[Games] Two remarkable VNs
Hello and welcome to today's episode of "Rii fangirling like an idiot." Today I will feature two games that were recommended by sempai and once I was done with them, they very very easily hit my list of favorite games on the NDS. In fact they may even be two of favorite games EVER.
Let's start with the game I played later:
Seriously, this game is wonderful and very heartwarming. Considering that all I knew about it was that it was from the same team that made the Ace Attorney series, and the fact that people called it a Visual Novel, I was expecting the usual, walk around, talk to people, poke objects, find hints, manipulate things. But the gameplay surprised me. I'm not sure if you would call it innovative or unique, but it certainly is different from normal. The game isn't very difficult but it DOES exercise your brain quite a bit (there was one particular sequence that I ended up repeating about ten times before I realized what I was supposed to be doing). And during the parts that don't have a time limit or a fail condition, there are technically no wrong answers. Several times I wondered if I was supposed to have done a certain action and if I had to reload, but there was nothing like that. I really barely needed a guide, and only consulted it once when I got stuck (and found out that the solution was one that I THOUGHT I'd already done but apparently hadn't yet), and another time when I completely was lost on what I was supposed to do and found out too late that I actually had a time limit.
As for story, it's... very compelling from the get-go, thrusting that main plot into your face immediately and forcing you to act immediately. I got attached to the characters very quickly, especially the main, and a certain adorable ball of fluff. Some of the explanations require a LITTLE stretch of imagination, but nothing to major. The twists and the way that they unravel are similar to how it goes in an Ace Attorney title, but the actual twists themselves are unique to this game. The writers really worked on how it goes and how the events will bring you on the path to the final true answers.
I really love jumping from item to item and trying to figure out how to work things out. The sequences I liked the most though were the two where two people died and you had to jump from one corpse to the other to go even FURTHER back and prevent BOTH deaths.
It's also fun how by going through the whole game, you end up solving a lot of people's problems, and I also liked how everything that was shown was related to the whole plot by a surprisingly close degree (and wasn't just a random set of people).
When you first meet Missile though, he's just such an adorable ball of fluff, but as you go through the game, I just fell in love with him... and his power. controlling them both to do even more solutions was WAY fun.
Still I was all QAQ when at three chapters to the end of the game, I had this sudden thought that I might be a random RAT that was killed by Lynne by accident when she was resisting Yomiel's control.
But the first moment that I really felt myself tear up was in the final rescue sequence, how at the very end, Yomiel said that he knew what to do, told Sissel to manipulate the spout, told Missile to switch the egg to give them more time, and then said "Well it's my turn now." and he went to possess himself and pushed Lynne out of the way.
The second moment I almost cried was when Ray revealed who he was, and then told his story of how he tried to save Lynne and Kamila on his own at first, but in the end, when he went back to "save Yomiel" he waited out the ten years so he can guide Sissel on the right path QAQ It was just so... /sob
Then came revelation time for the FINAL ULTIMATE TRUTH. And suddenly there were a bunch of little nuances that made so much sense: Why Sissel really never remembered who he was until the very end, why he couldn't read, why he had a certain view on certain things (when he agreed with Missile on how a person dies from a gunshot, I went o_O at first, but then it makes total sense NOW)... They even hinted at it considering how Missile(was it Missile?)'s spirit took on the form of Kamila (was it Kamila?) in the beginning, before Sissel had to correct him. Not to mention how the cat kept reappearing to do certain actions D:
I'm just so glad that Sissel is a cat, and not a rat. And even a very very important cat to Yomiel.
So much that in the end... it's really all... so heartwarming.
My only sadness is the lack of pairings XD But that's an insignificant sadness.
If you haven't been able to play it yet, I really recommend trying the game out for yourself, especially if you're a fan of games like the Layton series and the Ace Attorney series.
Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors... Mouthful isn't it? And a very strange name to boot. Luckily we can nickname it 999.
Now, compared to Ghost Trick, 999 actually followed the classic Visual Novel formula of poking the scenery, going through dialogue with other characters and making choices. In fact, the amount of text involved is actually very DAUNTING, and the times that you actually have "full free reign" of your character to do this exploration is within a very specific set of events.
But there were a specific two things about the game that floored me, and these are game design things. The fact that these two things I really love are related to GAME DESIGN and not characters or story, are probably what nudges 999 a little higher than Ghost Trick for me. Of course, I have to say that the people that can appreciate 999 would probably be a very small niche, but still, it was a very beautiful, well-done and well thought out game. Even the concepts that were mentioned in the game which sound like they were just pulled out of some writer's ass were apparently actually existing theories and ideas that were put together rather well D:
The game also has multiple endings, which I normally shy away from because I always hate the thought of heading toward the "wrong ending." BUT I guess the game was short enough so that it was very very easy to pick it up again and start it again from the beginning (one run through the game lasted me about four hours the first time, then reduced as I was allowed to fast forward parts that I had read already). In fact, I started to realize that getting through all of the bad endings became PART OF THE EXPERIENCE... especially seeing how certain mistakes affect the other characters, and it somehow helps you realize that what you should have done to get to the real ending. And there are bits of information that you find out from other endings that you wouldn't have come across otherwise.
As a matter of fact, I completely recommend actually going through all the wrong endings before you get to the true ending (which I ended up being able to do, not completely on purpose). Although I'm also against picking up a guide in this game (and I honestly never did, aside from guidance from sempai). On the other hand, the chance of getting to the correct ending right away is very slim since there is very LITTLE clue to how to get there. But like I said, that's part of the whole thing.
Aside from that the story is REALLY GOOD. The funny thing too is that as an M game there are a lot of jokes of THAT nature and it kills me whenever they pop up XD The second choice at the elevator was just... so awkward and funny and sad all at the same time. I almost died of embarrassment FOR Junpei.
Tell me, what game in the world actually USES THE NEW GAME+ FEATURE AS A STORY ELEMENT? D: And in the way that this game did...! When I said that going through all the endings was part of the experience, THIS is the reason why. Because of the data collection ACROSS THE PLAYTHROUGHS DD: And I really REALLY think that getting the coffin ending by itself first makes getting the final true ending even more rewarding, because that moment when there's that FLASH and Junpei goes "Huh?" is just even more priceless if you'd already been through the ending where he's just staring at it and it goes "To be continued"
And Santa mentioning the rats in the maze in Room 6 was a nice touch to this feature... and was probably how you realize what you're supposed to do =o
One of the most beautiful parts of the game for me was the sequence in the incinerator in the final true ending. More importantly, THE WAY THAT THEY USED BOTH SCREENS OF THE DS. When I realized that the bottom screen was what was happening with Akane and the top screen was what was happening with Junpei (or was it the other way around?), I nearly hyperventilated. Something that will always get me in a DS game is being able to use both screens in an amazing way, and the way that 999 did it amazed me, even if it really was only a story sequence, but somehow it added a layer of dimension onto the whole thing. This got accented even MORE when the "final boss puzzle" was revealed (lol Sudoku, I remember going "WHAT? THE FINAL BOSS IS SUDOKU?? Why do I feel DISAPPOINTED?" ). Anyway when the makers actually TURNED THE GAME UPSIDE DOWN so that you were solving it "on the top screen" as Junpei... It was just "QuQ this is so wonderful"
I have to admit though that I'm REALLY REALLY UPSET that Ace turned out to be the big bad guy (not including Akane and Aoi). He was such an amazing teddy bear at first D: And it even made me horribly emotional when he "sacrificed" himself in the middle of the game. So with the revelation, knowing that the sacrifice was fake was UPSETTING T_T Although at the very end, when he revealed WHY he did it I... I actually felt horrible for him too T___T
But I'm also so relieved that the Snake corpse was fake. I don't know how soon it was though that I thought, "It's fake. It's not a real corpse. He's still alive." It was way before it was revealed to me in-game though. O_o But yeah, I'm just so happy.
And again, how the different things you learned through the game actually co-relate somehow. Although in retrospect, I'm not sure how Ice-9 was important... except for the concept that suddenly there were specimens that seemed to empathize with one another and get affected...
Gosh there's a lot more to love about the game, but I don't know anymore how to say it D: It's just really really great.
P.S. Team 2457 forever! JunpeixSnake and JunpeixClover >u> and SnakexJunpeixClover even AHAHAH /getsshot
In any case, 999 is admittedly harder to pimp out than Ghost Trick, since it can scare people away with the amount of text, and it's actually sort of short. But if I really would like for you to at least give it a try before dismissing it completely D:
As for other games...
The Professor Layton series will deserve a rant in the near future, especially since I also recently watched the movie. I might also spread some love on Assassin's Creed because it's REALLY one of my favorite titles on the PS3 lately, mostly because the whole concept is mindnumbing to me. I probably also need to dedicate a post to Ace Attorney Investigations, and then later on another post to Dragon Age.
I'm also currently playing Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, which... is a surprisingly long game considering how short RPGs, especially handheld RPGs, have gotten nowadays. I do rather enjoy it and I might dedicate a post to it too. Possibly not though.
Btw, I'm sore at the NGP a little, but in any case, I still need a new PSP. Mainly for Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, which I -still- haven't played up to now )8 And for a couple other games in the near future.
Let's start with the game I played later:
Seriously, this game is wonderful and very heartwarming. Considering that all I knew about it was that it was from the same team that made the Ace Attorney series, and the fact that people called it a Visual Novel, I was expecting the usual, walk around, talk to people, poke objects, find hints, manipulate things. But the gameplay surprised me. I'm not sure if you would call it innovative or unique, but it certainly is different from normal. The game isn't very difficult but it DOES exercise your brain quite a bit (there was one particular sequence that I ended up repeating about ten times before I realized what I was supposed to be doing). And during the parts that don't have a time limit or a fail condition, there are technically no wrong answers. Several times I wondered if I was supposed to have done a certain action and if I had to reload, but there was nothing like that. I really barely needed a guide, and only consulted it once when I got stuck (and found out that the solution was one that I THOUGHT I'd already done but apparently hadn't yet), and another time when I completely was lost on what I was supposed to do and found out too late that I actually had a time limit.
As for story, it's... very compelling from the get-go, thrusting that main plot into your face immediately and forcing you to act immediately. I got attached to the characters very quickly, especially the main, and a certain adorable ball of fluff. Some of the explanations require a LITTLE stretch of imagination, but nothing to major. The twists and the way that they unravel are similar to how it goes in an Ace Attorney title, but the actual twists themselves are unique to this game. The writers really worked on how it goes and how the events will bring you on the path to the final true answers.
I really love jumping from item to item and trying to figure out how to work things out. The sequences I liked the most though were the two where two people died and you had to jump from one corpse to the other to go even FURTHER back and prevent BOTH deaths.
It's also fun how by going through the whole game, you end up solving a lot of people's problems, and I also liked how everything that was shown was related to the whole plot by a surprisingly close degree (and wasn't just a random set of people).
When you first meet Missile though, he's just such an adorable ball of fluff, but as you go through the game, I just fell in love with him... and his power. controlling them both to do even more solutions was WAY fun.
Still I was all QAQ when at three chapters to the end of the game, I had this sudden thought that I might be a random RAT that was killed by Lynne by accident when she was resisting Yomiel's control.
But the first moment that I really felt myself tear up was in the final rescue sequence, how at the very end, Yomiel said that he knew what to do, told Sissel to manipulate the spout, told Missile to switch the egg to give them more time, and then said "Well it's my turn now." and he went to possess himself and pushed Lynne out of the way.
The second moment I almost cried was when Ray revealed who he was, and then told his story of how he tried to save Lynne and Kamila on his own at first, but in the end, when he went back to "save Yomiel" he waited out the ten years so he can guide Sissel on the right path QAQ It was just so... /sob
Then came revelation time for the FINAL ULTIMATE TRUTH. And suddenly there were a bunch of little nuances that made so much sense: Why Sissel really never remembered who he was until the very end, why he couldn't read, why he had a certain view on certain things (when he agreed with Missile on how a person dies from a gunshot, I went o_O at first, but then it makes total sense NOW)... They even hinted at it considering how Missile(was it Missile?)'s spirit took on the form of Kamila (was it Kamila?) in the beginning, before Sissel had to correct him. Not to mention how the cat kept reappearing to do certain actions D:
I'm just so glad that Sissel is a cat, and not a rat. And even a very very important cat to Yomiel.
So much that in the end... it's really all... so heartwarming.
My only sadness is the lack of pairings XD But that's an insignificant sadness.
If you haven't been able to play it yet, I really recommend trying the game out for yourself, especially if you're a fan of games like the Layton series and the Ace Attorney series.
Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors... Mouthful isn't it? And a very strange name to boot. Luckily we can nickname it 999.
Now, compared to Ghost Trick, 999 actually followed the classic Visual Novel formula of poking the scenery, going through dialogue with other characters and making choices. In fact, the amount of text involved is actually very DAUNTING, and the times that you actually have "full free reign" of your character to do this exploration is within a very specific set of events.
But there were a specific two things about the game that floored me, and these are game design things. The fact that these two things I really love are related to GAME DESIGN and not characters or story, are probably what nudges 999 a little higher than Ghost Trick for me. Of course, I have to say that the people that can appreciate 999 would probably be a very small niche, but still, it was a very beautiful, well-done and well thought out game. Even the concepts that were mentioned in the game which sound like they were just pulled out of some writer's ass were apparently actually existing theories and ideas that were put together rather well D:
The game also has multiple endings, which I normally shy away from because I always hate the thought of heading toward the "wrong ending." BUT I guess the game was short enough so that it was very very easy to pick it up again and start it again from the beginning (one run through the game lasted me about four hours the first time, then reduced as I was allowed to fast forward parts that I had read already). In fact, I started to realize that getting through all of the bad endings became PART OF THE EXPERIENCE... especially seeing how certain mistakes affect the other characters, and it somehow helps you realize that what you should have done to get to the real ending. And there are bits of information that you find out from other endings that you wouldn't have come across otherwise.
As a matter of fact, I completely recommend actually going through all the wrong endings before you get to the true ending (which I ended up being able to do, not completely on purpose). Although I'm also against picking up a guide in this game (and I honestly never did, aside from guidance from sempai). On the other hand, the chance of getting to the correct ending right away is very slim since there is very LITTLE clue to how to get there. But like I said, that's part of the whole thing.
Aside from that the story is REALLY GOOD. The funny thing too is that as an M game there are a lot of jokes of THAT nature and it kills me whenever they pop up XD The second choice at the elevator was just... so awkward and funny and sad all at the same time. I almost died of embarrassment FOR Junpei.
Tell me, what game in the world actually USES THE NEW GAME+ FEATURE AS A STORY ELEMENT? D: And in the way that this game did...! When I said that going through all the endings was part of the experience, THIS is the reason why. Because of the data collection ACROSS THE PLAYTHROUGHS DD: And I really REALLY think that getting the coffin ending by itself first makes getting the final true ending even more rewarding, because that moment when there's that FLASH and Junpei goes "Huh?" is just even more priceless if you'd already been through the ending where he's just staring at it and it goes "To be continued"
And Santa mentioning the rats in the maze in Room 6 was a nice touch to this feature... and was probably how you realize what you're supposed to do =o
One of the most beautiful parts of the game for me was the sequence in the incinerator in the final true ending. More importantly, THE WAY THAT THEY USED BOTH SCREENS OF THE DS. When I realized that the bottom screen was what was happening with Akane and the top screen was what was happening with Junpei (or was it the other way around?), I nearly hyperventilated. Something that will always get me in a DS game is being able to use both screens in an amazing way, and the way that 999 did it amazed me, even if it really was only a story sequence, but somehow it added a layer of dimension onto the whole thing. This got accented even MORE when the "final boss puzzle" was revealed (lol Sudoku, I remember going "WHAT? THE FINAL BOSS IS SUDOKU?? Why do I feel DISAPPOINTED?" ). Anyway when the makers actually TURNED THE GAME UPSIDE DOWN so that you were solving it "on the top screen" as Junpei... It was just "QuQ this is so wonderful"
I have to admit though that I'm REALLY REALLY UPSET that Ace turned out to be the big bad guy (not including Akane and Aoi). He was such an amazing teddy bear at first D: And it even made me horribly emotional when he "sacrificed" himself in the middle of the game. So with the revelation, knowing that the sacrifice was fake was UPSETTING T_T Although at the very end, when he revealed WHY he did it I... I actually felt horrible for him too T___T
But I'm also so relieved that the Snake corpse was fake. I don't know how soon it was though that I thought, "It's fake. It's not a real corpse. He's still alive." It was way before it was revealed to me in-game though. O_o But yeah, I'm just so happy.
And again, how the different things you learned through the game actually co-relate somehow. Although in retrospect, I'm not sure how Ice-9 was important... except for the concept that suddenly there were specimens that seemed to empathize with one another and get affected...
Gosh there's a lot more to love about the game, but I don't know anymore how to say it D: It's just really really great.
P.S. Team 2457 forever! JunpeixSnake and JunpeixClover >u> and SnakexJunpeixClover even AHAHAH /getsshot
In any case, 999 is admittedly harder to pimp out than Ghost Trick, since it can scare people away with the amount of text, and it's actually sort of short. But if I really would like for you to at least give it a try before dismissing it completely D:
As for other games...
The Professor Layton series will deserve a rant in the near future, especially since I also recently watched the movie. I might also spread some love on Assassin's Creed because it's REALLY one of my favorite titles on the PS3 lately, mostly because the whole concept is mindnumbing to me. I probably also need to dedicate a post to Ace Attorney Investigations, and then later on another post to Dragon Age.
I'm also currently playing Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, which... is a surprisingly long game considering how short RPGs, especially handheld RPGs, have gotten nowadays. I do rather enjoy it and I might dedicate a post to it too. Possibly not though.
Btw, I'm sore at the NGP a little, but in any case, I still need a new PSP. Mainly for Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, which I -still- haven't played up to now )8 And for a couple other games in the near future.