I live fairly close to a game store and every so often I find myself there looking for a new game.... despite the pile of half finished games I have waiting for me...
anyways thanks to this i have picked up a few games that most of my friends haven't heard of and can't give me an opinion on... So i tend to take the gamble and most of the times these games are around 10 bucks so it's not expensive for me....
i've gotten good results (Avalon code, the entire Falcom series of games) but i've also gotten burned (a witche's tale, hoshigami remix.... i'll have to write about these later.) the gamble has become part of the fun when it comes to playing a new game....
Now i will specify that this is 'New to me' game.... not necessarily the game that just came out...
So the other day i found myself at the store once again lookign at games and one jumps out at me...
"Lux-pain"
why would this random sounding title jump out?
1) anime styles character.... yes it's common on the DS but the art looked interesting and thats almost always what gets me to pick something up.... I judge things by their cover.... i can't help it... and i'm pretty sure you can't either.
2) Ignition Studios Logo... i can't remember that game i've played by these people off the top of my head but the recognition of the logo made me pick it up... and finally the last reason was...
3) There is katakana under the title.... you almost never see this on north American releases cause.... foreign languages scare people? It says (phonetic translation~) Rukusu - Pein.... so...yeah thats fun
so yeah.... i thought why not....
now when i said most of my friends won't know about the random games i pick up there is one friend i have who always knows it.... i held off on telling him i bought it until i had started to play.... i didn't want to hear anything good or bad to colour my opinion of the game.
So first i had to charge my 3ds.... i know playing ds games on a 3ds is not pleasant but my DS was signed by someone and i don't want to rub it off so oh well~ anyways i charged it and popped the game in.
Now i'm used to games giving some kind of tutorial so i didn't read the instruction manual cause i get tired being told the same thing multiple times..... yeah that wasn't terribly smart.
This game doesn't hold your hand at all... there is damn near nothing (so far) that comes close to any kind of tutorial
You are Atsuki, a boy with ash hair and black eyes who is part of something that is hunting an original carrier for silent and you need to find terms from worms and residual seiren and
WAIT---- this is too much to throw at someone who just put in the game.... you get damn near all the information before doing anything. I am alright with being thrown into a world as long as it is explained.... but just handing me a stylus and saying "okay you take it from here!" is a bit overwhelming.
so thanks to the info on the top screen you can pretty easily figure out what to do.... but not really how to do it.... more on that in a minute.
when you scratch away at reality you come across these 'worms' that kinda float around and if you remove them you get terms.... terms seem to be left over emotions and every time you find one your granted this cool typographical artsy cut-scene... the other characters explain that these worms are cause by a virus known as Silent which thrives on negative emotions and is the reason for many suicides and crimes being committed.
great.... a game dealing with a plague.... well if i can handle the trauma center games then this shouldn't be too hard...
anyways your goal is to find the original carrier of silent and to stop them in hopes of stopping the outbreak since it seems to get weaker the further away it gets from the original... it has brought you to this town and eventually a school within the town.
anyways you meet some characters and eventually try out all your tricks that the game has to offer and then finally save and head to the next day.... Hurray it takes place in October.... wonder what crazy things will happen on my birthday~
so i play a little into the second day.... this girl needs to have me extract her terms and so i scratch away at the screen lookign for this hidden on (didn't know it was hidden at the time) and i get a game over despite having a minute to spare...
So i'm all "what the hell did i do?" and the games like "destroyed her mind silly.... try again.... oh you didn't know that you could save? to the start of the day missy~"
so i closed the ds and read the damn instruction manual. apparently the bar at the top wasn't a timer like i thought but instead a mental bar that if 'scratched away' nets me a game over.... i also learned how to save, a little more of the backstory and things like searching the area for hidden worms.... the game of course explains none of this but hey.... whatever.... it's cool.... i can read....
so i flipped it open.... got back to the spot and tried again... success~ yay
i felt like i had more then enough to write something quick about it after all that.
so some good things and bad things...
The voice acting isn't bad and it's pretty odd hearing voices that i'm 99% sure are Monica Rial and Greg Aires in video games
maybe i'm mistaken?
*research time*
Nope i'm right~ they are in this game
anyways so the voice acting - good..... writing? bad bad bad bad bad bad BAD
well okay it's not that bad but it has two things going against it.... game specific terms.... that it expects you to just know and understand.... and the Voice acting doesn't follow the script.
but wait.... a second ago i mentioned the voice acting was good.... but it doesn't follow the script?
okay we've all (well okay maybe not all but just level with me) played games that have poor or awkward translation into english.... be it spelling or just grammar choices that don't seem right.... well it seems the english VAs realized that the script was awkward and clunky and they change almost every line.... but in a way that makes more sense.... all the information from he line is still there it just feels more believable. so yeah....
also if you hadn't guessed by now..... the plot is extremely complex.... at least for now... i'm sure the further in i get the more the story will make sense but right now i am confused.
Also I'm surprised this got brought over... cause this is barely a game.... granted i haven't faced a silent yet but so far all i have done is scratch away at reality and turn worms into terms and then click the terms.... very very very chill game and i like that so far...
people call it a 'visual novel' style adventure game.... i've not played one this intense yet but so far so good... i look forward to unraveling this mystery...
HOWEVER this game is panned by critics, no one seems to like it since the translation is so badly done.... we'll see how this goes~
also it's funny.... i bought it 'used' but i found it odd that there was no save file.... i have a feeling the person who owned this before me screwed up and destroyed the mind of the person who you meet in chapter 00, didn't know they could save.... had to start from the start of the game and gave up... or erased their save file before trading in the game.... i like my first theory more cause it means i beat that mysterious person! and if anyone remember the layton stories.... i don't tend to beat previous owners of the games i buy *le sigh*
alright... this was a very long first impression of a game.... sorry about that
No comments:
Post a Comment