Jul 28, 2010

We can beat GIANT MONSTERS !! (Part I)

How could a game called "We can beat GIANT MONSTERS !!" (or WcbGM for short, not that it needs to be shortened) possibly not be a hit??

WcbGM is an RPG Dungeon Crawler. You are tasked with being 'Hero' and saving your sister from paralysis by collecting Dragon Scales and lots of them. The game starts with you in the castle learning the details of your adventure. I saw a post in the Market wondering how to get to the dungeon... and, not to give too much away, you have to talk to people multiple times. They don't necessarily just repeat the same speech.

The game uses a bit of a 3D presentation when showing a dungeon, but everything is really just basic 2D tiled sprites and the map, while presented in an almost isometric kind of view, is also tiled. The controls are simple... on screen left, right, up and down buttons along with an action button keep things moving. And combat is all turn based so the twitch issues of a virtual DPad are not an issue with this game.

Each quest seemingly involves heading down in the dungeon, finding, and then killing a monster...err, a GIANT MONSTER !! Ok, I jest a bit about the title and it's probably because of the translation from Japanese that provides a funny name and some dialog in broken English. On the other hand, if I could speak Japanese this well then I'd consider myself fluent.

As you'll note, I labeled this review 'Part I' and didn't get a new review up last night. That's because I headed to the dungeon and knocked off my first monster like clockwork, but second one is kicking my a@@. I'm stuck in a "head down... get stuff... head up... level up..." loop that I'm hoping is just an oversight as it's way monotonous. I don't want to write this off until I kill my second monster as it got off to a great start.

A few highlights, though, and one is that the dungeon is random EVERY time. Yes, every time go down and back up... and then return you get a NEW dungeon. Each level is small and manageable, but you don't get the benefit of remembering where everything is. In fact, everything in the dungeon regenerates each time as well and that's actually pretty key to the game. Next, when I fought my first giant (or boss) monster he, in the midst of combat, tells me he's decided to take a break and wanders off. I've never had a monster be that rude to me before and I thought it was very cute and funny. The game really got off on the right foot.

Right now I'm at a 4/5 stars for this game, but we'll see if things change after the second monster or if it just becomes a repetitive gathering of the same couple of items with little additional story... and while you wait here's a video of the game to look at (and note that despite the video having Japanese text the game HAS been fully translated to English).

2 comments:

  1. From the video, I wasn't too impressed with the visual style of the game. The isometric viewpoint looks worse than a flat 2D presentation for this type of game.

    Are there any aspects of this game that are roguelike other than the random dungeons?

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  2. I don't know that it's worse or better... just different. Everyone does have their own, personal preferences though.

    I should have part II up tonight... finally knocked off that second monster and am close to knocking off the third.

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