Game Night #15: Utawarerumono Zan
Sep. 25th, 2019 10:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
owsf2000Wow. Haven't had the motivation to do one of these lately have I. To be fair I haven't had much to play that I've really been into that's recent. I may post something about an old Genesis game I'm always playing later this week. That one's more of a "Game Year/Decade" kinda thing, but I'll still just post it as a game night.
I picked this up last week, which was about a week after it launched here in NA. I was actually really looking forward to seeing this, and the original Utawarerumono, cross the ocean but since I kept hearing nothing about any release dates for either I stopped checking. Then while I was at gamestop THE DAY BEFORE IT LAUNCHED I see it on display for the first time ever. Kinda makes me regret buying a switch title earlier that week since they cost the same...
To verify, I picked up the Unmasked physical version. This means I also got the bonus mini art book, and limited soundtrack. That soundtrack CD is... very limited. 5 audio tracks totaling about 9-10 minutes. With all the music unlockable in the game I wondered about that, but it's probably because those other tracks are all from the source game.
Zan is a re-imaging of Utwawarerumono: Mask of Deception. An earlier tactical rpg with heavy visual novel elements. The original is more accurately a visual novel with an attached battle system in terms of game time. In Zan what you have is a Dynasty Warriors styled 3d action game with an attached, heavily abridged version of Mask of Deception's visual novel. A LOT of the character building narrative is completely cut and the stages advance through the storyline at a very uneven pace. Many characters are also completely omitted since they didn't have much to do in Mask of Deception.
Basic gameplay is you controlling a group of 4 of the characters from the game (usually) and you can switch freely between all 4 of them as needed. You don't lose the battle until all 4 are knocked out, and you have a bit of time to heal them back up if someone does get knocked out. If you don't have a character with a healing skill then anyone can restore a person by holding down the square button for a while. That's a bit more risky but it saves on your Zeal (consider that MP for the most part. It's used for your special skills.)
I've read other reviews that said this game is only for the diehard fans of the original game. I'll concur with that general opinion. There are more engaging Dynasty Warrior styled games out there... not necessarily Dynasty Warriors themselves though. If you want the story, get the originals. I will point out though that overall the game plays very well. I can't say I've had any problems with how the game actually plays.
The battlefields you play on in the game are recreations from the game itself. Very noticeable and well done in most cases. The characters are also rendered quite well. Most battle chains you have tend to either taken directly or heavily inspired by attack chains in the source material which I find awesome.
Characters level up as they normally would in a game like this, but it's also been inspired by the original source material. In addition to normal leveling characters get BP - bonus points - for completing stages. These bonus points are used in the same way they're used in the original, to boost the basic stats of the characters. HP, Attack, Defense, Spirit, and "Special" are among the stats you can boost. And each character has a different maximum setting as you advance them. None of them will ever have max stats in everything. This is balanced out a bit with the abilities and attacks each character has. Haku for instance isn't too great on most stats compared to others although he doesn't have any critical flaws - his Spirit grows the most of all the others by far. He also has a healing move so he's quite versatile - most of his attacks however don't do a lot of damage.
There are a lot of things to unlock but the story mode itself is quite short. There's only 21 or so "stages" and not all of those have actual fights. Just a little dialogue then you move on. This to me is actually quite suspect although I'd need someone else to confirm that it's due to material ripped out of the game. What do I mean by that? I'll explain further down when I go on about DLC.
In addition to bonus points for strengthening your character, you get money per battle as well which is called sen. You pick up icons/items during stages that are automatically sold at the end of the battle into sen. There's no real shop or item system - that's fine. The sen is used to unlock/upgrade items and they're found in 5 different tiers of gear. All that gear is taken from the original material and reapplied to the new mechanics. This is another plus that I liked about the game. And I will give them props for one thing here - they avoided the temptation to sell sen in exchange for RL money. An increasingly common scumbag tactic to fleece gamers which cause game companies to scratch their heads wondering why players aren't buying as many games as they use to - because they're spending it all on the same couple games.
The equipment power up system is basically a random chance roll. You pay a set amount of Sen and Uruuru and Saraana will do some magical flashiness and you would have a chance of upgrading/gaining one of 10-12 scrolls/items. The higher tier you're upgrading, the more each attempt costs although if you do 10 upgrades at once it costs a little less. There's a chance for an upgrade to fail, and it costs like 5000 yen per shit at the god-tier (45000 if you do 10 at once). Sound familiar? Yeah, kinda like loot boxes isn't it. However since you CAN'T buy attempts or Sen with real money, it kinda shows in the setup. Costs to roll the wheel so to speak are fair compared to the amount of sen you'll likely make playing the game and powering up your characters. (Likewise you can't buy Bonus Points with RL cash as well.) The chance an upgrade fails increases with the higher tiers as well, but overall won't fail enough - and there's a chance it will fail but give you back enough sen to cover a brand new 10 attempts - one time I got enough sen back to finance another 5 batches of 10 attempts at the god-tier.)
So overall, the way they did that, along with Bonus Points, was fine. The amount of BP you need to fully max out the last couple points for each character's stat is huge - like a quarter of a million bonus points or more, but again if you're playing the higher up difficult stages you'll be getting bonus points at a rate where 10 battles or less and you'll have that covered. You will be doing grinding, make no doubt, but to be honest to complete the story mode you won't need to boost your stats even past half way.
I certainly hope they aren't just using that to test the waters for a Zan 2. My review on that game, if they do this, would simply be "Don't buy this game."
The game has a medal system. This is basically an in-game achievement/trophy system (There are actual PSN trophies to earn as well of course). These are earned by doing various tasks or gaining various things. Collect X number of scrolls, perform X number of rescues, do X amount of damage in one combo, etc. You earn the medals automatically but you have to claim the rewards separately/manually. Most of the rewards are things like extra background tunes which I believe are from the original game and some of the alternate costumes for the characters.
I will point out one thing which I found amusing, although also found out too late to be of any use to me personally. The 5 medals for combo damage (10k, 20k, 30k, 40k, 50k) are all possible through legit gameplay. Pick a certain character or two and it'll be easy with the right stage. However none of that's needed due to an oversight in one of the early free mode stages. In that stage, near the beginning of it, there's a fence blocking your way. You just have to walk around it to get to a sub mission if desired. However while it's indestructible, it's also usually something you can destroy in other stages. When you hit it, it registers damage and a combo counter. If you repeatedly hit it, you can easily get your 50k damage. For shits and giggles I kept hitting it with Haku's basic combo and got over 100k damage before I got bored. I could have easily continued.
One more thing I'd like to point out. There are dialogues that occur during the battles at various points, tied to who you have on the field generally. Quite fun to see, especially since they use the same VAs as the game - wouldn't be surprised if all the voice overs were just lifted from the original game. I'm willing to bet they are to be honest, but that's not a bad thing if so. Especially the way Kuon yelps when she's knocked down with a critical.
Ok, now for the DLC... The DLC of the game has about 25 odd dollars worth (if you buy them all as a batch, more otherwise) of content. This includes for the most part 1 alternate costume for each character except for Kuon who has two, there's a couple bonus stages, and then there's two characters.
I personally believe ALL this content are just unlock codes for things on the disc. Meaning it's not stuff that wasn't available at launch due to running out of time with development. It would have been done and available. There's no download sizes for any of it on the PSN store which I'm pretty sure usually gives the size of any actual download - it use to at any rate.
Evidence that this stuff is on the disc? Well the two 3d meshes for the two DLC characters are definitely there. They're used in the story mode's dialogue for stages involving them directly but mysteriously don't have any battles. You just move along to the next stage. Those stages are also in the game since they're available in some of the free mode challenges. Strange how they'd take the time to render a full battlefield, larger than some, and then not use it at ALL in the story mode itself, even for the stage(s) that involved it.
I don't know if purchasing those two characters would suddenly create new battles with stuff to unlock in the story mode involving them. If it does, even if those characters weren't in the game, which they certainly are given the meshes of them are literally used, then it means they deliberately cut content from the FULL PRICED game.
Also both DLC characters are listed in the bonus art book along with the other playable characters. A jarring reminder of what my 90 dollars didn't buy.
There were two time-limited DLC items in the list as well. Since they were still free at the time I was installing the game I decided to go ahead and get them. One of them was one of the alternate costumes for Kuon, and the other was a bonus stage of a place in Japan. Can't remember how it's spelt right now, but needless to say it's a present day area with lots of Utawararemono posters and stuff all over the place. Neither of those took more than a second to "download" which strengthens the whole "everything is unlock codes" argument - plus the "hooded costume" for Kuon is used in the initial startup storyline when you begin the game for the first time. Again, she would have likely been there in that hood even if I didn't expressly unlock it from the store. And both of those items are free only temporarily. Meaning it's used more as a way of applying pressure to people to buy it ASAP. In this case within a month of launch. Not the first time I've seen this (imo horrid) tactic. But not being first doesn't mean it's suddenly cool and non-scummy.
I'll also point out the "alternate costumes" you can earn/unlock through the game are pretty pitiful attempts at making it look like they didn't add that menu just to store the DLC costumes. The ones you unlock in the game are nothing more than recolors of their normal outfits. If you want them to look actually different, open your wallet. Me? I'm fine without.
Needless to say, I won't be buying any of this DLC(*). However DUE to the DLC and the very likely possibility that material was cut from the story mode, and the constant reminders of what I didn't get with my full price purchase, it's possible I may be passing on Utawarerumono Zan 2 if it gets done.
I'm thinking they're considering it at any rate given this stuff only covers Deception, which of course ends in a cliffhanger for Mask of Truth. My purchasing of that game, if it becomes a reality, will be dependent on these DLC issues/choices.
Ultimately I'm enjoying the game just fine. I, like most people, won't be doing the online co-op play though. Apparently that was DOA in NA, and I guess has died out already within a year in Japan. There are glaring missing pieces, or feels like there are missing pieces, in story mode, which ruins part of the experience. Whether or not I'll bother with a Zan 2 however is on shaky ground now thanks to the way they marketed this one. It's basically turned a guaranteed second purchase into a "Meh maybe" sale all to fleece the gamers for an extra 25 bucks. Great job NIS America and the original developer.
(*) Having said this, next month I may consider buying 1 of the DLC characters just to see if it affects the story mode. I'll have an extra update on a separate post if/when I do that. This is more the cost of curiosity than it is acceptance of their practice.
I picked this up last week, which was about a week after it launched here in NA. I was actually really looking forward to seeing this, and the original Utawarerumono, cross the ocean but since I kept hearing nothing about any release dates for either I stopped checking. Then while I was at gamestop THE DAY BEFORE IT LAUNCHED I see it on display for the first time ever. Kinda makes me regret buying a switch title earlier that week since they cost the same...
To verify, I picked up the Unmasked physical version. This means I also got the bonus mini art book, and limited soundtrack. That soundtrack CD is... very limited. 5 audio tracks totaling about 9-10 minutes. With all the music unlockable in the game I wondered about that, but it's probably because those other tracks are all from the source game.
Zan is a re-imaging of Utwawarerumono: Mask of Deception. An earlier tactical rpg with heavy visual novel elements. The original is more accurately a visual novel with an attached battle system in terms of game time. In Zan what you have is a Dynasty Warriors styled 3d action game with an attached, heavily abridged version of Mask of Deception's visual novel. A LOT of the character building narrative is completely cut and the stages advance through the storyline at a very uneven pace. Many characters are also completely omitted since they didn't have much to do in Mask of Deception.
Basic gameplay is you controlling a group of 4 of the characters from the game (usually) and you can switch freely between all 4 of them as needed. You don't lose the battle until all 4 are knocked out, and you have a bit of time to heal them back up if someone does get knocked out. If you don't have a character with a healing skill then anyone can restore a person by holding down the square button for a while. That's a bit more risky but it saves on your Zeal (consider that MP for the most part. It's used for your special skills.)
I've read other reviews that said this game is only for the diehard fans of the original game. I'll concur with that general opinion. There are more engaging Dynasty Warrior styled games out there... not necessarily Dynasty Warriors themselves though. If you want the story, get the originals. I will point out though that overall the game plays very well. I can't say I've had any problems with how the game actually plays.
The battlefields you play on in the game are recreations from the game itself. Very noticeable and well done in most cases. The characters are also rendered quite well. Most battle chains you have tend to either taken directly or heavily inspired by attack chains in the source material which I find awesome.
Characters level up as they normally would in a game like this, but it's also been inspired by the original source material. In addition to normal leveling characters get BP - bonus points - for completing stages. These bonus points are used in the same way they're used in the original, to boost the basic stats of the characters. HP, Attack, Defense, Spirit, and "Special" are among the stats you can boost. And each character has a different maximum setting as you advance them. None of them will ever have max stats in everything. This is balanced out a bit with the abilities and attacks each character has. Haku for instance isn't too great on most stats compared to others although he doesn't have any critical flaws - his Spirit grows the most of all the others by far. He also has a healing move so he's quite versatile - most of his attacks however don't do a lot of damage.
There are a lot of things to unlock but the story mode itself is quite short. There's only 21 or so "stages" and not all of those have actual fights. Just a little dialogue then you move on. This to me is actually quite suspect although I'd need someone else to confirm that it's due to material ripped out of the game. What do I mean by that? I'll explain further down when I go on about DLC.
In addition to bonus points for strengthening your character, you get money per battle as well which is called sen. You pick up icons/items during stages that are automatically sold at the end of the battle into sen. There's no real shop or item system - that's fine. The sen is used to unlock/upgrade items and they're found in 5 different tiers of gear. All that gear is taken from the original material and reapplied to the new mechanics. This is another plus that I liked about the game. And I will give them props for one thing here - they avoided the temptation to sell sen in exchange for RL money. An increasingly common scumbag tactic to fleece gamers which cause game companies to scratch their heads wondering why players aren't buying as many games as they use to - because they're spending it all on the same couple games.
The equipment power up system is basically a random chance roll. You pay a set amount of Sen and Uruuru and Saraana will do some magical flashiness and you would have a chance of upgrading/gaining one of 10-12 scrolls/items. The higher tier you're upgrading, the more each attempt costs although if you do 10 upgrades at once it costs a little less. There's a chance for an upgrade to fail, and it costs like 5000 yen per shit at the god-tier (45000 if you do 10 at once). Sound familiar? Yeah, kinda like loot boxes isn't it. However since you CAN'T buy attempts or Sen with real money, it kinda shows in the setup. Costs to roll the wheel so to speak are fair compared to the amount of sen you'll likely make playing the game and powering up your characters. (Likewise you can't buy Bonus Points with RL cash as well.) The chance an upgrade fails increases with the higher tiers as well, but overall won't fail enough - and there's a chance it will fail but give you back enough sen to cover a brand new 10 attempts - one time I got enough sen back to finance another 5 batches of 10 attempts at the god-tier.)
So overall, the way they did that, along with Bonus Points, was fine. The amount of BP you need to fully max out the last couple points for each character's stat is huge - like a quarter of a million bonus points or more, but again if you're playing the higher up difficult stages you'll be getting bonus points at a rate where 10 battles or less and you'll have that covered. You will be doing grinding, make no doubt, but to be honest to complete the story mode you won't need to boost your stats even past half way.
I certainly hope they aren't just using that to test the waters for a Zan 2. My review on that game, if they do this, would simply be "Don't buy this game."
The game has a medal system. This is basically an in-game achievement/trophy system (There are actual PSN trophies to earn as well of course). These are earned by doing various tasks or gaining various things. Collect X number of scrolls, perform X number of rescues, do X amount of damage in one combo, etc. You earn the medals automatically but you have to claim the rewards separately/manually. Most of the rewards are things like extra background tunes which I believe are from the original game and some of the alternate costumes for the characters.
I will point out one thing which I found amusing, although also found out too late to be of any use to me personally. The 5 medals for combo damage (10k, 20k, 30k, 40k, 50k) are all possible through legit gameplay. Pick a certain character or two and it'll be easy with the right stage. However none of that's needed due to an oversight in one of the early free mode stages. In that stage, near the beginning of it, there's a fence blocking your way. You just have to walk around it to get to a sub mission if desired. However while it's indestructible, it's also usually something you can destroy in other stages. When you hit it, it registers damage and a combo counter. If you repeatedly hit it, you can easily get your 50k damage. For shits and giggles I kept hitting it with Haku's basic combo and got over 100k damage before I got bored. I could have easily continued.
One more thing I'd like to point out. There are dialogues that occur during the battles at various points, tied to who you have on the field generally. Quite fun to see, especially since they use the same VAs as the game - wouldn't be surprised if all the voice overs were just lifted from the original game. I'm willing to bet they are to be honest, but that's not a bad thing if so. Especially the way Kuon yelps when she's knocked down with a critical.
Ok, now for the DLC... The DLC of the game has about 25 odd dollars worth (if you buy them all as a batch, more otherwise) of content. This includes for the most part 1 alternate costume for each character except for Kuon who has two, there's a couple bonus stages, and then there's two characters.
I personally believe ALL this content are just unlock codes for things on the disc. Meaning it's not stuff that wasn't available at launch due to running out of time with development. It would have been done and available. There's no download sizes for any of it on the PSN store which I'm pretty sure usually gives the size of any actual download - it use to at any rate.
Evidence that this stuff is on the disc? Well the two 3d meshes for the two DLC characters are definitely there. They're used in the story mode's dialogue for stages involving them directly but mysteriously don't have any battles. You just move along to the next stage. Those stages are also in the game since they're available in some of the free mode challenges. Strange how they'd take the time to render a full battlefield, larger than some, and then not use it at ALL in the story mode itself, even for the stage(s) that involved it.
I don't know if purchasing those two characters would suddenly create new battles with stuff to unlock in the story mode involving them. If it does, even if those characters weren't in the game, which they certainly are given the meshes of them are literally used, then it means they deliberately cut content from the FULL PRICED game.
Also both DLC characters are listed in the bonus art book along with the other playable characters. A jarring reminder of what my 90 dollars didn't buy.
There were two time-limited DLC items in the list as well. Since they were still free at the time I was installing the game I decided to go ahead and get them. One of them was one of the alternate costumes for Kuon, and the other was a bonus stage of a place in Japan. Can't remember how it's spelt right now, but needless to say it's a present day area with lots of Utawararemono posters and stuff all over the place. Neither of those took more than a second to "download" which strengthens the whole "everything is unlock codes" argument - plus the "hooded costume" for Kuon is used in the initial startup storyline when you begin the game for the first time. Again, she would have likely been there in that hood even if I didn't expressly unlock it from the store. And both of those items are free only temporarily. Meaning it's used more as a way of applying pressure to people to buy it ASAP. In this case within a month of launch. Not the first time I've seen this (imo horrid) tactic. But not being first doesn't mean it's suddenly cool and non-scummy.
I'll also point out the "alternate costumes" you can earn/unlock through the game are pretty pitiful attempts at making it look like they didn't add that menu just to store the DLC costumes. The ones you unlock in the game are nothing more than recolors of their normal outfits. If you want them to look actually different, open your wallet. Me? I'm fine without.
Needless to say, I won't be buying any of this DLC(*). However DUE to the DLC and the very likely possibility that material was cut from the story mode, and the constant reminders of what I didn't get with my full price purchase, it's possible I may be passing on Utawarerumono Zan 2 if it gets done.
I'm thinking they're considering it at any rate given this stuff only covers Deception, which of course ends in a cliffhanger for Mask of Truth. My purchasing of that game, if it becomes a reality, will be dependent on these DLC issues/choices.
Ultimately I'm enjoying the game just fine. I, like most people, won't be doing the online co-op play though. Apparently that was DOA in NA, and I guess has died out already within a year in Japan. There are glaring missing pieces, or feels like there are missing pieces, in story mode, which ruins part of the experience. Whether or not I'll bother with a Zan 2 however is on shaky ground now thanks to the way they marketed this one. It's basically turned a guaranteed second purchase into a "Meh maybe" sale all to fleece the gamers for an extra 25 bucks. Great job NIS America and the original developer.
(*) Having said this, next month I may consider buying 1 of the DLC characters just to see if it affects the story mode. I'll have an extra update on a separate post if/when I do that. This is more the cost of curiosity than it is acceptance of their practice.
