Games

[icycalm]

[English title: The Dark Spire]

I have not been able to fully translate the title of this game (幻夢ノ塔ト剣ノ掟). The last few kanji are giving me trouble. What I have so far is "Genmu no Tou to ... Okite" which means something about a "law of a tower of dreams".

This will be a "3D Dungeon RPG" by Success, coming out on May 22.

[CosMind]

Turns out it's a first-person dungeon crawler with what appears to be a good level of genuine care behind the presentation. The environments are being rendered in a very painterly manner (avoiding the norm of muddy DS 3D). This aesthetic is being carried consistently across all of the game's features. Peek for yourself at the official site:

http://www.success-corp.co.jp/software/ds/genmunotou/

[walrusdawg]

Released in the US this week as The Dark Spire.

http://www.atlus.com/darkspire/

My first impressions@2 hours in): Obvious comparison is to Etrian Odyssey, so let's do that.

The Dark Spire has more complex character building, more complex combat, more complex dungeon navigation, quite a bit more flavor, and is a good deal harder(And EO's no slouch). I need to play it some more to see if any of those qualities hold up, but this could be the best goddamn game on the DS. Has a nice visual style too, and the "classic" graphics and sound mode is an impressive if sort of pointless bonus.

[lock]

The kanji that is missed is 剣 (ken) which means "sword". So the title is "The tower of the dreams and the law of the sword" I think.

[icycalm]

Duh, I guess I just fed to it an online dictionary, and it failed epically. I'll remember to use my eyes and brain next time. Thanks!

And thanks for the heads-up, walrus. Sounds very interesting indeed. Can you also draw the maps here yourself?

[LaserGun]

I've just spent an hour with this game today. I quite like the 'classic' graphic mode, looks neat and transforms the current music into a chiptune variant.

From what I've played so far -- it looks like a good bit of grinding will be needed before I'll be able to get anywhere without being slaughtered.

I don't think you can draw your own map, I haven't been able to turn off the automap function. The map also has to be selected with the Y button to be viewed, your party's current health and other statistics are displayed on the touchscreen. Another thing about the map I noticed was that it doesn't display a marker for your current position -- it's an ability that needs to acquired/learned.

All in all it's shaping up very nicely so far, I will definitely be spending more time with this game.

[walrusdawg]

You can turn off the map in the same menu where you change the graphics. All it does is turn the map off, which is going to make the game near impossible unless you maintain your own.

Regarding the things I said before (again mostly in comparison to Etrian Odyssey):

Complex character building
-Pick Race (4), Class(4), and Alignment (3)
-Leveling up is sort of like EO's skill points, except here EVERYTHING is done manually. You use your experience points to buy levels, skills, and stat increases. Not sure how deep of a prereq tree there is. The website says leveling up in multiple classes will allow you to change to more advanced hybrid classses, but I'm not there yet.

Complex combat
-Enemies are not immediately identified. When you enter a fight, they are only displayed by class and you have no access to their HP or status. Later during the fight they sometimes identify themselves, but I'm not sure what causes it.
-There are multiple options for battle commands. Depending on class, weapon, row, and probably some other things, you have a menu beyond your standard "attack", "defend", "magic" commands. Most of these are simply 'sacrifice one stat for another' options(speed for accuracy, AC for strength, etc.)

Complex dungeon navigation
-Obviously "getting lost" was not a factor in EO, but it's here. Adds some tension/frustration. This could end up enriching the game or just make me stop playing it, depends how it goes.
-Walls in the game don't need to have any area like the did in EO. Say, if you have a grid 3 units wide you could have 3 parallel hallways, while in EO you could only have two.
-Dark areas
-Many more one-way and hidden doors
-Locked doors so there's a lockpicking skill (I see other skills like Acrobatics and Tree Climbing, so maybe more than just locked doors)
-Puzzles to get through doors.

More when I see it.

[icycalm]

It turns out it's "Tsurugi" not "Ken". I wonder how you are supposed to figure out which of the two it is. So many titles with this kanji seem ambiguous.



It also seems none of the Japanese sites covered it. It's next to impossible to find decent screens, without ripping them from the (Flash) official sites. Here's a trailer on Success's channel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYwfLTMIBwQ

The wireframe mode is a silly gimmick, but otherwise the game looks excellent. Very distinctive art style for sure, and it trounces Etrian's poor 3D backgrounds.

[icycalm]

vs.



I'd be very surprised if there was a single person playing in wireframe mode. I'd want to meet him anyway.