Niahak's Place

Wild Arms 5 is still good. Just so you know. Unfortunately, it’s dragging on a bit – right now I’m supposed to destroy some four floozabads or some such, naturally along the path to saving the world from someone who started with a noble goal and descended down the path of evil, thereby proving that children are our future as long as they never give up.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the challenge of the battle system, I like the badge system, and I even like most aspects of the translation. But there’s very little that can save the vile cliche-filled main storyline of this game. Rebecca, Greg and Chuck are all good characters (which puts this game at 1-good-character better than FFXII, IMO) with some interesting sub-plots, and one of the evil characters is pretty cool, but there’s nothing new in the main plot.I especially liked the following exchange:

Character: You can do anything if you don’t give up!

Insert rather difficult boss fight here

Boss: No! I won’t let you defeat me! I can’t give up!

Character: Give it up already! You’ve lost!

Boss: Oh, well, okay then. I’ve lost. What now?

(Character explains to Boss why Boss should not give up in another aspect of life)

Boss: Oh, how about that? Maybe you’re right. You’ve convinced me. Move along, then.

I didn’t play WA5 much this weekend, though, as I was working on another project. The “What Really Happened” hack for Destiny of an Emperor, which made (among others) the fictional characters Song Yong, Song Ren, and Huo Hu level up (while the normal heroes of the story do not), spawned James‘ Destiny of an Emperor: Huo Hu’s Adventure, a complete facelift for DOAE which adds difficulty and a few in-jokes. In an effort to support future modding (and to advance my own knowledge of hacking & programming), I am creating Destiny of an Editor, a simple interface for modifying all officers in DOAE. I hope to have that done later this week and it will probably find a home somewhere on this site.

After WA5, I’m not sure what I’m going to play. I have heard suggestions to the effect that Skies of Arcadia and the Gamecube Fire Emblem are both excellent, but a couple months ago I got a copy of Azure Dreams (finally, one of my own!) and it calls to me now. I will probably beat my head against that for about a week. No, seriously. Every time I play that game I get to about the 15th floor and get bored, because the game gets really grindy. I love it otherwise, but that’s a huge problem.