Puppet Princess of Marl Kingdom (マール王国の人形姫), launched 12/17/1998, developed and printed by Nippon Ichi Software program
This sport is (I imagine) the second RPG made by Nippon Ichi, after Angel Blade which I coated earlier. I’m unsure precisely when N1’s video games started to realize steam, however simply taking a look at their releases I really feel like this will need to have been their first hit sport. It was adopted by two sequels (in 1999 and 2000) and a Marl puzzle sport. This primary sport was localized as “Rhapsody: A Musical Journey” however not one of the different video games have been.
This sport is usually categorised as a tactical/technique RPG however for me it doesn’t qualify. It’s principally a regular RPG however the battles are on a small grid — the grid itself introduces solely a small quantity of added technique. I nonetheless needed to play the sport as a result of it appeared attention-grabbing and it has a connection to La Pucelle Ways, however somewhat than wait till the tip of 1998 I figured I’d simply play it now.
The principle character is Cornet, a lady who can play the trumpet — not simply to earn cash, however to transform sure “puppets” into social gathering members. She is accompanied by the fairy Kururu, who’s essential to the story however (I feel?) doesn’t do something in battle.
The story is fairly fundamental and centered extra on cute issues and (vocal) songs than something deep. Cornet needs to marry a prince, however when the evil Marjoly kidnaps the prince she has to trace down 5 “hearts” of varied parts after which save the prince from Marjoly’s botched spell that turned him to stone. Compared to Angel Blade, I feel it is a huge step forwards to the extra irreverent, developed humor that you simply see in Disgaea in comparison with the cookie-cutter boringness of the sooner sport.
The graphics are fairly good — as I’ve stated earlier than, I a lot want this type of artwork to the (typically unhappy) makes an attempt at 3D polygon artwork that video games within the PS1/Saturn period tried to do.
You may also gather numerous illustrations all through the sport — the maps by StarFighters76 on GameFAQs should not have the illustrations (the chests are simply regular objects as a substitute). Have been they faraway from the DS model of the sport or one other re-release?
Your social gathering is made up of Marl and three different characters out of your pool. These encompass the puppets (16 of them in whole) and monsters that may supply to hitch your group. The principle distinction with the monsters is that in the event that they attain 0 hp they’re completely useless. Additionally, each character joins at stage 1 it doesn’t matter what, and characters not in your lively social gathering earn 0 xp. This makes the monsters successfully ineffective, and a lot of the puppets aren’t very worthwhile both because you’re higher off specializing in a small group.
Every puppet (or group of puppets) has a sidequest related to it, though finishing it doesn’t appear to grant any rewards. A number of the sidequests are annoying too (requiring stage 30 characters, which my guys didn’t even attain by the tip of the sport).
The dungeons are largely executed by a sequence of “rooms” linked by entrances, so it’s helpful to have (or make) maps.
The world map is only a “choose a spot” selection.
The battles are random, and executed on a grid. Every character has assault and particular strikes, and Cornet can use “live performance” to spice up assault energy, and the musical employees within the high proper will construct up till she will use “rewards” that do further injury. Total the sport is pretty straightforward, with just one or two bosses that require greater than a really fundamental technique.
One huge disadvantage of the sport is that it’s typically tough to know what you might be presupposed to do subsequent. The center a part of the sport is considerably non linear, and the set off occasions typically contain speaking to a random particular person in a city that now has a brand new line of dialogue to open up one thing else.
On the entire I had enjoyable with this sport regardless of the failings. From what I perceive, the second and third video games deserted the grid-based system in favor of a standard RPG, and the DS remake did this as effectively (plus a complete bunch of different adjustments).
The subsequent few weeks ought to be SRPG sport posts as I attempt to get by the very lengthy 1998.
