Venus unleashed!

It took some doing, but I finally tracked down the remaining two Demon Circles, which let me summon Venus.  Unfortunately for me, she was a good distance from where I found the last circle, so it was a bit of a trek to her enraged form.  Good thing I have the spell that reduces the number of random encounters (from very high to merely high, it feels like).

Her design is a bit racy, so I'll put it after the cut.

Searching for Venus

I was thinking about making the title something like "I'm your Venus" or "Venus Envy", but I decided to keep it simple.

Well, that and the fact that I'm still trying to find the last few circles to stop said demoness.  But I suppose I should take a step back and give a brief description of what the funny quest was after I beat Jupiter.

Jupiter Falling

How I have managed to get this far without throwing an astrology term in, I'm not sure.  But there it is, and I have a feeling that coming up with titles for the entries is going to be a lot easier!

Before I begin, I should mention that I was playing the game with a friend came over.  He asked, "Are there really vocaloid songs playing in each encounter?" and I realized that's the sort of information about Demon Gaze that probably doesn't get out.  So, yes, there are vocaloid songs playing for all the non-boss encounters.

I'll discuss the Jupiter fight after the break.

Still plugging away at Grimdor Castle (now with an addendum)

I'm close to finishing Grimdor Castle.  The reason it's taking so long is because not only is it a difficult dungeon, but it's also very, very large.  With all sorts of areas that are sealed off, it's as much an endurance run as anything else.

On the bright side, I now have the ability to have 3 Demon Keys active.  That's made things a lot easier.

Addendum: My apologies for this entry being so much like the last one.  I think it's probably worthwhile going into why the large areas are a problem for this dungeon as opposed to the other ones.

Encounters: I've mentioned the encounters being more difficult.  What this dungeon has liked throwing at me are enemies who make multiple attacks.  Holy Shield is only good against a certain amount of hit points, and these multiple attack enemies make mincemeat out of it.

Because the encounters have been so difficult, I haven't been able to use the Demon Circles as much to upgrade my gear until recently; no point in putting multiple gems in a circle if they're going to summon enemies that kill you.

Also, because I rushed through the water area, I think I was underleveled when I first entered the castle and that's made me a bit gunshy.

Equipment: As I said, I haven't made great use of the Demon Circles until recently, but the equipment I've got out of them seems to have become more specialized.  There's a great armor that I found that allows my character to heal while walking...unfortunately only Shannon-nii and Miriya can wear it.  I would really prefer it to be on Deslocke.

Layout: Other dungeons have been big before.  However, there are a lot of passageways with set encounters in this dungeon.  Until you unlock gates and do sidequests (for the previously mentioned followers of Lord Shark), you have to go a roundabout way through the dungeon.  I'm still unlocking stuff.  Even now that I have most of the layout set, there's still a fair amount of travel time if I want to get to a specific part of the dungeon.

Individually, each of these isn't too much of a problem.  When put together, it's a jump in difficulty.

Still plugging away with Demon Gaze

I am still playing Demon Gaze, but the castle is much more difficult than the previous areas.  It's also a lot larger with multiple levels and gates blocking off areas until you do certain portions.

One thing worth mentioning is the followers of Lord Shark.  The party originally met them in Neptune's domain, which makes sense.  However, you meet his priest in the castle, and for a follower of someone named Lord Shark, he looks very bunny-ish.  It's a WTF, but unlike the other WTFs in the game.

Out of the water and the imprecision of progress bars

I finished Neptune's dungeon.  With the underwater conveyor belts and the inability to cast spells, how can we cap the area off?  How about Neptune healing herself for outrageous amounts of HP?  Ugh, ugh, ugh.

I know I should mess around in the area a bit more to use the demon circles for some gear, but I dislike the area so much that I don't want to be there.

Anyway, making it back led to the "just beat a demon wackiness" that I've come to expect.  The catgirl maid is finally not afraid of the character, so that's good news.  Why?  Even though I don't care for her, I've been picking up these mushrooms, so I'm able to offload them on to her and get a bunch of MP recovery items.

Then we had a tea party!

I have a bad feeling about this...

The memo system and progress

I have been continuing to play, but didn't make real progress until yesterday.  I figured that it would be much better to post when things happened or I could discuss some of the game systems in depth than a "still grinding" post.

This post will be discussing the memo system and the jungle that Hermes was guarding.  But, first, pictorial commentary on modern sci-fi shows.

Take that, Joss Whedon!

A discussion about the Demon Keys

I have made reference to the ability to summon demons I've captured, but haven't really talked about what they can do.

First of all, to capture a demon, you have to conquer all of the Demon Circles in its area.  This takes a few trips because you're exploring the area and running into all sorts of monsters.  After that, the demon will wait in a stationary area, but it will be enraged.  This means it's a tough boss fight.  After that, you capture its soul and returning to the inn will have the manager turn it into a key for you (probably after some sidequests and/or cutscenes).  That will allow you to equip its Demon Key.

At the beginning, you start with the ability to equip one Demon Key.  Doing so will allow you to summon that demon in battle.  The equipped demons also have a passive buff and certain abilities the main character can use in battle.  The cost for using the abilities isn't MP or gold, but it reduces the amount of time you can keep the demon out.

Demon Keys can only be equipped at the inn or at a Demon Circle that you have conquered.

Of the demons I have:

Comet detects some unusual aspects in the areas, like secret doors.  She also has an ability that helps you run from battle and abilities to increase the drop rate of items.  In battle, she also fires off healing spells.

Mars provides an increase in the damage of physical attacks your characters do.  She can also do attacks on a group of enemies.  In battle, she's the strongest attacker so far.

Chronos prevents any damage your party would take from squares on the dungeon that would inflict it and reduces the amount of damage your party takes from physical attacks.  In battle, she will sometimes block attacks for the party.

My main character is level 10 now, so he received the ability to have two Demon Keys equipped.  That helps a lot because I was being forced to balance out the risk/reward of the passive abilities.  I would need Comet's ability to progress, but I would want the ability to the others to map things out or make combat easier.

Well, that was unexpected

I've been playing, but have been trying to figure how to go about this entry.

I beat the back to back Hydra head battles.  It took me three tries.  The first, I was using Chronos.  The second, I went back to Comet.  On my winning battle, I went with Mars, giving more fodder for the line "the best defense is a good offense."

After winning, there was a party at the inn.  Everyone was being happy and goofy.  The inn's manager gave hints at being a dragon.  And then...I got Eva'd.

If you're not familiar with the abbreviation, Neon Genesis Evangelion is an influential giant robot anime of the 90s.  It's a great show, and you should watch it.  If you don't think you have enough time, the Rebuild of Evangelion is a reboot/remake that's shorter, but it's still great.  Anyway, I mention it because there is a pronounced tone shift in the series due to unhappy events.  A variant of those unhappy events happens here.

So, what's I'm saying is, the jokey atmosphere evaporated and people were grim and angry.  Also, say goodbye to one of the inn's NPCs!

I was at a little bit of a loss on where to go next.  Eventually, I saw that Chronos has the ability to "Prevent floor damage".  This translates to not taking damage from all those damage panels in the dungeons.  With that in mind, I was able to enter Pluto and Hermes' domains.

I'm exploring Hermes' domain because the reward for beating Hermes is 1000 GP, while the reward for beating Pluto is 4000 GP.  I'm taking that as an indication of who's harder!

Mars and Chronos acquired

One of the many, many good things about the weekend is the amount of free time I have compared to the weekday.  I went on a little bit of a Demon Gaze binge and made some real progress.  I also took screenshots!  Yes, the blog will have pictures too!  As for video...let me get back to you on that.  I have to wonder whether video of a turn-based RPG would really be interesting, though.

Anyway, you how they say that red wine is good for the heart?  Have you heard about the medicinal properties of beer?

Note the camo cutoffs of my main character, Azamgil.

That's a new one on me.

I had been sticking mostly to the first area of the game; I took a brief detour into the second area and while I was victorious in battle, it was a little bit harder than I was comfortable.  So, it was back to the burnt-out section and Mars.

You may know Mars as the Roman god of war or the fourth planet in the solar system (the Red Planet).  Here, Mars is a she-demon with impressive cleavage related to the fire element who wields a chainsaw.  No, that's not the reason this entry has the "why Japan why" tag, I'll be getting to that later.

Mars is all about offense, though she summons these drones that block attacks for her and soak up damage.  It took more than a few attempts to beat her, and that was after I did some grinding to get Azamgil and Deslocke to level 6 and Lady Une to level 4.  In the end, I did defeat her and was able to make it back to the inn and fulfill the quest which netted me a nice 1000 GP reward.

There were a number of inn quests that had to be done before getting the Demon Key for Mars (that allows you to summon her and get her bonuses while exploring).  I also checked in on my party members in their rooms.  While Deslocke was fixated on the furniture I gave him, Lady Une, well, this is what Lady Une was up to:

This is clearly after she shoved General Septum off the plane and shot him as he was falling.

Sorry for the blurry picture, Annie Leibovitz, I am not.

Eventually, sidequests were finished, and there was a terrible one with the catgirl maid who has an unhealthy fixation with the inn's manager (one of the many reasons this entry has "why Japan why" on it).  Let's just say that I could have put up a picture of her sniffing the manager's panties, but I did not.

The next area's demon was Chronos, who is an earth based she-demon that focuses on defense.  The area was a cemetery, so, unsurprisingly, there were many undead creatures around.  Undead are annoying in this game because if you don't have a healer to use the Holy Weapon ability on a character or have a weapon with the Holy trait, your character does half-damage to the undead critters.  I was able to manage my way around this because I equipped Mars who gave me a +20% boost to physical damage my party dealt.  Still, I knew I was going to need a healer eventually, so I did a little bit of grinding to get the gold I needed.  Enter, Miriya (a Macross callout), the newest member of my group.  The higher rewards from the area plus some of the equipment I had saved earlier made her progress pleasantly swift.

After clearing all of the Demon Circles, I figured out the area that Chronos was in, but I needed to do a few quests at the inn before I could progress.  During this time, I found out that elves carry grudges for the stupidest things.

It may be difficult to see, but he has the H Scrabble tiles on his shirt's arm.

That's a reason to steal someone's only remembrance of his mother, right?

I think you also know that you're in the wrong when the aforementioned catgirl maid starts telling you that you should stop what you're doing.

Elves do start off with pretty low VIT in this game.

During this time, there's some fanservice for the ladies, as said elf gets in his "birthday suit" which translates to English as "red loincloth".

Anyway, after a lot of silliness and facepalms, I was able to get the weed killer I needed.  The trip to the dungeon did provide a quandary; to get to Chronos, I needed the abilities of my first demon (who basically detects secret doors), so I had to give up the offensive boost of Mars for a bit.  I solved this by running back to a Demon Circle and swapping back to Mars before going in for the Chronos fight.

Chronos summons the same annoying damage sponges, only with an earth element bent.  Still, the fight was easier due to my character's higher levels and Mars's offensive boost.  I beat it on the first try.

Going back to the inn, I had some more story until there was a big enemy outside of the inn.  I went and had a tough fight with a hydra's head.  I barely survived it (only had one character left) and then it was immediately followed by a fight with another one of the hydra's heads.  I died pretty quickly, and that's when I decided to stop and take a break.

An unexpected difficulty bump

Last night, I experienced my first wipe in the game.  And then the second and third.

I was exploring the first area, and I was easily handling the enemies I found, so I kept going deeper.  I made my way to a Demon Circle and used a crystal.  It ended up summoning Mars, the demon of the area.  I was low on HP and he just demolished me.  I tried this two more times (this time fully healed) and got the same result.  The lesson I learned from this was that I needed to grind up some more levels and get better equipment.  Perhaps I even need more party members!

With that in mind, I worked on those issues.  Used a few crystals in Demon Circles I had already beat to get gear, made it to level 5 for my main character and my fighter, and earned enough gold to rent a room to get a new character (a female elf wizard).  I talked to the manager to see how much the next room will cost and was told 5000 gp.  Ugh.  But I guess I'm finding drops off of monsters that sell for 100 gp or more, so it's not as bad.

I found my rent costs not at all corresponding to the formula I had earlier, so it's different; probably based on time and/or number of steps taken.

You unlock the Bulletin Board in the inn's hall pretty quickly.  This is the vehicle for getting quests.  These sidequests were not in the original Wizardry, but Japanese Wizardry games incorporated them at some point; I only have experience with the few that have come out over in North America.  These range from getting drops from monsters to finding particular items or defeating particular monsters.

One of the quests involves the inn's Barber/Bathmaster/whatever.  He then promptly starts getting creepy about women's bodies, something completely unnecessary.  This game pulls things like that, making it a bit difficult to unreservedly recommend it.

I suppose I should mention my party composition.  I'm currently going heavily for offense, which may or may not be something I'll regret (see: Mars attempts).  So far, it is:

Azamgil - male human gazer.  His name is taken from Star Ocean 2, and he's the main character and currently level 5.
Deslocke - male human fighter.  His name is taken from Star Blazers and currently level 5.
Lady Une - female elf wizard.  Her name is taken from the best character in Gundam Wing.  I recruited her before quitting for the night, so she's level 1.

Don't just gaze at the demons, STARE at them!

I put in some more time on Demon Gaze, and I should also make some revisions and clarifications.

The first exploration isn't just about Demon Circles; it also teaches you about summoning your demons and the special abilities that demons provide.  Summoning the demon in battle is quite interesting.  First off, demon actions which include summoning, unsummoning and using a demon's special ability don't take up your main character's turn; you that action for free.  Second, the demon will take random actions in battle while summoned, all beneficial, but not necessarily helpful.  For example, my demon liked healing fully healed characters, including herself.  Ugh.  Third, the demons are on a timer and will go out of control if they are out beyond their timer.  This is somewhat reminiscent of the sanity points in SP.  When the demon is out of control, you have to subdue it again, but I'm not sure if killing all of the regular monsters will automatically end the battle or not; I'll have to experiment.  The demon's timer goes down at the end of the turn, meaning if you can kill all the enemies on the turn you bring the demon out, you can avoid having the timer go down.  And, yes, this means that the timer carries over for all fights; it doesn't reset at the beginning of each one.  The demon timer seems to increment by one if you're in a battle and don't immediately summon your demon, so there's a way to get it back.

This wasn't in the explanation the game gave me, but once in battle, my demon summoned herself, attacked for the turn, and then unsummoned herself.  I'm not sure whether this is something that's going to happen frequently or whether the demon can unsummon herself if I've regularly summoned her.

I unlocked a second area, but I continued to explore the first one on my second journey into the ruins.  While a city block may be 20x20, there are multiple blocks in the map of that first area, and the map looks like it has 5x5 blocks.  It also appears that they aren't using every square, so I don't know if there are really 25 blocks to explore.

I did get both of my characters to level 3.  In leveling, you choose a stat to increase and then get HP and MP boosts.

On returning to the inn, my rent was 30 GP.  Given that it was 10 GP before, I'm thinking that the rent is individually calculated for each character and is (5 * level of character 1) + (5 * level of character 2) + etc.  It fits for now.

Since gold is important in this game, I should mention that the gold awards from enemies are pretty small.  Where the real money seems to come from is using the Demon Circles to summon monsters that drop good gear; I used a Bow Crystal and nearly got killed by the Goblin King, but he dropped a blowgun that I equipped to my party and then sold the war sling that it replaced.  There were some items whose description indicated that they were only good for selling at the store, and those net me about 40 gp, which is at least 4 encounters worth of victory money.

I inquired with the manager about renting a new room to get a new party member.  It's 1000 GP.  I'm at 400 or so right now, and I could sell that magic katana for 200, but I'd kind of like to equip it to a new character.  Decisions, decisions.

The name of this game also makes me think of one of my favorite poems "On Looking into the Eyes of a Demon Lover" by Sylvia Plath, so I'll reproduce it below.

Here are two pupils
whose moons of black
transform to cripples
all who look:

each lovely lady
who peers inside
take on the body
of a toad.

Within these mirrors
the world inverts:
the fond admirer’s
burning darts

turn back to injure
the thrusting hand
and inflame to danger
the scarlet wound.

I sought my image
in the scorching glass,
for what fire could damage
a witch’s face?

So I stared in that furnace
where beauties char
but found radiant Venus
reflected there.

Game 1: Demon Gaze

Demon Gaze

Developer: Experience Inc.
North American Publisher: NIS America
Release Date: 22 April 2014

(above info courtesy of Gamefaqs.com)

For this blog's first game, I chose Demon Gaze.  It's a dungeon crawl RPG done in the Wizardry style.

After the install, I immediately changed the voice in the options to Japanese.  NISA games tend to have this option, and I appreciate it.  It's also the case that I am a fast reader, so I would rather read what's on the screen instead of listen to what's being said.  This can sometimes lead to major discrepancies when the localization team takes liberties (see: the first season release of the anime Saiyuki), but it works for me.

Starting the game, it almost seems as if the demon apocalypse has happened, since the town is overrun with demons and the remaining humans (and assorted demi-humans) have gathered in the castle.  Said castle seems to have been turned into a makeshift town.  This looks to be a callback to Wizardry, where the town is the castle.  One of the buildings (maybe the palace?) has been converted to an inn that has multiple floors with the requisite weapon and item shop.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself!  A narrator (listed as ???) says that an unconscious man is found in the town and dragged back to the castle.  Guess who our protagonist is?  And he has amnesia!

In creating the character, you are told that everyone will react to you as if you are a human male.  In fact, that's the only choice for gender and race, though you can take other portraits.  I took a culturally insensitive portrait of an archer with a feathered headdress and matching open vest, cutoffs, and boots in camo patterns.

After a quick intro dungeon with no random encounters (there was one mandatory encounter) where I picked up a few items, I watched a nameless mook soldier die horribly to a demon.  The one encounter was with said demon, and I don't think there's a way to lose that encounter; it did 1 or 2 damage per hit (and my character has 48 hp) and my attacks were in the 20-ish range.

Prior to the encounter, you receive a very light info dump from eyepatch girl whose robe is open and has a scar on her chest.  Said eyepatch girl then tells you to capture the demon (beating it calmed it down), which I then did.  So, I got the first demon out of a listed ten on the menu; I don't know if there are more beyond it.

I then got more infodumps about the set up, saw the opening credits movie, and got a free recruit (I took a fighter since my character has a healing spell).  Comments made lead me to believe that each additional recruit will cost 5000 gp.

I should note that the game has automapping and displays the immediate 9x9 grid around you (unless you turn it off).  As another callback to Wizardry, the levels are 20x20.

My first mission involved going around the ruins and being introduced to the Demon Circles.  You can lay down crystals in the circles to bait monsters/demons into coming and attacking you.  The reason you do this is because they have equipment drops which seem to be the main way to equip your characters and make money.  I received a patched cape accessory which I gave to my fighter friend and a katana +1 that I can't use because I don't have a samurai.  There don't seem to be random encounters (every encounter that I had was either because I summoned them to the Demon Circles or was marked on the map).  I also managed to find a bed that I later installed in my main character's room to give him +1 Vitality.

You can also save in the Demon Circles, making it the other place than your room in the inn that you can do so.  As I cleared the Circles (making them red), I saw notices about how a number of other Mars Circles were remaining; in the Demon menu, there is a demon named Mars, so I'm guessing that when I have turned all of the Mars Circles red, I will have an encounter with Mars.

When I got back to the inn, I was healed to full, but then I was asked for rent!  Every time you return to the inn, you'll be asked for this.  As this was the first time, I managed to talk my way out of it, but from now on, I'm going to have to pay to heal.

I also met the mortician girl.  The game has a tendency for some inappropriate cheesecake shots, as it had her in her underwear.  Eventually, she pulled something else on, but her top was still open.  I fear this is going to be a pattern.

Welcome!

Hello!  I am a big fan and collector of role playing games, both paper and electronic.  I cut my teeth on basic red box D&D and Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord back in the day.  Unfortunately, I've been collecting more than I have playing in the last few years.  This blog is an attempt to chronicle my way through playing different RPGs on the Playstation Vita.  It's also meant to provide motivation for me to play and finish them.

Now you may ask, "Why the Vita?"  It's because portables like the 3DS, the Vita and their predecessors have been the place for Japanese RPGs the last several years.  I have tried the Elder Scrolls series, and it's just not for me.  Ditto with Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Fallout.  So, I'm going where the games I'm interested in are.  I specifically chose the Vita because I already have a stack of RPGs for the system and recently picked up a Playstation TV (which I will refer to as the TVita) that allows me to lie down while I play and not have to worry about battery life.

For the purposes of this blog, I am going to try to go through the games without any guides,  walkthroughs or FAQs.  Please leave any spoilers out of the comments.  I am also going to limit myself to retail games; I am not going to try to mod my system for a homebrew OS or anything like that.  Also, as this is a hobby blog, what I'm going to say here should be obvious, but I will say it just in case people are suspicious: I am unaffiliated with any of the game developers, game publishers or Sony.

So, sit back and enjoy!