Moero Chronicle (NSFW) appears to be have been released on Steam! It’s apparently quite bad.
It’s so much worse than you’d describe. Usually with those anime Wizardry clones you can just ignore aesthetics and the story isn’t disturbing by itself. Not so in Mary Skelter Nightmares. This story is bonkers and it’s tightly connected to the gameplay. You play as a dude with magical blood. He doesn’t really fight in combat but he’s there. Animu waifus fight. And they drink the blood of magical dude. It buffs them and turns super saian, but then the dude gets hurt. A little uncomfortable and that’s it, right? No. To upgrade your waifus you spray them with your blood and then clean them outside of combat.
Here’s a video with a timestamp.
This looks quite alright, thanks!
Most certainly not. Who in their right mind thinks that level of pixelation is acceptable on modern monitors?
If it were only that I might give it an honest shot, but from what @peacedog wrote I’m pretty sure the game would annoy me on the mechanical level too, so it’s a hard pass, sorry.
This is not at all how I thought this topic was going to go. Wow.
This is a sad reality of the genre being under anime rulership.
I don’t want to generalize too much, of course. Mary Skelter Nightmares is probably an extreme example. But Labyrinth of Refrain (just like Disgaea, more known series from the same developer) is rather immature at times as well.
Also, I saw a mention of Stranger of Sword City. This is an interesting game and the art is gorgeous. From what I saw of it, it doesn’t have irritating tropes you come to expect from a lighthearted anime title. However, I’m mad at it because of its save system. There’s permadeath and there’s saving only in town. Not even on-map saves or anything. And the game is not shying of placing monsters that can one-shot your characters in the very first dungeon. You’re supposed to recognize them and run away, but it’s not like anything apart from artwork tells you this monster is in another league.
For me, M&MXL is the definitive modern blobber. It’s also a sad story, I imagine most people assume it’s a cashgrab instead of a product of passion. It’s also much more similar to Wizardry with its tactical combat, M&M has long been about preparing for a fight rather than fighting it.
I’d say Lords of Xulima is actually a blobber. Yes, it has a top-down view but in terms of character development and combat it’s basically in the same genre as Wizardry 6-8, M&MXL and the like. I didn’t really like the presentation of it but I think it’s perfect for a fellow blobber lover.
Holy hell, thank you for the warning (and the video, which couldn’t make the issues any more clear). I’d occasionally looked at this and wondered, as with Etrian, whether I could look past the anime and enjoy it. That is clearly not going to be possible here!
Zanki Zero got pretty good impressions despite some anime stylings.
It’s too bad you specified PC, because a lot of the best Japanese ones (some of the Shin Megami Tenseis, Etrian Odyssey, a whole bunch of mediocre NIS stuff) are on consoles, specifically handhelds (the Vita was a weird gold mine for these). I think it’s just that they’re relatively niche, so the budgets are smaller, and handhelds have relatively lower development costs while still having all the power needed to run this style of game.
If you do end up going in a DS direction, SMT: Strange Journey is very good.
I love me some blobber gaming. I own about 90% of the ones mentioned so far even if i would hesitate to cal lsome of them blobbers. The anime ones tend to give me pause but I still own most of them. I do not like real time
Of those mentioned I would recommend the following for different flavors of Bloobbers:
Paper Sorcerer - party based, turn based. You recruit monsters to your party and the classes are pretty cool with some good synergy in skills. Fairly “simple” to jump into and I find it very charming. Decent non hardcore Wizardry clone.
StarCrawlers: Scifi Blobber with hacking, guns etc. Not too hardcore, lots of loot and modding. A good popcorn blobber. Does have some slight puzzling but they are not too hard…except one annoying one. I love the music.
Stranger of Sword City: My favorite Japanese Wizardry style. The UI is lees obtuse than the Elimnages i like as well but still has some headscratching mechanics. I did not have to reference guides to figure it out quite as much as others. The artwork is the best of the bunch as well but a bit uneven at times.
Legends of Amberland: Love letter to the first few Might and Magics. Combat is super basic but exploration is very fun if you enjoy the MM style. Another I find really charming. I love these e one man show labor of loves.
Heroes of Broken Lands: Another “charming” one. I find it a mix betweeen MM and Wizardry. Got some interesting mechanincs. creating characters for instance. You can easily get sub optimal rolls and have limited rerolls and can’t save the high ones so you can create some shitty characters. Good news is you can replace them and you are building up a pool of characters not just one party. I love that mechanic.
A few more not mentioned that I dig because I own them all!
Sword and Sorcery - Underworld: Does not hold your hand, tough turn based combat. Sequel in the works.
Congolemerate 451: Cyberpunk Blobber! haven’t played a ton of this one yet but liked the first hour or so i played.
Aeon of Sands - The Trail - Another labor of Love one man band. Post Apoc blobber. DarkSun meets Dungeon master. Great sens of exploration, but easy to get turned around. This one I really need to get back to.
There’s some more but this should get ya started.
Thanks! I had Conglomerate 451 wishlisted for a while but dropped it from the list for some reason and then forgot about it. Will check it out.
I was checking out Lords of Xulima, and WOW this map screen sure gives me huge Might & Magic vibes. Those full color maps really drew you into those first few, fairly primitive, games!
That is the other one I was trying to think of last night!
I forgot about this game, but I really liked it for hours before it started to feel very unbalanced and way too hard. That was at like launch, I wonder if it’s been patched and is something I should revisit?
No, it’s a hard game at first, since it follows a bit of Might & Magic formula, with grind phases instead of stats exploits though, if I recall. It then gets into more of the same as the game progress, with cryptic riddles and impossible enemies you have to find counters to.
In my opinion, Xulima is the exactly wrong take on mixing HoMM and M&M, while Heroes of a Broken Land, unpolished and rough looking as it is, is the one that gets it right.
No, that’s pretty much the game. Grind to get the next set of level ups, making the next grind just doable, rinse repeat.
This is probably my least favorite RPG genre and the naming scheme is certainly not helping. Only Might & Magic and Wizardry 8 ended up working for me. I think I mostly enjoy exploration in an open world, that seems to be the critical element for me. If there are more games like that I would probably play them.
Ugh, gross. Yeah, that’s what I remember made me quit last time. Bummer.
I also really enjoyed the latest Bard’s Tale (IV?) but I remember getting kind of frustrated/annoyed with the puzzle density, especially as the game progressed.
They added a song that lets you bypass most plot-stopping puzzles if they start to bug you.
I don’t mind a nice grind. I like that Xulima allowed you to clear out the random encounters in many areas. But I don’t like when that’s not so much optional as mandatory. It got to a point where you would show up in a new area and have to save scum grind to clear out enough of the “easy” encounters to level so you could beat the hard ones (somewhat subject to party composition I’m sure). I don’t regret my purchase or time with Xulima but it wore me the fuck out and I never finished/haven’t reviisted (I usually revisit RPGs).
I will say this about the very weird Mary Skelter: you can adjust encounter rates to suit your mood and I really love this feature in this sort of game. I wouldn’t quite say it’s endeared the game to me. I like some of the mechanics. the aesthetic is weird but it is what it is.
This is exactly me - I remember having a lot of fun with it, I think I got to the point where all the easy encounters were done and I still couldn’t do any of the rest of the encounters - again, could indeed have been I poorly built a party, but that shouldn’t have been so punishing either. Cool game up until then though.
Oh, that’s very good to know - I should revisit that. I enjoyed the combat a great deal and thought it looked and played just lovely. Cool game.
It’s one of my favorites of the last few years, and I’m completely in love with the soundtrack.