battles are super fun, and enough gets added to it through out the game so they don't get boring or irritating. some of the qol additions to this version make an already great game pretty amazing. i basically just put ingame speed at 200% and leave battle speed at normal and i have zero complaints.

a lot of people say this game is nothing like chrono cross, but i kinda disagree. cards are actually sort of similar to elements. taking several cards to land several attacks in one turn, etc. i feel like it expands on the chrono cross basis basically. and of course you have the same amazing painted backgrounds and masato kato as key writer, so similar story too, if a bit less... heavy? anyway, if you like chrono cross as a stand alone title and not as a disappointing ct sequel, then you'll likely also enjoy these, so give them a chance. the battle system takes some getting used to, but i loved it way more than expected. characters are solid, the world is really mystical and interesting, etc.

My first introduction to the Etrian series was with III and while I felt like it had a lot of amazing qualities and took old school dungeon crawlers into the present, I also found it a bit irritating and would tend to lose interest a third of the way in or so. I attribute that mostly to having done all available side quests, caves, and all I had left was some boss in the way of progression.

Well I can't say that much has changed here, but I'm really digging the story and there are enough ways to grind so it doesn't seem too sloggy. But let's face it, these games are meant to be grind fests. If you're not into that, do not apply.

The bosses and tougher enemies here don't bug me as much, if I die I simply go grind a few levels and come back. Some of them are still pretty rough no matter what your level, but hey, there's an easy mode I believe if you really want it.

These games are all gorgeous combos of 3D and 2D.

I'm about 75% of the way through it and I can't say I'm having much trouble yet as long as I grind it out every once and awhile. I'm sure the final dungeon will be some kind of hell but we shall see.

i liked this game quite a bit when it came out. not sure why now, but it was probably the collecting of town pieces and rebuilding of towns. scratches a similar itch to soul blazer, one of my all time faves.

that said, that's about the best aspect. this is very clearly an early ps2 title. battles are beyond jank, bosses are borderline nightmare battles of attrition, they kinda just said "yeah this is good enough i guess" and left them all semi-broken. how many "survival" mechanics did we really need here because they thought the base game wasn't challenging enough? thirst and weapon durability are honestly mostly just annoying. i feel like these mechanics only really work in actual survival games because you know what you're signing on for when you play those.

also every character has like one base attack and maybe a powerful attack and that's pretty much it. switching out characters for the simple reason of traversing a puddle or hammering a peg, also a tad annoying and just there to be there, much like the survival stuff. please make sure you use this meh character for two seconds then immediately switch back!! please!

i wish i could say the nature of finding new town pieces and placing them makes everything worth it, but not really. the sequel is a huge improvement and also added a camera mini-game feature which makes it a lot more fun. get that one, maybe try this out as a curiosity if you havent yet.

thought this game was an expansion or side game or mystery dungeon… or something other than an actual grandia game. but it’s basically grandia iii? (making the real grandia iii, grandia iv eh?)

boy the characters seem to just fight amongst themselves, might get tiresome after awhile.

it’s been a long time since i played ii but i loved it at the time. can’t even remember why except the battles were great and the story had a nice twist. the battles here seem solid too.

apparently you have the superman (voice) actor (dean cain) for the protag and the joker voice actor (hammill) for the antagonist. kinda weird.

Fujita, your friend you have not talked to since high school, has something important he would like to tell you! Good luck finding where he lives!

After about an hour of meandering around a very liminal town of no cars and no citizens (the ingame explanation is that there is a virus going around so people are staying indoors, but we all know the PS1 couldn’t handle having an entire town to explore and actually have life in it as well), I finally figured out how to read my map. After randomly stumbling upon a weapon shop called “Wild Arms” (???), I buy a pistol then proceed to beat the store owner unconscious with the baton I apparently already had. Poor guy.

Somehow I made my way back to the starting point at my office where I proceeded to the map store nearby. Wherein I asked for directions to my friend Fujita’s (You know, because everyone just knows where some guy named Fujita lives right). I get back into my car and make my way there, finally with purpose!

Upon arrival (bar the occasional stop-gap when my car hits a barrier and can’t move, so I have to get out and find a payphone to call my car back to me, repeat) Fujita shows me some weird machine, of which I already forget the purpose of, then he takes me to his garage... where he has some C4. Now we are going to blow up the power plant, because “things are changing” (oh god, this is starting to sound like I joined some rightwing terrorist plot). Me, being a silent protagonist with no boundaries, decide to go along with said plan without any dispute whatsoever.

We take the bus to the power plant and the guard bars the entrance. There’s some random cop there too and I kill him with my pistol, because why not. The guard doesn’t even notice the dead cop next to him. Fujita says we can enter through the back way. So we do. Once entering the back of the power plant I proceed to get reckt by a doberman guarding the place (but no humans anywhere). I eventually kill him with my pistol and read his dogtag “Ohm, loves going for walks around town.” Poor guy.

4 stars

I think this is a good example in "didn't age well." And I'm not talking about the graphics.

Why is it the lack of shop and item interface/descriptions is the main thing that's actually killing my enjoyment, when the dungeons themself are incredibly tedious with high encounter rates.

I'm even playing the Sega Ages PS2 remake and really don't think they changed much besides the graphics, but I could be wrong.

Even if a lot of the morals are pretty obvious within these several fables (basically don’t lie) there’s still something about how it’s all presented. I never knew anything about Miyazawa until having played this, but it’s pretty clear that his style has had a huge impact on Japanese culture. I particularly think of Studio Ghibli but that’s probably just the most famous example.

The stories are mostly pretty simple but they still might make you ponder for other reasons. For example, the story where the rabbit lies about his accomplishments, as maybe we shouldn’t expect some other insecure brute might kill us over it? I mean lying is bad, but shouldn’t we also consider why people will kill over some things that are so frivolous? The story ends up being a bit deeper than I think it intends for that reason. I guess you can never know other peoples’ limits.

Also elephants trample the house of a rich man but the servants are just collateral? It never even mentions them. Also likely unintentional.

Overall I highly recommend it but it certainly isn’t perfect and not even so much a game as something to be experienced. I stop to think if this would have been better represented as a movie or TV show, but no I think the interactivity of the medium of video games feels more intentional. There’s something about exploring an entire town and talking to everyone that immerses you more than simply riding third person behind someone else experiencing these stories. I might say this a lot about art, but it really is something that can be hard to explain.

This is basically an anime.

It has all the tropes of being un-releasable outside of Japan, from a strange and obtuse story to some very direct biblical references.

Essentially, think Noah collecting animals ala Pokemon but it's in the future and somewhat more sandbox-y. Luckily it also has a sense of humor, from the titular Linda deriding you for only being at LVL 1 and not to even speak to her until LVL 3. Yeah it's gonna be one of those.

Another interesting aspect to this game is that there are various story scenarios that you can play through while the essential gameplay loop remains the same. You spend 8 years, or 32 seasons, running around fighting animals and collecting them, trying to get a male and female from 40 species, then random story beats come in here and there.

Actually would love a sequel or remake with better/modern graphics of this one... only thing I can somewhat compare it to is the Metal Max games, but mostly in the open-world RPG department and not much else.

It's a solid adventure game with some pros and cons.

The graphics are maybe slightly above average for the PS1. Full voice acting, action packed. 5 characters, all with pretty specific strengths and weaknesses.

The problem with the "action" part is that this is controlled like a point and click but plays more like an action game at times. I do wish it just had regular movement, but considering the time it was made, it probably would have been tank controls instead lol. Anyway, the problem with pointing where your character should go is that they rarely ever go exactly where you want them, especially with the camera constantly switching up to throw you off even more, so it's a constant annoyance to get your character in the exact spot you want them.

The story isn't particularly amazing, even a bit flat. The characters serve their purpose but aren't that interesting. There is a sense of urgency clear through out the game so it rarely feels like there's a time to relax and do a bunch of character exploration like other games might.

The puzzles are mostly straight forward but can get a bit tedious. The most tedious being having to acquire info from one character and communicate it to another character. They're not just absorbing all the info around them like you are, so it makes sense but it can be pretty tedious to figure out which character needs to do what and what other character needs that info so it's a whole lot of guess and check like many many adventure games.

Fully orchestrated soundtrack gives a cinematic feel which you really don't see often in a PS1 game (or many games tbh).

Overall, it's a solid adventure game with some problems that you may or may not enjoy yourself. I wouldn't whole heartedly recommend it, but it might be your thing.

WELTORV ESTLEIA

that is all

Okay. Now that I played it a bit, how many PS1 games let you set your height and weight... and I have never seen a game let you choose whether you are left or right handed. Lots of customization.

So I make my guy as tall as possible and as fat as possible. After a brief introduction the game seems to be mostly open, so apparently we have a sandbox JRPG here or moreso than just about any other JRPG on the system I think.

I guess I'll mention that I have played so many JRPGs in my life that I've reached a point where my lack of knowledge in actual Japanese doesn't even matter that much and I can usually find my bearings pretty easily as these "rich fantasy worlds" can get rather predictable at times.

Anyway, I talk to some guy in a bar and buy something for 15000 when I only have 100 and he promptly takes me to jail. Never even gave me the "Sorry you are broke!" dialogue box. Damn.

After waiting awhile I get to leave and I immediately travel south until I've made it past 4 or 5 load screens. I was hoping to find the world map and fight some monsters at this point but instead I run into a very small old man who is lying on the ground (Actually he's probably not that small, I'm just very tall). I take him back to my home and he is my new pet.

to be cont'd

p.s. WELTORV ESTLEIA