VNs: Gears of Dragoon 2, settling in for the long haul, VN of The Month Announcement
Entry posted by Clephas
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OK, I started playing Gears of Dragoon 2 about four days ago (I've only managed twenty hours so far, due to work), and I have a few comments on the game.
For better or worse, Gears of Dragoon 2 Reimei no Fragments is a dungeon crawler/rpg/VN hybrid, and like most VNs of this type, it is pretty big. To be blunt, in 20 hours, I've only managed to get to level 24 and get halfway through Chapter 2. Considering that with the same amount of time I was already halfway through (or farther) with each of the Venus Blood games, that means that I have long way to go. As such, I'm excluding this and Sengo Muramasa from VN of the Month for January. I'm not really seeing anything glorious enough to surpass the experience of Tokyo Necro, anyway.
The battle system is a pretty straightforward turn-based one, though it has a limited-size skill palette that makes the game a bit inflexible at times as I've gained access to more skills. The leveling system is an experience-based one where you gain levels by defeating enemies, then use skill points to increase skill levels or progress farther on the skill tree. The game experience is added to somewhat by the presence of a guild-leveling system (where you get guild points for finishing missions, then use them to increase the levels of the four guilds - (Warrior - which affects the item shop-, Thief - Which effects item drops and dungeon mapping -, Priest - which effects damage and healing, as well as drops for certain types of items - , and Mage - which effects drops for certain items, etc), making the game more convenient. I started out focused on the Warrior Guild, but the Thief Guild is a lot more utilitarian... if the Thief Guild's level is one above the current chapter, every dungeon in that chapter will come pre-mapped, thus making planning a lot easier.
Story-wise... it looks like it could be interesting, but the ratio of dungeon to story is a bit too lopsided toward the dungeon, thus making it hard to connect with the characters and story overall. This is a problem some of the Venus Blood games also had, but I honestly think this is a bit worse. The protagonist stumbles a bit too often for his apparent confidence, and the main heroine is once again a ditz (why is it that rpg/dungeon crawler heroines almost always are?). To be honest, I do wish we could customize how the characters level up their stats, as some of the characters have really, really half-assed statistics despite their roles, whereas others have ones lopsided toward roles other than theirs. I think this is mostly a matter of poor design, so I honestly can't be really complimentary about the game so far.
Now, for the reason why I'm going ahead and announcing VN of the Month early... to be blunt, Fire Emblem Fates is coming out, and I'm probably not going to touch a VN for a week at least after it does, meaning until February's VNs release. Also, except for this one and Sengo Muramasa, there really isn't anything left to play that is interesting.
VN of the Month January 2016
January was a month of extremes... I played two kusoge, one kamige, and one high-quality one. Obviously, there is no other candidate for the VN of the Month except Tokyo Necro, but it should be mentioned that Hataraku Otona no Renai Jijou would have had VN of the Month potential in many another month. It isn't a kamige, but it was solid enough to remain in memory. While having to plow through two kusoge was painful, the other two were worth it.
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