Ok, I’ve been very critical of the game up to this point.
However, I just wrapped up July 19th (a Saturday) in the game and that date was filled several events and quests where I actually missed two events. There are also quests that I initiated but don’t need to be completed until a later date. And as I surmised earlier, more NPC’s appear and can be actively engaged (and eventually begin offering quests).
One of the July 19th quests was actually a rather fun “challenge” which allows you to earn reputation points. And that quest (upon the first successful completion) changes into an event that you can run as many times as you wish (and earn up to 5 reputation points per successful completion). It’s a timed bike riding event where you need to ride from the beach to a lookout point at the top of a mountain (and back) where you cannot hit any people (if you do and/or take too long, you fail the goal and don’t earn any reputation points). It’s a a rather easy challenge since the course doesn’t change and there really aren’t any people in the way.
Since games like this tend to use conditional flags to trigger events, reputation and favorability are likely used. Continuously running into other NPC’s can lower ones reputation (blue informational dialogs pop up on the upper right for both good and positive changes) so this event can be used to quickly restore those points.
I’m of course following some Japanese guides for those who are completing them as they play. As I’m finding, the further into the game you get, the more events and quests you begin to encounter. Most game play videos on YouTube don’t help in the cause since most are footage of players going through trial and error. Basically, give it several more weeks, and there will be better/edited video guides with what needs to be actually done.
Which leads me to my revised thoughts. The problem is related to with what I noted earlier with how there are a lot of events that trigger only at specific times in the game. Because I’m following what others have discovered via what amounts to initial trial and error by many players (where more of that crowd sourced information is now coming together), it’s a whole lot easier for me since I can just head to specific destinations and do the actual quests and events at their specific times and within the deadlines. And I’m finding the game (outside of some of the unnecessarily long conversational dialogs) actually fun now that more things are actively happening.
However, the lack of structure early on results in many players missing those times, missing those events or quest activations, and are thus having those exact initial feelings that I had with the game feeling devoid of things to actually do where you are kind of just running around and not really accomplishing anything. In hindsight, the game does start off very slow in terms of the number of quests and events you need to do. And when you combine that with the lack of conveyance, the game unsurprisingly comes off feeling tedious, frustrating, and just plain bad. Unfortunately, those initial impressions are lasting ones for many where they just put the game down for good. But this is why I like to at least try to play the game all the way through to the end. Some games start off seeming to be fairly decent, but end up being terrible as you get more into it.
But now that I headed into what is the 2nd week on the island, the pace has begun to pickup. Indeed, if I were playing without any of this information and trying to discover where an event or quest is taking place, my original thoughts would still stand. The problem is a game design one where the execution of the quests and events (ones that are not initiated from the news room on the 3rd floor of the school) system provides no clues/pointers.
Yes, this is an open world adventure where that kind of hand-holding should not be required, but unless you have a larger majority of the NPC’s spawning into the game where they are all available to hand out quests and events, then some primer needs to be offer. But as I’m finding, some quest/events are actually linear in their design (they are dependent on having completed something else prior) so the game world in Natsuiro High School is not really one where you can just do any event/quest in any order and still come to the same completed objective.
As of the July 19th game date, I have around only 10% of the quests in the game completed and have only met just 8% of the NPC’s in the game. Which means that the game is only beginning to pickup. At this juncture, I’m going to continue keeping an open mind about the game and note my playing experience as I go.
June 21 Update: Revised Thoughts #2
