(no subject)
Some days ago a guy tried to chat me up while I was walking to the train station. It was uncomfortable and surreal.
A summary roused my interest in Prince of Tennis. After visiting TV Tropes and reading some chapters, however, the main character(s) put me off the series. The main character is like the unholy love child between God Mode Sue and Boring Invincible Hero. Worse, he knows he's good and doesn't hesitate to rub it in. When the God Mode Sue is someone else other than the protagonist, it isn't so bad, but this is a sports series. How exactly is it interesting and exciting when I know beforehand how every match will go?
I mean, I do like some sports series. Hikaru no Go is one of my favourite manga, and I've read several chapters of Crimson Hero, which also wasn't half bad. Or rather, the volleyball parts were rather good. The romance parts left me cringing. Hey, look! Heroine has a crush on guy A, who is a nice and decent guy. All good so far. Guy B, who is also a nice and decent guy, has a crush on heroine. Sure thing. Heroine turns guy B down. Sure, her choice. To make clear we are supposed to be rooting for guy A, guy B suddenly turns vaguely stalkerish and possessive. Not cool.
Also, I finished Infinite Undiscovery. Personally, I had fun with this game, but I cannot really recommend it. It does a few things well, and a lot of things really wrong. I enjoy the battle system and the item creation (helped along significantly with the vouchers. Now, if only I could buy all woods as well...). I like some characters. Some of them. But if you aren't Capell or Edward, you don't get character development. But more on that later.
The story isn't very well worked out, but The Last Remnant had that too, and I loved that game. There are no teleportation points to earlier parts, which is annoying, but understandable. Character models are so-so. Only Capell's voice actor is good, Edward's improved significantly after Kolton, where he stopped sounding so angry all the time. His voice actor also did Blocter in TLR (Capell's did David), and the rough voice fit that character, simply because Blocter is a big heap of yama. For Edward it sounded too over the top. But then again, Edward's whole character improved after Kolton, so.
Backgrounds are rather lovely. Pretty much every item in the game can be crafted, and the game will helpfully tell you what components you need. The downloadable vouchers are maybe a bit gamebreaking, but whatever. I like to do that anyway. An hour after Edward joined my party I had him and Capell decked out in the most powerful armour he could craft at that time, and Capell had a Holy Sword and Edward the Braveheart (as soon as I hit Burguss I made him a Dullahan, which only got replaced when I could do the smithing upgrade).
Battles are fought in real time. You can only control Capell and when he dies it's a game over. Well, your party members have a time limit during which they can raise him. After that passes, it's a game over. You can connect with a party member, both on the field and in cities, to command them to use certain battle skills or personal abilities. For example, party members Vic and Komachi have the ability to open locked treasure chests. You connect with one of them and then they, instead of Capell, will open the chest. Vic can get you a 10 percent discount at shops. Michelle will get you more dialogue out of guys, and Touma will make girls more talkative. Sigmund will show you the weaknesses of enemies. Rico can talk to animals. Gustav and Balbagan can crack rocks.
One of the more annoying things about the battle system, though, is that you can't have several characters in your party. Some dungeons require up to three parties to complete. You are only in control of Capell's group, but you will interact at several times with the others. These are secondary parties. And you get some secondary party members, who can never be put in your main party. These characters are Dominica, Kiriya, Savio, Kristofer and Seraphina. Characters who can be in your party are Aya, Rico, Rucha, Sigmund, Edward, Eugene, Balbagan, Touma, Komachi, Gustav (who takes up two slots), Vic and Michelle.
It's also another point where you can see that the game was really screwed by the deadline and the budget. For example, Kiriya's character model uses a scythe on a chain, but he equips daggers, same as Vic. Dominica looks like she uses some sort of spear/trident hybrid, but equips Edward's greatswords. And yes, you can not use them but can still equip them, and it will suck away your money.
And a plot and gameplay element that is both really cool and really, really annoying: lunar rain. After a certain story point there is a chance on pretty much all outdoor locations that lunar rain will be falling. When most of your main party members are exposed to this rain, things happen. First, they get a boost to all stats. Nice! Then they get a bigger boost and their HP and MP starts regenerating. Even better! After that, they will no longer sheathe their weapons, take orders or connect with you. Somewhat irritating, but okay. Then they turn black and aggressive (vermify) and attack anything in their immediate vicinity, which is typically the rest of your party. Not so cool. And after that they turn invisible and still attack you. And it takes ten minutes, max, to reach that stage. ...Yeah. Now, you could kill them when that happens! Capell has a special song that, among others, makes them visible for a moment so the rest of the party can attack them, and a special connect skill that makes sure Capell can hit them too (plot reasons say he cannot).
Problem with this? For every time you let a character vermify, Capell gets a cutoff of -70 points on their affection meter for him. Once is not so bad, but after it happens three times the affected party member will hate Capell and refuse to heal him. It will also hate the party members that helped killing him/her and not heal them either. And you really, really do not want your healers hating you.
The general solutions are to either a) run like hell through the rain, b) create the song Mare Lunaris, which reverses the effect (but only up to a certain point: I think that after they turn black it no longer works), or c) create a party of Capell, Touma and Gustav, who are immune. Problem with this party is that Gustav is a bear and cannot use items to heal you so you'll have to rely on Touma for healing. And Touma dies rather quickly. Here's the point at which I go, ugghhhh, why can't I use secondary party members?! Because Savio and Seraphina are immune too. Of course then you'd have a party of Capell, a fragile speedster and two squishy wizards, but that's better than a party of Capell, a fragile speedster and a bear. Even if you can ride on the bear's back. Also, I bet Kiriya's vermiform quotes would be amazing.
Uh. So. Characters!
Well. Like I said, if you're not Capell or Edward you don't get character development.
Capell is the protagonist and gets a lot of hate from players for being a shy, sweet flute player who doesn't like fighting very much and considers one of his best talents to be running away. Too bad he looks exactly like Sigmund who is An Hero and so Capell gets swept up in his quest to, uh, liberate the moon. Because it is chained to the earth.
See, every time something in IU doesn't make sense? Just remember that THE MOON IS CHAINED TO THE EARTH. What is this logic you are speaking of?
But, anyway. Capell isn't very happy at having to fight and stuff, but then he has to take over Sigmund's role. And then he fights a lot with Edward. And then they are friends. And then something happens and it all turns personal and Capell gets very angry and bitter, which is actually the only part of the story line that is well thought out. Everything changes, from Capell's battle quotes to his voice to the titles he gives to everyone. Things like Best Friend and Cute Kid and Nobleman go to things like Useless, Despised, Pawn or Weapon.
And then he gets laid and is all better.
Aya is one of Capell's love interests and, uh. Well, the booklet descripes her as strong-willed and responsible and I'm willing to grant her the strong-willed. Responsible, not so much. Anyway, she's a princess who doesn't like her duties and bitches about her parents not giving her enough love. She's sort of spoiled and only starts showing an interest in Capell when another girl, Faina, does as well. Sometimes she's pretty supportive of Capell and stands up for him, other times she belittles him and is generally a bitch. Can you tell yet that I'm not very happy about their relationship? Also, she's an archer with a lot of fire-elemental techniques and two healing spells. Don't depend on her for healing, is what I'm saying. Thinks it is not fair of Capell to keep secrets from her, but the other way around is fair game since she puts out.
Rico and Rucha are the mandatory little kids you take along. Their mother asks you to let them join your battle because she feels they are old enough to make their own decisions. Both the player and Capell say, what the fuck? Anyway! Rico is a beastmaster and black mage, Rucha is a summoner and white mage. They're generally pretty cheerful and are some of the few characters who get along with Edward prior to Kolton. There's not much more to them.
Sigmund is, well, An Hero really says it best. He's serious and responsible and puts the greater good before helping individual people. Michelle considers him her boyfriend and he stands there passively and lets her hug him, but apparently didn't miss her when Eugene had to 'quietly leave her behind'. Affection points confirm this, as the only people who get above a neutral score of 125 are Eugene and Touma, who are his childhood friends. He's a swordsman and gives stat boosts to the other party members when he's in the active party.
Eugene is Sigmund's adviser and childhood friend. He, uh, likes bathing and fishing, and is not very fond of Michelle although no one knows why and in later cutscenes they chat just fine. He's an earth mage and the most attentive and durable healer you will get.
Edward is Sigmund's right hand man and fanboy. Has a tendency to get pissy when people do not realise their quest is serious business. Is bitchy, jealous and has enormous insecurity issues. Also drives himself too hard and believes he needs to be perfect. Goes along with Capell after Vesplume Tower simply to fulfill Sigmund's wishes but undermines his authority at every moment possible, until Kolton happens and Capell fulfills the necessary condition to flip his loyalty switch, after which they become best friends. Whut. Great swordfighter and has a tendency to OHKO things but also tends to get himself killed since his AI believes charging in headlong is the best course of action for everything ever. Is, apparently, great with kids and read stories to the twins and made them toys. Often got put on babysitting duty by Eugene. Hates peppers and is, after Kolton, the best in the party at managing Capell's moods whenever Aya is not putting out.
Michelle is the healer with boobs and jiggle physics. At least the story thinks she's a healer. She's more of a black mage with several healing spells and her AI tends to favour single target heals even when the whole party is in dire need of some HP. Tends to actually not heal at all until you send out a request. Is some sort of motherly figure and miss fanservice at the same time. Her vermiform quotes are interesting, to say the least, and it really is a pity that they did not do more with that aspect of her personality because she has little of that beyond her tits.
Balbagan is the meathead berserker who tends to blow through his MP in record time and gets along great with kids because he's a big kid at heart himself. No, IU really is not breaking any new grounds here with characterisation. He's also a widow but you'd be excused not knowing that since there's hardly any mention of it anyway.
Gustav is Aya's pet bear and hates Capell.
Dominica is a mercenary and good friend of Aya's. Tall amazon who fights with Edward a lot when Ed was still being a bitch. Generally pretty cool up until the point she started trying to convince the transboy he should be okay with being female. Though to IU's credit, she's the only one. The rest of the party has either not noticed or doesn't care.
Vic is aforementioned transboy. Fragile speedster, preteen, is actually impersonating a dead brother. Capell either knows or suspects that Vic's actually a girl, but still calls Vic 'he'. Dominica started dropping anvil-sized clues she knew. Vic wasn't very happy about that. He has an annoying tendency to overuse the word 'buddy'. Apparently has a really, really amusing crush on Edward, during which I also found out that Eugene wears perfume.
Savio has green hair and is a mage. Uh... he can see the future? Is generally calm and collected. Also a teacher.
Kiriya: hates EVERYTHING. One of Savio's former apprentices. Scholar who knows a lot about medicine. Likes being an ass. For some reason he works together with Edward after the ending. I don't know who thought that was a good idea, unless that person was trying to get them to kill each other.
Touma is a small samurai. Sort of naive and gentlemanly. Might be in love with Komachi, no one knows for sure.
Komachi is Touma's ninja servant and is not subtle about her crush on him. Has an annoying voice. Lives to shadow and serve Touma.
Kristofer is a faily playboy. Introduced himself with 'I am really very interesting!' to the ten-year-old. Actually pretty serious about Seraphina.
Seraphina is a robot. Well, not really. But she talks like one. 'I am conversing with others. You should be silent'.
...I always feel like I have to apologise for enjoying this game.
A summary roused my interest in Prince of Tennis. After visiting TV Tropes and reading some chapters, however, the main character(s) put me off the series. The main character is like the unholy love child between God Mode Sue and Boring Invincible Hero. Worse, he knows he's good and doesn't hesitate to rub it in. When the God Mode Sue is someone else other than the protagonist, it isn't so bad, but this is a sports series. How exactly is it interesting and exciting when I know beforehand how every match will go?
I mean, I do like some sports series. Hikaru no Go is one of my favourite manga, and I've read several chapters of Crimson Hero, which also wasn't half bad. Or rather, the volleyball parts were rather good. The romance parts left me cringing. Hey, look! Heroine has a crush on guy A, who is a nice and decent guy. All good so far. Guy B, who is also a nice and decent guy, has a crush on heroine. Sure thing. Heroine turns guy B down. Sure, her choice. To make clear we are supposed to be rooting for guy A, guy B suddenly turns vaguely stalkerish and possessive. Not cool.
Also, I finished Infinite Undiscovery. Personally, I had fun with this game, but I cannot really recommend it. It does a few things well, and a lot of things really wrong. I enjoy the battle system and the item creation (helped along significantly with the vouchers. Now, if only I could buy all woods as well...). I like some characters. Some of them. But if you aren't Capell or Edward, you don't get character development. But more on that later.
The story isn't very well worked out, but The Last Remnant had that too, and I loved that game. There are no teleportation points to earlier parts, which is annoying, but understandable. Character models are so-so. Only Capell's voice actor is good, Edward's improved significantly after Kolton, where he stopped sounding so angry all the time. His voice actor also did Blocter in TLR (Capell's did David), and the rough voice fit that character, simply because Blocter is a big heap of yama. For Edward it sounded too over the top. But then again, Edward's whole character improved after Kolton, so.
Backgrounds are rather lovely. Pretty much every item in the game can be crafted, and the game will helpfully tell you what components you need. The downloadable vouchers are maybe a bit gamebreaking, but whatever. I like to do that anyway. An hour after Edward joined my party I had him and Capell decked out in the most powerful armour he could craft at that time, and Capell had a Holy Sword and Edward the Braveheart (as soon as I hit Burguss I made him a Dullahan, which only got replaced when I could do the smithing upgrade).
Battles are fought in real time. You can only control Capell and when he dies it's a game over. Well, your party members have a time limit during which they can raise him. After that passes, it's a game over. You can connect with a party member, both on the field and in cities, to command them to use certain battle skills or personal abilities. For example, party members Vic and Komachi have the ability to open locked treasure chests. You connect with one of them and then they, instead of Capell, will open the chest. Vic can get you a 10 percent discount at shops. Michelle will get you more dialogue out of guys, and Touma will make girls more talkative. Sigmund will show you the weaknesses of enemies. Rico can talk to animals. Gustav and Balbagan can crack rocks.
One of the more annoying things about the battle system, though, is that you can't have several characters in your party. Some dungeons require up to three parties to complete. You are only in control of Capell's group, but you will interact at several times with the others. These are secondary parties. And you get some secondary party members, who can never be put in your main party. These characters are Dominica, Kiriya, Savio, Kristofer and Seraphina. Characters who can be in your party are Aya, Rico, Rucha, Sigmund, Edward, Eugene, Balbagan, Touma, Komachi, Gustav (who takes up two slots), Vic and Michelle.
It's also another point where you can see that the game was really screwed by the deadline and the budget. For example, Kiriya's character model uses a scythe on a chain, but he equips daggers, same as Vic. Dominica looks like she uses some sort of spear/trident hybrid, but equips Edward's greatswords. And yes, you can not use them but can still equip them, and it will suck away your money.
And a plot and gameplay element that is both really cool and really, really annoying: lunar rain. After a certain story point there is a chance on pretty much all outdoor locations that lunar rain will be falling. When most of your main party members are exposed to this rain, things happen. First, they get a boost to all stats. Nice! Then they get a bigger boost and their HP and MP starts regenerating. Even better! After that, they will no longer sheathe their weapons, take orders or connect with you. Somewhat irritating, but okay. Then they turn black and aggressive (vermify) and attack anything in their immediate vicinity, which is typically the rest of your party. Not so cool. And after that they turn invisible and still attack you. And it takes ten minutes, max, to reach that stage. ...Yeah. Now, you could kill them when that happens! Capell has a special song that, among others, makes them visible for a moment so the rest of the party can attack them, and a special connect skill that makes sure Capell can hit them too (plot reasons say he cannot).
Problem with this? For every time you let a character vermify, Capell gets a cutoff of -70 points on their affection meter for him. Once is not so bad, but after it happens three times the affected party member will hate Capell and refuse to heal him. It will also hate the party members that helped killing him/her and not heal them either. And you really, really do not want your healers hating you.
The general solutions are to either a) run like hell through the rain, b) create the song Mare Lunaris, which reverses the effect (but only up to a certain point: I think that after they turn black it no longer works), or c) create a party of Capell, Touma and Gustav, who are immune. Problem with this party is that Gustav is a bear and cannot use items to heal you so you'll have to rely on Touma for healing. And Touma dies rather quickly. Here's the point at which I go, ugghhhh, why can't I use secondary party members?! Because Savio and Seraphina are immune too. Of course then you'd have a party of Capell, a fragile speedster and two squishy wizards, but that's better than a party of Capell, a fragile speedster and a bear. Even if you can ride on the bear's back. Also, I bet Kiriya's vermiform quotes would be amazing.
Uh. So. Characters!
Well. Like I said, if you're not Capell or Edward you don't get character development.
Capell is the protagonist and gets a lot of hate from players for being a shy, sweet flute player who doesn't like fighting very much and considers one of his best talents to be running away. Too bad he looks exactly like Sigmund who is An Hero and so Capell gets swept up in his quest to, uh, liberate the moon. Because it is chained to the earth.
See, every time something in IU doesn't make sense? Just remember that THE MOON IS CHAINED TO THE EARTH. What is this logic you are speaking of?
But, anyway. Capell isn't very happy at having to fight and stuff, but then he has to take over Sigmund's role. And then he fights a lot with Edward. And then they are friends. And then something happens and it all turns personal and Capell gets very angry and bitter, which is actually the only part of the story line that is well thought out. Everything changes, from Capell's battle quotes to his voice to the titles he gives to everyone. Things like Best Friend and Cute Kid and Nobleman go to things like Useless, Despised, Pawn or Weapon.
And then he gets laid and is all better.
Aya is one of Capell's love interests and, uh. Well, the booklet descripes her as strong-willed and responsible and I'm willing to grant her the strong-willed. Responsible, not so much. Anyway, she's a princess who doesn't like her duties and bitches about her parents not giving her enough love. She's sort of spoiled and only starts showing an interest in Capell when another girl, Faina, does as well. Sometimes she's pretty supportive of Capell and stands up for him, other times she belittles him and is generally a bitch. Can you tell yet that I'm not very happy about their relationship? Also, she's an archer with a lot of fire-elemental techniques and two healing spells. Don't depend on her for healing, is what I'm saying. Thinks it is not fair of Capell to keep secrets from her, but the other way around is fair game since she puts out.
Rico and Rucha are the mandatory little kids you take along. Their mother asks you to let them join your battle because she feels they are old enough to make their own decisions. Both the player and Capell say, what the fuck? Anyway! Rico is a beastmaster and black mage, Rucha is a summoner and white mage. They're generally pretty cheerful and are some of the few characters who get along with Edward prior to Kolton. There's not much more to them.
Sigmund is, well, An Hero really says it best. He's serious and responsible and puts the greater good before helping individual people. Michelle considers him her boyfriend and he stands there passively and lets her hug him, but apparently didn't miss her when Eugene had to 'quietly leave her behind'. Affection points confirm this, as the only people who get above a neutral score of 125 are Eugene and Touma, who are his childhood friends. He's a swordsman and gives stat boosts to the other party members when he's in the active party.
Eugene is Sigmund's adviser and childhood friend. He, uh, likes bathing and fishing, and is not very fond of Michelle although no one knows why and in later cutscenes they chat just fine. He's an earth mage and the most attentive and durable healer you will get.
Edward is Sigmund's right hand man and fanboy. Has a tendency to get pissy when people do not realise their quest is serious business. Is bitchy, jealous and has enormous insecurity issues. Also drives himself too hard and believes he needs to be perfect. Goes along with Capell after Vesplume Tower simply to fulfill Sigmund's wishes but undermines his authority at every moment possible, until Kolton happens and Capell fulfills the necessary condition to flip his loyalty switch, after which they become best friends. Whut. Great swordfighter and has a tendency to OHKO things but also tends to get himself killed since his AI believes charging in headlong is the best course of action for everything ever. Is, apparently, great with kids and read stories to the twins and made them toys. Often got put on babysitting duty by Eugene. Hates peppers and is, after Kolton, the best in the party at managing Capell's moods whenever Aya is not putting out.
Michelle is the healer with boobs and jiggle physics. At least the story thinks she's a healer. She's more of a black mage with several healing spells and her AI tends to favour single target heals even when the whole party is in dire need of some HP. Tends to actually not heal at all until you send out a request. Is some sort of motherly figure and miss fanservice at the same time. Her vermiform quotes are interesting, to say the least, and it really is a pity that they did not do more with that aspect of her personality because she has little of that beyond her tits.
Balbagan is the meathead berserker who tends to blow through his MP in record time and gets along great with kids because he's a big kid at heart himself. No, IU really is not breaking any new grounds here with characterisation. He's also a widow but you'd be excused not knowing that since there's hardly any mention of it anyway.
Gustav is Aya's pet bear and hates Capell.
Dominica is a mercenary and good friend of Aya's. Tall amazon who fights with Edward a lot when Ed was still being a bitch. Generally pretty cool up until the point she started trying to convince the transboy he should be okay with being female. Though to IU's credit, she's the only one. The rest of the party has either not noticed or doesn't care.
Vic is aforementioned transboy. Fragile speedster, preteen, is actually impersonating a dead brother. Capell either knows or suspects that Vic's actually a girl, but still calls Vic 'he'. Dominica started dropping anvil-sized clues she knew. Vic wasn't very happy about that. He has an annoying tendency to overuse the word 'buddy'. Apparently has a really, really amusing crush on Edward, during which I also found out that Eugene wears perfume.
Savio has green hair and is a mage. Uh... he can see the future? Is generally calm and collected. Also a teacher.
Kiriya: hates EVERYTHING. One of Savio's former apprentices. Scholar who knows a lot about medicine. Likes being an ass. For some reason he works together with Edward after the ending. I don't know who thought that was a good idea, unless that person was trying to get them to kill each other.
Touma is a small samurai. Sort of naive and gentlemanly. Might be in love with Komachi, no one knows for sure.
Komachi is Touma's ninja servant and is not subtle about her crush on him. Has an annoying voice. Lives to shadow and serve Touma.
Kristofer is a faily playboy. Introduced himself with 'I am really very interesting!' to the ten-year-old. Actually pretty serious about Seraphina.
Seraphina is a robot. Well, not really. But she talks like one. 'I am conversing with others. You should be silent'.
...I always feel like I have to apologise for enjoying this game.