ValorianEndymion

Granado Espada - Issues and Bits of Progress (Part III)

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ValorianEndymion's GOTY 2021 Extended Cut

By ValorianEndymion January 17, 2022 0 Comments

Like I said in the GOTY list, there was a change for me maybe to write a more extended version of that list, and here it is, in fact more that an extended cut, I decided to add a particular omission, which will be the first entry here:

Dwarf Fortress

While writing the first 2021 GOTY list, I end forgetting a rather small game, which I forget to put, there, because, 2021, was the year which at last figured how to play Dwarf Fortress.

Now you may hear a lot about DF begin this impossible to learn game, but this is very far from the truth, while it is complex it is not impossible, I feel is that what might be an ideal way to learn it is instead of trying to do everything all at once, is instead to do in small parts, once you got the basic loop of functions, just go to the wiki and check any doubt a particular moment.

There is a video which for me was the ideal start —

I really recommend checking this one out, because, while this wasn’t my first time trying to get in DF, this video did the trick for me. From it, I grasped the basic and could either figure out the rest or just checked the wiki for details.

Once I grasped the essentials, I was off — My first proper Fortress ended quite short due I not really figured the whole thing about dwarfs need for drink and the winter coming. The second and third ended due to a werebeast attacking, in both cases some dwarfs were bitten and later become werebeasts themselves, causing a spiral in chaos.

There were more several tries, with some running fairly smooth, other ending in disasters, such when I forget to lock a door and a Forgotten Beast sneaked all the way from the caves to the fortress. There was also my first Goblin Siege, which I manage to win… sort of… like I win, yes, but let’s say a lot of dwarfs died that day.

Other time I had a fortress, where I managed to build a proper water cistern, but somehow two dwarfs end fighting and one of them throws or forced the other to enter the cistern causing him to die and later dwarfs become horrified as they notice blood in the water…

Then there was one fortress, where everything as running really smooth, I had tons of visitors, but one day, everything goes downhill, as one visitor throws a tantrum, causing a fist fight with another visitor, numerous people inside the tavern tried to report it, but end causing a jam, during which somehow the fist fight escalates even further. Soon, everybody is fighting everybody. When it finished, there were tons of Dwarfs dead all around, well almost everybody in the fortress was dead…

Now you might realize, this which I just described is all disasters, that in any other case would never happen in other games, however, in DF…

LOSING IS FUN.

WELCOME TO DWARF FORTRESS.

Super Robot Wars 30

Getting this game in English in a worldwide release was a huge surprise in every level, maybe not that much, since maybe Bandai tested the waters with the release of SD Gundam G Generations Crossrays, slightly before. Anyway, part of me hope that mean that possibly Idolmaster Starlit Stage might be release in the west, since it is also a Bandai franchise, and come on, it is already on steam, just region locked (So close but so far).

But back on track, SRW 30 is a tactical rpg, featuring a cast of lots and lots of characters from many franchises, which I can only imagine the nightmare was to get all the licenses.

While in the tactical level, the challenge isn’t great and maps are often simple, SRW real charm lies in both the attack animations and the character banter, from seeing characters from completely different origins reacting to one another, then making actual bonds and even having some deep conversations. Also, the game is a very good way to introduce you to shows you might not be heard about, at least for me, it was this game which introduced me to Getter Robo, because when I heard Ryoma´s theme, from Shin Getter Robo, Yuusou (Heroism) during his first attack animation, I knew I what to figure what kind of show it was.

Mount & Blade: Bannerlord

Mount & Blade is a unique game, but I need to make draw some comparisons, it would be with some older games such as Defender of the Crown (86), Pirates!(87), Sword of the Samurai (89), Darklands (92). The reason is that M&B (from the original version, to Warband to now Bannerlord) is games feature several systems together in a living world. You can be a merchant, trading and making profit, a mercenary or vassal or even make your own kingdom, there is a lot to do.

The main attraction is the massive battles and sieges you can find yourself in, and here is where I think the developers stuck gold, because while sometimes, games which try for authenticity focus on making the input of the command feel realistic, which often result in the said input becoming annoying to do, in M&B, the inputs are simple and fluid, but some special attention is given to mounted combat, which still simple and fluid, they made in a way where being on a horse feel very different from on foot, because while mounted you can hit a lot harder, move much faster.

Meaning also that there is no other game where losing the horse feel like a really dangerous thing, to the point, that M&B can quickly turn in to “Richard III Simulator”, where you scream your kingdom for a horse, specially when your horse is killed, and you are away from friends, surrounded by enemies. Oh, also due to the focus on mount combat, this game makes horse archers feel really dangerous, specially if your force is the most on foot or your horses are slower, since you cannot catch up.

But some far I described Mount & Blade as whole, but what about Bannelord? So far, I am really enjoying, the main concept is a sort of prequel to Warband, where you have the Caldrian Empire falling in a sort “Crisis of the Third Century”, splitting in several parts, while new power emerge around it. So you have this dynamic between, an imperial power clinging to its last glory, powerful new kingdoms emerging around it. You can see this not only in gameplay, but in the attention to detail for the architecture of each faction, to its weapons and armor.

Total War: Troy

While during release, was a bit unfocused game, unsure if wishes to goes in historical or fantasy way be means of going in the middle, where most fantastical elements were given logical explanations, such instead of centaurs you have nomads on horseback and so on. With the Mythos dlc, which at least put it in the fantasy genre, Troy maybe find it footing.

But even before this, Troy is excellent Total War, from its performance, like seriously, Troy loads really fast in comparison to Warhammer II, to amazing maps and unit visuals.

In fact, strange as it to say, the Mythos expansion, while add a lot of features, I find that playing the historical mode, is also very fun, even if the mode is very simple.

Humankind

This might be the longest part of this blog, at first I thought to separate and write a review, however, with the new DLC and maybe patches coming on, I maybe write a review or a long blog post later, but for now here is my thought on Humankind.

Like I said in my GOTY list, Humankind most immediate comparison is oblivious to Civilization, however, I think that due to the heavy emphasis on player expression a through a lot of systems, the closer comparison would be to Call to Power. The reason, is that Call to Power, tried different approach to “civs”, there, you just pick up a name, there were no exclusive units, no special abilities, the problem is that this mean the game felt very dry and lacked a personality, making every run feel like the same run.

In Humankind, instead of choosing a fixed “civ”, you have a rather fluid system, where at each period, you can change and adapt. These have both good and possibly a bad sides, in one hand you have much more flexibility, in the other however, the world feel lack a sense of identity or better saying a sense of constancy, well that also would not be very accurate either, because in Humankind the constant element isn’t the “civ” but rather the avatar. Still, it does not work very well…

While you can create your own avatar, you can only have one at the time, which is a bit strange, as you might wish to have a different avatar for different plays.

On the visual aspect, the Humankind avatars are slightly less cartoonish than the ones in Civilization, but the customization options are a bit limited, while your clothes does change as you change from Civ to Civ, in the end game everybody got boring business suits. That said, you can customize some traces for your avatar, which will affect how it will behave if other people use it, you can even download other peoples avatars.

Another major difference, is the less emphasis on fixed victory conditions, instead Humankind uses a system of “stars” and “points”, you gain “stars” by doing activities, such as research, combat and so on, get enough of them, and you can advance change your civ or keep using the same one and each civ, depending on it focus gain star from certain stuff more easily (like a military civ gain military stars way easier). Now combined with this, you have points, which measure your fame, which like the star you gain as you play and by the end the one with most points win.

This mean that while in Civilization you might feel a strong pressure to be on a certain curve and style of play (from beginning to end), from which if you fall out is hard to recover, and that might let the playing session feeling as wasted, in Humankind, you have a more flexible way, as you can tech up when using s tech based civ, goes in war while in a militaristic one and on, which mean you can sometimes get back on track if you fall behind.

Now the final victory condition s while is more subtle, is still there as often where either you hit 600 turns or someone reaches the Industrial Age, suddenly the game blow the horns telling that time is up. This isn't like a Paradox game, where while there is a score is so unimportant that no one really cares (serious, many people with tons of hours might not even see that end screen) and does not mean much, if anything Paradox games are like the saying “is more about the journey that the destination”, this mean that there is less of the pressure to be optimal and more on self-expression.

Moving from this, let's talk a bit about conflicts:

Sometimes conflict in Humankind (and maybe not limited to it, but to the genre of civ style of 4x) frequently appear to come too soon, where you are largely unprepared or too late, where either you have so much power it does not matter. Which is a shame, because the main concept in Humankind is the idea of conflicts being decided by how can lower the other war exhaustion bar first. Meaning, you can win conflicts in rather decisive ways and then enforce peace. Battles themselves are a lot of fun and can get pretty massive as enough armies are around, and sieges can be a blast.

On the part of building and administration, Humankind is way more a successor to Amplitude previous work, Endless Legend, where you have the map divided in provinces, which can either have a city or maybe annexed to one. Meaning, that the actual size of your empire, is often quite small, often between one and four or five cities, with several provinces annexed to each one. Improvements, are either build direct in to the cities or around in the provinces, and on this part, Humankind shines, because building, expending your cities is almost zen like, because on both the visual and mechanical aspects, it very fun to see it happening.

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A Handful of Wizardry Successors

By ValorianEndymion December 6, 2021 8 Comments

A Handful of Wizardry Successors

A long while ago, while playing Elminage Original, something hit me, it turns I really liked that kind of game, I mean even before, the Might and Magic series is one of my favorite CRPGs, so much I write a whole series of blog post about it - Might and Magic X an fitting end Might and Magic X - An Fitting End?

Also, not entirely related, but I even did a short pixel art animation, largely inspired by the visual of first person DRPGs and old pc engine games, during this year Pixiv Fantasia event on Pixiv. Which you can see it below:

Short Pixel Art animation which I made for a event on Pixiv

Anyway, in sort of small self AD, here is the link to: My Pixiv Profile

But now, it struck me of maybe trying to figure what exactly I like so much in this genre, and from there the genesis of this blog post.

So I would like to talk a bit about Old School Dungeon Crawlers, but let’s short it for DRPG (but keep in mind, I am talking about the ones which use first person view), but of a very particular kind, games which draw from the classic series, Wizardry.

The reason is that I like to think that in a genre you might have sub-genres, which might not even born from the same source. Just think how if you do a quick glance, you have Dungeon Crawlers, for the sake of clarity, I still mean the first person kind, which use more turn based mechanics (Might and Magic, Wizardry) and real time (Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, Dungeon Hack, Lands of Lore, Ishar). And that is just one aspect, they can branch a lot.

Now, you might already know, in case not, I recommend checking out the CRPG Book or Hardcore Gamer 101, for how Wizardry was influential for the birth of JRPGs, so much that the actual franchise itself continue to live in Japan for years, even after its death in the west.

Also, to let clear the limit of what I will be able to cover here, I can’t or have access to all the potential games, so I will limit, much as the title suggest to a handful, which can be found on Steam, more precisely the following games: Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls, Stranger of Sword City Revisited/Savior of Sapphire Wings, Elminage Gothic/Original, Operation Abyss/Babel: Neo Tokyo Legacy.

The first part will be a couple of thoughts on some aspect and concepts of first person grid based dungeon crawlers in more general sense, the function of this party is mostly comment and share some stuff I think about.

After it there will be a short recap of Wizardry main characteristics and how the covered games, follow or put their on twist on that, and the last part is description of the said games, plus a section for honorable mentions, which cover a few games in the style, that while might have little do to with Wizardry, might be worth mention.

Some Aspects of DRPGs:

Real-Time and Turns.

While the games I cover, use turns, it might be worth talking a bit about turns and real time:

It is very easy to wrongly think of these two elements not like tools, whose work depends on a lot of other elements, but as almost a false necessity, where one is viewed as “better” versus the other.

While in general when people think of Dungeon Crawlers, Eye of the Beholder is the one to came in mind, and the one most used for comparison, specially when thinking in the ones which used real-time, Dungeon of Daggorath (1982) was really the first one to use it, while Dungeon Master (1987) popularized the concept and a lot of other such as paper dolls and even the idea of casting spells from mixing runes, paper doll for inventory, which them would lead to Eye of the Beholder (1991) and later games such as Legend of Grimrock.

Real-time is kind very trick, if done right you can have a certain flow which is very good, but it’s not easy to reach it, as one major issue for this kind of game (and others too) is that the amount of things you are meant to handle all at once as have a limit, which can create a strange paradox, if you add too many things, the game becomes unwieldy, have too little, and you might have generic game. Like I said, the concept does not exist in vacuum, it depends on a lot of factors.

As example, take Eye of the Beholder and Dungeon Hack, both use AD&D rule set, both use the same engine, so what is the difference? In one, you have four character and in the other a single one. What this causes? The first have much better pace over the latter. Dungeon Hack can feel very sluggish and boring, specially if you play with anything which isn’t a fighter or cleric. Mind, this was just changing the number of party members.

Even outside from the genre, just think of an FPS where enemies are sponges which take billions of years to die and how slow the game can feel.

But to stick to the main theme of the blog, let’s go back to DRPGs:

Ishar III - Battle UI

The main potential issues lay in two aspects, first, which I mentioned above, is how many things the player is supposed to do or react, this much depend on the overall speed of everything and UI design, meaning that trying to control a party and react quickly can become a major issue, for example, in a rush, it can be hard to open the spellbook, find the right spell and then cast it.

This example I just give was on major problem in SSI´s game Ravenloft: Strahd´s Possession, which used an earlier more free form 3D movement, and often you died because something happened behind you or around you, but simple turning around or even open the spell book or using a potion was rather slow. There are two noticeable moments where happen, on at the very beginning of the game, where a handful of Wargs attack while you’re still trying to get used to the game interface. Later, in a dungeon, a Bone Golem pop up behind you at a certain time, that mostly like will kill a party member as you try to turn around.

Another issue is that the player might feel that the most efficient thing to do is just attack and step back over and over again, making combat feeling tedious (sure the player in theory could kite around, but the most efficient way still just pull back). Most time, the player less pushing forward, but rather pulling back. Note, in some games which use real-time, sometimes once you lock in combat you cant move anymore.

Combat can sort end in strange place, because, you might not have special attacks or attacks per round in most cases, area attacks are likely limited to spells, meaning the combat itself there is not much direction to go, meaning that it can feel repetitive.

Turn based system major advantage is that allow the player to absorb more complex aspects at it own pace, while allowing for more complex systems to be introduced. There is perception of turns begin slower… which is both false and true, and by that I mean, depend on a lot of factors, sometimes in turn based games, combat, despite being in turns and often have way more enemies that in real time, can be a lot faster, how? In turn based games, typically the player have access to area of attack spell or abilities, which speed up thing a lot and again, since things are moving in turn, mean the player can use them to their maximum effect. Damage output can be a lot higher when you have things like attacks per round.

Might and Magic II - Massive encounters

In Might and Magic II, you might have combat against up to 255, which anyone might think takes forever, except, that by the time you reach such numbers, between lots of attack to be round, and absurd spells, such as Meteor Shower or Star Burst, the whole thing can take very few turns.

But like I said, it can be true that it can be slow, specially if the game in question don’t have any area attacks or simple the monsters have too much HP and a lot of other elements or even watching long animations. Also, going overboard on adding elements and mechanics can make the game feel slower.

Some games would use a sort of hybrid system, like Might and Magic III to V, where monsters move freely in real time, you could attack them at range, also in real time, but once you close in, the game become turn based.

Grid and Dimensions

One of the elements of the old style of dungeon crawler based in grids, is that the maps themselves were quite small, this was sort of a limitation of the period, but also work on its advantage.

Elmingae Original - The First Dungeon

It is easy to overlook, but in that particular representation of space, where space itself is more abstraction that a literal representation, you don’t need huge map like you would need in a full 3D: Just think, with just a grid of 15x15 (Might and Magic II) you can cram a lot of corridors, rooms and all else you want, but still all in 15x15, meaning that for the player, even with moving just one square at time and with random encounters, that still does not take that much to explore, but still feel pretty big. In other words, grid based maps, have the advantage of being both big and small, or small and big.

Overall sizes in dungeon crawler appear to change between 20x20 which appear in almost all games I will cover (the original Wizardry, Elminage Gothic/Original, Operation Abyss, Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls), 22x22 (Bard’s Tale), 25x25 (I think this was the size for Eye of the Beholder) 30x30 (Legend of Grimrock) 32x32 (Labyrinth of Refrain: Coven of Dusk), 46x46 (Mary Skelter Nightmares) and I think that might be games with 64x64 and 128x128 or even larger maps, but I don’t know anyone by name (I have vague memories of reading about a dungeon crawler for Amiga with immense maps, but that it is) but for these cases…

Ishar II - Trying to find this npc in a huge map

When maps become too large problems rise up, because now, its sort works against it, since the whole “move one square at a time” suddenly might feel as too slow and finding stuff or even simple solving puzzles become even more of a problem, as example, in Ishar series, while dungeons had normal map sizes (16x16), the over world and many of the cities in later games, where huge, which cause two problems: One simple walking from point A to B sort becomes tiresome, second, solving puzzles often are made even hard as you need to be a specific place, sometimes at the right time in an otherwise huge map.

Like I said, grid base maps are sort abstraction of space, instead of literal space… how much fit in a single square? How much you want, in some games a square could fit a NPC, a shop, and temple and so on. Even the number of monster could get pretty high, in Might and Magic II, it could fit up 255, in Stranger of Sword City/Savior of Sapphire Wings, it could fit up 9 monsters, split in 3 rows, in Bards Tale, how about the classic encounter withe 99 Berserkers, all in one square? And so on. On real-time based (or hybrids) might limit the numbers of monster (since often they move around the map) to either up to two to three per square.

With that said…. There is one, well, two, curious aspect for grid maps, the first is that there is one moment where the space can be both literal and abstract at the same time: it when an underground or interior space. Because there you can sort imagine that a square is 5 meters or something, however you might still need to keep monsters per square to one up to three and even limit the size of said monsters.

Might and Magic II - Notice how the city fit one square.

But the instant you move outside, everything fall apart, I mean the illusion, the reason is that now imagining the square in fixed size, suddenly make no sense, the reason, and that is that convey length or distance in grid maps is kind hard, without making them immense. The trick some developers did, specially when making the over world map, is having several maps side by side, both even that sort has its limits (either technical ones of the past, or simple avoiding the map begin way too huge).

But that is not the only trick sometimes they would use, another, that you can find in SSI´s Pool of Radiance, is that they often split a single map in quadrants, and put something in each one, meaning that a single map might feature various levels of a tower, or four different small maps.

Pool of Radiance

In Pool of Radiance: Secret of the Silver Blades they did do a thing, that was quite cleaver, even it use is not that great.To convey distance, what they would do is in a single map have various pieces of corridors, turns etc… with teleports on each end of each piece, so you enter a corridor, take a teleport to another one and so on. It gives the feeling of walking over much wider distances that the map limit, but still in the game feel like you are just walking in a straight line.

Ishar II - Notice how it look like that you are climbing it, despite you stand in a flat map.

Another cleaver trick is in Ishar series, where at a certain point to give you an illusion that you’re climbing or descending a mountain, simple use images.

But in the end, something is only a problem if you make it so, if you don’t try to follow a realistic aesthetic, who care the actual size of each square, or what fit on it? This allows for much more freedom in design, and maybe that the ideal for this kind of game, because objects will look slightly off scale, no matter what anyway or due to engine limitation (of the period or by style) might mean you can’t see a second floor (even if it exists) or you could have line of sight issues in open spaces.

In fact the abstraction of the space, might mean that even the textures don’t matter that much, I mean sure they do matter, with proper art they can look pretty good, as in Ishar games, making the game more evocative. But sometimes, they can look bland and even low res in some ports, but in the end you are not really here for sightseeing, and here is when a proper good sprite art can play its cards, because even if the background is lacking, the sprite art can be evocative enough, kind like in a visual novel, where backgrounds might be more suggestions of space, but aren’t the focus, what is the character sprites.

Puzzles:

Puzzles are a curious thing, in one hand they are the bread and butter of many genres and when used right are pretty powerful, but if used wrong, they can become worst that thousand combat sequences, manly the reason being, and something that is easy to forget, that poorly designed puzzles have only a single way to solve it (if they don’t use any randomness, which can make the thing worst) and you have no other option but wild guess.

Also, if poorly placed, they can cause problems even in the narrative, but not in the way people think, which is often, more focused on how weird or outplace they can look like, but rather because they stop the narrative pace dead in its tracks.

One example, and I will cheat a bit here, since it’s not a Dungeon Crawler (but it uses the movement style in some sections), but rather an Adventure/Visual Novel, Suda 51’s Silver Case, where one of the first puzzles, involve unlocking a door, sounds simple, but the context, is kind strange: Because there, you are in tense situation involving hostages, and you need to open a door. However… You will spend this earlier moments of the game trying to get around the strange interface and solving the door code, and here comes to problem, while the door came with instruction of how to solve the code, it somehow, vague and too complex at the same time as it boils down to figure a long sequence of numbers. This can be jarring as the tension vanishes while you’re trying to solve and nothing will happen until you do it (The new version of the game comes with a way to auto solve puzzles like this).

But let’s go back to old Dungeon Crawlers, while some people might think that a barrier for them is either the old interfaces and maybe the combat, the first is a matter of getting used (maybe except when the game is old enough that automap does not exist yet, or you might have to check the manual, as the game itself might not be able to hold things like descriptions) and the latter at least there is multiples ways to do and ways around, even if the result is sort binary.

Now, puzzles or the other hand, can be a bit more complicated, thankfully, mostly where pretty simple, meaning stuff from finding keys, throwing stuff in to other stuff (classic in Eye of the Beholder), Bring X to Y, Kill X or Y, but that said, a couple of the older games might feature what people in adventure games might call “lunar logic”, the problem is not that developers don’t know what they are doing, but more they are trying to do something more complex that limitations of the time might allow, meaning you often lack a context or more developed explanation. Also remember, old games likely don’t have any kind of quest log (even if they wish to have it, due to technical limitations), meaning that doing several puzzles at once can become worst if you don’t remember what you are doing, or maybe you trigger several puzzles without knowing.

Ishar II - Remember this npc? Hope you also had the eagle in hand, otherwise...

The main case is the Ishar series, many of it puzzles are pretty ambitious and show the developers trying to tell a complex story, but also very hard to figure out and very easy to sequence breaking and soft locking. As an example, in one of the games you might need various skulls to activate a puzzle, but you might not have them at the time (since you might throw them out earlier) and have no more way to find more. That happened to me, I had to reload an earlier save.

Another puzzle, which is about putting a very specific amount of gold in various scales, now, a couple of them were empty and a few not, the puzzle is about looking at the one with have something and putting the same value at the others. So how you might sequence break it? By instinct, you might simply pick up the gold from the scales, as you might be unaware that is a puzzle, and now you don’t know the value you need to input in the others. That also happened to me.

Other times, the problem is that the puzzle might clash with the game mechanics, for context, in Ishar games, you start with as single character and can recruit more to your party, so far no problems, however… Unlike other games you can’t really remove characters from the party, I mean you can, but… each character take a vote for yes or no, and problem is that most of the time they will vote no. So, here lies the problem, at many times you need to add a new key character to your party, but be unable, since you can’t really remove or change character as everybody vote no, meaning you get stuck. The only way around is either let a character die or know beforehand and have the slot open…

There is also a strange quest which you need to rescue a princess, and the first problem is again, I hope you have a slot open for her, or get ready to let a party member dies, but even you managed to get around this, now you have another problem, because while everything you need to do is return to her father, you party members won’t allow her to leave the party since they are (but the game never says it clear) under a magic spell.

From this point the lack of context is the problem, because what you need to do is buying a potion, something which I have no idea, outside reading in a guide of how you are meant to know this, so your party members allow here to leave… However, due to weird translation, the potion name is not that clear, let alone where it is.

In some cases, some games manage to cram in all information and text they need (or most of it) and even include a sort of hint system, in Might and Magic II, there are several places in the game which give you answers to a password or quest, plus there was a small system of messages that if you decoded it, its sort was a walkthrough.

Risk and Reward.

Let me tell you something, one thing that easy to underestimate is a potential of well-designed table of Encounter and Rewards and the Progression of XP, there is a lot of work and design that might go there. Just think, in Might and Magic II you had 255 monsters, however, they are split in several tables for each region of the game, meaning that every map, either over world, city, dungeon, castle had it own table of encounters, that follow it own level progression.

The key point is that there is a very strong relationship between these three elements that is crucial to produce a certain flow of gameplay, to produce something which I will talk more in another section, but for now let’s cover the main three points:

With a strong table of encounters you can keep the combat fresh, since certain monster combinations might require different strategies, and even a sense of mystery, since you can have entire encounters which only play in a few places or were very rare. Something for a genre, which is all about going further and further in a maze, fit very well.

Now this is something that today is hard to make, in one hand, there is the idea of “it does not make sense that an orc is in one room and a bugbear in the other”, which while not wrong, misses the fact that having the entire encounter of a single creature can get boring and that a dungeon as we see in game isn’t a realistic space anyway.

Might and Magic II - That sprite was reused for a lot of monsters

On the other, back there when limitations mean that you could only have a few sprites, at least you could get away reusing them over and over again (how do you think that MM2 had 255 creatures?), but give them different stats and variations. This is something that today is kind hard to do, I mean not impossible, but some people might react negative to it, but also have a unique sprite or 3D model for every creature is not possible either for most developers, meaning the roster can get a pretty thin, making encounter feeling repetitive.

Linked to this is the Table of Rewards, while a lot of game now talk about loot, it is a bit trickier than it looks, a Table of Rewards does not work in a vacuum, simple having what we might today call a “loot table”, does not mean it will work, as it depend on other factors, such as how the said loot interact with the game mechanics and rules.

A classic example, you might have heard about magic items in AD&D, having a “+” some number, let’s say a Long Sword + 1 (1D8+1, plus + 1 to Hit), on surface might not mean much, and the reason is depended on several factors… but before this we need a quick pause for context:

Short Pause: For this example, and to keep the theme of old games, I will use the old AD&D to hit rules, yeah I will talk about the “infamous” THACO, which is often maligned as some ultra bizarre rule, but in truth is not even that strange or complex, just unusual. But let’s do this: see if you hit something you just look at your THACO (Trying to Hit Armor Class of Zero) of your character (each class had it own progression, it starts from 20 and diminish as you gain levels) and either subtract if the enemy armor class is between 1–10 or add if the armor is negative -1 to -10 and then throw a D20 dice, if the number is higher, you hit, if not you miss.

With that said… the earlier you find, the better it is, since early on, any bonus to hit, specially against enemies with higher AC (Armor Class), will feel better, but latter it is then worst the item feels, as enemies in late game, might have much lower armor class.

Now simple adding + number weapon in a game, does not mean that will work the same, because let’s say, and this was something common for the period, the chance to hit uses a more complex calculation, that +1 or +2 might not mean the same thing.

One common issue, is that often loot is plenty, but its effects are simple too small to be noticeable, the excessive small granularity, making finding said item less than a reward. Another is trying to withhold reward for too long, frequently giving only very minor stuff, until almost too late in the game, which make the encounter feel boring as you find not but small stuff.

Also, another common complaint about table of rewards is not getting exactly what you want, This is in reality a more modern issue, because many of the old DRPG, typically used the concept (due to the limitations of the period, or by drawing from earlier tabletop rpg), of character have a rather large pool of potential weapons and armors they could use, meaning even if random, in result is a good result, as you will find something useful, specially in party based DRPG, as you might have up to six or eight party members. Since anything goes, you are likely more to explore or experiment. But some modern games frequently use the concept of skill in very straight way, meaning that now the range of good result is way smaller, something that while in tabletop is easy to solve, in a CRPG is not that, as the player often need to know beforehand a lot of things.

That said, even when you don’t get exactly what you wish, or get something that was specific to a class you don’t have, it sorts create this potential, of what if? I will talk about classes and class changes later, but for example, while playing Elminage Original, I did come across one time to a very good kimono for Shamans and later a very good bow, and then I start to wonder, how I could juggle the party, so one member might become a Shaman?

Now when you play some Old School Dungeon Crawler, you might notice something, that they can be fairly generous, more even than modern games, specially if you know where to look up. As example, Eye of the Beholder would give you a Dagger+4 in its first level.

One last aspect to this, is the Progression of XP, now I know many games don’t use, XP but for the sake of making the text clear, I will use it. The point is, however, is similar to the Table of Rewards and Encounters, in fact is very tied to both of them.

If XP progression is too small, like the modern day loot, the pace is hurt, if the roster of monster is too small or poorly designed, the pace can be hurt, if character need too much XP for the next level, again the pace is hurt.

Survival — Acceleration-Ending.

Now I am going to repeat something I used when I talked about Might and Magic in another blog post, so to quote myself:

“I remember, a long time ago, watching the anime “Hai to Gensou no Grimgar” (Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash), which was about a group of strangers that were teleported to a fantasy world, in other words your well known Isekai, but they don’t really remember their previous lives and had to struggle a lot, specially early on.

This initial struggle, where in the first chapters, the protagonists somehow manage to fail to kill a single goblin, until one day they managed to defeat a one, in a very brutal fight. From there they start to speed up, getting better, improving their gear, but also getting themselves in more trouble, that kind stuck with me.

Then I figured out why, it mostly because, either by accident or design, it captures really well how some old crpgs would play sometimes. It reminded me a lot when I first played Might and Magic II: Gates to Another World (1988) and even some other games which I had start playing such as the Wizardry series or the Golden Box titles. Most of what I say next are most toward crpg not so much tabletop.”

From there I talked about something, which at the time I labeled “Survival, Turning Point and Acceleration”, but thinking a bit I would like to reform this concept to what the titles of this blog is: Survival, Acceleration and Ending.

The first phase is Survival, during this, in many of this game, due you begin at Level 1, with limited resources is the most dangerous part, here random encounters can be fatal, you rate of exploration is limited, as you might only take a single combat before need to rest.

Sounds annoying, after all, this isn’t the “early game hell” trope? But here is the trick part, if done right, it helps to convey the sense of danger of dungeon crawl can have, and here is the big point, the key word I just used PHASE, meaning that isn’t meant to last, trying to keep all way isn’t very good idea or at least is very complicated to do it right and the game does not feel like a slog. Also figure out what to do in this early phase can be very fun, like you can take risks to make it even shorter, making up for all kind of strategies.

So next we have Acceleration, in my previous text, I used the idea of turning point, a moment, where the first phase, but to make it more clear I will join this two in single phase, which will be the longest. Overall at some point, you likely gain levels and now can take more encounters before each rest as your rate of exploration grows, and as you take more encounter you gain more levels, which lead too… Well, you got the idea. This continues until the game end.

Ok, what I mean by all of this? That sometimes, these games, have almost an inverse curve of difficult, like they start hard and then got easier. Now mind I talk this in general sense, because the spikes can and will exist, but there is a flow as you gain momentum. Now I say this, and again to return to the previous section, overall a breakdown in the encounter/rewards/XP can result in the game pace and momentum being lost leading to a stall.

So what I mean, with this long section, it that for this kind of game, (and again, let’s remember, I mean in the sense of genre within a genre), there is a certain flow, that I think is kind crucial, because the idea of building a party and pushing further and further sort need that, however, I DON’T mean that every game need it, but that some might benefit from it. Also, I don’t mean in the sense of this is better or worst, only that certain elements might work better in certain situations.

Another aspect is that this flow I which mention, while might be there, isn’t the same in very one of these games, take Might and Magic and Wizardry, the first often lean in a stronger power curve in comparison with the latter. Well, if you take only on Wizardry itself, the pace is a lot different between the early games, until V and the ones after it.

Now, what I sort look in this type (and emphasis on that word) game, and what I do enjoy, is the flow between, building and develop a party of characters from the scratch, which mean that have to be something there that allow in certain way to develop character, does not have to be complex, but have to be something. The second part is about the flow itself, between the maps never being too large, variety of encounters and treasures and so on.

Little Crash Course in Wizardry Rules.

I won’t cover everything, but just some main concepts, as main reference, most dungeon crawlers which draw from Wizardry do it from mostly from One to Five. With that said, let’s go:

Stats: Strength, Vitality, Dexterity, Agility, Intelligence, Piety and Luck, most game which draw from the Wizardry use the same ones or with some variations.

In Wizardry when you level up, you do can gain more stats but also maybe loses some of them, which is quite annoying, as it might require you to do a lot of load and reload when you level up. The exception will be Operation Abyss series and Strange of Sword City/Savior of Sapphire Wings, which avoid the stat loses and instead give you points where you spend on what ever you want.

Now on the subject of classes, Wizardry would featuring the following: Fighter, Cleric, Mage and Thief, Wizardry would introduce the Samurai (Fighter/Mage), Lord (Fighter/Cleric), Bishop (Mage/Cleric) and Ninja.

Later games would add: Alchemist (VI-VIII) , Ranger (VI-VIII and Empires), Summoner (IV in a certain way, Empires) and Valkyrie (VI-VIII).

Now, what you maybe already know, is that some of these classes can’t or are very hard to have access in the start, because of the minimal amount of stats you need, the idea is must first gain some level in the basic classes before you perform a class change.

So how the games, which I will cover, handle the idea?

Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls play as the classic system V, meaning you get the classic classes and the four elite ones. Not much to comment here.

Elminage Gothic

Elminage Gothic/Original does play very straight it, which is both good and bad, as reload when ever you level up is annoying, however it does introduce some new elite classes: Valkyrie (Fighter/Cleric), Alchemist (Magic user focused in spell which buff the party and more important, have access to a crafting ability), Summoner (can make contract with monsters, which can be summoned as an extra party member, in some Elminage games, from extra party member they can become a full party member), Bard (have access to a Tarot system, where they can pull card which can give both buffs and debuffs), Ranger (Fighter/Alchemist), Brawler (a fighter focused in only using hands), Servant (Maid/Butler in the original text, focused on using items, often several at once) and Shaman (Shrine Priest in the original text, a class focused in rising barriers which protect from spell damage and banishing undead/demons).

Now, another difference is that while some elite classes, follow almost clear line, like making Mage to Bishop, Cleric to Lord, Fighter to Samurai, other classes have no clear line, they don’t even keep up most of their previous spells (something which a Cleric to Lord would do) or abilities. So why would you turn someone in a Servant, Shaman or Summoner for example? The answer is, why not? I know this might sound weird, but it is fun, trying to figure how to fit one of this classes in your party and the abilities, specially the Summoners, make for the trouble.

Operation Abyss

Operation Abyss/Babel: Begin a more modern take on the Wizardry genre, they take a couple of deviations, from the different stats and how they are gained, something which I already talked about.

Instead of classes you have “Blood Codes”, which are sort classic classes, but with different names, which can be confusing as, as how you might miss that the Blood Code of Academic, is the one which unlock door and disarm traps.

There are no elite classes and you while you can change classes, you almost have no reason for doing it so, but in Babel, they do introduce a system, which allow you to pick a sub Blood Code.

Stranger of Sword City/Savior of Sapphire Wings: Outside from slightly different stats, the main difference and the best one is how classes and change classes is handled.

First the classes, you have Knight (focus in attack lines of enemies and in defense), Samurai (focused in row attack), Ninja (DPS and backstab), Ranger (Long Range), Dancer (focused on some unique abilities), Cleric, Wizard, Clocker (focused on spells which delay or speed combat), Puppeteer (manipulate enemies, like making them attack themselves).

Stranger of Swod City Revisted - This character start as Knight and later changed Samurai, but it was allowed to bring up to three of the any previous skills.

Here, when you reach certain levels in class, you gain abilities, think of them as slots, when you change classes, you can keep up a certain amount of the previous abilities and freely change them. Much of the game is mix and match classes abilities, like you can level up a Knight in some Ninja levels, to gain access to certain Ninja abilities and then change back to Knight.

Now, on combat on interesting idea which was added that is featured in SOCS/SOSW and Operation Abyss/Babel is the idea that your party have access to a selection of special powers which use the beginning of their round, each one need certain mount of points that you gain during fights. Now this powers allow you to do perform actions which can manipulate the combat, either allowing you to runway with no risks, delay enemy turns, rise a barrier to protect for a few turns and so on.

I found this fascinating, because it allows the developers to throw way more complex encounters, while still allow the player have tools to stabilize the situation, like you can use a power which allow you to act first to heal up if you take a nasty hit before.

This mean that the game can throw in some complex bosses that might require you to use certain powers, for example in both SOCS/SOSW, sometimes bosses use an ability called Charm, which is hit is pretty bad news, the key is during combat make sure you have enough points to rise a barrier when the boss give the signal it is going to use it.

Another curious mechanic, which features in Operation Abyss/Babel is the idea of “tension gauge”, as you fight more and more, the tension grows, attacking more dangerous enemies but better rewards, to deescalate it you only need runway or avoid combat. Meaning, you can manipulate the flow of encounters.

The Successors:

It did take a while, but here we are, at least I will talk about the game which I meant to talk about:

Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls

Developer: ACQUIRE Corp.

Publisher: XSEED, Marvelous.

Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls

Off the game which I will talk about, this is the one which follows the early Wizardry concept as closely it can, it also a bit dry kind of game, as there is not much on it.

From the limited character portraits, only a handful of dungeons (The Dungeon of Trails, Shin’s Dungeon and Lost Levels) only a few side quests, it all feels a bit dry, even the main plot is sort there and that is it. Even the pace is also a bit strange, as often you came across chests which give you nothing. But the monster design and encounter is pretty good, but that take a while to hit there.

Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls

There are almost no major twists, it is a Wizardry game down to the core, and that it is. But don’t get me wrong, it not a bad game, still is modern Wizardry game, it works well, and the flow is there, but maybe because it was low budget game, there is not much else.

Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls

Elminage Original and Elminage Gothic

Developer: Starfish-SD.Inc (Gothic/Original), mebius (Original)

Publisher: Ghostlight.LTD (Gothic) / D3 Publisher (Original)

Of which I will cover, Elminage is maybe the second closer to the original Wizardry series, but it does have a lot of original twist, introducing new classes, and it owns ideas here and there. That said, you can tell that is a low-budget game, lots of reused assets or very few (such as portraits), but you can also tell the developers did the best they can with little of what they have.

Elminage Gothic - While the visuals are simple they do evoke a sense of melancholy and nostalgia.

Elminage music and visuals, limited as they are, manage well to evoke a melancholic and nostalgic feeling to its games, specially the music and while the art assets appear simple, they do look like something you might see as an illustration in an old school tabletop rpg.

The game pace overall is pretty good, encounter design (and monster design) work great, despite not the being largest or anything, but it works well enough to keep it fresh. There are plenty of balanced rewards (but some late items, at least in Original, are a bit too similar in sense of stats, so sometimes they feel less like rewards and some stuff, while really strange, does not appear to have effects to match it).

Elminage Original

Now one curious element, that I only noticed in Original, is that in Elminage, Thieves can literal steal ANYTHING. And I mean it, for context, in the games, all monsters, no matter what type, came with two or more items, each to represent their weapons or armor, either natural (such as beaks, fangs, fur, scales) or not (literal weapons and armor). So what? Well, a Thief can first unequip from the enemy and later steal it, no matter what is. LIKE HERE, WHEN I STOLE THE HOT BREATH OF SUCCUBUS. And that is not all! You see, you can equip it, as long you uncurse it first, so bring an Alchemist.

So you can, like me, steal the beak of Phoenix and give to your Brawler to use it as a weapon to punch and kick people. But jokes aside, the deal is that how you find unique items, and it is a pretty cleaver idea, as once you got and figure this out, you likely will return to previous dungeons to pick up stuff.

Elminage Gothic

Gothic (2014/Steam): With the premise of a world falling in corruption, despite the Greater Gods defeating the forces of evil in the past, which now conspire to rise again, Gothic, much as the name might suggest, is a more horror (but lightly) and cosmic horror story.

The structure is similar to old Wizardry games, where you have a main city, the Kingdom of Ishmag and from there, you explore a series of dungeons, as you solve the mystery behind the forces of evil showing up again.

While the narrative is told in a simple format, most by solving what the game call “events” (most simple, but intuitive puzzles) and by unlocking more dungeons, there is a lot of atmosphere to them, even if a bit linear. Still it feels a very evocative, story and the more cosmic horror elements sort work well do the game simple visual, where emphasis is often given to the sprite art and imagination.

Elminage Original

Original (2017/Steam): This game is also known as “Elminage Original — Priestess of the Darkness and the Ring of Gods”. This can sound confusing and thanks to the vague descriptions on it storepage, it might look as simpler version of Gothic, which is shame, because it does feel way around, as Original at times feel even better than Gothic.

The plot, much as the name suggest, evolves the party and the Priest of the Darkness, looking of the five rings of the Gods, the major difference is the open format.

You see, instead of just one city, you have several of them and many dungeons already open (plus other which open up as the plot progress), early one you get a compass which can point you to where a ring might be and by doing quests you can get fame, which power up the compass making it more precise.

The location of the said ring are random (and you can reset them at anytime), when you find one, you face one of the Priestess and once you find all o the rings is time for the showdown.

Elminage Original - Part of the Event list

The main attraction is both the open format of the game and the said quests, which often center around using certain class skills and finding or using items in rather cleaver puzzles. As example, one require you to find a Phoenix Feather, which you can get by using the Thief ability, another might require you have a Shogun among your summons, and then give to him medicine in exchange for another item. Another require you to reach an airship, you do this by first buying a rather absurd armor made of meat, which then attract a giant bird that eats your party, that open a new dungeon (the inside of the said bird) and from there you can get on the airship. Later on, if help a Goblin and an Ogre, you not only get to recruit them to your party, but even open up the option of creating new chars which are either Goblins or Ogres.

To make it easier, the game even have a npc which sort gives you hints of how to solve the said quests.

Elminage Original - Get ready to face them several times.

But even more curious is that the game sort have it own “Nemesis” system, early on you face a group of demons, and they sort become recurring characters, growing more powerful at each encounter, making for rather unique encounters, as often their composition sort mimics face another party of adventures.

Another main point, is that the dungeon design are more variated and more fun to explore. Specially, since you have this more open format, you can move freely between several dungeons.

In comparison with Gothic, the story feel way lighter, and the whole find the rings give a monster of the week feeling, as you frequently face one of the priestess when you find it, not that this is bad in any way.

Elminage Gothic

Elminage Original

Operation Abyss/Babel: New Tokyo Legacy

Developer: MAGES.Inc, 5pb, Experience.

Publisher: NIS America.

Operation Abyss

I confess I have a soft spot for anime about magical high schools, and Operation Abyss/Babel is pretty much that, a Wizardry style of games in a modern setting. While its story can be a bit confusing and the tone is all over the place, it does fit the genre of magic high school really well and go to places you might not expect. The art is also, all over the place, some parts were pretty good, other not so much, the game even feature a somewhat “dress up” kind of system which you can use instead of character portraits, but it does not match well with the rest of the game visual style. Overall it’s a good game, a bit confusing at time, due to weird terminology they use at times that can make the dialogue feel like an word salad.

Both games, Abyss is the first and Babel is the sequel, are focused on the Xth Squad, which is your party, by using Blood Code (the game classes), you solve several mysteries, involving Abyss dungeons which appear over Tokyo.

Operation Babel

Character creation does use both a sort of alignment system (which the game call Trait) for Good/Neutral/Evil, plus Trait Detail (which does not do anything and act most a way for you to detail more the character), followed by a Type which affect your starting stats.

Like I said earlier, the game feature special abilities you can use, which the game call Unity Skills, your party fill the Unity Gauge as it take or do damage and by doing quest, however, remember the Traits? Yeah, they do affect the maximum amount of you can get if character don’t combine well (like along the party is either good/neutral or evil/neutral they are fine) it is fine idea, but sadly not much explored, like the concept is there, the students, having to get along to use their powers, but it sorts just about alignment that is easily solved by having everyone begin either good/neutral or evil/neutral when you create the party.

Operation Babel

Another system the game uses, and which I talked about earlier, is the “Rise and Drop”, where the more you fight in the game dungeons, the more Threat Rate grows, attracting more dangerous monsters, but better rewards.Talking about threats, the game also have some unique enemies, called Wanted Variants, which can sometimes appear, acting as bosses.

But that not all, the game sort have a Dark Souls’s style of message, where players can leave messages to other players, but to be fair I never see it used much, outside what I think it is message done by the developers.

Operation Babel

The pace of the game is great, but, again, due to weird terminology often is quite hard to figure if you got something good or bad and while the game does have a crafting system, the weird terms the game uses make it confusing.

Operation Abyss/Babel is a game I like a lot, but I sort wish it had more polished dialogue/tone and the high school elements and event begin more present or explored. Despite this, still a unique take on the genre.

Operation Abyss

Operation Babel

Stranger of Sword City Revisited/ Savior of Sapphire Wings

Developer: Experience Inc, Code Glue

Publisher: NIS America.

This is one of my favorite games, well in this case two games in one.

Stranger of Sword City Revisited

The first Stranger of Sword City Revisited, is an improved version of the original game, like I said above it add new classes, new systems (such as way to improve gear) and new events. Plus some amazing soundtrack and art.

In Stranger of Sword City, your main character is Isekai´d to another world during a plane crash, there you not only found that you’re stronger, but also you aren’t alone, turns that tons of people, the “Strangers” which were also brought here.

To how you give the Lineage Monster essence both branches what abilities you can get and the narrative.

I already wrote a blog about Stranger of Sword City (https://www.giantbomb.com/stranger-of-sword-city/3030-42558/user-reviews/2200-30816/) , so I won’t repeat everything, but a short recap a couple of its features: First, you have the Divinity, which is the special power, I mentioned above, you gain morale during battles, which you spend in Divinity powers. Now tied to this and the game plot, the way you gain access to more powers is by defeating the Lineages, unique monsters and handing their essence to one of three different characters, which represent how the story branches out.

Stranger of Sword City Revisted

How sometimes you find the Lineages? Well either by exploring dungeons, or by using the Ambush system, where you have spots on the map, there you can hide and ambush monsters, which might be carrying around chests and once a while came across with a Lineage.

Savior of Sapphire Wings

Now in Savior of Sapphire Wings, your character is the reincarnation of a hero, which in the past lead other heroes to defeat the Overlord of Darkness, but failed. The game is much about figure what did when wrong and this time do it right, as finding the new incarnations of the previous heroes. There are a lot of fun systems, such as instead of creating a party, you find the new heroes, and you have to create true bonds with them, while customize them.

Savior of Sapphire Wings

While SOSC is more dark fantasy and its visuals are set to match (note, in the original game, there was option between two sets of sprites one more colorful/high fantasy and the other more dark fantasy, in the revisited, only the dark fantasy set is present), SSW feel more high fantasy, something which show in the party character portraits, but sometimes clashes with the monsters sprites (which often are from SOSC).

The flow of both games is great, SOSC is slightly non-linear, while SSW is more linear as it is more plot driven, but still the flow is good, as making and developing your party is a lot of fun, plus the soundtrack is amazing.

Savior of Sapphire Wings

Stranger of Sword City Revisited

Honorable Mentions:

In this section I will talk about two other DRPGs which I played, some which I plan to play and maybe worth to keep an eye out. I thought to also write a bit about either Mary Skelter: Nightmares, Ray Gigant both I haven’t played enough to have a more solid opinion, so in the end I only stick with two games, which have that I played until the end. Also I want to check out Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi, which I released in Steam a while ago, but I haven´t able to see it.

Bard’s Tale Trilogy.

Developer: Krome Studios, InXile Entretainment.

Publisher: InXile Entretainment.

Bard´s Tale

This is an amazing well done port, that add exactly what might be needed, and I mean stuff that at the time would not be possible, such as item descriptions and other quality of life stuff, while allow you to customize the experience as you want. Do you want the very classic Bard’s Tale experience, with all ups and downs? You can have, you want a more modern experience? You have it too! Likewise, you want a middle of the way, sure you can also have it.

The only issue I have, and it is minimal, as is an aesthetic thing, is that I liked more the dither based pixel art of the original art.

Mind Zero

Developer: Acquire, Zerodiv

Publisher: Aksys Games

Mind Zero.

Mind Zero is a curious game, in surface and the mostly you might be heard about it, is that somehow is a “brand store” Persona with very bare bones port for PC, and both those affirmations are not exactly wrong. I mean, the whole thing is sort about Kei and his friends, using their MINDs (aka Persona/Stands), solving a mystery and the port is limited.

The story and character are overall fine, there is some characters which I liked such as Kotone and Lina, but you can tell they cut an arc here and there and the end is a cliffhanger, which have no conclusion as there is no sequel.

The main problem, I feel is the pace, early on the game is very slow, and it does take a while to thing start to move, this does not help the combat, which often repeat the same 3D monsters in different colors and watching the animations can get old fast.

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Previously on Granado Espada...

By ValorianEndymion June 10, 2021 0 Comments

Previously on Granado Espada...

When I start to write about Granado Espada, I did it like "to put a ghost to rest”, but now I find myself with almost 500 hours, mostly of them not really playing, because of the AFK mode, and almost no real sense of closure but just only with strange feelings of missing some vital piece of the puzzle.

That said, but just a few days, a new patch was announced (http://www.granadoespada.com/page/newsview.php?n=362) which do something that mentioned before: readjust some old game content, to make it easier and clear. So I have to see how thing unfold, I guess I am not free of this game yet.

As an example, remember I said a quest in the Errac, the “Favor of the Chieftain” required one High Quality Ruby, Emerald and Sapphire, which for new players, without access to the market or knowledge of which individual raid quest might give them as reward, might have trouble? Well, the quest now have an option of instead giving 4 Silver Bar, which are way easier to get.

The list of changes is pretty big (http://www.granadoespada.com/page/newsview.php?n=362) and in the next days I will see how easier or not think will be.

So far however, I was able to get past where I was and moved a bit on the Tears of a Doll quest line (the main quest), I did hit a small block in a step where I need to defeat a Queen of the Valkyries, where again, GE lack of feedback made it really difficult to know what was the problem, but after a couple of tries I managed to do it and advance a bit more.

From there I was able to also finish the Prophet of the Forest quest line, Nena recruitment quest, and now I am moving toward finishing the whole Leader of the New Era.

Things are progressing somewhat smother… the problem I am running now is how absurdly long some game quest lines can get… When you look at the ingame database, it can be deceptive, since it only show the major steps of a quest, but inside each step there is often more steps and things can get off control really fast.

Just the Leader of the New Era quest line have around 24 Major Steps, each step can have between 4 and 10 Minor steps (in this case many major steps appear to have around 7–9 minor steps).

To make things worst, often during the quest line you have to visit Lucifer Castle, which is a major annoyance, due cannot set a warp to quick return and instead need to travel two maps to reach the place where the npcs are often avoiding monsters and the Montoro Curse debuff which grow stronger or weaker depending on the day of the week, meaning that just running to talk the npcs can get deadly. This become a particular problem, because right now I need to bring certain character to talk to Leona, one of them happens to be a RNPC which I haven´t leveled up, which can be a problem...

Anyway, sometimes you need to reach a spot to trigger a dialogue, but the monster around might be too powerful and can interrupt the dialogue, and you likely cannot defeat them…

Another side effect is that the overly long quest line make the quest story weak due either being stretched out or sudden stops which, trying to keep track of the quest and story, feel unwieldy, and you can sort stop paying attention.

The way which the game tries to make it cutscenes don't work really well, it limited both what poses the NPCs can do and the limited camera angles plus the dialogue is often hard to read because of the small speech balloons (and the text on the UI is also not easy to read), but more than this, the cutscenes often feel too long, and you cannot skip them.

Notice the small speech balloons and the small text.

Still, despite all I am making to the last part of the Leader of the New World arc, from there I canenter the next arc which like take me other places.

But there is something else I wish to talk about, the game events!

About Events:

Granado Espada events, at least the more recent one which I could experience in the SEA server happen around between each week or two and last around the same time. Most of them are often centered around new RNPCs, but a few is around some holidays, the structure is very similar: you often do missions to this new RNPCs, in form of daily mission, which give you points, which you then use buying something for a list.

Here is a quick description of some recent events, going from the newest to oldest:

Bristia and Vespanolan Special Supply (6/9 to 6/23):

This is the most recent event, unlike other isn´t centered around a new RNPC and appear, so far, easy to do and the rewards appear to be very good.

The first week of the even is all about going in map, defeat monster to collect some stuff to bring to the npc, which give you points that you can spend in a shop, where among other thing you can get even stuff such as give a Valeron weapon (late game stuff), Armonia and Strata Devil

The amount of things you can buy from the shop is limited, like you can only buy to boxes which give a Valeron Weapon (each box have a single weapon that you can choose).

On the second week of the event, thing change, you now need to do some Individual Raids, where you get collect some stuff, if you get 20 you can reward for the day, and looking at the table, where even a level 1 Individual Raids give you 4 of the said material, does not look hard. Also, it appear that there will be a special quest.

Issac Episode Event (5/26 to 6/9):

This, at first glance, looked doable… the first phase (days 1 to 8) you either get one of three options, either going in a map and collect some items by defeating certain enemies, doing a mission where you need to evade some enemies or just give the RNPC some stuff. The second part appeared to be similar (day 8 to 14), however, one the daily quest was borderline incomprehensible, in the surface is a mission where you need to defeat 30 Vanguard enemies, while the npc helps you… However, when you try to play you quickly realize that the npc just keep running around appearing to do nothing, while you characters simple don't and can't attack enemies.

After several tries, I need to ask in the faction chat for help, where it was pointed to me that what was going on: The deal is that the enemies you can attack are random… or what I think is going on is that the npc while running bump in the enemies you can attack, however, the period you can attack is very short and the npc moves really fast, meaning it is very hard to attack them at all and the time is very short… so after few more tries I throw my hands and give up.

Lore of the Star Keeper (5/12 to 5/26):

The base of the event is that you have a list of character (teachers), which have a relationship with other characters (students), like Leona, if you have Lynn (or her Silver Flash Lynn variation) and perform the individual raids with Lynn in the party, you gain points to spend.

This event feel really pointless, like first you need to have recruited any of the said students, otherwise, no points. Something which the ingame dialogue does not really explain, in fact when I did the event, someone PMed asking what is going on, and I had to point them to the game website.

Also, the list is a bit strange, some teacher might require rare RNPC (which can't be recruited), like if you choose Moon, you better had Hermes or Tom, otherwise… to be fair, at least Fritz has a wide range of students, which all are early character. But still, you might don't have any of them, something which the person that asked for my help pointed.

To make thing worst, the amount of points you gain is very small, at least for a level 2 to 3 level raid (the best I could do) I could only gain around 15, and a single pet food, require 100, while some of the best rewards go around 1200 points.

Let me remind, you can't really do raid after raid, you have an activity bar, which depletes as you do raids, and higher level raids require more energy, so you can see where this is going.

Detective T´s Proposal for a Joint Investigation (4/10 to 4/24):

This one was quite good and cleaver. First you talk to Detective T, his daily is simple enough, collect 15 mysterious trace and bring to him. Once done he gives you a code word, which you need to interpret by clicking in some objects, if you do correctly you gain some rewards.

Now the reward part was the cleaver part, you gain an item which can give you a random RNPC even rare ones, and you could use spare cards (or card which you have but never planned to use) to exchange points for even more item which give you a random RNPC plus some bonus on the side.

If you did the whole event and collected the Mysterious collection card, you did gain the new Rare RNPC Chloe.

Kane Episode Event (03/10 to 04/07):

Fairly good event, by talking to Kane, you have to go through several rooms, doing minor stuff, such as finding a spot in the ground, dodging rotator blades and so to find a document, you gain rewards the more you do the event, while also winning Kane´s Ticket which you can exchange for some stuff. Sorry but appear that I forget to take screenshots of this one.

Bianca Episode Event (04/21 to 05/05):

Oh god, this event, it looks easy, like it give control of this new RNPC and the daily mission is about defeating Taikbin, however, it requires you to use her skills in a very precise order, with no room for error, enemies will do lots of damage and Taikbin might one hit kill you, while you also have very few time to even understand what is going on. You can redo this quest, but it is so annoying that after some tries I sort give up the whole thing.

Sherry Episode Event (2/24 to 03/10):

... This one was not good, it starts fairly easier, with just go in some map and collect a few stuff, but the daily mission, the “Passionete Dance Practice” is a nightmare, not that is hard…

The deal is that you control the new RNPC and have to fight some NPC, it looks easier, but in reality is a QTE where it expects you to do is use her skills in the absolute correct order as the RNPC tell you, it looks easier, but either due input delay, the skill own delay and timing, plus how knows? Maybe lag, is very hard, like most time you press a skill when she says, but it take a while, so she is already asking something else, but you can't do anything. To make things worst, there is almost no room for error, even in the easy difficult.

During the event you need to sort perform a QTE by using her skills but it is really hard.

So, that is it for now. I likely keep playing seeing how far I can push and hopefully I can end this writing about the game plot and story.

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Granado Espada - Issues and Bits of Progress (Part III)

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Granado Espada - Issues and bits of Progress

By ValorianEndymion December 31, 2020 0 Comments

Update:

Remember that I said that the next part might depend on if I get stuck or not…

Guess what happened… while in on one hand I have made some progress, even going beyond what I was able to do in previous attempts. I also find myself stuck, making only small steps of progress and hitting walls. This had an effect where I start to write this, make a bit of progress and need to rewrite and so on…

Anyway, this also mean my plans of moving in the story are sort of blocked at least for now. But I can talk about some mechanical, design and technical issues I have with the game.

But it is not all doom and gloom, on the plus side I have able to trade some stuff in the game market (aka the auction house), specially some spare RNPC cards, which give me a lot of Vis (ingame basic currency), that allowed me to buy some costumes, get a difficult to get RNPC way earlier (JD and Cherlyn) and even reach some new parts in the game.

Also, there was an Anniversary Event going was on, and that helped a bit, also by the time I was writing this there is the Christmas event going on.

It is important to say, that this part might feel a bit scatter shot as it mostly list of stuff I am thinking about this whole time and also due constant rewrites.

Conceptual Confusion

Strange as it to say, Granado Espada problems sort stand in part due to its own unique nature, because not only this game came from a moment where a lot of would be staples of MMO design haven’t become standards yet, a so lot of expected things might not be in, but its own design put it in a strange place.

Now, while one can say that all MMOs, sort expect you to play with other people, Granado Espada, feel is giving the strangest signals about it, because with the whole MCC system plus AFK system, you might feel that even more that other MMOs, this is the one which you the feel least the need to play with others and everybody might feel the same. Despite this, there is stuff you should do in groups, so you might often feel unsure in certain moments, is the quest or raid too hard because you are doing solo or because you are under leveled?

This isn’t helped by certain quest and raids meant to be solo, like earlier content, such as Infinito Challenge and the “Individual Quest Raids”, while others meant to be in group, such as some Raids and endgame content.

To see how strange is you only need to go to Coimbra Bridge, there you will find a NPC which handle the Individual Quest Raids, he will be surrounded by so many people to the point it is kind hard to spot him. But if you choose to go slight further ahead you will spot the lonely NPC for Group Raids (note, the raids which he handles are only a small selection).

One thing I need to explain about Raids is that they are often handle by a NPC, from him, you can either create a Room or find one (if the quest allow for groups), but the latter will be often impossible, as there is no one else. You can create a room and wait if people show up, but I never saw that happen.

This confusion is even extended to the Faction system (the game term for a clan), because early one already start in the Pioneer Faction, which default faction for everybody who isn’t in a faction. To the game credit, at least here the UI is helpful, since allow you to research for faction and check details. But you might be temped, like I was for a long time, to remain in that default faction, which isn’t good as an actual active one. Because joining one does help a lot — not only you gain some bonuses plus other benefits.

However, while the UI helps to find Factions, the same could not be said of the Search Squad (the game term for a group) function, which all it does is show some squads but no idea of what they are doing.

This all means that the game is often lead to a strange situation where you never know when you actually should form a group or ask for help or it just you don’t have level enough.

Not only this, but the AFK system is so strange that you might realize, like me, that you spend a lot of time in the game, but not actually playing it… you simply might be playing something else, watching something or maybe not even be looking at the pc…

UI Confusion

Granado Espada UI is very mixed, while functional, sometimes fail you to inform of crucial stuff:

There is an internal database where you can check a lot of stuff, specially quest trees, however while the info there is great the UI fail to say if a quest have prerequisites quest you need to do before. Also, description of quests and raids are often very vague.

This is particular annoying with NRPC, which often have lots of this kind of prerequisites, like to recruit M´Bomba sister Beatrice, you need to recruit him first and to all his sub quest and also reach a certain point of the main quest. But looking at the database you might don’t know that at all, so you can be left a while wondering how to recruit someone.

The game also have some strange hidden mechanics which it never informs you at all and often contradict stuff that happen in the game:

One is the annoying “Montoro Curse”, in the plot there is a whole thing about a curse which plague Lucifer Castle and you even do a quest to lift it up. Expect, that curse not only to be still there, but have this mechanic which lower your stats depending on of the day of the week, and it gets strong as you grow deeper in Lucifer castle, making the place already very hard even more hard.

Another one: One day I was trying to a quest for recruit Veronif, which at the first step require 10 Black Magic Stones, I tried to gather them but the place was too high level for me, however I managed to get at least one stone…

… But when I return to one city for some other business is when I noticed that there was a strange effect of floating skull laughing above my characters, I checked the UI for buffs and debuffs and noticed nothing strange there. Confused I decided to ask in the Faction chat about it, and the people quickly pointed that is because Black magic stone give you a debuff, and you should store them somewhere else quickly as possible…

Another issue is that you need ammo and special crystals for some weapons and magic, and you can easily run out of it without knowing, since the game never informs you when you are running low.

Screenshot of combat, notice the number and small icons

But more annoying is, that the game never clear tell you what is going on during combat as there is often very little feedback, I mean it does flash numbers, but it never really inform you of crucial stuff, so you can and like will, often die and don’t know why. This is made way worst due icons showing debuffs/buffs begin rather small and sometimes, specially in raids, enemies will use powerful debuffs which you maybe not even notice not to talk about bosses which have one hit kill skills which unless you know beforehand you likely die.

Streamlining and the Lack of It

One thing I noticed, is that overtime they tried to simplify most quest making the game slight more dynamic, this was done either by rewriting quests or balancing them (like reducing the need number for something). This was excellent, because I remember stuff from the early Dilos Lantern arc begin too long and complicated, but now if feel way more fast.

Another addition was the Guide Quests, which are, much like the name suggest, a series of quest which introduce you to several of the game aspects and require things like complete a scenario quest arc or individual raid quest.

There is even some really cleaver stuff, such as NPC in Ustiur, which sell gems that allow you to summon an enemy monster, this is really helpful since allow you to complete a quest that require to kill a very rare monster. As example, Soso (an RNPC) in her recruitment quest, request you to kill a Jack of Lantern, normally that would be hard, however you can easily buy the game to summon the monster and complete the quest.

However, this is only for part of the game, there still a huge part where nothing feels straightforward, everything feel like there is a dozen if not a hundred of steps to take, with often sudden spike of difficult. Quests might have entire sequences of going back and forth between two npcs that go on for ages. To make things worst, often the rewards aren’t very good.

One example is one of Brunies’s sub quest: Treasure in the New World, which start fairly simple, as you first explore Tubkal, but from there you need to find three keys, each key require it its own two to three quests, and you do all of this for the quest to suddenly end, and you gain a minimal reward.

Rose quest

Not only this, RNPC quest can at times feel exercise in tedium, even if the game is sort trying its best to tell an interesting story, I noticed this doing a handful of steps of the Rose Spirit quest, and sort was going back and forth between npcs, watching scenes that felt stretched out even if the game was telling this story about this spirit which Montoro locked in his castle and now wish to see the world, there is a whole thing about people, specially in Viron (Montoro castle is nearby) don’t trusting her, but she still does her best to gain their trust…however all you do is going back and forth watching not well-made scenes…

Leftovers and Poor Ideas

There is a some stuff in GE which is essentially leftover of older mechanics, the most evident one is the Pioneer Memorial Statues which you find in almost every map, now they don’t do really anything. But back there they give you a quest to kill enemies in exchange for XP Cards. This system is gone, but the statues remain there. There is one place however, the Rebouldeux swears where I think you can still find statues which operate like in the old days.

Looking in guides there is a good chance you read about Growth Stones, they don’t exist any longer, as they were replaced by Sun, Moon and Star stones, which you can trade for Feso.

In Gigante Island there are some mini-games, winning in them gives you tokens which you could trade for things, you can still play them and from what people told me the awards till good, but the stuff appear almost forgotten there, also the mini-games aren’t very good and the game does a poor job to explain how to play them.

Remember the Infinito Challenge? I could swear that this thing was way different and way harder, so much that was the reason that for a while I ignored it, until I noticed that it changed. But I could be wrong and misremembering something.

How the Bounty Hunter look now

For a long while now the Bounty Hunter Guild had a selection of different raids, each one with two levels of difficult, by defeating the boss you maybe get Bounty Hunter Tokens, which you could exchange for stuff… But by time I was writting this, the system got a revamp again, instead of selection of raids, you now have a sort of horde mode, where you need to defeat several hordes of enemies and bosses, the longer you manage to go on the better are the rewards. It is away better system, like, before you had sort to go one by one raid, if you which to optimize, now you can do the whole thing sort in one run.

Here is the place where you can travel to Armonia

Other times you feel there is some really not well planned ideas, from the Market limitation which I mentioned, to something I noticed now — When you reach High Master, you can (and the loading screen tell you over and over again) that maybe you should go Armonia and getting the Pope’s blessing (which gives +1 AR / DR and +5000 HP), which in one hand is nice, but also the game never really inform you how or when you can go to Armonia.

For a while I guessed, wrongly, that it was gated by a quest, but turn out it is not, because unlikely in other times, where you can only reach certain places when you either reach a certain family level or moment in a quest line, to reach Armonia for the first time, you need to embark in a Zeppelin. But where it is? In Kielce Laboratory and there you talk to a npc… something which toke me a while to figure out due lack of instructions…

Sometimes quests remove your party and instead allow you to control a RNPC, at first this appears as a good idea, but most times what happen is that you are throw in the quest with a RNPC you never played before and have no real idea of how the skills works.

Scene from the Nene quest.

As example, in a quest during the Altria Arc, you get control of Nene and all you need to do is go a trough a map filled with monsters, since she is fairly high level when you control her it does look easy, however you likely to die and won’t know why. That when you notice you can’t use potions or anything. So what are you supposed to do? What the game want is using her normal attack to regain health, something you likely never noticed is a thing at first and using her skills to finish the monster, drawing them in few groups.

Friede, another RNPC have a similar moment to this, but in this case is worst, since Friede skills are way more complex, and you have way less time to understand them in a hurry.

The game does have a system for dailies, but it is the strangest one I ever saw, in some towns a NPC will give you a daily quest, however first only a handful of players can actually do the quest… so we already off to a great start… but the quest themselves at least don’t appear too hard, the one in Auch simple require going to a map and kill a few monsters to collect a couple item, once you do enough of the quest you do gain a special reward, which I confess don’t remember what is, but you can imagine is nothing amazing and the game informs you anyway…

By least there is a Farming mini-game of some sort, I only did it on the other server, since it is kind boring and most consist of growing some crops, a bit of fishing… but in the server which I am right now I haven’t bothered playing it. Also, I don’t think the game itself ever explain the farming mini-game is a thing or the potential rewards, at least in a direct way.

Authors note: So, here we go, this is the main reason this toke so long to write… This might feel, like I said earlier, a bit scattershot, this mostly cover stuff about gear.

AR and DR

Also, outside from Level you have two more attributes, well to be fair you have tons of attributes, but for now let’s focus on two of them: AR and DR, which are your average level of weapons(AR) and armor(DR) plus other stuff (meaning that you have base AR/DR to each other stuff is added, like bonus from level up, buffs, ect). To figure if you can defeat something, in theory, you only need to check this values and compare with what you are trying to defeat… However… while the game does give that info, it is sort hidden behind some obscure menus (and mostly only cover the boss in raids) and while a quest might give you a general idea of the average level, it does not inform or check AR/DR, so you get quests which on paper you should be able (as it might be a grey or yellow quest), but you can’t, and you likely don’t know why, and the reason mostly like is the monsters having a very high level of AR/DR.

To make things worst, the actual difference between levels of AR/DR are really strange in the sense that one of two number of difference might mean a lot and other times not much.

For example, after you use Crescemento Weapons (which start at 0 and go up to 32 in AR as you level u), you sort expected to change to Constellation Weapons (33 AR) and from there either go to Evil Weapons (34 AR) or Experimental Weapons (35 AR) and from there goes to other stuff which I don’t have access right now.

Now the difference between 32 and 33 or 33 to 34 or 35 might not appear that much, but it is huge, like for a while one of the reason I was stuck earlier on, it was because I was still using Crescemento and few Constellation Weapons, until other members of the Faction I am pointed me to look for Experimental Weapons. I did that and like day to night suddenly I was leveling up and making progress.

Now, keep something in mind, AR/DR are only one aspect of a weapon and armor, there is a lot more, from as Penetration, bonus against certain enemies and other stuff too…

What about Gear?

You might not realize in first hand but the game have this really strange relationship with gear, at least right now. It is so strange that is kind hard for me to explain, but I will try:

Ok, let´s go back a bit, at the start (from at least when I start playing), GE didn’t play much different that any other MMO, monsters dropped weapons/armor, NPC sell them and so on.

But overtime, something really strange start to happen, slowly they sort start to replace stuff, Crescemento Weapons and Armor were introduced at some point, where they replace most weapons until AR/DR 32 (remember, their stats grow with the player, until they reach 32), even the NPCs which used to sell old weapons now only sell Crescemento Gear (rather cheaply, they only cost a 1 Shiny Crystal).

Not only this, Crescemento Weapons because they are easy to buy, enchanting and everything else is also easier since you can keep trying until you get what you want, meaning you sort have no reason to use normal weapons anymore, at least in the early game. The downsides? You can’t really sell or trade them.

But you still can find normal weapons early on, but most of the time, their stats will be lower than a Crescemento one and also they are fixed (meaning they don’t scale), this does not mean they are useless, as you can run in stuff that at least for a short while is useful… also they can serve as crafting materials in some cases.

If you played any MMOs, you might be familiar with the concept of a “set of gear”, where each piece you add improves the whole thing. GE isn’t different, and you might notice that with the whole Evil, Constellation, etc… some are meant to be sets.

Another thing the game never inform you is about the Infinito Challenge, which will be your first source for a semi-set of items, the Desapio gear, which are boots, earrings, belts and glove set. At each level of the Infinito Challenge, you face a boss (the whole thing is like boss rush), but way weaker, defeating one can give you one of this items and Tokens you need to enchant them and also other stuff.

If you remember the Crescemento stuff, you might wonder if you could be find normal (I mean non set) boots, gloves, etc… and the answer is yes. Except, soon as you get Desapio gear, you sort no longer need them as between their stats and the set bonus they will be better that everything else, but again they might be useful for materials.

Now, let’s talk about Currencies, because like many MMOs, Granado Espada does have it own lot, I could not list them all, but at the basic level you have things like: Currency for Raids (one type for each level of raid, meaning you have a currency for level 1 raids another for level 2 and so on), Bounty Hunter Tokens (however, you might not get tokens at all even when you do quest since they are a random reward). The Point is, that each currency can be exchanged for stuff with a npc and that is likely a source for weapons, armor and even character boxes (can give you a random RNPC card), the problem is they require a lot of points and that can take a while, specially since you can’t just farm raids and Bounty Hunter(there is an entrance limit).

But that is not the only thing: Just a few days I noticed that I was getting stuff called Serendebite and First Hymn, which are also stuff which you can exchange for another currency (the first for Silver Coins and the latter for Gold Coins), which you can also use to trade for stuff with another npc… By the way I don’t think the game even explain this I sort discovered this by accident…

Getting Stuck

If you find yourself, like me, stuck, what you do? Well, much depends on of when you got stuck and there is a lot of moments it can happen, for me this where the spots:

During the Errac Arc you will need a High Quality Ruby, Emerald and Sapphire, but at this moment you might yourself unable to get them easily: First, since you can’t use the market, there is no way to buy it from other players. You can try to farm it, but it might take a while a long while, also you might need to check where exactly it drops (the game don’t really tell you, so you might need to hit the internet). Your best options, are either begin a Faction (or just being lucky on general chat) and someone gives you them, or you can do an Individual Raid, because there is a common reward, but you might be unaware of which raids can you do and how hard or easy they are. I notice new players getting stuck in this part a lot.
By the way, not being able to trade with other players (and even drop stuff in the ground), until you do the End of Montoro arc can get you stuck in a lot of moments, specially a quest which require you to collect rare stuff, like the infamous Katovic Soup. Thankfully, the required amounts that were largely reduced.
Later during the Catherine Torsche recruitment quest, there is a moment you need to be way better level and gear and also have the RNPC Catherine Doll (it is a long story…) at a higher level, because you need her during the early part of the quest (and she has to survive) and you also need to face Catherine Torsche, which depending on of your level and gear might be beyond you. But once you pass this part you can move a lot more in the game main quest.
While helpful, the Guide Quest can maybe point players toward Level 4 Individual Raids way earlier, where likely they won’t have gear or level do it and get stuck. This isn’t helped by raid difficult not very clear, like some earlier raids can be way dangerous that other, even late level ones, due bosses having one hit kill skills or powerful debuffs.
Getting better gear after one point (around AR/DR 35), can get confusing or direction less: The market won’t help you, since stuff there is either below that or above that and I mean, stuff like Valeron weapons/armor (AR/DR 37+) and this can get really expansive. What maybe you can do, is finding recipes for Strata Evil gear or Chroma Greek, crafting them and mostly important, upgrade them a lot. However, this requires, besides finding the recipes (which the improved Bounty Hunter helps) is getting the material and then due the whole upgrade which might several tries, unless you have stuff to avoid the rng which might break a weapon during the upgrade or even have several of said weapons. Another thing you can maybe do is some event (and there is one about to start) where you asked to forget a weapon and if lucky you can keep it, with the advantage that during the event is way easier.
Now maybe you think: Hey, this is the point where the game expect you to hit the cash shop…. While I almost agree, the shop and the UI is confusing enough to even if you want to buy something you might don’t know what. Also, mostly stuff is either boxes which give you stuff and material and things for crafting, so far as I can see there is you can’t directly buy better weapons/armor in a direct fashion from the cash shop, and to fair, this whole time (in both servers) I never bought anything there and never felt that I need.
The best “way” to level up, both character levels and their skill levels is by AFK a lot, you can, if willing, spend Feso to buy a pass for one of the two “premium dungeons”. Luckily, during the Anniversary Event, one reward I manage to got was two passes for one of this premium dungeons, and I have to say, they do help — I was at Master lv7 with my character at the time and in a short moment I managed to get levels for reaching Highmaster (But at this point the dungeon xp, while still good the rate is the not same). I still had one left to which I added another I get during the Christmas event.
Sometimes the game can feel that requires lots of leaps of logic, which unless you are familiar with the game mechanics can really confusing. Remember the daily missions? Each town offer one, and I think, that maybe one or two, at the end of the whole thing (and I mean, doing the task along a week) give you a Stance Ring Box, which give you a random ring that improve a stance or another. Now some rings can be worth a lot and this is a way to make some cash, if you are aware of this whole sequence…. for a while I forget I had some of these boxes around and luckily one give me a ring which was improved a stance for a newer character, that give me some good vis in the market.
Right now, I am one point of the Leader of the New World arc, which is beyond me in level or gear as most other quest are the same. Now I have three main character: Fighter (Highmaster Lv1), Emilia (Highmaster Lv1) and Bernelli (Highmaster Lv1). The next step of the quest is slight beyond me and there isn’t much else I can do, even the next Guide Quest, which require me to clear an Individual Raid of Rank 4 is way too much.

Progress

But to not close in dire tone, let me tell about what I was able to do in the meantime.

Kielce

So far, Kielce is the largest town in the game, I mean, of the one which I am able to visit. It very detailed and the place for the whole Bristia Independence arc.

But this place have lot of npc which give you “reputation based quests”, meaning you do quests for them, which fill a bar with reputation with this or that faction, some are trivial, like talk to several other npcs, repeat a single quest… but also very tedious. Beside the main town map, there is a couple of places you can visit, from a Laboratory, where you find how to get to Armonia, the “night mode” of Kielce, where you visit the street at night and can have lots of fights. Plus some minor spaces, such as a Pub and the Governor’s Palace.

The place where the Magic Cannon hit.

Like most towns in the game, there is a couple of RNPCs you can find. Outside of Kielce, there is a few maps, nothing specially worth talking about, except one where you can see the effect of the Vespanolan “Magic Cannon”, which was used in the war where Bristia lost.

The governor of Kielce

Armonia and the kid Pope.

Once I figure how to get to Armonia I did a quick travel there, to get the kid Pope blessing. The place is sort meant to the game universe stand in for the Vatican, but the plot here is about fighting undead or something, there is a whole mechanic about blessing and being cursed, where if you die here you can get a debuff which you can remove either by using holy water and some other means. It is way too overcomplicated, to the point the npc which explain you stuff have to do a quiz to check if you pay attention. Anyway the place is high level, so I just stay enough to look at some npcs, visit the Pope and get out.

One of the npcs will both explain the history and also the mechanics, often at the same time.

Here is the Pope, "La Attencion" is what I was looking for, +1 AR / DR and 5000 Hp is a pretty good blessing.

What Next?

To be fair I don’t know when the next part is coming, mostly because I wish to progress in the main plot more to them talk about it, because things get… wild…like the plot goes to places and I don’t have a full or even partial picture of the whole thing.

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Granado Espada - Issues and Bits of Progress (Part III)

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Granado Espada - Visuals (Early Game) and a bit of Music.

By ValorianEndymion October 5, 2020 0 Comments

Updates:

A couple of days after I did write the first blog entry about GE, at least I managed to complete the game first story arc. This mean that the last new player restrictions, which blocked trade and access to the Market Manager (aka Auction House) are lifted. This also mean that I got further that when I played in T3Fun server, which I was stuck in a much earlier part.

Now I am on the main quest, is the “Returned Devil”, which is an arc right after the first, I also managed to complete several RNPC quest, which I never managed to get. I wonder how much further I will push until call it done, maybe at least get o Kielce? or maybe Armonia… Maybe the latter because I am really curious of where the story is going.

But much depend on of me not getting stuck, thankfully main quest sort appear easier or at least I can brute force them using consumables, but I wonder how much I can push.

Talking about getting stuck, when I wrote the first part, I did mention either the next part begin about the visuals or the mechanics, and I have been bouncing between the both of them unsure of how to proceed, in one hand, for the visuals there is a lot I want to talk about but there is also a lot I wish to see, specially the parts in Orpesia (which at least would require me to get to Armonia), on the other on the mechanics, I feel that I need some time to warp my head on several aspects of the mechanics, due they begin really confusing at times.

The solution I find, was continuing with the visuals first, but split in two part, the first will cover the basics and earlier game, the second will be about the story and the later parts of the game.

On the mechanics, will be the last, that give me more time to think about a lot of stuff.

Granado Espada — Visuals of the Early Game

Wizard Concept Art

On the previous part I commented that one of GE features was it visuals and design, and while not all of it works, what works is enough to give the game a unique aesthetics that while other games might share the same setting inspirations Granado Espada will stand out.

So what the deal? Well, like I said, while other games might share the same time period inspiration, their design is often pushed, almost too much, toward the whole “things begin colorless (or at best gray/brown) and without details is realistic” mindset design, meaning that even if the setting meant to be in different time, they all appear to be very similar to other games, due not using the elements which could give a more unique identity or represent something (at best you get guns and tops hats). Think in the difference between something like Banner of the Maid (by the way, this is a great tactics game), which is a game based in the French Revolution, where the design draw direct form the period, but they use it a base to build from there, and how this give the game it own visual identity. Meanwhile, look at Fable 3, which is sort also meant to be inspired by the French Revolution, none of the clothes or visuals appear to reflect it and many feel they could be a generic medieval game.

Granado Espada however, tries to push is visual design toward the concepts of elegance and gorgeous on base it draws from a lot of sources in wild mix of: Renaissance, Gothic, Victorian to Baroque and other periods, but also combines it with a lot from fashion and high fashion and even modern day sub culture fashions (and pop themes) and others plus some anime aesthetics.

But what make the mix look even more curious, is that while you might expect Granado Espada draw from steam punk, it does not really do that, at least not in the obvious ways you often see in games. There are no trains or industrialization, while you might come across strange machines and even robots, they aren’t the focus (and most time they are more magical that steampunk), even blimps only appear as a side note, well, even normal ships almost don’t appear.

The result is that Granado Espada have this unique feel and design. The emphasis is elegance is reflected all around, instead of the typical colorless, detail less design, you have period inspired clothes with lots of colors, details and even volume. Now to be fair, not every costume or character design looks great, somewhere quite bad, but enough of them look so much good and unique that you can feel there isn’t anything like it.

Also, there is obvious the element of time, you can easily tell what parts are older and which aren’t by looking, due rough edges, texture quality and how the design of some elements did change, specially RNPCs.

Costumes

Another wizard concept art

Now before I continue, it is maybe worth to explain how costumes work in the game: You have three types of costumes, body, hair/hat, back and weapon.

Body is the main type of costume, hair/hat is self-explanatory, back cover stuff like wings and other things and weapon costume change the way the weapon hold by the character look.

Costumes could be gained either ingame, by crafting or as reward or by the costume shop, where you could buy any of the body costume, using Feso (a sort premium currency, which you can gain in game, the price is around 500,000 Fesos). There are other ways go get them however, since you have a trade costume npc, auction house or trading with other players.

Back in the earlier days (at least in the version held now by T3Fun), when you create a Stock Character you could select a default costume (I am unsure if this was also true in other servers), but at one moment they did change the system, Stock Character now have a default costume which you can’t change during character creation. But for a short while armor (don’t confuse with costume) did change visual, acting like a costume.

I remember this change very well, because when it was about to go live, you would receive the costume of the old default costume you had chosen, I mean, lets says you had a Fighter you choose as his default costume the “Camisa de Soldado”, when the change went up, the fighter would revert to other default costume and you would gain the “Camisa de Soldado” Costume. The process was kind confusing, there were some limitations, as there was some costumes which even if you choose back there you could not gain them exactly, in my case my Warlock had a Robe of Zyz which had a pink color, but I could only get the Robe of Zyz which was yellow.

However, at some point this did change again, for a system, which at least by the time I am writing this, you only have a single default costume for Stock Characters and armor no longer changes visual (only costumes). This is a sort strange choice, because the default costume for Stock Character aren’t really good or representative of what the game could offer and you are stuck with them until you got access to costumes.

RNPCS I

Screen when you create a RNPC using it card

Since we are just talking about costume, how they work for RNPC? First, they have a default visual and unique costumes they could use (each one have its own selection. I mean, musketeers share a selection of costume, but an RNPC such as Emilia would have her own unique costumes), for them, armor never change the visual at any point.

Now, on the RNPC themselves, there are two types, you have ones which are “Recruitable” (majority of the RNPCs), meaning you get them by doing a quest line and “Rare”, which could be got by Character Boxes, that could be brought in the premium shop or get inside the game (often by achievement and events and other means). But you can also get any of them by using the game auction house (but rarer ones can cost a lot).

Something I forget to explain, when you gain a RNPC what you gain is Card, which is used when you create the character or it could be traded. Note: There is also a system ingame of mercenaries, where you could sort I think rent a RNPC, but I never used that system, so I can’t tell much about.

Scene from one of the Raven Subquests.

Aside from the recruitment quest, each RNPCs (at least ones which you recruit), will have one or two sub quests, which both tell you about a bit more about them, and sort are a little highlight of the game, which the translation quality often hurt, but still you got little of “slice of life” or find something about the game lore by doing them. Also, this quests usually give you a book with one of their unique stances.

While I said, you can trade RNPCs, you have to be careful, isn’t unusual for one of the prerequisites to recruit a RNPC might need another one quest done (and often the character itself in your party), so selling one of them might lock you out of some quests down the line. As example, to recruit Vincent you need to have Andre in your party. In fact, I think several RNPC might require have Andre in the party. Not only this, but the game have an “Expedition” system, where RNPC not in use could be sent to do something and bring rewards, having certain combinations of them is vital.

RNPC design can be viewed in two ways, their visual and how they good they are in the game. The latter is way hard and less clear and even hard to talk about, due the confusing way Granado Espada mechanics work, which make hard to know which is good or not. Like even if you think that maybe the Rare RNPCs where better, you would not be wrong, but not right too. For example, want to know one of the best RNPCs? It is “Recruitable” one, Grace Bernellie, which you get very early on. Want another? One strategy of AFK is using “builder” character, which as the name suggest can build stuff which auto attack and kill even better and many of them early on, such as Jack and others. Want one of the best healers and support RNPC? Take Emilia.

Now, of course you Rare RNPCs will be useful or powerful, but the point is that you can live without them. Also, it appears that is not unusual for Rare RNPC becoming “Recruitable”, As example, Cherlyn was originally a Rare RNPC, which now you can recruit as any other character.

But I will talk more about mechanics in another post, for now, let’s go back to visuals.

Stock Characters

Stock Character Concept Art

As they are the first introduced, not only they got most costumes but their design is maybe the most representative of the game, each Stock Character follow a theme in general. However, as time passed, and RNPC got most of the spotlight, Stock Character sort fall to the sideline.

Fighters (the figures in the center holding swords): Most of their costumes are armor or leather inspired. Not much to talk here.
Warlocks (blond figures at left and right): They maybe possess some of the more unique costumes, specially the female versions, which often feature skirts with a lot of volume, their design often goes between very elegant to straight out of a cheap romance novel cover.
Scouts (the ones with grey/black hair slight above the center): This is hard to define, like I have no idea what the theme is as each of their costumes is very chaotic, but again very unique.
Wizards (The girl with pony tail at the left and the figure with a top hat above the center): Side by side with Warlocks, they have some of the more unique costumes, Wizards costume are all around good, there isn’t much volume, as skirt are very tight and long.
Musketeer (the figure wielding guns above): Their costume as the name suggest, suggest a uniform like but very stylized.

This is one of the musketeer costumes

And here is the costume in game.

RNPCs II

Cherlyn is one of the RNPCs

Overtime RNPCs sort became the main focus, as most new updates and promotions often will be based around one or more new RNPCs. I would need to look one by one, and that would take forever, but there is a couple of things I can say:

Older RNPCs often have the more rough visuals, they aren’t bad, but you can see a lack of polish in comparison to newer ones.
I will talk more about this later, but the game features a internal database where you can see all RNPCs, their costumes and quests.
Like I said, each RNPC have its own costume list, and they are more free form, meaning that some stuff it very modern and might don’t fit in, like swimsuits.
I you played any gacha game, you might be familiar with the concept of having several versions of the same character, GE isn’t much different, as often Rare RNPCs, might be an existing character but with a different theme or in a different moment in life. As example, one RNPC you can get is Ludin, the young sister of Leonele, but you can also get the Rare versions of her: The “Blue Flame Ludin” (which is older version of her) or “Student President Ludin” (which is an older version of her, but with a school theme).
No one asked, but here is a small sample of RNPCs, you might want to check Granado Espada SEA site which have a gallery, which is nice but it there is some missing RNPCs (http://www.granadoespada.com/page/character.php)

Archbishop (Rare)

Beatrice (Recruitable)

Kiss (Rare)

Nar (Recruitable)

Weapon and other stuff

The weapons visual design are again very mixed, the very first weapons, the Crescemento ones (I explain this later, when talking about the game mechanics), feel very rough and out of place, later weapons are can go from good design to not good, but it hard to tell, changes in the game mechanics sort made that you almost don’t change them very much.

Here you can see some Crescemento Weapons

I will talk more about this later, but here is quick overview, you likely start using Crescemento Weapons for a long time, since their stats change as you level up until a point, from there you are either going to move toward using Experimental (you gain some tickets which allow you to get some of them), Evil or Constellations Weapons (both you can gain either tickets or boxes or by trade Bount Hunter Tokens and by other menas), since you gain boxes or tickets which give them to you. While you might find other weapons as drops or rewards their stats aren’t good enough most of the time.

Aside from the huge wings you can see a Experimental Polearm

Now on the subject of Back Costumes, most of them are wings or things similar, they aren’t great, but useful, as many achievements and quest might reward you with them, and they do offer some bonus, but they don’t fit in, they are often too huge and almost block the character model. It can be really annoying walk around and seeing dozens of people in a small area all using the same back costume.

So with that said, that leave us with hats and hair and face costumes, there isn’t much to talk, most were ok, you mostly like don’t pay much attention, since change aren’t that meaningful or huge.

World — The Early Game.

Coimbra

Let´s talk a bit about the game world visuals, here I will cover earlier part of the game until Viron. Kielce and later part will be covered later. This sort cover only the Granado Espada continent, not Orpesia.

The World design however is a mixed thing, most time however, it works :

Cities often feature rich visuals and architecture with brighter colors, but save from finding npcs and services you most don’t really interact with these spaces, except if you go what of your way to take screenshots and using the pose system. There is some strange elements, like you can spot textures, while they don’t look bad, they do feel sort look out of place.

Can you see the strange texture?

Some cities were given attempt to make the more unique, such as Coimbra, which have a sunset theme around it, Ustiur and Bahamar are more like advanced outposts, which make it stand out. However, the other cities all appear to have a default bright sunlight fell to it, which despite different architecture inspiration, make them feel sameish.

Outside of cities, things get a bit worst as open spaces are a bit generic and bland, so much that there isn’t much to talk about. There are different areas, from the more generic green areas, to places such as Bahamar Swamps, Abertal and other rocky areas, the volcanic are around Prison de Joaquin or Katovic Snowfields.

Dungeons are often very linear

Dungeons are sort mixed, there is a lot of emphasis on textures on them, but their design often very standard as most dungeons (and open spaces) are often square or circular spaces connected by corridors, however later dungeons, specially places like Lucifer Castle do look more interesting.

However, one of the major dungeon design issues is that they aren´t large enough to hold many players, specially if you remember that each player is three characters, places can get so crowded that at best can get difficult and at worst impossible to get thing done. You might not only find that there is no good spot to move or stand but enemies will die before you have a chance to do anything, due many times people in afk or bots will be using ranged characters. I noticed this Lucifer Castle, when I got there do a quest, which require to simple kill four monsters, but find myself unable to do due lots of people inside.

The screenshot might now be able to show, but the place was crowded to a point, where enemies where dying so fast that I could not do anything.

Errac

Bahamar

Lucifer Castle

Gigante Island

Music

Another element of Granado Espada stand out it is the soundtrack, which is hard for the to explain, but is a mix of epic music, electro, dance, folk and many more stuff (sorry I am not very good figuring out those more specific genres of music) that somehow… works is almost jarring when you listen to it.

Here is a small sample from youtube:

This is the game main music and the barrack theme:

Here is another one "Odyssey".

And here is another one, which is called 'Witch on a Diet" and don´t ask me why:

That is all for now… next if things follow smoothly, I will talk about the mechanics and maybe the rest of the visual, or I will save for another part, like I said: much depend on of my pushing forward.

Links to all posts:

Granado Espada - Issues and Bits of Progress (Part III)