Church of the Random Number God

One recurring annoyance I seem to notice with some kinds of games, mostly rpgs and roguelikes, is the annoying way they tend to use randomization. It is not that things are randomized that is really the problem (after all, roguelikes wouldn't be any fun if they made the dungeon layouts static, and combat should always have some small element of chance just to mix things up), mostly just the way they tend to get players stuck in loops, doing the same thing over and over for a chance at some rare thing or some event, and the fact that EVERYTHING is randomized even if there is no logic to it.

It seems that rpg/roguelike designers often put everything in the hands of the Random Number God, that fickle semi-deity that grants blessings to only the most lucky or the most boneheadedly determined of the players, and often curses just as many. How many pokemon fan has hunted for years in vain for a Shiny Pokemon? How many Nethack players have summoned hoards of water demons and ruined their sword trying to get Excalibur? How many old-school rpg players got mobbed by a billion monsters as they were desperately trying to get some place that they could heal? How much time is wasted by people killing the same type of monster over and over hoping for that rare thing it drops?

There are better ways to do these things. Why not let every few thousand encounters be a shiny? Why not have a particular place trigger the effect? Why not have enemies appear on the map? Why not enemies actually drop what they use, or have every so many encounters drop something? I like the way Dwarf Fortress pre-generates a world and it's history. Everything that exists in the game is there for a reason. The world is randomly made, but enemies all have populations and roam on their own. Things are built where they are for a reason, treasure always comes from somewhere, almost nothing is randomized in actual gameplay besides some combat rolls. It's a good example of randomness done right.

There should be no incentive to stay in the same place and do the same thing over and over. There should be no way most of the game boils down to luck. Randomization is a tool that can be used to mix things up, but it should not be the whole game.

Zettai Zero Project

One of my gifts for Christmas this year was a quirky little game from the masters of quirkyness themselves, Nippon Ichi Software. It is called Z.H.P. (Zettai Hero Project): Unlosing Ranger vs. Darkdeath Evilman. I actually found out about it from it's TVTropes article (you know, every once and a while, TVTropes will actually be useful). And it's another roguelike. At this point I think roguelikes deserve thier own label already.

Z.H.P. is a rather mixed bag to be honest. The story is rather standard for Nippon Ichi, with quirky characters doing silly funny things, and ultimately not really that well written. My biggest complaints about the gameplay are that there is only 4 directional movement while most roguelikes have 8 directional movement (which really adds a lot more stratagy then you may think), and there is no item identification gimmick at all. Also while the game has special spells or techniques and exotic gameplay functions like barriers, they are more or less completely pointless or hard to use effectively.

Like the Disgaea series, the gameplay involves tons and tons of grinding (so much so the trailer proudly calls it a "Grindfest RPG"). The method of grinding is sort of interesting in that you start at level one whenever you enter a dungeon but the levels you gain when you leave one or die are added to a "total level" score that increases your base stats. I find that in my game almost none of the enemies can even lay a finger on me now after a level or two.

Some nice features are the fact that you can see every item you equip on your character (Elona did this too to an extent, but the equips in Z.H.P. are more interesting to see), and costumes that let you change your base body sprite. Even though most of these costumes are of anime characters I never heard of. But Dokuro-chan is one of them, and that alone is worth the blatant cameos. Everyone loves Dokuro-chan.

As far as the dungeons themselves, it is similar to the Mystery Dungeon series in it's basic dungeon layouts that are randomized each floor with a few traps items and monsters. In this game most rooms are pre-set and only the placement and paths are randomized, though there are rather good variety of rooms with basic 3D terrain and/or gimmicks that add some variety at least. Some dungeons have features like paths or rooms that vanish after a while or have no paths but feature other ways to get between rooms, which is interesting but a bit under used.

I have to say playing this game made me think about some features in Mystery Dungeon-like roguelikes. I have to restate I really like Elona alot for giving a Nethack-style interface that can be mapped to a gamepad. The Mystery Dungeon-style interface isn't to bad, but automatically picking items up sort of bugs me because my inventory fills up faster then I would like. Also I really must say I don't like having all the dungeons change every floor, as it doesn't allow for as much exploration. Also Mystery Dungeon-like games have way to tight food requirements. It should take AT LEAST few days before you starve, not a few minutes. This might be true of all roguelikes. In fact one of the only games I know of that I think got this right was Ultima Underworld, where food and sleep were very very subtle needs that didn't usually need to be dealt with unless you sleept a lot (BTW, I really would like to see a Ultima Underworld random level generator, because it's practically a 3D realtime roguelike in every other aspect).

Also I really have to say that Nippon Ichi games in general, while generally fun, are sort of annoying. Their stories are way to predictable and cliché, their gameplay relies way to much on repetitive grinding, and there gimmicks are just that: gimmicks. I also personally hate the restricted and gimmicky character customization. In Z.H.P. for example, you can fuse items but all this ever does is let you choose some skills to be attached to them and raise their max condition. You can put stuff on a silly little grid to upgrade your stats and abilities but a simple point system would make much more sense, be easier to do, and would offer more freedom in the long run. I could also say similar stuff for Disgaea's class, reincarnation, pupil, and item world systems. They are just gimmicks that limit character growth and make no sense. I kinda like Phantom Brave's fusion system though, even if it was way to easy to break the game with it thanks to the silly title system.

I should actually make a roguelike someday. I have a few ideas I really want to try, such as completely level-less gameplay (using only a system like in nethack/Elona where you can train stats and skills directly) and a reincarnation mechanic (you have to make a new character when you die, but you unlock new starting roles/races/starting feats as you play, and the world layout will remain more or less the same giving a chance of getting items back).

Leave Me Elona

Since I wrote about Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, I have sort of been in the mood to play more roguelikes. One game I heard interesting things about is a quirky little independent Japanese game called "Elona". Apparently it is short for "Eternal League of Nefia" but that would really be "Elon" though I guess using Japanese lettering it would be more like "E-Le/Re-O-Ne" which is slightly closer. Maybe "Elona" results form some method of transcribing the letters E L and N as "E-Lo/Ro-Na". I really have no idea. But it sounds cool anyway. They could have just named it Nefia I guess but that isn't as catchy, and I can't make as good of a pun with it.

Annnnyway, Elona apparently takes after "Ancient Domains Of Mystery" in many ways but I never played that so I have no idea how apt the comparison is. Although it plays like a roguelike, it actually feels in some ways closer to a more traditional RPG. Although randomized dungeons exist, most of them seem like short side areas. The vast majority of the game is traveling on a non-random overworld map traveling between non-random towns, although there is some randomness in play even in non-random areas. All things considered, I am not sure I like this set up as much as just having one dungeon approach like in Nethack, or the one hub town with a few dungeon areas like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. It seems to have much less focus then other roguelikes I have played. On the other hand it allows a more open ended experience.

Because of the open nature of the game, there are a lot of extra things you can do, such as build a house which gets ranked based on what furniture you place in it to get a bigger monthly salary, as well as buying farms to grow crops and ranches where you can breed monsters or other "pets" that you catch. You can even combine pets using a "Gene Machine" to give them better stats, new equipment slots, and new skills. There are a ton of skills to learn and use that can let you gather materials and make items. The downside of all this is that the game very quickly becomes grind-tastic. You need to basically farm money to get deeds for buildings and practice like crazy at skills to make them improve. The game quickly becomes doing the same thing over and over again, which is usually not a problem for Nethack and only is a problem in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon if you are trying to recruit Pokemon. Another thing you have to deal with in Elona is taxes that are billed to you every once and a while, requiring you to take a side trip to pay them or risk becoming a criminal which will cause guards to attack you in towns. Elona seems to be set up for major long term play, and even death only serves to reduce your stats and gold rather then making you start over (though I save-scum like crazy anyway). One gripe I have is it uses a level system like most of the Elder Scrolls games where your level goes up as you practice skills. Really I never understood why people use this system, it makes levels next to useless as leveling up really doesn't do that much. I rather just drop levels altogether. After all if you can already raise skills and stats by practice, why bother having levels?

Elona also has a very odd sense of humor and is filled with odd references and objects that probably won't make much sense unless your Japanese or into Japanese stuff. There are balls you can throw at weak enemies to capture them and make them your pet, "Little Sisters" that join you if you read their diary, a few anime reffrences, and even a man in black leather who will self-destruct himself on you yelling "Foooooo!", referencing a notorious Japanese comedian. There is also Bioshock reffrences by way of Big Daddy and Little Sister monsters. Piled on that, are quite a few sexual references and such. One early event lets you choose a pet from a cat, a dog, a bear, and a little girl (The little girl is the best one because she can equip stuff). Leash and stethoscope items can be used witch make pets blush and call you a pervert. You can unleash pets by using the leash again causing them to mutter something that seems to indicate they secretly enjoy it. You can also marry your pets and ask them to "make a gene" by spending the night with them (and gene files can be used to carry over items to a new game). Gender also has no apparent effect on any of this, so any pairing will work. The game is overall not as well thought out as Nethack in regards to special tricks. In addition to gender and such not mattering for things, I noticed non-organic monsters can still bleed for example.

Overall one of the things I like best about Elona is it's interface. Rather then use simple text, Elona uses graphics, although the animation is more limited then Mystery Dungeon games. The controls, while still similar to Nethack in function, are much simpler thanks to being able to scroll though different inventory modes and menu of tasks that call be pulled up with relatively few button presses. This means that the number of buttons needed is relatively few, and they can be mapped to a gamepad as well, which allows play without even touching the keyboard. Biggest problem I have is I think it should bring up the targeting selector if you don't have a target rather then auto target, but you can manually target things with a button anyway.

In general, despite any gripes, I have been having fun with the game. I am playing a Fairy Pianist (because I am crazy), which is maximized for charisma and such rather then combat, which allows me to have tons of pets to do most of the fighting. Although with a throwing star weapon that causes bleeding, I find I can do okay in combat, though I usually rely on my pets to do most of the damage. In addition, though almost everything kills me in one or two hits because I have very low HP, my evasion rate is very high. Though whenever I try and play my music in public, I usually get hit by a rock and die, though I can practice with my pets fine.

Also I liked the picture I drew today. I think it's cute. :3

Pokémon Magical Mystery Tour

I have been playing Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time lately. I got it a few years ago, but never seriously played though it until now. Since that time, a slightly updated version was released don't think it's really worth buying at this point, since I already "won" the main game in Time and am going though the post-game content (which is actually between 25% to 50% of the game and includes extra story bits... they always gotta go that extra mile). There are also apparently three new games coming out for the wii, but I probably won't be playing them as I haven't played anything on my wii in ages and don't feel like dealing with it. I also played though Blue Rescue Team quite some time ago, but besides the plot and some of the details, there really isn't that much difference. I will say I found Blue/Red's story a bit more touching though, even if a lot of elements seem to cross over a tiny bit.

In any case, I have to say as far as roguelikes go, the games are quite watered down and boring compared to most, even compared to most of the other "Mystery Dungeon" games. Most dungeons have no traps, and the items you can collect are mostly uninteresting. Whats worse is they completely took out needing to identify items, which was one of the cornerstone roguelike gameplay elements. The games do somewhat make up for it with a bigger focus on followers and character building, as is fitting to a Pokémon game. Like the main Pokémon games, you can get almost any enemy to join you, though instead of catching them, they just randomly sometimes join you when you defeat them. Each of them learn different moves just like the main Pokémon games, and some can evolve, although now you have to wait until the post-game to do so. In Blue/Red (btw, incase you didn't figurer it out, like the main Pokémon games most of the games are in pairs or triplets that is more or less the exact same game with different features or Pokémon) you are somewhat limited by who you can get to join you by each needing one of several "friend areas" that need to be unlocked before they will join, but that was done away with in Time/Darkness. I am not sure if that is a good thing or not overall, but it does make the party organization interface a lot less tedious, but it also means you can get anyone to join anytime you find them.

I think the games' biggest flaw is just that they are much too easy, especially for roguelikes, which are basically meant to kick your ass in as many nasty ways as possible. Not that it's totally a cakewalk, but as I said, though most of the game traps are missing, needing to identify items is completely gone, and you even keep most of your stuff if you die. I mean I know nethack-style "You accidentally bumped into the wrong thing. Too bad, you die. Start over from square one." stuff is a little much, but most of the other Mystery Dungeon games offer a good balance between starting over from scratch and death being nothing. Also the games don't autosave when you enter a dungeon like Izuna does.

By the way, I have Izuna 2, and it is absolutely fantastic... I kind of wish it had a follower system like Pokémon Mystery Dungeon though. Just tag switching between two partners is kinda lame compared to having an actual follower. Although the follower system in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon is not perfect either, as you can never directly control what they do. Chocobo's Dungeon 2 (which is basically Mystery Dungeon mixed with Final Fantasy... they sure do make a lot of crossover games with other corporations) did something interesting and had a partner character who could be controlled by another player, but it was sort of odd because the turn-based nature of the game and the two controller inputs often didn't work together that well. Ideally, I would like to see something like in Ultima 6, where you could more or less control each party member in turn if you wanted and could switch in and out of combat mode. It's a game mechanic I would like to see used more often because I feel it's a good balance between turn-based and real time combat. That reminds me of another little gripe about Pokémon Mystery Dungeon's followers, namely that to get them to go after enemies, you have to switch around a tactic setting, which is annoying if you constantly want to switch between "follow me" and "go after foes". If set to "follow me" they will never attack unless the enemy is in their range. Also sometimes their pathfinding if they are too far away will make them wander aimlessly and get killed, which can happen if you go in a U shaped corridor or such while one is behind a wall... it's complex to explain, but bassily they try and follow you in a direct line without moving around a bend in the road.

I also miss the ability to "fuse" equipment like in some of the other Mystery Dungeon games. Fusion works by combining two items into one that does the effects and has the power of both, Both Chocobo's Dungeon 2 (although you can't seem to be able to tranfer weapon's abliltys, just some attributes) and Shiren the Wanderer (which, along with it's squeals, are probably the only non-crossover games in the Mystery Dungeon series) as well as probably others have this feature. Izuna has a interesting gameplay mechanic that works in almost the same way, at least in regard to transferring a weapons special ability, but is a bit more limited because each weapon has a limited number of slots that can be used to attach ofuda to, including ones you get by transforming weapons that give you the weapon's special ability (you can "burn-in" some to increase a weapon's stats, but abilities are not transfered this way). Of course in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, the only type of "equipment" is held items anyway, witch are more like collars in other Mystery Dungeon games which could never be fused anyway. In Pokémon Mystery Dungeon you can link moves, but thats not really the same thing.

You know though all my complaining, I still find the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games fun. In fact I find them more fun then the normal Pokémon games, which I often find involves a lot of tedious walking from place to place and backtracking whenever I suddenly find I need some HM move or something. In Pokémon Mystery Dungeon there is basically only one town and various random areas you can go to on a map. Also since combat is seamlessly integrated into exploring and never random, it usually is a heck of a lot faster and less tedious. Also I just really really like roguelikes.

Lastly, on the subject of roguelikes in general I have to say they really need to find more advanced dungeon generation methods. The "rooms connected to corridors" method gets old fast. Though a roguelike is always fun more because of the stuff in the dungeons then the dungeons themselves.

Also Lastly, on the subject of Pokémon, is it just me or does do the designs for pokemon get more and more retarded? I mean seriously what is this? Are all those random metal spikes really necessary? All of the later legendaries seem to have odd metal parts, but then I am not always fond of some of the original Pokémon ether.

(Note: From now on, I will try and make my pictograph link to any source image I may have used either as reference or directly traced as I did the last two times)

"STRIKE THE EARTH!"

I started playing Dwarf Fortress, a charming little game about dwarves who build a fortress. As opposed to a fortress build out of dwarves, which would just be silly. I heard about it quite some time ago and put off checking it out despite how interesting it sounded because I was afraid it's interface would be a cluttered nightmare of shortcut keys and menus. Which it is, but it's not as bad as it sounds really. Nethack is no worse really, and while I would greatly prefer using a mouse for most of the selection process, it works pretty well. I still wouldn't recommend it to anybody by ultra-uber-hardcore gamers. Not because it's hard, although it is, but because it's just so massively overwhelming in almost all aspects. But if any of my non-existent readers wants to try, look here for help.

Right now my current fortress isn't doing so well. Faced with a lack of food and booze (but more armor then I could possibly ever need), most of my dwarves have been caught up in a "Tantrum Spiral" which basically means they all throw fits which causes others to throw fits which causes others to throw fits until every dwarf is doing nothing but stomping around hitting things and wracking all my stuff. Personally I am at this point waiting for them all to die so I can start over and do a better fortress somewhere else. Yeah it sounds heartless but they are the ones who decided to smash my farm. I am just sad to leave all of the tons and tons of more or less useless loot behind. But I could always go get it in adventure mode, where it is bound to be more useful. Adventure mode is an alternative gameplay mode where you can explore old ruins of forts you abandoned and learn more about the world. It's a lot more like Nethack and other such games where your just one guy exploring the world and getting treasure, except the world you explore is the same one you try and make forts on.

The unofficial (hell maybe official) motto of Dwarf Fortress is "Losing is Fun!". And by and large it's true. You can't really win as far as I know, just hold off death for as long as you can, and when anyone dies, they are dead and thats it. But the interesting thing is the game it's self. The way it remembers all your attempts, the way the world and it's history is created more or less by the computer and grows even more as you play, the way you find new things and interesting ways to do things. I guess thats why it's not for everyone. It's not a simple game with a simple score or a simple ending, it's an insanely complex game that manages to be fun anyway.

I bet I will get bored with it after a few weeks anyway though. I always do.