DS #3652: The Dark Spire (USA)

[kjean]

MUSIC BLAH MOVIE BlAH

oh, boy... that's off topic. this is why we need Toni the Great.

btw, this game rocks.

 

[sfunk]

fantastic rant.

btw, what is AC (the in-game stat)?

It means armor class. The lower the number the harder you are to hit.

 

[Magus]

my experience with this
- got excited by comment telling how awesome this game is it
- went trough tutorial
- scratched my head at the fact that the shop offers you no help of "what's better"
- scratched my head when i discovered that the game won't freaking tell you if a weapon is better or worse of what you currently had
- yawned at the somewhat slow combat made even slower by the fact that the game seems to like to throw enemies at you in group of 8
- got enough experience to level up my guys to 3
- scratched my head when one of my guys gained 1 HP (ZOMG THE UPGRADE!) after leveling up
- reached the basement
- got my priest instantkilled by 11 thief enemy
- succesfull runned away
- reached a church
- "can you revive my pal? he got mauled by an horde of ravaging thief" "sure give me a huuuuuuuge pile of gold"
- turned this off disappointed

there is old school and obtuse... etrian might be old school but this game is just obtuse,would it have killed them to put at least actual numbers on item you can equip? why the game doesn't give you these info nor why the HP gain after leveling up is random makes no sense to me besides increasing the game difficulty in an artificial way and make it feel like a chore,especialy when you can save anywhere

 

[edwardorito]

COOL! Can't wait to play this! Making it an old-school RPG makes it more interesting. I have got to tell you when I play RPGs I stick with them. Hope it's great!

 

[Isabelyes]

many thanks, sfunk!

...i'm so gonna over-use my mage's AC-lowering spell on my allies...

and I love the classic style!
it's just so pure, nothing that distracts you, the enemies are more beautiful IMO,
and everything goes MUCH faster.

wonder if the elevators work like the geomagnetic fields in EO.

 

[Kreatur84]

Did someody know when DIe Gilde DS and Quiz Taxi will be released?that are german games,don`t know if they come in engl too.
And what about C.O.R.E. 14th april was release

 

[Xaintrix]

Personally I like the lack of visible hard numbers for things like say weapons. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that a longsword is probably going to hurt more than a short dagger. The game isn't obtuse, you just are trying to rely on crutches that modern gaming conventions have burned into your brain.

A nice dungeon dive shouldn't have to rely on calculus. Is that sword shinier? Good, use it. Go in, find out when you're biting off more than you can chew, run away when ass is getting handed to you..

And oh so worried about the pile of gold it costs to res? How about trying to save regularly. Oh wait! that's right I forgot. Most games are so damn easy nowadays that missing a save point or thirteen is no problem. Be grateful that the game lets you save pretty much anywhere.

This game isn't for everyone. No problem. Move on. Go back to FFCC.

 

[enarky]

Liking this game dramatically increases your hardcore gamer e-penis. Just saying...

 

[Magus]

Personally I like the lack of visible hard numbers for things like say weapons. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that a longsword is probably going to hurt more than a short dagger. The game isn't obtuse, you just are trying to rely on crutches that modern gaming conventions have burned into your brain.

A nice dungeon dive shouldn't have to rely on calculus. Is that sword shinier? Good, use it. Go in, find out when you're biting off more than you can chew, run away when ass is getting handed to you..

And oh so worried about the pile of gold it costs to res? How about trying to save regularly. Oh wait! that's right I forgot. Most games are so damn easy nowadays that missing a save point or thirteen is no problem. Be grateful that the game lets you save pretty much anywhere.

This game isn't for everyone. No problem. Move on. Go back to FFCC.

the shop carries a battle axe and a warhammer for the same price with the same freakin description... how i'm supposed to guess which one is better? what if an enemy drops another weapon and it doesn't look any more shinier than my weapon? is it better or worse? why i have to guess at all? this isn't even about being old-school anymore,even the original dragon quest at least had the decency of telling you the strenght of your equipment

and really doesn't the fact that you can save anywhere just kill all the challenge? there is no risk involved,just a lot of reloading
if the game suddenly decides to send you 16 monster in a single swoop,the game is just a mess but everybody seems to be okay with it because it belongs to a long forgotten genre

 

[Freudian Lemur]

Wow, I really am enjoying this game. I'm only 18 but I'd like to think I can still appreciate this as well as modern RPGs (I loved Ring of Fates and am looking forward to playing Tales of Innocence when the patch is done). I particularly enjoy the text in this game, it's sometimes like a cross between a dungeon crawler and a text based adventure.

 

[N-TG]

It looks cool...a simple DnD game, well kind of...

But nontheless I will be very excited about it

 

[Hachibei]

Well, this is finally out.. now what about the other Atlus game that was supposed to come out on the same day?

 

[TraumaHoundNDS]

btw, what is AC (the in-game stat)?

Haven't fired it up yet but I'd assume it's "Armor Class" (if nearly 30 years of playing D&D helps here...)

 

[DS1]

Well, this is finally out.. now what about the other Atlus game that was supposed to come out on the same day?

If you mean Dokapon Journey, don't get your hopes up, wait until next week when Fishing Master and A-Train come out.

 

[Covarr]

When I hear "dungeon crawler" the first thing that comes to my mind is a game of the "fushigi dungeon" kind, like Shiren the Wanderer or Chocobo Dungeon
Precicely. Well, sort of. I don't associate Mystery Dungeon games with the term "dungeon crawler", but I do love those games. I don't so much love dungeon crawlers, as they strike me as too repetitive and slow. Etrian Odyssey bored me witless, and I'm not even going to bother with this one as I expect it'll do the same.

Then again, I rather liked Might and Magic 3 on the Sega Genesis. Is this more like that, or Etrian Odyssey?

edit:
QUOTE(sillypatterson @ Apr 17 2009, 06:06 AM) *Big-ass rant*

Your rant is flawed. People say this game is too difficult, and you call them graphics whores for it. On what planet does that make sense?

There is not some mystical scale that all games fall on, stating that any game is either "Good mechanics with insane difficulty, but also ugly" or "Piss-poor game with fantastic graphics". Some games are all-around terrible, such as Anubis II, while others are simultaneously good and good-looking, such as Kingdom Hearts 2. Additionally, just because a game is hard doesn't mean it's superior, and easy games aren't necessarily worse. One of the best games ever made, You Have To Burn The Rope, is quite easy.

 

[DS1]

When I hear "dungeon crawler" the first thing that comes to my mind is a game of the "fushigi dungeon"

Etrian Odyssey bored me witless, and I'm not even going to bother with this one as I expect it'll do the same.

Those 'fushigi dungeon' games are usually called roguelikes. Shiren, Pokemon Dungeon, Izuna, etc. Dark Spire isn't nearly as boring as Etrian Odyssey, but you won't like it. It has great graphics and music, but it is a twisty first-person dungeon-type game, which can get old fast if you don't like wasting hours on a single game.

Like I said earlier in the thread, I wish Atlus Japan (I know they didn't create Dark Spire, but they did make EO and SMT) would just make a new Shin Megami Tensei and release it for the DS. It wouldn't be so easy that all these whiners would complain about it being too easy, and it wouldn't be so hard that only people who need to die 100 times (or almost 100 times, depending on how arrogant you are) would play it. It'd have an awesome atmosphere, the music would probably be pretty good, the graphics wouldn't upset anyone, and most importantly people would stop making claims of:
A) Atlus only makes lame animu games (sorry, but that's what sells) and
B) Atlus ruined SMT

 

[adzix]

this looks really tempting.
is it similar to Dungeon Master/Chaos Strikes Back for Amiga 500 in terms of difficulty?
anyways, i think the video i saw sold me for it, plus it comes with the soundtrack, which is
really nice for a ds game.

 

[adzix]

a nice read for those interested in the game

http://www.siliconera.com/2009/04/14/atlus...the-dark-spire/

 

[Ruri]

Personally I like the lack of visible hard numbers for things like say weapons. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that a longsword is probably going to hurt more than a short dagger. The game isn't obtuse, you just are trying to rely on crutches that modern gaming conventions have burned into your brain.

It also means that you get to experiment with new items that you find in the dungeon to figure out their powers. For instance, if you find a Kris, did you know they do double damage to undead? And they're light enough that even a low-level fighter can get two hits with them. (That's in addition to their listed power of raising your magic resistance, of course.) Very useful, and it was much more fun to discover that myself than to just see everything an item does listed flat-out.

Also, if you're low on gold, sell your potions and antidotes. They sell for 125 gold and aren't really necessary. You can use 10 gold Snake Oil to heal poison (just make sure you bring a lot, since it fails about half the time.)

And if you're having trouble, set your party to hero mode with a fighter in the front, and spend all your money on boosting his AC. You only have to focus on one person's armor that way, and in the long run a fighter can get better AC than anyone else anyway... even if you try for a more aggressive party, you'll get ambushed at some point, so it's better to just have a tough armored fighter exposed. Give everyone else bows or staves. (Your thief can also attack from the back row with any weapon if you have them 'hide' first, though that means they only attack every other turn because they have to keep re-hiding.)

 

[kjean]

Jesus Random Christ:
Sometime it gives you 10 or more pts. of HP when you leveling up your character but most of time 1 or 2 or 3. It makes me orz, and load and do it again... and orz.