[phil_]

You know what? I'm just gonna do my little "This is what's dumb, this is why I really liked the game" song and dance now because, screw it, I did one for Crystal Bearers, right?

First, like I always do, stuff that people might not like. The most glaring thing is the long walks where nothing happens. 90% of the time, you're walking around, looking for the next area or key or something. To most, this is boring. Then, there's the limited inventory. You will leave stuff behind. However, most of what you leave behind will be money and healing items, and you don't really need much of either, since you heal at every fire and you get enough money to keep you armed and supplied anyway. Oh, and the game's not hard. I died once. I got a sweet katana way before I would have otherwise by doing what killed me, but, yeah, that was the only time I died. Also, it's not very long, even with the long hallways and tedious ladder-descending. So, in summary, walking, attache case, easy.

Now, onto why this game is worth the cash I spent on it. First, that whole walking around thing? I like that. To reiterate what I said back when Crystal Bearers came out, I like exploring. I like running to the edge of the map to find stuff. And, again, there's stuff to find out there, like memory items and secret messages and sweet katanas. So I actually enjoyed walking slowly, searching every room, looking in every crevice for items or bits of story or just to see what was there.

Speaking of memory items, that was a nifty idea. For those who haven't played, you find junk scattered about, and if you bring it to a fire (the save points), you get a short snippet of the memory of the person the item belonged to. Or, sometimes you get short stories. Or, in the case of a certain set of items, you get a really long story that has nothing to do with Seto or the end of the world at all. Anyway, the way these stories give tiny, fragmented glimpses into the world just before and just after it ended is really well done and forms this fuzzy picture of what actually happened that gets clearer as you find more memories. Of course, then the game ruins it by telling you pretty much exactly what happened, but if you've been paying attention you pretty much know by that point, anyway.

Then there's the story, told variously through cutscenes and stuff you find wandering around. Early in the game (but beyond where Noncon is), you find a green flashlight that highlights secret messages on the walls. I'm not sure who wrote the messages, but they stretch all across the game (part of my replay is finding ones I missed). Anyway, they give hints, they give glimpses into whatever the writer was doing or thinking when he/she passed where you are, and they freak you out, "The Shining"-style. The environments also tell a story, but I'm getting too long winded, so I'll cut that short in order to get to the cutscene-parts of the story. It's a mixture of standard anime BS and a story about loneliness, the importance of communication, and the value of life, human or otherwise. It's not Shakespeare, but it's at least Rowling. It gets a little Resident Evil near the end, though.

Combat is serviceable. There are a decent amount of enemies for how often you get into fights, but you fight recolors pretty quickly. Even so, they're creepy and you want to get rid of them, even though most of the time you can just run past. You can get a basic combo by tapping the button in the right rhythm, but that's as advanced as combat gets. Also, there are four types of weapons, each with variations within, but I only used sword-types and bow-types, mostly because of size-to-utility in my inventory.

So, there's a neat story, it's told in an interesting way, the world is worth exploring, and it's really creepy sometimes. And you can play it in Japanese like ＴＲＵＥ　ＪＡＰＡＮＥＳＥ　ＭＡＮ.