Valhalla Knights 3 on the PS TV

Using the Playstation TV to play Valhalla Knights 3 may not have been the best decision.  The game is not exactly the best looking Vita game, and those graphical flaws are magnified on a larger screen.  The hostess minigame also seems to rely on the touchscreen, and that's not an option with the PS TV.

After the cut, I'm posting a screenshot which basically sums up my ambivalence about the game.  It has nothing to do with the technical side, but the tastefulness of the game itself.

Valhalla Knights 3: the magical prison life RPG you've been waiting for

Valhalla Knights 3 is actually the 4th game in the Valhalla Knights series, there was a Wii game that came out between 2 and 3, and I'm not counting the digital-only enhanced version of the second game as a separate entry.  It's an action RPG put out by XSEED.

The game begins with a scene of an evil emperor doing evil emperor things like killing one of his minions that's trying to talk sense into him.  It then cuts to the player walking into Carceron Prison with a group of fellow prisoners.  After a brief explanation, you enter the prison proper where one of the female prisoners is promptly kidnapped to meet a presumably dark fate, two of the prisoners who entered with you try to intervene and are promptly killed.

Say what you will about the game, but it knows how to set the scene!

You're given basic equipment by a merchant whose business plan seems to be "more living prisoners = more customers spending money at my store" and are set loose.  It's only then that you find out that you and one of the group you came with are Imperial agents seeking W. Flockhart's lost magical treasure that grants wishes (or at least a wish).  I'm guessing that W. Flockhart is not related to the star of Ally McBeal.

In talking to other prisoners, you sometimes want to wash your hands.  In particular, there's a guy who talks about wanting to kidnap a woman and then 'heh, heh, eh, heh.'  Unsavory is best way to describe it.

The game also allows you to romance different clerks by giving them gifts and entering 'sexy time' with them.  I guess they felt that putting date sim elements would help; that gameplay element didn't exist on either of the game's PSP predecessors.

It turns our that you and your fellow Imperial agents (you meet up with a third soon into the game) are being magically compelled by the empire.  In fact, your group seems to hate the empire since it conquered your countries.

The first boss was actually quite difficult.  I had to grind levels and gold for about an hour before I upgraded everyone's equipment and could beat him.

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.

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.

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.