Niahak's Place

Just when you thought completionist games couldn’t get any worse (or better, if you’re obsessive-compulsive), Rogue Galaxy hits a new low (high).  The nice part about this is that none of it is necessary.

The game introduces you, first, to the Hunter Ranking system.  Very briefly, it tells you that if you can kill off several of each type of creature (generally 15-30), you get some hunter points.  Getting more hunter points means increasing your hunter rank.  Increasing your hunter rank means getting some spiffy treasures once you get past the 50ish mark.

Then, on the second planet, you gain access to the Insectron game.  The introduction is quite brief, and you never have to do anything with it.  I haven’t even tried it yet, actually.  It looks sort of like a simplistic Monster Rancher or Pokemon.  You catch insects out in the field, and then you raise them and form teams to do battle.

Also on the second planet, you can do weapon refining.  You combine two weapons, and, if they’re compatible (they usually are) you get a better weapon.  It’s a cool system, and it rewards increasing your weapons’ elemental affinities, too.

On the third planet, you find out about the Factory system.  You take basic blueprints and design machines to fit the need.  If you’re successful, some shops will sell the new item you just made (the only real benefit, actually).  It sounds easy, but it’s almost too complex for me.  I don’t have the ingredients to even make any of the blueprints yet.

Finally, once you reach the point where I’m at game-wise, you can finally reach all the teleports on each planet.  Once you reach all of them, you can see all treasures on the map (quite possibly the nicest little feature I’ve seen on a game like this).
I’m on Chapter 8 (of 12, IIRC) right now, and I think there’ll be one more completionist timesink (a Hunt system similar to FFXII’s).  I wish I had the time to plumb the depths of this game.  Maybe I’ll give some of the minigame-things a try and see if I enjoy any of them.

So yeah, been a bit down lately because of the whole running-around-with-head-cut-off thing.  I’ll try not to be that philosophical from here on out.

On break now and it’s not quite as restful as I was thinking.  In fact, I feel like I’ve been running around same as usual, just in a different setting.  Plus I’ve only played an hour of Rogue Galaxy, a situation I plan to amend by Tuesday at the latest.

I lent one of my friends my copy of Suikoden II.  He’s been telling me how his progress has been going which makes me nostalgic for the game.  Unfortunately, he said it froze at some point (though it worked later)… I guess my copy’s finally dying.  Jeez, first the original Wild ARMs and now Suikoden II is starting to bite the bullet.   For such good games, they sure didn’t print them on very sturdy media.  And I was taking good care of Suikoden II lately, had gotten it new and everything.  Lame.

I’ve been playing lots of Space Rangers 2 and I suggest you do the same, whoever may be reading this.  I wrote a full review of it at videolamer.  Suffice it to say, Pirates! in space, very open-ended, creative and entertaining (if Engrishy) dialogue, and did I mention it’s in space?  Space!  Planets and galaxies and stuff.  Yeah.

Other than that, not much has been going on.  Next quarter I’ll be taking a Game Development course with a couple of my roommates; any suggestions on themes or even genres would be appreciated.  I’d love to do an RPG homage to FFL2 with all kinds of nifty and wacky worlds, but we’ve kicked around the ideas of Action RPG and even a rhythm game.  Sounds like the course will be very open-ended, and the only likely restriction is — no game creation thingies, like RPG maker.  It’s a programming course and all that.

And, as one stage of my life (and this quarter) gradually comes to a close, I finish both a game and a FAQ.

If you didn’t know, I’m graduating this year, at the end of next quarter. This naturally makes me a bit uncertain, but in the past few days I’ve been more optimistic, and I still have a couple of weeks to decide what to do next. Seeing this ending scene, with the game’s trademark Pillars of Sky that hold the various worlds in balance, couldn’t help but bring this to mind for some reason. The silence and solemnity of the brief scenes traveling through the Pillars of Sky is in stark contrast to these changes in my life.

If you’ve ever seen Spirited Away, recall, if you will, the crowded bathhouse, full of arrogant, greedy employees, insistent customers, and, above all, noise. That’s been my life these past few weeks. I’ve been overloading with the hardest class at my college and, on top of that, interviewing with several companies, writing for videolamer, and dealing with a few more minor issues.

However, the night before I head home for the next break, at 3 AM, it feels different. Recall, also, in Spirited Away, after her adventures in the bathhouse, Chihiro travels on a train making its lonely way through a placid, flooded plain. That’s what I’m looking forward to experiencing soon: Quiet, calm, and serenity, once I make my decision about what I’m doing for the foreseeable future. Sure, that train is alone and perhaps disturbingly quiet… but honestly, I could really use that at this point. I’m terribly introverted, so that’s something I need from time to time.

Sorry, at this point I’m in no mood for that bath rant I promised. I am, however, in a mood to go to bed. Unfortunately, my roommates are in a mood for karaoke. 🙁 Guess that calm and quiet will have to wait for now. But it won’t be long…

I’m almost through writing the FFL2 FAQ.  Hopefully when I complete it GameFAQs will accept it.  If not, I’ll plan on at least submitting the translated parts, because they’re nifty.  Certain parts in the dialogue differ considerably from the original US release.
I’ve come to the conclusion that FFL2 is the one game I really want to see get an update of some kind.  Why?  You see a huge variety of worlds, each with not only an interesting subplot of their own, but also unique characters and some pertinence to the overall plot.  You see the main character’s father vanish, but you eventually get him in your party – a couple times – and he’s overconfident, protective, but still incredibly powerful.  It could be just me getting obsessed with bad game X again (happens more often than you’d think), but this game actually manages to give me a sense of awe at the sheer scale of what it could be, if they were dealing with more than four greenish colors and a quarter of a megabyte of space.  Having characters travel from world to world is, yes, just another game mechanic, but if it were properly pulled off a game could be truly epic in scale yet still manage to keep each part interesting.  If the game were given sufficiently (but not overly, for then it would be Disgaea) complex mechanics, then those could hold the player’s interest as well.

Is it a decent game on its own?  Sure.  Is it great?  No, it’s crippled by a random growth system and a battle system that is limited and not well-explained.  It’s better than Final Fantasy 2j, which has a similar system from what I hear, because it’s limited growth and it takes a long time to build up to fighting bosses.  Plot is interesting, but characters are often two-dimensional, and as a result of the you-pick-characters system, there’s no character development for anyone except… hmm… The main character, his father, Leon/Antony and possibly Taro/Ronin.

Almost all of this last part is because of size limitations.  If the game were given even the size of a SNES game, it could’ve been much better.  And this is where the paths diverged, for again, this is part of the SaGa series.  The SaGa series is now known for… what?  Overly complex and poorly explained mechanics, broad sweeping stories told indirectly, and a distinct lack of central narrative for a long time.  I’m not a fan of anything past the Game Boy ones.  But I think that FFL2 at least could’ve been made into a truly great game.  There’s still hope, as I know Makaitoushi Saga (FFL1) was remade for Wonderswan Color in Japan.  It can still happen.  Please let it happen to FFL2 and not FFL3.

That’s all.  Possible ofuro rant coming eventually.  Maybe after my final tomorrow.

So this is the last day of normal classes. I have one final next week, and one test in about an hour.

Needless to say, an hour before my test I’d rather post something than study. I’m not worried about the test, because it’s in a humanities subject and those classes tend to be much easier than, say, math classes.

I’m liking Rogue Galaxy more as I play it more. I thought the characters might be kind of bland, but so far there is only one I really dislike (out of eight). Even the supporting characters are well-done.
I’m going to try and stop comparing Rogue Galaxy to FFXII, because honestly, I just don’t think I’d enjoy FFXII playing through it again. It was fun for part of the first time around, but I get the same feeling I got from Dragon Force; interesting concepts, but packaged in such a way that they’re proof-of-concept more than game. FFXII could’ve been a lot more fun than it was, but it seemed rushed.

Anyway… Rogue Galaxy actually reminds me of some of my favorite aspects of Suikoden II and Final Fantasy Legend II plotwise. How so? Each character has a few unrelated vignettes of plot that are strung together for parts of the game. Each planet is its own world, and each has a related set of plot events. They aren’t always related to the main plot – though some are – and they flesh out the characters pretty well. Suikoden II carried this out quite well (in fact, the whole series does it): take for example the scene in Greenhill where the residents find Fitcher and are threatening to beat him, and then Flik manages to scare them off by preparing to execute him. Not related to the main plot at all, but it’s an interesting scene.

There are also some neat sub-games in Rogue Galaxy. A Pokemon-esque bug-fighting tournament and Factory management (to make new types of items) are the main ones; I haven’t explored these very much because I’ve been following the plot and the main game’s still more fun than the sub-games look, even though they are detailed.