Friday, December 6, 2002
Now that I've had time to play DQ and get used to the gameplay, I guess I should actually start writing in this journal, especially since Casey was nice enough to set it up for me. ^^;
So, to start off, some general, spoiler-free impressions.
I may be terrible at the game, but overall, I'm pretty impressed. Although the "survival" aspects of the game get on my nerves, there really isn't anything in the game that strikes me as being badly done. Then again, there was nothing about it that exactly blew me away, either, but pretty much everything - graphics, music, story, etc. - is handled well.
It might just be because I've yet to play any other recent games, but I'm the most impressed with the graphics so far. Everything has kind of a dark, dingy look to it so far, which I suppose is appropriate for a game taking place (so far) 1000 meters underground. The character animations are nicely done for the most part, too - fairly smooth, and, with a few exceptions, reasonably natural-looking. (And considering that you have nothing more than body language to go on when trying to figure out what Nina's thinking, that's a good thing. ^^;) There are also lots of little touches that add to the atmosphere, like insects buzzing around the lights outside of the Ranger HQ from the beginning of the game. You can rotate the camera freely in the typical enemy-infested areas, which is nice, but the fixed camera angles and sudden transitions in towns and other special areas are confusing and extremely annoying. ><
As for the music... I really don't have anything to say about it. It's good, without much irritating bad game-music synth, but it doesn't stand out. Which, I suppose, is a good thing - adding to the atmosphere without intruding too much.
Gameplay is... different. The battle system itself, while a definite departure from the previous games in the series, is nothing too unusual. You can see enemies on the map, set traps for them, and so on. You enter battle whenever either you or a monster attacks. If you hit the monster first, your lead party member gets an extra turn, and if one of a group of monsters gets you first, it gets the extra turn. The combat screen is the same as the normal environment, and your actual distance from the monster and the layout of the area come into play. Then there's AP. While using items and changing equipment don't require the use of it, every attack, spell, or movement requires a certain amount. On the other hand, a character's turn isn't over until they either choose to stop or expend all of their available AP, so if you have enough, you can move around and get in several attacks in one turn. The AP gauge refills after every turn, so it's usually not too limiting.
The system does have some unusual quirks, though. For instance, if you want to run away from a battle without being penalized (reduction in Zenny and experience), you have to maneuver your way back to the door you came in by. Also, they've brought back the concept of bonus experience for doing well in battle. Depending on how quickly and well you fight battles, you get a certain percentage of extra bonus experience points (I think in the form of "party experience," which you can distribute to any member you like), which is nice.
What makes the game difficult is less the battles themselves, though, than the lack of money, space to store items, and ways to heal characters. You're restricted to items when it comes to healing your characters, but you have very limited capacity for storing them - I think about ten slots at the beginning (it increases, but not by much), each of which can only hold ten of any one item. You can have the scary Momo puppet girl store some for you, but again, there are only around ten or so slots. Adding to the difficulty here is that beating monsters does not guarantee you Zenny - sometimes they leave it behind, but your main sources are item boxes and money from selling unnecessary weapons and armor (items can't be sold for much money, no matter what the original cost).
Then again, you're more or less expected to give up and restart (in which case you keep your party - but not regular - experience, weapons and armor, skills, and Zenny), so I guess it balances out.
I'm still terrible at it. ^^;
(I'll write some about the story tomorrow... for now, I'll just say that Bosch needs to be drawn and quartered. ^^)
Posted by Mary @ 09:26 PM CST [several voices]
