What's awful about them? Have you actually played a b&w GB game on the VC?

The contrast doesn't need changing, and for a standard color scheme, grey is acceptable. All the details are clear without any distortion, especially on the original resolution mode. The green tint is hideous and makes the games look awful. Its hard to make out details using that.

Especially considering that similar features to what I'm describing have been made available by Nintendo on like, 3 different occasions.

@Bass It would've required a negligible amount of work. With the green filter they're already adding a color tint in addition to some other effects. All they have to do is add another button and a couple sliders, which is not even close to being enough to justify charging a dollar more.

Anyway, it wasn't my intention to go down this line of discussion. Simply stated that this is a game I'd love to play if Nintendo would add some basic features that they themselves made standard (and which make the games look a million times better), but I got attacked for that, lol.

Yes, I have five of them. And yes, you can see what's going on, but I still think it looks horrid and it severely impairs my enjoyment of the games — if I think something looks like crap then 9 times out of 10 I'm not going to enjoy playing it either. Here's an example of what I'm talking about re: contrast.. I'm not a fan of the 3DS's green "tint" either, but when a tint is added to a brighter, higher contrast image it's much less severe and much more appealing.

I can safely assure you that this game looks better blown up than most VC games. That's saying something.

Is it just me, or was Nuku Island a lot easier than Nekojara Island?

I'm still stuck in Roc Woods, so I don't know.

It is absolutely not just you.

Wow, Sunker Island was ridiculously easy!

Well I had no idea Nina was going to leave me and take everything she had equipped. Well Bogi will not be powered up like her and I'll remove his gear when I think he's about to run off.

Loving this game though

Finally beat it! Just in time for tomorrow's eShop update (KI:oMaM, yay).

Fantastic game overall, I agree with NL's 8/10.

SPOILERS. Things I liked:

• The length. This is certainly the longest 3DS VC game on the service (excluding Link's Awakening DX, maybe).
• Good old fashioned JRPG action. Newer gamers may balk at turn based combat & random encounters (I've even heard such claims that if they're instituted now, they're design flaws), but sometimes it's nice to go back to basics, especially when they're implemented so well.
• The Story. It may not be as extravagant as Xenoblade or the Last Story, but for a GB game it's immaculate.
• Very few reused sprites. One gripe I usually have with RPGs, is the recoloring/renaming of enemy types you've faced before, and they're just stronger. I think I only noticed 3 enemies which used the same sprites as earlier foes, which is quite amazing for a GB game of such length (even newer RPGs resort to this a lot).
• Little to no grinding, and quick leveling. I think I only grinded once during the entire game, and that was before the final dungeon. Also, it doesn't take forever for someone to level up. It seems like someone is always leveling up, and they get a new ability every time!

What I didn't like:

• Nekojara Island. I know there are supposed to be difficulty spikes when you enter a new area, but this area is just so intense it's wrong (especially when every dungeon after the fact, besides the final one, actually decrease in difficulty). There are some problems besides the usual spike in enemy strength though, such as Beholders (these enemies actually blow up when defeated, no matter whether you kill them with physical or magical attacks, and is the only part of the game that felt a little cheap to me). Another thing is the dungeon itself. I appreciate that they tried something a little different than the usual ruin or temple hallways (a volcano in this case), but it ended up being a little more disorienting than it should have been, IMO (plus, the occasional earthquakes were more annoying than anything).
• You can't buy or sell things in greater quantities than one. If you have a hundred coins you want to sell, you cant choose a quantity, you have to sell them one by one! Same thing for if you want to buy more than one of something. It's just slows the game down a bit, when you're doing it.
• When a party member leaves your party, they take whatever equipment you had on them, and since you don't know when they'll leave your side (unless you've played it before), you never really want to give them anything too good (or potentially important).

My complaints are actually very small though, Nekojara Island can be beat just like any other dungeon, it just takes a bit more diligence (and patience). The other two are very minor nit-picks that don't disrupt the overall enjoyment of the game in any meaningful manner.

SPOILERS END.

I don't see what the problem with the other islands was, they don't get weaker, so much as stay close to the same making them seem weaker.

I'm in what I assume is the final dungeon. I have the strongest gear, this should prove challenging.

Edit: Well the last dungeon destroyed me many times. I had to grind a level on each character for the last boss., so there was a small spike in difficulty, it was lots of fun though and I plan to play the game again sometime.

I'm on Nuku island, and The sword of Miracles keeps saving me.

I swear, I got 5 criticals in a row with that powerful sword.

@TheDreamingHawk be careful, it can help them scored crits on you as well

I'm so jealous. The game isn't availabe on the EU VC.

http://www.nintendo.co.uk/NOE/en_GB/games/nintendo_3ds_virtua...

September 8th is a long ways away... But it'll be worth it for you guys! Enjoy!

No, England has day-month, not month-day — so its 9th August. Next Thursday.

September 8 is a Saturday anyway.

@RR529 Thanks for the nice summary there, I'm definitely gonna get it when it gets released this friday, sounds like a fun RPG and it'll keep me going until some better games arrive on the eShop, I was originally gonna get Planet Crashers, but apparently it's a 'must avoid" game, as rated by NL.
Also I can't wait to play all my VC and 3DSware games on my 3DSXL when it arrives here on the 23rd.

I've just started playing it, and I like it so far to an extent.
It's quite an advanced RPG considering its on the GB, and the menu layout is very smart and works well. The story is alright, and the music is quite nice. Having said all that though - this isnt amazing in the mechanics or balancing and there are many issues that RPG fans will pick up on quickly...

1) There is no death penalty (at least for the first portion of the game) - Usually losing half your gold is the standard in this situation, but all you do is get sent back to the first castle fully healed. The debatable penalty here is having to walk back to where you were, but this isn't much of a penalty to the players character, only to their time. It seems like a cheap way to extend the game length, and would ideally be improved.

2) Level jumps are too extreme - there are some enemies that will destroy you if you fight them at one level, that become easily defeatable at the next level. This means that the game becomes very little about actual strategy, and grinding for the levels becomes the primary concern, which shouldnt be so forced in a good RPG.

3) Little Guidance - Comparatively less of an issue, but not being given a description of what each spell does can be an annoyance (an issue solved to an extent by the manual in this case) as well as not being able to see the MP cost without figuring them all out yourself. Not being told the stats for weapons or armour is also a problem as your purchases must rely on guesses. Considering this is a Game Boy game though - these are minor annoyances.

4) Enemy types (in terms of their power and rewards) - Could have been better planned. For example: Blops and skeletons are some of the first enemies. Blops are killable in 2 hits at Lvl-1 and do very little damage even then. Skeletons take 4 hits up to Lvl-4 to die and generally do 1-8 damage at those levels. Both of these enemies give 1exp and 1gold. This isnt too much of an annoyance considering there isnt a death penalty - but thats just one problem correcting another, and leading to an RPG thats very much about the grind, and very little about actual strategy and planning.

Dont get me wrong - this is still a great game for the GB, and I'd highly recommend it considering there are no other traditional RPG's on the eShop yet, but it's got its share of issues, and they arent to be ignored.

As you say, its a twenty year old handheld game. If someone is not going to overlook some of the issues that a modern day RPG shouldn't have, they have no business playing retro games.

I'd rather take a game that is easy and the only penalty is to waste my time a little than one that is frustrating and refuses to let me progress.