April 2019 Together Retro: Monster Raising (NOT POKEMON)

[BoneSnapDeez]

Revelations is a good game.

Have you played the other "Last Bible" games, Popo? There's a slew of 'em on GB/GBC/GG/SNES. Some are fan-translated.

[MrPopo]

I have not. I picked up this one because I was filling out my GBC cart library with interesting looking games.

[pierrot]

O~h, Last Bible. My bad. Those games were made outside of Okada Kouji's purview, so I guess I'm not as surprised that it might be a little off.

[BogusMeatFactory]

Let me all introduce you to my good friends, the horrifying machinations of MAGIC PENGEL!


Shroomin


Packachu (My 3 year old daughter named this one)

Let me just say that playing this crazy first person, monster drawing arena fighter is truly a unique beast!

The game's story revolves around this kingdom that was at war with these creatures called Doodles (I still chuckle when I hear this.) The kingdom killed their king and were cursed to never be able to create Doodles in response. Flash forward into the far future and the evil kingdom is still around, but so are doodles, which people can create using these magical familiar's called Pengels, that little fairy thingy on the screenshots.

With them you draw and create monsters to fight in arena combat to get to win the championship. What colors, what body parts, the size of the parts and the thickness of the brushes determines the stats and abilities of you creations. You play as a wandering stranger who stumbles upon the home of two orphans, Taro and Zoe, whose father, Gallileo disappeared after working for the kingdom. You get to learn about their plight and help them out by participating in the Doodle Tournament in hopes to raise money and purchase their land back from the kingdom. As you progress, you get to learn a lot about the townspeople, the motivations of the kingdom and about the assistant to the kids' father, Kiba, who still works for the kingdom, but seems helpful enough. While rising through the ranks of the tournament, you are introduced to Mono, a sentient Doodle supposedly created by Galileo who came to see them to inform them that their father had passed away naturally. The group bond and the kingdom becomes aware of Mono's existence and want to hunt him down. Mono can do some fucked up shit a she sucks the life out of people in a very excruciating way, sucking the color out of them and making them go flat. It be cray. As you reach the finals, you find out that Mono turned himself in so that the kingdom would give the kids their land back and you must infiltrate the castle and find him. What you find instead is a bunch of Kiba's creations in an attempt to recreate Mono and you fight fight fight! Once you reach the top of the castle tower you find Mono being controlled by Kiba as he plans to overthrow the kingdom and start over, but still control Mono as his own personal weapon. The kids resist and Kiba straight up shoots a pre-teen girl.



As she dies, Mono goes on a rampage and sucks all the color from the world and you have to fight him. After defeating him, he is freed from his prison, kills Kiba and tries to commit suicide by jumping off the tower. The near dead Zoe saves him, he restores color to the world by sacrificing himself and the kingdom is destroyed. The two kids decide to explore the world and everyone bids them a fond farewell. Roll Credits

The combat itself is a basic rock paper scissors, with some added twists.

While the creature creation system is VERY robust, as they render and animate spot on as you intend, the combat system itself is very frustrating. The game is very much luck based as there is no rhyme or reason for your opponents moves so picking randomly and hoping to god you win out is common. You can mitigate that if you are lucky enough to hit the enemy with spells that limit what types of moves they can use, but you have to bank on the chance of winning the contest with a spell and then winning the chance that the effect takes hold.

What the game lacks though in mechanics, it makes up for greatly in presentation. The game is visually very stunning as you explore this seaside city in a first person perspective, interacting with the merchant-folk by challenging them or purchasing items and even Doodles they've created. The visuals feel very much in line with Megaman Legends art style and that is an excellent decision. The characters are very colorful and filled to the brim with personality as they shout in the city trying to get your attention. It really feels like a living breathing place.

What also is spectacular is the soundtrack. A lot of very ethnic beats and musical genres are represented and even the poppy vocal songs are crisp and cheerful. I looooooved the soundtrack.

There is post game which I haven't gotten to just yet, but I wanted to update with some images. The creatures shown have changed dramatically as I learned new parts and could draw more, but I may dedicate my time to drawing some better creations than the haphazard monstrocities shown above. But that is one game under my belt for the Together Retro!

[BoneSnapDeez]

Those are some interesting graphics!

I made a small bit of progress in DQV last night.

Bianca is back, baby!!!

[noiseredux]

I'm at the part where you use the mirror to reveal the monster queen, and then Harry leaves the party.

[Nemoide]

So I started playing "Sega Saturn de Hakken!! Tamagotchi Park" which is essentially a Tamagotchi for the Sega Saturn. You can raise multiple, you have different games to play and foods to feed them, so it is an enhancement over a plain ol' Tamagotchi device, but it is what it is. The game is in Japanese, but it's aimed at little kids so I can actually read it and it's easy enough for someone who is totally unfamiliar with the language to figure it out. It seems like a lot of fun! Plus I've heard there are hidden Sega-characters that can be unlocked.

BUT THERE'S ONE BIG DRAWBACK: the save data is larger than the internal memory of the Saturn! To get around this, the game comes boxed with a memory cartridge, but I already need to use the cartridge slot with my Action Replay to get around the region-lock! So to play the game I need to either get a Japanese Saturn, install a modchip, or just leave my Saturn on for a really long time.
Maybe if I have a free day later in the month I'll leave my Saturn on and see how much I can make my Tamagotchi grow. But sadly, the game isn't really playable otherwise. :/

Oh well, at least I have a neat Tamagotchi memory cart I can use with my American games.

[noiseredux]

aren't there carts that are memory card/import loader combos? I feel like that's what I used to use.

[Nemoide]

The Action Replay cart works as a memory backup, but games can't save/load directly to/from it, you need to go into the memory manager and copy what you want to back up. :/

[BoneSnapDeez]

I actually DIED (almost) in Dragon Quest V. Had a bomb blow up in my face. Pwned Dave and crew. Waited for the dreaded Game Over screen but NOPE, three members of the caravan hopped out to form a new party. A terrible, underequipped new party. Hobbled my way back to town; my slime was mercilessly beaten along the way. So, note to self (and noise): buy gear for those monsters you aren't using. You may need them eventually.

Married a girl.

Bianca. Duh. My childhood sweetheart. Not the blue-haired chick who still lives with her dad. I have some standards.

Just got a second boat. Oddly, I've had max gold these past several hours (99999 or whatever). It gets depleted a bit when I find a new town, but then replenished. Doesn't happen to me often in RPGs.