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!

The 7th Saga (part 1)

For my next game, I decided to pick something with a bit more depth. Something... More out of the RPG vein, something... What's that? Oh, we're doing it in alphabetical order and 7th Saga is next? Okay, nevermind with any of that.

7th Saga comes to us courtesy of developers Produce and publishers Enix. And when I say courtesy, I really mean rudely, because I like fun. And fun does not include errands, because errands are boring. And that's what's going on so far. But! I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start with the story and premise -- What's that? Seven runes? That's it? Okay, so basically you just have to collect seven runes. Oh, I get it, 7th Saga, seven runes. Alright, so what's the main draw? Well, you pick one of seven different playable characters, all who do something slightly different than the other. Here's Wikipedia's take on them:

Characters in The 7th Saga run along a continuum from predominantly physical-oriented to predominantly magical-oriented. They are, in that order:

• Wilme Pelin (Alien): An alien with a fiery, lava-like spiked body. Arrogant and aggressive, he seems to want the runes for power and to prove his superiority. He's strong and has the highest HP of the seven, but suffers from a fixed set of equipment, and a low Magic rating causes his Fire magic to be quite impotent.
• Lux Tizer (Tetujin): A 5000-year old robot created by a long extinct civilization. Lux is polite, logical, and inquisitive. He searches for the runes in the hopes that their power may help him unlock the secrets of the Tetujin's origins. Lux is physically very powerful especially in defense, but has a poor selection of (Laser and Thunder) magic spells and equipment, although he is the only one that can use those spells. Along with Esuna, Lux can never be the "traitor" apprentice.
• Olvan Jaess (Dwarf): An extremely old Dwarf warrior, with a pleasant personality. He joins the search for the runes in the hopes that they can restore his youth. Statistically, he is similar to Kamil, but with more HP and Defense, and less MP and speed, and a few differences in equipment/spell selection.
• Kamil Dowonna (Human): A human knight. The most average, well-rounded character, Kamil has access to a large selection of equipment and can cast both offensive and defensive magic. He wears blue armor and the instruction booklet says that he is best paired with a stronger ally.
• Lejes Rimul (Demon): A power-hungry demon. Sly, manipulative, and unapologetically evil, Lejes wants the power of the runes in order to rule the world. Lejes equips very strong weapons and eventually learns every single attack spell (except the Lux-exclusive Laser and Thunder spells), but his selection of armors is quite poor, and his attack spells hit with less force than Esuna. Lejes never learns any healing magic.
• Valsu Saizer (Human): An elderly priest who has dedicated his life to the cause of good, Valsu wishes to use the runes to bring peace and prosperity to the world. He has excellent healing magic and one powerful Ice spell, but lacks skill in physical combat.
• Esuna Busy (Elf): An elf magic user and the game's only female protagonist, Esuna seems to regard the search for the runes as some sort of fun adventure. She begins the game cocky and headstrong, but becomes more uncertain and less confident as the story progresses. She has extremely high Speed and Magic potency, and can use both kinds of magic, but her attack spells are exclusively Ice-elemental and she is physically very weak. Like Lux, Esuna never turns out to be the "traitor" apprentice.

I'm never one to pick characters based on how funny I think they look, else I'd probably go for the alien, as he has buck teeth and bunny ears. No, no, I play based on practicality no matter what, so I went with the f*cking robot. It made me sad as well that I couldn't fit Dingbang as the name, especially as this was the first game in which I could pick one. So, I present! DINGB, master robot and champion of Wintendo. He fells enemies in... five or six strikes, and rarely does anything but speak in capital letters. (As the rest of the Tetujin do.) I like to pretend that the reason people are so short and coy with me is because I'm a tall, thick robot constantly yelling "HEY, HOW'S IT GOING?!" in their general direction. But that isn't the best part yet. He starts out with high HP, and takes one damage for virtually the first fourth of the game. One damage! Har, har, har. Plus, with not needing to buy weapons or armor (which he can't use) I am practically not hurting for monies. Healing pots and power-ups for me, galore.

Alright, so, the king dude tells you you need to go get seven runes -- Oshit, there's seven characters too. Clever, clever. Anyway, you have to collect seven runes because they got scattered when some old guy killed a demon and decided to hide them. Cool, I can sort of dig. But first things first.

Alright! Next time's post will include much more, such as my first few forays, battles, these two blokes:

and copyright infringment! Stay tuned and remember, friends are like potatoes: if you eat them, they die.