Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Princess Maker 2 - PC/DOS - Gainax


There have been simulation games based off of most everything out there, from simulating life, to ant colonies, sports teams, business of various sorts, and in Japan, you find another assortment, one of which allows you to raise a little girl into a woman who can take on varying careers of life, such as a Heroine, a Wife, and even a Princess.

This series is pretty aptly named Princess Maker.

Now, I unfortunately don't know a great deal about the series, but I've been able to play a few of the games in Japanese, and have recently been able to play the second game, which is the only one I am aware of with an English translation.

As far as simulation games go, Princess Maker is extremely easy to learn, being handled almost entirely of visual menus, though the small intricacies of the system are really only understandable when you understand the dialogue (thank goodness for the translation) and as you play the game more and more often.

At the very beginning of the game, you will of course choose your name, as well as your birthday, before selecting your 'daughter's' birthday, name and blood type (a distinctively Japanese touch), before you are greeted with an opening cinematic, which, like most of the game is done with an almost pastel, water-colored set of images.

This story tells of a King who became so corrupt that God sent the Lord of the Dark World to destroy his kingdom. But a hero (you) stops the Dark Lord, and when asked why, cannot answer. Weakened by the hero, the Dark Lord leaves, and the King promises to repent and offers the Hero a place to live, as well as a retainment fee of 500 Gold a year, to stay in the kingdom and help watch over it.

A while later, the hero sees a light on a nearby hill, and checking it out, he is given an 8 year-old girl to raise by one of several watcher gods (a different one based off of whatever Zodiac sign you have made your daughter by her date of birth), who wish you to raise her into a good woman.

For the next ten years of the game (give or take a few weeks or months based on your daughter's birthday) you will assign your daughter three blocks of two week goals (approximately), which range from education, to work, to adventure, to rest (which is either her heading into town with or without an allowance, or on a vacation to either the mountains or the sea) and bring down her stress levels.

Each goal, of course, affects other things. Education raises your daughter's stress, but can teach her various skills, such as cooking, cleaning, or even defense and attack, but they can also lower other skills (for example, cleaning can potentially lower things such as strength or even how people perceive you). Jobs, which also affect your stats and increase stress, can gain money if your daughter is able to do them properly (and will highly raise stress if she fails). Adventure allows you to defeat evil, necessary for the Dark Lord endings, and can net you a bit of money or items. Rest I've already mentioned.

The game itself can take a while to play through, of course, but with there being multiple endings (74), different events based on the course you take with your daughter, and the fact you can't raise all of your stats in one game, Princess Maker 2 has a lot of replay value.

Also, if you won't mind a slight deviation, I'd like to comment that the game has a lot of little details in it. Things like the fact your daughter's portraits and the main image you see of her change as she ages, based on what dresses or clothing she is wearing, and so on. The portraits are also affected by her mood, and can tell you if she's sick or stressed.

There are also a lot of tiny animations which play when your daughter is studying or working, as well as full images for the vacations and several of the endings. And on the case of studying and working, the animations can have several things going (such as working at the inn, you can drop the bedding when you fail and she looks miserable, or you can be cleaning the floor there, and etc.) It really makes for a lot of fun in trying out things so you can see what the different animations look like based on successes and fails.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the copy I got had no sound (this may be how it actually is, but I'm not sure), but it really doesn't take away from the game all too much considering it is still charming and fun, but for some it may make them reconsider playing it.

Overall though, if you're one of those people who like simulation games, and you're looking for one that's simple to grasp, but has a lot of small intricacies to keep you learning from every game of it you play, this one may be for you. It's charming, has a lot of replay value, and you'll be finding out little secrets almost every game you play of it.

So, if you get a chance, check in on out!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Magic of Scheherazade - NES Game - Culture Brain and Nintendo

I'm a large fan of RPGs, both older ones and newer ones, so it really isn't surprising that I enjoy digging out ones I have
never played, such as The Magic of Scheherazade.

Released in 1987 (1989 stateside), The Magic of Scheherazade is an action-RPG where you play as the descendant of the great Wizard Isfa, who years before tried to defeat the evil Wizard Sabaron, and thus protect Arabia from him. Failing in this, it is now your turn to take him out, especially since he has gone and taken your lady love, the Princess Scheherazade.

Unfortunately, before you can even begin your quest, your memory is erased and you wake up a little bit confused.
Thankfully, Coronya, a cat-like spirit of time, is there to remind you who you are and what it is you're doing, suggesting that you stop to talk to the people at the village you were so nicely dropped in front of.

Like many old NES games, The Magic of Scheherazade doesn't have a large color pallette, but they do pretty well with what they do have, and the characters that you can get to join you look quite different from one another. There's also several portraits of various NPCs that appear throughout the game, though these will repeat, and sometimes be color swapped for
a named character (example, the old man portrait one sees during the game is also Sabaron, except his has a blue face). Still, the amount of portraits available for the time seems pretty impressive.

Your main character, which you name right before beginning the game (I called him Isfa... Yes, I'm lame), has three attack types at his disposal while on the overhead map (there is also a more normal RPG-like battle screen, which I will go into). One is a sword, which is great for close range or those who are good at action-RPGs, a rod which fires at a distance and is good for enemies you can't easily get near, and various magic spells. All three of these are upgraded as one levels, or goes to different Universities hidden around the world (some are also upgraded by NPCs or finding hidden locations).

Unfortunately, the way the game is set up with the NES controller, one often has to enter the item screen (by pressing Start) and assign what spell they want to use (A button for all spells) or if they wish to use the rod or sword (B button). It's a bit awkward sometimes if you don't know what enemies may be approaching you, or what one needs to use on the bosses, but it can be learned pretty quickly.

Aside from the overhead map battles, there is also, as mentioned, a more generic RPG battle screen. Fading into black, it will display several enemies, and three possible commands to choose from. Fight will take you to a screen where you can choose up to two allies to assist you in battle, and either allow the computer to randomly distribute items, or do it yourself by telling it you aren't happy with the distribution. Run is self-explanitory, of course, and Peace is basically
you bribing the group of enemies (or one group if there's more than one kind on screen) to leave you alone.

In these battles, one can choose just to attack, or to use magic. There's also Troops that can be bought which will do extra damage to the monsters (and quite a bit I might add) and act as another source of HP as they can take damage, and die, as well. Of course, when attacking or using magic, one may only choose one group of creatures if there is more than one type on screen, and each attack will move down the line from left to right, repeating only as it hits the last creature on the right. And as with the original Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, if you defeat the group before all your attacks are used, it will not move onto the next group, forcing you to think ahead on which group to attack with which characters, and with which spells/attack.

Of course, as one might imagine, the game isn't just about fighting. In fact, one will be spending a lot of time talking to people, and trying to gather items and companions in order to be able to defeat Sabaron. Doing so will take you across around five different worlds, with their own towns and people, and across time as well... Yes, there was a game which did the time travel thing before Chrono Trigger, sorry.

Although almost all the sprites look the same in the towns (there's maybe five or six total), and some of the people repeat the same things as others, there are also pleasant little touches that just make one snicker (such as the old man who says he'll never leave his town which is about to go underwater, and fifty years later, what do you know, he's still there), to make up for the lack of a lot of NPC dialogue.

The story itself is told in small pieces via townsfolk, of course, but mostly by the NPCs you'll pick up throughout the game, each which has a surprisingly unique personality. The carpet rides to a new world at the end of each chapter further develop these characters, and were one of my favorite pieces of the game.

Now, I should also mention that, aside from the main quest, one can find a casino in some of the towns and attempt to gamble to raise their money. I never played in any of them, so I'm not entirely sure what the games in them entail, but they are there for those who enjoy that sort of thing.

Unfortunately, for as charming and unique as the game was, I just wasn't as impressed by it as others have been. I mean, it's not a bad game; The graphics are nice, it has a pretty good story, there's not any slippery controls, but I just felt like the game wasn't sure it knew what it wanted to be. Switching between the action segments, and then going into the regular RPG segments just felt a little disjointed to me and really detracted from my fun with the game.

Oh, and before I forget, I should note that there are three classes one can choose to be in the game (each helping a different stat) but it's probably best to just stick with the magician since it's required so often due to the speed it gives when firing shots from the rod. The Magic of Scheherazade also unfortunately has no battery save, instead relying on very long, clunky, passwords to save your data and reload your game.

So, in the long run, although I appreciate the game for what it is and what it was trying to do (and some of the stuff it did do, like the time-travelling), I just left feeling the game didn't know its own identity, which is a very sad thing indeed. Still, give it a shot if you like old RPGs, as it may just be to your taste more than mine.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009



Monsters' Den - Free Online Game - Biclops Games & Max Games

Dungeon crawling RPGs have always been hit and miss for me, with some being extremely entertaining to me (The Summoner) and others driving me completely up the wall (Time Stalkers). With this track record, it's not uncommon for me to want to play one, only to find either a good one and want to continue playing, or find a bad one and not touch the genre again for a good while.

Thankfully, when I found Monsters' Den, I found a pretty good little dungeon crawler that, although not highly detailed in its graphics, is still a fun little romp that's not too easy, but not incredibly hard either (unless you're playing on Hardcore difficulty).

So how does it work? Well, it works kind of like the old Dungeons & Dragons die and paper game, just with graphics.

Once you start the game, you're taken to a character creation screen. All four of the characters you may have are chosen for you and you can go with them, or fiddle around with them, deciding on their class (Warrior, Cleric, Mage, Ranger and Rogue), their gender, then a portrait for each character (there's seperate portraits for male and female, totaling around 6 or so per gender), before moving on to select your difficulty level (beginner, standard, hardcore and extreme).

As soon as this is done, you see a small scroll-like background that some text writes itself onto, detailing the basic premise of why your party of adventurers is entering into a dungeon infested with monsters, before you move on to your first randomly generated dungeon.

At first, however, the dungeon is almost fully obscured at the in darkness, except for a green arrow on the pavement telling you which way leads to the level you just came from and the rooms adjoining your current location. Moving the mouse to one of these rooms will cause a red movement arrow to appear, showing the direction you're headed in, and will tell you the information of any sets of monsters which may be in the room (marked on the map, fully visible, by a red X), though it won't tell you what's in the treasure chests (marked by a chest with gold coming out of it, fully visible as well).

There are also two other symbols you'll become used to: Another green arrow, similar to the entrance, which shows the way to the next level (often these are curved) and a glowing orb of light, which will fully heal your HP and Attack Points for a small amount of Points (which are really only useful if you're going for score or on a site that counts them for special things).

On the very bottom of the screen, you'll also notice the level of maze you're on, the percentage of the maze you've explored, and how much of that level of the maze you've cleared (basically explored applies to finding all rooms, and cleared is for defeating all creatures and gathering all treasure). You'll also be able to return to the menu, see your rating (or points), mess with the audio, characters armor and weapons, get hints on the map you're on or read up on some help for how to handle the game. You also see your characters and how many HP (red) and AP (blue) points they have remaining.

As you move around the maze, killing monsters and collecting treasure, you don't gain experience like one would in a normal RPG. Instead, one must constantly juggle their equipment and armor to try to keep their characters from dying in a battle. One only gains a level as they proceed further down into the maze, at which time they can add points into various stats (3
points per level) or gain new skills (11 per class) to assist.

Battle itself is handled on a basic board, with six squares on top for the enemies and six on bottom for your four heroes. At the beginning of each battle, you can move your heroes formation around in case it isn't working as well as you like, then begin the battle. Visual icons show you which skills you can use (they go red if you don't have enough AP), and scrolling
over them will show you how much AP each uses, as well as it's affects.

Each player or enemy moves at specific speeds, and has different weaknesses (yours depends on your armor mostly as far as I can tell) that can be exploited if you pay attention. The speed itself affects who attacks when, and it's a wise person who learns the typical movement order and uses it to make sure their party survives.

As is pretty common in most games of this kind, there is of course various potions that can be used, but only out of battle. Some will give you a boost to different stats the next time you fight, while others heal or revive characters. There is even one which will allow you to bypass a fight with monsters in case you're worn down and don't think you can defeat them.

At the end of each level of the maze, when you head to the next floor, you do get all your HP and AP back thankfully. And in harder modes you can return to the floor before to restore your HP and AP without losing points by using the healing spheres. Also at the end of each level, you get another of those scroll-scrawls, telling you a little bit more about the world and story, though it's never all too detailed.

And pretty much, that's all there is to Monsters' Den.

Although it isn't this huge detailed amount of stuff, there's still plenty of little things to learn (putting points in Endurance raises your maximum HP for example), and one has to be thinking of their next move (especially on higher difficulty settings) if they want to win.

There isn't a large expansive story, as I mentioned, but what's there is very much like the old Dungeons & Dragons, in that it's more just an excuse to go in, fight some monsters, collect some treasure, and work your way down to fighting a big evil so you can be the heroes.

Now, if I could just figure out why it is I have six slots but can only get four characters...