Sunday, May 16, 2010

The 7th Saga (part 2)

After a weeks worth of vacation, I decided it was time to jump back into that saddle again. Yes, yes, the saddle of no choice role-playing. Ah, but I promised you something, did I not? Behold! The Whomp before Whomps:

Does he look familiar? When I first encountered these statues, my thoughts immediately went back to one of my favorite games (and, indeed, many others') on my favorite game console ever: Super Mario 64. C'mon! You remember what Whomps are, don't you? The second level? Oh, fine, here:

Okay, maybe they're just a scared cousin, but I'm onto you Nintendo. >: |

Alright, so, as we follow DINGB we will encounter monsters, who will engage us in battle. Fights in 7th Saga occur in a turn-based fashion, as you and your enemy take turns beating each other over the head waiting for the lesser man to fall. Of course, to speed up the process you have magical spells and abilities to aid you... Unless you're a big giant walking statue who's got about as much magical ability as a paper clip.

I wasn't sure what else to do in battle, so I just spammed my attack command. And lucky for me, half the time every enemy dodges. Fun. I like mechanics that prolong time with endless streams of monsters and creatures attempting to take my face off in one fell wallop. But I can dodge too, just not at the right times or when I'm low on health. No, it only occurs when I'm fighting against that early level enemy who won't do shit to me anyway. A guy in the first city tells you that to increase my odds of survival I should defend first, then attack. After refusing to acquiesce to his request to be a pussy, I proceeded headstrong into attacking always. After getting stuck for sometime in one area I consulted a walk-through at *cough* GameFAG's and found out that defending first does indeed help marginally. Not only does it decrease the damage the first attack on you does, it also increases your next attack damage by a substantial amount. Whoa ho ho! Fuck, they dodged that attack.

A few big things about roaming the over-world and dungeons: the king gives you a magic crystal ball that not only points out runes to you, but also shows the locations of enemies, and consequently giving you the power to choose, to some degree, when a random battle will occur. They like to make you think that you can zip past enemies with ease, but in a grind happy game as 7th Saga that won't always be the case; another feature that's very cool, albeit in gameplay terms useless, is the battle transition. It is easier to show you rather than to explain it, so I put together a quick GIF of it for you:

It's a pretty cool scene changer, utilizing Mode 7 effects to place you into a battle that feels like it is indeed happening on the grainy, horrid tile sets being passed off as sand, grass, water, and rock.

Now, venturing off into the world for the first time, alone (as not depicted by the GIF) and without help, did well for quite a while. I had read up a bit on the sudden difficulty spikes in the game, so I spent a fair bit of time battling and levelling, gaining money and the few spells promised to my guy. (I have a fucking laser man!) I was able to infiltrate a castle and stop a monster-demon-thing from killing people. Turns out that guy over there (----}) is the dog of a king who died. Down, boy. I got to use my laser on him and destroy him into nothingness. His largest attack damage on me was literally like fifteen health points. I was riding high, on cloud nine, you know, eating the biggest meatball. Visited a few more cities not really doing much of anything, progressing into other, harder enemies nicely, until I came upon!

Damn you, Cthulhu, damn you! He did two hundred or so damage in one single swipe and erased me from the world in the aforementioned one fell wallop. NoooooOoOoOooOoOoo, I said, like Darth Vader finding out Padme had died. NoooooOoOoOooOoOoo, DINGB, not my perfect game!

So, anyway, I transported back to a temple in the nearest town, with gritty determination to defeat this madman. I turned on Eye of the Tiger and started a montage. Unfortunately, DINGB doesn't allow flash photography, as it throws him into a jealous rage. (Don't ask to explain it, you'll just get more confused as to why I didn't take pictures.) Another hour into grinding (not anywhere near the area where he showed up) and I decided it was time. I cranked up my music and went back to the area where we last fought and I found his bitch ass, ripe for the cracking. (oic wat u did der...)

It was a heated battle, lasting almost two minutes, two sweaty minutes, two heart-pounding, gut-wrenching minutes, two -- alright you get the point. I pwn'd him, only to find he was called a 'despair' and only gave me a lousy 220 experience, which was decent enough, but not worth the raping he had done on me from the front. God, just remembering that pisses me off, I've got to go kill shit now! Argh!

Next time will not be a week, I promise, so catch you later. And remember, rhinoceroses are just misunderstood unicorns. Bai!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I think The 7th Saga is a pretty cool guy. He kills giant monsters on boring playing fields and doesn't afraid of anything.

Unknown said...

Oh yeah, I meant to ask ya how the music is so far. Any catchy tunes?

ephie said...

The music is so so. It's the same basic stuff you could get out of the most boring parts of an Square/Enix RPG but it's better than the 3 Ninjas, I'll tell you what.

Unknown said...

I can imagine.

nighthawk said...

I suddenly lost all interest in this game, it's a miracle!

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