![]() That Was Too EasyĪnd I really do mean a lot closer one of the most disappointing aspects of Ray Gigant is its difficulty, which undermines a lot of the refreshingly weird variations it has on dungeon-crawling combat. It’s a little confusing and unwieldy at first, but once you get the hang of it, the game’s best equipment is that much closer to your grubby little paws. For example, if you level up your sword box, you’ll get a better sword the next time you use a Breed on it. This last one is a particularly bizarre little addition - rather than getting gear directly from enemies, you use items called “Breeds” to generate item drops that correspond with the item box you pick. Rather than gain experience from each battle, enemies drop items that can be used to make progress on each branch of the skill tree: Force to learn new skills, Seed to level up in one of three main attribute areas, and Materia to upgrade your item boxes. That brings us to the way progression is made, which is essentially a simpler version of the Sphere Grid skill-tree system in games like Final Fantasy X. I don’t think this system works quite as well - the game seems to reward the former approach during regular battles, and the latter during boss fights - but it does provide an interesting wrinkle in the turn-based proceedings, and it pairs quite well with some of Ray Gigant’s other quirks. Overall, this system reminded me of the “Brave/Default” function in the Nintendo 3DS game Bravely Default you can either spend all your points right away on a flurry of attacks, or be more deliberate about things so as to keep your characters guarded. Enemy types also play a role: if you bump into a red enemy on the map, all your moves will cost twice the AP they would, while blue enemies let you get away with a half-price AP bargain. ![]() You can recover it by defeating an enemy in the first five turns (with the amount varying based on the turn your victory comes), or by using the “wait” command, which leaves you open to attack as you charge more points up. Once in combat, you’ve got to learn to contend with the “action point”-based system, which works thusly: your party has a maximum of 100 AP, which is expended in various amounts depending on the moves you choose. Nothing will likely surprise genre veterans until they actually bump into one of the enemy icons and get into a battle. In this case, there aren’t many surprises as far as the actual dungeon part of things go you’ve got your first-person perspective, your maze-like layouts, and your enemies and treasures laid out on the map. I have to admit, I’m kind of amazed that something as simple as the dungeon-crawler - which is just about as old-fashioned as you can get in terms of RPGs - still manages to see new, weird variations that switch up the formula. ![]() The gameplay is where things get stimulating, anyway. The nicest thing I can say is that the game keeps things light and varied by breaking the tale up into three smaller stories, each of which has its own set of protagonists - but even then, the benefits to that are more gameplay-related than story-related. ![]() Worse yet, it’s wrapped up in one of the goofiest localizations I’ve seen in awhile, filled with too many “That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means” examples to count. Yes, there’s a school where the superpowered teens gather, and yes, one of the protagonists commits harakiri in order to transform, and no, that’s not really as awesome as it sounds. This is your bog-standard “anime teens save the world” story, littered with dull cliches that seem to have come right down the Shonen Factory assembly line. ![]() Let’s get this out of the way, though: none of what makes this game unique or interesting is at the narrative level. ![]()
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