Monday, June 22, 2015

Stella Glow and 4 things I never want to see in JRPGs again


So I finally finished Stella Glow on the 3DS. It was on OK mid budget strategy RPG. The best way to describe is FF Tactics meets harem visual novel. I loved the FF tactics parts with all the special moves and different characters. The visual novel bit was not fun with our boring nice protagonist who is the 'conductor' having to 'tune' all the witches which basically means he is the psychologist for all these loli characters with emotional problems.

The kanji says 'tuning begins'. I'm pretty sure everyone knows that its an euphemism for.

This just reminds me of Sen no Kiseki with how a potentially good Madoka-esque story is ruined by having too many anime tropes that. So, the following are things I never want to see in JRPGs again.

1) Mysterious little girl with no memory is taken in by heroes and and sleeps in main character's bed so lolicon fans can fulfill their papa fantasy with their harem girl

We've seen this is Zero no Kiseki and SAO. Shouldn't your first priority be contacting child services or putting the child in an orphanage?

2) Character takes so freaking long to die so that they can thank each and every character. 

FFS, do they no longer know how to do a good death in RPGs/anime? Less is more. See Legend of Galactic Heroes. What type of stupid audience falls for a super dragged out death scene anyway? I was so afraid that the dying character(s) would not actually die.


3) Stereotypical harem storyline takes precedent over saving the world.

The story of Stella Glow is supposed to be about saying the world but most of the story is about the hero saying stuff like you are my friend/comrade and you will never be alone multiple times and in so many ways. Not enough of the dialogue is on battles and casualties of war.

I'm not opposed to harem aka multiple endings depending on the girl. I am opposed to stereotypical harem characters with stereotypical dialogue which sound like its written by the same person that writes every goddamn harem anime based on a light novel.

The girls are only as paper thin as their typical issue and after that is solved there have nothing to do in the storyline besides eat cakes and go to onsen.

4) Having stupidly long debates with the baddie in the middle of battle with every character having their say.

What ever happened to you want to destroy the world and we're going to kick your ass you m'fer?

SUMMARY

If you love SAO and harem anime in general, this game is made for you. If you like FF Tactics style games, its still fun to play through and Imageepoch really put a lot of effort into it. Can't believe I have to play through the game again to get the real ending. Gggrrr.


LANGRISSER RE:INCARNATION

Its only a month until release and Masaya not even shown a second of how the troop animations actually look like. They've shown how the battlefield map and lots of artwork but no footage of actual troops. This does not bode well.


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