Yep, that was the final straw for me with the game, too: Too much talking without enough value to me as a player. Everything felt like it took forever to do because you had to wade through “story.” There’s an intriguing form of gameplay in there, but it’s just too hard to get to.
From Playdeck, developers of PC versions of Ascension and Twilight Struggle:
It seems to have similar game play to TS, if not quite as much depth. Still, right up my alley, so I’ll give it a shot.
We (well, I mostly, but Rod Humble joined the fun afterward) talked a bit about Neo Atlas 1469 over in the Switch thread.
I am a pedant, so I call it a quantum map generator, but it’s really a traditional Japanese light strategy game, in the sense that it’s very simple at heart, but requires tons of busy work and time investment — and aim at an incredible small niche of users.
At least, it is very easy to know if you’ll like it or not: if the menial task of approving or disapproving your expedition to forge the shape of the world doesn’t appeal to you, then there is no reason to play the game. This is basically what you will be offered to do over and over for countless (in the hundreds) of hours.
This is a feature of most Japanese strategy games: the scripted story mode is basically an extended tutorial (which can extend to 60 hours in some titles), and once you are done with it, the game is supposedly over but it is when the fun starts. A bit like the obnoxious campaigns found in a lot of RTS, I guess.
This Atlas tutorial is on the shorter side (it takes from 5 to 15 hours to discover the path to Zipango).
I have always loved the Atlas series, because I find absolutely fascinating the idea to uncover the map. I think I said it in the other thread, but the single aspect of Civilization I love the most is uncovering the fog and the shape of the world. I suspect the Atlas series creator (the series dates back to the very early 90s) experienced the exact same fascination and this is why he created the game.
I agree with you guys about the endless talks, though. With the years, I have been less and less tolerant with the prolix nature of Japanese games.
Thanks for the additional perspective, Lefty. What are some of the more well-known (if any) games in this genre of Japanese strategy games?
It seems like once I find Zipango, I’d have explored 2/3rds of the globe. Is that not true? Curious how it could be a game you could play for hundreds of hours, but I’m intrigued by that. Does it take you to new maps somehow? Or is it just a lot further to circumnavigate the globe than I’m guessing?
I really did like a lot of what it was doing. I even thought some of the story moments were cute. Thinking about it, a lot of the problem was the unresponsiveness of the UI. If it felt breezy to get through the dialogue and get back to your game, it would be different. But it likes to drag your camera around the map quite often, and it animates characters in and out every time a new one speaks–these things could be way more efficient.
I assume if there was a way to play the game without the story/tutorial, you would have told us, huh?
Very interesting that “scripted mode” is common in Japanese strategy titles.
Makes sense that it is a cultural difference. I am very independent and prefer video games precisely because I want to concentrate on a game and not hear a lot of chatter and small talk. I want to get on with the game, and think strategy. Maybe this gaming tradition is meant to achieve the opposite, and create an atmosphere of being surrounded by chatter? Dunno.
But your statement that it goes on for 5-15 hours lets me know that I made the right decision to quit. I am certainly not willing to sit and click the mouse button for three hours more before being allowed to actually play my own game.
I did find it darkly humorous, however, when I went back to see whether there was an option to decline the tutorial. They ask whether you want to be shown how to run your trading company, or something like that. When I said no, they asked again, as though my answer came as a shock. But then they proceeded to bang on with advice and chatter anyway, whereupon I uninstalled the game. Too far along to ask for a refund, but the first time I wanted to.
I’ll diverge a bit: the first Atlas games didn’t have all that scripted story stuff that I can remember. The strategy games back then, mostly PC — Japan still had PC games — were crazy open-ended, offering very little narrative canvas, if any.
I guess it is around the late 90s (and the popularity of the RTS genre, incidently) that it changed to get into heavily scripted content, often opening up. You can find it in the games that got localized, like Culdcept or Rune Factory/Harvest Moon. That format applies to a wide-variety of genres (some recent RPGs open widely up once you have completed the main story, amongst them some major titles like Dragon Quest IX).
It is getting out of control in my opinion: the latest 3DS Culdcept game lost me with its crazy scripted content and having every single feature locked up behind completing that tustoryal.
As far as the hours spent on a game, I don’t have any social study to back me up, but I think the gaming behaviours in Japan and in the western world are widely different. Gaming as a form of labourous work is something very much accepted there (there is even a sub-genre to designate them :“Sagyo Game”), and while you and I would try to get the optimal path to Zipango, from what I’ve gathered it isn’t rare for the Japanese player to start over and over the same portion of the map, trying to achieve a particular case and shape a particular form of the world.
In my case, I had explored reportely about 7% of the world map when I found Zipango, so much was left to explore!
And finally, mandatory obnoxious text is inscribed in the marble of Japanese gaming tablets, I fear.
While I try to like rogue like games, I typically don’t like losing lots of progress or huge swings in randomness. I didn’t much care for Darkest Dungeon. Vambrace: Cold Soul looks like Darkest Dungeon, but might have better progression. Anyone trying it?
A cyberpunk blobber.
Conglomerate 451 is a grid-based, dungeon crawling first-person RPG with roguelike elements set in a cyberpunk world.
It looks like the really interesting stuff isn’t in the current build, but will be added in future updates:
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Drugs and Disorders: buy synthetic drugs to temporarily empower your agents, with the risk that they develop Mental Disorders*.
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Perks and Mutations: your agents can acquire special skills (Perks) and obtain Mutations*.
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Diplomacy*: talk to the Narks on the streets of the city and obtain favors.
Here’s a nice surprise! New DLC is out tomorrow!
Looks interesting and the price is right!
It’s very much a student game, so rough around the edges. I do think I missed some of the gameplay opportunities when I played through it, so while I found the themes a little too bluntly expressed, it might be doing more interesting things gameplay-wise than meets the eye.
Why do 2.5D games always lock themselves to a single plane? I thought I hated the whole aesthetic until (I’ll stop bringing it up I promise) I played Klonoa, and they made cool levels that looped around and over themselves and actually made good use of the 3D assets. Nights into Dreams is pretty good at this too, although that game is unique for a host of reasons. Heck, even Battletoads on the NES had that cylindrical tower that you ran up.
Game designers should play Klonoa, and so should you.
And in this busy week, Super Cane Magic Zero gets released after what… 4, 5 years of being in Early Access?
Also available on Switch, with the extra customary 20% tax there.
I hear it’s one of the best single-player, first-person Fjord Noir mysteries set in 1920s Norway.
Well, this year anyway.
I suppose the only competition would be Ethan Carter, the least noir but most detective-y detective game I’ve played. I’m also willing to categorize Ethan Carter as “magicalrealismpunk” (in the interest of accuracy) along with Kentucky Route Zero and Edith Finch, also of the overly long name.
I’m waiting for a convincing entry into the Swamp Noir microgenre, there’s Knee Deep and Detective Grimoire on Steam but neither of them seem to have much to offer besides the interesting setting. May it be elevated from the traditional adventure game ghetto where it currently resides. I’ve got some tentative high hopes for The Sinking City, when it releases in 2020.
This fine fellow making Skies of the Past, is hitting me right in my voxel (pixel) loving heart.