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chuckroA quiet, nerdy researcher named Nirva finds a strange egg in some ruins, and it hatches into an Eng, a strange sprite that bonds itself to him. But it has no idea what to do after that, so the pair go exploring to learn more about Engs and their world.
A KEMCO/Hit-Point game, with all the usual trappings of such. JRPG tropes in full force.
The need to grind materials from spawn points is less absurd than some of the other games, because each upgrade is a new piece of equipment, there aren't five levels of "+1" first. You do have to de-equip items to upgrade them (or even see if you can) which is irritating. You could probably get through the game without forging anything, relying on stores and found objects, but it would be tough. That said, there are multiple layers of equipment that I never even got near forging when I beat the final boss—you don't need the top-tier stuff.
The game doesn't give you nearly enough iron early enough to make it useful. (There’s a pair of spawn points just inside the far end of Burgundy Cave that are the best place to farm it.) Silver Nuggets have the same problem, being required in large quantities for a lot of recipes, but only being available in the final dungeon. There are "hover stone fragments", "hover stone pieces" and “hover stones” that are not interchangeable, which is an irritating translation issue. Also, because you need to wait to find the guy who hands you recipes, there's a major cap on what you can forge at any given point.
The "Life Drops" that give +50 max HP are totally broken in the early game, because you can collect a bunch from mimics and double your main character's hit points, making several boss battles much easier. (You should totally steal from mimics: They'll either give you Platinum or Damascus, both of which are rare and useful.)
The plot is okay—power of friendship, sealed evil from ancient times, blag blah blah. There's some royalty who are actually useful and a political struggle that actually works as a plot motivator, but also a lot of points in the worldbuilding that go completely unused. The "ancient writing" bits (especially the prologue scroll) are badly translated to the point of being nonsensical, but the dialogue is fine. There's one random bit where the conversation inexplicably focuses on one character's boobs, which I think was supposed to be funny or something. Nirva's official protagonist silence is also handled awkwardly, and there a bunch of places where they really should have either had an Ys-style "Nirva explained the situation" or just had him speak.
Overall: Ten hours, eminently playable, nothing to write home about.
A KEMCO/Hit-Point game, with all the usual trappings of such. JRPG tropes in full force.
The need to grind materials from spawn points is less absurd than some of the other games, because each upgrade is a new piece of equipment, there aren't five levels of "+1" first. You do have to de-equip items to upgrade them (or even see if you can) which is irritating. You could probably get through the game without forging anything, relying on stores and found objects, but it would be tough. That said, there are multiple layers of equipment that I never even got near forging when I beat the final boss—you don't need the top-tier stuff.
The game doesn't give you nearly enough iron early enough to make it useful. (There’s a pair of spawn points just inside the far end of Burgundy Cave that are the best place to farm it.) Silver Nuggets have the same problem, being required in large quantities for a lot of recipes, but only being available in the final dungeon. There are "hover stone fragments", "hover stone pieces" and “hover stones” that are not interchangeable, which is an irritating translation issue. Also, because you need to wait to find the guy who hands you recipes, there's a major cap on what you can forge at any given point.
The "Life Drops" that give +50 max HP are totally broken in the early game, because you can collect a bunch from mimics and double your main character's hit points, making several boss battles much easier. (You should totally steal from mimics: They'll either give you Platinum or Damascus, both of which are rare and useful.)
The plot is okay—power of friendship, sealed evil from ancient times, blag blah blah. There's some royalty who are actually useful and a political struggle that actually works as a plot motivator, but also a lot of points in the worldbuilding that go completely unused. The "ancient writing" bits (especially the prologue scroll) are badly translated to the point of being nonsensical, but the dialogue is fine. There's one random bit where the conversation inexplicably focuses on one character's boobs, which I think was supposed to be funny or something. Nirva's official protagonist silence is also handled awkwardly, and there a bunch of places where they really should have either had an Ys-style "Nirva explained the situation" or just had him speak.
Overall: Ten hours, eminently playable, nothing to write home about.
