Beat four bosses so far. Boss fights were exciting just because they were new experiences for Shiren. But they pretty much consisted of standing still, attacking, and healing. Hopefully there are more boss battles ahead, and better ones.
Story has been good enough so far, I suppose, though I can't be sure yet that I don't rather the game without it. Graphically it's not as glorious as it was in 2D, but it's good enough considering this is Shiren's first 3D outing. My biggest complaint about the graphics is a minor one: ally animations in towns are terrible. They just sort of glide around, sometimes backwards, sometimes getting stuck... not that it matters though.
When you get the game, take the time to learn it in and out. Check all the menus. Otherwise, you'll end up with an ally who'll use up all your items. There's a menu where you can define quite a few behaviors, mostly, "Allow ally to use ___?" I generally only let an ally attack (melee only, no projectiles) and heal, and even the healing part I regret sometimes. The AI just has does not have the judgment needed to determine when items are worth using and when they aren't. You can always take control of the ally quickly and easily if you need him to use an item. Playing this makes me appreciate the DS's second screen a little more, but you will get used to having to quickly go through menus constantly by the time you reach the mansion.
It starts off slow and easy, and you likely won't die until after the four guardians are beaten. But after you beat them you can go in the mansion, and it becomes more like the Shiren we all know and love. I died on the second floor of the mansion my first try, and since I'm on normal, that means I lost all my inventory, sadly. But it makes sense that you don't lose your levels gained. I didn't get to the mansion until level 19. If you had to replay the whole story again each time, that would be quite tedious.
All in all I think Shiren fans will be quite pleased!
Edit: I just read your impressions above. Sounds great. I think I'm with you on the 3D visuals; They don't look near as impressive as the 2D pixel art. Anyway, I did manage to order it last night, so it should be here by Friday. :3
The environments are really great, very colorful -- the trailers cannot do them justice. Having mini-dungeons instead of one continuous dungeon really allows a lot more visual variety even if it does mean easifying the game. From what I've read, Shiren 2 was like that, too, and Shiren 4 is assumed to keep this structure as well. That leaves the original as an oddity in the series with one big dungeon that you have to restart every time.
Some of the cutscenes are really well animated, but the lack of voice acting is a shame. I know voice acting is often bad, but there are exceptions, and the silence over the text weakens the impact of the scene noticeably.
I think I'm almost done the story, and it's been quite good so far, for what it is. Koppa is quite the character, always mouthing off at people even though he doesn't fight at all. I think he is my favorite ferret ever.
Oh, good. Glad to hear Koppa talks quite a bit and doesn't have just a few lines. That was something I was worried about. Gaah, I can't wait to play this.
Damn this game. It really is quite easy, but I am a bit obsessive about not using items if I don't need to, and due to inattentiveness I failed to heal one of my allies when I should have. In this game, if an ally dies, it's game over. This was right as I began what looked like the last leg of the game, so I had taken everything out of storage and used all my money.
And then I had nothing.
Sure, you don't lose your levels, but levels apparently mean nothing. Items, and more importantly item levels, are what carry you through. I'm replaying old levels now to regain items, and it's a really tiresome process. Considering this is the only difference between easy and normal, I would recommend anyone just starting to choose easy. It's not like normal makes it more challenging because grinding for items is exceedingly easy. It is just painstakingly slow.
Oh yeah, that's right, this game came out recently, didn't it? Well, it's gonna be a while before I can afford to get it, plus I still need to finish the one I have for the DS, so oh well.
Yea, it took me over half an hour to get back an inventory that was maybe 25% as good as the one I had before, but it turns out I overestimated how good the equipment had to be, and fortunately a couple levels later was a dungeon with a higher percentage of good items than usual. I think I'll be done today. I have heard about the "post-game" dungeons, too.
With this game they said they were trying to make it more like a JRPG in some ways, and I think they very much succeeded. "Normal" mode tacks on a penalty that feels very much out of place in this format though, serving only to severely disrupt the rhythm of the story. I very much hope some of the post-game dungeons play by the original Shiren's rules entirely, but the compromise in Normal mode for the main story just doesn't work well.
But enough talk, got to see if I can squeeze in one dungeon while I'm on lunch!
Ugggh, I did it again. Why oh why did I choose normal? This time I was actually sure to die and realized it, but some connection wasn't made it in my brain at the time (ok, let's face it, a lot of connections weren't made there, as usual), and I didn't think to use Escape Scroll. I'm thinking that was the final boss, too, or at least the first form. All signs point to this, but it didn't seem too dramatic, and the story has been a bit weird. Oh well. Back to item grinding again...
By the way, Pix (or anyone else who gets the game), let me know if you solve this mystery of mine: In the manual it says Asuka (a character you meet later) can equip both a shield and a 2-handed weapon, but I can't get it to work, and there's no mention of this ability in-game. It's perplexing, and a bit disappointing, because she has a lot of 2-handed weapons that are neat, but no way am I sending her out without a shield.
So, if you die (lose gear) could you just re-start from a previous save? I'm all about the save re-boot. I've died 11 times in real life, but I just keep hitting the reset button. ::thumbs up::
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