Believe it or not, I'm still working on this game and just hit Chapter 8. I've been playing it more regularly now though so hopefully I can finish this one up within the next week or two. I listened to this episode and jotted some notes while listening:
*Cue Master of Puppets – I see what you did there…
The SNES is my all-time favorite console, but I don’t think I’d disagree that the PS1 possibly has a better RPG library. I feel like I’ve played almost every worthwhile RPG on the SNES, and while I feel like I’ve played quite a few on the PS1, there are still a ton that I haven’t played, and I still feel like just what I’ve played of PS1 RPGs easily rivals the SNES RPG library.
Regarding the pronunciation of ‘Gross’, I tried to lookup a video of the Japanese version of the game to see how it was written there, but I couldn’t find anything. I wonder if it could be referring to ‘gross’ in its noun form which could be a reference to the amount of puppets you can get?
noun
1. 1.
an amount equal to twelve dozen; 144.
"fifty-five gross of tins of processed milk"
2. 2.
a gross profit or income.
"the box-office grosses mounted"
I knew you could throw the gems in battle but never tried it. I’ll have to give it a shot and see how it works out before I finish the game.
Regarding evolution, I only went out of my way to get the BW Pappet. The rest I kind of just went randomly. My first battle with the BW Pappet, I was just browsing its spells and accidentally used the screen-clearing spell and was totally caught off guard by the Final Fantasy summon animation and hitting every enemy on the map. Going forward, my strategy was to use the screen-clearing spell once at the beginning (it would rarely kill all enemies for me) and then use the rest of my units to mop up to try to evenly distribute EXP. I was really glad to have a spell like this though just to get through battles quicker.
I totally agree with Rich’s thoughts about moving and attacking being two separate actions and not being able to cancel a movement. I didn’t have much of an issue with it in this game due to how easy it is, but I had a huge problem with it when replaying Final Fantasy Tactics recently. I really prefer not being locked into my movement and being able to back out of it.
Yeah, there were definitely multiple save slots available. I’ve been keeping about 2 or 3 running saves just in case. It can be easy to save yourself into a corner in some of these games. If you guys ever play Final Fantasy Tactics, absolutely keep multiple saves. You’ll thank me later
I didn’t know that there was a shop back at the Goondocks, so I’ll have to check that out. I found the layout of the town confusing for some reason, but fortunately there is the option to just fast travel to any location in the town, so I just always use that.
Ha! Funny you should mention possibly doing a guitar cover of the intro music. I’ve had it on my mind but haven’t really looked into it yet.
As for my overall thoughts, I don’t think this is necessarily a bad game, but it feels unfinished in many ways. Enemy AI seemed kind of dumb since there were plenty of times when enemies would do nonsensical actions, like strolling up right next to one of my units without attacking them leaving themselves wide open to an attack. Progression through the game also seemed rushed. Typically there would be a cutscene at the beginning and end of each chapter with several inconsequential copy/paste battles in between. Some chapters didn’t even have ‘boss’ fights at the end, just another battle against random enemies. There were also very few locations and some of them were even reused in later chapters. It just kind of felt like there wasn’t a lot of game here so they just padded it with a lot of low stakes battles to drag it out longer. There are some interesting ideas here and I think the potential was there for a great game, it just all feels kind of half-baked. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the game's development was rushed.
But at the end of the day, I more or less agree with you guys. It’s not great, but it’s far from the worst game I’ve ever played. It has a certain charm to it that’s easy to latch on to, and it's fun playing around with all the different puppet options even if it is kind of unbalanced and broken, although honestly most RPGs that offer a fair amount of customization and flexibility are breakable if you really know what you're doing. Probably not something I would recommend to most people since I would likely suggest something like Shining Force or Vandal Hearts over this game, and it's probably not something I'll ever play again, but overall I've been enjoying my time with it.
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