Full Review: Weapon Shop de Omasse (3DS)

So I finished Weapon Shop de Omasse the other night, and then I finished it an additional four times the next day, but I will get to that later on.  This game was created by developer Level 5 (Professor Layton series, Starship Damrey) and conceptualized by Japanese comedian Yoshiyuki Hirai and that comedic sense and timing comes across frequently during the game, referencing both video game culture and TV culture; "I stick them with the. . .which end was it?" said one generic NPC during a battle.

Gameplay

As stated a few weeks back, Weapon Shop de Omasse is a comedic blacksmithing parody simulation of traditional JRPGs.  The game is spent between a number of mini-game-esque type tasks. 

1) Smithing: You are able to create various types of weapons (Sword, Dagger, Spear, Axe, Dao, Club, et cetera).  You strike the chunk of heated metal to a musical theme that is associated with a Hero character.  It basically acts like a rhythm matching/mimicking game, but you have to strike the metal in different areas and "carve" away the unwanted material in order to get the shape of the specific weapon you are creating.  While smithing, you also have to keep an eye on the temperature of the metal because if it cools down too much, the metal will not be as malleable and you will fail in your smithing task.

Chaining hammer falls will increase the bonus to whichever attribute
the game currently wants to assign your bonus to.

Smithing is actually where I had the biggest issue.  As you complete a musical phrase, you add a certain attribute (slash, pierce or bludgeon) bonus to that weapon although I was never able to figure out how the game decided to choose which attribute was going to be assigned.  For example, I would be smithing an axe that would need to have a high slashing attribute and the first two "chains" on a musical phrase would add points to slash, but then for the rest of the song, points would go to pierce and bludgeon.  Upon finishing, each weapon is rated (Lame, Not Bad, Good, Great) and if the weapon's primary attribute was rated as "Lame," your weapon would often be classified as "Dull," which is not something you want an axe you crafted for your Grandmother who is questing to find her husband to be swinging around.  I am positive I must have missed something early on in the game when this was explained, so that is my own loss.

2) Polishing: Once a weapon is created or returned, you have to polish it back to its presentable beauty.  Polishing also buffs a weapon's attributes (slash, pierce, bludgeon) by about 10 points in each category., you Weapons of various types and strengths are unlocked as the owner of the shop buys additional materials which allow you to create new weapons as well as your customers who return their rented weapons along with some items used to modify the weapons you make.

The rest of the game is spent keeping track of which weapons you have in stock, which weapons you need to make for heroes who have put in orders to be picked up later, and what materials you currently have in stock to create the aforementioned weapons.

Story

The story in Omasse, is a very stereotypical one for people who have played a JRPG or twelve: Small village near "Starting City" where you play as Yhan, an apprentice to the local master blacksmith, Oyaji where customers come in and rent weapons to complete quests in anticipation of the returning Dark Lord and his minions.  Yuhan and Oyaji have a subtle comedic relationship, but the majority of the laughs come from Oyaji's blunt reaction to characters who enter the shop.

There are a number of hero characters who have their own individual stories, which are fairly amusing and at times I often felt like a bartender, hearing them talk about some aspect of their lives and the particular quest they were going on.  And while you do deal with the hero characters, the other half of the time you deal with generic NPCs (which I found odd that they were all male where as there is one transgender and four female hero characters) who acknowledge the fact that they are not heros by saying things like, "Wouldn't you rather rent this out to a real character?" and "I like repeating the same actions!"

The Grindcast, which you can select a single person to read their feed.
Some characters will also use hashtags like #weaponreviews.

Half of the story is told by the face-t0-face interactions in the store while the other half is through a game mechanic called the "Grindcast."  Grind referring to the JRPG aspect of games grinding for levels between story points and Cast from, I am assuming, podcasts.  The characters are told that there is a device on each weapon that allows the people in the shop to keep track of them on their quest and the weapons.  The Grindcast plays in the background too while you perform various tasks around the shop (smithing, polishing, inventory management) and it can be kind of hard to keep track of what the heros are up to while also paying attention to smithing that wavy-bladed flamberge.  There will also be times when unlabeled and unknown characters' quest updates will appear on the Grindcast, but these are not explained and they come across as just general chatter.

[no_spoilers]There were two separate and unrelated story elements that I was surprised that the game took.  The first I saw coming but was still surprised that it happened, knowing that the "traditional American producer" would say that the audience would not want to see that happen to a character.  The second event I did not see coming at all and felt it was rather abrupt.  Upon later reflection, it made a little bit of sense, but it felt a little out of place.  That is all I will say[/no_spoilers].

Master Blacksmith Oyaji.
Proper protection is necessary around the forge.

Graphics

With the exception of some of the design for one of the hero characters, I was overall very happy with the overall look of the game.  Being on the 3DS, I was not going in expecting modded Skyrim level of graphics, but you could say that based on the title screen, I was expecting something more akin to Akira Toriyama with a little bit less in the spikey hair department.  There was one character who did look like they could have come from a Dragon Warrior game as the best friend or part time sidekick of Loto/Erdrick.

3D Effectiveness

The 3D effect worked very well for the majority of the game.  Most of the time I had the slider at about 50-75%.  My favorite part was looking over the various weapons I had created with the slider on, but seeing as how NPCs or heroes would frequently walk into the shop or I had weapons to forge or polish, there did not leave a whole lot of time (when I thought about it) to admire my handiwork.

Music & Sound

Since at least half of the smithing aspect of the game involved hammering out weapons to music, the music would have to be catchy enough not to become annoying; pretty much what every overworld and battle music in every RPG ever has to strive to achieve.  Each style of weapon would have a specific song associated with it and while the songs became repetitive pretty early on, the rhythm that you had to hammer out changed depending on the level of the weapon; higher level weapons mean a more complicated rhythm.

Some of the songs associated with the characters are rather silly and probably should not be taken too seriously, but if you are already in the mindset that this is a comedic game, then you will be right at home with the tunes.

Something else I found to be interesting was that there was no vocal localization for English speaking countries (not that everything has to be English-centric).  All of the spoken dialogue in the game, which came from Oyaji, is all spoken in Japanese.  I know can make the general sounds associated with "Lame, Not Bad" and "Great."  There are other praises/scolds you are given upon completing each weapon and you can tell by the inflection in Oyaji's voice if he is pleased or not.  You can also assume that a dull weapon should not be part of the store's inventory.  I was and am very glad that the games spoken dialogue was not localized, but then again I tend to favor original language and subtitles over dubbed versions of anything anyhow.

Final Thoughts

So the game took about 15 hours to complete and as far as I can tell, that will be about the average amount it takes in order to beat the game every time as the events are scripted and even if you make weapons faster than I did, it will not mean that they will be rented out and returned any faster.  Some people, who are better blacksmiths than I and better judges of character when choosing which weapon to rent out may not take as long as hero quests are repeated until they succeed and advance their story.

An additional 11 hours have not changed my high recommendation for Weapon Shop de Omasse one bit as I still would recommend it to anyone with a 3DS.  While the game became tedious at points and frustrating trying to figure out why my weapons were coming out dull or when my money became so low that I couldn't afford to but the highest level materials to make the strongest weapons for the higher level quests heros and NPCs needed to accomplish in order to help make the weapon shop money so they could afford to by better materials to make better weapons. . .and so on and so forth.  

But what is a fun and memorable game without a little bit of work and frustration?  Not worth playing in my opinion.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Fighting for Survival

First Impressions (Of Sorts): Weapon Shop de Omasse (3DS)

"In the world of RPGs, many heroes arise, but someone's got to make their weapons."  That's the tagline and hook for the 3DS eShop game, Weapon Shop de Omasse from developers, Level-5 (Professor Layton series).  The premise is a pretty simple one and is stated in the tagline: you are a blacksmith (actually the apprentice to the blacksmith) and are making weapons in a village during a typical JRPG setting: in that the Dark Lord has returned after being defeated 50 years prior.  It's your job to create the weapons (which vary among daggers, swords, spears, axes, katanas and the like).

I credit in large part my history with "traditional" JRPGs such as Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior/Quest and Paladin's Quest for easily falling into this game, similar to how I was able to buy into the gameplay and aesthetic of Witch and Hero. If you aren't immediately okay with the idea that there is an absolute evil and that there are people out questing AND that the game makes light of this common convention, then this probably won't be the game for you.

Gameplay is a mix between overly simplified blacksmith simulation crossbred with a rhythm game with a bit of multitasking (keeping the temperature of the metal between the correct temperature) thrown in for good measure.  You also have to keep track of your blacksmithing materials, which weapons you have already created and who has which weapon out on a quest.

There are also some rather divergent elements to this game that are not a part of most RPGs.You are in charge of selecting the proper weapon for your customers which means looking at the weakness of the monster they are going after along with their personal preference for a certain type of weapon.  You are also in charge of polishing the weapons after they are made and when they return in order, I think, to help level up the weapons.  The most "different" thing is that weapons are rented as opposed to sold.  It sounds very odd, and even the characters in-game comment on how odd this is for a village blacksmith in an RPG game to be doing, but that's one of the game mechanics and it works pretty well.

There have been times between customers coming into the store that I wish I had time to craft some of the newly available weapons (due to new materials coming into the shop), but the store is just too busy.  Then there's downtime, which is something that exists in nearly every job.  I have created all the weapons that I needed to, all the weapons have been polished, the store is stocked with enough materials for additional smithing if need be. . . there's just nothing to do.  So your character just hangs around the store while you, the player, reads from the Grindcast (a twitterfeed-type device that lets you read about what the heros/NPCs are doing while they're out with one of the weapons they've rented from your store.

Presently, I've put almost four hours into this game and while entertained, there hadn't been that moment that often happens in games where you just sit back and are like, "Wow. . . huh."  That happened last night for me.  I had finished crafting a handful of new weapons, some of which came out dull (and I'm still trying to figure out why) and I knew that my (in-game) Grandma was coming by to pick up a weapon for a specific type of enemy.  Well, she showed up a lot sooner than I had thought, but I had just crafted a new type of axe that would give her a 60% chance of success so I rented it to her.  It wasn't until after she left that I went back to polishing some weapons when I realized that I had rented my Grandmother an unpolished weapon.  I felt shame.  That I had let my Grandmother leave a store that her grandchild worked at with an axe that I had failed to make as presentable as possible (I am just a little bit afraid that she's going to bring this fact up when she returns the weapon).  That was when I knew for sure that this game had it's proverbial hooks in me.

There is still a lot that I have not covered (artwork, music, spoken dialogue, written script, more in depth of the Grindcast, et cetera) and that will have to wait for the Full Review to come whenever I finish the game, which will definitely happen.  The game, unfortunately, is no longer on sale through the eShop, but I would have been happy if I had paid full price, even though the fact that it was on sale is what made me purchase the game, but if you're still on the fence, the demo is available and gives a great example of what the rest of the game would play like.  I highly recommend it.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

One Song We Share

Webcomic Post: Homestuck

I tried to post about Homestuck over a year ago, but I couldn't narrow down my thoughts.  This bulleted list helps. 

Oh, it starts innocently enough...

Things you should know about Homestuck:

• Homestuck is not a video game, it is a webcomic, but it will be a video game soon!  
• Homestuck is hilarious and features a great number of jokes about data structures in the first Act
• It also makes lots of jokes about video games.
• The story is very long and vast and absurdly complex.  More so than any rpg I've played except maybe Xenogears
• Homestuck has really great cinema scenes
• It also has a really good soundtrack
• Homestuck is free to read and all the music is free to listen to.  
• Homestuck is mega-popular with the next generation* 
• Homestuck has a devoted and loyal fanbase and huge catalog of fan art. 
• Homestuck might just be the Ulysses of the Internet
• My favorite characters are Jade, Dave and Karkat and Terezi
• I took my font choice from Homestuck
• Prior to Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures produced Problem Sleuth, which is also hilarious, imaginative and epic.  But less overblown and more lighthearted. (and not nearly as long) 
• Homestuck has recently begun updating again after a year-long pause.  It should be finished by the end of next year.  

Basically, Homestuck is everything the best jRPGs are, but it's not actually a video game.  I recommend it to everyone who likes jRPGs and has a few dozen hours to waste reading it.  Once you get in, it's really tough to put down, even though it will make you sick sometimes when it meanders around for aeons.  Have fun!

-D

*there are some who would call them... Tim?  or 'millenials,' --actually, I prefer Tim, I'm going to call that generation Tim from now on

Link Post

Time for another link post!  Originally I had this tagged to the back of the TMNT Emulator Hour, but then I thought it was better not to mix the link post with the TMNT post.  Almost no connection between the two. Except that James Nintendo Nerd reviewed TMNT- to which I have linked.  I'm sure many of you have already been to these sites, but I still think it's nice to have them in one place with pretty pictures.  Today's theme is:  Game Reviews.  

Many thanks for image to:  http://therealmcast.com/

Angry Video Game Nerd:

This is a popular series about a guy playing NES games and hating most of them.  He also likes to use really filthy language in his descriptions.  If you like NES and filthy language, you'll probably like this series.  To get you started, here's a link to his review of TMNT for NES.   He covers a lot of the same points I mention.

Tabletop

Wil Wheaton is back, with a clever idea and entertaining dialogue.   Tabletop is the premier place to find out about card games and board games.  It's pretty funny too.  Good going Mr. Crusher! 

Zero Punctuation

Yahtzee's game reviews.  This guy cracks me up.  This series has some of the best image-to-dialogue timing and content I've ever seen.  And of course, plenty of filthy language, but with a British ex-pat twist.  I recommend starting from the earlier shows, when his style was still fresh.  On an related note, I just started playing 6 Days a Sacrifice, the last in the Chzo Mythos.

  Indie Impressions

For a kinder, gentler approach to game reviews, RockLeeSmile's Indie Impressions is a series of videos focusing on Independent games.  The video collection is exhaustive, and the viewpoint can be a refreshing alternative to the vulgar negativity of Yahtzee or JamesNintendoNerd.  RockLeeSmile seems to have a genuine interest in promoting Independent games on a whole.