Tsugunai

Video Game Archaeology 3: Tsugunai: Atonement

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Tsugunai: Atonement is probably one of newest games that will be covered here on Video Game Archaeology. The goal here is to explore forgotten, old games and Tsugunai only barely qualifies as old. Ten years was my intended cut off point and Tsugunai is not quite there. However, Tsugunai meets the other criteria, that the game be forgotten or at least not well known, no question. Even though it is only from the last console generation, Tsugunai: Atonement seems to have been well and truly forgotten.
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The Quest 5: The Final Frontier

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I was not sure that I was doing an update of The Quest this week, as I had made little progress, but two nights ago, I became so fed up with backtracking in Castlevania that I disgustedly put it back on the shelf. Ten minutes later Growlanser III joined, though for no specific reason, I just didn’t feel like playing it anymore right now. That left two slots for me to add games to my immediate playing schedule.

The first I added was Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Fresh off seeing the fantastic Thor movie (review coming) I was hankering for some superhero smashing. Unfortunately, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance has now been added to the distressing list of games my PS2 just will not play. While this is disappointing, it is not as bad as some others are because my brother has the game for the PS3. I can just play it on that system later. So Marvel: Ultimate Alliance has been removed from the list.

I’ve also pulled Killer 7 and Star Ocean 3 from the shelf. I have not played Killer 7 enough to even begin to form an opinion on it, but so for I have enjoyed most of the other games from Grasshopper Manufacture and Suda 51, so I have high hopes. As for Star Ocean 3, I have played nearly halfway through that game over the last 4 or 5 years, but I have yet to really get the battle system. It looks like the Tales games, but it plays differently and it has just not clicked for me yet. I have managed to make it as far as I have on sheer determination and because I’m not stupid. If the rest of the game was more worth my time, I probably spent enough time to figure the game out, but the story is somewhat terrible and I hate the crafting. One more chance is all it gets.

I am still playing Tsugunai: Atonement. I have finally figured out how to enjoy that game. A couple times a week I play one of the games “missions.” Even if I am still enjoying playing at that point, I shut the game off. Tsugunai grates quickly, but has enough good ideas to be enjoyable in small chunks. It does mean that beating it will probably be a long time coming.

From now on, I will only update on mission to finish with all my Ps2 games if I have something to cross of the list, as I did this week with M:UA.

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The Quest 4: The Quest for Peace

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I beat no games this week. I made progress on three, but there is not crossing something off the list this week. Tsugunai continues to be tolerable, but after 15 of the 34 quests, I feel I’ve seen just about everything this game has to offer. While the basics of the battle system is good, the fact that you never control more than one character makes it too simple. Growlanser III compliments it’s fun battle system by going out of its way to drain the fun out of it. When it shines through the crap it is great, but there is too much crap. Too much anime bullshit, Too much uneven difficulty and too much ridiculous battle restrictions.

I also started Casltevania: Lament of Innocence. It is the 2D handheld games perfectly transitioned to 3D. Unfortunately, as much as I like those Castlevania games, this is not a good thing. Since the castle is segmented, the fun of exploring it is curtailed. And 3D space makes the backtracking and constant combat a tedious chore. Still, the game is marginally enjoyable. The mediocre reviews it got on release were accurate. My current map completion percentage is about 55%, so I should definitely finish it up by next week.

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The Quest: Part the Third

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Another week, another game crossed off my list. Gungrave is beaten. Tsugunai: Atonement still is not, but I did make some progress. I also started playing Growlanser III again. All in all a productive week.

Gungrave is astoundingly short. Given what it is that is not surprising, but it does not change the fact that this game is not long at all. I am not overstating this; I beat the game in less than 3 hours. Gungrave is a shmup by way of the 3D action game. The graphics are rough, the story is barely intelligible (I assume it relies on knowledge of the anime/manga/whatever) but the game is actually fun. It occasionally puts the player in that perfect, zen-like shooter trance, where the controller is forgotten and the player simply reacts. Honestly, though, I would have been upset with the length if I had paid more than 6 bucks on this game.

Tsugunai’s blandness has kept me from making much more progress. If my opinion does not change by next week, the game is getting kicked to the bottom of the list, or even off it.

I also broke out Growlanser Generations back out. GG is Working Designs last release, a compilation of Growlanser II and Growlanser III. I’ve already beaten II and I liked it a lot. I played about halfway through III before I got bored or distracted by something else. Since starting it again, I’ve noticed 2 things. The first is how great the battle system is. It is like a real time Final Fantasy Tactics. More could have been done to improve it from II, all that appears to be changed is a significant bump up in the difficulty, but it is still very good. The second thing is how very anime this game is. That is something that may have appealed to me 5 or 6 years ago, but now it is somewhat off putting.

Next week: more Tsugunai and Growlanser, plus I plan to start Castlevania: Lament of Innocence. In addition, Eve of Extinction, which was found not purchased, is again lost. It has been replaced on the list with the newly purchased Yakuza 2. Which does not play in my PS2, but I am determined to play it.

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The Quest 2

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In the first week of my concentrated effort to clear out my PS2 backlog I have made some good progress. I started the week playing two games: Activision and Neversoft’s Gun and Tsugunai: Atonement developed by Cattle Call and published by Atlus. So far, I would say I enjoyed both of them to at least some degree.

I beat Gun. It is a competently made GTA-clone with an–at the time at least–unique setting, but it definitely has its flaws. For one, its game world is very small. There is a decent variety of missions, but there just aren’t very many of them. There is a variety of locales, but they are all really small. Even with how small they are, they are still sparsely populated. Gun manages to feel both cramped and empty. That doesn’t ruin the game, though. It just leaves the player wishing there were more, and that is not the worst thing to say about a game.

I just really wish they had done a better job with the story. Gun’s story is just a slap-dash collection of western clichés that does a decent job developing the protagonist but leaves everyone else simple caricatures (the gold-hearted hooker, the corrupt mayor, etc.). I would like to see how it stacks up against the recent Red Dead Redemption. Gun is a good, but nowhere near great game.

Tsugunai: Atonement I did not beat. I haven’t quite played quite enough of it to form a full opinion on it; the game is structured into 34 missions and I’ve cleared 9 of them. So far, the game is long on ideas and short on execution. I really like the premise: the main characters spirit has been separated from his body and he must possess people to help them solve their problems. Someone could make a great game around this idea, but Tsugunai does not appear to be that game. The most obvious flaw is in how the game looks. Not only are the graphics bland, which they very much are, but also the screen is very dark. This is not a problem with my TV; I can see every other game just fine. However, Tsugunai is often so dark you cannot even see how bland the graphics are. On the plus side, the soundtrack is by Yasunori Mitsuda at his Chrono Crossiest.

So next week I’m going to continue hacking away at Tsugunai and start up Gungrave. I’ve been told Gungrave is quite short, so if I finish that I may start on Castlevania: Lament of Innocence or start again on Growlanser III. 27 left.

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