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chuckroWhen the Evils of the Earth-depths emerge and wage war against the humans, elves and dwarves of the surface lands, a weapon is needed to turn the tide. That weapon turns out to be an ancient golem, re-awakened by an obvious jrpg protagonist unlikely hero and turned toward noble ends.
It’s an attempt at jrpg buddy comedy, starring a bitter solider whose parents were killed by the “Evils of the Earth-depths” and an amnesiac golem uncertain about his opinions of humanity. The dialogue is trying to be funnier than it is—I’m not sure if it’s bad translation or bad writing to begin with—but it’s a well-done game. Over the course of seven hours of gameplay, it manages to keep the plot fairly focused and without insane levels of escalation, and actually build in enough characterization that you can accept the characters’ relationship at the end.
Controls are great, logical and offer a lot of options. Graphics are lovely for the genre. The mini-map is very nice, and it shows monsters but not treasure chests, which preserves some need to explore. Dungeon design isn’t amazing, but there are at least some mazes and multi-level structures rather than just straight lines.
There’s no MP, just a stamina gauge that also functions as the ATB bar and seems to reduce more when you use some skills. There’s a “limit” bar that seems to be shared by the party and fills as you attack and can be used on special attacks. Presumably related to this, the auto-battle uses all of your attacks, not just plain fighting.
Each person has three equipment slots that technically make up their weapon. The main part is upgradeable, contains skills that you can learn by battling, and determines attack power. The other two parts add special abilities to your attacks, such as inflicting poison or stealing items.
Each fight you win nets a SOP, which can be traded for “prizes” (that I suspect would be in-app purchases in a different version of the game) including high-end potions, helpful equipment, bonus scenes and bonus dungeons. I didn’t go out of my way to grind, just fighting everything in my way, and I was drowning in SOP by the latter half of the game, having unlocked all of the special events and locations and also a few handy items. I ended up trading a bunch of them for money to buy more upgrades.
Especially if you take advantage of the SOP bonuses (and there’s no reason not to), the game is very easy. The majority of non-boss battles can be won on Auto without worrying about using any consumables; in-battle healing is effectively unlimited; and the cap for levels and weapon strengthening is significantly higher than you need to beat the final boss or bonus bosses. If you really want to get into strategy, there’s a three-person combo that reduces the enemy’s stamina in addition to doing massive damage: Hit a boss with that when they begin charging a mega-attack, and they probably won’t get another turn. Especially if you layer on the buffs and debuffs before that. Also, if the random battles in the last couple of dungeons annoy you, you can buy a “Death Arrow”, which adds instant death to your elven archer’s attacks…and she’ll have two of the very-few hit-all attacks at that point.
Hargana, the dark elf, seems to have some amount of gender confusion—I’m not sure if the characters are making fun of her for seeming masculine or what (the translation isn’t great) but it doesn’t sit right with me. Like many of the Evils, she’s presented in a sympathetic light later on, but she’s the one thing in the plot that gave me real pause.
Overall: This game showed up on several lists as being one of KEMCO’s best games, so I bumped it to the top of my list. I think that’s an accurate assessment: It’s an easy game, but you’ve got a lot of customizability and flexibility for your party and despite the bad translation, the story manages to be fun. A revised / properly localized script would have made this genuinely noteworthy.
It’s an attempt at jrpg buddy comedy, starring a bitter solider whose parents were killed by the “Evils of the Earth-depths” and an amnesiac golem uncertain about his opinions of humanity. The dialogue is trying to be funnier than it is—I’m not sure if it’s bad translation or bad writing to begin with—but it’s a well-done game. Over the course of seven hours of gameplay, it manages to keep the plot fairly focused and without insane levels of escalation, and actually build in enough characterization that you can accept the characters’ relationship at the end.
Controls are great, logical and offer a lot of options. Graphics are lovely for the genre. The mini-map is very nice, and it shows monsters but not treasure chests, which preserves some need to explore. Dungeon design isn’t amazing, but there are at least some mazes and multi-level structures rather than just straight lines.
There’s no MP, just a stamina gauge that also functions as the ATB bar and seems to reduce more when you use some skills. There’s a “limit” bar that seems to be shared by the party and fills as you attack and can be used on special attacks. Presumably related to this, the auto-battle uses all of your attacks, not just plain fighting.
Each person has three equipment slots that technically make up their weapon. The main part is upgradeable, contains skills that you can learn by battling, and determines attack power. The other two parts add special abilities to your attacks, such as inflicting poison or stealing items.
Each fight you win nets a SOP, which can be traded for “prizes” (that I suspect would be in-app purchases in a different version of the game) including high-end potions, helpful equipment, bonus scenes and bonus dungeons. I didn’t go out of my way to grind, just fighting everything in my way, and I was drowning in SOP by the latter half of the game, having unlocked all of the special events and locations and also a few handy items. I ended up trading a bunch of them for money to buy more upgrades.
Especially if you take advantage of the SOP bonuses (and there’s no reason not to), the game is very easy. The majority of non-boss battles can be won on Auto without worrying about using any consumables; in-battle healing is effectively unlimited; and the cap for levels and weapon strengthening is significantly higher than you need to beat the final boss or bonus bosses. If you really want to get into strategy, there’s a three-person combo that reduces the enemy’s stamina in addition to doing massive damage: Hit a boss with that when they begin charging a mega-attack, and they probably won’t get another turn. Especially if you layer on the buffs and debuffs before that. Also, if the random battles in the last couple of dungeons annoy you, you can buy a “Death Arrow”, which adds instant death to your elven archer’s attacks…and she’ll have two of the very-few hit-all attacks at that point.
Hargana, the dark elf, seems to have some amount of gender confusion—I’m not sure if the characters are making fun of her for seeming masculine or what (the translation isn’t great) but it doesn’t sit right with me. Like many of the Evils, she’s presented in a sympathetic light later on, but she’s the one thing in the plot that gave me real pause.
Overall: This game showed up on several lists as being one of KEMCO’s best games, so I bumped it to the top of my list. I think that’s an accurate assessment: It’s an easy game, but you’ve got a lot of customizability and flexibility for your party and despite the bad translation, the story manages to be fun. A revised / properly localized script would have made this genuinely noteworthy.
