Utawarerumono: Mask Of Deception

I'm writing this to be as spoiler-free as possible. Utawarerumono starts with a rather tried and true premise; the protagonist is found in the middle of a forest with no memory. The person who found him, a young woman named Kuon, gives him the name "Haku", and escorts him to a small villiage. Shortly thereafter, he meets up with an expedition, who head back with him to the capital city, Yamato, in an effort to help reclaim his lost memories. When Haku arrives, he takes service under the employ of Oshtor, the Imperial Guard of the Right, to perform odd jobs and tasks that Oshtor himself cannot do, due to either impropriety or conspicuousness. Haku builds a team to assist him in his jobs. In addition to Kuon, who describes herself as a wandering adventurer, there is Rulutie, a princess of one of the nations under the control of Yamato, Atui, the daughter of the General of Yamato, Nekone, Oshtor's sister, and others that are met throughout the story. The way that everyone interacts is often funny, silly, and heartwarming. I particularly like how the main Character, Haku, is handled. In most stories, the amnesiac main character has traded their memories for an obscene amount of power, inexplicably being the strongest, or fastest, or most spiritually adept. Haku is actually among the weakest of the characters in the entire game, both in terms of narrative and gameplay, and must overcome his difficulties with strategy and cunning. The development and interaction of the characters is one of the game's main strengths. Getting to know everyone, especially Haku, give the story weight and compels you to keep going. The pacing is flawed, however; while the game does very well in interpersonal interactions, it spends the overwhelming majority of the time involved in day-to-day scenarios. This means that the last few hours of the game are where the meat of the plot development take place, and the rest of the game seems aimless and inconsequential. ---- X Gon' Give it to Ya ---- One of the major issues that I have with the game it with how the story is presented. The overwhelming majority is visual novel style. I read line after line, panel after panel, and while it was almost all voice acted, and very well, it was very passive. There were no branching paths, and the only choice I got to make was to decide which scene out of a maximum of four that I would watch next. It doesn't matter which order they are viewed in; none of them will go away without being watched, and lines of dialogue do not change. Often the only result of watching the scenes is getting another series of scenes to watch. The majority of the time with the game is spent tapping on the X button to advance the dialogue. On a day off, I started playing this game a little before lunch, and didn't stop until I started getting ready for bed. I didn't engage in a single battle the entire time. As I stated previously, the plot progression happens mostly towards the end of the game. So a great deal of the time, I was mashing through tales of shopping, cooking, talking to street vendors, and various other little odds and ends. All well written, all voice-acted, all at least somewhat interesting. I wanted to play a game, though, not read a book, and the ratio of game to storybook is incredibly insufficient for me. ---- Legend of Dragoon was a Pretty Cool Game ---- Occasionally, though, you do actually get to play the game. There are 16 total story battles in the game. In terms of depth, I think of it as a watered-down Final Fantasy Tactics. The characters move around a grid-based 3-dimensional map, where height and elevation are major factors. Each character operates in a unique way, with different attack ranges. Each character only has two or three techniques that they can use throughout the game, and the enemies are usually stationary until you cross an invisible border, triggering them to start moving. This meant that if I let a character get to far ahead, they would often hit the trigger to be dogpiled by two or three enemies. Often the best solution was to roll through the map in a phalanx, with the tanks and close-combat units surrounding the healers and ranged attackers. When one of the characters performs and action, it is usually accompanied by a series of timing-based button presses. When performed correctly, this will lead to increased damage or more actions in the chain. This serves to make the combat more interactive. The word that comes to mind most when thinking about the SRPG aspect of this game is "serviceable". It isn't bad. It isn't great. It just sort of "is", and there's not enough of it in the story to really satisfy. ---- "Roundabout" - by Yes ---- When Mask of Deception was released, there was already a release date announced for its sequel, and it shows. This game doesn't really have and end; it merely reaches a stopping point, and the majority of the plot points being developed are so many loose threads flapping in the breeze. Out of everything in the game, this stands as the most egregious flaw to me. In order to have a full story with a conclusion, you have to buy not one, but two games. I feel that every game needs to be able to stand on its own, and this cliffhanger crap doesn't fly. ---- In Conclusion: ---- Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception bears the markings of a game that was written as an anime, and suffers for being in the wrong medium. There are things that it does very well, but save for a niche market, its flaws are too great and numerous to overcome.