It's Spring again, and I hate it. Every year, I know it's Spring or Autumn when allergies hit. And when they hit me, they hit really hard. Over the weekend, I had some sort of dry throat ailment that was really affecting me. My throat felt dry, itched, and hurt a bit, but nothing serious enough to be considered sickness. It might have been the excessive amount of spicy food I was eating those few days. It persisted for 5 days and just when it seemed like I was starting to feel okay again, I woke up sneezing three times in a row with a tear running down my left cheek. That's when I knew allergies had hit me. It started yesterday and it's been awful dealing with it. Coughing, sneezing, watery/teary eyed and runny nose on my left side, and headaches from all the coughing and sneezing. I woke up this morning hoping it was all gone since I had taken some medicine. I opened my eyes feeling perfectly normal, but a teardrop came out of my left eye the second I lifted my head. So today I haven't been coughing and sneezing as much as yesterday, but new problems come forth. Both eyes are watery now and both nostrils and runny AND stuffy. I'm having a difficult time seeing or breathing. My throat is itchy again and I have a numb headache from the ordeal I face all day yesterday. I don't feel like doing anything. I don't want to work, don't want to move around, and I can barely play videogames (though that's what I'm mainly doing to try to take my mind off of my ailments and pass the time).
As much as I like being able to play games throughout the day to pass the time, it's also difficult to enjoy them when my mind is so muddled and feeling so awful. I really wanted to get more done this week. And I was working so diligently on Monday, too. It's almost the end of April and I've barely gotten done with what I wanted to this month. Despite that, this has been a productive month. In the first week of April, I spent each day cleaning a part of my room and reorganized the whole place. Looking at my room, nothing much has changed, but everything within my night stands, closet and organizer spaces have been rearranged to suit my needs better and to clear out any unnecessary junk. It's funny, because what lead me to want to do all that was because I ran out of room to put my handheld game boxes together (3DS and PS Vita games). It was all for the better though and finding what I need in my room became easier.
I then got into listening to some Japanese Funk and Disco of sorts early in the month.
Because of this, I started listening to old Disco music I used to hear when my father put them on at home or in the car. I listened to them so much that I decided to make a Disco mix. I wanted to learn more about Disco as well since I plan on using that influence in future compositions and remixes. Besides that, I continued working on my Guardian Legend remix that I began again (I started planning it back in 2007) and got one remix done. I took 4 short tracks (3 of them being around 10 seconds long and 1 being 25 seconds long) and turned it into a 13 minute remix. I liked how it turned out composition-wise, but I felt like my music suffered greatly from my lack of experience and knowledge in mixing and mastering music. I spent some time to learn more, but I don't think I learned nearly enough. I went back and re-did the first remix track for the project since I didn't like how it turned out. It turned out great the second time around! But then I found out that it had a pop sound when the tempo changed. I have no idea why it did that since it never did before. I'm very sad about not being able to take out that pop sound, but I really liked how the 2nd version came out compared to the first one. I don't have any of them uploaded yet, so I can't share yet.
While I was trying to pass time yesterday while suffering from my allergic reactions, I played a bunch of Rogue-like inspired games I had. This included Delver, Heavy Bullets, Faster Than Light, and One Way Heroics. I started thinking about it and I realize that I'm actually getting sick of hearing the word "Rogue-like" in games. They generally have insane difficulty curves, make you slog through several boring beginning levels and immediately throw a curve-ball at you when it starts getting good, and sometimes they feel so empty with little content which leads to memorization and the ability to react fast enough to get through the game. Most of the games involve "BS Deaths" which I know is part of the Rogue-like genre. So why am I okay with it in some games but not others? I guess it's just a matter of perspective.
Dungeon of Dredmor is still one of my favorite Rogue-likes. It doesn't follow the exact rules of a Rogue-like, but it's one of the closest games to one that's much more casual friendly. Even when I play on hardcore, Dungeons of Dredmor is still capable of entertaining me throughout my playthrough. If I wanted to complete the game, I turn hardcore mode off (and I did that and completed the game once). It has so much content and so much dynamics in how many different events and situations can happen each time you play that it has true replay value.
Eldritch was one of the games I had a problem with. It's a First-Person Perspective, Rogue-like Action-Adventure game where you have to go through 3 different realms and bring 3 objects back to complete the game. The game was meant to be very difficult and follows the perma-death rule of Rogue-likes. What you can do is save money to a bank to withdraw later even after death to use and make the next playthrough a bit easier. Besides the immense difficulty, the problem I had with the game was how limited the items were. The game felt lacking because of that. It was just a matter of dying over and over until you memorize every enemy pattern and get good enough to get through the game and by saving up money to make the play through easier. After a while, I gave up because it felt more like a chore and I wasn't have fun with it.
Heavy Bullets is kind of similar in a sense to Eldritch in that items felt limited and saving up money was a key mechanic to making the play through easier. I really wanted to like Heavy Bullets, but enemies and level designs felt unorthodox for the sake of difficulty. There are enemies that hide within bushes of the exact same color, turrets with insane accuracy and fire rate, and enemies with erratic movement patterns. It reminds me a bit of Receiver, an experimental First-Person Shooter Rogue-like. That game also had BS turrets and flying enemies with erratic movements. Even worse, you died in one hit in that game. I watched a full walk through of Heavy Bullet and the first thing the player did was pull out $3000 from the bank that he saved up. Heavy Bullets had an interesting idea with only using the bullets you had on you and picking them back up and all, but the overall design revolved too much around farming, memorizing enemy patterns (keep in mind you have to start all over from the very beginning, so you can't really practice against those enemies you meet for the first time), and maybe even a bit of luck.
Speaking of luck, Delver is kind of like that. During my first play through, I got far into the game with little problem and finding a lot of useful items. And then one of the enemies, the same one I've been seeing throughout the game, shoots me twice and I immediately die. The 2nd time around, I picked up 60 arrows without a single bow in sight and finding little to no curatives. Shortly after I found one, one of the enemies popped out of the shadows soon afterwards and one-shotted me. What was upsetting was there wasn't even an animation. He just walked up to me and it said "You Died". 3rd time around, I didn't go nearly as far as my 1st and 2nd playthrough. Instead, I died on the 2nd level because there was a room full of spikes that immediately killed me. Like I said before, I know BS deaths are part of Rogue-likes, but it was hard to find the game enjoyable when it pulls so many fasts ones.
One game I thought that was good but had the same mechanic is Faster Than Light. People love this game, and a few of my friends have poured several dozen hours into it. Every time I play, I get through the game fairly easily only to run into that one enemy that completely overwhelms me. There's nothing that can be done during those events. At this point, it isn't even about skill like the past 3 games I talked about, but solely on luck. That isn't to say that Faster Than Light is entirely luck based because there's a lot of planning and strategy involved. I also think FTL has a decent amount of content to keep it fresh and interesting; however, those random difficulty spikes made it really hard for me to enjoy.
Hack, Slash, Loot, on the other hand, was entirely luck based or pretty dang close to it. Despite having a myriad variation in classes, the game lacked dynamics and content. Getting a new class required to die 10 times each. All classes played pretty similar to minor differences. Enemies could randomly one-shot you. Your attacks might hit if you're lucky. I'm pretty sure I've talked about this game either on Superpad Unplugged or here because that game really riled me up. It was the least entertaining Rogue-like I have played on Steam, I believe.
One Way Heroics is a game I've played and completed a few times on easier difficulties. It was the only game that I kept playing last night despite dying so many times. Like Dungeons of Dredmor, it has a LOT of content, it can save so death isn't necessarily permanent, and it has a lot of dynamics.
There are so many "Rogue-like" games on steam now with a majority of them disappointing me that I'm starting to get sick of hearing the word. I know there's a lot of potential for Rogue-likes, so I'm hoping better games will be made with that in mind. I'm really liking the officially released Crypt of the NecroDancer and I have yet to buy The Binding of Isaac Rebirth, so I have hope for the sub-genre.
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Time and Eternity Rant [SPOILERS]
I finished Time and Eternity for PS3 yesterday and felt it's worth talking about. I first heard about the game when NIS America released three trailers of games they were working on publishing: Disgaea D2, The Guided Fate Paradox (bought this one, but haven't played it yet), and Time and Eternity. This was the trailer for the game:
The trailer is so silly, right? But it seems like a very unique experience. Exploration is with 2D images in a 3D environment. Battles are in real-time with influences from action games. And the game looked like it was strongly story driven. I was mainly interested in the action-orientated combat system and the music. As much as I love turn-based battle systems in JRPGs, I've played so many of them that I'm always craving for something new. And for the music, I immediately liked when I heard them in the trailer and felt the composition to be familiar in style. Sure enough, I looked it up and found out the music was created by one of my favorite composers, Yuzo Koshiro. For these two main reasons, I kept an eye out for the game. Shortly after it released, it got panned by critics and players alike. It ended up getting a 42 out of 100 on Metacritic. Ignoring the critic reviews to see what a game is like with my own eyes and hands, I finally bought a copy for around $25. Considering my backlog, I didn't think I'd play it any time soon. But I felt like I had to play it right after I had completed Hyperdimension Neptunia and so I opened it and started playing it.
Immediately, I started seeing problems with the game. The game was advertised as a "Hi-def Animation RPG" and the graphics were truly bright, clean and beautiful; however, the animation itself was really poor. Movements were anywhere from 2-7 frames, the lip movements didn't match the English voice OR the Japanese voice, the same animation sequences are used over and over throughout the game, and so on and so forth. I think I might actually have to list everything out that went wrong with the game:
-Very few frames used for movement, making it look choppy and cheap when in motion
-Same animation sequences are reused quite often throughout the game
-Lip movements didn't match up to dialogue in both English and Japanese voice-overs
-The male protagonist is such a creeper
-Not enough variation between Toki and Towa's animations
-The same jokes are reused and they tend to stop being funny if they ever were funny
-Story is meant to be humorous yet it doesn't seem to fully achieve it
-Combat controls feel clunky BUT was meant to be in order to maintain the challenge
-Exploration involved a LOT of backtracking
-Side-quests are uninteresting and the rewards are often negligible
-Enemies are obnoxious and annoying to fight sometimes
-Characters felt shallow and forgettable (in the beginning)
-The game has a LOT of padding which means having to grind a LOT (mostly by doing side-quests)
-Side-quests were pointless if you knew how to manage your currency and grind effectively
-Fighting beginning level enemies gave close to the same amount of exp as high level enemies...
So by now, you must be thinking "man, he must've really hated the game". When I started the game, I was thinking "what did I get myself into?" But I kept going and got through the game and actually ended up really liking it! Yes, the game is heavily flawed, but I don't think it's a "bad game". It's not a game I can easily recommend to a friend, but I felt like the game deserves merit in what it did right which was creating a fresh and unique experience in a long running genre that so many believe to be dead now.
So let's start from the beginning again. The game starts off with the wedding of the Knight (Zack) to the Princess (Toki) of Kamza. As they make their vows, a band of assassins break through the church doors and attack the Zack and Toki. Zack dives forward to protect Toki only to be fatally wounded with a stab to the abdomen. As Zack believes he was cool in protecting the princess, Toki's personality suddenly changes as her Red hair and eyes become golden yellow and starts taking down the assassins. It is then revealed that there is a second soul living within Toki's body with the name Towa (which their name means Time and Eternity in Japanese, by the way). They go back 6 months before their wedding with Zack suddenly in the body of Toki's pet dragon, Drake. The story continues with Zack in Drake's body, Toki, and Towa as they travel back in time to stop their wedding from being attacked over and over until they can finally have their wedding and their future. Now, it's time to get into details.
[Graphics]
I like the art style of the game. It's colorful, bright, vibrant, and easy on the eyes. One of the biggest problems a lot of people have with the game is with how much assets are recycled throughout the game. The same animations, environments, enemies, and NPCs are copy and pasted with new color palettes to signify a distinction between them all. There are some different animations between Toki and Towa as they are two different people despite sharing the same body, but they also share a lot of the same animations such as the battle and exploration animations. But being able to look past that, the graphics are "alright". There are plenty of games that reuse assets to create more content with less work; this game just happens to overdo it and make it stand out as being cheap and uninspired. I can't say that I hated the graphics because of this tactic, but I suppose I was disappointed.
I also want to note that the game does have some fan-service with 11 CG still-frames throughout the game that are triggered through certain events. This is generally something I've come to accept in Japanese animé and games and don't really worry about. But it seems to be a common topic many Western audiences argue about whether it should be in games or not. I don't think any of them were censored. The only thing censored in the game that I know of is the panty-shot animations in combat.
[Audio]
The one thing that everyone seems to praise the game for is the music. A lot of the songs are quite moving and have a memorable melody. The music really makes up for the entire mood and atmosphere of the whole game that it seems to lack visually. Some of them are so good that I could listen to them for hours.
Marriage (Title Screen):
Palais de Kamza (Wedding Theme):
Wind of Hope (Plains Field):
Bout! (Towa's Battle Theme):
Memory Disorder (Last Boss Battle):
You can tell it's Yuzo Koshiro's work if you've listened to a lot of his work on the Etrian Odyssey series. The music really played a big part on the whole experience. There isn't much to say about sound effects other than that it was well executed (I appreciate the work put into sound effects ever since I've played Valhalla Knights Eldar Saga). For voice-overs, I played with the English voices for about an hour before I decided to switch and stay with the Japanese voice-overs. I can't say it was bad, but I felt more comfortable with the Japanese voice-overs. The audio was definitely the stronger points in the game.
[Gameplay]
There's a lot to say about the gameplay. The flow of the game consists of a cinematic, then dialogue between the characters, picking up side-quests (optional), and then going out onto a field to fulfill an objective. So it's a typical "build a basis for the story and progress with gameplay" sort of RPG. Objectives are straight-forward and to the point. Despite that, the game does love to beat around the bush. Following only the main quests will often have the player's level fall behind the recommended level to play in. Thankfully, there is a difficulty setting that allows you to play between Easy and Normal. Since I'm not too fond of grinding and excessive padding, I chose to play Easy which reduces the amount of grinding required by quite a bit. Exploration consists of traversing large maps and triggering events. You'll receive quests to fulfill, encounter different NPCs to talk to, and fight bosses to progress to the next main objective. Scattered between the main quests are side-quests the player can partake in order to receive rewards and gain experience points to level up. Enemy encounters are still the same as most JRPGs where you'll have a random battle encounter while walking around the field and then go into a battle phase. One of the great mechanics within the game is a bar that tells you when you'll run into an enemy. You won't run into an enemy until the bar is full. With this, you can expect and anticipate a battle and not be frustrated whenever you run into one since you'll know when it's coming. When leveling up, the player can choose between an assortment of "gifts" which are kind of like specializations that Toki and Towa can acquire to learn new skills and gain new attributes. The "gifts" are linked in a sort of "skill tree" kind of way so you have to get certain ones before acquiring the higher level ones. The player can only play as Toki or Towa at any given time until they switch off. The two souls switch whenever they level up or if they use a "pepper". Zack, who is in Drake's body, can't be controlled directly; however, the player can gain certain skills to influence him later on to work alongside with Toki or Towa's abilities. For the most part, Zack just attacks and heals on his own free will. Combat is in real-time, so there's no waiting. Enemies will follow a general attack pattern and it's up to the player to learn them and fight accordingly. The player controls Toki or Towa with these key mechanics: Running up to and back from enemies, normal attacking (blade: close / rifle: ranged), abilities, blocking/countering, dodging, item usage, time spells, and finishers. Combat in this game feels a lot like an action game where you have to learn and memorize each pattern for every enemy to effectively fight against them. Knowing when to block, when to attack, and abusing an enemy's weakness is the only way the player can defeat an enemy. Enemies can be pretty obnoxious with their different abilities and patterns. As mentioned before, a lot of enemies will look exactly alike with a different color palette and be considered a totally different enemy. They might have the same abilities, but their timing, patterns, and stats (health and damage amount) will vary. Besides knowing the timing of the enemies, the player must know the timing of their own characters' abilities. Spells have a charge time and can be interrupted by enemy attacks. The player can't dodge or block if they're in the middle of a combo attack. The controls feel clunky at first, but makes sense in a design standpoint. Were the player able to block and dodge at any given time or have extremely tight controls over every action, they'd be practically invincible. This kept combat fresh and the player on edge every battle. Yes, it's extremely tiring and sometimes tedious, but I found it to be really interesting since I'm always engaged with the fight rather than just mashing "confirm" to attack to get through a battle like most turn-based JRPGs turn out to be. I found the enemies that silence, knock down a lot, or the ones that never stop attacking to be some of the most difficult ones to deal with. Here's a breakdown of all the pros and cons I can think off on top of my head:
+ Objectives are straight-forward and very easy to follow (never get lost, I love it)
+ Exploration are never too drawn out (for main quests, at least) with decently sized maps
+ The enemy encounter rate bar was a great idea. I liked knowing when I'll get into a fight
+ Combat is fresh, unique, and engaging. It's one of the game's most notable aspects
+ Fights (especially bosses) were challenging and memorable
+ I liked the plethora of items, abilities and time skills I was capable of utilizing in battle
- Side-quests are often boring and gave negligible rewards
- There is a LOT of back-tracking involved, especially with side-quests involved
- Walking towards an objective can feel like a real drag sometimes, mainly with side-quests
- There isn't a wide variety of enemies as a lot of them are recycled
- In order to get the "special ending" you have to play through "new game+" IOW 2nd playthrough
- The time skills can be pretty BS. How BS? It made the last boss stupidly easy
[Characters]
I'm probably not going to cover every character, but I want to review all the pivotal ones.
Ricardo, Lucy & Linus: These three are the comic reliefs of the game despite the game being mostly humorous (or tries to be). Toki/Towa and Zack first encounter the three in the first chapter when they went back 6 months before their wedding to find out why the Assassin's Guild attacked them during their ceremony. Thinking that they were from the Assassin's Guild, they fight them only to find out they're Assassin's Guild fans. Even later, Ricardo is revealed to be a baker and a horrible one at that. Ricardo is always seen proposing to Toki/Towa and refuses to back down while Zack (in Drake's body) keeps biting his head. This on-going gag got old super fast and they stuck with it to the very end of the game. A lot of the jokes and gags around Ricardo were often bad as the cakes he made, but perhaps that's the whole point? Ricado and his lackeys feel very much like background characters you can forget about, but the amount of times they come forth to help out the heroes seems to say otherwise. I didn't find these characters to be particularly interesting.
Makimona: I thought for sure she was the main villain and the main cause of this entire crisis. The Jill-of-all-trades did everything from fortune-telling to being a spirit medium to protecting the gates to the guardians of the "something" treasures. When Toki was about to be married, she asked Makimona her fortune and she told Toki that someone was going to die. Later on, they realized she wasn't a fortune teller at all. She just makes stuff up when people ask her what their fortune are. She appears in every chapter of the game and tries to help the heroes as best as she can while asking for favors to help her in return. In one chapter, she reveals that she's asked 328 men on a date but couldn't get anyone to go out with her because of her timid personality. Out of all the bosses you had to fight in the game, she was my favorite one since it was the most difficult one that required the most planning and thinking.
Netherdrake: The last boss to the 2nd chapter of the game, who's afraid of the bad business bureau more than death. That joke was actually kind of funny which is why I'm mentioning this character.
Enda: She's Toki and Towa's energetic friend that seems to love cake because she's seen eating one every time you go back home. Enda was the first character I liked when I started the game because of how cute she was. But by the end of the game, there wasn't much to her character past that. She's known to have a strange taste in men and is often portrayed "head-over-heels" over Ricardo throughout the first chapter of the game. When Ricardo finally asks her to go out with him after being dumped by Toki/Towa a dozen times, she said "no".
Reijo: Toki/Towa's rich friend who was born from a noble family, or so I thought. I didn't like this character at first as she was immediately portrayed as the pompous "ojou-sama" type character that I generally dislike. She calls Zack all sorts of different weed names and seems to look down upon him as being worthless. She often emphasizes how rich she was whenever she was around Toki in the beginning. In the beginning of Chapter 2, Reijo stabs Toki/Towa at their wedding. When Toki/Towa and Zack go back in time to find out why that happened, they found out that she was being controlled by the Netherdrake to do his bidding. Reijo had asked the Netherdrake to fulfill her wish and in return, she had to kill the princess at the wedding. Reijo begged and pleaded to take back the contract, but all deals with the Netherdrake were final. As the chapter unfolded, the heroes find out that Reijo was not of nobility, but rather of poverty. She grew up without a father and lived with her mother in a small town and relied on the many various weeds around her home to provide food, medicine, and material for survival. So perhaps, she's been complimenting Zack all this time as weed is often seen as strong since they don't die easily and it's obviously been useful to Reijo throughout her life. She was happy with her life until her mother died from illness. She was deeply upset with the loss of her mother, but was then confronted by a young Toki who comforted her. It was then that Reijo wanted to be friends with Toki but didn't know how to. With the desire to be rich so that she could be Toki's friend, she made a deal with the Netherdrake to make her unbelievably wealthy. It turns out that she didn't care about the money and would often donate a portion every month to charity. She only wanted to be friends with Toki/Towa. The wish Reijo had asked for from the Netherdrake was for a flawless and happy wedding for her friend Toki/Towa as she cared very much for her. But the Netherdrake asked Reijo to kill her. With that contradiction, the heroes attack the Netherdrake and threatened to report him to the bad business bureau. The love and dedication to her friend as well as her selflessness shown that chapter is what made Reijo my favorite character out of the game.
Wedi: Toki/Towa's clumsy friend who keeps tripping over herself. Wedi is also the wedding planner for Toki/Towa. She's forgetful, ditsy, but very kind. With Reijo often insulting Zack and Enda playing along, Wedi is the only friend of Toki/Towa that treats Zack with a bit of respect. There isn't much to Wedi's character as well, although her moment of glory in the opening of chapter 3 was pretty cool. Makimona is the one to attack the wedding in the 3rd chapter and nearly kills both Toki and Zack; however, Wedi leaps out and summons a Golem to block the brunt of the attack. That sort of confidence and courage surprised even Wedi when Toki/Towa and Zack go back in time to tell her what had happened. She then goes out, risking her life, to befriend a Golem to prepare for the worst just in case something does happen. She explains to Makimona that she had a boy that she liked but never found the courage to tell him and was soon taken by another girl. Despite her sadness, she found happiness among her friends. Her friendship to Toki/Towa is what gives her strength and is what made her decide to become a wedding planner to ensure Toki/Towa would have the best wedding ever. Wedi is just a good-natured girl in general.
Toki: Toki is the sweet and more reserved one between the two souls. She specializes in using the rifle and shoots much faster than Towa does in combat. Her main magic ability is of the Fire element and has more of a focus on spells. She's soft-spoken and very lady-like. Considering how much of a pervert Zack is, the player has to question why she would want to marry him. As the game progresses, Zack upholds a lot of action that is considered chivalrous and Toki exclaims that she fell more and more in love with him as time went by. One particular story revealed that when her pet dragon Drake was sick, Zack was the one who went out and got the medicine to help nurse him back to health. Zack confessed that he had his knight buddies help him find it when he couldn't when Toki was telling that story and she liked that part of him too, in that he was an honest man who respected others and helped those in trouble. Despite being a princess, Toki wants a normal life outside the castle walls living with Zack and raising a family. She's the type of person that cared for others before herself.
Towa: Towa is more wild and aggressive between the two souls. She'll often speak her mind bluntly and isn't easily intimidated. She specializes in daggers and closer quarter combat and thus does a lot more damage up close than Toki does in combat. Her main magic ability is of the lightning element but still focuses more on physical prowess. Despite her aggressive personality, she's actually quite shy and still acts like a girl when embarrassed. In other words, she's a tsundere. Towa had never really planned on letting Zack know that she was sharing Toki's body, but circumstances led her to come out. Despite the surprise, Zack accepted Towa and even began to fall in love with her as much as Toki as she was just as considerate and caring as Toki was for her friends and others. Towa spoke to Zack about her desires to be able to go on a normal date with him and be able to experience all the activities couples got to do. She didn't want to be seen as just a part of Toki but rather an individual. I think I might have liked Towa a little more because the contrast in her demeanor gave her personality.
Zack: I really didn't like this character at all in the beginning. Right from the beginning, he was a total creeper with perverted thoughts. He seemed very cocky and full of himself in the beginning of the game where he protects Toki and starts insinuating "man, I'm so cool for doing that. I must seem like a total chick magnet right now." It was very difficult to empathize with such a character that seemed so selfish and narcissistic. But as the game progresses, he is portrayed as an upstanding man who still believed in chivalry. He's still a pervert, through and through. But there was more to him than just a man full of naughty thoughts. Why did he want to marry Toki in the first place? He saw the kindness and loyalty she had for her friends and those around her and wanted to be with a person with such ideals of raising a happy family. When asked about his dreams, he replied that he wanted to be an upstanding knight who protected the country he loved and helped those in need. And more than anything, it was the interaction that he had with Toki/Towa, their friends, and those who needed help that made me finally accept the character. Throughout the adventure, it was never about the guy saving the girl or the girl protecting the guy. It was a mutual bond of wanting a happy life together and so they fought alongside each other as equals for a future they both wished to share together. Knowing that Towa was just as much of a part of Toki, Zack could not deny her and accepted her fully for who she was. Despite the difficulties that Toki/Towa's friends presented towards Zack, he never rejected them. Instead, he learned more about them and understood why these people were to important to Toki/Towa and why they were friends. At the very end, he showed that he cared about the happiness of others as well as his own.
[Story]
There is a lot to be said about the dialogue and scenarios presented. The game tried to be humorous, but a lot of the jokes were lame or were poorly executed because of the timing of the animations and flow of speech. But despite it all, I came to really like the story as a whole when I got to the very end of the game. It was a fun adventure with a sweet story of love and marriage. Could it have been better? Absolutely. Along with character development, graphics, gameplay technicalities, and scenario writing, the game could have been significantly better. But I'll accept what I was given and leave it at that.
-Opening-
Zack meets with Toki and gathers to see all of her friends: Enda, Reijo, and Wedi. At their wedding ceremony, Zack and Toki are attacked by a band of assassins with Zack fatally wounded. The two travel back in time and try to prevent the attack from ever happening. The opening of the game wasn't too bad. There was a LOT of talking before I got to get to gameplay, but it wasn't to the point of being unbearable.
-Chapter 1-
This might have been the weakest chapter in the game. Toki/Towa and Zack try to find the Assassin's Guild and stop them from attacking the wedding. Along the way, they meet Ricardo and his two lackeys. Enda follows you a few times just to see Ricardo while Ricardo constantly keeps asking Toki/Towa to go out with him. The jokes and gags revolving around Ricardo and Enda were pretty lame and they're used over and over. I still think Enda is pretty cute, but wish she had more (if any) character development. They found out that the Assassin's Guild attacked their wedding because they provoked them into doing so by saying "don't do it" when they never planned on doing so. They ceased all ideas of them ever attacking and then went back to the present to return to their wedding.
-Chapter 2-
This time, their wedding is attacked by monsters and Reijo stabs Toki. I really liked this chapter because of the character development around Reijo. I think the whole game would have had a better story to tell if there were more character development among the friends to Toki/Towa to go beyond the reason of "I want to help because she's my friend". This chapter also provided a bit more character development on Makimona as you ask her for help while she asks for help in return. The last boss for this chapter was quite different, but I can't really say if it was a "good" kind of different. I've already told a majority of the story in Reijo's description up above.
-Chapter 3-
Makimona is not happy that you're happy and she's not. She makes this clear quite a few times throughout the chapter. She crashes the wedding with the "Something Four" treasures and attacks Toki and Zack only to have Wedi protect them. When going back in time, Toki/Towa's grandmother explains that they're probably stuck in a mobius loop; a phenomenon in time travel in which the destiny or outcome of an event can never change (Ever watched/read The Time Machine?). In order to break the never ending cycle, they have to collect the "Something Four" treasures from the guardians with the gates being guarded by Makimona. Makimona only knows that the treasure brings happiness to newlyweds and becomes more and more reluctant in letting the heroes have it for themselves. After she takes the treasures from you after collecting all of them, you fight her and she gives them back only to have them fall off the floating island. Makimona and Toki/Towa's friend make their own "Something Four" treasures in hopes of good luck as the heroes go back to the present hoping for the best without the treasures.
-Chapter 4-
The sand that's been in the hourglass attached to Toki suddenly bursts out and says that the heroes will continue to re-live this tragedy over and over no matter what and was prepared to send them into a perpetual string of tragic outcomes of their wedding. Then the treasure that everyone made ceased the sand's attack and personified it into a human girl (even though it's a dude? So confusing). Fighting all the bosses in reverse order, the heroes take down mobius over and over until they learn that the reason why they're stuck in a mobius loop is because of a contradiction in vow. Toki and Towa made a promise to each other when they were 5 years old that is akin to a marriage. They would stick together no matter what. This allowed the two souls to co-exist this entire time without having one being dominant and having the other one disappear. But because of that promise, their attempt to marry Zack contradicts it. Their solution was to have Toki/Towa's grandmother go back in time and tell them not to make such a promise and reserve such a promise to a man that they will meet and love. The problem was that this will cause one of the two souls to disappear and not exist anymore. A fate worse than death, Zack had to choose which soul remained and which disappeared. Honestly, it was a heart-breaking decision to make. I ended up making two save files and fought the last boss twice and saw both endings. They were both great endings if not a little sad. Choosing one or the other, Toki/Towa will lose all memory of one another when they break out of the mobius loop as well as losing all memory of ever meeting Zack. Everyone loses the memories of the soul that disappears other than Zack and the grandmother (who returns back to the present safely). Zack asks Toki or Towa (depending who remained) to marry him of which she refuses as she had only met him. But then he asks again and she agreed because she felt that there was some connection to him in some way that time couldn't explain. And so they spend a year together creating new memories before their marriage.
For Toki's ending, it's a normal and happy ending with Toki throwing the bouquet and Makimona furiously diving for it hoping for a chance to meet a man.
With Towa's ending, it was a little more humorous. Towa gets embarrassed for having to kiss Zack in front of everyone and so instead of Zack holding her out the door, Towa holds Zack princess-style out the door for payback. Then they cut the wedding cake, but Towa is so strong that she pulls Zack with the knife and cuts the cake in half along with the table. With either ending, they wonder what to name their first child. And they said if it's a girl, they want to name her the one that didn't remained (Towa / Toki).
Sadly, the special ending was not all that special at all. Through some miracle, both Toki and Towa's soul remained. But then it just goes to an image and said they lived happily ever after together. I was hoping it'd be more fleshed out with a nice cinematic and everything, so it was rather disappointing.
And that about wraps things up. I really wasn't expecting too much out of the game, but I'm really glad that I ended up enjoying it and felt so good about it at the end.
The trailer is so silly, right? But it seems like a very unique experience. Exploration is with 2D images in a 3D environment. Battles are in real-time with influences from action games. And the game looked like it was strongly story driven. I was mainly interested in the action-orientated combat system and the music. As much as I love turn-based battle systems in JRPGs, I've played so many of them that I'm always craving for something new. And for the music, I immediately liked when I heard them in the trailer and felt the composition to be familiar in style. Sure enough, I looked it up and found out the music was created by one of my favorite composers, Yuzo Koshiro. For these two main reasons, I kept an eye out for the game. Shortly after it released, it got panned by critics and players alike. It ended up getting a 42 out of 100 on Metacritic. Ignoring the critic reviews to see what a game is like with my own eyes and hands, I finally bought a copy for around $25. Considering my backlog, I didn't think I'd play it any time soon. But I felt like I had to play it right after I had completed Hyperdimension Neptunia and so I opened it and started playing it.
Immediately, I started seeing problems with the game. The game was advertised as a "Hi-def Animation RPG" and the graphics were truly bright, clean and beautiful; however, the animation itself was really poor. Movements were anywhere from 2-7 frames, the lip movements didn't match the English voice OR the Japanese voice, the same animation sequences are used over and over throughout the game, and so on and so forth. I think I might actually have to list everything out that went wrong with the game:
-Very few frames used for movement, making it look choppy and cheap when in motion
-Same animation sequences are reused quite often throughout the game
-Lip movements didn't match up to dialogue in both English and Japanese voice-overs
-The male protagonist is such a creeper
-Not enough variation between Toki and Towa's animations
-The same jokes are reused and they tend to stop being funny if they ever were funny
-Story is meant to be humorous yet it doesn't seem to fully achieve it
-Combat controls feel clunky BUT was meant to be in order to maintain the challenge
-Exploration involved a LOT of backtracking
-Side-quests are uninteresting and the rewards are often negligible
-Enemies are obnoxious and annoying to fight sometimes
-Characters felt shallow and forgettable (in the beginning)
-The game has a LOT of padding which means having to grind a LOT (mostly by doing side-quests)
-Side-quests were pointless if you knew how to manage your currency and grind effectively
-Fighting beginning level enemies gave close to the same amount of exp as high level enemies...
So by now, you must be thinking "man, he must've really hated the game". When I started the game, I was thinking "what did I get myself into?" But I kept going and got through the game and actually ended up really liking it! Yes, the game is heavily flawed, but I don't think it's a "bad game". It's not a game I can easily recommend to a friend, but I felt like the game deserves merit in what it did right which was creating a fresh and unique experience in a long running genre that so many believe to be dead now.
So let's start from the beginning again. The game starts off with the wedding of the Knight (Zack) to the Princess (Toki) of Kamza. As they make their vows, a band of assassins break through the church doors and attack the Zack and Toki. Zack dives forward to protect Toki only to be fatally wounded with a stab to the abdomen. As Zack believes he was cool in protecting the princess, Toki's personality suddenly changes as her Red hair and eyes become golden yellow and starts taking down the assassins. It is then revealed that there is a second soul living within Toki's body with the name Towa (which their name means Time and Eternity in Japanese, by the way). They go back 6 months before their wedding with Zack suddenly in the body of Toki's pet dragon, Drake. The story continues with Zack in Drake's body, Toki, and Towa as they travel back in time to stop their wedding from being attacked over and over until they can finally have their wedding and their future. Now, it's time to get into details.
[Graphics]
I like the art style of the game. It's colorful, bright, vibrant, and easy on the eyes. One of the biggest problems a lot of people have with the game is with how much assets are recycled throughout the game. The same animations, environments, enemies, and NPCs are copy and pasted with new color palettes to signify a distinction between them all. There are some different animations between Toki and Towa as they are two different people despite sharing the same body, but they also share a lot of the same animations such as the battle and exploration animations. But being able to look past that, the graphics are "alright". There are plenty of games that reuse assets to create more content with less work; this game just happens to overdo it and make it stand out as being cheap and uninspired. I can't say that I hated the graphics because of this tactic, but I suppose I was disappointed.
I also want to note that the game does have some fan-service with 11 CG still-frames throughout the game that are triggered through certain events. This is generally something I've come to accept in Japanese animé and games and don't really worry about. But it seems to be a common topic many Western audiences argue about whether it should be in games or not. I don't think any of them were censored. The only thing censored in the game that I know of is the panty-shot animations in combat.
[Audio]
The one thing that everyone seems to praise the game for is the music. A lot of the songs are quite moving and have a memorable melody. The music really makes up for the entire mood and atmosphere of the whole game that it seems to lack visually. Some of them are so good that I could listen to them for hours.
Marriage (Title Screen):
Palais de Kamza (Wedding Theme):
Wind of Hope (Plains Field):
Bout! (Towa's Battle Theme):
Memory Disorder (Last Boss Battle):
You can tell it's Yuzo Koshiro's work if you've listened to a lot of his work on the Etrian Odyssey series. The music really played a big part on the whole experience. There isn't much to say about sound effects other than that it was well executed (I appreciate the work put into sound effects ever since I've played Valhalla Knights Eldar Saga). For voice-overs, I played with the English voices for about an hour before I decided to switch and stay with the Japanese voice-overs. I can't say it was bad, but I felt more comfortable with the Japanese voice-overs. The audio was definitely the stronger points in the game.
[Gameplay]
There's a lot to say about the gameplay. The flow of the game consists of a cinematic, then dialogue between the characters, picking up side-quests (optional), and then going out onto a field to fulfill an objective. So it's a typical "build a basis for the story and progress with gameplay" sort of RPG. Objectives are straight-forward and to the point. Despite that, the game does love to beat around the bush. Following only the main quests will often have the player's level fall behind the recommended level to play in. Thankfully, there is a difficulty setting that allows you to play between Easy and Normal. Since I'm not too fond of grinding and excessive padding, I chose to play Easy which reduces the amount of grinding required by quite a bit. Exploration consists of traversing large maps and triggering events. You'll receive quests to fulfill, encounter different NPCs to talk to, and fight bosses to progress to the next main objective. Scattered between the main quests are side-quests the player can partake in order to receive rewards and gain experience points to level up. Enemy encounters are still the same as most JRPGs where you'll have a random battle encounter while walking around the field and then go into a battle phase. One of the great mechanics within the game is a bar that tells you when you'll run into an enemy. You won't run into an enemy until the bar is full. With this, you can expect and anticipate a battle and not be frustrated whenever you run into one since you'll know when it's coming. When leveling up, the player can choose between an assortment of "gifts" which are kind of like specializations that Toki and Towa can acquire to learn new skills and gain new attributes. The "gifts" are linked in a sort of "skill tree" kind of way so you have to get certain ones before acquiring the higher level ones. The player can only play as Toki or Towa at any given time until they switch off. The two souls switch whenever they level up or if they use a "pepper". Zack, who is in Drake's body, can't be controlled directly; however, the player can gain certain skills to influence him later on to work alongside with Toki or Towa's abilities. For the most part, Zack just attacks and heals on his own free will. Combat is in real-time, so there's no waiting. Enemies will follow a general attack pattern and it's up to the player to learn them and fight accordingly. The player controls Toki or Towa with these key mechanics: Running up to and back from enemies, normal attacking (blade: close / rifle: ranged), abilities, blocking/countering, dodging, item usage, time spells, and finishers. Combat in this game feels a lot like an action game where you have to learn and memorize each pattern for every enemy to effectively fight against them. Knowing when to block, when to attack, and abusing an enemy's weakness is the only way the player can defeat an enemy. Enemies can be pretty obnoxious with their different abilities and patterns. As mentioned before, a lot of enemies will look exactly alike with a different color palette and be considered a totally different enemy. They might have the same abilities, but their timing, patterns, and stats (health and damage amount) will vary. Besides knowing the timing of the enemies, the player must know the timing of their own characters' abilities. Spells have a charge time and can be interrupted by enemy attacks. The player can't dodge or block if they're in the middle of a combo attack. The controls feel clunky at first, but makes sense in a design standpoint. Were the player able to block and dodge at any given time or have extremely tight controls over every action, they'd be practically invincible. This kept combat fresh and the player on edge every battle. Yes, it's extremely tiring and sometimes tedious, but I found it to be really interesting since I'm always engaged with the fight rather than just mashing "confirm" to attack to get through a battle like most turn-based JRPGs turn out to be. I found the enemies that silence, knock down a lot, or the ones that never stop attacking to be some of the most difficult ones to deal with. Here's a breakdown of all the pros and cons I can think off on top of my head:
+ Objectives are straight-forward and very easy to follow (never get lost, I love it)
+ Exploration are never too drawn out (for main quests, at least) with decently sized maps
+ The enemy encounter rate bar was a great idea. I liked knowing when I'll get into a fight
+ Combat is fresh, unique, and engaging. It's one of the game's most notable aspects
+ Fights (especially bosses) were challenging and memorable
+ I liked the plethora of items, abilities and time skills I was capable of utilizing in battle
- Side-quests are often boring and gave negligible rewards
- There is a LOT of back-tracking involved, especially with side-quests involved
- Walking towards an objective can feel like a real drag sometimes, mainly with side-quests
- There isn't a wide variety of enemies as a lot of them are recycled
- In order to get the "special ending" you have to play through "new game+" IOW 2nd playthrough
- The time skills can be pretty BS. How BS? It made the last boss stupidly easy
[Characters]
I'm probably not going to cover every character, but I want to review all the pivotal ones.
Ricardo, Lucy & Linus: These three are the comic reliefs of the game despite the game being mostly humorous (or tries to be). Toki/Towa and Zack first encounter the three in the first chapter when they went back 6 months before their wedding to find out why the Assassin's Guild attacked them during their ceremony. Thinking that they were from the Assassin's Guild, they fight them only to find out they're Assassin's Guild fans. Even later, Ricardo is revealed to be a baker and a horrible one at that. Ricardo is always seen proposing to Toki/Towa and refuses to back down while Zack (in Drake's body) keeps biting his head. This on-going gag got old super fast and they stuck with it to the very end of the game. A lot of the jokes and gags around Ricardo were often bad as the cakes he made, but perhaps that's the whole point? Ricado and his lackeys feel very much like background characters you can forget about, but the amount of times they come forth to help out the heroes seems to say otherwise. I didn't find these characters to be particularly interesting.
Makimona: I thought for sure she was the main villain and the main cause of this entire crisis. The Jill-of-all-trades did everything from fortune-telling to being a spirit medium to protecting the gates to the guardians of the "something" treasures. When Toki was about to be married, she asked Makimona her fortune and she told Toki that someone was going to die. Later on, they realized she wasn't a fortune teller at all. She just makes stuff up when people ask her what their fortune are. She appears in every chapter of the game and tries to help the heroes as best as she can while asking for favors to help her in return. In one chapter, she reveals that she's asked 328 men on a date but couldn't get anyone to go out with her because of her timid personality. Out of all the bosses you had to fight in the game, she was my favorite one since it was the most difficult one that required the most planning and thinking.
Netherdrake: The last boss to the 2nd chapter of the game, who's afraid of the bad business bureau more than death. That joke was actually kind of funny which is why I'm mentioning this character.
Enda: She's Toki and Towa's energetic friend that seems to love cake because she's seen eating one every time you go back home. Enda was the first character I liked when I started the game because of how cute she was. But by the end of the game, there wasn't much to her character past that. She's known to have a strange taste in men and is often portrayed "head-over-heels" over Ricardo throughout the first chapter of the game. When Ricardo finally asks her to go out with him after being dumped by Toki/Towa a dozen times, she said "no".
Reijo: Toki/Towa's rich friend who was born from a noble family, or so I thought. I didn't like this character at first as she was immediately portrayed as the pompous "ojou-sama" type character that I generally dislike. She calls Zack all sorts of different weed names and seems to look down upon him as being worthless. She often emphasizes how rich she was whenever she was around Toki in the beginning. In the beginning of Chapter 2, Reijo stabs Toki/Towa at their wedding. When Toki/Towa and Zack go back in time to find out why that happened, they found out that she was being controlled by the Netherdrake to do his bidding. Reijo had asked the Netherdrake to fulfill her wish and in return, she had to kill the princess at the wedding. Reijo begged and pleaded to take back the contract, but all deals with the Netherdrake were final. As the chapter unfolded, the heroes find out that Reijo was not of nobility, but rather of poverty. She grew up without a father and lived with her mother in a small town and relied on the many various weeds around her home to provide food, medicine, and material for survival. So perhaps, she's been complimenting Zack all this time as weed is often seen as strong since they don't die easily and it's obviously been useful to Reijo throughout her life. She was happy with her life until her mother died from illness. She was deeply upset with the loss of her mother, but was then confronted by a young Toki who comforted her. It was then that Reijo wanted to be friends with Toki but didn't know how to. With the desire to be rich so that she could be Toki's friend, she made a deal with the Netherdrake to make her unbelievably wealthy. It turns out that she didn't care about the money and would often donate a portion every month to charity. She only wanted to be friends with Toki/Towa. The wish Reijo had asked for from the Netherdrake was for a flawless and happy wedding for her friend Toki/Towa as she cared very much for her. But the Netherdrake asked Reijo to kill her. With that contradiction, the heroes attack the Netherdrake and threatened to report him to the bad business bureau. The love and dedication to her friend as well as her selflessness shown that chapter is what made Reijo my favorite character out of the game.
Wedi: Toki/Towa's clumsy friend who keeps tripping over herself. Wedi is also the wedding planner for Toki/Towa. She's forgetful, ditsy, but very kind. With Reijo often insulting Zack and Enda playing along, Wedi is the only friend of Toki/Towa that treats Zack with a bit of respect. There isn't much to Wedi's character as well, although her moment of glory in the opening of chapter 3 was pretty cool. Makimona is the one to attack the wedding in the 3rd chapter and nearly kills both Toki and Zack; however, Wedi leaps out and summons a Golem to block the brunt of the attack. That sort of confidence and courage surprised even Wedi when Toki/Towa and Zack go back in time to tell her what had happened. She then goes out, risking her life, to befriend a Golem to prepare for the worst just in case something does happen. She explains to Makimona that she had a boy that she liked but never found the courage to tell him and was soon taken by another girl. Despite her sadness, she found happiness among her friends. Her friendship to Toki/Towa is what gives her strength and is what made her decide to become a wedding planner to ensure Toki/Towa would have the best wedding ever. Wedi is just a good-natured girl in general.
Toki: Toki is the sweet and more reserved one between the two souls. She specializes in using the rifle and shoots much faster than Towa does in combat. Her main magic ability is of the Fire element and has more of a focus on spells. She's soft-spoken and very lady-like. Considering how much of a pervert Zack is, the player has to question why she would want to marry him. As the game progresses, Zack upholds a lot of action that is considered chivalrous and Toki exclaims that she fell more and more in love with him as time went by. One particular story revealed that when her pet dragon Drake was sick, Zack was the one who went out and got the medicine to help nurse him back to health. Zack confessed that he had his knight buddies help him find it when he couldn't when Toki was telling that story and she liked that part of him too, in that he was an honest man who respected others and helped those in trouble. Despite being a princess, Toki wants a normal life outside the castle walls living with Zack and raising a family. She's the type of person that cared for others before herself.
Towa: Towa is more wild and aggressive between the two souls. She'll often speak her mind bluntly and isn't easily intimidated. She specializes in daggers and closer quarter combat and thus does a lot more damage up close than Toki does in combat. Her main magic ability is of the lightning element but still focuses more on physical prowess. Despite her aggressive personality, she's actually quite shy and still acts like a girl when embarrassed. In other words, she's a tsundere. Towa had never really planned on letting Zack know that she was sharing Toki's body, but circumstances led her to come out. Despite the surprise, Zack accepted Towa and even began to fall in love with her as much as Toki as she was just as considerate and caring as Toki was for her friends and others. Towa spoke to Zack about her desires to be able to go on a normal date with him and be able to experience all the activities couples got to do. She didn't want to be seen as just a part of Toki but rather an individual. I think I might have liked Towa a little more because the contrast in her demeanor gave her personality.
Zack: I really didn't like this character at all in the beginning. Right from the beginning, he was a total creeper with perverted thoughts. He seemed very cocky and full of himself in the beginning of the game where he protects Toki and starts insinuating "man, I'm so cool for doing that. I must seem like a total chick magnet right now." It was very difficult to empathize with such a character that seemed so selfish and narcissistic. But as the game progresses, he is portrayed as an upstanding man who still believed in chivalry. He's still a pervert, through and through. But there was more to him than just a man full of naughty thoughts. Why did he want to marry Toki in the first place? He saw the kindness and loyalty she had for her friends and those around her and wanted to be with a person with such ideals of raising a happy family. When asked about his dreams, he replied that he wanted to be an upstanding knight who protected the country he loved and helped those in need. And more than anything, it was the interaction that he had with Toki/Towa, their friends, and those who needed help that made me finally accept the character. Throughout the adventure, it was never about the guy saving the girl or the girl protecting the guy. It was a mutual bond of wanting a happy life together and so they fought alongside each other as equals for a future they both wished to share together. Knowing that Towa was just as much of a part of Toki, Zack could not deny her and accepted her fully for who she was. Despite the difficulties that Toki/Towa's friends presented towards Zack, he never rejected them. Instead, he learned more about them and understood why these people were to important to Toki/Towa and why they were friends. At the very end, he showed that he cared about the happiness of others as well as his own.
[Story]
There is a lot to be said about the dialogue and scenarios presented. The game tried to be humorous, but a lot of the jokes were lame or were poorly executed because of the timing of the animations and flow of speech. But despite it all, I came to really like the story as a whole when I got to the very end of the game. It was a fun adventure with a sweet story of love and marriage. Could it have been better? Absolutely. Along with character development, graphics, gameplay technicalities, and scenario writing, the game could have been significantly better. But I'll accept what I was given and leave it at that.
-Opening-
Zack meets with Toki and gathers to see all of her friends: Enda, Reijo, and Wedi. At their wedding ceremony, Zack and Toki are attacked by a band of assassins with Zack fatally wounded. The two travel back in time and try to prevent the attack from ever happening. The opening of the game wasn't too bad. There was a LOT of talking before I got to get to gameplay, but it wasn't to the point of being unbearable.
-Chapter 1-
This might have been the weakest chapter in the game. Toki/Towa and Zack try to find the Assassin's Guild and stop them from attacking the wedding. Along the way, they meet Ricardo and his two lackeys. Enda follows you a few times just to see Ricardo while Ricardo constantly keeps asking Toki/Towa to go out with him. The jokes and gags revolving around Ricardo and Enda were pretty lame and they're used over and over. I still think Enda is pretty cute, but wish she had more (if any) character development. They found out that the Assassin's Guild attacked their wedding because they provoked them into doing so by saying "don't do it" when they never planned on doing so. They ceased all ideas of them ever attacking and then went back to the present to return to their wedding.
-Chapter 2-
This time, their wedding is attacked by monsters and Reijo stabs Toki. I really liked this chapter because of the character development around Reijo. I think the whole game would have had a better story to tell if there were more character development among the friends to Toki/Towa to go beyond the reason of "I want to help because she's my friend". This chapter also provided a bit more character development on Makimona as you ask her for help while she asks for help in return. The last boss for this chapter was quite different, but I can't really say if it was a "good" kind of different. I've already told a majority of the story in Reijo's description up above.
-Chapter 3-
Makimona is not happy that you're happy and she's not. She makes this clear quite a few times throughout the chapter. She crashes the wedding with the "Something Four" treasures and attacks Toki and Zack only to have Wedi protect them. When going back in time, Toki/Towa's grandmother explains that they're probably stuck in a mobius loop; a phenomenon in time travel in which the destiny or outcome of an event can never change (Ever watched/read The Time Machine?). In order to break the never ending cycle, they have to collect the "Something Four" treasures from the guardians with the gates being guarded by Makimona. Makimona only knows that the treasure brings happiness to newlyweds and becomes more and more reluctant in letting the heroes have it for themselves. After she takes the treasures from you after collecting all of them, you fight her and she gives them back only to have them fall off the floating island. Makimona and Toki/Towa's friend make their own "Something Four" treasures in hopes of good luck as the heroes go back to the present hoping for the best without the treasures.
-Chapter 4-
The sand that's been in the hourglass attached to Toki suddenly bursts out and says that the heroes will continue to re-live this tragedy over and over no matter what and was prepared to send them into a perpetual string of tragic outcomes of their wedding. Then the treasure that everyone made ceased the sand's attack and personified it into a human girl (even though it's a dude? So confusing). Fighting all the bosses in reverse order, the heroes take down mobius over and over until they learn that the reason why they're stuck in a mobius loop is because of a contradiction in vow. Toki and Towa made a promise to each other when they were 5 years old that is akin to a marriage. They would stick together no matter what. This allowed the two souls to co-exist this entire time without having one being dominant and having the other one disappear. But because of that promise, their attempt to marry Zack contradicts it. Their solution was to have Toki/Towa's grandmother go back in time and tell them not to make such a promise and reserve such a promise to a man that they will meet and love. The problem was that this will cause one of the two souls to disappear and not exist anymore. A fate worse than death, Zack had to choose which soul remained and which disappeared. Honestly, it was a heart-breaking decision to make. I ended up making two save files and fought the last boss twice and saw both endings. They were both great endings if not a little sad. Choosing one or the other, Toki/Towa will lose all memory of one another when they break out of the mobius loop as well as losing all memory of ever meeting Zack. Everyone loses the memories of the soul that disappears other than Zack and the grandmother (who returns back to the present safely). Zack asks Toki or Towa (depending who remained) to marry him of which she refuses as she had only met him. But then he asks again and she agreed because she felt that there was some connection to him in some way that time couldn't explain. And so they spend a year together creating new memories before their marriage.
For Toki's ending, it's a normal and happy ending with Toki throwing the bouquet and Makimona furiously diving for it hoping for a chance to meet a man.
With Towa's ending, it was a little more humorous. Towa gets embarrassed for having to kiss Zack in front of everyone and so instead of Zack holding her out the door, Towa holds Zack princess-style out the door for payback. Then they cut the wedding cake, but Towa is so strong that she pulls Zack with the knife and cuts the cake in half along with the table. With either ending, they wonder what to name their first child. And they said if it's a girl, they want to name her the one that didn't remained (Towa / Toki).
Sadly, the special ending was not all that special at all. Through some miracle, both Toki and Towa's soul remained. But then it just goes to an image and said they lived happily ever after together. I was hoping it'd be more fleshed out with a nice cinematic and everything, so it was rather disappointing.
And that about wraps things up. I really wasn't expecting too much out of the game, but I'm really glad that I ended up enjoying it and felt so good about it at the end.
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