Gadget Reign (デバイスレイン), launched 2/25/1999, developed by Starlight Marry, printed by MediaWorks
Second SRPG of 1999 is the final one launched for the Saturn. By this time I feel it was clear that the Ps had overwhelmed the Saturn, and Sega had already moved on to the Dreamcast which had been launched in late 1998. From what I can see the 2 variations of this recreation are precisely the identical so I performed the Ps one.
The opening is a brief film that exhibits researchers escaping from some type of lab with invaluable issues. What’s going on right here is defined pretty quickly — the lady is Utsugi Riko, who’s working at DICE industries underneath Hellman Reinhart, who was researching “Augments”. He was killed suspiciously in a automobile accident, and Riko realized that Reinhart had refused to develop the Augments into weapons, and now DICE was going to take his analysis and go in that path. Riko and her staff get as lots of the Augments and related assets and escape, scattering themselves to keep away from detection.
Riko was requested by Hellman to seek out and defend his half-Japanese daughter, Kasumi. For an unknown motive DICE can be after her to proceed their analysis.
Kasumi is a highschool scholar, who usually spends time along with her pals Seishiro, and the primary character Touya (who doesn’t have a voice actor — the opposite characters are all voiced by fairly well-known folks). After bumming round for some time, in entrance of Kasumi’s home they see a wierd zombie-like creature.
Riko seems, telling them this can be a “dissonant.” She vanishes and when she reappears, the Dissonant is gone. They go into Kasumi’s home so Riko can clarify the state of affairs.
The “Augments” that Kasumi’s dad developed are based mostly on the ability of concepts — basically if sufficient folks have a sure thought or thought about an object, the ability of these ideas/concepts could be harnessed as vitality. The augments are type from “Opus”, created by copying these objects — the primary Opus turns into the “core mind” after which there are 8 surrounding Opus that add extra powers. As an example, Riko’s “Heaven’s Key” increase is a duplicate of the important thing that Jesus gave Peter to indicate his management position within the church. It’s not clear to me whether or not the sport is actually saying that this key exists within the vatican vault, or whether or not the truth that there’s some object folks *imagine* to be that key is sufficient to give it the ability.
Whereas they’re speaking, the home is surrounded by Dissonants together with one in all Cube’s augument customers, Kiryuu. To be able to defend Kasumi, Seishiro and Touya have to simply accept two of Riko’s augments, completely binding to them.
The fights are accomplished in one thing referred to as “SC area”, which stands for Schrodinger’s Cat area — the reason is type of technobabble, however the impact is that the fights all happen on this separate dimensional area. What would usually be HP are a price that represents your potential to remain acutely aware within the area. What makes Kasumi particular is that she will additionally exist in that area, at the very least by way of perceiving what occurs (though she has no bodily presence).
Earlier than the primary struggle we are able to take a look at the system. It’s surprisingly opaque; as I kind this I’m on the finish of chapter 6 out of 10 and I nonetheless don’t actually perceive the way it works. The issue is that they’re making an attempt for an advanced system however they’re nonetheless slowed down within the previous thought which you could’t actually give the participant all the knowledge they want however that they’re imagined to discover and work out the sport for themselves. I can recognize that on the one hand, however there are such a lot of game-specific phrases (as you may see within the above: BT-SP, Dis, Res, RR, SCE, ABT, and many others.), and I really feel like I by no means have any thought of whether or not a transfer will do 2 or 20 harm as a result of it appears to rely upon not solely these stats but additionally elemental affinities of each the enemies and gamers, and the knowledge both shouldn’t be out there or shouldn’t be simple to see. That is nonetheless effectively earlier than the interval of SRPGs the place they lastly understand that it’s fantastic to point out the participant a harm prediction earlier than the assault, regardless that some video games are already doing that.
Anyway, the concept is that you’ve got the 9 slots in your increase. The center one is the core Opus that may’t be modified. The opposite slots you may put Opus in and it’ll create skills relying on the colours of the gems in every line (vertical and horizontal). You possibly can have as much as 6 skills though sure combos of Opus won’t end in something. The skills embrace ones that simply up your stats, therapeutic, buff, debuff, and harm.
The SCE is the ability and ABT is the wait time after the transfer. It’s also possible to see the vary and space of impact, and what it does, though the descriptions could be imprecise. Every opus has a PEC worth which represents the rarity of the Opus. These have an effect on the ability of the power (though indirectly, it has to do with the “rank” of the opus). It additionally has to do with the opposite factor you are able to do with the Opus — “absort”, which is the way in which you stage up. There’s no XP or gadgets or gear of any variety, the whole lot is finished with the Opus. You possibly can put them in your Increase for the talents, or “absort” them to stage up the Increase.
There are two forms of enemies you struggle. The Dissonant are basically synthetic creatures created from core Opus, when you beat them you may get the Opus they have been created from. The opposite enemies are enemy Increase customers.
The battles work on a time-based system; everybody’s BT goes down regularly and after they hit 0 the character can act. It’s in real-time so you want to be fast to get to the character you need to transfer or the enemies might go first. I feel they did this as a result of the CE (magic factors) recuperate regularly, so you could not need to take a personality’s flip on the first alternative. But it surely will get annoying when you find yourself hitting R and L to attempt to choose a personality who simply grew to become eligible, and proper if you hit the circle button to do the flip an enemy preempts you.
You possibly can transfer, after which do one of many 6 doable actions, change Opus, or wait. As I stated, you don’t get any details about what your assault is definitely going to do.
The sport is split into 10 chapters (referred to as “processes”).
1st course of mainly simply introduces the setting and early characters, and has one battle in opposition to Kiryuu, one of many DICE increase customers. It’s not very onerous.
Beginning in 2nd course of you may journey round Tokyo to numerous locations.
Among the locations you go, you may struggle free battles to achieve extra Opus. Typically it’s clear the place you’re imagined to go subsequent, however generally it’s not, and you then simply wander round getting yelled at for losing time.
Within the 2nd course of, a wierd priest referred to as Bishop joins; he bought his increase somewhat randomly. There’s one other particular person referred to as Joker who additionally has an increase however he’s somewhat sensitive and doesn’t actually be part of the group. On the enemy facet, there’s a mummy-like determine named Utsuro and an murderer referred to as Mibu, however we don’t be taught rather more about what’s happening.
Within the third course of we go right into a hospital that could be a entrance for DICE, and defeat Mibu. A brand new pseudo-ally joins referred to as Saeki, she has totally different coloured eyes and is out for vengeance in opposition to Utsuro and somebody referred to as J.B. who apparently works for DICE.
Afterwards, Kasumi is ready to use her particular SC-space powers to heal Mibu’s daughter, who had some type of unusual psychological sickness. This makes Mibu later be part of us.
Within the 4th course of, Touya and Seishiro’s informal angle in the direction of the whole lot happening outcomes finally in Kasumi getting kidnapped by DICE.
fifth course of we proceed on the assault in opposition to DICE. We find out about two factions inside DICE that each appear to have their very own objectives nevertheless it’s nonetheless not clear solely what these are (and particularly how Kasumi matches into it). Sadly we don’t discover Kasumi.
sixth course of reveals the rift between the elements, as J.B. tries to kill one of many different DICE members and takes Kasumi from him.
There’s extra to the story than this, particularly with some facet characters (highschool pals of the MCs and such) however that’s the primary define. The vast majority of the dialogue is voiced, which is a pleasant contact.
I feel that if the interface have been a bit friendlier this could be a greater recreation, nevertheless it’s actually not dangerous. There’s a library with all of the Opus and their backgrounds; gathering all of the Opuses is considerably tough (you must do some elective issues in addition to defeat some enemies which are sturdy however wouldn’t have to be defeated to win the battles).
