Disk 4: The Mystic Dragoons (ミスティックドラグーン), Part 4

Hello, my lovely readers, and welcome to part four of The Mystic Dragoons! When last we left our party, they were about to run headfirst into what sounds like the most hardcore boot camp this side of Gureizeru. Alright then, game, if that’s how you want to play it, that’s how we’ll roll. As always, the anglicized names will be given where they were used in the booklet that accompanied the game for ease of reading. The party enters camp, and apparently the Tactical Dragoons have been here before us, because Pamela has given them a heads up about our upcoming arrival. Nice of them to help out for once, even if it’s only to pave the way to our inevitable doom. Now let’s see what Gozetto the New Recruit Killer is all about, although I can make a few guesses. After watching our party get heckled by the soldiers as we pass due to their age and making a few notes in my head for suitable vengeance at a later date, we come face to face with the man of the hour.


It turns out that Gozetto is a rather...interesting fellow.

Gozetto seems nice enough at first, which should have been our first warning. No sooner does he make us feel like we’re slightly less pathetic than the usual new recruits that he gets then he begins using us for gophers. First up: getting him a bottle of wine, and he’ll only drink a particular red from a certain year. Way to run a responsible army camp, chief. But hey, you just enlisted a ten year old, so who am I to judge? So after wandering around town gathering information from everyone, including the people who harassed you (who are now mysteriously pleasant, like they knew I was plotting my revenge), you find out that this wine gathering quest is apparently a long running mission of Gozetto’s. What a fascinating way to run an important military encampment, I reiterate. This wine that he wants is fifty years old, and therefore expensive too. Given that we’re the noobs on the force, he shouldn’t expect us to have that kind of cash. I do believe that we’ve just discovered the source of his nickname.

Apparently the village head is the person to go to for help, as he possess the wine that we need. But he, of course, won’t give it to us, as he has a different purpose in mind for it than giving it to our sadistic commander to guzzle. I really can’t say that I blame him. He’s saving it for his daughter’s wedding ceremony, anyway. He does give us a hint, though, telling us that his daughter goes to Sorisshu’s castle every day. Apparently she has a thing for the lord of the manor. Well, this entire conversation would normally sound useless, but this is a cut-scene in an RPG and he mentioned a place name, so it must be important. Further in the house, you find the storehouse guarded by a man who says that the place is infested by monsters who hate the light. Apparently Pauline, the daughter of the village head, has the magic lamp that will let us tramp around the storehouse and relieve her father of some of his beloved stash. I knew that that random info that he gave us would be useful. Off to track down Pauline for our drunken, unreasonable commander then!

We need to get the wine that is stored in here, but apparently it's dark and scary inside, not to mention monster infested.

When you reach Sorisshu’s territory, you are confronted with his pack of rabid groupies, who freak out when he shows up before them on his dragon. I maintain that they’re cheering for the dragon and not the rider, but that is just me trying to retain the shreds of my sanity in the face of this madness. Pauline sticks out in the crowd like a sore thumb, given that she is about as overdressed as a Disney princess at a five year old’s pizza party. After watching the girls mount a terrifying, but ultimately useless, attack on the giant wooden door to Sorisshu’s manor, the party talks to Pauline. She’s pretty irritated with all of her father’s attempts to marry her off and gives you the magic lamp, no muss, no fuss, telling you to tell her father that she’ll marry no one but Sorisshu. Right. Back to Faruken Camp.

I'll give you a moment to guess which of these rabid fangirls is Pauline.

Finally we can get into the storehouse, but of course it can’t be all sparkles and unicorns, can it? The guard says he doesn’t know if some of the monsters there aren’t afraid of light. Oh that’s just special. But as I’m not surprised by this in the slightest, it’s time to move onwards and get that fifty year old booze for the New Recruit Killer before we become yet another set of notches on his belt. Once again, the path to the end of the ‘dungeon’ is so linear that it is not worth mentioning. That is a beef that I have with this game. There have been no real dungeons so far, and we’re how many hours in? Come on, game, put forth some creative effort! Anyway, when we get to the final room, the magic lamp lights up even more brightly. Apparently it will now help us track down that vintage wine…yeah, I don’t get it either, but I’ll just roll with the RPG logic as always. Of course the light alerts the one local critter here that isn’t afraid of light to our presence, and so we have to fight a boss. Raise your hand if you saw this coming from a mile away. After killing the rather drunken monster, it drops a wine bottle. An empty wine bottle that once contained the fifty year old elixir that we needed for Commander Sadist. There are no words.

After convincing the village head that we didn’t swill his precious fifty year old booze, he decides to let you stay the night, given that it’s late. I like his style. Alf wakes Cliff up in the middle of the night and proceeds to shove him down the well outside. After processing the fact that your baby dragon is apparently made of crazy, you realize that you have shown up fifty years in the past. After grabbing a bottle of the appropriate future-booze from a useful local, Alf buries it in the backyard. I take it back, Alf is smarter than our entire party combined. Cliff makes another well-based time trip, but still hasn’t figured out the fact that his baby dragon has time-based gifts, even after all the evidence laid before him. Since we can’t slap him upside the head ourselves, it’s time to dig up our bottle of wine and move on.

Finally we give Gozetto the wine he seemed to be jonesing for so badly, and I think I truly see why Psy was so amused in my last post. This man is certainly unique in his style of commanding. At least I fervently hope he is, for the sake of every other soldier in Pura-ma. Of course he immediately has another mission for us. I do believe that I loathe him.

What Happens Next: A Summary!

After Gozetto the New Recruit Killer sent the party on their second mission, you make your way through a forest path, where you run into a half-naked man engaging a bear in combat with only his fists. After you ‘save’ him from his pet, you discover that he is Faruken, the guy you were looking for. He takes you to his castle, where we tell him our reason for joining the army. Faruken thinks our quest is righteous and awesome, and so decides to help us get to the capital, Agoni-, where we can learn to fight with dragons. YES! The party passes through a forest filled with traps laid by the Tactical Dragoons, dwindling one by one until Cliff is the only one left. At the end of the forest the party reunites, after helping Pamela and Psy squish a giant spider sent courtesy of Gureizeru. Then Faruken gives the Tactical Dragoons the verbal smackdown that I’ve been dying to give them since the beginning of the game. My new favorite character, hands down.

I believe I mentioned in a previous post that I dislike spiders... I did? Excellent.

Once we reach Agoni-, we’re called before the king. On the way we get a pretty good look at the dragons of all the different generals, several of which are hooked to some very bizarre vehicles. Turns out that they recognize Cliff’s surname, so he gets a little recognition for coming from a line of famous dragoons. Afterwards, your party gets to go pick out their own dragons. Again, YES! Then we head out after the generals, and they send us on various missions. I remember complaining earlier that there were no real dungeons in this game, finally we get several, although they aren’t very complicated.

The generals and their rather nifty transports.

You learn some interesting things, such as the fact that Bud is an elf who cut his ears so that he could be hidden among humans, and about the Pure Water that people have been mentioning a lot throughout the game and Cliff’s father’s connection to it. You also take out the man who helped Buran murder your friends and torch your hometown, which is a nice bonus. Everything isn’t marvelous for dragons in Pura-ma by Cliff’s estimation either, and Elmys gets her first glimpse of him via a spy bee, a bizarre little Gureizeru drone. During a mission with two of the Tactical Dragoons, you learn their full names. Apparently both men are named Quinn, and the way that they distinguish themselves from each other is by referring to themselves by the only thing that they will drink. So we’re working with Champagne Quinn and Beer Quinn. Yes, you read that right. I really hope that they came up with those names themselves, and that no mother would actually name her child Beer.

As your ship finally makes its way to Gureizeru, it is met mid-ocean by a ship containing Buran and his army. I know I gave them flack for not being cliché in an earlier post, nice to see them making up for it now. You finally get the glorious pleasure of avenging yourselves against Buran, which is rather satisfying, given how long it took to get here. You take the barrier that surrounds Gureizeru down, allowing dragons to fly over the continent and bringing your vengeful little troop to the country that has been harassing you since the beginning of the game. Unfortunately, during this long battle, the Tactical Dragoons lose Dolby via Buran’s sister, and Buran himself kills Eugo in a final attack against your party. The rest of your party has had enough after Eugo’s death and return’s home to rebuild, and Cliff joins what remains of the Tactical Dragoons. He also gets a pretty sweet armor upgrade to go along with his new status.

Want to know what happens to our rather disappointingly weak new party after they set foot in enemy territory? Well, you’ll have to play the game for yourself. My little experiment with The Mystic Dragoons ends here. I hope that you enjoyed the weirdness as much as I did.

If you feel like hearing more of my gaming prattle, feel free to follow me on Twitter. You can find me at @bejiita_buruma

Disk 4: The Mystic Dragoons (ミスティックドラグーン), Part 3

This week we go back to the Mystic Dragoons once again for two reasons. One, I did promise that I would post more about it at some juncture or another, if only for my own amusement. Two, due to some recent health concerns, I haven’t been able to write very much, and thought that this would be better than leaving my readers without any post this week at all. I hope that you enjoy it.

Welcome to part three of our trek through The Mystic Dragoons. As mentioned beforehand, many of the names that I use in this post will be the anglicized names given in the art booklet that came with the game. I’m doing this purely to make my work somewhat easier for people to read. Anyway, when last we left our intrepid band of misfits, they were wandering around the bar in Harvey, looking for passage on a ship to the mainland. Considering the dubious nature of the patrons upstairs, the basement of a dive bar is not exactly the kind of place that I would normally want our underage heroes to go, but given the drastic situation that we’re in, I suppose we have no choice. So here goes nothing.



The first rule of Fight Club is...

Well whatever I was expecting to find in the basement, a fight club was certainly not it. Apparently anyone who wants to board the captain’s ship has to beat his underlings in battle. Rasseru, the aforementioned captain, tells everyone that it’s not to the death, which is incredibly reassuring and makes this scenario seem perfectly normal and socially acceptable. This sounds like a healthy form of entertainment for our emotionally fragile heroes to unleash our pent-up rage in, and since we’re stuck here anyway, I suppose that we have no choice. After taking out three generic looking soldiers that each have names that I don’t care enough about to write down, we’re granted passage to Pura-ma. Finally! In other news, that was the lamest fight club ever. I think that the soldiers were weaker than some of the random encounters I’ve come across. Also, the crowd sound effect in this section of the game is worse than nails on a chalkboard. You can’t say that I didn’t warn you.


My eyes!!!

Moving onward, it’s time to head to the port and get off this island once and for all. We board Rasseru’s glaringly fuchsia ship, and it’s finally time to head out onto the ocean. Being that this is an RPG, I expected something terrible to happen to us between here and the continent, as that is the usual formula. But except for several random encounters along the way, the voyage was completely peaceful. What, no ghost ship, no sneak attack by an enemy fleet? I am severely disappointed in this game for letting a chance to be cliché completely pass them by. What were they thinking?

After working my way through my little snit, I decided that it was time to see where Rasseru had dumped us. He wouldn’t give us much information either, so it seems that we have our work cut out for us. Of course we do. It seems that we’re in Borushu, which is in the southwestern part of Pura-ma. Grand. Well, at least we’re closer to wherever we’re headed than we were. Time to go fishing for information. We find one of the scouts who have been mentioned around town, made quite noticeable by the fashion statement he makes in his bright pink armor. Apparently we need a letter of introduction if we want to become the dragoons we were clearly meant to be, but we don’t know anyone in power, and have therefore reached another roadblock between us and the sky army. Oh joy. We’re stuck here, with the bridge being out, and we have no letter of introduction, so it seems that we have no choice but to enlist in the regular army. So with dreams of glory dashed, we head off to become grunts and work our way up the proverbial ladder the old-fashioned way.

Interesting fashion statement you're making there, Skippy.

There is a bizarre looking dragon near the city’s exit that appears to be some form of transportation, and near it is a soldier. Turns out that this is where we want to be, so we board the dubious looking equipage and head out. Cliff and company protect the critter from mooks until we reach the bridge, which isn’t any less broken than it was when we were exploring the field just a little while ago. But before we can consider the logistics of maneuvering ourselves and the dragon vehicle across the gap, somebody appears out of nowhere and murders our escort and his beast companion with fire. Our heroes all leap across the gap in the bridge to confront him. Let me repeat this. Our party members jump across the previously un-crossable, ridiculously large gap in the bridge in a single bound to confront the murderer. What just happened!?



That is one weird looking dragon.

After processing the fact that rage seems to give us very limited superhero-like abilities, Mila demands to know why they killed the dragon. Nice to see how much she cares about the human life that was lost. But anyway, we discover that these creeps are from Gureizeru. And yes, they killed the dragon because of the aforementioned prophecy that caused the destruction of our hometown way back in the beginning of the game. After giving the murderer a good old-fashioned butt kicking, his henchmen stick around long enough to tell you that the fight has only begun and that Gureizeru is going to win. Typical enemy posturing finished, they die in a mass of glittering sparkles. Not the most intimidating way to go out, but good riddance.

Well, now even Alf is upset, and if he weren’t so precious looking during his fit, I would be enthused to have an angry dragon on my side. Oh Raira, why did you have to die? (To further the plot, of course.) The realities of war seem to finally be sinking in to Bud, and everyone is pretty low, until Roxy notices something approaching. I don’t believe it. I really don’t believe it. It’s the Tactical Dragoons, late as usual. They recognize us immediately, which is nice, considering the situation that they last saw us in. After giving us some well-deserved props for taking out the Gureizeru murderers here on the bridge, they point us in the direction of the army camp, tell us to be careful, and book it again. On the way out, Psy, one of the dragoons, makes a comment to one of her companions about the commander of this particular camp’s nickname being Gozetto the New Recruit Killer. Oh this just keeps getting better and better. They seem to be amused by how this is going to go for us, which, considering our recent circumstances, is just mean. Why do we want to join them again? Oh right, the dragons. I almost forgot.

Mila is about as enthused with the Tactical Dragoons and their attitude as I am, but there is nothing to be done about it at the moment. We have to move onward to the army camp on our own, even though Bud is being a complete wuss and seems unnerved to be going there without an escort. After some mockery of Bud courtesy of Roxy, we regain control of the party and finally reach the land on the other side of the bridge. We can’t commit anymore herculean leaps, so there is no backtracking. Nothing to do now but move forward and into the loving arms of Gozetto the New Recruit Killer.

Next time on The Mystic Dragoons: Boot camp for ten-year-olds and the commander from H-E-double-hockey-sticks.

If you feel like hearing more of my gaming prattle, feel free to follow me on Twitter. You can find me at @bejiita_buruma

Disk 12: Dragon Knights Glorious (ドラゴンナイトツグロリアス)

Name: Dragon Knights Glorious (ドラゴンナイトツグロリアス)
Type: Visual Novel RPG
Available Languages: Japanese

After several weeks’ jaunt from Sony’s little gray console, it’s time to return to the PlayStation. This week we take a look at Pandora Box Creative Office’s JRPG Dragon Knights Glorious. Yes, dragons again. What can I say, they’re a JRPG staple. Apparently this is volume one of a group of games called the Pandora Max Series, amusingly designated on the front cover of the jewel case as PMS. After the prerequisite juvenile chuckle has been logged, let’s see what this rather generic looking adventure is all about.

The Pandora Max Series, as I will call it because I can’t bring myself to use the shortened designation, seems to be a reduced price group of games for the PlayStation. Considering that this game’s list price is under 2,000 yen, I’m prepared for just about anything. Having no opening sequence, we head from the main menu straight to the game proper. We are greeted with a screen full of static, accompanied with trippy music and what sounds like someone trying to wake us up. Possibly. Maybe. Not what I was expecting, but I’ll roll with it if it means that I can get away from this music.



No, it's not the fault of the device that you're viewing this on. The game really does start out looking like this.

What looks to be the silhouette of the winged dragon-girl from the front cover of the game appears, and she snaps you out of the static via a dual shock attack. That was new. Unfortunately the horrible music remains. The dragon fairy’s name is Puriru, this weird dream is in fact her ‘Mind Mail’, and we’re the first to accept it. I wonder why. She gives us the option of changing her name to something we’d like better, which is kind of desperate and sad, so I’ll be nice and continue calling her Puriru.

When she asks for your character’s name, we get the dubious joy of finding out that it is Daiku. Whatever you say, game. After digesting all this, Puriru asks Daiku some questions about himself, all of which he is apparently happy to answer. After Puriru’s inquisition, the Mind Mail gets cut off before she can finish telling you whatever it is she had to say. How very typical.

After deciding that the whole bizarre sequence was a dream, which would be a logical step if this wasn’t an RPG, Daiku muses about it in a monologue of white text on a silent black screen. It’s about as entertaining as it sounds, but at least that horrible music from the Mind Mail is gone. During this sequence, the player is allowed to make a choice as to the main character’s opinion of said dream, which leads to some character shaping that is somewhat interesting. After some rather deep, destiny-laden thoughts, Daiku is offered another choice as to his opinion on the dragon fairy girl.

We finally reach chapter one, and are awakened by being decked by a guy whose hair looks like something straight out of a Toriyama Akira manga. This is Chiko, according to the booklet, and I like him already. It seems that Daiku was smiling in his sleep, and our companion took offence to it, given that they had eaten quite badly the night before. It then becomes clear that we’re in jail. It quickly becomes obvious that Chiko has serious anger management issues, as he starts a fight with our cellmate immediately after beating Daiku up.


Apparently, Chiko hates joy.

After yet another visual novel style decision making sequence about how to stop the fight, we are introduced to our other cellmate. According to the accompanying booklet, this extremely pretty fellow is Batto, and he gets the honor of being the first person to mention Dragon Knights in the game. During the conversation that follows, it is revealed that Daiku is travelling with these people in order to become a Dragon Knight. It is also his fault that they are in jail, which will look really great on his resume. After discussing their situation, during which Chiko assures Daiku that he is going to kick his…er…hindquarters, we are offered a save point and a flashback sequence. Wow, Daiku sure spends a lot of time talking to himself. He is a classic visual novel protagonist, only way less interesting. I don’t know about you guys, but I’m ready to get to the fighting now.

When you reach the RPG portion of the game, you will face the enemy in a first person perspective format. The battle system itself is very basic, with five commands appearing at the bottom of the screen between your characters’ avatars and their stats. You can attack, use special techniques, defend, use items, or run. You can decide what sort of basic attack you want to use against the enemy and, depending on which ones you choose, you can unlock a more powerful attack in a later turn. This gives what would otherwise be a barebones battle system a bit more oomph.

The character designs in Dragon Knights Glorious are this game’s greatest selling point, as they are very nicely drawn and emote quite expressively. I’ve already mentioned that I found Chiko to be hilarious, and that is entirely due to his well-drawn expressions. The game’s story sequences take place in visual novel like stills that are extremely basic, which I would normally have a problem with, but the screen is mostly taken up by the characters that you are talking to. Chiko’s rumble with his cellmate takes up almost the entire screen.

The music in this game is actually quite good in many places, when they choose to use it. But on the other hand, there are too many long silences for my taste early on, and of course the horrible opening sequence music deserves a mention again for being just that bad.

Overall, I can say that you can tell that this is a budget game. It is a visual novel with RPG gameplay and mini games that I would have enjoyed more if it hadn’t felt so bland. We’ve seen this hero a thousand times before, and will probably see him a thousand times again. If he were at all interesting it might make his endless internal monologues worth reading and therefore make this game worth the small chunk of change that I paid for it, but as it is, I can say with no hesitation whatsoever that this is the first game that I have posted for on this blog that is a complete waste of time.

If you feel like hearing more of my gaming prattle, feel free to follow me on Twitter. You can find me at @bejiita_buruma

Disk 10: Startling Odyssey 1 Blue Evolution (スタートリング・オデッセイ１ブルー・エヴォリューション)

Name: Startling Odyssey 1 Blue Evolution (スタートリング・オデッセイ１ブルー・エヴォリューション)
Type: Turn Based RPG
Available Languages: Japanese

This week we take a look at the RPG Startling Odyssey 1 Blue Evolution. This game has the distinction of being the only one of the three Startling Odyssey titles to be brought from the PC Engine to the PlayStation. It also has one of the more interesting titles that I’ve come across over the years. Let’s see just how startling this supposed odyssey actually turns out to be, shall we? Paging through the manual, I noted that things look like your generic RPG fare, save for the moment when I got to the characters section and saw that the main character was voiced by Midorikawa Hikaru. After the requisite fangirlish squeal had been unleashed at the presence of my favorite seiyuu ever, I saw nothing else of interest beyond the nice character designs (and, of course, made the usual fervent wish that the busty female characters would put something on before they caught a chill). I suppose it’s time to see what this game has to offer us!

The game opens with a rather decent anime sequence. While it was nothing to some of the masterpieces I’ve seen over the years, it was more than passable for its day and was a nice introduction to the characters. From what I gather from the introduction and the manual, there was a pretty massive battle between good and evil that went down long before the game began. We’ve heard this kind of stuff before. According to the infallible internet, the Startling Odyssey games actually go in reverse order, 2 being a prequel of 1, and 3 being a prequel of 2, so I suppose I’m allowed to be a fish out of water here. I’ll play them in the order intended, complete with the requisite confusion.

We awaken in the village of Arishia as the protagonist of the game and resident Midorikawa Hikaru character, Leon Solford. The pest who won’t let him get his shuteye is local boy Mark, accompanied by his dog. Belied by the cheerful music in the background, he actually has a good reason for waking Leon up. It appears that a monster has gotten into the village, and it is up to Leon to help drive it out.

During our trek around the village, we learn that monsters have only begun showing up in the area recently, which is never a good sign in a videogame. The other shoe should be dropping any time now. An earthquake rocks the village in the midst of Leon’s quest for information, after which Mark’s dog Ron senses something. It seems that Ron has found the infamous monster, which is quite demonic in appearance and can talk. Leon is then thrown into his first battle against the monster, Kureido, which he wins handily. With a typically villainous ominous statement being thrown at our hero, the monster dies. His passing is followed by yet another earthquake.

The next morning Leon’s fervent admirers Mark and Ron have shown up at his house again, and Mark asks if Leon is going to see the elder. Since it seems there is a conversation to be held with that gentleman, that is where we should head off to. Saria, Leon’s mother, arrives, and Mark tells us that Sophia is coming home. This is important to us because she is the next playable character that we’ll get and has healing spells. Enough said. Saria hustles Leon off to the elder’s, but another earthquake shakes the land. After listening to the billionth inane comment about how many earthquakes there have been lately, you gain control of Leon.

As Leon leaves, Saria stops him for apparently no reason, changing her mind at the last minute about telling him what she had to say. A poor choice, methinks. Outside the elder’s house, Mark tells Leon that he wants to be like him when he grows up. We never would have guessed that, given that the boy and his dog have literally been following us everywhere since the beginning of the game. Leon, however, seems surprised. Mark desires to become strong in order to protect the village from bad guys, which is an admirable, if rather childish, plan. He then runs off to play with his dog, leaving Leon happily laughing in his wake.

The elder is, naturally, pleased with Leon’s monster cleansing of the night before. Apparently things are a lot worse around here than they appear, though, as there have been rumors of Mazoku (literally ‘evil tribe’) destroying villages on the continent. The monster from the night before gave him a bad feeling, to which Leon replies that Kureido said that the end of the village was coming. The elder is not pleased to hear this news, and it leads into a discussion of the war between light and darkness 270 years previously. The elder cuts the discussion short and shoos Leon outside, where he teaches him the Shooting Star skill. Not bad, old man!

Unfortunately, we don’t have time to appreciate our shiny new powers, as there is a disruption in the village. Mark, of course, comes to get you, telling you that there are Mazoku in the village and that people are being killed. Gara-do and his band of mooks have appeared in this village under the name of his emperor to take the land for the Mazoku. It’s leave or die, but Leon isn’t too keen on that idea, and with Mark as his cheerleader, he clears through some of the rabble with his new technique. Leon then flings himself sword first at Gara-do, who proceeds to totally annihilate him.

Out of nowhere, more of the enemies are blown to bits, the source of firepower being none other than Leon’s mother. After an impressive showing of power by Saria, Gara-do shifts the balance in his favor by capturing Mark and killing his dog. He knows that Saria won’t act because of Mark, and proceeds to turn her partially to stone. He then hurts Mark anyway. Saria’s transformation into a statue is then completed, and Gara-do sends her off to become a part of his collection. Tossing Mark’s body to the ground, he teleports off with the magically petrified form of Leon’s mother. Mark reaches out to Leon shakily, telling him that he wants to become stronger, like Leon, and then dies. I believe that we’ve just found the startling part of the game, because I’m genuinely startled by my sudden rage. Leon is left to bury his grief, discover his family’s past, and find a way to save his mother from the magic that binds her.

The battle system in Startling Odyssey 1 is turn-based, with your characters appearing on the right side of the screen and the enemies on the left. The character’s HP and SP appears attached to them by a blue line. When it is your character’s turn, their name and face will pop up on the screen and a set of option buttons will appear. The central button will allow you to attack, the left will let you use skills, the right defend, the top use items, and the bottom will take you to another page of buttons. This page has four buttons, the center of which returns you to the previous page, the left allows you to run, the right sends you into auto battle, and the top allows you to change weapons. It’s very basic and couldn’t be easier to learn, given that the buttons come with accompanying illustrations for beginning learners of Japanese. All that being said, the in battle sprites are truly hideous. There is absolutely nothing good that I have to say about them. I hate to be so negative, but there it is.

I rather like some of the music in Startling Odyssey, although I know that it won’t be to some peoples’ taste. It reminds me very much of the background music of some of the anime I watched as a teenager, and I can’t help feeling nostalgic about it. Other than those few tracks, though, the rest of the music is average. The game’s appearance is also average, with nothing really speaking to me of any extra effort being put into making something memorable. The cut scenes are decent, with the anime style stills making for a nice illustration of the scene in progress, but as I said earlier, I’ve seen it done better.

Overall, Startling Odyssey 1 is a decent way to kill a few hours, or even a few days. It’s not great in any sense, but it certainly isn’t bad either. However, having played through this truly generic RPG for quite a while now, I can say that the only truly startling thing that I’ve come across in it is its title.

If you feel like hearing more of my gaming prattle, feel free to follow me on Twitter. You can find me at @bejiita_buruma

Disk 4: The Mystic Dragoons (ミスティックドラグーン), Part 2

It is every woman’s prerogative to change her mind, and apparently I am going to be doing a lot of that when it comes to the game The Mystic Dragoons. As my longtime readers probably recall, when I first posted for that game, I intended to write several weeks’ worth of my experiences with it for general internet consumption. Thinking that the first post wasn’t going over well, I trashed the idea. That post has since become the most popular one on this blog. So, to thank the readers who enjoyed that bit of whimsy on my part, and to felicitate myself for being wrong yet again, here is part two of my The Mystic Dragoons adventure!

When last we left our ragtag band of heroes, they were recovering from a vicious and unprovoked attack on their hometown that left everyone they knew and loved dead. Needless to say, our little party of five is feeling a tad bit vengeful. It’s time to head into Dorasshu and prepare to track down those Tactical Dragoons. They’re clearly a compassionate lot, after all, leaving a bunch of teenagers to fend for themselves in a burning village. And like I said earlier, they have dragons.

Before we move out, I want to discuss the cover art for this game, which I mentioned in passing before. Now that I know a bit about the characters, I’ve discovered that it depicts Cliff and Elmys, dancing. Yes, he’s dancing with the Gureizeru prophecy princess who, accidentally or otherwise, condemned Collet and everyone in it to death. Strangely, he’s dancing with a drawn sword in hand, so either this is the most bizarre assassination attempt since the time travelling dragon, or we’re about to see Cliff embark on a very awkward relationship. Just thought that I should throw this strange little nugget out there. As before, I’m using the anglicized names that were given in the art booklet where applicable, so if you’re playing along with this post, sorry for any confusion. Well, onward to glory!

We arrive in Dorasshu, where Bud, one of our party members, begins to immediately admire one of the nearby ladies. This irritates Roxy, another party member, greatly. But hey, we all deal with intense, crushing grief in our own way, right? Some of us just do it by ogling strange women and irritating our jealous childhood friend. Romantic subplot, incoming! 

Bud opens up a whole new can of worms by admiring the local 'scenery'.

Eugo, the fifth member of our party, speaks to the aforementioned pretty lady and tells her that we want to go to Harvey and then on to the country of Pura-ma. Unfortunately, it appears that the cave to Harvey was blocked by an earthquake three years ago. Of course it was. What else would one expect in an RPG, after all? Then we tell the pretty lady, Amugine, all about our plans and don’t try to hide Alf, because her well swathed appearance isn’t suspicious at all and there haven’t been any ne’er do wells lurking around recently. Apparently Alf can travel through time and Amugine can tell that just by looking at him. She then books it, leaving Roxy to remark on her oddness. I don’t know about you, but I don’t find her suspicious or sinister at all.

Well, that was weird. Anyway, we’re off to get us some shuteye, and then we need to track down an elf for some healing magic. That is the best idea that this game has thrown at us yet. I like not dying. After strolling around and looting the town, hero style, we manage to track down the aforementioned elf, who is sitting in a room that is hidden behind a giant curtain. Subtle. Tall, blonde, waiflike, pointy ears, check. That’s an elf. She teaches us Prayer of Healing, and therefore greatly lessens our chances of dying. Apparently the elves are our allies and we should talk to them all. Duly noted. As amusing as this has all been, it’s time to move on and see exactly what is going on in this cave to the west. I can’t envision the Tactical Dragoons having a sudden attack of conscience and coming back to check on the bunch of orphans that they so unceremoniously ditched, after all. Us having to do this the hard way is what makes this an RPG, right?

We reach the cave that leads to Harvey and find it every bit as blocked as Amugine and the townspeople said it was. I suppose that it was too much to ask for them to all be a bunch of malicious liars. Alf squawks and, as though the universe is mocking us, it starts to rain. But then the screen warps in an odd way and a truly obnoxious alarm sounds. Didn’t the time travelling dragon in the opening sequence use water, and didn’t Amugine say that Alf was one? But our party is oblivious to the oddity going on around them, and goes to wait out the storm in a nearby hut. When the storm clears, our little troop returns outside to find that the massive cave-in has completely disappeared. After reacting with incredibly mild surprise to this, the party decides to move on, not bothering to question how this strange event has occurred at all. I suppose that in a world where time travelling assassination-assistant dragons exist, this kind of stuff is normal.

This dungeon is so incredibly linear and generic that there is no point in going into what I went through while traversing it, beyond saying that I fought a bunch of enemies, collected a few treasures, and didn’t die. Outside, it starts to rain again. Bud, being the genius that he clearly is, suggests that we return to the cave to wait it out. The obnoxious screen warp alarm thing happens again, and our band of heroes, equally oblivious to the obvious, books it back into the cave. Inside we meet a fellow with truly epic hair who is picking away at the magically returned cave-in and tells us what I’m sure you lovely, intelligent people have already figured out. Eugo, ignoring the evidence that is right in front of him, tells him that we just came from Dorasshu. The guy tells him off, which he totally deserved for being an idiot, even though what he said is true. So let’s move on, and hope that our characters can pick up some sense along the way.

This guy's hair is a thing of beauty. It's even more amazing in profile.

We return to the field map and, according to my handy little booklet, Harvey should be to our northwest. After checking the forests for the local elf and smacking around any mooks that dare to cross our path, we finally make our way into Harvey. It’s a slightly more colorful place than previous towns, and includes and inn with the two Ns on the sign reversed. Nice to see that they put so much effort into their advertising. I headed straight to the port, and there our party is confronted by a ship that sticks out like a sore thumb. But as our little band of misfits has no business boarding said ship, it looks like we’ll have to get ourselves clearance.


Lovely sign they have there. I wonder if that's anything like an inn.

Time to check out the large building with the incomprehensible writing on it in the middle of town. It seems that we’ve located the local bar, in which we find another elf and a hippie who runs the black market. A man in the bar mistakes you for hunters, which would be my first guess too when I see a bunch of angry teenagers and a ten year old girl just wandering around. Clearly they are people who go out and hunt things down in order to sell them. Sounds lucrative, though, so I’ll remember it. This is the most logical game that I have ever played, by the way. Its understanding of human nature blows my mind. Well, now that that interesting experience is over with, it’s time to check out the bar’s basement. What awaits us there is our only way forward.

I hope that that slice of Cliff’s continued escapades lived up to the previous post and was as fun for you to revisit as it was for me. Perhaps someday I’ll post another part of this, depending on the reception of part two. Either way, this was a fun revisit. We all know that I love dragons.

If you feel like hearing more of my gaming prattle, feel free to follow me on Twitter. You can find me at @bejiita_buruma

Disk 9: Kuro no Ken (黒の剣)

Name: Kuro no Ken (黒の剣)
Type: Turn-Based RPG
Available Languages: Japanese

Today’s game is yet another one that I picked up entirely for the cover art. Kuro no Ken, subtitled in English as ‘Blade of the Darkness’, sports a very nice sketch of a man saving a damsel in distress from an unpleasant situation on the front cover. The back of the jewel case promises an excellent vocal cast paired with high quality graphics. From the pictures shown to illustrate this fact, those high quality graphics consist of nearly naked women, which doesn’t impress me much. The male lead is voiced by Koyasu Takehito, though, and that impresses me a great deal. Let’s see if Kuro no Ken can live up to its own hype!

Whether you hear it first from the game opening itself or have read it in the manual, it seems that the world in the game we are going to play has had some trouble with jet black dragons. I seem to be meeting up with a lot of dragons during the course of writing this blog, but considering that my medium is RPGs, that should be no surprise. Koyasu Takehito’s voice speaks for the first time as a ship in the midst of a storm appears in a mirror. A strange conversation ensues with a woman, during which we learn that the main male character, Kaiesu, is in the country of Kuraitsen training as a swordsman. It seems that he has come to ask the woman where he should go next. She is as vague and unhelpful as one would expect, and ends by telling him to choose for himself.



Shinobu realizes that she is in a game that subsists on fanservice.

We are suddenly taken from that strange scene to meet Shinobu, who is sitting up in her bed as though she has just awoken from a dream. Apparently she was sleeping naked, but is thoughtful enough to cover herself with a sheet despite her confusion. There is a scantily clad woman in the room with her (the lack of clothing seems to be a theme in this game) who asks her if she understands her, because Shinobu is a foreigner. She introduces herself as Enisu, the savior of Shinobu’s life. Apparently Shinobu has no idea where she is, but she does mention a ship. Enisu saved her from getting eaten by monsters, and bribes her into working for her in return for saving her life. Unfortunately, Shinobu only carries a sword with her as a good luck charm, so she will have to use magic to pay off her life debt. There is a noble’s manor to the south of the city where Enisu wants us to go, so I suppose we have no choice. She won’t tell Shinobu what she’ll be doing there, though, which is worrisome. We finally gain control of Shinobu, who can’t find her very important sword anywhere. Enisu won’t tell her where it is, but says she’ll remember after her work is finished. Great, first guilt, now extortion.

Shinobu trudges south to the manor, which is replete with fountains and potted flowers, and stately music plays in the background. After the player takes a moment to decide that the place is legitimately creepy in its outward cheerfulness, Shinobu heads down a marble hallway, past some surly guards, and into the mansion proper. As she wanders aimlessly about, Shinobu finds a pretty jewel which she believes Enisu sent her to the mansion with the intention for her to take. She isn’t too keen on the idea and so doesn’t steal the jewel, but as she’s leaving she gets attacked by the guards for being Enisu’s underling anyway. A fight ensues, which Shinobu wins without breaking a sweat. Those guards really should have listened to her.

 



Unfortunately, a youjinbou, Zefyu-doru, shows up next, but he actually listens to Shinobu. After making a rather perverted comment and letting us think that we’re going to get away, the other soldiers remind the youjinbou of what he’s being paid for, and the fight is on. As he has both voice acting and an accompanying facial avatar, I’m assuming that this won’t be so easy. I attacked him with Shinobu’s basic magic attack, Fu Chou Jin, but it did nothing, and after commenting on her magic’s strangeness, Zefyu-doru defeats her in one blow.

Shinobu is certain that he isn’t just an average youjinbou. She is searching for a swordsman who is going to be caught up in some complicated RPG destiny that the game hasn’t explained yet, and Zefyu-doru is as confused by Shinobu’s riddles as I am. He reminds her rather forcibly that she has just lost a fight to him, which is probably something that she should be more concerned about at the moment. Just as Zefyu-doru thinks that his amusement is about to begin, Shinobu shows him why she isn’t as concerned as he thought she should be by using her magic to disappear from the battle entirely.


Shinobu decides that it's time to leave Zefyu-doru and the manor behind.

Shinobu heads back to the port city of O-rubain to speak to Enisu, telling her that she has no intention of becoming a thief. Enisu has no problem with this, though, as Shinobu had only been sent in as a decoy. Lovely how she saved her life only to throw her into danger immediately after she healed. After joking about how she doesn’t remember where Shinobu’s sword is, Enisu finally returns it. Apparently Shinobu is looking for a swordsman that she can entrust it to. She tells Enisu that the sword is cursed, that its name is Kuro no Ken, and that it’s better if she knows no more about it than that. I have a feeling that we’re going to learn a lot more about it before the game is over though, given that the game is named after the sword.

The battle system in Kuro no Ken is your average turn-based RPG fare. When it is your character’s turn, you will be presented with a window with that character’s health, magic, and status, and there will be a long list of commands that appear in kanji on the screen. You can attack, use a special command that depends on which character you’re using, defend, use an item, change your equipped weapon, or retreat. It’s an incredibly basic battle system, but it looks very nice.

The major conversations in this game take place in anime-like images, much like visual novels. They are very nicely drawn, if a little voyeuristic at times. The rest of the game world looks rather average, a typical fantasy RPG world that you could see in half a dozen games picked at random. In fact, it looks more like a Super Famicom game world than a PlayStation one. The in battle sprites are where this game shines image wise, as the creators really put some love into their design. The music is bland, not bad in any sense, but certainly not memorable either.

While Kuro no Ken was a nice game overall, in spite of its gratuitous fan service, it certainly didn’t live up to the hype on the jewel case. I will admit that the game looked lovely in battle, and that the anime cut scene pictures were nice, but the rest of the game was average at best. While I wouldn’t recommend Kuro no Ken over many other major titles, it is a nice way to spend a few afternoons if you’re bored. I have certainly played games that were a lot worse.

If you feel like hearing more of my gaming prattle, feel free to follow me on Twitter. You can find me at @bejiita_buruma

Disk 8: Thousand Arms (サウザンドアームズ)

Name: Thousand Arms (サウザンドアームズ)
Type: Dating Sim RPG
Available Languages: Japanese, English

Today’s game is one that I have some rather strong feelings about. While it is an Atlus RPG that has quite a few bells and whistles to its name, Thousand Arms also has the distinction of being a game that has a premise I despise. This game left me with a great deal of mixed feelings, given the fact that your characters gain power due to the main character’s manipulation of the feelings of women that he knows. While this game has the distinction of being the first dating sim that I ever played and also introduced me to the music of Hamasaki Ayumi, it also has the dubious credit of being one of the only games that left me feeling like a horrible person after beating it.

I originally ran across Thousand Arms as a teenager when it was released in the United States. If you’ve read any of my previous posts, you’ll know that an RPG dating sim that left the JPop music intact would have been considered a rare gift at the time. And so, I gleefully popped the disk in and began playing. What followed was a solid RPG experience with a system of gaining power that left me feeling like a liar and a cheat. So regretfully, I put it aside. As an adult, having had the misfortune of being exposed to some of the true horrors of Japanese computer visual novels and dating sims and having heard tales of the underbelly of the genre, which seems to glory in the suffering of others, I decided that a few kisses given willingly weren’t the end of the world. Maisu’s faults could be done away with after a good cry and a tub of ice cream in comparison to his seedier counterparts. There is a lot worse in the world. So when I ran across a Japanese copy of Thousand Arms at a low price I snatched it up, played it, and beat it. In spite of my high-flown ‘it could be worse’ pep talk beforehand, I still felt badly afterward.

 

This is Maisu, the girl-chasing protagonist of the game.

You start with a ragged looking Maisu stumbling down the road, yelling at his empty stomach and wishing that he could be spending time with girls. Yeah, I’m sure we all see where this is going. He has a flashback to his home, where apparently he is the son of a very famous family, the Triumphs. If you wander around the house, some of the maids seem to dread the presence of ‘Bocchama’. So Maisu is a pervert who goes after his own servants. Great. When we track down Cliff, Maisu’s father, we are treated to a scene which, along with some writings found around the house, show us exactly how Maisu’s personality was formed. Your flashback continues to Kanto, Maisu’s hometown, which is being attacked by the Dark Army. Maisu’s personal leave-taking is brought up short by him sighting a pretty girl, who you can proceed to hit on. No matter what the player chooses to say, Maisu gets trampled by a herd of panicking villagers. There is justice in this universe. Maisu returns to the present in time to lament his fate before passing out in front of the city of Boyzby.

What follows is one of my all-time favorite Hamasaki Ayumi songs, ‘Depend on you’, accompanied by a rather neat anime opening sequence. Maisu awakens from his stupor to the sound of a girl screaming and rushes to her aid. Sodina, the main love interest in the game and current distressed damsel, doesn’t really seem to need Maisu’s help, but that won’t stop our hero from showing off. Anyway four baddies against one teenage girl seems a bit unfair. Sodina warns Maisu not to use the sword he is carrying, he ignores her, and it snaps like a twig. So Maisu gets beaten to a pulp, and it’s up to Sodina and her brother to save the both of you. She has taken a liking to Maisu for some reason, but her brother is less than impressed with how badly he has treated his sword, and sends him on a mission to repair it. So basically Maisu is on a quest to learn more about his family trade as a spirit blacksmith while trying to hit on as much of the female populace as is humanly possible. And let’s not forget that there is a great deal of trouble brewing all around us, so we’d better get that broken sword fixed pronto!

The game itself doesn’t look like much, although the backgrounds are somewhat detailed. The characters’ faces are lovely, however, and when they talk to you, it looks like you’re watching something straight from an anime. When you go into battle, the game shines as well. Both the character and enemy designs are inspired and make for a very interesting in battle appearance.

 

You can have up to three characters in battle, one in the front line and two in the back. The person in the front line is your attacker, and the people in the back row can cast support magic or use items. Both the front and back line has a gauge, and when the line empties, the action that you chose to take is available to use via a press of the appropriate button. You can have your character cast a spell and hold it in stock, saving it for when you need it, which is very useful, especially for healing. Every now and then you’ll get lucky and a back row character will throw a taunt the enemy’s way to lower their stats, or cheer you on to raise yours. The front row character has your basic RPG commands, attack, magic, special techniques, defend, item, run, all are there for the choosing. They differ slightly depending on who you choose to use as your attacker.

Gaining power via using Maisu’s abilities as a spirit blacksmith is necessary in this game, and to do so, he needs the help of girls who like him and can lend their power to the process. It’s how you upgrade everyone’s weapons to learn new magic and techniques, and is absolutely necessary if you want to win the game. Maisu dates Sodina, the girl he truly likes, but dates a lot of other girls too, all because he likes to play the field and wants to get their powers for his weapons. He dates Uina, even though he knows that his friend Mu-za has a crush on her but is too shy to tell her. You as a player have no choice but to go along with this, as leveling up your weapons and gaining powers on them is the only way to beat the game. So basically you are required to be a jerk. In order to get the girls to like you more, you have many different options, such as presents and mini-games. The most common method of getting the girl to like you better is taking them out on dates, answering whatever questions they put to you in a manner that that particular girl will like best, and then hoping that their affection for you will level up enough that you can take them to a smithy and upgrade your weapons.

 

Sodina rewards Maisu for a successful date, complete with kissing sound effect.

I’ve always felt that one of the signs of a truly great RPG is having characters, both playable and non-playable, that you genuinely care about. This game thrives off of you manipulating the emotions of many of the people around you without any regard to the consequences, which took away from what I feel would otherwise have been a much better game. It’s sad to say that when I look back on my experience with Thousand Arms, I see a game that had a lot of promise, but left a rather unpleasant feeling in its wake.

 

 

If you feel like hearing more of my gaming prattle, feel free to follow me on Twitter. You can find me at @bejiita_buruma