Shin Ankoku: Day 2

I'm up to Chapter 7 now, and the in-game clock says 5:35.16. This means I average 2:47.38 per day, unless my math sucks. I'll make a numbered list of things I want to mention, since it eliminates some of the need for a "flow" to the ramble. Go go laziness:

1. I still haven't had any losses, but that's probably to be expected on something like Normal. I actually came really close to losing Oguma in Chapter 6, because of stupidity on my part. You see, Thieves are running around swiping all the goodies, and I wanted to stop them before they escaped (which I did).

Crap hit the fan when I got into a position where it seemed best to just charge in and kill as many of the enemies as possible before ending my turn. If I remember correctly, there were 8 enemies in the area: 1 Priest, 1 Thief, 2 Armor Knights, 2 Social Knights, and 2 Archers. Seems fairly tame for now, but I should mention that one of the Social Knights had a freaking Silver Lance...and I didn't see that coming at all.

Before ending my turn, I think I cleared out both Armor Knights and an Archer. I kind of figured Oguma was going to get roasted from focus fire, but then I saw the Silver Lance on the last guy during the battle animation, and that was obviously O_O. Luckily for me, he survived that turn with 1 HP left, and I went on to complete the chapter with some ease (though the boss was a bit of a pain).

2. A correction to what I said about animations before: Social Knights will double smoothly if equipped with a sword. Apparently, they forgot how Seisen/Thracia handled animations, which is a shame.

3. I passed by an arena in Chapter 4, but didn't actually use it in the real save (though I think I entered and left, after checking the music). The track when entering the arena and before you make a wager is a version of Seima's "Follow Me!", which is one of the many great songs on that soundtrack. Sadly, this version is very short.

Later on, I loaded my old Chapter 4 save to hear the arena battle track. I actually had to do this more than once, so that I could check the "arena win" track as well. The battle track is taken from Thracia 776, but I can't remember which one it is exactly. This version wasn't really a standout, and I've only heard it a few times, so that explains why I can't remember it that well.

[Edit]: I'm a moron. Vincent's site says that the arena battle track is from Souen. How did I screw that one up? O_o

All you get for winning is a little fanfare and some clapping. How stupidly dull.

4. Speaking of the arena, the dude asks if you want to continue on to the next battle after winning. While this would be neat for people who want to use the arena and keep a low turn count, it just doesn't seem logical. Last time I checked, your unit usually gets the crap kicked out of them after one round, and there is no auto-heal (I checked). Had to turn the game off before Oguma died, of course. That doesn't render my "no losses" comment invalid though, if you ask me.

5. Wendel now looks like the Pope. Seriously, go look at his in-game art and tell me he doesn't have that look to him.

6. Battle models do not sag at low HP or kneel when they die. Both of these were added to Megami, so to take a step backward like this seems stupid. "Oh, I'm dead. *Poof*" Over and over.

7. The Rescue command (and thus Give/Take) was removed. This is majorly stupid. Anybody who says otherwise is a moron, or just hasn't felt the joy of a well planned Rescue train.

On a similar note, I really wish Thracian style Rescue/Give/Take/Trade would return to the series. That opened up a lot of possibilities for awesome strategies and general fun.

8. The player character art continues to reek of cloning and fugly. I suppose Paola, Katua, and Est are supposed to look alike (sisters, I think), but why do they look like people on my team already? Why should they bear any resemblance to MALES on my team? Why does this art suck so much?

Oh wait, it's Masamune Shirow. Now I get it.

9. The enemy character art, on the other hand, isn't half bad. I remember the Chapter 3 boss looking pretty freaking cool (quite an evil looking dude), and I appreciate the updated versions of the Monshou (not sure about Ankoku) boss portraits. Those updates stay close enough to the originals to cause a grin, but also improve them a bit at the same time. Good job there.

10. The boss battle track is great. It easily makes you think of Monshou's version, but they improved this version by putting some fairly heavy guitars in there. It's a shame you don't hear it much though.

11. The Warp staff still functions like the Ankoku/Monshou/Thracia versions, so we can all agree that is a HECK YES.

12. Class swapping is weird. I have yet to actually change someone's class in my real playthrough (did this while testing the arena though), and I'm not quite sure if I will. Some people do seem better suited to a different class, but it doesn't "feel very Fire Emblem" to me. I imagine it adds some points to the replay value, but I think they are taking a step in the wrong direction with this feature.

It seems to me that if they keep this sort of thing going, and aren't careful about it, the series could be going the way of Langrisser.

For the uninformed, the basic idea (and my opinion) is that Der Langrisser (remake of Langrisser II) is the best game in the series. After this, they kept changing key elements in the gameplay, and the later games never regained the pure awesome of the tried-and-true tile-based/turn-based (I-talk-like-Grobyc!) system of Der Langrisser.

Call me paranoid if you wish, but this is just the feeling I get. The trend of pathetic difficulty and this save point/Battle Save nonsense doesn't exactly ease this suspicion either. I'll let height advantage (Megami) slide, because that was a logical and cool addition.

13. When looking at my class swap options, I can't help but think of the speed run possibilities there. The Rescue command may be gone, but the idea of having Jeigan (yes, I know he sucks) as a Dragon Knight or Swordmaster? Surely I can't be the only one seeing a gold mine in there somewhere.