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chuckroThe people of the surface kingdom of Illumica fear a disaster coming from the underground world of Laft, and dispatch a group of Rivell soldiers to investigate. These soldiers can partner with the Guardian Beasts of the High Beast Lord. But will their power be enough to stop the flood of Darkness?
Another KEMCO rpg developed by Hit-Point, who also made Chronus Arc and Bonds of the Skies, both of which I found rather flawed. This continued to be a step in the right direction of making a fun game, but there are still issues.
Pretty much everything that you can level up in up KEMCO games you'll see here. Your characters level up. Their skills level up from use. You have materia ("magic meteorites") that level up and get you more spells. You need to use vendortrash and gold to level up your equipment (just like Chronus Arc) and each character has a monster sidekick that gains levels separately (just like Bonds of the Skies). You can equip any item in one of four slots on your "shells" (monster sidekicks) which give them both stat boost and extra abilities--revive potions make them regenerate, for instance, or consumable spell-casting items give them those spells. That's a clever addition in this case.
You get two IAP points per five battles, and also there's a calendar that distributes them to you each day you play. This isn't quite as nice as getting them in a bundle for $0, but I think it still qualifies as "Actually Free". I logged in five days in a row, then purchased the "double XP" bonus before I actually started playing. The IAP shop makes all the difference in the playability of the game: Being able to cut grinding in half changes the setup from “Argh, so much grinding” to “I can just play straight through and fight everything I meet, and as long as I do every sidequest the game is super-easy.” Even the material-gathering is simplified in the later game, as an NPC will do it for you and you can buy him helpers in the IAP shop. Which is not to say there isn’t any grinding—the sidequests are typically just an excuse to do it—but it’s in the realm of tolerable.
There's no minimap, and the view is the most zoomed-in I think I've ever seen for a jrpg. There's very little viewable area, which makes the dungeons more confusing than is really warranted. And makes them seem bigger, which is probably why they did it that way. Most of the dungeons are actually really small, with no puzzles, traps or locked doors. The dungeons get longer as the game goes on, but the pacing is weirdly uneven. You have about three hours of following the plot with very little equipment-crafting, then you get access to “request” sidequests and the main plot takes a difficulty spike (indicating you’re supposed to go do them for two hours). Then you’re back on the plot rails and most of the new sidequests are unavailable to complete (because they require access to areas you haven’t unlocked), but the crafting recipes start coming fast and furious. But you can’t actually craft the high-level weapons unless you grind a huge amount of vendortrash.
Not that you desperately need them: As long you you’ve got access to free IAP stuff, you can ignore several aspects of the game that annoy you. I barely used Magic Meteors because the characters’ individual skills did just about everything I needed. I only got the characters’ equipment into the third rank (of four, with multiple branches) and it didn’t cause any issues.
The main character is, as is often the case, kinda dumb. In this case, he's a naive chowderhead who gets very lucky several times as conspiracies rage around him. I mean, in the opening, he gleefully tells his military superior that he wants to kill their patron god. (The superior, who admittedly is a double-agent working for an evil conspiracy, basically tells him to shut up.)
There’s a lot going on, though, to the point where it seems to become plot roulette. Kline is the High Beast Lord! No, wait, he isn’t. The sect is evil! Or good! Or just trying to save people! The commander is really on your side; except he’s really one of the Grey Sages! Actually, there’s an alternate world and the High Beast Lord (aka God of Darkness, aka “Justice”) comes from there. Actually, the High Beast Lord was in Alia the whole time! Dozens of reveals without foreshadowing or, in many cases, real rhyme or reason makes it feel cheap.
Overall: I mostly played this as a casual game, grinding for sidequest completion and periodically advancing the plot, because as a plot-based rpg it falls flat. This particular developer of KEMCO games hasn’t been winning my love.
Another KEMCO rpg developed by Hit-Point, who also made Chronus Arc and Bonds of the Skies, both of which I found rather flawed. This continued to be a step in the right direction of making a fun game, but there are still issues.
Pretty much everything that you can level up in up KEMCO games you'll see here. Your characters level up. Their skills level up from use. You have materia ("magic meteorites") that level up and get you more spells. You need to use vendortrash and gold to level up your equipment (just like Chronus Arc) and each character has a monster sidekick that gains levels separately (just like Bonds of the Skies). You can equip any item in one of four slots on your "shells" (monster sidekicks) which give them both stat boost and extra abilities--revive potions make them regenerate, for instance, or consumable spell-casting items give them those spells. That's a clever addition in this case.
You get two IAP points per five battles, and also there's a calendar that distributes them to you each day you play. This isn't quite as nice as getting them in a bundle for $0, but I think it still qualifies as "Actually Free". I logged in five days in a row, then purchased the "double XP" bonus before I actually started playing. The IAP shop makes all the difference in the playability of the game: Being able to cut grinding in half changes the setup from “Argh, so much grinding” to “I can just play straight through and fight everything I meet, and as long as I do every sidequest the game is super-easy.” Even the material-gathering is simplified in the later game, as an NPC will do it for you and you can buy him helpers in the IAP shop. Which is not to say there isn’t any grinding—the sidequests are typically just an excuse to do it—but it’s in the realm of tolerable.
There's no minimap, and the view is the most zoomed-in I think I've ever seen for a jrpg. There's very little viewable area, which makes the dungeons more confusing than is really warranted. And makes them seem bigger, which is probably why they did it that way. Most of the dungeons are actually really small, with no puzzles, traps or locked doors. The dungeons get longer as the game goes on, but the pacing is weirdly uneven. You have about three hours of following the plot with very little equipment-crafting, then you get access to “request” sidequests and the main plot takes a difficulty spike (indicating you’re supposed to go do them for two hours). Then you’re back on the plot rails and most of the new sidequests are unavailable to complete (because they require access to areas you haven’t unlocked), but the crafting recipes start coming fast and furious. But you can’t actually craft the high-level weapons unless you grind a huge amount of vendortrash.
Not that you desperately need them: As long you you’ve got access to free IAP stuff, you can ignore several aspects of the game that annoy you. I barely used Magic Meteors because the characters’ individual skills did just about everything I needed. I only got the characters’ equipment into the third rank (of four, with multiple branches) and it didn’t cause any issues.
The main character is, as is often the case, kinda dumb. In this case, he's a naive chowderhead who gets very lucky several times as conspiracies rage around him. I mean, in the opening, he gleefully tells his military superior that he wants to kill their patron god. (The superior, who admittedly is a double-agent working for an evil conspiracy, basically tells him to shut up.)
There’s a lot going on, though, to the point where it seems to become plot roulette. Kline is the High Beast Lord! No, wait, he isn’t. The sect is evil! Or good! Or just trying to save people! The commander is really on your side; except he’s really one of the Grey Sages! Actually, there’s an alternate world and the High Beast Lord (aka God of Darkness, aka “Justice”) comes from there. Actually, the High Beast Lord was in Alia the whole time! Dozens of reveals without foreshadowing or, in many cases, real rhyme or reason makes it feel cheap.
Overall: I mostly played this as a casual game, grinding for sidequest completion and periodically advancing the plot, because as a plot-based rpg it falls flat. This particular developer of KEMCO games hasn’t been winning my love.
