even though Arland is just a kinda side note in this particular game...
Also if thats the bad end... well it wasn't as bad as i expected? *gets to after the credits bit* Hey! i really did work hard game... no need to be such a jerk about it *pouts*
My stats by end game
AKA: i suck at getting people to come into my town... i don't know what i was doing wrong... i felt like i was doing all the Dev quests but apparently not good enough... i think part of the problem was i didn't use the Homs as well as i could have... and i didn't get the travelers shoes till pretty much end game...
well that and one other thing... but i'll get into that later.
Meruru is the Princess of Arls, but being a princess is boring and dumb and they are going to merge with Arland in 5 years anyways! So why bother with all those silly royal teachings.... it's dumb and stuff.
That all changes when Totori, an alchemist comes to town... suddenly Meruru wants to be a world famous alchemist too...
great, but her butler and dad have one condition.
She has to get 100 000 people to join the town (which i think starts out at like.... 1000) before they merge with Arland
me: oh i can do that. (spoilers no i can't)
The good:
The game is similar to Totori but a lot of stuff has been streamlined and the presence of the overarching goal is always in your face, you don't have to wait for a silly little random event to move the plot forward.
the map is a bit smaller... or at least it comes out in full circles more. which i liked.
it also doesn't just throw a million new places at you off the bat, you actually have to go and clear the area before you can move onto the next which was welcome cause in totori it was way too easy to find yourself outmatch by everything.
The alchemy is better explained and also has more stats (at least that i noticed) so again... nice to know what chance i will have of being successful.
There are a lot of familiar (and may i add very pretty) faces, I was so happy that i got to pick between 4 pretty boys. There were more characters? okay well Totori is actually pretty Over powered if you have her staff from having a totori save file on your game... not that i'm complaining since her presence was really nice until Sterk arrived and then she was booted from the party so quickly.
The character development for almost everyone (more on this in a bit) is really good... i particularly adore the banter between Rufus and Sterk.
The not so good:
The music... what the hell happened? i mean some song are good, but the song for undeveloped areas and caves? made me want to turn off the game. I loved ALL the music in totori so for me to dislike most of it in this game really confused me.... ugh the tutorial music was probably the worst.... that the recorder (as in the instrument) away from the composer.
The difficulty... this game is both insanely easy and stupid hard... the battle system is way better then Totori... like leaps and bounds better.... but the progression of gettign people is so hard, most quests only give you 10 points for beating them... you pretty much need 100 to get anything done and that only tends to net you 1000 people.... again the goal is 100 000
if you beat some bosses they get you 80-100 pts but they aren't easily... i couldn't do any damage to the end... and the dragon in the volcano also went undefeated by me.
Some quests do give you more people upon completion but it's usually 250-500.
you do gain people over time if you are popular though... so you have to do tavern quests... which net you money but no points... most of the time i just did the report now stuff and picked a few hunts that i knew would be in the area i was going.
The Frustraiting:
i wont say it's bad but when i found out i was annoyed.
okay so in Totori the way i played was i would synthesize till i was out of mana, then i would go explore till my bag was full or my health was low... then i would go back to the workshop and Synthesize... repeat.
I could pull this off cause I'm pretty sure while i was at the cauldren i got health back slowly... if she didn't she would get health and mp back with walking to destinations... i think i rested 3 days with totori until i found out i could do that.... yeah not the case with meruru.
she doesn't gain health when synthing..... and it feels like she doesn't gain mp or health with walking... you HAVE to rest (or what i'm going to do this time and have a Hom making something with MP recovery) well resting takes time away from getting people into town and yeah... very very very annoying.
The bad:
Meruru.... i didn't hate her... but i sure didn't like her.
every single line is either her whining or telling more interesting characters not to fight or being the dumbest person in this entire game...
she was a princess obsessed with the outside world and then alchemy and then who cares about developing her further, she's only getting more people into town cause if she doesn't then her dad wont let her be an alchemist.
even her bad end... she isn't mad at herself for failing.. .she's resting in bed bored that no one has given her a more direct goal... she doesn't think "not going to let that stop me from making this kingdom... erm... republic the best it can possibly be."
She is nowhere near as interesting as Totori... maybe the normal end or true end have her a bit more developed but that apathetic bad end didn't leave me feeling like "next time i'll do better so she doesn't have to feel sad"
Will i play again?
maybe? i technically don't feel like i beat it... yes i play through the entire game but i didn't win.... also when i realized i couldn't win i started making equips as stupidly powerful as i could manage in the little time i had left... so mentally i was telling myself this isn't over yet.
but i may take a glance at a guide to see the pace i'm supposed to be working at.... cause my pace was no good.
and yeah lots of MP and HP recovery... screw resting.
I did like the game, i really did but so far even with all the improvement i think i enjoyed Totori more.
Also i just heard today that we are going to get Rorona plus... so yeah i'll get to play the game that started off this trillogy.... and more sterk.... yay~
hopefully i get to play other gust games too in the future... may cave and get a ps3 if i can find it cheap. (i don't wanna spend too mcuh when i know i am getting a ps4 eventually)
[EDIT]
So i originally 'beat' this game on May 6, it's May 10th now and i managed to get a proper ending.
not the ending i was hoping to get but i'll discuss why in a bit.
First somethings i noticed in my first play through that i completely forgot to mention
for the most part the music isn't terribly good.... but as you progress through the game some areas get better and better music with more orcestraition and it's a nice way to show growth over time.
Okay so i have a confession.
I didn't play much differently this time in comparison to my first time playing.
Instead i relied on massively overpowered equipment and a few basket upgared that i'm positive are the reason i beat the game this time... mainly the travellers shoes. the amount of time you save is key to actually winning the game. I did go back and forth less then my other play through but again thats cause i didn't take any damage while adventuring so i didn't have to go back.
but otherwise the only thing i did differently was get the homs to do almost all my work (except devs cause they can't do those)
my alchemy level was terrible but i was able to make it work in the end.
but i am still annoyed.
i was really close to getting true ending but i couldn't beat this final boss area which i'm pretty sure is nessicary both for points and items you get
so when i went for a different ending i failed in getting that... then i went for the hot-spring ending and i didn't have enough points.
in the end i got the rich nation ending which is okay but yeah thats was a lot of work.
i did manage to get 2 character endings... so that was pretty fun
all in all i still think Totori is better story wise but this game does some things pretty well
i do look forward to rorona in july even if it means i may need a new memory card.
i wanna trying playing muramasa rebirth again but i don't know if my wrist is ready for it... so yeah may be mostly talking about anime in the future.
anyways as you can tell it's a pretty quick game but what i would suggest is getting to a point where yo ucan make basket equips , make the shoes and secret bag an maybe the gloves and then get the bad ending and play from the begginning with those bonuses... it really did help.
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