes on enemies' elemental weaknesses couldn't hurt, either.
Difficulty-wise, the game isn't easy, but it never feels particularly unfairly hard. There are very few points where grinding seems strictly necessary, and most of the times I died and had to try a boss again it was better strategy (including choice of mantras) rather than grinding that got me through it. (If you find the game too hard, put in the mantra PEBEFAMEGAMI—it’s a 1 MP heal-all spell that’ll make life a lot easier.)
Overall: Very long for a SNES game, with an extremely complex plot and mythology behind it, and a creative magic system with a huge amount of variation. I found this engrossing and would happily put it on the list of games Square really should have brought over back in the day. I recommend it to old-school JRPG fans.
Apparently the "multiple scenario" rpg was hot in Japan in the SNES era, but somebody decided Americans just wouldn't like them. (See also: Seikan Dentetsu 3, Live-A-Live, the three Romancing SaGa games.) This game was fan-translated by Aeon Genesis about a decade after its initial release. The setup is similar to Suikoden 3 in having three protagonists (and a fourth secondary protagonist), though you can switch among them every time you save and resume, rather than at set chapter ends.
I played through each scenario in full before starting the next, which made this feel more like three interconnected games that use the same system, rather than three parts of the same game. Each character's quest feels like a contained whole, and each with a different style to it. Yes, everyone discovers the Power of Friendship and ends up fighting a god, but the way they get there is different. Sion is a knight on a quest, guided by a mysterious mentor and mostly at odds with an evil cult he believes is summoning a destroyer god. Surlent is a scholar and explorer, looking for the truth behind ancient events, who learns a great deal about the world’s mythology firsthand. Riza is the prophesized Chosen who sets off in her mother’s footsteps to try to cleanse the world of pollution and discovers a lot about history along the way.
The stories are all happening at the same time, so you see encounters between the parties from both sides and events from different perspectives. Mysterious events (some prophesized, some that seem like classic “end of the world” fare) from one character’s perspective usually end up either being the fault of another character, or at least totally explainable from their point of view. Sion has no idea why the pollution is being cleansed or death is raining from the heavens, but Riza does. Also, playing all three scenarios lets you track the path of treasure hunters Cid and Dune—Dune holds the fourth Jade, and he weaves among the stories before becoming a main character in the endgame.
Each scenario progresses in "days", though this can be even more at odds with game mechanics than usual--only advancing the plot makes days pass, but you can cover the continent a dozen times while grinding and never have night fall. (Though I suppose that's better than the alternative--can you imagine if you had to choose between grinding and doing sidequests or tearing ahead with the plot? That has the potential to be the most frustrating game ever.) The real time spent in any given day can vary wildly, with some days taking ten minutes and some taking two hours.
The plot is very linear, as should be obvious, and there's very little opportunity for free exploration. They do a nice job of providing each character an opportunity to visit every location, and the non-plot-required ones function as bonus dungeons and grinding spots. (The forest that is Riza's noob cave is also Sion's best mid-game grinding spot). This means that you only briefly get active control of a vehicle; the closest the game comes to free exploration is Riza's Day 11, when you can do a little "world tour" before continuing the plot. (Even when Surlent is give access to a network of teleport spots, there are a lot of broken bridges that keep him from backtracking.) Every chest in the game is full in each scenario (though some are jade-locked to specific characters), so it pays to revisit dungeons with each set of characters to open the same chests three times.
Graphics are late-SNES-era, on par with FF6 or Secret of Mana. My biggest complaint about them is that it can be hard to tell which things are doors. I spent 45 minutes wandering Riza's final dungeon convinced I'd done something wrong, because what I thought was a shadow was, in fact, the path I needed to take.
Menu and Battle system is fairly standard Final Fantasy style. It looks like it'll be ATB, but it's actually just turn-based, which works just fine. The battle animation moves quickly and smoothly. Grinding is still a chore, but it's about on par with the SNES Final Fantasy games. (Though in most cases, grinding won’t get you past bosses. Having the right elemental equipment and mantra setup will.)
A random and kinda awesome feature of boss battles (that I'm not sure I've seen in an RPG since) is that bosses turn red as you damage them, making it more obvious how hurt they are and how much further you have to go.
There's a 9-item limit for healing herbs (and other consumables), which is unusual for this style of game. The worst status ailment, by far, is "pollution", which prevents you from using magic, doesn't wear off after battle (like every other effect), doesn't heal at an inn and doesn't have any spells that cure it. You need a special, expensive item to cure it. Sion's scenario sees mercifully little of it, but in Riza's scenario, plenty of enemies can inflict it with their normal attack. (At least they often drop the curative item, too.)
The game’s big gimmick is the magic system, where each spell is a "mantra" made up of syllables that you can discover and manually input. "IG" is a fire spell, but "IGNA" or "IGNUS" are both stronger versions. You can learn new spells from townspeople, chests, watching enemies use them (so all magic is effectively FF-style blue magic) or just read them out of a FAQ. Creative stacking of syllables learned as the game goes on can allow you to make top-level spells that cost 1 MP to cast. (Even if you don't use a guide, you can play through one scenario, write down all of your mantras, and input them for the other scenarios to have more powerful/more efficient spells earlier on.) Choosing the right spells for each situation is the game’s big strategic element, as using the right elements and elemental defenses are the key to most battles; and buff/debuff spells are a necessity for late-game bosses.
On that topic, the translation really is glorious. The fact that this particular magic system could be fan-translated at all is super-impressive, but the dialogue localization is also excellent. Characters have linguistic quirks (Ture likes to EMPHASIZE words; Sork threatens to "hackify" and "bludgeonate" foes) and get distinct characterization.
The other interesting gimmick to this is that your entire party has access to the same spell list. Given that there aren't any other special abilities or limit breaks, from a system perspective characters end up interchangeable except for their available equipment and their MP totals.
This is a game that requires a lot of writing things down. Mantras, obviously, but you'll also need some good notes on who all the characters and places are, and all of the prophecies that get spouted. And keeping notes on enemies' elemental weaknesses couldn't hurt, either.
Difficulty-wise, the game isn't easy, but it never feels particularly unfairly hard. There are very few points where grinding seems strictly necessary, and most of the times I died and had to try a boss again it was better strategy (including choice of mantras) rather than grinding that got me through it. (If you find the game too hard, put in the mantra PEBEFAMEGAMI—it’s a 1 MP heal-all spell that’ll make life a lot easier.)
Overall: Very long for a SNES game, with an extremely complex plot and mythology behind it, and a creative magic system with a huge amount of variation. I found this engrossing and would happily put it on the list of games Square really should have brought over back in the day. I recommend it to old-school JRPG fans.
