Status lilyWhite Sep 18, 2015
I keep picking up and dropping this game, and overall...I can't really say I'm into it. And there's six particular things that annoy me about the game:
1. The art style. I don't particularly like the sprite style. There's also this Greek-esque border around the screen at all times, which you can't turn off. (You can actually toggle an always-on …
I keep picking up and dropping this game, and overall...I can't really say I'm into it. And there's six particular things that annoy me about the game:
1. The art style. I don't particularly like the sprite style. There's also this Greek-esque border around the screen at all times, which you can't turn off. (You can actually toggle an always-on view of your characters' HP/MP/level stats, but that takes up most of the right side of the screen.)
2. A lot of the stuff you need to do to trigger plot flags is entirely random. A recent instance of this was this old beggar, who was actually the King of Athens in disguise in the slaves' part of the city. But before I could progress the plot involving him, I had to climb a nearby tower, jump off the tower, get arrested for jumping off the tower, be reunited with second party member Reion, and then he'd tell me about being the King of Athens. None of that stuff was even hinted at that I should do, or even relevant to the King's request. And then after that, going to the theatre in Athens turned out to be necessary for meeting and joining with Heracles, which again I could have entirely missed and wasn't given any real indication that I should do that. (I'm not sure if the game's constant use of "jump from a great height and survive because you're immortal" to further the plot is amusing or dumb.)
3. To learn spells, you have to bathe in the pools at temples. Each temple can give you multiple spells, but it depends on the character, their level, and their stats. So the implication is that you have to check back at temples constantly to learn if you can learn new spells. Heck, at the point I'm at, both the hero and Reion have only the basic healing spell (Heracles doesn't get magic, apparently)—and I can't get back to that first temple at this point in the game anyway!
4. The game has a "Trust" mechanic. Basically, the higher your Trust, the more likely your allies will follow your commands in battle. And yes, it is extremely annoying to have allies randomly not punch bad guys in the face like you would want them to. Yes, Reion, you're fighting a monster that does barely any damage to you and you still have 30 HP—of course you should heal yourself instead of, I don't know, killing the monster like you could easily do? And on top of that, if you choose to steal stuff from people's houses, you lose Trust!
5. Monsters' stats seem to be really inconsistent. I know Dragon Quest does have monsters' HP vary, but here, you can fight one monster that does 1 damage a hit to you and then in another encounter have that same monster type do 10 damage to you.
6. Battles in this game are incredibly freaking slow. Every time someone attacks, there's about four lines of text that the game has to go through. "[person] attacks!" "Targeted [target]!" "[quote from party member]" "[X] damage!" Enemies also have attack animations, to make this take longer. Most enemies I've encountered don't die in one hit either, so killing them takes multiple actions. And enemy groups can be quite numerous, even in parts of the game where the hero is solo. Heck, you can run into monsters that summon more monsters faster than you can kill them when you're on your own!
I do want to try out the other games in the series (the first, fourth, and the DS game). Apparently this one is the most well-known in the series, but it's just been really tedious in my opinion.