Crystal Ortha (Android)
Jul. 20th, 2024 05:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroIn a magitek world where crystal power has begun replacing fossil fuels, Ross, a mercenary, has a strange dream of a gunslinger girl helping him find a massive load of treasure. When he wakes up, he meets that girl and she recruits him to hunt down the mother lode of all treasures: The Crystal Ortha.
This is by Hit-Point, and the systems are strongly similar to Monster Viator—each character has a sharply limited skill list (you choose five from an eventual ~20 per character), but the skills have a lot to them (the first skill is an attack that increases your agility, removes an enemy stat-up, and also heals you if you’re below 50% HP), and they run on a constantly-replenishing SP pool. So that means strategy during battle really matters, even from the start. (Fortunately, they also carried over the ability to immediately retry any battle you fail.)
If you outfit your team with a decent skill selection (which you need to adjust for certain areas where you randomly get certain elemental statuses in battle), you can autobattle most random combats without issue. Bosses require strategy—and strategy matters much more than grinding or even equipment in a lot of cases.
What’s actually a really clever story/gameplay integration: There’s no money. Your characters are supposed to be poor and searching for the Crystal Ortha to strike it rich, and they are in fact incredibly cash-poor. There are no consumable items, either. (There are lots of random collectables that give your characters a permanent stat boost, though.) You restore HP/SP at the end of every battle, so the Inns are only for story purposes, with cutscenes explaining how you avoid paying for them. Weapons and armor need to be crafted instead of bought, so you need to collect the various ores needed to make them. (And as far as I can tell, there are exactly the right number of ores of each type to craft one of every item at every crafting shop.)
The plot is fairly straightforward and the characters are pretty stock: Ross has mild PTSD and you eventually learn that he was booted from the army for whistleblowing. Margaret’s family is deep in debt because they used to be coal barons but everyone’s switching to crystal power; and she has an asshole ex-fiance trying to hunt her down. You’re eventually joined by Tee (An Indiana Jones knockoff character and the lech; why is there always a lech?) and Marshma (a childish dragon-worshipper who learns enemy skills rather than via leveling). The eight sidequests are mostly entire extra dungeons and while technically optional provide necessary leveling for the ending.
SPOILERS
Ross is the reincarnation of Lily, a baby Darkness Dragon whose death set off the final war that wiped out the dragons; and Margaret is the reincarnation of an Ambi (winged precursor-humans) who loved her. The Crystal Ortha is actually the sleeping body of the great Queen of the Darkness Dragons, Lily’s mother, and Lily’s spirit has been driving Ross to find her and finally let her rest so her spirit can go to Paradise. So they defeat the dragon, use the Ambi’s treasure to pay off their debts, and go traveling the world seeking future adventures.
Overall: Not quite as standout as Monster Viator but absolutely cut from the same cloth; if you liked one you’ll like the other. Credit to Hit-Point that they get adventurous with their systems and sometimes it actually works.
This is by Hit-Point, and the systems are strongly similar to Monster Viator—each character has a sharply limited skill list (you choose five from an eventual ~20 per character), but the skills have a lot to them (the first skill is an attack that increases your agility, removes an enemy stat-up, and also heals you if you’re below 50% HP), and they run on a constantly-replenishing SP pool. So that means strategy during battle really matters, even from the start. (Fortunately, they also carried over the ability to immediately retry any battle you fail.)
If you outfit your team with a decent skill selection (which you need to adjust for certain areas where you randomly get certain elemental statuses in battle), you can autobattle most random combats without issue. Bosses require strategy—and strategy matters much more than grinding or even equipment in a lot of cases.
What’s actually a really clever story/gameplay integration: There’s no money. Your characters are supposed to be poor and searching for the Crystal Ortha to strike it rich, and they are in fact incredibly cash-poor. There are no consumable items, either. (There are lots of random collectables that give your characters a permanent stat boost, though.) You restore HP/SP at the end of every battle, so the Inns are only for story purposes, with cutscenes explaining how you avoid paying for them. Weapons and armor need to be crafted instead of bought, so you need to collect the various ores needed to make them. (And as far as I can tell, there are exactly the right number of ores of each type to craft one of every item at every crafting shop.)
The plot is fairly straightforward and the characters are pretty stock: Ross has mild PTSD and you eventually learn that he was booted from the army for whistleblowing. Margaret’s family is deep in debt because they used to be coal barons but everyone’s switching to crystal power; and she has an asshole ex-fiance trying to hunt her down. You’re eventually joined by Tee (An Indiana Jones knockoff character and the lech; why is there always a lech?) and Marshma (a childish dragon-worshipper who learns enemy skills rather than via leveling). The eight sidequests are mostly entire extra dungeons and while technically optional provide necessary leveling for the ending.
SPOILERS
Ross is the reincarnation of Lily, a baby Darkness Dragon whose death set off the final war that wiped out the dragons; and Margaret is the reincarnation of an Ambi (winged precursor-humans) who loved her. The Crystal Ortha is actually the sleeping body of the great Queen of the Darkness Dragons, Lily’s mother, and Lily’s spirit has been driving Ross to find her and finally let her rest so her spirit can go to Paradise. So they defeat the dragon, use the Ambi’s treasure to pay off their debts, and go traveling the world seeking future adventures.
Overall: Not quite as standout as Monster Viator but absolutely cut from the same cloth; if you liked one you’ll like the other. Credit to Hit-Point that they get adventurous with their systems and sometimes it actually works.
