I was curious as to the opinions of the more avid Japanese console players (not just this game but in general) which required me to look through past and present threads over on ni-channel.
Outside of the customary troll posts, let’s just say that for this game, it hasn’t been favorable especially in regards to the open world aspect. Some players feel the game is an unfinished product (this is actually par for the course with many games). One recent post caught my eye:
このゲームは個人的にすっごく惜しい ギャルゲーの世界をオープンワールドで表現したゲームが欲しかったんだが 実際はクエストクリア型オープンワールドにギャルゲーをくっつけたみたいな…… リアルタイムに、一緒に登校したり、昼休みに一緒に弁当食べたり遊んだり、デートの移動中の会話も楽しめたり そういう方向に進めばな……
It roughly says they regret (buying) this game as they were hoping it’s open world play would allow quest clearing (following the formula used in most gal games including this game) where there would be more real time activities (like being able to go to school and eating lunch with the other NPC’s, being able to actually engage in conversation during the movie dates, etc).
I’ve pretty much covered this in my initial post. Tamsoft just doesn’t have that kind of open world adventure development experience though. Thus most of the open world parts of the game is more about your character running around from place to place (in what would normally be just a simple load screen or animated cut scene) with limited real time engagement with other NPC’s including the games main heroines.
Some folks also complained about the resolution of the graphics; I touched on this as well where the decision to also release this for the PS3, resulted in not taking advantage of the PS4. Even then, there are some serious performance issues on the PS4 (there is often times a lot of lag time to render and load NPC’s into a zone, and there is noticeable lag when there are a lot of NPC’s moving in an area like towards the end of the day when a large number of them are walking out from the school). Those performance issues are in the code since the PS4 can handle much more complex details without much problems (Diablo III Ultimate Evil Edition is a perfect example since it has far higher density, particle effects, and physics during combat where it doesn’t have any issues).
I do understand the dilemma Japanese game developers have since there is still a sizable player population on the PS3. But designing a game this way where its is held back due to the lowest common denominator rather than being designed specifically to take better advantage of the underlying hardware is a sure fire way to catch a lot of deserved flak. This isn’t an issue specific to this title though; it’s a common theme with a lot of current day Japanese games where it’s still using designs from the 90’s (you don’t need the horsepower of something like a PS4 to run what is mostly turn based text dialogue with nearly static graphics).
A good example of this is Omega Quintet and to a lesser extent Hyperdimension Neptunia VII on the PS4. Both (from Compile Heart) still follow the same dialog heavy turn based mechanic with static graphics and fairly simple textures (along with very generic character models) as opposed to more real time action and combat (again, less so with the latter). Then there is the actual game world which is mostly non-explorable. I do realize there are many players who enjoy these aspects of JRPG’s but this kind of outdated design on this level of hardware doesn’t even justify their pricing. And that is why I was hoping the open world adventure design in this game would be good enough to push game design in JRPG’s.
Digressing, I do agree with some of the criticisms regarding how earned items and currency are dealt with. Currently, the carry over applies when creating a new game after the initial playthrough. However, the same restrictions still apply anytime you load an earlier save game where any additional currency and items earned are only applicable to the latest game save.
If you load an earlier save for example, you’ll only have access to what you had to that point. Likewise, if you earn anything during an earlier save and reload a later save, that data remains only with that earlier save. If you want to keep it, you’ll have to continue playing through the game from that point. It’s a really messy implementation; one that made sense for the initial playthrough but one that doesn’t make sense after the carry over when creating a new game.
That data is maintained separately in a larger 800+MB “system” save file (that is where quests achievements and the photo gallery data are also stored). This data should just be universally available (after the initial playthrough) where you can freely load game saves and not have to worry about that. The smaller game saves however also maintain a snapshot (and that takes preference).
Yen isn’t really a big issue since you realistically don’t need a lot. You start off with 200,000 and there is a trophy for 1 million but even that is overkill unless you want to get a lot of the higher end “ryu-dama” or magical Dragon Orbs that you get when making an offering at the Dragon God’s shrine.
Ni-channel netizens being what they are, have been letting D3P know about their disappointment with the game play by sending them e-mail. As I noted, fixing these issues isn’t going to be possible because they are part of the games core design (you cannot just simply patch in real time interactivity due to the costs involved with creating all of that new content).
But I now think the reason for the lack of DLC content (I noted previously there is a Shop button on the main menu) is due to this feedback. The games avatar mode seems really geared towards outfits (there’s a small amount already available) which is where they usually make a killing with DLC’s (which is why I found it unusual to not see anything).
The game has seen two small patches (1.0.2 was released on July 23rd Japan time) since as noted before, there are a lot of bugs. And releasing DLC at this juncture when the game has all of these issues would be seen as putting the cart before the horse. It’s hard to tell if there are a lot of bugs with conditional flags though for specific heroine routes. What I’m also finding in my second go around is that the Japanese guide that I’ve been following is just that; a guide that is mostly crowd sourced.
While it is fairly accurate, it still isn’t a 100% definitive one. I’ve already encountered quests and events (that I’ve ignored in this playthrough since I’m following a specific route ending) that roll over to future dates that don’t mimic what’s in the guide. The info there hasn’t been updated since June 25th though so there could be a lot of feedback that hasn’t been processed. But this does highlight how extensive the open play is generally outside of the route/ending specific parts. Had the game been designed with more of the above mentioned real time interactivity, the game could have set a new bar for what’s expected from a Japanese ARPG.
