A look back at: Mystic Ark

 

A little variety in the gameplay is enough to make it go a long way and make it feel a bit more fresh. And it's quite odd too, considering that Mystic Ark is tied to the game Brain Lord as well as The 7th Saga in some ways. In any case, this is a fairly quaint SNES RPG that is probably worth looking at. Weird settings, figurines to collect and revive, and characters that are allusions to stuff. All this makes for a really weird game overall. Much, much easier than the 7th Saga too, although there's a bit of early game hell where you only have one character for the entire first chapter.

Characters in-game really do resemble the ones from 7th Saga in mechanics, except for Tokio who's unique ninja class is hard to compare with other characters from that game. One problem with this game is that there's no revival spell, and reviving party members involves walking back to the shrine, the main hub of the map, and retrieving their figurines again. Even worse it's a game over if the main character falls in battle and I never like those types of game over conditions. This is particularly bad considering this game has a few instakill spells (luckily the Blackout spell which two party members get is very accurate against enemies too). For some cases I'd have to put up Deathguard or the reusable Cross item right away. Magic and physicals tend to be different overall, and the Powerwave skill is probably the most useful of all as long as the character's HP remains at full.

One complaint I have is overall movement, it's so clunky and doesn't work well with the SNES-generated environments. You can easily get stuck on things even when you shouldn't and it's a hassle to go around. The encounter system is similar to 7th Saga, the best thing about that game for the record, and I'm glad it was returned for this game. Go ahead and try this, it's an interesting adventure.

All the aggravating things about: The 7th Saga

Hey look, something different for once. I decided to make this on the account of watching some videos where I won't name exactly who made them but it's inspirational enough for me to nitpick exclusively on things. So I decided to pick an RPG at random and decided on The 7th Saga. This little post is gonna involve me stating all the things that I found wrong with The 7th Saga in an a list format.

1. Hey look, The 7th Saga, wait a minute, this title is misleading. The game is a standalone RPG with no prequel to speak of. Somehow it spawned a sequel in Mystic Ark, which is another Japan-only game. Boo.
2. Cool, pick from one of seven characters, and get seven rules, not bad. Then again, you're stuck with that character and one other one, and sometimes, those combinations don't work out. Wilme and Lux? Not gonna be a good combination due to both being mostly physical fighters and both not being able to equip really good armor.
3. Speaking of which, mage armor to mage characters entirely, fighter armor to fighter characters entirely. Wonderful. I think Lejes is an aversion of this, but I haven't used him.
4. So let's look at these characters. Hmm...Kamil is the jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none. Meaning he sucks in the late game completely.
5. Olvan is basically Kamil with less magic ability and speed and more physical power. Eh.
6. Esuna is fast and evasive but a squishy glass cannon mage. Not to mention the only female protagonist.
7. Wilme is completely ineffective at magic despite being able to use it, and has the crappiest armor choices. He's one to use if you really want to torture yourself.
8. Lux actually has the worst armor choices, I take that back. He also has this super annoying walking noise. Okay, he's pretty good physically and has unique magic. Somehow, people like him. OH AND HE TALKS IN ALL CAPS.
9. Valsu is the token white mage, who completely sucks in the beginning but has a completely broken spell if you level him to get the Elixir spell.
10. Finally Lejes, the token black mage, and for some reason the guy no one likes because he actually is a demon.
11. Well the premise is good, but you don't see anything majorly storyline-related as soon as Lemele sends everyone to the runes. I want to see some character development dammit.
12. Hey look, the battles in this game are REAL HARD. Yep, especially if you pick someone super squishy as your main character like Esuna or Valsu, the first encounters can one-shot your character.
13. The dodging animations are just silly, How come Esuna's the only really good character when it comes to dodging attacks?
14. Well the level curve is decent enough, although I have to grind excessively. Which is nasty considering the enemies I'm gonna be fighting.
15. Sometimes it takes me several different spells to take down just one enemy, and the experience isn't really worth the trouble for some of them.
16. The Petrify spell doesn't do exactly what is expected. It actually encases the target in some random rock and leaves them defenseless to more attacks. Surprisingly it works well on enemies, but it just looks DUMB. Also they will break from the shell anyways.
17. Vacuum2 has the WORST NOISE EVER.
18. The encounter system is actually unique in that you can just stand in place until a dot comes by and gets you into an encounter. If you're not grinding though, trying to avoid the dots while trying to navigate is a hassle.
19. Oh great, CHEST MONSTERS
20. Bosses are somehow not interesting, not even the Pison guy.
21. Those Sage enemies annoyed me quite a bit considering their magic defense. I usually never use a physical attack when using a mage anyways.
22. Hey look I'm bout ready to kill this guy OH HE RUNS AWAY. This is actually the single biggest headache as far as grinding goes, not really dying unless you are up against something that is strong, but watching one enemy run away. It makes grinding longer than it should be.
23. Getting a partner in the form of another apprentice is dumb luck entirely. You go to a town and talk to other apprentices, they may ask to fight you, they may ask to join you, they may just straight up fight you.
24. And if they fight? Guess what? There's no way they will join you ever again for the rest of the game. Next time you meet them, they fight you, no questions asked.
25. Speaking of, the battles against the apprentices are the toughest in the ENTIRE GAME, although of course it depends on who's being fought, Lejes is the only one you'd want to fight, as long as you have the Star Rune, because his first move is always to lower your defense, and the Star Rune is a free defense boost.
26. The real annoyance with fighting the apprentices is that they always heal themselves whenever they get to about half health.
27. Oh of course, the possibility of an apprentice stabbing you in the back once you get a rune, forcing you to never use them again. Apparently Esuna and Lux are the only two exempt from doing this.
28. And as far as battling apprentices go, there are two instances where they WILL have runes, not counting losing to other fights with them and them taking runes.
29. The first is when one goes crazy and enslaves a town called Patrof, you wouldn't know who it is, but upon beating them, they are dead forever. The other instance happens later, and you just simply take the rune from them when you win.
30. Did I forget to mention that the apprentices do in fact gain more as you gain more? With the exception of the insane one that is.
31. Again Esuna and Lux cannot be that one insane apprentice at Patrof. It's like the game wants you to use either of these characters.
32. DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH DADADADA DADADADADA, it's in my head forever due to all the battles I fight.
33. I'm actually surprised, this predates Chrono Trigger in terms of time travel. But it's done so much better there anyways.
34. Some subplots are pretty odd. Olvan apparently gets to go through two dungeons if he is either the main character, or if the main character is dead and Olvan is in the party. Thanks for forcing it upon others to use the guy, oh wait these dungeons aren't that cool anyways.
35. The layout of the town of Bone is really retarded.
36. The town of Bilthem is a complete troll of a place upon first visit. Everyone worships the king Doros like crazy. Oh, turns out it's pretty much mind screw.
37. Whee, a glider...oh, crash-landed already?
38. You know what's awful for a mage character? Losing the ability to lose magic. For a good portion of the ice lands, all the magic you have cannot be accessed. And it's all because some sage curses you because he thinks you're a threat. What a twat.
39. You fight Gariso beforehand. An ANAGRAM of the main villain's name. Also having to use some special item to cause the boss to be visible isn't really new either.
40. Like I didn't see the fact that Lemele is evil, oh wait he was dead anyways and is known as Gorsia. That's not a really intimidating villain name. Oh yeah, you lose the runes you had too.
41. Finally, the 7th Saga has THE WORST ending I have ever seen in an RPG ever. Great, you beat Gorsia, oh wait he kills your main character! And then your main character gets resurrected as Lemele!? Wait, I had a partner with me! What happened to him?!

A look back at: The 7th Saga

More grinding! More grinding!

It certainly says a whole lot when the game you're playing ends up being considered the 4th hardest RPG for the SNES. Yes, The 7th Saga doesn't pull punches at all, from the get-go all the way to the end. It's certainly one of the hardest ones here, but I wouldn't necessarily go out of my way to call it the hardest. The battles are indeed tough, especially for the squishier characters. Getting a partner may or may not be helpful depending on the circumstances, and technically they are rivals as well. One thing The 7th Saga gets right? Actual encounters. This radar mechanic makes grinding better than walking in place multiple times, so standing put near a town and waiting basically mitigates a lot of stress. Plus there's some good in a few auto-activate items saving my hide multiple times. It's the times where you fight enemies which utilize strong attacks or spells that can really hurt.

How ironic, the good part of The 7th Saga is its hard gameplay. And I will admire the way they made seven unique playable characters, each with strengths and weaknesses. But as you may soon see, everything plot-wise is in the premise. The premise is the entire plot, get seven apprentices to find the seven runes, offering some stiff competition like this was some sort of reality show. Once they get moving? Well, you are just following your main character, possibly even including an ally and fighting other apprentices. That's it. Hell, what are the other apprentices even doing anyways? Sure one goes mad and enslaves a town and you have to kill him, but seriously, anyone else actually doing plot things besides whomever the player chooses?

As if the plot couldn't get worse, it actually somehow does. Cool, so Lemele isn't even a good guy, who would've thought? Well technically that's not Lemele anyways, but still, Gorsia is a big bad without a whole lot of anything, really. Ooh, time travel, like that's something we see everywhere. Also losing all the runes and having to eventually get them back because Gorsia's final fight is a puzzle boss fight. To really make this a terrible plot? Oh I don't know, kill the main character anyways. Okay, so the main character ends up being reincarnated as Lemele, but this plot is just so inexcusably bad. For an extremely difficult SNES RPG, it honestly shouldn't have ended like this.