Bahamut Lagoon
Oct. 4th, 2012 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroYears ago, the Granbelos Empire attacked and conquered the kingdom of Kahna, which sits on a floating island called a lagoon. Princess Yoyo has the power to speak to holy dragons, but even she couldn't waken Bahamut, Kahna's legendary guardian. Ryuu was the captain of the kingdom's dragon squad, and now he joins the resistance against the evil empire. Though it eventually involves more than thirty characters, multiple nations, an ancient war and the origin of dragons, at heart this is Yoyo and Ryuu’s story.
This is another SquareSoft game that the US never officially got. This one is a tactical rpg where your icons on the battle screen each represent a squad of characters that are leveled and equipped separately; and are moved around on a grid-map in a turn-based fashion. You also have dragon units, which you can "command" in a rough way but are cpu-controlled. Dragons don't use equipment, but instead gain stat bonuses and elemental affinities from eating items. (Dragon-raising is one of this game's big gimmicks, though without a guide it's nearly impossible to stumble onto some of the better forms.)
Usually, you have the choice between attacking enemies directly in melee (where you get a single turn of a standard rpg turn-based battle) or using field effects to hit them from a distance. The latter protects you from counterattacks and can strike multiple groups, but limits you to one character's action, and only gets you half the money as a reward. The elemental effects of using field attacks on the battlefield are pretty neat (and your dragons can inflict them accidentally, too)--ice magic freezes water and allows you to cross it; fire magic sets forests on fire, which spread and deal damage if you start a turn in them.
I'm reminded very much of Advance Wars, just with a fantasy twist behind it. There are similarities to the turn-based tactical combat with the different types of units and attacks, and particularly the map and movement style. Honestly, though, it's a genre I'm not wild about, even if this game is heavily Final Fantasy influenced.
The game is broken up into chapters, each with one battle, and you spend a lot of time watching cutscenes (though you also have a chance to run around talking to people, collecting items and visiting stores in most chapters). You can save normally after each chapter. Starting in Chapter 6, you can do Sidequests to grind for XP and items. Most enemies drop items when you kill them, and the type of elemental attack you use to strike the final blow determines the drop--using holy or dark attacks against bosses in the later battles is where you get most of the best weapons and armor. (Also, if you lose a battle, you keep the experience and equipment you won, meaning you can grind by dying a lot.)
There's no question this is a Squaresoft game (the graphics are straight from their standard playbook), or that the translators are Final Fantasy fans. I don't know how many of the dragon names and references were in the original, but classic FF series monster names come up a lot. For that matter, the graphics are gorgeous for the era--lighting effects, the swirling colors of the sky, impressive summons, the whole works.
Honestly, while the characterization is very deep, it’s also a bit goofy--almost cartoony in places. Given the actions that accompany it, I have to wonder if it's not just the translation, and the original is actually that silly. (The folks involved in the fan translation were also responsible for the SNES Tales of Phantasia, which gets flak for an inaccurate translation that added a lot of bawdy humor. I could see that happening here, too.)
The world-building is pretty strong, and they do give the characters a lot of room to grow and develop. It is a very talky game, after all, and they try to make use of the entire (30-odd character) cast. Between most chapters, side characters get ongoing plots if you're willing to go look for them. The lancers have an ongoing bromance, several of the mages are swooning over the same guy--Heck, even the shopkeepers have cute little subplots!
The translation patch is buggy in SNES9x, which is irritating, as it's my preferred emulator. You need to play the game with Z-SNES. I only noticed a couple of errors using Z-SNES; mostly graphical during certain attacks, and nothing game-breaking.
I played a chunk of this a couple of years ago, then got distracted, and decided to restart because there are a lot of characters and a fairly complicated plot. For my second try, since the system and game play already weren't really grabbing me, I opted to download someone else's New Game Plus data. I wouldn't really recommend this, because it means you don't really have to worry about equipment or dragon-feeding and the battles are stupidly easy early on and then just tedious, given their length. Honestly, the game isn’t strong enough to power through it if you don’t really enjoy the tactical battles.
Overall: I think this falls into the category of "not a bad game, just not really my thing". The system is a bit slow-moving and a little more tactical than I like my srpgs; a product of a more patient time. The plot might have grabbed me under other circumstances, but I wasn't feeling it as I played this. Recommended only to fans of Advance Wars or those trying to be completionist about Squaresoft’s SNES catalogue.
This is another SquareSoft game that the US never officially got. This one is a tactical rpg where your icons on the battle screen each represent a squad of characters that are leveled and equipped separately; and are moved around on a grid-map in a turn-based fashion. You also have dragon units, which you can "command" in a rough way but are cpu-controlled. Dragons don't use equipment, but instead gain stat bonuses and elemental affinities from eating items. (Dragon-raising is one of this game's big gimmicks, though without a guide it's nearly impossible to stumble onto some of the better forms.)
Usually, you have the choice between attacking enemies directly in melee (where you get a single turn of a standard rpg turn-based battle) or using field effects to hit them from a distance. The latter protects you from counterattacks and can strike multiple groups, but limits you to one character's action, and only gets you half the money as a reward. The elemental effects of using field attacks on the battlefield are pretty neat (and your dragons can inflict them accidentally, too)--ice magic freezes water and allows you to cross it; fire magic sets forests on fire, which spread and deal damage if you start a turn in them.
I'm reminded very much of Advance Wars, just with a fantasy twist behind it. There are similarities to the turn-based tactical combat with the different types of units and attacks, and particularly the map and movement style. Honestly, though, it's a genre I'm not wild about, even if this game is heavily Final Fantasy influenced.
The game is broken up into chapters, each with one battle, and you spend a lot of time watching cutscenes (though you also have a chance to run around talking to people, collecting items and visiting stores in most chapters). You can save normally after each chapter. Starting in Chapter 6, you can do Sidequests to grind for XP and items. Most enemies drop items when you kill them, and the type of elemental attack you use to strike the final blow determines the drop--using holy or dark attacks against bosses in the later battles is where you get most of the best weapons and armor. (Also, if you lose a battle, you keep the experience and equipment you won, meaning you can grind by dying a lot.)
There's no question this is a Squaresoft game (the graphics are straight from their standard playbook), or that the translators are Final Fantasy fans. I don't know how many of the dragon names and references were in the original, but classic FF series monster names come up a lot. For that matter, the graphics are gorgeous for the era--lighting effects, the swirling colors of the sky, impressive summons, the whole works.
Honestly, while the characterization is very deep, it’s also a bit goofy--almost cartoony in places. Given the actions that accompany it, I have to wonder if it's not just the translation, and the original is actually that silly. (The folks involved in the fan translation were also responsible for the SNES Tales of Phantasia, which gets flak for an inaccurate translation that added a lot of bawdy humor. I could see that happening here, too.)
The world-building is pretty strong, and they do give the characters a lot of room to grow and develop. It is a very talky game, after all, and they try to make use of the entire (30-odd character) cast. Between most chapters, side characters get ongoing plots if you're willing to go look for them. The lancers have an ongoing bromance, several of the mages are swooning over the same guy--Heck, even the shopkeepers have cute little subplots!
The translation patch is buggy in SNES9x, which is irritating, as it's my preferred emulator. You need to play the game with Z-SNES. I only noticed a couple of errors using Z-SNES; mostly graphical during certain attacks, and nothing game-breaking.
I played a chunk of this a couple of years ago, then got distracted, and decided to restart because there are a lot of characters and a fairly complicated plot. For my second try, since the system and game play already weren't really grabbing me, I opted to download someone else's New Game Plus data. I wouldn't really recommend this, because it means you don't really have to worry about equipment or dragon-feeding and the battles are stupidly easy early on and then just tedious, given their length. Honestly, the game isn’t strong enough to power through it if you don’t really enjoy the tactical battles.
Overall: I think this falls into the category of "not a bad game, just not really my thing". The system is a bit slow-moving and a little more tactical than I like my srpgs; a product of a more patient time. The plot might have grabbed me under other circumstances, but I wasn't feeling it as I played this. Recommended only to fans of Advance Wars or those trying to be completionist about Squaresoft’s SNES catalogue.
