Somehow better and worse than The 7th Saga at the same time. The worlds you go to each have a fun quirk you have to solve, like one overrun by weird machines where one half has no color and the other no sound, or a desert where cat pirates fight each other on ships stranded in sand. I struggle to remember any place I ever went to in 7th, meanwhile.
But in this game the hero and your characters are just there, and it’s hard to figure out why until the very end when the game sort of tells you. 7th Saga was interesting because each character had different strengths and alignments, and you also interacted with whoever you didn’t pick on your journey. It’s hard not to know in that game you’re collecting the magical objects because so is everyone else, and they’ll fight you for them too! Alas, there is little to no background for any of the characters who join you here. You just have action figures of a ninja, wizard, monk, healer, etc, that you can make come alive any time you want and put away when you’re done.
They both have one thing in common, though: both games are way too fuckin hard and not worth playing without either some kind of patch or codes.
I’m also taking a half star off because I’m actually talking about the game in my review. Usually I can come up with a silly little non-sequitur that only tangentially has to do with the game but is really just a vehicle to self-aggrandize me and my huge brain dick. And usually I can’t stand it when people just talk about the game. “Impressive graphics but I have to knock it a little bit for the awkward controls.” Like no shit, man, we all know it has good graphics and bad play control because we all played it, that’s why we’re on here! Why don’t you say something like funny or interesting about it instead. Or even worse, just a link to some wheezy asshole’s YouTube channel. Yeah my guy, I’m on letterboxd for games to procrastinate for a minute before I have to make my rent payment, but I’m definitely going to give you a click and put up with your nasal upper-register weird as hell Norgwegian-if-I-had-to-guess accent while you talk about how Dragon Quest V is overrated for an hour and a half. But anyway, you can see I’ve thought a lot about this and in most other cases I’m careful to avoid this pitfall but no, not this time, just straight up game commentary for Mystic Ark out of me. I have to consider the real possibility that it’s the game’s fault for this and not mine this time, so half star off.
But in this game the hero and your characters are just there, and it’s hard to figure out why until the very end when the game sort of tells you. 7th Saga was interesting because each character had different strengths and alignments, and you also interacted with whoever you didn’t pick on your journey. It’s hard not to know in that game you’re collecting the magical objects because so is everyone else, and they’ll fight you for them too! Alas, there is little to no background for any of the characters who join you here. You just have action figures of a ninja, wizard, monk, healer, etc, that you can make come alive any time you want and put away when you’re done.
They both have one thing in common, though: both games are way too fuckin hard and not worth playing without either some kind of patch or codes.
I’m also taking a half star off because I’m actually talking about the game in my review. Usually I can come up with a silly little non-sequitur that only tangentially has to do with the game but is really just a vehicle to self-aggrandize me and my huge brain dick. And usually I can’t stand it when people just talk about the game. “Impressive graphics but I have to knock it a little bit for the awkward controls.” Like no shit, man, we all know it has good graphics and bad play control because we all played it, that’s why we’re on here! Why don’t you say something like funny or interesting about it instead. Or even worse, just a link to some wheezy asshole’s YouTube channel. Yeah my guy, I’m on letterboxd for games to procrastinate for a minute before I have to make my rent payment, but I’m definitely going to give you a click and put up with your nasal upper-register weird as hell Norgwegian-if-I-had-to-guess accent while you talk about how Dragon Quest V is overrated for an hour and a half. But anyway, you can see I’ve thought a lot about this and in most other cases I’m careful to avoid this pitfall but no, not this time, just straight up game commentary for Mystic Ark out of me. I have to consider the real possibility that it’s the game’s fault for this and not mine this time, so half star off.