I just beat this game, so I thought I’d write up an entry on it. It was a game I actually had to beat myself, as there don’t appear to be any walkthroughs available online. Anyway, the background: It’s a PS2 game, given to me by Alicia for christmas. It’s a quasi-sequel to another game by the same people, where you drew up your own monsters and fought them RPG style. In this game, you can build up 3d creatures, create attacks (sort of, the game does a lot of autopilot of what you mean, but it does it well), and then fight the enemies hand to hand, adventure-zelda style. It has a basic health and attack power level up feature akin to Illusion of Gaia (for example). The experience is gathered in the form of ‘coins’ dropped by enemies on defeat, which dissapear after a while, which adds a bit of worry to the battles. They can also drop cards, which when taken allow you to become that enemy form whenever you want. There is a ‘capture’ ability which allows you to take on an enemy form without their card, but only for a short time.
The plot is very familiar, and could be summed up by just saying ‘Secret of Mana’. You are Prince Pixel (oh dear god how I hate ironically chosen names), who being a mischevious little boyish girlish boy (since he has the title prince, and has a male voice, I’m prepared to accept him as male) finds a secret passage into a basement where he takes a wand-like paintbrush accidentally uses it to break the seal on a demon who had been defeated ages before by the power of Graffiti (in Japan, it was called Scribble Kingdom I beleive, which is far more appropriate, but whatever). Anyway, a boxdog who was sealed as well to safeguard the demon seal becomes your sidekick, and you are both thrown clear while the big demon changes your kingdom into a weird mutated kid-toy of itself. The boxdog (who goes by the name as Pastel, ugh) has the most highpitched annoying voice I’ve heard in a video game in a long time, but you get used to it. Anyway, so your mission is to use the power of Graffiti (draw or capture other drawn creatures) and fight your way to the devil.
My progress through the game was slow, helped by having to start over after falling victim to the memory-card-half-in effect. I found it hard to get into the game, there was very little direction, which I suppose wasn’t needed since most of the game was very linear, but a map system might have made it feel a little more connected. The gameplay itself, I’m sad to say, was rediculously boring at times, especially near the beginning. It was just hack and slash the whole time, in an unending kiddy-woodland environment. There were indications as to the fake-ness of the world, like exposed wall edged with a corrogated cardboard texture, but it would have been more fun if it had been more overt, like bits of the scenery collapsing or something. Some bits were boring to tears, while other parts were really hard. The save system is mostly forgiving, if you die you go back to the last save point (they also restore your health if you approch them) and they are placed every few areas, including right before and right after major boss battles.
The bosses offered some interesting challenges, including one boss that had three roulette style areas that attacked you without mercy (with whatever attack it randomly chose) while the boss tore you to shreds. Luckly curtis was over and played my game, and after many many attempts finally beat him. He also created Mr. Jones, the ungodly four legged (nice shapely legs too) thing with a earwig pincer on it’s front, a head that wobbles about and three arms, armed with a wooden paddle, a club, and a sword. I tried my hand at a few creatures but I never saved them, I might try again now that I beat it (with Mr. Jones).
The funny thing about the bosses that I wasn’t really paying attention to at the time, is that by the end of the game you will have beaten 7 bosses, but there are only really 4 major worlds. The trick is that most of the time you have no idea which world you’re in, or where one begins or ends except for a nexus point that connects them for you. That’s sort of the problem, the areas just weren’t that memorable. The enemies, while numerous, could easily have been reduced into easy, annoying, and bloody hard categories. The bosses were amusing enough in their techniques.
The cutscenes, however, are hilarious, as the main characters is casually sarcastic most of the time to his boxdog (which turns out to girl, his age no less, which he totally fails to get off with) and there is another character, an evil demon, member of all these creatures who caused the problem in the first place. I swore it was supposed to be a she, it even has a girl voice, but it’s referred to by others as a He. Oh well, the He/She fights you occasionally to test you, and gives you advice on the other battles. Then at the end… well, I won’t ruin it for anyone (curtis).
Actually, one of those battles is where I found an interesting bug-like thing in the game, I was on a platform over death-fall areas fighting Him/Her, and I did a whirlwind attack where you sort of lose control of your direction. I knocked Him/Her over the edge, and I was about to wonder whether that counted as killing Him/Her, when I fell off the platform myself. Normally, when you fall off a platform, you lose a little health and get sent back to the door you entered the area from with all the enemies respawned, so I thought to myself “Crap, I’ll have to start over this battle at best with nearly no health, or start from the save point many screens back at worst, since I had a sliver left when I fell”. Oddly, a cutscene started to play, apparently I defeated the He/She, well, that’s nice. But then when it was over, I was on the platform again… but I couldn’t move… what? Couple seconds later, “Game Over”. I was dead, but it took the game a bit to understand this. Luckly, when I returned again from the savepoint, I had still won the battle according to the game, so I didn’t have to do it again. Anyway, I consider this a bug just due to the fact that most games don’t allow you to win if you die during the fight, which is annoying but sort of expected and works around some problems.
The final boss fight was actually a bit of a pain. I fought a stage one fight that I beat faily easily, but I had to fight it twice in a row, then I had to fight a new form another 3 times. I died during that fight, a few times, but I was permitted to start from that point on reincarnation. All the time with Mr. Jones, a very powerful custom creature. I found the game creatures to be nearly useless. Except for one I seemed to absolutely need. There’s a bit in the final level that I could not pass due to platforms being too far apart or too high from one to the next. None of the enemy cards I had were effective either. There were these deadly flying birds nearby, but it was nearly impossible to kill them without pushing them over the edge of the platforms to their death (despite the fact they can fly). I tried about a hundred times before I gave up and returned to an earlier area to finally get the card. Now, I had leveled up to the Wings component for custom creatures, but no matter what I did, I could never induce my custom guys to fly, they just sort of crawled along. When I finally got the bird and edited it’s attacks to see what the hell I had done wrong, apparently “Fly” was a technique aquired from that card… I have no idea what the hell the point of the wings are then. Maybe I hadn’t levelled up enough, I don’t know.
Anyway, the game is over for now. I don’t want to knock it in all that I said above, but the real point of this… PS2 program, is to create monsters and try them out. The game portion was sort of tacked on as the environment and reason that you have this ability at all. The magic is in the engine, it’s a pity I have little imagination (meanwhile curtis fell in love). I might try building a new creature now that I have all the bits (at least, I think I do). But now it’s time for sleep.
