Random VN: Dungeon of Regalias ~Haitoku no Miyako Ishgalia~
Entry posted by Clephas
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Umm... I'm going to be honest with you. I'm not terribly fond of Astronauts' irregular ventures off into the lands of dark fantasy gameplay hybrids, and as a result, I chose not to play this one when it came out. My experiences with the original Demonion, which, while the story was decent, was incredibly tedious when it came to the gameplay, made me not want to have anything to do with this game.
I won't say that this game surprised me... the story is straightforward Astronauts-style (lots of sex, immorality, and violence) combined with the classic dungeon-crawler setup. I'll be straight with you... I think the resurrection of dungeon-crawlers is what killed the classic jrpg, so I automatically subtract points from any game that looks like or acts like a dungeon-crawler. I even felt the same way about Persona 3 and Persona 4, which tells you just how much I dislike the genre.
Why? Because I've never seen the point in a story centering around diving into the same dungeon over and over. Adventuring doesn't seem like fun to me (I got over that phase in middle school), and the stories tend to be ridiculously easy to predict, even for Japanese games.
Regalias focuses on the city of Ishgalia, which was built over a labyrinth made from the ruins of a floating magic city that fell to the ground a few centuries back. The former mercenary, Orias, enters the city with the hope of finding the secrets to his past deep within the labyrinth.
Now, let's set aside the craziness of monsters infinitely welling up from the depths of a ruined magical city. If I were to complain about that particular tired trope, we'd be here all day. I'll even set aside my need to question how the city wouldn't have been completely explored after decades of people going into its depths.
What I won't do is gloss over the way I began to feel by the end... which was tired of finding my way through a bland set of dungeons. I honestly recommend that this game be played in stages, as the dungeon is exhausting and the story sections are not quite frequent enough to break the experience off into manageable bits. Essentially, you form a party of five characters (from an eventual roster of nine), and the battles are classic-style turn-based, which most enemies and your characters having one action per turn (the exception being certain 'special' enemies and bosses). On normal, the beginning of the game was the single hardest part of the entire thing. For some reason, the special enemies early on can frequently one-shot you even if you are overleveled for the part of the dungeon you are in, which is ridiculous. Since the only resurrection option early on is to return to town, this is frustrating and irritating, since it isn't always possible to avoid the enemy.
On the other hand, in the late game, you'll most likely be faced with a distinct lack of challenges... or at least, I was. I had to go back to town every once in a while when I ran out of mp, but I rarely died or even had a character killed after the fourth chapter (there are ten, including the final one). Part of that is that Orias and Shizuku are overpowered when using the double-sword passive skill (believe me, this is great for both normal enemies and bosses). The other part of it was that I had the range of skills I needed to wipe out enemy parties in a single turn.
One thing I seriously hated about this game was the way it essentially forces to stick with your original party... because the other four girls are significantly less capable than the first four to join the party. Dora is almost as capable as Edna as a mage, but Nemu is half-assed (they obviously couldn't decide whether to make her a true attack mage or a healer... and it shows). The less said about Meriel and Zenobia, the better (think, 'magician who couldn't kill a fly' and 'swordswoman with a ridiculous number of support magic that verges on being useless late-game).
The characters in this game are actually pretty good... though you spend an inordinate amount of time with them naked (five or more non-rape h-scenes for all the female characters except Fortuna and Zenobia). They all have realistic motivations for their actions and background to explain their personalities... which isn't surprising from the company that produced Erect! which is notable for being my favorite borderline nukige in existence.
Story-wise... it is fairly predictable. Honestly, the presentation isn't bad... in fact, it is good. However, I found the lateness of certain revelations to be irritating (since they weren't really revelations by the time they came out and said them outright), and I found the antagonists less than inspiring...
The end of the main story was actually pretty decent, and a good happy ending overall. There are also plenty of post-game events for the 'finish everything' freaks, including hints at what the characters might do afterward. However, I was disappointed there wasn't a final epilogue...
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