First Hour Impressions #3

I've not posted one of these first hour impressions posts in a while now. I meant to do quite a few of them and keep this 'column' going. I actually played through a couple games and took the notes that would allow to write some more of these, but for a good few months now, they have just been sitting in my notebook awaiting animation into written internet-word-chunks.

This one was from 31/12/13, so actually just before we headed out for my brother's birthday meal and some drinks to celebrate the New Year Bells. So the story behind this one. I have only a little experience with the Fire Emblem series, and this is a game I have both in cart form on the GBA and on the 3DS as a downloadable title (Ambassador for the 3DS, woohoo!) I have only played FE7 and Awakening but really enjoyed both of them. I think this is a series I really enjoy. Fairly deep strategy, the nailbiting nature of permadeath, political intrigue, war on a continent or even world-spanning scale. Very solid RPG series from what I can see. The games are quite hard to find though. I never see them in shops here, and online you have to pay a quite high price for these games.

Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones (GBA)

Started 5:22pm, 31/12/13

• I started this game up on Normal mode, not too concerned about the long term difficulty, as this will more or less just be the first hour. If I pick this game up again, I'd probably start a new game anyway. But the level of challenge would probably be ok on Normal I thought.
• I'm immediately thrown into a story about the Kingdom or continent of Magvel, with five seperate countries or factions. I predict some conflict and invasions...
• Graphically and musically the game seems really good. For a GBA game, the colours, sprites and character designs are really smooth and well done.
• There is approximately 10 minutes of story-building and dialogue until we find ourselves in the first "tutorial" battle. But because I chose Normal difficulty, apparantely they don't tell me anything about the game actually works. Good thing I've played FE7 and Awakening so know the ins and outs of the gameplay.
• Eirika and Seth carve their way through the first stage of the game fairly easily.
• The second battle has some more units that join us, and the simple mechanics shine, with more weapons and enemies adding just a bit more depth and different match ups. The weapon tree is present as always, and these rock-paper-scissors mechanics in trpgs and strategy games.
• The battles look really good, with the animations and nicely coloured sprites on the battle field really bringing the tactical battlefield view to life in a nice way.
• Into the next chapter after 31 minutes of total gameplay time, and things are getting quite engrossing so far. The story is really picking up, and without spoiling in any way, some major happenings occur due to the war between the two kingdoms. (How is that for vague!) I should say, one chapter is usually equivalent to one battle and some exposition either side of the battle. The battles can be quite lengthy from what I remember from the other games I've played in the series.
• We get more characters and a look at the different objectives and gameplay mechanics that we might be experiencing further into the game. 
• It is slightly odd with the lack of tutorials or hints, but I can actually find them in the Guide menu. Thankfully I remember enough of the gameplay mechanics and tricks from when I played Fire Emblem 7 on the GBA only a few months previously.
• TRPGs are really going to enjoy the gameplay of this one. The game is challenging on Normal, and in fact, I fell foul of something that has always bugged me in the other games. I got all the way to the end of the first battle in chapter 2, had beat the boss and thought I was done. I just needed to finish off the last enemy with one of my characters critically low on HP, and I didn't move them far enough away, so when my other character's attack on the enemy missed, the enemy had it's turn, moved in and killed off my wounded Pegasus Knight. There you have it, permadeath-Fire Emblem's greatest and at times worst aspect

And there my notes end, rather climactically. From what I remember, that was around the hour mark, so that was about an hour of Fire Emblem Sacred Stones on the GBA. It is a fun strategy RPG, and I really want to get back into this and play some more. Even doing this blog post was really fun. On the topic of permadeath, it is one of Fire Emblem's main characteristics, and it can lead to some really frustrating situations if you are like me, and REALLY don't want to permanently lose characters. It adds a whole different level of strategy to the game, and an interesting risk/reward mechanic. Is it worth sending that character in to attack if they only have a 60% chance to hit and kill the opponent? Perhaps if they can kill that opponent if they hit, or perhaps if they are safe from the opponent's counterattack, but if they are vulnerable (weak to the opponent's weapon type) or low on HP and will not survive a counterattack. These are just some of the typical situations that will come up often in Fire Emblem games.
I'd definitely recommend this game, or the other GBA title that we got as a starting point for newcomers to the series. Or even better still, Fire Emblem Awakening is very accessible to newcomers, as there are different options for difficulty and even the choice to turn off permadeath if it doesn't sound like your thing...I won't judge you....
Much... :p

First hour impressions #2

Hopefully everyone has had a good holiday so far! For me I've enjoyed spending time with friends and family, and helping out with Christmas preparations like the dinner and eating copious amounts of said Christmas dinner-turkey, bacon, sausages, gravy, potatoes (both roast and mashed with chives and herbs), maple parsnips. bread sauce, sage and onion stuffing, oatmeal stuffing, brussel sprouts (with walnuts and bacon, as each year we try different recipes to liven up everyone's favourite oft-maligned cruciferous vegetable lol.)

Ok so I've been putting off writing this post for a while now, and my motivation has slowly diminished for playing the first hour of more games along with the approach up to Christmas and my attempts (successful and otherwise) at studying. I tried playing Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers (I really just wanted to write that title out in full, because its a hilariously bad title), Bravely Default (demo, and then the first hour) and found it difficult to stick to a solid hour of playing the first hour of handheld games because I usually flip the ds into sleep mode when I get distracted by the tv or other stuff. So no notes materialised for either of those games, but I have been really enjoying Bravely Default as I've gone along. Its like that game was designed for gamers like me who like their JRPGs and art styles you might see in RPG artbooks.

Which brings me nicely onto the next game, and the second in my series of posts where I'm looking at the first hour of games.

Dragon's Crown (PS3)

Started 10:24am, 18/12/13

• amazing artstyle shown in the opening sequence really cemented what I had seen of the game in trailers. This game is really for me, even though it has exaggerated designs and could be divisive, the colours and style are just amazingly well done.
• the initial screen on starting up the game was to choose a save slot, then choose the character details. Multiplayer integration looks important and fairly seamless-there isn't a seperate multiplayer option, its all one mode from the looks of things. I went with the Elf archer, who had a fairly 'normal' design, as opposed to the exaggerated Sorceress and others which kind of made this game viral before it had even released.
• It took me around 5 or 6 minutes to get to the beginning tutorial, and around 6 or 7 minutes, the first combat section where they show you the controls. Now, here is where I got stuck for longer than I should have. Its nothing to do with the quality of the game per se, its more due to the fact I was playing on a small 20"ish screen from a few metres away. I couldn't make out what the button prompts were saying, and like in those fighting game tutorials where you push certain combinations or perform certain tasks to move onto the next, I couldn't move on for a while. So play on a big TV in future! That's my note to myself.
• There are such amazingly drawn environments and characters, and similar to Bravely Default which I've been playing recently, it feels like you are playing through the pages of an artbook. I found myself just pausing to look at the backgrounds as they panned out and I got to new areas.
• This is definitely one of the best looking 2D games I've seen, perhaps the very best. Its to be expected from Vanillaware, who previously released Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade
• The game has an interesting looking world map, which scrolls across at great speed to our first location, and dungeon.
• The locales are very nicely done, with some really good looking lighting and water effects.
• The first boss (Harpy) gave me some problems, and ended up killing me once. I immediately came back to life and continued the fight from where I left off, and didn't really understand how.
• After beating that boss, the stage ended in a sort of arcade-like way, and we got rewarded with spoils (items), exp and other goodness after this first main quest. They then give an introduction to the appraisal system that the game has. It reminded me of Diablo in that we have to identify the items before their effects can be known and you can decide what you want to do with them. Well, you can sell items without appraising, but its not recommended value-wise. I had enough money to appraise all my items, sell one, and repair my armour, after which I kept the rest of the items. I'm actually kind of surprised that they weren't more harsh with the money they give you. I wouldn't have been surprised if they went all out with hardcore old school difficulty, it would have fit, with all the other oldschool features in this game.
• I also see how the party system will work in single player - you can find bones of fallen wanderer, resurrect them and have them join your party. I get some Dwarf warrior NPC who compliments my slightly more fragile ranged combat style as a tank.
• I got the next main quest in my journal, and a sub quest, and I took up the sub quest, which took me to the dungeon I'd just been to, so I went back through that a 2nd time quickly, and that was the hour.

So I was really impressed by Dragon's Crown over the hour I played, and would have played a lot more if I didn't have exams to study for. But I definitely will be checking more out soon, and I recommend it to those gamers who like their 2D Dungeon Crawler/hack'n'slash RPGs or action games, those who like nicely drawn 2D games - this is probably one of the most amazing 2D games I've seen, and those who like to co-op on games like Gauntlet, as I've heard that those are along the same vein as Dragon's Crown.
Hopefully these impressions help in some way if you are or were on the fence about trying this game out.

Source: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=638953

http://www.itsartmag.com/features/dragons-crown-concept-art/

http://www.itsartmag.com/features/dragons-crown-concept-art/#.UsDNgbS49eE

http://youtu.be/7dZrwslwM4Q

First hour impressions #1

I was talking about this idea the other day. I'll be continuing my first hour impressions series of posts with a PS3 title that didn't get much attention when it released back last year a downloadable title on the PS3 in Europe and USA. I picked this one up as I had some spare credit and wanted to spend some in a sale they had on 'big in Japan' titles, or something stupid to that effect.

Legasista (PS3)

This game is a dungeon crawling RPG and looked quite gameplay heavy and loot driven, similar to Cladun in many ways. I enjoyed that game and never actually picked up it's sequel, so decided to pick this one up.

I finally got around to playing it now that I have some more time to procrastinate from studying free time.

So here are my notes and thoughts that I made during the first hour of playing this game. Will I enjoy it, or go back to it some day soon? I don't like starting games and then going back to them much later. So, it seems an hour is a good time to invest into a game to get a good idea of how the game will play without getting too invested into the game if I don't have time to put into finishing it.

Started 23:35pm, 17/12/13

• The game initially impresses me with it's music, which has a good mix of sounds, from some sort of folksy sound in fitting with an RPG town, some quite different latin sounds, and some retro sounding RPG sounds. This is why I'm no good reviewing soundtracks or music in game lol.. I'll post a link to one of the tracks I liked here.
• The animated sprites in dialogue scenes are quite well done, with dynamic moving characters showing some expression related to the dialogue.
• The default option seems to be Japanese voice acting, with subtitles. The text is really crisp and has a nice font as well. Quite easy to read even on the small 20"-ish screen I'm using at the moment. Not my default screen it has to be said, that one is through in my term-time flat in Glasgow.
• The game looks very gameplay and action-RPG orientated, with only a small bit of exposition, dialogue, and then straight into a series of tutorial dungeons.
• The game has similar gameplay to the Cladun games on PSP, with hack and slash combat and very detailed number heavy gameplay. Attacks do X.YY damage, i.e. to 2 decimal points such as 1.55 damage per hit. So those RPG fans who like their stats and micromanagement of equipment may appreciate this.
• The character designs are interesting after the initial revealing of the protagonist (who seems pretty generic to me. He is one of those male protagonists who has an outfit that shows off the thorax and abdomen but covers the arms and shoulders...They seem way more common than they should be..) So, fairly typical NIS characters that remind me of Atelier Iris or Etrian Odyssey in a way.
• The gameplay complexity starts to up fairly quickly towards the end of the first hour, with dual HP or durability bars...or something...I'm not too sure, but I think they correspond with the main hand equipment and off hand equipment, i.e. sword and shield durability/HP.
• Right before I stopped, the complexity started getting 'worse', with some kind of mana related equipment system which really reminded me of Cladun and FFVIII's junctioning stystem mixed together. I'll have to dive back in with the tutorials or maybe even starting over when I go back to the game some other day.

For now, I liked what I saw of the game, but from what I remember of Cladun, this should be a fairly repetitive dungeon crawl for the most part. I was quite impressed and I would recommend the game to people who like their top down hack and slash action games or RPGs. There are a lot of games in that sub-genre at the moment, especially with the whole roguelike explosion.

I'm a big fan of dungeon crawling RPGs and hope I can get back into this at some point. The next game I analyse based on the first hour will be another PS3 game, with some similarities! That's the only clue for now! I've already played it, so hopefully will post before Christmas comes around. I hope your holidays are going nicely so far!

First hour impressions

I'm going to do a series of posts that I've been considering doing for a while, and in fact, I think I did something similar if not the same a while ago with two strategy rpgs. Or, had intended to, but never actually got around to playing the opening to one of them. Check out the link.

For this time, I'm again going to play through the first hour of certain games and see how they play. It'll just be a random choice, not using the random generator on backloggery (see Cookie Picks) but just me putting in games that I've been wanting to play and haven't got around to yet.
Its very much in the vein of First Hour, an interesting (but in some ways controversial) blog idea. They review the first hour only of games, going on the assumption that if a game doesn't drag you in or attract your attention within the first hour, they aren't going to be worth the time after that. Well, they do go into a bit more detail, but a lot of the games that really blossomed slowly get reviewed quite badly on there. Then again, they do full reviews as well, which gives games more of a chance to impress. Check out their blog at the above link. Its not very active, but has a good back catalogue of posts to read through.

Now that I've finished university for the Christmas period, I'll have access to a few more consoles. Its mostly been handhelds, specifically my 3DS that I've been playing, so I might try out a few games on home consoles or older systems perhaps.
What I'll do is I'll post these first hour impressions in seperate posts as I go along. They'll have tags and numbered titles to try and keep them together as well.
I've already played and written notes for two games (both RPGs)... so stay tuned!