32 posts tagged “gust”
GUST has started posting Atelier Rorona screenshots and art to their supporters' club site. They don't seem to want people to just mass-repost them, so here are a few selections of images I found interesting.
Heisei Democracy doesn’t appear to be resuming posts any time soon, so I’m dusting off this review and posting it here. I finished Mana-Khemia in May, and the English version has been out for a while now. If you haven’t played it, you may find it to be a good way to enjoy some solid Gust gaming while you await the delayed English release of Ar tonelico 2 in January.
Ar tonelico 2 is a tough act to follow, or to precede. Mana-Khemia did both: I played through half of it, then Ar tonelico 2 came out and I played that for six months, then I picked Mana Khemia back up. As of this writing, Mana-Khemia 2 has just come out. Gust makes games rather faster than I can play them.
Mana-Khemia is the ninth game of Gust’s venerable Atelier series. The series encompasses several arcs, each with its own setting and atmosphere, but every game’s premise begins with being an alchemist, crafting items in a workshop. This installment begins the fourth arc, and it follows the previous game, Grand Fantasm, in eschewing most of the epic RPG trappings that the series briefly entertained in the Atelier Iris arc. Instead, it returns to the alchemy, local exploration, and character interaction focuses of the original Ateliers. On top of that framework is a fantastical school setting: quests are really homework, and failure in battle merely results in a trip to the nurse’s office.
What does this mean for button trancers like you and me? As in my Ar tonelico 2 column, I’ll examine Mana-Khemia in terms of infatuation, completionism, and immersion.
Infatuation
The game has a cast of likeable, sparklingly energetic characters. The several portraits for each character (by Yoshizumi Kazuyuki) are superb, and I may get strung up for writing this, but I think they even rival the original Atelier Marie masterpieces by Ohse Kohime. The voices are all-star and spot-on throughout the game, and there’s even a little bonus blurb from each voice actor in the Extras section when you finish the game. It’d be hard not to fall for these characters, and I certainly did. Even Mrs. Jetfuel found herself taking a liking to Gunnar, the beguilingly gruff super-senior, and Vayne, the quiet-but-warm-hearted protagonist. Nike even convinced me to reverse my usual anti–spunky-catgirl stance, thanks to a brilliant voice-acting job by Sawashiro Miyuki (who in Ar tonelico 2 portrayed the unrecognizably different, but equally impressive, role of the haughty aristocrat Chroche).
The school setting is a smorgasbord of convenient infatuation hooks: everyone wears cute uniforms (each somehow in their own distinct style, even for characters in the same class); the school nurse Melhis is a fetishized temptress; there are summer vacations and culture festivals and graduation ceremonies and all sorts of other nostalgic, idealized school-world set pieces.
But, Atelier is not really about deep involvement with characters. You get some morsels of story for each character, and you can steer the exposition a bit to see more of the characters you’re interested in. But nothing happens that’s serious enough to leave you with a lasting, pining connection to anyone. That’s just the way the game is: sugary, positive, humorous, and all-around a fun romp through a colorful world. I like Philo well enough, and the PVC figure of her that came with the limited edition box of the game is a pretty addition to my desk. But she won’t be joining my pantheon with Ar tonelico’s Shurelia and Sakura Taisen’s Kouran as a dear companion on unforgettable adventures.
Completionism
This is where much of Mana-Khemia’s value is. The missions – the homework assignments – are somehow more fun than similar quests in Grand Fantasm, possibly because of the atmosphere so pleasant that it seems like a reaction to that game’s off-putting nature. The various systems are so well interwoven that I didn’t get tired of playing with them. This is unlike Ar tonelico 2, where the game let me neglect most of the sub-systems and get way out of sync with how far along I was expected to be in each one, thus requiring me to grind through lots of crafting, baths, Diver’s Therapy, and conversation events. Not that they weren’t still fun, but the fantasy was harmed.
Here’s how it works: on homework assignments, you explore dungeons around the school, collecting alchemy components and fighting cute monsters. As you fight, you gain AP. You may also come across recipes. With your new recipes and components, you can visit the atelier and the athanor to craft new items. Each character has his own Grow Book, a Final Fantasy X–like field of nodes which become unlocked as you craft certain items. When you unlock a node, you can use AP to fill it in with gems, thus improving the character’s statistics. Once you’ve equipped your new items, filled in all of your Grow Book nodes, and handed in your homework, you move on to the next week. This process keeps iterating, opening more opportunities for more complex items and abilities, until in the last chapter I was happily running around for half an hour running various errands in order to create a single item.
Immersion
The game doesn’t offer a whole lot in the way of traditional rhythmic button-tapping immersion, such that you let everything around the TV fade away and just drift through the game. The closest thing is probably when you’ve got a good chain of item-crafting and leveling up going on, as mentioned above. One nice thing, though, is that the game enables and encourages you to pursue side stories with members of your party: during free periods, you can approach one of the characters in your atelier and start an event focused on them. These vary from helping someone study to pretending to be someone’s boyfriend so that her geeky fan club will leave her alone. I mostly followed Philo’s path, and in the end I was presented with a sentimental little scene and an ichimai e, the type of CG drawing you get as a reward in visual novels.
Conclusion
Mana-Khemia is like a nice pancake brunch: sweet, delicious, and a fine meal to fill me up until dinnertime, but rather homogenous and not all that wholesome. It’s enjoyable, but it’s more of a game to tide me over until the next Ar tonelico than it is a game to revere for itself. It certainly ranks with Atelier Iris 2 as a memorable Atelier game, and it was absolutely worth playing through to the end.
After five weeks and five days, my order finally came in at Kinokuniya. The reviewers on Amazon were right: this book is thick. It's almost approaching a Xenogears Perfect Works amount of information. It even includes an I.P.D. Reyvateil card game, which makes me wish I could buy another copy for popping the cards out and playing.
If I spend too long in Kinokuniya or at game sites, I actually get anxious about this stuff. Reminders to myself:
1. You don’t have to follow forever.
For a couple of years, I was actually pretty up to speed with Japanese console gaming (and comics, and popular music). I lived in Japan, I had lots of free time and curiosity and spendable money. So I walked around game shops all the time. I saw what was getting attention, I bought a lot of the stuff that interested me, and I participated in the culture: Sakura Taisen, Xenosaga, Shenmue, various shooting and fighting games, the post-death Dreamcast, and weird stuff like The Chikyuuboueigun. When I got back to the USA, I spent a lot of my time keeping up with what I’d left behind, and a lot of my income importing stuff I’d missed: visual novels (Kita e, some Yokota Mamoru games, even Sentimental Graffiti on Saturn), Cave games, Nippon Ichi games, and so much more. But not a lot of people can indefinitely prolong that phase of their life, where they’ve got the circumstances and resources available to sustain such hobbies at such an intense level.
So when I get worried that I’m not keeping up with all of the goings-on in the console gaming world, I need to remember that I already put a huge amount of attention and money into that system, and I got out a lot of enjoyment, memories, and hooks for future enjoyment. Now instead of voraciously seeking out everything new, I can branch out from what I already have. As new Sakura Taisen games come out, I play them. If a company or an individual I like works on a new project, I check it out. If something gets praise from people whose opinions I trust because of our gaming connections (like Sendai Tom or Julian), then I look into it. These things appear in front of me without very much effort on my part at all, and they are more than enough to fill all of my free time with gaming enjoyment. So I shouldn’t feel like I have to try so hard to keep up with everything that come out. Even if I’m missing some things, I wouldn’t be able to play it all anyway.
2. You don’t have to follow everything.
I am actually quite deeply absorbed in the game company Gust. I could probably pay attention to nothing but Gust games for the remainder of that company’s career, and never lack for gaming enjoyment. I buy everything they make, I am a member of their special online fan club, I read their newsletters, I participate in their intricate online promotions, and I’m ready to buy whichever next-generation system they decide to develop for. So in a way, I am still following the hobby very closely; it’s just a tiny subset of the whole hobby.
So when I get worried that I’m not keeping up with all of the goings-on in the console gaming world, I need to remember that I still put a large amount of attention and money into a small part of that system, and I’m still getting out a lot of enjoyment, memories, and hooks for future enjoyment. Even if I were to keep up with everything that comes out, and find another place to put this amount of devotion, I’d have to give up my devotion to Gust in order to afford it in time and money. I should be glad that I have Gust, and lots of side dishes from other companies, to keep me satisfied.
3. You aren’t the only one following.
I actually get a vague worry that if I don’t seek out and support all the great stuff that suits my taste, nobody will. As if I’m the key member of these creators’ target audience (even though I’m not even from the right country!) and their success and happiness depend on my commitment. Of course, that’s preposterous. As I said in items 1 and 2, I can’t follow everything forever. I paid tribute to lots of creators in the past, and I’m still paying tribute to a few creators now. Right now there are millions of people at the stage of life I was at in 2002 in Japan, and they are keeping up with everything, and supporting lots of creators. When their discovery phase is over, they’ll probably settle on a few creators (different from the ones I’ve settled on) and continue to offer their support like I’m doing now. Oh yeah, and there are also millions of people (most of them actually born and raised in the country where all of this is going on) who never do leave that stage. The whole system isn’t resting on my shoulders. I have done, and am still doing, my part. I have a steady stream of new things to try from my friends and my connections and my news sources, and I can continue to enjoy this hobby indefinitely. It’s even okay to go back and play old, old games that I missed when they were the hot new thing, even years after the game’s inital gambit in the market, when my support is not going to be apparent to the people who created it anymore, and my posting about the game on the web isn’t going to help it succeed.
This is all so obvious, but I have to remind myself of it sometimes.
At long last, I have posted my first column to Heisei Democracy. Be warned that while the column itself is pretty innocent, the site is pretty far on the other side of safe-for-workness. :D
So I'm on my second loop through Ar tonelico 2, because I want to see the Cosmosphere and ending for a different character. This time I'm turbo-buttoning through the story bits and concentrating on leveling up, so that I can get past the stuff I've already seen as quickly as possible. Surprisingly, this second pass through the game is still quite fun, now that I'm learning the secrets of powering up my characters for battle. If I didn't think I'd already missed some stuff that I can't go back for, I might be tempted to try for yarikomi — the level of extreme game completion that would take at least 150 hours for a game like this. I'd see every conversation, craft every item, rescue every I.P.D. Reyvateil, explore every level of every Cosmosphere, and power everyone up to the max.
Usually I am pretty rushed to get to the end of a game, so that I can move on to the next game in my queue. I couldn't really understand people like my roommate in college who went around beating all the Weapons in Final Fantasy VII just for the sake of having done it. Or the mythical players who left their level 99 dudes on the battery backup of RPGs I rented or bought used. But now I'm starting to see the appeal of approaching each new game as a miniature hobby in its own right, something you play and play until you've exhausted everything it has to offer.
Maybe, in this new land of buying fewer games, I should find the few games that I really want to get deep into, and go for yarikomi. The GUST, Nippon Ichi, Flight-Plan, Intelligent Systems, Sting, and Atlus games I'm interested in these days certainly support that approach, or even specifically encourage it.
Dear GUST, please hold off on the video games for a while. I still haven't finished the last four games you released. Really, just cut it out for a sec.
Background: So, some of the old games I played on the Mac Plus as a kid had a "boss key": some key combo you could hit to make it look like you were working instead of playing around. At a job I had in Chicago, one of my coworkers made a wallpaper image called BUSYBEE.BMP, a screenshot of a bunch of Excel windows, which he'd expose with the handy Windows 2000 "Desktop" button when someone important walked by.
This is a (rather amateurish) translation of Dengeki Online's report of the Ar tonelico 2 event in Akihabara last week. I have included only the images which are unique to the article; screenshots and other such official materials have been left out.
"Enta-matsuri" — Popular Divas Brought Together!
PS2 Ar tonelico 2 Premium Event Exhibition
On a special stage at the currently-running "Akihabara Enta-Matsuri" festival, a premium event was held on October 21 for the PS2 RPG Ar tonelico 2: Sekai ni Hibiku Shoujotachi no Metafalica (hereafter Ar tonelico 2).
On sale from Banpresto starting today, October 25, Ar tonelico 2 is the continuation of January 2006's Ar tonelico: Sekai no Owari de Utaitsudzukeru Shoujo. Set in a harsh world without solid ground, the story of those who travel around a verdant utopia "Metafalica" and battle with gods is told on a grand scale. Its unique system is that of singing in the emotive language "Hymmnos" in order to invoke magic.
Ar tonelico 2 cover (left) and limited preorder item "Official Visual Book" cover (right).
Today's event was divided into two sections: Section 1 "World Part" and Section 2 "System Part". Part 1 was presented as a talk show with members of the development team and the female artists, while Part 2 was an explanation of the system while playing the game itself.
Part 1
In Part 1, the female artists who worked on the musical compositions appeared: Shimotsuki Haruka-san, Shikata Akiko-san, Ishibashi Yuuko-san, and Mitose Noriko-san. In addition to these four, the director of Ar tonelico 2, GUST's Tsuchiya Akira-shi, the producer, Banpresto's Kawachi Atsunori-shi, and Banpresto's public relations manager T-san, presented a talk.
Members of today's event. From the left, director Tsuchiya Akira, Ishibashi Yuuko-san, Shikata Akiko-san, Shimotsuki Haruka-san, Mitose Noriko-san, producer Kawachi Atsunori.
In this work, as director Tsuchiya "wanted to involve the singers deeply in the worldview," there is an artist responsible for each of the main characters. Songs for the heroine "Ruka Trulyworth[?]" are by Shimotsuki-san, those for the other heroine "Kurôshe Rêteru Pastarie" are by Shikata-san, those for Ruka's mother "Reisha Trulyworth" are by Ishibashi-san, and those for the secret character are by Mitose-san.
Ishibashi-san divulged a little-known episode in which it took her four days to record just one song, and she thought her heart would break in the middle of recording. Also, Mitose-san related the story of how she recorded in a booth for hours in midsummer heat of over 40 degrees Celsius, then ended up dreaming in the Hymmnos language.
From there, Shimotsuki-san revealed the story of a request from the director Tsuchiya, "This song is a really apathetic song, so I want you to sing apathetically." Director Tsuchiya engaged the crowd strongly, saying "It really did turn out apathetic! Look forward to it!"
Part 2
In Part 2, the development staff actually played Ar tonelico 2 while explaining the battle system. In the demo, they focused on powering up "song magic", and presented the powerful "Replekia" system which combined item collection and Powered... Or they were supposed to, but failed twice. On the third try it finally went well, and the staff were visibly relieved.
At this point director Tsuchiya called out to the audience, "Let's have someone in the crowd try actually playing. If you want to play, raise your hand~." For some reason, Shimotsuki-san raised her hand and said "Yes, yes, I would like to play!" Shimotsuki-san apparently started wanting to play while watching the demonstration, so director Tsuchiya gave her instructions while she challenged the battle part.
Shimotsuki-san immediately activated "Replekia", but before she could benefit from its effect, she crossed swords with the enemy and won in melee combat. "I won by throwing myself at the enemy. I kind of feel like I lost..." she said, seeming unsatisfied.
Next was the explanation of "Dualstall", sometimes called the "Bath System". Dualstall is a system by which you submerge a Dualisno crystal into a bathtub, then the heroines bathe together, warming up their bodies and gaining power. When the sexy image of Ruka and Kurôshe wrapped in bath towels appeared on the giant screen above the stage, voices around the grounds rose up, "Ohhhh."
After that was the question & answer session with the development staff. Those on stage received various questions such as, "What song of Ar tonelico 2 is in the highest key?", and "Has a miracle ever occured while you were singing?" Such contentious questions as, "Is there a character in this game even more annoying than Lyner was in the previous game?" were also asked. Director Tsuchiya responded to that question with a grimace.
At the end, producer Kawachi ended the event by strongly imploring, "This game is certainly even more fun than the previous one. We hope to go on to make part 3, part 4 and more, so please lend us your support!"
GUST has posted the Ar tonelico 2 trailer. I can totally feel myself outside a game store in West Shinjuku, stopping to watch the trailer loop 2 or 3 times. It's got character voices, four Reyvateils including a secret one voiced by Mitose Noriko, new Hymmnos tracks, and yes, a very special technique for dual-Reyvateil song magic. ~_~;;;
