A look back at: Arc the Lad II

It's over, thank GOD it's over. Am I mad? Yes. Is this a bad game? NO. But I'm quite mad it took so darn long. Maybe it's cause I have annoying work schedules that make me not play this game for some weeks in time, but that's just how it ends up going. Arc the Lad II, you're expected to siphon around 60+ hours with it, which is six times the length of the previous game. At least I came in expecting that, and expecting the gameplay to be largely similar to the first, with more QoL things like finally having actual equipment, elements to deal with, and actually making the sidequests seem like they are worth a lot.

And that's just the crux of it. You know how sequels in RPG franchises are really fledged out by the SECOND game? Arc the Lad II is just like Breath of Fire II, Lufia II, maybe even Paper Mario: TTYD...okay you can see where I'm going here. Things improve. Almost every character you play as has some sort of tragic moment going on, we've already seen this with the first game's characters like Arc and Iga. All of those guys return (though Chongara is an NPC and Kukuru is only a guest character for real specific moments), and things are slightly more fledged out. We get to finally see how Tosh's past occurs, for instance, and Arc, despite his brand name as a wanted guy, still being a hero but also wanted. As for our new characters, many tragic moments play out. Shante loses her brother, Lieza her village and grandfather, Sania her ENTIRE KINGDOM, Gruga having to deal with adopting a daughter and realizing the main father is a douche monster, and Shu watching the resistance movements to those dictators in Romalia fall. And Elc gets it worst, considering his fire abilities, he would have been converted to a terrible monster, he escapes, tries to find his girlfriend, and she seems fine only to be turned into a bomb. It don't stop there when you realize the villains are manipulative bastards, not just for what they do to ACTUAL CHILDREN, but creating doppelgangers, actively trying to enslave or even brainwashingly sacrifice populations, they do everything. They're already monsters, and they feed off of the misery that humanity has.

And amazingly, these villains actually SUCCEED. Granted, the main villains all die when you beat the game, but like the second-to-last bad guy, the Romalian king? He ends up actually destroying the world, even if it costs him his life. The Dark One has to be sealed again, with Arc having to do it alongside the already-swallowed Kukuru, but then we are left with ten surviving heroes who really only felt like they just survived the end of the world, instead of prevented it. Yeesh.

But enough story stuff. Arguably it and the music are highlights, we don't need that happily ever after stuff all the time, the music by comparison is just amazing and I'm so glad they brought back previous tracks. The main deal with the game's original fast-paced battle system has slowed down somewhat. You can kill a lot of enemies with one spell, but you'll watch as each one has a death animation, going one by one, and those gold coins spill out and the thing takes really long to go by. That's not even getting to the idea that spell animations take longer than they used to. Even simple status buff spells! My gosh, the enemies with these will stand on their spot, use the spell, and you just have to wait, since in every battle, all enemies have the same speed when they are the same class of monster. I do like how you can use Lieza to catch these Poke...I mean monsters though. Oh, and check out those levels, the cap in the previous game was 60, but now you can go up higher, much higher than Level 100, and I think the boss and super enemies go up to 128 or something. The level jumps are a problem and entail grinding (or using a special machine to siphon experience from Diekbeck, the actual faster method honestly). Before getting the Silver Noah, the game makes you use multiple characters in side stories, this is arguably the best thing about the game's plot overall, though after everyone is congregated into one large party, many of the other plot stuff they do with certain characters also is quite fun.

Navigation-wise, since you can now do typical RPG navigation, things are more open, but there were moments where I was pulling my hair. Seriously, how would I know that to get to Heap Cave-In I had to go UNDER THE BRIDGE? I just couldn't figure that out. When the Silver Noah crashed into the final dungeon I though there was no way out of the ship, which was so strange until I had to go out the cockpit window. Come on. And the jobs can have time frames to them, which means that another hunter can take your job and it's permanently gone. I ended up missing the "Super job" as some call it cause I accidentally sold a key item (yes you can sell those, yes your inventory is quite limited which gives you incentive to free lots of space but you may end up losing a key item doing what I just did). I also somehow got the secret character Choko not once, but TWICE, even though I never got her in the first game, I got her in Forbidden Ruins in this game, went through the game after her leaving the ruins, somehow she was in my party during the last few moments, and I "recruited" her again. Weird. The dungeons do require a lot of time to beat them, and there were many, many moments where I just felt the game just did not want me to progress to beat it.

It certainly is an improved sequel, but the many times the game annoyed me prevented me from truly loving it. It lasted a LONG time and it was exhausting.

A look back at: Arc the Lad

That looks like something out of the Playstation 1 RPG maker.

And wowee, I finished an RPG in just a week. This game seems to be infamous because of its short length, at least compared to the others in its franchise/collection, which would obviously take longer. But a shorter RPG is welcoming. Did you really expect that this short RPG was however a TACTICAL RPG? Because it is.

I would argue that this is 100% the main thing that sells me to Arc the Lad. How quick and simple the battle system is. You're not bombarded with having to micromanage characters constantly, recruiting/creating new ones, or having to watch some rather slow AI make decisions that just elongate things. Everything is done swiftly. You move, do an action, enemies do the same, everything's dictated by the agility stat, and oddly enough you have no equipment or weapons at all in the game. Heck, you don't even have shops. Does that make things harder as the only source of items are from enemy drops or secret chests? Yes. Does it offer a different kind of challenge that actually is more enticing? Oddly yes. By the way, simplicity doesn't mean it's easy, as character stats grow up in a traditional way and there are some level spikes to watch out for.

This game's intent on setting the stage for a much longer sequel, so that explains its shortness. Nevertheless, while the gameplay is a high point, as is the music (was not expecting the sequences to be THAT GOOD), the plot is just full of RPG cliches. Let's list them!

Main hero has a missing parent (in this case father)? Check!

Crazy Pandora's box in the game? Check!

Main female lead ends up falling in love with male lead? Check!

Glowing things being a way to get party members or clues to new locations? Check!

Hero's home gets ransacked/destroyed/taken hostage? Check! This one is kind of all of the above, since Arc has a mountain home with a mom and his house gets burned down and mother taken prisoner, but we never even see her anymore afterwards so we have next to no idea where she even is.

Timid young man is the third main party member? Check! (Poco)
At least one or two beefcake characters? Check! (Tosh and Iga)

And one of those beefcake characters is a fistfighter? Check!

At least one or two creepy old men? Check! (Gogen and Chongara)

Unorthodox weapons in combat? Check! (Poco's instruments, Chongara can summon things from pots which makes him the gimmick character, thankfully he's not a bad one)

Elemental guardians? Check!
"Humans are evil bastards" speeches? Check!

Evil demons ACTUALLY being the reason humans get blamed? Check!

An evil minister and a good king? Check!

King gets backstabbed and dies by minister hands? Check!

Mirror on the wall? Check!

Global airship? Check!

At least one goofy cutscene with lame humour? Check!

A temple with lots of barefisted monks filled with honor? Check! Also includes an evil leader in the monks.

An inevitable fighting tournament section? Check!

The host of that tournament is a monster who gets champions killed? Check! (thanks Grubba from Paper Mario: TTYD)

A village of civilians getting nuked because the bad guys wanted a silly little trinket? Check!

A secret underground lab with evil scientists? Check!

Everywhere the hero goes there's trouble? Check!

Bad guys wait for heroes to do hard work before taking the treasure? Check!

Earthquakes destroying stuff? Check!
Heroes are branded as fugitives by the corrupt bad guys? Check!

Main leads get separated? Check!

Sidequests that can take longer than the main plot? Check!

I guess the only cliche this is missing is basically the hero isn't an idiot, Arc is actually quite smart and heroic and does hero things well. But if you're like me and played dozens of JRPGs at this point there's just too much to this plate that you've probably seen elsewhere.

A look back at: Tales of Destiny 2

And I mean the actual Tales of Destiny 2, not what Tales of Eternia was marketed as in the West.

And sadly the game never got imported to the West at all. Heavily anticipated as a Namco title in Japan yet never saw a Western release and at the time of writing this, fans are clearly having a hard time translating it all. At least it's a Tales game through and through, giving us most of the stuff we'd know from playing the previous titles, though things look a lot bigger. As far as the game's plot, a lot of it fanservices previous characters, one of which is THE most famous character of the previous game returning as a totally different man. No translation meant I had to consult someone's own translation of the lines on GameFAQs and just watching as characters speak a language I never really studied.

Well gameplay can be more important, and I've never been a fan of grading you after battle to get better rewards. It emphasizes nigh-perfection in every battle in order to get better rewards, and the more sophisticated a game's battle system is, the harder it is to get a good grade on your battles and thus a better tech for your characters who could use it. Especially when you have the Linear Motion Battle System making it that you can only control one character and having AI control the rest of the party, which has mixed results usually. Also especially when enemy HP gets to be quite high in the end of the game, with end dungeon enemies having around 10000 HP. Also also especially when melee attacking isn't that good, and spellcasters make or break the battle on both sides, making a party of three main spellcasters (usually Reala, Harold, and Judas) and one physical fighter (usually Kyle) a default party throughout the game.

The characters are at least fun, and the plot loves time travel so much it becomes a central theme. Judas/Leon is a nice addition, not the best, but at least he sticks around throughout the game. Nanaly's funny skits with Loni are fun, and Reala's plot importance as the mysterious girl with godlike praying is kind of redundant. Harold is a breath of fresh air too. Yes, we do get to see the Swordians in their human form in the past, which is really cool. Yes, we get to see our former heroes from Tales of Destiny 1 in better roles. Rutee's the mother of Kyle now, unfortunately her husband Stahn dies in the current timeline. Philia and Garr are leaders of their respective areas, and even Lilith and Chelsea have minor roles. Our main two villains are actually quite decent. Elrane is basically a foil to Reala, both being avatars of god but Elrane being deranged and wanting to destroy all to cure all. Barbatos, woo, he's on another level. Imagine if you will a boss that wants you to fight like a true man, so much that if you try using healing spells, spells in general or USING ITEMS, he'll counter it hard. He thinks it's a fair way to fight too, but this kind of counter makes him one of the truly hardest battles ever. And he's just totally crazy as a character. To think that he also tried to kill the former heroes, somehow ONLY succeeding in the case of Stahn, it's insane.

But the time-traveling is only so much fun and the plot sort of devolves into a whole "Kyle loves Reala" thing, and while it's not the single worst romance overall, I was able to make at least one comparison. I remember how Lunar 2 went, with the epilogue involving Hiro making a one-way trip to finding his love Lucia again. This is kinda like that, but with a bit of amnesia on Kyle's part after the storyline time distortion brings everything back to the way it was. So when Kyle ends up going to the ruins where he first met Reala in the erased timeline, she's back and gives the memory back. Really weird.

A look back at: Pokemon Azure Horizons

Team: Quagsire, Aggron, Clefable, Crobat, Ampharos, and Infernape (starter). These being Pokemon I have used a number of times (or just twice in Clefable's case), so these end up being the ones I tend to gravitate to in terms of what we have.

Well, Azure Horizons is alright to me. I would say it's a hack in a similar form to (Blazed) Glazed or Dark Cry, it uses new mons (up to Gen-4 in this case though), new character sprites, new story, new gym leaders, new evil team, and new region, and melds things properly. This is something I tend to think of when I think of decent ROM hacks due to it having these things. I am of course not insinuating that ROM hacks that keep the base region or story the same are bad though, it's just sometimes you want more than just going through the Kanto region again, and this delivers quite fine in that regard.

And luckily, I did use Allen's walkthrough to get through this one, but due to the fact that it was of an older version and that Hacksrepairman had a new patch and there was a new update and all that, many parts were modified. I took it upon myself to document any changes and Allen will probably get to them when he modifies the walkthrough he made, it must have been a coincidence he was getting to modifying his walkthrough around the time I played Azure Horizons. And well, it's worth noting that this is the second ROM hack I played that actually had Gen-9 mons in them (Nameless was the first, the author added Farigiraf, Archaludon, and Koraidon in the complete release). And while the old walkthrough states that stuff involving Team Tundra and Leon were left unfinished, the new update does in fact finish them, giving a new leader (Frost, doubling as champion of the region), making Leon a secret Elite Four member, making Wallace more important, and even offering a post-game battle facility (just a house). Plus new legendaries.

My gripes come from not being able to get certain mons due to bugs or things like that. Shedinja somehow didn't come to me after I used the method when evolving Nincada. Croagunk, for some inexplicable reason, evolved into Bulbasaur. And I tried breeding Manaphy to get Phione and got another Manaphy. These are small hiccups though. It can be argued that Team Tundra kinda sucks since they just want Suicune to help...only Ice type Pokemon? Sure, but for one Suicune is already the mascot of Crystal so has already seen canon prominence and two I can actually argue that there should really just be more Ice types available. Tundra grunts aren't bad though, and have surprisingly varied teams. Overall though I liked Azure Horizons for what it has.

A look back at: Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

Happy Halloween y'all. Finally, this one is finished, I spent a ton of time on FFTA to the point of never bothering with any other game otherwise despite all my work hours and all and I think in all honesty, despite the many moments of exhaustion, it paid off.

You remember when Wiegraf says stuff about a penalty for breaking the law is a fine, then it's for the working class? You can expect something like that here. Somewhat. But a little more than that. FFTA does do well with most of the mechanics of the Playstation game, but boldly goes in a direction that was sure to cause controversy, this law system. In my playthrough, I chose to go through it without ever getting a single lawbreaking card ever, and I managed to do it, but it was super tough of course. Maybe not in the beginning, most FF games walk you through things, but soon you have three laws and you need to shuffle your units with their classes and what they do and maybe have a few antilaw cards (thank god for these) in order to even damage enemies. Or just engage in the risky Jagds where no laws are not allowed. The laws do piss me off many times. How is anyone supposed to do anything if "Fight" is outlawed? Yeah, sure units have special abilities, but sometimes using Fight is a good way to go, especially if you got Double Sword for a unit. What about Dmg2 Animal, preventing any units from damaging monsters? You can see where this is going, and it means that I have to either have the right antilaw to get around it, or shuffle on the world map until the day no longer has the idiotic law.

Speaking of world map, the fact that this game breaks the fourth wall with how they talk about Final Fantasy the game series is funny, and then you can just place locations where you want after plot missions, which is an interesting way to put things. Everything is driven by missions, the dispatch ones being the most annoying due to so many factors. Does my dispatch have the right stats or job to proceed? How many days, fights, or enemies are required before they come back? What time frame do I need to figure out before the mission reappears? Does the mission reappear at all? And most importantly, why are so many mission-item-requiring missions become available WELL BEFORE the mission items themselves are available? You gotta chain these things sometimes, and it's ridiculous.

Thankfully, the game isn't trying to make me hate it that much. Waiting for something to happen isn't an excuse unless it's really egregious, and since you can accept multiple missions, that's always great. Meanwhile, the shops are nice, getting abilities was a prime thing for me to do at all times to make the best of my characters, and there's great synergy with all the races so that none really stand out above the rest. The story itself is, essentially speaking, resetting a warped story or rather a warped world, and most everything Marche does ends up getting him in trouble. Not as much as Ramza in the first game, but he has a lot of convincing to do. Do I enjoy this? I'm glad to have experienced it, and it has a ton of replay value due to its good customization and being a FF title. It will make you hate laws though.

A look back at: Digimon World 4

Not happy. At all.

Not only is this a hack-and-slash RPG, and I don't like the former style of gameplay, but it's not balanced for just a single player. You have a standard experience system, easy to understand, but you basically have to kill, kill, kill and it takes a long time to get to the next level. Good news about level gains is that they restore all HP and MP, perhaps this game's only saving grace. But for those unlucky peeps like myself who are playing single player, the big issue is just how easy it is to get swarmed in levels, especially those who keep spawning in in Zelda-like rooms that lock you in. Some may like it but in the end it will become tedious. Techs and grinding them up are quite important as much as regular grinding, and equipping the right weapons or mods on your Digimon are also important. Only one shot weapon, several blade or blunt weapons, hey I would rather just use the special abilities that Digimon would have, you know? Feels a lot better that way. This game also is basically impossible to do low-level from what I can also notice.

Only four levels, and the enemies and dungeons can prove to be annoying, especially the further you go. It seemed like before I could enter the third world I had to get a Digivolution, and having to do at least two sidequests to get two Digivolutions, one of which involves cleaning house in one particular dungeon in a TIME LIMIT with about 279 foes, isn't that great. Later dungeons are just filled with traps and lock-in rooms, and my experience with lock-ins in Zelda or Doom have taught me they don't have any fun value the more there are.

And then we get to the main thing, the enemies. Starting out in Death Valley, things aren't bad. Bosses are challenging to start, enemies are simple mooks. But hey, one feature this game has a TON of blocking, and enemies can be known to block multiple times and easily counter back. Block rates shouldn't be the high. Dry Land's got the constantly blocking Mummymons and Tyrannomons who have a very broken flame attack. Venom Jungle's Tortomon love to use a spin attack when they are invulnerable and their breath attack comes far too quickly. And then Machine Pit, dear god. Inferimon and their multiplying, and the Raremon have a poison shield and can stop your movement. Did I mention that the poison effect in this game seems to never wear off? And then there's some bosses that are just ridiculous, probably Lucemon is the most tedious, not tough, just annoying when it comes to finally being able to hit. This has nearly all the elements of things that I outright hate, and will be one of my lowest ranked games, at least considering that I had to play this in singleplayer. If we had more characters (heck, even computer-controlled allies would be fine) on your side, this game would have been a whole lot more fun.

A look back at: Pokemon Kanlara Ultimate

Yep, it seems that nowadays I finish both an RPG review and a ROM hack around the same time. And what a disappointing summer before I head back to the workplace all things considered, I didn't get nearly as much done as I was vouching to do. But I am proud to say that Kanlara Ultimate wasn't a bad hack at all. New region, new storyline, plenty of Pokemon options, good sidequests, it was overall all very enjoyable. My team included Swampert, Blaziken, Gardevoir, Aegislash (in shield form, this line has the Tyrogue evolution mechanic), and Magnezone. The last member basically was different the whole way through, with Cradily for the midgame, then Armaldo before the league, then Demon Tyranitar for the league itself, then Lucario for the postgame.

The Demon forms were interesting but I didn't really use them much. Liked the concept of elite trainers using them at least, so that's that. Yes, amplified stats, nastier moves, and all. I ended up using Demon Tyranitar and researching about the remaining demon forms, even the ones that weren't in the library. But there is a bit of misinformation, Demon type doesn't resist the other types at all. In other words, a Demon/Water Demon Gyarados is still weak to Electric and Grass. Demon itself doesn't resist anything and is weak to itself, while as an attacking type it is resisted by both Fairy and Steel and neutral to everything else. At least the type and the forms are limited to specific Gen-2 mons, so they didn't go too overboard with things.

And I guess I'll appreciate the plot of yet again Team Rocket doing bad stuff, going as far as to conquer the Pokemon League and to use mind control. And heck, that postgame creepy village stuff made for cool sidequests, I don't know if it is all finished, cause you can still build reputation with the Forsaken by buying more goodies. As far as Pokemon go, the only ones in the dex I could not get are: Unown (the only one I couldn't see), and the other two Kanto starters (for example, you pick Charmander and you can never get Bulbasaur, Squirtle, or their evolved forms). All other mons are available in some form or another.

I will go ahead and link the walkthrough I used to go through Kanlara Ultimate. It's Allen's walkthrough, not mine this time, and it is fairly good, though there are some things that are missing which I'll outline:

1. I fought Brock instead of Misty in that special Battle Boat in Sunside City. I'm guessing this is based on gender.

2. May's teams. These correspond to the Kanto starter you pick near the beginning. Allen must've picked Squirtle which explains why May would have Wailord, Camerupt, and Sceptile by the end. But I picked Charmander and found Camerupt, Breloom, and Swampert at that point.

3. Raikou. This is just in the Power Plant after beating the League and was hinted at previously. It's in the NE room.

4. Deathweed and Tomb Ashe in the Cursed Isle sidequests, when you harvest them you actually have a bit of RNG here, getting from 1-3 of whichever you find. So you can savestate abuse to always get 3 if you need.

5. There's a third quest from the bazaar guy in Cursed Isle after delivering him Tomb Ashe. He gives you an Empty Vial if you don't have one, and you can bring it to the Lost Cemetary, go to the NW water area, fill it, battle a random ghost, and give it back to finish his experiment and gain a new item.

6. The Wilds. When you win TMs from the trainers there you actually get 10 of each.

7. Mimikyu. Had to look it up, was the last thing I got. Talk to a guy in the SW building in Kaji City who asks if it's daytime/nighttime, answer nighttime, then enter Haunted Mansion, go to NW room with TV, inspect TV, then talk to capped Pikachu which is the Mimikyu encounter.

8. Not nearly as important but there are other tombstones you can enter with the Cemetary Key aside from Sinner's Tomb, all are empty rooms and are marked as Underground Tomb. Data states that Unown can be found in these but using Sweet Scent/running around finds zero encounters.