Winter holiday activities

So the winter holiday has finally started. I have dozens of essay to write for my Uni application and that makes the day damn boring. Other than that it is looking very bright. I have good stable internet and a HDTV. Oh how I love the HDTV. Just watched Nanoha Movie 1st the other day and the picture quality is superb. The sound system is terrible though, but I guess one cannot have everything one wants. The second show I watched was Animelo 2009 on DVD. After sitting for an hour skipping to songs that I know, I realized watching a concert on TV is plain dull. I might as well turn on my ipod or do a youtube search.

I picked up a translation project of Sharin no Kuni, Himawari no Shoujo last week. Yes, the glorious game reviewed last post. I am currently translating from the English patch. Not the best according to my philosophy, but that'll do for now until I pick up some PROPER Japanese. Speaking of games and translation, I still got about ten translated visual novel waiting to be played. Damn those supplements.

That said, let's do a quick review of Eien no Aselia. The game came out in the middle of the year (or last year), but I was apparently too busy with IB to give it some attention until the real exam :D. It turned out to be pretty addictive, and it almost devastated my econs paper. A good combination of RPG game play and our ordinary run-of-the-mill adv. A classic of its own right.

First CG of the game. Pretty isn't it? (yeah I know it's white)

First, the adv section. The sprite and cg are...let's just say kinda old for my taste. However they are shiny in their own way (kinda like Sekien no Inganock). I expect a typical high school drama game, but thankfully Eien no Aselia gave me a wonderful surprise. After 30 minutes of 'normal daily life', you are transported to an alternate world of sword-and-magic fantasy. That's not the only good part about the storyline. This is a game where common sense matters some what, and NOT EVERYBODY speak Japanese. That's just brilliant, how you play fifteen minutes reading and listening to not-internally-contradicting gibberish, only to be relieved of their meaning in the 2nd play through.

Sorry to inform you but she is not capturable

The user interface is common and there's no problems with navigating around the game. The love and mind system is truly refreshing, since Fate Stay Night. A combination of many choices that leaves me absolutely clueless about which route I am following the first time I played. The storyline varies slightly for each route and a significant portion at the end is reserved for each heroine. The story is not like Clannad or Sharin no Kuni, but they are still touching and very vexing. Yes, if you are fighting a war, you'd face as many dilemma as the protagonist does. That makes reading the story fun and exciting, and not just simply heart-warming.

Moving on to the RPG protion. Now this is the highlight of the game. A simple system but there are plenty of rooms for strategy, and getting SS on each and every level is not easy. It took me a lot of saves to clear the game the first time. A simple turn-based system with skippable animation.

That's the command screen for you. Imagine seeing this 100-1000 times

The strategy is simple, but you need to pay attention to your enemy if you want to beat a stage, not to mention getting good ranking. The RPG does affect routing of the adv section, so you have to balance between killing that group of enemies and pairing up with your desired heroine.

The sound is definitely a plus. The battle theme and regular daily life BGM are very decent, and the emo-ish one is also superb. Not as good as clannad but I could still get this game OST. Art is as commented above. Not shining in a moe sense but very beautiful.

Last and not least, H-scene. Hey did I just say H-scene? Sorry guys there's no H-scene on this English translation. It's based on the PS2 port with added scenario, CG and sprite, but no H-scene. If you want them, go get the DVD version, untranslated, of course. Some of them are really extreme, as there was an 'evil route' removed. You have been warned.

That's it for the review. This is definitely a recommended game. I'm gonna spend this holiday finishing the rest of the 7 routes of this game. Until next time.