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chuckroA family of treasure hunters spends the last of their money to reach a set of Ancient Ruins, but the evil Empire's troops got there first. They elude the guards, and the spirit of a Goddess charges them to find the six elemental relics that control the world before the Empire does.
The plot is fairly run-of-the-mill: You gather all the macguffins, the villain steals them all, you fight him only to discover there's a worse villain behind him, etc etc. Anti-pollution / technology standard green aesop, power of friendship, fight against God--there's nothing here you haven't seen a dozen times. There's a sunken ship, a lava-filled fire cave, a desert dungeon, a dark dungeon full of secret passages--all the standards.
The interparty banter isn't bad, though most of the amusing stuff is front-loaded. Once you start getting other characters in your party, the amount of noteworthy interaction declines.
The gameplay is Dragon Quest-inspired pseudo-linear: Go to each town, talk to everyone to learn the next destination, upgrade everyone's equipment, then go to the dungeon to find the next plot item that lets you reach the next town. The game opens up a bit once you get the ship and are searching for the six Treasures, though the enemy scaling indicates a definitive order you're supposed to do things in.
The game moves pleasantly fast; it doesn't feel like there's filler or that things are designed to take ridiculously long, which is often the case. The encounter rate seems a little high, but characters also move quickly and gain levels fast. Autobattle is very useful, especially when revisiting old areas. But you can't just rely on autobattle in the later dungeons or in boss battles, because buff/debuff spells actually matter (though elemental weaknesses seem less critical) and the limit breaks can really make the difference in tough fights. There is some amount of strategy and the boss battles do require some care and strategy.
I liked having the options for better graphics vs. faster performance, touchscreen controls vs. virtual keypad, etc., though I would have preferred a real keypad. In retrospect, I probably would have had a better experience on my tablet than on my phone, though the phone was fine. (It just meant squinting to look for secret passages at some points.)
Overall: This is the most expensive of the Kemco shovelware jrpgs (Eight dollars!) and is also available on the 3DS eStore, which said to me that if this isn't worth it, nothing they produce is likely to be. The verdict is that it's not bad, it's just routine and forgettable. It's a "workaday" jrpg with nothing that sets it apart, but nothing particularly unpleasant or offensive, either.
The plot is fairly run-of-the-mill: You gather all the macguffins, the villain steals them all, you fight him only to discover there's a worse villain behind him, etc etc. Anti-pollution / technology standard green aesop, power of friendship, fight against God--there's nothing here you haven't seen a dozen times. There's a sunken ship, a lava-filled fire cave, a desert dungeon, a dark dungeon full of secret passages--all the standards.
The interparty banter isn't bad, though most of the amusing stuff is front-loaded. Once you start getting other characters in your party, the amount of noteworthy interaction declines.
The gameplay is Dragon Quest-inspired pseudo-linear: Go to each town, talk to everyone to learn the next destination, upgrade everyone's equipment, then go to the dungeon to find the next plot item that lets you reach the next town. The game opens up a bit once you get the ship and are searching for the six Treasures, though the enemy scaling indicates a definitive order you're supposed to do things in.
The game moves pleasantly fast; it doesn't feel like there's filler or that things are designed to take ridiculously long, which is often the case. The encounter rate seems a little high, but characters also move quickly and gain levels fast. Autobattle is very useful, especially when revisiting old areas. But you can't just rely on autobattle in the later dungeons or in boss battles, because buff/debuff spells actually matter (though elemental weaknesses seem less critical) and the limit breaks can really make the difference in tough fights. There is some amount of strategy and the boss battles do require some care and strategy.
I liked having the options for better graphics vs. faster performance, touchscreen controls vs. virtual keypad, etc., though I would have preferred a real keypad. In retrospect, I probably would have had a better experience on my tablet than on my phone, though the phone was fine. (It just meant squinting to look for secret passages at some points.)
Overall: This is the most expensive of the Kemco shovelware jrpgs (Eight dollars!) and is also available on the 3DS eStore, which said to me that if this isn't worth it, nothing they produce is likely to be. The verdict is that it's not bad, it's just routine and forgettable. It's a "workaday" jrpg with nothing that sets it apart, but nothing particularly unpleasant or offensive, either.
