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Android Games Reviews: KEMCO Holiday Sale #3 - Covenant of Solitude
“You are remarkably honest about your stupidity, aren’t you, Master?”
Fort is bullied because he can talk to monsters, which make people say he’s one of the lost/rare “genies” who can summon monsters. Meanwhile, Empire/Kingdom relations are heating up and there might be a war soon. When the Empire attacks the village and kills everyone, Fort summons monsters that accidentally kill the girl he loves. Three years later, the Empire is planning to execute a powerless Fort, but a devil named Wicca makes a contract with him so that he can redeem himself.
This is so very “classic jrpg” I’m not sure where to start. Controls are a little clunky; graphics are early-SNES cartoony and not terribly expressive. It’s slow-moving even when you crank up the battle speed. It feels like one of the earlier KEMCO games because, well, it is, having been originally published in 2012.
Your main character, as mentioned, is a summoner, but this isn’t a mon-battle game. The monsters that join your part function like guild mercenaries in Dragon Quest games: You choose a race, class and special ability for them, and there’s some ability to re-spec, but otherwise they’re just generics. They use normal human weapons and armor and gain spells and abilities from a set list. The main character eventually gets most of the best spells from all the classes, allowing him to fill any party role—he gets healing, teleporting, some buffing, and a few attack spells.
The dungeons are nothing special, just the occasional branching path or key-and-lock puzzle. They love damage floors, but that doesn’t really matter because a cheap consumable or low-level thief spell will prevent the damage, and the damage is only a measly 1 HP per step anyway. The dungeon design—particularly the castle layout, which you encounter twice—I’m fairly certain I’ve seen in a different game. (I don’t remember which one, though--Grinsia, by the same developer, is a likely candidate.)
The battle system is your standard turn-based affair with the usual status effects and an unimpressive variety of spells. Most random battles can be handled on Auto, including the significant number you’ll spend grinding so that bosses won’t wipe your party in a turn or two. I had several dungeons where I wasn’t having any trouble with the monsters but then the boss wiped me and I had to grind a few levels. (You know it’s a “classic-style” jrpg when the “tips and tricks” page essentially just says, “grind more.”)
The lack of useful strategy in the boss battles really grates on me. I got past one by spamming the elemental-attack vendortrash item that was dropped by monsters in that dungeon, and that was really nice, but most of the other bosses have come down to "Okay, time to grind more." Spells are limited to what each class gains via level-up, and re-arranging your team isn't really a viable option (because you're using three out of the four classes to begin with, and grinding up a fourth character takes absurd amounts of time, when you could just level your main party).
In the end, it was the need to grind to get around the punishingly-difficult bosses that took me down. Not only did grinding get boring on the repetitive palette-swap monsters, but even healing after every battle, the random combats required some attention because enemies use status ailments that hit your entire party and rarely miss. Which means you can't just auto-battle the grinding while watching Scooby-Doo, as I learned.
The IAP store is full of lovely stuff, including two bonus dungeons. It’s not clear if you can unlock IAP without paying real money, though. A review I saw claimed you could; I haven’t found that to be the case.
The plot is respectable, really. The fact that the cast is full of power-hungry assholes who are actually competent was a nice change of pace. This is another game that loves the “fantastic racism” trope, as even the “good” NPCs are racist against genies. It’s a good thing Fort is just SO dumb and SO optimistic. I was kinda looking forward to Wicca's sudden but inevitable betrayal, Fort's touching reunion with Legna after beating him mostly to death, and whatever remaining revelations there were. But I'm not spending five hours on grinding (or money on IAP for game-breaking equipment unavailable in any other way) to see those few bits.
Overall: The plot is decent and the setup is fine, but there’s too much grinding to get past the punishing bosses and not enough variety or strategy to go with it. I’ll put this in the lower tier of KEMCO games.
Fort is bullied because he can talk to monsters, which make people say he’s one of the lost/rare “genies” who can summon monsters. Meanwhile, Empire/Kingdom relations are heating up and there might be a war soon. When the Empire attacks the village and kills everyone, Fort summons monsters that accidentally kill the girl he loves. Three years later, the Empire is planning to execute a powerless Fort, but a devil named Wicca makes a contract with him so that he can redeem himself.
This is so very “classic jrpg” I’m not sure where to start. Controls are a little clunky; graphics are early-SNES cartoony and not terribly expressive. It’s slow-moving even when you crank up the battle speed. It feels like one of the earlier KEMCO games because, well, it is, having been originally published in 2012.
Your main character, as mentioned, is a summoner, but this isn’t a mon-battle game. The monsters that join your part function like guild mercenaries in Dragon Quest games: You choose a race, class and special ability for them, and there’s some ability to re-spec, but otherwise they’re just generics. They use normal human weapons and armor and gain spells and abilities from a set list. The main character eventually gets most of the best spells from all the classes, allowing him to fill any party role—he gets healing, teleporting, some buffing, and a few attack spells.
The dungeons are nothing special, just the occasional branching path or key-and-lock puzzle. They love damage floors, but that doesn’t really matter because a cheap consumable or low-level thief spell will prevent the damage, and the damage is only a measly 1 HP per step anyway. The dungeon design—particularly the castle layout, which you encounter twice—I’m fairly certain I’ve seen in a different game. (I don’t remember which one, though--Grinsia, by the same developer, is a likely candidate.)
The battle system is your standard turn-based affair with the usual status effects and an unimpressive variety of spells. Most random battles can be handled on Auto, including the significant number you’ll spend grinding so that bosses won’t wipe your party in a turn or two. I had several dungeons where I wasn’t having any trouble with the monsters but then the boss wiped me and I had to grind a few levels. (You know it’s a “classic-style” jrpg when the “tips and tricks” page essentially just says, “grind more.”)
The lack of useful strategy in the boss battles really grates on me. I got past one by spamming the elemental-attack vendortrash item that was dropped by monsters in that dungeon, and that was really nice, but most of the other bosses have come down to "Okay, time to grind more." Spells are limited to what each class gains via level-up, and re-arranging your team isn't really a viable option (because you're using three out of the four classes to begin with, and grinding up a fourth character takes absurd amounts of time, when you could just level your main party).
In the end, it was the need to grind to get around the punishingly-difficult bosses that took me down. Not only did grinding get boring on the repetitive palette-swap monsters, but even healing after every battle, the random combats required some attention because enemies use status ailments that hit your entire party and rarely miss. Which means you can't just auto-battle the grinding while watching Scooby-Doo, as I learned.
The IAP store is full of lovely stuff, including two bonus dungeons. It’s not clear if you can unlock IAP without paying real money, though. A review I saw claimed you could; I haven’t found that to be the case.
The plot is respectable, really. The fact that the cast is full of power-hungry assholes who are actually competent was a nice change of pace. This is another game that loves the “fantastic racism” trope, as even the “good” NPCs are racist against genies. It’s a good thing Fort is just SO dumb and SO optimistic. I was kinda looking forward to Wicca's sudden but inevitable betrayal, Fort's touching reunion with Legna after beating him mostly to death, and whatever remaining revelations there were. But I'm not spending five hours on grinding (or money on IAP for game-breaking equipment unavailable in any other way) to see those few bits.
Overall: The plot is decent and the setup is fine, but there’s too much grinding to get past the punishing bosses and not enough variety or strategy to go with it. I’ll put this in the lower tier of KEMCO games.