For the longest time I wondered about why I read Zero no Tsukaima, which might be better than its anime adaptation but is still pretty subpar in just about every aspect. Then I remembered something a friend said: “does it matter whether or not I’m actually playing a game as long as I feel like I am?”

From last season’s Baka to Test to Shokanju to this season’s Angel Beats, the game inspired premises are becoming more and more obvious. Is this just a coincidence? Does the ‘game-like’ story/setting have an appeal of its own? After all, the current generation of anime-fans are also those who grew up playing video games, especially the stylistic classic adventure-party RPGs that range from tabletop D&D (Standard RPG System for Japanese) to Final Fantasy. So I’d say there’s something special in making the viewer feel like they’re immersed in a well-paced game, especially when it not only takes less time, but also saves you from the boredom of grinding and side-questing.

But what makes a story ‘game-like’? Is it just the conceptual similarities like NPCs, recovery exams points, and leveling up? Well, it’s all that and much, much more. The game-like story shares a great deal with both the classic adventure and shounen genres, but to truly give the excitement of playing a RPG yourself, there’s a couple of bases you to cover and balance.

Role Distribution: Minami [attacker], Hideoyoshi [defender], Kouta [assassin], Yuuji [tactician]… BakaTest forged a rather balanced adventuring party to take on its adversaries. Even Angel Beats, with its less-focused ‘game-like’ premise (rather than story) theme, also divided the SSS into its combat, support, and logistic groups, with corresponding jobs in each. The point is that unlike your common adventure/shounen, the ‘game-like’ story’s main character group, or ‘core party’ as I like to say, all have distinct specialties and roles assigned to each individual: where every character in it has an important job and can’t simply substitute in for another; where building relationships to band together and use the power of teamwork isn’t just a cliched theme, but a work of art that requires as much thought provoking depth as building your Pokemon party.

Otonashi: Looks, I has Rifle Proficiency now ( ^^)b

Continuous Collection: Remember your excitement when you found that new sword with godly stats before a major boss battle? Well, the treasure chests also bestowed Saito his M-72 Bazooka, the Zero fighter, the FlaK 88 ATAA gun, not to mention his AK-47 rifle or T-34 tank in another two volumes. Weapons aren’t the limit either, as the Ala Alba party buffs up for their climatic campaign, with Negi himself taking the lead by class-upping to Dark Mageknight alongside a full assortment of new skills and spells. Whether it’s experience, levels, skills, equipment, tactics, or even new party members, the game-like story never stops collecting — keeping a steady flow of excitement to the reader/player who can’t wait to try out those new goodies. At the same time, the collection usually comes through more internally consistent mediums, in an almost expected manner, rather than being deus-ex’d out of nowhere.

Staged Challenging: What, is your quest? Defeat class A. But before we rush the final boss, we’re going to fight our way up the mid-bosses of class E, D, and B, in progressively rising difficulty. The concept of the gradually rising challenge is obvious in many adventure style stories, but it’s often the introduction of new enemies who keep rising in levels in order to keep pace with the main characters. In the game-like series, it’s always the leads power-leveling and chasing after the final boss, often for long periods of time, be it Kirishima Shouko or Fate Averruncus. Also, the game-like story makes no attempt to hide that they’re simply building levels along the way.

Keep on climbing that power levels chart, young Negi

Those are the three traits I picked out, as this is a kind of exploratory post subject for me. Not all ‘game-like’ premises or stories will contain every all three, just as the usual series might get into one of them; but its the accumulation of points from how well a series matches each of them (plus bonus points from extra tidbits like Respawning in Angel Beats) that determines the ‘game-like’ score.

A part I found amusing: these traits build atop the story to directly correlate to the three major groups of why people play games as taught by Game Design: to simulate physical achievements (continuous collection), to present social interaction (role distribution), and to provide an intellectual challenge (staged challenging).

Lastly, why read a game instead of playing one? Time and simplicity. The game-like series trades player interactivity for a faster and more streamlined presentation, delivering much of the RPG-inspired experiences directly to you instead of forcing the player to spend hours upon hours piecing it together for themselves, including the useless activities like puzzle solving that does nothing except to keep you from the enjoyable goods.

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My first impression was that this game is just outright ridiculous: premise of steam-powered transforming mechs launching from a secret base beneath a Broadway theater, stereotypical characters as flat as their cardboard cutout presentation, plenty of super-shounen tropes in the story… It’s even got weeaboo culture all over — especially when the opening scenes involve a half-Japanese half-Texan cowboy samurai featured as the main heroine… Wat? （￣～￣;）

But you know, I love not grinding, or worrying about experience distribution, or maximizing experience gain from every battle. Because in Sakura Wars V, you level up by talking and forging inter-party bonds, visual novel style; kind of like Persona social links, except better since it actually levels you up. So take all of that frustration out and add some fresh inventiveness to each battle (Valkyria Chronicles style, this is by the same dev team) and you have some real Tactical RPG gaming, like hopping between skyscraper roofs destroying artillery or an aerial battles in the New York City subway — yes really.

Besides, once you get used to the ridiculousness, the story and characters actually gets rather amusing. Even reading about cliched character backstories beats the hell out of buttonsmashing through the umpteenth dungeon with the rainbow-colored wolves or newest version of Pulsework Soldiers with two extra polygons. They also added more intrigue to the interaction choices by making them timed (yes time-out is an option), occasionally flowing in on rapid-fire (with an overall timer for entire scene), and may require spinning the D-stick. Interactive events such as the built-in “Phoenix Wright” session makes even a simple story fun to play.

Decide quickly, two timing bars here~

Overall, the gameplay itself is very polished; even its visual novel storytelling is packed with player interaction. But like I’ve said before, these game makers could really use some better script writers and character designers.

Why didn’t the Sakura Wars series come out back in 1996 with its first title? Instead of waiting until the fifth and then taking another 5 years to localize a game that came out in 2005? Stupid western aversion to dating-sim elements.

Netto first got me thinking when he reported the eroge industry to be in a state of peril, but I’ve been puting it off until this past weekend, when I (finally) finished Persona 4 and got started on my UK version of Agarest Wars. As one might guess, those two games are very much on the topic here.

Tears to Tiara Visual Novel on the PS3 (those graphics aren’t bad at all)

The boundaries between JRPGs and Visual Novels has always been blurred. After all, IGN recently identified the JRPG “talking cardboard cutout” tradition in their Top 10 Ways to Fix JRPGs, and the most recognizable image of Visual Novels has got to be that windowed screenshot of bishoujo character CGs atop a classroom background with dialogue box beneath it. Not to mention, there are Visnov producers like Alice-soft (Rance) and that branch of Leaf/Aquaplus (Tears to Tiara, Utawarerumono) who seems to specialize in importing RPG elements into their Visnovs. But combining JRPG and Visnov elements goes far deeper than just the graphics corner-cutting of presentation or the addition of a basic combat system.

IGN’s list might be overly biased in my opinion, handing out criticism against many aspects of JRPGs that fans specifically play and love the genre for. Two comebacks that reached my mind right away are: (to #7) if I wanted a full-scale world for escapism exploration, I’d go play a freaking MMO, and (to #4) Tales of Vesperia actually reminds us that we have real, live friends sitting besides us rather than relying on netfriends on the other side of the World. But they do address a number of good points, such as:

• JRPGs are filled with stupid fillers like block puzzles that have no real enjoyment value other than contributing to the number of headwalls in frustration gameplay hours.
• Overuse of cliched story concepts and archtypical character designs, many of which lack creative detailing and thus remains flat and stale throughout the game.

Would it be presumptuous of me to say that the game industry can benefit from importing some visnov concepts here? Take Shin Megami Tensei’s Persona 4 for example. With the premise of you are a high-schooler who recently moved to a backwater local town where mysterious murders have began occurring, it sounds very much like the beginning of Higurashi. But while P4’s storyline is interesting, it’s nowhere as remarkable as that of Higurashi, and the antagonists are somewhat cliche in a modern Japanese way. At the same time, its combat system is as outdated as that of Final Fantasy X. However, the flawless integration of its social link system, combined with a few hilarious school trip events stuck into the main story, shows just how much extra value and enjoyment a game stands to gain by absorbing some visual novel elements. In my opinion, the characters really are the most appealing aspect of P4, which also explains why it took me under a month to play 90% of the game and finish all social links, then three more just to grind through the last dungeons and beat that final boss.

P4’s cast on a school trip…

P4’s Social Links are pretty much a glorified way of presenting character routes. In Persona 4, the main character can initiate a social link very much the same way you trigger that first flag in dating sims. As you proceed down each social link, you learn about the character’s circumstances, their complexities and problems, and helps them solve their issues. This all sounds pretty familiar, after all it’s pretty much the same deal as most heroine arcs in visual novels. The only difference is that it’s an optional feature stuck into a fully interactive RPG game. It’s not a required feature, so you can still beat the game without reading pages upon pages of text if the action and main story is all that you’re looking for. But for those of us seeking detailed character development, it allows players to choose the routes they care about while avoiding those they don’t, and at the same time gain some bonuses that will make the gameplay easier. P4 also allows you to simultaneously go through multiple social links, so you don’t have to play through that long common route over and over again (although having multiple lovers may trigger… consequences).

The Persona series are hardly the only ones that take advantage of these elements. The Tales of series have skits and chardev-related backtracking measured in the tons. The Star Ocean series have their private actions and alternate endings. But… there’s still a lot to gain by kicking it up a notch. Yes, the eroge industry has their own faults in bland storytelling, cliched characters, and excessive use of moe appeal. But the use of detailed writing, the depiction of day to day events (amidst an epic story to save the world), the relationship branching, and the concentrated dose of humor injection scenes goes a long way in getting the game’s players in touch with their characters.

Here are a few obvious advantages:

• Detailed storytelling in the main route adds more enjoyable gameplay time without driving the user nuts with useless puzzles whose only purpose is to ‘get in the way’. The storytelling scenes of Metal Gear and Xenosaga series may be quite excessive, but they’re a lot more memorable than *that dungeon* in any Final Fantasy. Using ‘cardboard cutout’ storytelling also means that you don’t have to break cinematic budgets to insert a proper story. Not to mention that by detailing out the story, the main plot also gains more opportunities to break out of that cliche shell.
• Detailed storytelling in the side routes sculpt a far more rounded view of the characters and their world to players who are interested. In a sense it’s just like an optional sidequest, except it also contributes greatly to character and setting development, an accomplishment few sidequests can claim. This is the one advantage games can easily use but ‘novels’ can’t: optional supporting materials integrated alongside the story that contribute, but doesn’t forcefully slow down the pace. It’s an advantage they really ought to be using. One good example of this in JRPGs are the special mission chapters in Valkyria Chronicles, although they could have used a lot more of those.
• Relationships pathing grants the player more control over the story, even if it’s merely the underlying details. Western RPGs, such as anything made by Bioware (e.g. Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect) are particularly good at letting the players choose the direction they wish to proceed in and which potential love interest the main character gets together with; I don’t get what’s taking Japan, with their fame in interactive choose-your-heroine visual novels, to catch up on in most of their own RPGs.

So yes, I’m one who would definitely support some joint-projects and merging between the games and visual novel industries. The visnov people excel more in 2D graphics, detailed character interaction, and drama storyboarding, while the game developers’ skill obviously lay in presentation interface, programming, and mechanics. It would be a symbiotic relationship for them to work together: get the visnov appeal to further into the international market, while allowing the gamers to appreciate more intriguing stories and characters with better buildup and detailed development.

In an ideal world…

Valkyria’s cropped 3D character graphics in dialogue (I had trouble finding English ver. for some reason)

Of course, there are sectors of the JRPG industry that are already incorporating these aspects, be in on a large or small scale. One of the notable ‘recent’ combination between the two genres would be Records of Agarest War, which came out in Japan in 2007 but is still awaiting its Spring 2010 US release. Better known as “that soul-breeding game” to Kotaku, Agarest War is a quintessential offspring between a hardcore strategy RPG and a dating-sim. It’s the merge I’ve been hoping for, yet at the same time completely not what I wanted. Why? Because just like how sectors of the visnov industry lives off solely moe appeal, Agarest War seems to be marketing only on its sex appeal. It’s precisely how not to merge visnov elements into a video game. Okay, it has a very interesting battle system that seriously tickles my brain as far as combat positioning, the core of TRPGs, go; but at the same time it’s flooded with flaws:

• The critics aren’t kidding when they claim that the battle graphics of this game could be handled on a PS1, but I guess they’re going for that Disgea look.
• Compared to a modern visual novel, the character CGs and event CGs are rather bland, lacking in variations and any emotional portrayal. I swear there’s like only 1 pose for each.
• The dialogue is just stupid: “Don’t get too far ahead so I can protect you.” / “I don’t need your protection.” / “I want to protect you so stay close.” (facepalm). Well, I guess at least it’s not outright annoying to the point of making my ears bleed like the characters of Star Ocean 4.
• Hopefully the US release will put more money into Quality Assurance after the translations, cause currently I can’t even upgrade my daggers because they typed the blacksmithing recipe wrong, and they’re not the only case…

Basically, Agarest Wars is decent as a TRPG, it might be close enough to a dating-sim (don’t know enough about them), but calling it a visual novel would be… an insult to visual novels.

Now if only Valkyria Chronicles had more of their special report chapters with either goofy or melodramatic scenes, chained together to provide fully told subarcs for each major character, then that would have been so much better.

Whatever, at least I have Persona 3 Portable coming out this summer to hype about, where I can play the heroine this time yay~!

Since the start of the fall school semester, my friends and I have made Tales of Vesperia as our group gaming project of the season, played weekly Friday with some special event exceptions. We finally beat it last night, as part of our anime club’s finale weekend. This game has definitely made my top favorites list (not to mention Rita, dear Rita), for my experiences in it have been absolutely brilliant.

Score: 9/10

Pros (isn’t this like… almost everything?):

• Excellent cast of characters — stereotypical to start, but charming and well-developed
• Intriguing and well-paced plotline — a fetch quest evolves into a legend, full of revelations and gripping climaxes
• Smooth and exciting battle system — simple, easy to learn, yet with great customization and team-coordination benefits for the skilled player.
• Great visual presentation — Anime-style graphics that we know and love in its best.
• Good world concepts — lacking the usual duo-world, but I was just as amazed when the skies…

Cons (some to follow):

• An epilogue please? I’d like to figure out what happened after the final battle finishes. The world has changed so much, not to mention the characters themselves will finally end their grand adventure and settle down. I’d like to figure how where everyone ended up, especially what happened to Raven since they removed his…
• Karol is useless, USELESS! Not only is he a cowardly brat with an excessive sense of glory, he is positively horrid to use in combat as his attacks are slow, low reach, and he positively moves at a snail’s pace. The only real reason he’s in the party at all is to provide insight into the guilds. Outside that, his only use in my opinion is to serve as Rita’s punching bag. I think it would have been a lot better (mechanics wise) if they made Karol a ranger-type instead of Raven.
• Mini-maps in dungeons would have been helpful.
• Yuri constantly leaving the party, while essential to his character, can be a rather pain at times.
• Forced backtracking is annoying. I know the Tales of series is game truly enjoyed by hardcore gamers and that this is something standard to the merchandise, but do we really have to go back to each city we visited every sub-arc interval? ( >_>)
• There’s a sub-arc where Karol become your only character with ability to heal others — ARRRGGGHHHHH!!!

Now for Vesperia the High School edition! Coming to stores near you!

I’ll leave the rest of the normal game review business up to the respectable sites. Since I play JRPGs for the story and characters, and the Vesperia story is beyond simple spoiler-free descriptions, I’ll mostly be fangasming over the characters.

I’m also having a tremendous amount of trouble deciding which pairing to root for. Three of the overlapping ones are just too adorable together~

Comparing with Tales of the Abyss, my views of the Vesperia party is slightly split. On one hand, I liked the characters and the party interaction much better, although my anime-based views may be biased. On the other hand, Abyss probably has the best inter-connectivity between all the party members (and all the major villains too) I have ever seen in a JRPG. If there’s one game where the party truly belonged together — it was Abyss.

Characters & Shipping

Yuri Lowell: Our dear protagonist is a disillusioned former knight with a heart of gold, stylized by his beauty as a bishie and his stunning vigilantism comparable to a comic-book superhero. He may be your standard sword-wielding main character, but he wields those blades of his with the brilliant style of weapon swapper — a unique and rare style of bouncing the weapon between both hands. He’s easygoing and fun, with just the tinge of sarcasm placed at the most perfect moments. Combined with a sense of selflessness to protect not only his friends’ health but their innocence, I must claim that he is one hell of a main character. Definitely one of the cutest most awesome game protagonists around. Now if only we can get him a butler uniform…

Estelle: A naive princess who has never set foot outside the castle, Estelle’s innocence is positively adorable and makes everyone want to protect her. At the same time, she has the noble pride and sense of justice expected of a well-raised heir. Her “I read it in a book” moments run in line with that of Hermione’s (Potterverse) that we all know and love, except even better as it has none of the snobbishness. Finally, her altruistic compassion rounds up her character for a saintly personality. Troubled by the revelations and burdened by world-changing decisions throughout the game, Estelle nevertheless faces them with an admirable noble resolve, making her one heroine that one can always root and cheer for.

So adorable, so cute~

Yuri x Estelle: The canonical and main intended pairing of the game, probably. The issue is that the game never made any romantic interest between the two obvious, and most of the time Yuri simply acted as the protective older brother. Nevertheless, I like this pairing, even if it’s not quite something I’d Wai~ and Awww~ over excessively. Yuri is a great person, and would definitely be the best one to cherish and protect the adorably cute and loving Estelle, but their relationship, in my opinion, is a slow developed one, as opposed to running off pure emotions and chemistry.

Repede: Smoking (or beef-chewing) dog with remarkable intelligence and unwavering loyalty. What can I say? Repede is certainly the quintessential Man’s Best Friend.

Karol Capel: Bratty kid who’s cowardly to the extreme for most of the game yet has nothing but praises for himself. Not cute at all is the description here. I can’t stand him except when he’s serving as Rita’s punching bag. Moving on…

Rita Mordio: Serious, shy, and socially awkward, this mild tsundere mage is kind at heart but has one quick temper. Her approach could often be summed up by ‘fireball first, ask questions later’, and she certainly never hesitates to get physical. But at the same time, her care of blastia cores by personifying them, her bonding with Judith despite initial odds, and her staunch determination to make Estelle happy shows that kindness is something she lacks only in appearance. I love her character to death, not because of the normal fan adoration reasons, but because in many ways she’s a spitting image of myself. I’ve never been able to predict a character’s responses to each and every moment so well…

“So, what do you think Estelle thinks of me?”

Rita x Estelle: Rest assured Rita, as Estelle definitely thinks of you in a most favorable manner. The Ristelle pair would definitely be my favorite if it weren’t for the feeling that I’d be denying Estelle of her beloved Yuri (this line can be taken so many ways, darn it Namco!) My reasoning behind this one is, once again, related to my personification views regarding Rita. Those moments where she did everything she could to help Estelle resonated with my emotions in such a perfect way, and the scene where she asked Yuri on what Estelle thinks certainly triggered some personal memories. Darn it, it may be funny to others, but being a tsundere is not cool.

Flynn Scifo: A childhood friend to Yuri, Suzaku Flynn stuck with the Imperial Knights, seeking to change it from within when Yuri could not withstand. Although Flynn is an idealist, a real square, and a bit of a hypocrite, he never really lost faith in Yuri and never betrayed him, at least not intentionally. No, Flynn may not be a true bro, but he is definitely a true counterpart, as wherever Yuri charged, Flynn followed to handle all the official details and tedious work that our badass vigilante is too lazy to do. Someone has to do the paperwork after all, and I was impressed that he stuck up to it, blaming himself for stealing Yuri’s accomplishments, rather than falling into jealousy that Yuri was taking ‘all the good parts’.

More than just best friends~!

Yuri x Flynn : What more can I say? Flynn is totally Yuri’s official counterpart. It’s kind of like Lelouch and Suzaku, they just feels like they belong together.

Raven: His highly accentuated post combat remark of sexuality! describes the man perfectly. A veteran of the great war with a dark past, Raven chose to spend his days enjoy life to the fullest, enjoying everything from endless adventuring to women. He may be sly and sketchy, but his obviously sarcastic demeanor is hilarious.

Raven x Rita: Raven you’re hilarious and all, and this might make one amusing relationship, but I’m not sure there’s any chemis… I mean, Raven, it’s not like I like you or anything… We’ll just leave it at that. Rita’s too busy with Estelle right now.

Judith: A pointy eared elf Kritya with the blossomed maturity of a woman, Judith is a rare game character blessed with both rationality and intuition. Seemingly carefree yet decisive, impulsive but not reckless, witty with just a tinge of flirtatiousness, there simply isn’t much not to like about Judith. Well, except for the fact that her views towards her mission are a bit mindless at the beginning, but that’s quickly changed by a combination of her reasoning and Estelle’s presence.

Yuri x Judith: They’re just comrades and close-friends, moving on…

Raven x Judith: I’m much more supportive of this one. Only Yuri can take Estelle away from Rita, and while love’s not exactly in the air, I think the two would make a happy couple.

Character Mechanics

With exception to ambushes, I spent the game playing Rita, so my views of the other characters may be a little biased:

• Yuri: As expected of the main character, Yuri is a melee well-balanced between speed and power. He also comes with a positively insane number of artes and can chain combos together with extreme ease. My only complaint about Yuri’s artes is that he needs more all-around-attacks that would buy time when he’s surrounded (e.g. hundred men melee).
• Estelle: The melee tank healer. Her HP and defense scores are still about average, but her med/late game skills allow  her to receive an endless stream of healing, whether its her own spells or when she gets attacked. Playing Estelle resolves between moving in to attack and running out to heal/buff.
• Repede: Fast, really fast, with plenty of charge attacks. Coordinated use of Repede allows one to run in, interrupt and combo, then get out of reach before they even has the chance to retaliate proper. His cons lay in the fact he does poorly against air targets for most of the game, and he has trouble keeping up pressure when you don’t need to guerilla-tactic things out.
• Karol: Slow, way too slow. He may have high defense and some very useful artes, but he can never chase anything down and his attack delays (both pre and post) after absolutely horrid. Nobody I know likes playing him.
• Rita: As a pure mage whose melee abilities aren’t even useful, Rita is all about keeping your distance while preplanning/timing your spells, with the exception of Blade Roll. One thing I really like is that the basic Fireball spell keeps increasing in hits (maxes at 3500 uses), which makes it extremely useful even in late game, particularly against bosses. Chaining 9 fireballs in a row not only cause repeated flinching, but does great in opening up green fatal strikes and offer excellent chances with stun magic.
• Raven: This Ranger does everything. He has decent melee attacks, excellent range attacks, a good healing skills, a few spells for the occasion, highest HP, high defense, and good TP. His only lacking is a slightly low mobility, but still far better than Karol and its annoyance mitigated by his ranged attacks.
• Judith: An aerial combo specialist who excels at interrupting flyers and air juggling, Judith is just fun to use. Although again ground opponents she has to knock them into the air to do her stuff. Great when paired with another meleer — Yuri/Karol can send enemies up, while Judith knocks them down.

Now that I’ve finished Vesperia, I really do want to play all the other major Tales games, and not just read/watch about them.