黒い瞳のノア～Cielgris Fantasm～
This can be a sport I added to my SRPG listing as a result of I believed it is perhaps the identical form of “Simulation”RPG model sport because the Atelier sequence. Whereas the sport is clearly following off the success of Atelier Marie, it’s far more of an everyday RPG in an uncommon model, reasonably than a simulation with RPG components. In the end the sport is fairly clean and simple, but in addition has quite a lot of wasted potential — there was a sequel for WS or GBC deliberate but it surely was cancelled.
The sport begins with a narrative opening — Noir and her pal Destin reside within the rural village of Shamul. They’re exploring at some point after they unintentionally unseal the Darkish Lord, who turns Destin to stone however for some purpose leaves Noir alive. She is visited by the goddess Nil, who grants Noir magical powers. Noir decides to go on a journey to learn the way to save lots of Destin.
The sport has a calendar system, though the one issues that take time are travelling and resting the night time. At the start there isn’t a clear goal to the system, however ultimately Noir learns that if she doesn’t save Destin inside 3 years, he will probably be completely misplaced.
At first there’s not a lot to do besides journey round and settle for jobs from the inns.
The roles are largely of three sorts: beating a monster within the space, escorting somebody to a different city, or delivering a package deal to a different city. The roles all have deadlines. As you journey round to the completely different cities, you’ll begin seeing occasion scenes with varied characters — Bernal the adventurer, Duran the priest, and different individuals.
You additionally struggle monsters.
The system is fairly customary, every character has the yellow bar that fills up in accordance with their velocity, and when it’s their flip they act. You might have assaults and spells, in addition to defend. The large characteristic of the system is that just about any monster might be captured by Noir after which will probably be in your social gathering.
6 is the utmost social gathering measurement. You possibly can maintain as much as 64 monsters. They stage up and study spells, and after some occasions you’ll unlock a spot which you could improve the monsters with gadgets or educate them spells. It’s also possible to purchase spells for Noir. There’s no tools for anybody.
Pretty shortly you’ll study the primary aim of the sport — discover the seven sealed magics left behind by the goddess Nil, which you’ll then use to defeat the Darkish Lord. Every of the magic is in a dungeon, most of which you must discover via occasions.
The dungeons are as above; you discover them, combating each random monsters and set monsters. The set monsters, in addition to the treasure chests, go away completely when you take care of them, so you can also make a number of journeys into the dungeons. One annoyance is the stock restrict; you’ll be able to solely maintain 64 gadgets, and there are quite a lot of gadgets of unclear goal and no approach to retailer them.
As soon as Noir recovers the 7 magics, it’s time to go to the ultimate dungeon and defeat the Darkish Lord. I may need been considerably underlevelled however I managed to defeat him with my final MP as everybody however Noir and one monster had been useless.
There are eight endings to the sport. Two of them rely upon you finishing the sport in 3 years — that is fairly simple, I wasn’t utilizing a walkthrough and I completed the sport in lower than a yr and a half. Should you do that, Noir is ready to save Destin, and you’ll both select to instantly get married and finish the sport. At this level Noir and Destin go off adventuring collectively.
Should you select not to do that, you’ll be able to play the sport for an additional 3 years after which there will probably be a separate ending. I’m getting the rest of this from a walkthrough website:
The second set of endings occurs if you happen to defeat the darkish lord after 3 years however earlier than 6 years. On this case, when you have the “jewel of revival” (which I had), Destin is revived however catatonic. Should you don’t have it, Noir decides to surrender her life in change for Destin’s.
The third set of endings occurs if you happen to nonetheless haven’t defeated the Darkish Lord in 6 years. Should you don’t have the 7 goddess magics, the sport ends and also you lose. In any other case, the goddess will instantly transport you to the Darkish Lord to struggle him, and on this case he can have a second kind (Darkish Dragon). Should you lose to the Darkish Lord (first kind), the sport ends and also you lose.
Should you lose to the Darkish Dragon, Noir has to surrender her life to seal the Darkish Lord, or if she hesitates, one among her companions (with a excessive friendship ranking?) will seem and sacrifice their life. Should you defeat the Darkish Dragon, he self-destructs, killing Destin. Noir is so upset she goes on a journey.
My general response to the sport:
As regular for Gust video games, the artwork, music, and basic presentation is nice. I just like the monster recruitment system. Exploring the dungeons is enjoyable, and the battle system is quick and streamlined whereas nonetheless providing the likelihood for extra than simply mashing assault.
My major criticism is how empty the sport feels general. It’s virtually like a skeleton of a sport that by no means received absolutely carried out. Finishing the sport in 3 years requires just about no planning, making the calendar system form of pointless — I do know some individuals don’t like a calendar in any respect, but when it’s going to exist, it ought to affect the sport. I’d reasonably see a sport the place in your preliminary playthrough you’ll most likely get one of many 3-6 yr endings, after which you’ll be able to replay to be extra environment friendly to get the most effective ending.
There are quite a lot of locations to go and occasions with varied facet characters, however they don’t have a lot of a goal. The characters don’t be a part of you, offer you helpful gadgets, open up extra endings, or something like that. There’s no “additional” menu just like the Atelier video games have the place you’ll be able to view all the photographs you’ve seen throughout the sport. There are entire places (like the inside of the king’s palace) that appear to have no goal.
So this isn’t a nasty sport, but it surely’s not a very good sport both.
