After 50 hours of non-stop crawling, I'm finally done with TLC. That certainly took a bit longer than I expected; however, I regret nothing, as every single minute spent playing that game was pure delight. I could get myself even more crawling goodness by tackling R'lyeh Road, the game's 99-floor complimentary dungeon; however, experience have taught me that postgame dungeons in dungeon crawlers tend to be sadistic, overblown nuisances. On top of that, I get an inkling that roaming that particular dungeon would require top-notch gear and first-class Astrals, and I'm neither in the mood to farm nor to ditch my faithful trio of Astrals. I'm sure R'lyeh Road has some amazing puzzles in store, but I've had my fill for now.
TLC regaled me over and over with its eight dungeons, each one being more challenging and exciting than the last and less than the next; I found myself repeatedly beaming and giggling with delight when discovering the new puzzles, and I can firmly claim that I was not bored a single second when crawling. TLC's progression and difficulty curve is a glorious display of balance and smoothness, culminating in the amazing final dungeon. Oh boy, that final dungeon! It's a pure masterpiece, and it's hands down one of the best final dungeons I've roamed in any RPG, ever. Not only is it easy on the eye, but it delivers the best puzzles in the entire game, along with delighfully clever layouts. It's also a vibrant homage to FPDC that offers a perfect potpourri of all the staples of the genre: hidden passageways, pits, damage floors, one-way doors, switches, slides — you name it. Sure, it's quite long and meaty, and it can probably single-handedly account for a solid fifth of my playing time; however, it provides such a engrossing piece of crawling that I totally didn't mind spending hours engulfed in those eight floors.
What I do mind, on the other hand, is the disappointing final showdown. Boss fights were never TLC's strongest suit, with most of them being a tad too placid and offering no strategic challenge beyond your usual elemental complementarities; however, the final boss fight takes the cake when it come to flaccid boss fights. TLC's big baddie is a massive HP bag that boasts four different forms, with virtually no difference between said forms when it comes to attack patterns; taking him down is a test of patience and a matter of high levels and stats over strategy. By the time I faced him, Hayato and Lua had hit Lv.51 and Enoch and Pandora were comfortably lounging at Lv.95; and it turned out that I was seriously overleveled. I actually went in just to test the waters, with Pandora's and Enoch's MP bars half-depleted; I certainly didn't expect to survive long, let alone win the whole thing with relative ease. I only struggled ever-so-slightly during the fourth phase, when Lua bit the dust and Hayato was left with a puny 27 HP; however, a Balucia Tear got me out of that pinch, and it was smooth sailing from there. Well, guess that's what you get when you stick to the same Astrals for a whole run, never run from random encounters and backtrack to the save point every five minutes for fear of intempestive crashes.
As for the story, well... It sucked, period. Heck, I honestly can't make heads or tails of it even after playing the whole game. That sorry state of affairs is party due to the fact that I spent a lot of time crawling and forgot the latest narrative developments in the process, and mostly due to the fact that the story is poorly told and mixes too many sources of inspiration to be intelligible. (Spoilers!) So you have Cthulhu & the gang, but also angels, fallen angels, demons and egyptian deities? How do they all relate to each other? Ra is a god, but he's not the God? Hayato and Lua are Adam and Eve, yet not really? Who wanted to destroy the mortal world, and who wanted to save it? And who exactly was that titular lost child? Heck, you totally lost me here, game. Good thing I didn't give a crap about the story in the first place. (End of spoilers.)
But make no mistakes, dear fellow gamers: TLC is an awesome game, and I loved it from beginning to end. I can even say that my love for it only grew more intense as hours and dungeons went on, and it's now sitting comfortably in my Top 5 Favourites Vita FPDCs. That's a lovely development I certainly didn't expect, and it proves once again that I must ignore reviews, be they laudatory or scathing, and let my ever-reliable gaming instinct run the show. I'm so definitely adding the upcoming physical version to my collection, yes precious. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!
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