A look back at: Tenchi Muyo! Game Hen

Sometimes, I wonder why I play the games I play. And this one certainly is no different, as I'm completely unfamiliar with this particular anime and I'm unsure on how this correlates to the game itself.

Gotta say though, I wasn't entirely pleased. It's a Final Fantasy Tactics clone, but it only has the basic parts. The interface is clunky and not too well made, and the enemies always attack you, in other words, the game completely lacks variety other than attacking, buffing, and healing, no status effects or anything too advanced. Perhaps being able to customize who gets to go is interesting, especially with the unique sets of characters. Yeah, using characters that can only move one space per turn is gonna be harder to maintain than using a character that has multiple spaces of movement. And then you factor in characters that can transform and have better abilities, plus a level cap of 8, meaning yeah, there's quite a bit of training to do, although it may or may not be all that necessary given that this game was pretty short, something I'm actually thankful for.

Perhaps what I was most annoyed with in this game was the enemy AI. They tend to get more turns than I do, plus they always move into positions that are disadvantageous for some of my slower characters. To compound this further, they always gang up on the person that is first in my character slot. Although it allows for strategizing the most defensive characters there, the fact that they usually gangbang one character is still annoying. Also the reinforcements tend to show up if you take too long, further prolonging things for battle-weary characters. And speaking of which, yeah, trying to level characters here basically involves specific characters killing enemies. Easy for some, hard for others.

And again, not much in story for this game overall, maybe if I knew more about these characters, I would enjoy this game more. Well, there's at least one original character, but the plot devolves into basic kidnapping of girls and rescuing them from villain, and also finding out villain behind villain and defeating her. Yeah, it's pretty rote.

A look back at: Phantasy Star IV

Character interactions, decent gameplay, good curve. Things that describe Phantasy Star IV, all for the good of it. I'm really glad that I played this, finally. A bit on the short side, but still charming. See, this is the kind of thing I like about some turn-based RPGs. Let's make special skills unrelated to the thing that takes away your TP, except still making it finite but powerful. Develop actually important strategies for certain bosses, like using the Psycho Wand to remove Zio's stupid buff. And the combination of certain techs and skills can all but break the game. Triblaster at the beginning? I'm sold. Grand Cross doing upwards 700 damage to foes whose overall HP value usually doesn't go above 600? Yikes, this game is much easier than the earlier titles. But given how I get annoyed at grinding that is both required and excessive, this felt pretty lukewarm. For once, I didn't grind excessively for cash, which is great too.

I'll admit, it still has some flaws. Why so many instant death attacks? Pretty much every party member in the game gets one, which is ridiculous. And the final stretch still involves a lame fetch quest, except you're not really doing anything but "proving" you're the protectors, which is just eh. It's not completely shoehorned though, thankfully. Alys' death is a surprise, along with the reveal that Dark Force himself isn't entirely the real bad guy behind everything, even though he's been a legacy villain. And gee whiz, look at all those homages to previous games. The Elysdeon scene just makes fans drool with the appearance of all the other characters from before. Rune being Lutz the Fifth is a cool reveal. The town names definitely are something too, with Piata and Uzo on Motavia being familiar (though Uzo was a dungeon in II) while there's a town named Tyler (after the guy that rescues you from Gaira in II, for whatever reason). Also Termi, which is a town fully dedicated to Alis, the original Phantasy Star hero. And let's not forget the survival of the Air Castle and the revival of Lassic, now called Lashiec. It's just all so charming. There's even Myau being alive and large in this game, as well a couple of optional dungeons with homages to Phantasy Star III even. Just so much to ooh and aah at. But these homages aren't too bad and don't feel like "hey we just mentioned things from previous games, notice us", they integrate into whatever story is in as well. What a great game to experience. The one Phantasy Star title I will recommend.