The New Classics #49: Dragon Star Varnir

 

The Backstory: I secured the physical version of that title from Limited Run Games, based on the cover art and gameplay pitch alone. Then, I learnt that it was an offering from my most beloved Compile Heart, and I knew I was in for some serious gaming goodness — I mean, have Compile Heart ever disappointed me as a developer? 

 

 

The Game: Although the battle system is its own thing (more on that very soon), DSV is as close to an Hyperdimension Neptunia game as it gets without actually being an HN game. It sports the same pint-sized dungeons, the same roaming foes and the same possibility to attack them with a ‘Symbol Attack’ and gain the upper hand in battle. Last but not least, it sports the same delightful and skimpy in-battle transformations and attacks, replete with gorgeous, eye-popping animations.

 

 

There are also some major differences that you cannot miss — starting with the atmosphere and art style. While HN is all flashiness and bright colours, DSV is on the more sombre and subdued side. And yes, we have to address the elephant in the room here: the graphics are horrendous. Not only are they dark to the point of actually hindering navigation lest your Switch brightness be cranked up to the max, but they’re also washed-out and fuzzy as all heck. Now, do I care? Nope, I don’t.

 

 

Last but not least is the fighting system. Long story short: it’s awesome. I’m sure you want more details though — so here goes! It’s your classic yet efficient turn-based fare, made more strategic by an aerial element that allows you to move vertically and choose the area you’ll target; while it’s not always relevant in random fights, you’ll definitely get to use it in boss fights. Then you have the jewel in the crown: the possibility to ‘devour’ foes in order to assimilate their abilities and unlock new skills for your crew. I find this a million times better than an actual recruiting system: it preserves the surprise effect and the thrill of getting flashy new skills, while dispensing with the hassle of training new additions. The best of two words, yes indeed!

 

 

The Verdict: No suspense here, that little gem is here to stay! It was actually difficult to move on to the next game, as I wanted nothing than to keep playing; but I’ll get back to Dragon Star Varnir soon enough. Until then, we keep hunting! 

 

The New Classics #48: Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World: The Prophecy of the Throne

 

The Backstory: Light novel series don’t always make for stellar games, as the Switch version of DanMachi proves; but I was more than ready to give Re:Zero a chance, based on the gorgeous cover art alone. Had I known that the gameplay was similar to Valkyria Chronicles, I may have balked at the thought of playing it; however, I needn’t have worried, because I didn’t even reach my first battle!

 

 

The Game: So what happened? First, Re:Zero suffers from a dire, atrocious case of badly handled exposition. Imagine an in medias res introduction, featuring a character who proceeds to hastily explain everything that happened during the last weeks as well as the game’s base concepts, and you’ll have a good idea of what RZ’ exposition feels like. I realise that this introduction is probably meant as a quick recap for people who know the novels, who may in turn be the game’s primary target; but the experience feels deeply unpleasant for a player who’s new to the series. 

 

 

Still, that poorly told introduction alone wouldn’t have been enough to deter me from playing. As it turned out, my main problem with RZ is this: I don’t care one bit about the characters, nor about whatever may happen to them. To make matters worse, the game keeps holding your hand way longer than necessary, telling you exactly what to do and how to do it. I could have tolerated that hand-holding if I had fallen in love with the crew, or given said crew a chance to win my affections if I had been given more freedom to operate — but tolerating both is more than I can bear. 

 

Indeed.

 

The Verdict: Yes, Re:Zero reaped an enviable Metacritic score of 75; and yet, it left me completely cold. This proves once more that the gaming instinct rules supreme, and that I don’t need any other compass to guide me through these uncharted lands of still unplayed games!

 

The New Classics #47: Marchen Forest – Mylne and the Forest Gift

 

The Backstory: Marchen Forest is a port of a phone game, and the last one of that batch of Asian games I snatched from Play-Asia. Internet wisdom describes it as an adventure game mixing alchemy and roguelite-ish dungeon crawling, a mix that sounded pretty nifty to me. Surely nothing could go wrong with such a sound gameplay premise, right? 

 

 

The Game: A lot of thing actually went wrong — and very quickly at that. First, MF is slow as all heck, and not just when it comes to loading times: everything drags on, from the transitions between scenes to the scenes themselves — to the point where I thought the game had glitched and frozen a couple of times.

 

 

As annoying as it is, that slowness pales in comparison with MF’s utter and unmissable weirdness. What exactly is weird in that game, you may ask? Well, everything. The camera angles are completely bonkers and switch constantly, going from side views to aerial ones with no rhyme or reason. The gameplay logic is outlandish: you’re sent on a mission to collect ingredients in the great outdoors — only to be stopped by an NPC blocking the way out of your garden, and forced to collect stuff in said garden. Why not simply instruct me to, well, collect stuff in the garden, instead of using a random roadblock? Later, you have to get rid of that obstructing NPC by feeding it a donut you find lying in that same garden: no challenge, no fun, just fake longevity at its best.  

 

 

And since I’m mentioning NPCs, the whole crew of characters looks and feels queer as well. Mylne herself could be cute if not for her puke-green hair — yet she’s honestly the best-looking of the bunch. Everybody else looks disturbing, from Mylne’s eyeless grandfather to that useless penguin delivering tutorials at random. Maybe it’s just a matter of taste, and maybe that posse feels like the pinnacle of character design to some eyes; but my own retinas just cannot bear the sight of them any longer. 

 

 

The Verdict: I very seldom dislike a game; but I genuinely dislike Marchen Forest. It’s supposed to get better during late stages, as dungeon crawling kicks in; however, I cannot wait, nor play, until it happen. I’d rather play something that lets me roam dungeons right away — and makes me feel good while we’re at it. 

 

The New Classics #46: Final Fantasy XII – The Zodiac Age

 

The Backstory: The late-’90s entries of the series didn’t click with me at all; but I reasoned that maybe the Noughties entries would fare better — and that I may as well give that remake a try since it was in my collection anyway. I know little about that game, except that the fighting system generated some controversy back in the days because of its ARPG influences. Now that sounded pretty good to me; and I was eager to reach my first fight and see for myself how that infamous fighting system fared.   

 

 

The Game: FFXII humoured me by kindly letting me skip every single cutscene, which is something I genuinely didn’t expect from the series. However, any good impression I may have garnered from that player-friendliness started to evaporate as I discovered the tutorial. Not only does it bother explaining uber-basic actions such as ‘Move with L’ and ‘Press A to talk to NPCs’, but it’s also delivered during gameplay by your captain (or whoever that guy is). Talk about clumsily breaking immersion and ruining your carefully crafted in medias res introduction, game!  

 

Lack of narrative flair aside, the existence of such a hand-holdy tutorial really worried me. Was I actually dealing with a (shiver) casual RPG? That certainly didn’t bode well for whatever was to come, oh noooo precious. I didn’t have to wait long before my first battle, and… oh, lord.  

 

 

FFXII’s fighting system is called ‘Active Dimension Battle’. I reckon this refers to the fact that exploration and combat are no longer separate; but still, the word ‘active’ is a hilariously poor choice to describe combat in FFXII. Here’s how it works: upon meeting a foe, you open a menu and input a command — let’s say, ‘attack’. You then have to position your character so that said attacks can land — i.e. right next to the foe. You can change the active command at any given moment, and retreat a bit to heal. Now, can you actually slash at things by pressing buttons? Nope, you can’t. The only two things you can do are: a) input commands, and b) move around so that the commands can execute.  

 

I swear I was left literally speechless after that first battle — like, I couldn’t believe what I was playing. I fought a couple of extra battles for good measure, and realised that I simply couldn’t go on. Now, I could comment on the monochrome greyish aesthetics, or the unexpected European medieval atmosphere; but I feel everything would be pointless after that fighting system debacle. 

 

 

The Verdict: I’m very tolerant towards fighting systems in RPGs; but as I said before, automated combat is where I draw the line. FFXII’s combat is not fully automated, as you still play an important role; but I don’t fancy that role. It’s too passive, yet too demanding: you’re denied the ARPG thrill of slashing around and the turn-based RPG joy of watching your commands unfold after input, and end up with the worst of both worlds instead. Well, that’s a miss again for Final Fantasy — next please!