Has anyone played this game? It's a JRPG-style game, a one-shot by Valkyrie Studios. They closed doors after releasing this title. I think they were trying to scratch the RPG itch before FFVII came out on PC. I noticed I still have it installed on my old computer.
It is pretty strange. There's no music, and the battles are glacially slow, but there's some nice backgrounds and really offbeat atmosphere. You can play the whole game with the mouse and sometimes there are dialogue/choice trees. You can interact with pretty much every object like a point and click adventure, and Maya will run wherever you click. Character designs are awful. That's some pretty bad 90s CG...
I hear it's 80 hours long, and it runs on 64-bit Windows 7. That's something. Looks like it's on GOG, but a CD on ebay will be much cheaper. I must have the CD somewhere. Obscure gem, or forgotten for a reason? At the very least it's a unique experiment.
noiseredux wrote:Playing on your GBA/PSP you can be watching a movie/TV show/playing another RPG on your TV and then just look at the screen every once in a while
I have the disc from way back, though I don't recall if I've ever actually tried playing it. It actually came out well after FFVII on the PC, though (slightly) before VIII hit that platform.
The game does have a score (by Martin O'Donnell, who also scored a lot of Bungie games, including the Halo series). I think it's just a lot more of an "occasionally there's music" thing rather than continual background music.
Your post did make me wonder though, so I grabbed the CD and found that it does need a little coaxing to get to run on newer Windows versions. The installer doesn't seem to work, but you can just copy the whole CD over to a directory and create the registry entries manually. Between that and the other little patches that the game needs, GoG might be the easier option.
The game actually reviewed decently when it was released, but always a good-not-great angle I think. Like you said, the CGI did not age well.
Had it in the double pack with Shogo myself. I never played a whole lot but the setting seemed pretty cool, definitely banking on FFVII's atmosphere and all.
But yeah that said, looking back on videos for it and everything... I mean I never shy from old stuff, but this one looks like it might not have aged very well. The combat just looks really slow.
I lost my savegame and never bothered to re-start the game. Well for one thing its voice-acting was bearable, which couldn't be said for most games of its ilk.
I beat this game few years ago when I was in high school. Yea, all the work you have to go through to beat the game just to see the ending video...........worth the effort for me (might not be for other).
The only thing I can say is they is a lot of problem when trying to install onto Win 7. I heard they is couple of patch that fix the issue but you need to double check on that. If you have the chance, try to install this on XP as they were fewer issue I have when playing it. Only thing you need to patch is this bug in the game around the middle part of the game. Won't say where but if you get there, you won't able to go next screen and get stuck. Patch that to fix it or just cheat in that situation to bypass it.
Beware, the battles dragged on in the most excruciating way with the enemies spamming weak attack that had overly long animations. If you can handle this, the game is fine. Might not be for everyone I have to say.
johnblade wrote:Beware, the battles dragged on in the most excruciating way with the enemies spamming weak attack that had overly long animations. If you can handle this, the game is fine. Might not be for everyone I have to say.
Yeah, that's what I've experienced in my playthrough. Everything takes so damn long because all the animations take ages. Even though FFVII was derided for the overly long summon animations the spells, regular attacks, and limits were all pretty snappy.
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johnblade wrote:Beware, the battles dragged on in the most excruciating way with the enemies spamming weak attack that had overly long animations. If you can handle this, the game is fine. Might not be for everyone I have to say.
Yeah, that's what I've experienced in my playthrough. Everything takes so damn long because all the animations take ages. Even though FFVII was derided for the overly long summon animations the spells, regular attacks, and limits were all pretty snappy.
Yea, this become a real bitch when you go to area where it's some kind of a maze like and you need to find a place to get out from the location. Believe me, those area are the worst as it just dragged on forever to the point you want to quit. The only recommend from this is to play it in short burst or use a walk through for this area of the game. Yea, it take away some of the fun of the game but believe me, it reduce the amount of time in that area quite a bit as you just need to know where you have to go not just walking around in circle. Also, this is needed if you want to get the side quest in the game. You don't have to do it but it's worth it if you're fighting the final boss in the game.
Haven't played it, but I've had my eye on it for some time. I've always been interested in Western "JRPGs" (Black Sigil, Secret of Evermore, Anachronox, Sudeki, MagiNation, Aveyond, Eternal Eden, etc).
Seems to be a pretty cheap game so I may give it a go.
