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Wednesday 5 March, 2008
Maxwell Weinberg
CS80k
March 5th, 2008
Ninety Nine Nights
GAMEPLAY:
This time, I concentrated on Myifee's missions. I beat the first mission, and unlocked his special combo, which causes meteors to rain down on enemies. But that was about the most significant part of this gameplay session.
I found a few items and equipped them (like a life-orb that gives extra health, and a shield that raises other stats).
After that, on the second level, I spent 15 minutes getting about 1/3 through the level, fighting about 600 goblins (just like the other levels), and then came a mini-boss fight with a thief named Tea Tea. You would think that a mini-boss duel would have some slightly more significant gameplay aspects, but no, it was the same hack and slash as before.
Tea Tea actually ended up killing me, and I was reverted back to the beginning of the whole level. 15 minutes later, I made it back to Tea Tea. He killed me again.
Then I became incredibly frustrated with the penalty of death in this game. You revert back to the beginning of the entire level.
There are no checkpoints. It's as if they expect you not to die, because after having to do a 15-minute-section 2 or 3 times, the game becomes unbearable . I couldn't continue to play after he killed me a third time. The level-revert aspect killed the game experience. Although I really wanted to see Myifee's storyline, an annoying boss battle that takes too long to get back to turned me off to the game completely.
DESIGN:
The fact that this game can have so many enemy units on screen at once is unique. It feels epically proportioned as you play.
However, the gameplay itself lacks variance, and even when playing as different characters, the game feels generally the same.
The levels are repetitive and have no effect on gameplay. It's simply castle walls or grass or canyons or whatever tile-set the current mission takes place in.
The game attempts to keep the player interested by using an "Orb Gauge" system. Each time you kill a bad guy, the gauge fills up slightly. When it's full, you can use your ultimate move, which lets you instantly kill enemies in a wide range attack. But once you use it, it ends, and it's back to the same boring hack and slash as before.
Again, the most frustrating aspect of this game was the fact that there are no checkpoints.
If you die, you go all the way back to the beginning of the level, which makes the repetitive gameplay even MORE repetitive.
The cut-scenes of the game aren't interesting, and simply act as pauses in the gameplay. Many of them have no voice acting, and the text is poorly placed and poorly timed.
This game has a lot of potential to be great, but it leaves the player hanging with lack of variable gameplay, repetitive levels, and a
basic, trite storyline.
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