Random assortment of stuff incoming.
So I played Rock Band for the first time in about a week. The only thing I've played solo is the drums, and I had finished the medium tour, and played a few of the Hard songs. I decided to give the hard tour another go. By golly, Wave of Mutilation savaged me. 38% on the first attempt, and then somehow only 18% on my second. What is really getting me with the hard notepaths is having my foot and hands out of synch, I just can't do both in alternating beats at speed; if I start trying they are usually back in tandem after a few beats due to habit. Most of the songs in that second set I failed once or twice before just scraping through. While it means I finished the song and can move on, I don't feel good about it. I got 95%+ for a lot of songs in the Medium tour, but consistently failing to nail the same pattern, even if it means only missing a few notes, didn't feel right there either. Even if I can't nail it consistently, I'd like to be able to do those sections at least once before I move on. Anyone got any tips? Strangely later in the evening I learned I had developed blisters on one finger. That never happened when I played the whole Medium tour. I guess it was because I was trying so frantically due to feeling under pressure. I also can't seem to get to a place where my drum kit doesn't move as a result of my use of the kick pedal while remaining comfortable; I think I'm going to need to keep some bricks handy to shove behind it when I play.
LittleBigPlanet is a great deal of fun, but it has some annoyances. The physics make for some fun antics, but on occasion they can be frustrating, such as trying to perform jumps from rotating spindles with precision, or hitting a ledge and then skipping off of it because it moved a fraction. I've barely tried online multiplayer (only because I selected the menu option to see what it would do) and it loaded up a random level. Lag plus physics = completely unplayable. It was atrocious. I haven't tried it again since, I'm really hoping it was a one off. I have tried some user levels and the popular ones do seem to be fairly well constructed. I don't know if I can be bothered to make my own levels; thus far my attempt at a level has been to float 300 golf balls in the air, start the level and have my sack person crushed to death. I thought about HR Gigers Aliens. It's been done, though the level I played was frustrating enough that I didn't finish it. And the tools in the game should be able to create some pretty articulate chomping actions or face huggers that scuttle about (which were relatively simple in the level I played). I checked several trademarked properties and they were all there, so maybe Sony isn't blitzing this as much as is being reported.
I finished reading Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins. While it seems he fell from grace (thanks to Foolz3h pointing this out to me some time back!), the book still has plenty of impact. Oddly enough it is a motivational book... that took me about a year to read. It was a refresher though (I find it good to read the book every few years) so it isn't as bad as it sounds. But the same day, I started reading a fantasy novel. Other people here have been talking about books lately, so I decided it was time to rekindle the old flame properly. I used to read lots, mainly fantasy, but for quite a number of years my reading has been little. To ease back in I've gone with something light, The Redemption of Althalus by David and Leigh Eddings, instead of any multi-book epics. I think I might broaden my horizons and step outside my fantasy comfort zone. My father has plenty of miltary or political thrillers and adventure books, so I might borrow some of those, and my knowledge of history is pretty lacking so I might do some non-fiction as well. In any case I've made the first step and opened up a book. It should be plain sailing from here. Thanks to those who have blogged about books and got me to read again. I might have done it without you anyway, but maybe not. So thanks.
One quote I did pull from Awaken the Giant Within is something I want to make part of my active life.
"You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you" - John Wooden
I'm not sure exactly what I am going to do, and maybe I won't have a 'perfect' day every day, but if I see the opportunity to live by this maxim, I will. Maybe it will be helping an elderly person with their shopping back to their car, or buying someone lunch when they realise they forgot their wallet. I'd only ask that they do something for someone else when the opportunity arises. I believe in karma, and the best way to receive care and love is to give it first. Yeah, that all sounds wishy washy. I almost feel guilty that I haven't lived up to this standard that has been in the back of my mind for so long.
Anyway, back to games. I have reviewed Enchanted Arms. I will come straight out and say that I haven't finished it yet. I'm pretty sure I'm close to the end, but I find it extremely unlikely that anything will change in the next several hours of gameplay. If the story, character development and voice acting suddenly becomes awesome, it doesn't make up for 35 hours of tripe. Likewise nothing is going to change in the combat that will impact the review text or score. It is a fairly long one, but here goes.
With many of todays RPG's focussing on player choice and how their own personal story plays out, Enchanted Arms feels like a throwback to past generations with a typical Japanese RPG setup; a linear story and random encounters. Linear stories in RPG's are fine if they are compelling, but unfortunately in Enchanted Arms it isn't. However, you may find the combat interesting enough to put up with the generic story.
A thousand years prior to the games opening scenes, a Golem War raged. Humans programmed golems to perform tasks for them, but one day things went awry. After the ensuing war, the golems suddenly stopped working. Devil Golems, the most powerful, were separated from their Magicores (the source of their power) and were secured away after the war. In the present day, people have forgotten about the war and are using golems again. Without giving too much away, it also turns out that there is another way for a Devil Golem to return to its former glory, and the story begins there.
The main character of the game is Atsuma, and the game begins with him dreaming in ****at Enchant University. After you receive some tutorials from the teacher and one of your friends, you can start to explore the university and chat to fellow students. While you can talk to people, there is usually no benefit from doing so. When speaking to people you will sometimes be offered multiple lines to choose from, but it has no impact on the game or story. You can just talk to them multiple times to get their other responses and before long you will probably ignore everyone who isn't necessary to the story. Atsuma is unique at Enchant University. While others are there to learn the art of enchanting, his arm has the power to destroy those enchants instead. This begs the question; why is he studying at the university at all? There are a number of times in the story where you will be scratching your head wondering how seemingly implausible events, relationships or motivations came to be.
The way the story is told really fails to deliver. There are some occasional pre-rendered cutscenes, and some of those are impressive, particularly those which show off the destructive power of the Devil Golems. However most of the story is told by having characters overlaid on either side of the screen as they talk to each other and while they are rendered in 3D and in motion, there are only about half a dozen predetermined poses for each character. This limits how much emotional impact each line has, but not as much as the woeful acting. Though it is hard to blame the actors for getting into it when the dialogue is terrible. Characters often act or react in ridiculous ways, and their behaviour at times is simply unbelievable. One example that crops up several times in the story is that i'ts blatantly obvious one character is quite reluctant to go to the next destination, but then pretends that everything is ok and the other characters believe them instead of probing for more information. Other times they are unappropriately joking about serious matters. Everything is just so inconsistent that you will find it hard to care about the story or characters. Early on you will earn an achievement named 'Tragedy', and it certainly could have been moving had it been treated with respect but all it did for me was add 25 points to my Gamerscore.
While the story fails to deliver, the combat succeeds. Since there is no character development or ways to impact the story, all of your stats and skills relate to combat. There are some main characters in the story, and the rest of your party will be made from golems that you collect. These can be purchased and synthesized, or you can find their avatars in environments and challenge them to earn their core (who are stronger than their random encounter counterparts). While you can have eight golems accompanying your party, only 4 characters and/or golems can be taken into combat. Combat takes place on a grid cut across the middle, so each party has a space of 4 across and 3 deep to play with; you can not enter the opponents grid and vice versa. Your party begins randomly placed on the grid, and you take the first turn. You can select any of your characters, move them up to two spaces (using the 4 basic directions, no diagonals), then select a skill to use. Usually this will be some form of attack, but some characters have healing, defense and boosting abilities. All of these have a predefined effect area. For example, Atsuma's 'Blow' attack hits two squares in front of him. Later he unlocks Flare Blow, which can only attack one square in front but does significantly more damage. Karin's (a character you will meet a few hours into the game) Mist attack affects a square three steps forward from where she is standing, plus the 2 squares either side. You repeat this with all of your characters, then if any opponents are still standing, they all take their turn at once.
There are no random numbers and attacks never miss. There is also no defense statistic; whatever an attacks power rating is, is exactly how many hit points it will take off the enemy, barring elemental differences or defense spells. Enemy hit points and effects they are under is displayed whenever you highlight them, as well as allowing you to look at their attacks' power and range. Thus combat comes down to you choosing wisely where you want to position your party, and which attacks will net you the most benefit. Attacks that affect more area are usually capable of doing more overall damage, but focused attacks might defeat an enemy, stopping it from counterattacking. Unlike most JRPG's, hit points are restored at the end of combat. To balance this out, most enemies are capable of dishing out enough damage to kill members of your party in short order. In fact you should expect members of your party to fall with reasonable regularity. So long as at least one member of your party survives, everyone will be revived and restored. Attacks are either direct or ranged, which brings us to the cover system. While ranged attacks will deal damage to anything within the attack range, direct attacks will only deal full damage to the first enemy in a column. If there is a second enemy standing behind the first, they will take half damage, and if a third happens to be in the same row, they will take no damage even if the attack travels that far. This is another factor you will have to take into account when preparing your attacks, and also when you want to protect certain members of your own team.
While hit points get restored between combat, Vitality Points do not. These somewhat replace the traditional role of hit points in JRPG's. Each turn of combat, they lose VP. There are some other factors that reduce VP as well, such as being knocked out, or running from combat. If a member of your party begins combat with no VP, they start with 1 Hit Point and 1 Energy Point (more on those shortly). This gives you incentive to swap out those characters and use different ones. It also gives you incentive to focus on good tactics and end battles as quickly as possible. Scattered around the lands are restore points that revitalise everyones VP, but you will often live in fear of running out of VP and always keep moving towards your goal. Hint : Save your game at these points.
At the end of each combat, everyone in your party earns experience points, including those who were not in combat. While there are over 100 golems to collect, you can only have 8 with your party; the rest that remain in storage (and can only be swapped in when at a shop) do not get the experience. Leveling up increases all of your stats (Hit Points, Energy Points, Direct, Range, Support, Agility). Those who were in combat also earn Skill Points (but not the rest of the party). While general leveling increases every stat, SP can be used to focus on a particular attribute. For example, the vast majority of Atsuma's attacks are direct, so you are likely to spend most of your points there, whereas Karin is your main healer and you will want to boost her support. However each time you increase a stat, it costs incrementally more to do so again. Golems have set skills, and all of their SP can go towards their stats. The main characters can learn many more skills, but they must spend SP to unlock them. While those skills get more powerful, their EP usage also goes up considerably. For example, an upgraded attack that does 50% more damage than the previous version might cost 3 times as much EP. Furthermore, each character can only have 5 main skills attached at a time. This doesn't matter in the early game when each character only has 2 or 3 options, but if you only equip the strongest EP hungry attacks, you might find yourself unable to attack for a turn while some of your EP is restored. This doesn't come into play much during normal combat, but becomes much more critical for boss fights.
There are some other complications in combat. Each character and golem has an elemental alignment. There are six different elements, 3 sets of matching pairs. If an attack is imbued by an opposing element, the recipient takes double damage. Any attack imbued with their alignment takes half that damage. While everyone has an elemental alignment, some or even all of their attacks are not aligned to an element. This offers a risk versus reward, for example while Atsuma's fire aligned attacks are effective at taking out water aligned enemies, they are usually capable of dealing him double damage as well. Some attacks have other attributes. Some attacks make you unable to move, some poison you (dealing damage to you each turn), others knock you back. Your characters can learn support skills to prevent these from affecting you. Other complications that creep into combat are healers and resurrecters, enemies that counterattack during your turn, those that explode, and those that will drain your EP. Their introduction is well paced, so combat doesn't get boring. One of the most annoying things is that your Agility rating impacts whether the group will be caught off guard. Taking your turn first and pummeling your enemies before they can make a move feel goods; having it reciprocated is not. It isn't until late in the game that it becomes neccessary to increase this statistic, but it affects nothing else in combat and feels like a waste of points.
Overall, the combat feels great. While the path is linear, there are so many ways to approach the combat, to spend your skills points, and to compose your party. One small complaint is that regular battles feel over a little quickly, with many ending in one or two turns. This often makes your support characters feel a little useless, but you will need to level them up for boss fights. Most regular fights have between two and four enemies, but occassionally you will come across some that have six, and will have to think about your opening turn carefully to make sure you don't get pummelled. If you ever lose in combat, you are free to retry from the beginning. This is a nice feature, but it doesn't allow you to swap out any characters or skills; if you think your party is overwhelmed and you can't win the combat no matter what your tactics, you will have to reload your last save. Your starting positions on the grid are random, and a retry can put you in more favourable position to get an early upper hand. Another nice feature is the auto-attack feature. In any turn you can have the computer manage it for you with two button presses. The computer generally does a good job, but there were a few times when support spells were used, but the battle would have been over a turn earlier if it had gone all out offense. You can't complain though, as the feature is optional and good for those battles that you know you can win without a sweat. The graphics here are great during combat, but you will hold down the fast forward button after you have seen an attack for the first few times. It might sound strange, but the rumble feature feels great and supplements the sound nicely as it vibrates with each strike.
There are plenty of different environments to walk around, and these are generally pleasing to the eye, though some indoor areas have the same wall textures and seem quite symmetrical, making them bland and uninteresting. Enchanted Arms has a laundry list of minor annoyances or obvious features that are missing. Granted, none of these are huge, but you will notice them frequently. Getting onto ladders seems to require pinpoint precision at times, and there are plenty of invisible barriers in areas where it looks like you can walk. When you get into water, the screen blacks out and reloads a few seconds later, when we expect that to be seamless these days. Furthermore you can still have random encounters when swimming, but the combat takes place on land, which feels sloppy. You can synthesize weapons for characters in the shop, but it doesn't offer you an equip option; you will have to leave the shop and load up another menu before you can equip it. Probably the most greivous annoyance is when you have a main character in your main combat party, they are removed from your party due to story elements, and then you are thrust into combat without the option of changing your line up. You either have to complete the fight with only three characters, or revert to your last save and swap him or her from the party before the story element triggers.
A persons potential enjoyment of Enchanted Arms is likely to come down to the combat. My only desire to complete the story was driven by my compulsion to find new and more powerful enemies to fight. I can't help but feel that Enchanted Arms would have been an entirely better game had it thrown away the story altogether, played to its strength and been about a Golem Tournament without the need to traverse around waiting for those battles to happen and mashing the A button during cutscenes. If story and character development are your main draws to RPG's, then stay away from Enchanted Arms. If you can put up with the story, then you will find a solid tactical combat system that is likely to keep you entertained.
Score 7.0
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