Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Endless Frontier

[jpublic]

Is it just me, or is Atlus getting out of hand with their whole long game name thing?

Anyway, anyone other than me pick this up?

An overview:
Actually, this is really hard to do. Let's start with the game system.

At first glance on the overworld, SRTOGS looks like a standard jRPG. You wander around the map, and get in random combats. In combat, everything looks similar, with standard turn-based gameplay. It when you actually attack that things get different. Each character has an ammount of 'Com' which basically acts like action points, which you use up attacking, using items (but not spells). However, when attacking, it becomes a sort of timing/juggling exercise, where you have to activate you next attack at just the right time so the enemy your attacking doesn't land on the ground, and perhaps break your combo. Later on, when you get a larger party, you can bring people in from your reserve to aid you.

The graphics are standard sprite-based DS fare, with some short appearances by the full-anime-rendered vision of your characters (and named enemies) at certain moments - when starting and ending combats, when using your special attacks, when calling in a reserve member. These are kind of entertaining, especially when you consider the decidedly adult nature of the game.

SRTOGS is not a kiddie game. It's JUVENILLE, but in the same way a sitcom like How I met Your Mother or a bunch of frat boys are. The characters *contantly* snipe at each other, and are generally quite mean to each other in their dialogue. Most notably, the much-noted 'busty princess' is often mocked for her naivete and her oversized assets. Much of the little animated appearances by the drawn pictures of the girls features some form of blatant sexuality, from gyrating rears to bouncing chests.

The plot appears to be mystery focussed (weird shit happening, try to figure out what the heck is going on), and comes on the greatest weakness of the plot - it really feels like you've come in at book 3 of a trilogy of novels. A lot has happened that they refer to as recent history, that has a massive effect on the game, but they mostly just throw you into it without much exposition. You have to figure things out as you go. This isn't all bad, but it can be disconcerting. Happily, there's enough going on that you get over that quickly.

All in all, SRTOGS is pretty fun. My major criticisms are twofold. First, it really feels like a series of boss fights. Practically EVERYONE you run into who merits one of those anime-drawn character pictures you end up fighting in a boss combat, and they tend to be more or less similar in strategy. Second, all the audio dialogue is in Japanese. While it's nice at the start, there's SO DAMN MUCH of it, little 2-5s sound bytes, that I get quite annoyed - I'd like to know what they're saying, thanks.

The biggest fun/challenge is the combat, since it's often quite tricky to maintain your juggle and to build a decent chain. In some of the trickier boss fights (ones where there's two named bosses) maintaining your party can be really challenging.

I personally give the game a 4/5. Its keeping my attention, much more than Suikoden did.

[jpublic]

I thought I'd ressurect this thread now that I'm done the game.

All told, I'll have to downgrade from a 4/5, to a 3/5. The game is fun, but has major faults:

1) It's talky. While snark is fun, it gets old when it's nothing but all snark, all the time.
2) There's really no challenge other than how determined you are. Any combat can be overcome via a lot of items.
3) The plot is pretty damn non-sensical.
4) The combat got boring - while the idea of it works, it gets tedious, especially in some of the longer combats.
5) Again, tons of Japanese dialogue.

Worth a playthrough? Yeah. Worth another? Nope.