|
As is customary in video games, we open with a cutscene. That sure is some scenery, yep.   I'll say.  : Wait, this must be the entrance to a dungeon! Yes, that's it! I've finally found it! Yep, my gut feeling was right. Yep, that's right... And we're given the chance to name this Moogle fellow here. Despite the fact that he's already been referred to as "Mog". Anyway, we've got seven characters to work with, but I'll be leaving him with his default name for now. : Yep, my gut feeling was right. : Hey... Are you listenin' to me? Hey.... Same deal as before, seven characters, sticking with the default for this update. Don't worry, you'll get to rename these guys before we start playing for real.   Chocobo, being the player character, doesn't actually speak. Instead he just pantomimes, which makes my job a lot easier.  : Chocobo, you weren't listening, were you? Whatever... And this is Mog's motivation. He's just after the loot.  : Hardly finding any rare items... It's been a long journey...  : As a rare item collector, it'd be such a cryin' shame to pass up a dungeon like this...: Okay, let's go, Chocobo!: Wha...! Whatever, let's go! As might be expected of the treasure-hunter, Mog is kind of a jerk.   : This must be another mysterious dungeon.: What!? You forgot? In mysterious dungeons, stairs from the previous floor disappear. There may be monsters, too. Despite all that, you can get a lot of rare items. And here's Chocobo's motivation: dude just wants a snack. : Alright, let's move it! : Huh? What now, Chocobo?: What? Why are you in the lead, you ask?: That's the way it always is. Come on, Chocobo! And once Chocobo's done mugging for the camera, we get to play the game. A very short intro sequence, especially once you consider that you can hold L2 to auto-advance the dialog.  The game's interface is pretty simple. We have our current dungeon floor in the upper-left, our current experience level next to that, then our HP, and finally energy at the upper-right. Energy is our food counter. Every so often, it decreases by one, and once it gets very low we start to lose HP. The minimap is in the lower-right corner of the screen. Green is walkable areas, blue is where we've already walked, light blue is items, red is enemies, and white is the staircase to the next floor.  Oh yeah, that's a goblin in front of us. As an early-game monster, they don't hit particularly hard, and only have 7-8 HP.  Even after one attack, he's very nearly dead.  Mog decides to show off his special ability right away, and steals a Map Card. I'll go more into stealing later on, but in general each enemy has four steal slots, and Mog is more likely to steal when you have fewer items in your inventory. Map Cards, by the way, reveal the full minimap.  Memory Tags allow you to save your game when you find the stairs. Most of the dungeons in this game are short enough that saving halfway through isn't really necessary. That enemy on the right there is a Guz. They have less attack and defense than Goblins, and also waste their turns crying when you hit them.  Mind you, they'll still try to fight you.  Mog socks this one upside the head to finish him off. The book on the ground next to him is a Fire Book. Spells are cast from books. Each book has one use, and casts the spell of its associated element. As you cast the spells more, their level increases, dealing more damage and occasionally getting a beefier animation. Fire books are useful later on in the dungeon, though, so we'll be keeping this one.  Using the Map Card shows us the full minimap for this level. Much like NetHack and Rogue, each floor is divided into a grid of potential rooms with connecting hallways. Map Cards are mostly useful if you're just trying to rush through the level, as the 4x3 grid doesn't take very long to manually explore.  Treasure chests are pretty much the same as they are in every other video game. You open them and get stuff from them.  This particular one held a potion, which restores 30 HP when drank. Given our max HP is only 35, it's safe to save this for emergencies. The stairs are just to our south, but there's something I forgot to take care of earlier.  That green thing is a recycle box. You can put two items in, and get a random item out. It's a great way to make those memory tags and map cards useful.  For instance, our memory tags became an empty bottle! Usually you get these by drinking potions, but you can sometimes find them as loot. They're one of the more versatile and useful items in the game.  Bottles can be filled from magic springs, which replaces the bottle with a random potion. They can also be kicked at monsters, which does exactly 4 damage every time. Equipping a bottle (or stone) allows you to kick it just by pressing L1, which saves a bit of time.  Killing monsters also gives you experience points, and once you get enough of those, you level up, which boosts your attack, defense, and maximum HP.  While clearing out the area, we stumble across our first trap, the bounce tile. It launches Chocobo forward a few squares... and that's it. A very gentle introduction to traps.  Especially when you consider the Lost-Child trap right next to it. This trap makes you forget the minimap. Still not dangerous, but quite annoying. Thankfully, we were almost done with this floor anyway.  Since all of the enemies in this part of the dungeon have either 7 or 8 HP, it's easy to just hit them once, and finish them off with a kicked bottle. Why bother doing that?  Because killing an enemy with a bottle will drop an Essence. Each essence type has a different effect when drunk. Critter Essence, for example...  ... Is our first unidentified item. Huh. Yep, most items are unidentified when you first pick them up, and are distinguished by "flavors". For instance, un-ID'd potions might be "bubbly" or "glowing", and cards can be "bent" and such. Because we started off with a Map Card and Potion, those two were ID'd for us.  Anyway, Critter Essence restores some Energy. There are certainly worse things out there. Anyway, enough faffing around. Down the stairs!  Good job, Mog, you've jinxed us.  : Oh shoot! Get down!: Just do it! Well, that doesn't sound too dangerous to us.  : It took out that Guz and leveled up! If a monster takes out another monster, it goes up in level! A Goblin becomes a Dark Goblin... We'll never beat it, let's scram!Pff, says you. I'm sure we can take it.  Look at that, Mog, he can't even hit you.  One thing I've forgotten to mention up to this point is that the game is strictly turn-based. You have as much time to think about your move as you need, but once you either move or attack, everyone else gets their turn, too. Hence why Chocobo needs to kick the air in order for Mog to punch the goblin.  Oh... Well, we've got 70HP between us, I'm sure we can whittle down this guy.  O-oh. Monsters can also level up by killing your partner. When a monster levels, they're also fully-healed, so watch out for that. But hey, Mog was a thief, and we're clearly some sort of fighter, right? We can take this g-   Oh.  The little bar underneath the enemy is thier ATB gauge. Most monsters have a special move that takes more than one turn to charge, and this lets you keep an eye out for that.  Oh dear.  Welp. That was a bust. See you next time! Oh, and don't forget, you can suggest names for our intrepid duo. 7 characters, and please bold suggestions so I can see them.
|
#
?
Apr 26, 2016 15:08
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 30, 2024 08:40 |
|