Blacksmith of the Sand Kingdom (Android)
Aug. 24th, 2023 12:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroYour goal in life is to be an adventurer, but when dad dies and leaves you his blacksmith shop, you decide that you need to also become the greatest blacksmith in the kingdom as well. You can do both things at once, right?
This was made by Rideon (and published by KEMCO), the same folks who did Marenian Tavern Story, and it shows. It has the same basic gameplay loop: Each day you go to a dungeon area and gather materials. Some materials you get from spawn points, some you get from battles. Then you return to town and use those materials to make items, which you either use for your party or list for sale at your shop. Along the way there are sidequests to kill monsters or collect/create items, little vignettes in the town, and periodic stops at the item shop for upgrades and consumables.
In terms of things that change: The materials are mostly things like copper, cotton, fur, etc. used to build or forge things rather than foods (though there are vendortrash food items used for sidequests), because you’re making equipment rather than meals. A lot of the combat systems (including the battle grid and many of the skills) carry over from Marenian Tavern Story, but this adds a full class system and increases the party size to 5. The characters are all “generics” that you name yourself; the creation process is basically just choosing a class and a patron god (which gives small bonuses). Enemies are visible and avoidable on the dungeon screen; and if they’re requires for a sidequest there will be an indicator over their heads so you can tell. (Nice!) Enemies give XP, but very little compared to the amount you get from eating in the restaurant each day. Instead of learning skills in battle, you need to pay to learn and upgrade them in town. There’s no daily auto-heal, you need to go to the infirmary and pay each day. (It feels like it’s easier to create an unwinnable poverty situation in this game than the others.) The town is a “menu town” and the cutscenes are shown visual novel style; the 3/4-view pseudo-3D exploration is only in dungeons. Once you reach the second area, the Arena also unlocks, where you can fight battles each day for prizes (and as another requirement to advance the story).
The biggest change I dislike? There’s no guessing recipes. Instead, there are books you can buy or win that have recipes, and there’s a “blacksmith tree”. You gain “proficiency” with items either by using them (fighting with them equipped) or by making lots of them. At max proficiency, items get a “+”, better stats, higher sales rates, and sometimes unlock other recipes in the tree.
The translation is a bit messy; though the dialogue is often better than the mechanical stuff. The first dungeon (an outdoor plain) is called “the suburbs”, and that sort of odd naming is common. The plot may deepen later into the game, but for the first few hours it’s extremely generic and summed up by the my opening paragraph.
One other bit of irritation: Unlike the other two recent Android KEMCO offerings, this game doesn’t recognize the control pad from the Retroid Pocket 3, forcing me to either play with on-screen buttons or touch controls. Urgh. So I played this for a couple of hours on my tablet instead.
Overall: I paid full price (Eight dollars!) for this, but was disappointed. It turns out that the cooking aspect of the previous games of this style were really what won me, and it’s just not the same when you’re making equipment. Also, the fact that the characters in this are all generics (the named NPCs with personalities are all townspeople) made the plotline less interesting. I’m not saying I’ll never go back to this, but I’m not playing all the way through it now.
This was made by Rideon (and published by KEMCO), the same folks who did Marenian Tavern Story, and it shows. It has the same basic gameplay loop: Each day you go to a dungeon area and gather materials. Some materials you get from spawn points, some you get from battles. Then you return to town and use those materials to make items, which you either use for your party or list for sale at your shop. Along the way there are sidequests to kill monsters or collect/create items, little vignettes in the town, and periodic stops at the item shop for upgrades and consumables.
In terms of things that change: The materials are mostly things like copper, cotton, fur, etc. used to build or forge things rather than foods (though there are vendortrash food items used for sidequests), because you’re making equipment rather than meals. A lot of the combat systems (including the battle grid and many of the skills) carry over from Marenian Tavern Story, but this adds a full class system and increases the party size to 5. The characters are all “generics” that you name yourself; the creation process is basically just choosing a class and a patron god (which gives small bonuses). Enemies are visible and avoidable on the dungeon screen; and if they’re requires for a sidequest there will be an indicator over their heads so you can tell. (Nice!) Enemies give XP, but very little compared to the amount you get from eating in the restaurant each day. Instead of learning skills in battle, you need to pay to learn and upgrade them in town. There’s no daily auto-heal, you need to go to the infirmary and pay each day. (It feels like it’s easier to create an unwinnable poverty situation in this game than the others.) The town is a “menu town” and the cutscenes are shown visual novel style; the 3/4-view pseudo-3D exploration is only in dungeons. Once you reach the second area, the Arena also unlocks, where you can fight battles each day for prizes (and as another requirement to advance the story).
The biggest change I dislike? There’s no guessing recipes. Instead, there are books you can buy or win that have recipes, and there’s a “blacksmith tree”. You gain “proficiency” with items either by using them (fighting with them equipped) or by making lots of them. At max proficiency, items get a “+”, better stats, higher sales rates, and sometimes unlock other recipes in the tree.
The translation is a bit messy; though the dialogue is often better than the mechanical stuff. The first dungeon (an outdoor plain) is called “the suburbs”, and that sort of odd naming is common. The plot may deepen later into the game, but for the first few hours it’s extremely generic and summed up by the my opening paragraph.
One other bit of irritation: Unlike the other two recent Android KEMCO offerings, this game doesn’t recognize the control pad from the Retroid Pocket 3, forcing me to either play with on-screen buttons or touch controls. Urgh. So I played this for a couple of hours on my tablet instead.
Overall: I paid full price (Eight dollars!) for this, but was disappointed. It turns out that the cooking aspect of the previous games of this style were really what won me, and it’s just not the same when you’re making equipment. Also, the fact that the characters in this are all generics (the named NPCs with personalities are all townspeople) made the plotline less interesting. I’m not saying I’ll never go back to this, but I’m not playing all the way through it now.
