Shin Ankoku: Day 9

I completed Normal mode in somewhere around 23 hours. The game sort of gets old as you get close to the end, but I had a lot of saved up Warp uses to get things over with fairly quickly at the very end.

Speaking of the end, Medeus's battle model is stupid looking. It doesn't even come close to looking as good as Monshou Book 2's version (which was awesome), but I suppose it's a small step up from Book 1. Or at least, it would be, if the 3D model used for him didn't suck so much; because of that, it becomes a contest between poor 3D and a giant yellow mole.

Also worth noting that the ending, regardless of the fact I can't understand anything that was said, looked terrible. Some short dialogue (considering it's supposed to be an ending) between various people, a picture, and then very short endings for each character. Was it too much to ask to get an ending worth watching at least once? What happened to the "perfect" ending from Monshou? That sucker was long and seemed to contain tons of information.

Anyway, now that I've checked around various areas online, I'll note some things:

1. Normal mode is the only mode with Freyr and some replacement dork named Naron. I can see that changing, simply because adding a new character for only one mode (Naron doesn't matter much) isn't a good idea.

2. The reason they aren't available is because the Prologue maps are skipped entirely in Hard mode. This means it's a good thing I chose to play Normal first! :)

3. I started a Hard level 5 save (screw the stuff in-between!) a while ago, and WOW is it hard. It's like playing Souen Maniac all over again, only with an even less capable Jeigan (heh, get it?). Keep in mind, I'm only on Chapter 2, so this statement about the difficulty could change as I get farther in the game.

That said, Chapter 1 was insane. Massive Pirate charge from the beginning + no healing items (only forts) + all of your units, with the exception of Doga, can be killed in 2 or 3 hits (Doga takes 4, if he's armed).

Honestly, I had Jeigan use a Silver Lance just to weaken some enemies, and even the Thief won't die to a single shot from that!

4. All enemies in that chapter had, I kid you not, A ranks with their weapon type. A is the maximum in this game, and the new formula says that it gives +3 attack. Most Pirates had 18 attack because of this.

5. Sure enough, the boss was also a complete psycho. Steel Axe and crazy high attack meant that only Jeigan (I think) could survive even one round with him...and not by much (22/22 -> 6 or 7/22, depending on weapon choice). Obviously, Javelins are the way to go when it comes to defeating him, but your hit rates hover around 30 - 5x% (Gordon had 5x% with a Steel Bow), so you better hope for tons of luck with that approach.

I tried that method for a while, but then the miss-fest began (the RNG of Chrono Cross followed me! NOoooOoOOOoooOoo!), so I changed it up a bit by making Jeigan counter with a Silver Lance every other turn (11 damage, 59%). Riff was unable to fix Jeigan's HP enough to do that every single turn, so this process took a while.

6. Chapter 2 is almost as bad, since you are immediately thrown into a warzone with enemies that mean business. In my second attempt at this chapter, I had to suspend because the battery light was red. I'll get back to it tomorrow though, of course.

In summary, I'd have to say this game is worth playing, but don't expect something super duper awesome (like Megami is, the first time around or so). If the difficulty stays like this or gets even harder, my opinion of the game will likely go up. That is, as long as they don't start doing any "cheap" forms of difficulty...