It certainly does showcase the power of love. And guns. And monster girlfriends. ...honestly, there's probably at least one manga out there that has such a premise.
@@Cowboycomando54 IIRC that also applies to one party member in Chrono Trigger. Granted, Lucca might not be a KID kid since she's 19, but she most certainly has a gun. Not only does she have something to say no to, but she's also got something to say no WITH. The latter line being what I thought the line was for a long time, until I eventually realized that it was "they've got something to say no TO". But to be fair, if a kid has a gun, it'd make sense that they've got something to say no with.
@@lioneldvaz9879 I mean, going with Lovecraftian rules... being corrupted like that isn't necessarily even bad. The real issue is going insane. And THAT is what the ending hinted at. Mizuki has been trying to act normal, and hoping that she'll actually return to normal, but... she feels it.... the call.... And in the end realizes she's no longer fully Human. Which makes me wonder.... how many of the party ARE actually fully Human at the end? 2?
@@329link Game designers making secrets should think, "What would be an unbelievably awesome rumour to be told as a kid in the playground during recess"
I can't actually read Japanese, but I do know a bit of katakana and a lot of Lovecraft. I'm pretty sure the dark continent in the last level is R'lyeh, even more mangled by the Japanese language than the average mortal tongue. And the twist ending of Mizuki craving the waters of the island is more or less just a shoutout to the twist ending of Shadow Over Innsmouth.
It tracks. Even in English it's hard to know how to "officially" pronounce Lovecraft's nuttier names, let alone render them in katakana. Unlike Tolkien, I'm not sure Lovecraft ever issued any official word on how stuff like "R'lyeh" and "Cthulu fhtagn" SHOULD be pronounced.
Generally, the syllabic structure in Japanese is very simple, but it makes consonant clusters nearly impossible to render in Japanese in a way that would be easy to comprehend if you don't know the language well. For example, Christmas = Ku-ri-su-ma-su. So yeah, you're absolutely correct - Ru-ri-e is R'lyeh for sure (it's often spelled ルルイエ as well to my knowledge).
@@forestsavior There is an 'official' way to pronounce Cthulhu outlined by Lovecraft in one of his letters (dude wrote a lot of letters). From Wikipedia: Lovecraft transcribed the pronunciation of Cthulhu as Khlûl′-hloo, and said, "the first syllable pronounced gutturally and very thickly. The 'u' is about like that in 'full', and the first syllable is not unlike 'klul' in sound, hence the 'h' represents the guttural thickness" yielding something akin to /ˈq(χ)lʊlˌhluː/. S. T. Joshi points out, however, that Lovecraft gave different pronunciations on different occasions. According to Lovecraft, this is merely the closest that the human vocal apparatus can come to reproducing the syllables of an alien language.
@@freezehorn I do have to wonder.... the ending hints that she really didn't go back to normal and is actually still transformed just more subtly. CAN she choose to turn mermaid again? Is she only looking normal because she wants to?
>Dude's girlfriend becomes a fish monster lady and he doesn't even care For once I find myself able to connect on a personal level with a JRPG protagonist.
If I had a nickel every time I saw a Japanese made video game based on the Cthulhu Mythos with a major character who is a reference to Titus Crow in it, I would have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.
So after this, the three things I learned about Keiske is 1: He is a bloodthirsty, overpowered god through the use of meditation. 2: He is a devoted partner. 3: He would make a biblical angel tell him to be more afraid.
Imagine your ancestors go through the trouble of making a dark pact with alien gods to get you an immortal fish monster body and the last thing you see is a hairgel-abusing college student drawing down on you.
I just realized that nothing is explained about the plane crash, but then you find out one of the characters that was with you at the beginning has fish skin under a bandage that had all along, no one else is “cursed out of nowhere” from the original party, and then he says he has been in two plane crashes here. I have the feeling knowing Lovecrafitian lore that Dagon may have lulled him into unconsciously causing the crash. The “Innsmouth” curse can’t really be permanently cured in the lore, only suppressed and it’s genetic. Mizuki and all her descendants will hear the call of the sea to join the Deep ones. Dagon and Hydra (yes both are considered gods in the myth) are basically impossible to kill, certaintly not with a gun as much as the protag is a badass. He did the equivalent of banishing it and the undersea city (can guess what the name is) for some years at best, but the islanders, his girl and any child the two are gonna have are basically screwed. In very lovecraftian fashion, the cultists were the most “sane”, accepting their doomed status and joining their sea bretheren.
In my head I call this sort of thing a TAG video - Talking About Game. Whatever it's called, it's informative and enjoyable. There's a lot of interesting stuff that either never really left Japan or flew under the radar in Europe/the US. (Also Koudelka deserves more love.)
That ending sting in the best ending is especially weird since... they beat the source of the monsters. If Mizuki needs to visit the island every, what, 4 years to stay sane or whatever that should be fine? Just feels to me like it's there because it's the Done Thing in horror to ruin any happy endings with a stinger, post-credits or otherwise.
This is likely a reference to The Shadow over Innsmouth. Makes sense, seeing how much stuff is straight up lifted from Lovecraft in this game; in Lovecraft's lore, you can never permanently win against the gods. She is either slowly losing her mind or is no longer fully human. So yeah, it makes sense, even though this is the best ending.
Don’t want to ruin A Shadow Over Innsmouth for you guys so stop reading here if you’ve not yet read it. But yeah basically the exact same thing happens to the main character at the end of the book, he has deep one blood in his lineage and after escaping Innsmouth he feels called back and can’t resist the call of the sea - he also has been changing very visibility To a bestial, reptilian/froglike visage, with bulging, glassy eyes, scaly sagging grey skin and eventually gills and webbed fingers
Man meditates enough to kill god in order to have a monster girl wife. This would be really fun to try if there ever is a fan made translation, though odds sound pretty low on that
i think of videos like this as the video game version of an abridged audiobook. you get the story, you get the vibe, you get the best lines, and you can finish the whole thing while felling asleep. and this was a fun one. cheers.
33:50 I know the devs probably didn't intend on this but hearing you mention how the geography of the cemetery doesn't seem to make sense reminded me of the city Cthulhu was trapped under and that got a giggle out of me. I wasn't expecting the game to pull out actual R'lyeh in the end lol
I’m a bit unsatisfied about the game not having any description of “cyclopean pillars” or “cyclopean structures” (I mean the TH-camr didn’t point it out).
The way you can abuse healing to level up reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance where you can corner a helpless enemy (or do this on the like one quest that doesn't end when all enemies die) and spam the Boost skill from Archers for like 10 EXP a pop, it's also a game where the EXP to level up remains the same. The speedrun used to do it for like 40 minutes straight to get to level 40, but there's a new route I'm more unfamiliar with now.
And that is why I prefer mana or some other mechanic to limit it. Even if it's functionally the same between "using MP potion", "using recall potion to recover your spell slots" and "equipping new staff/book", I just hate losing items.
@@enriquejoseantequerasanche6180 the problem with that is that you can't easily give the player a later game resource early but with limited resources. I guess some people are allergic to resource management in the same way others are allergic to time limits.
I had to play this game for a mystery game tournament (called Tondeuse Dorée). I couldn't read a single word of japanese but I really had fun for the hour my time on the game lasted. I really wish someone releases a translation one day.
The guy who hosts the FAQ kind of reminds me of Sword Of Moonlight. That guy/group has maintained that site and kept it updated for like, 30 years! They are finally starting to get some love with all the interest in Dark Souls/Elden Ring.
The thing about wasting turns to get experience brought me back to playing Final Fantasy Tactics as a kid, and having my characters form a group punching each other around a monk spamming chakra. lol
Feels like these devs were inspired by final fantasy tactics. Yes you can waste turns and level up using buffs or having characters hurt each other and heal in that game. But what makes it better is the opponents in random battles will always scale to be more powerful than you. When when you hit the level cap at level 99 the cpu opponents will be level 115. So it stays fun and can be pretty hard at higher levels.
Katakana names that could be either EN or JP names depending on how you squint at them are my worst enemy, you are definitely not alone in that 😩 Cool look at a funky little game though! Gotta love those monster gfs.
Virgin Lovecraftian protagonist "Oh no, fish people are so scary, i`m going insane just looking at them!" vs. Chad Keisuke "I don`t care if my girlfriend turns into a monster. As long as we love each other, we will make it work. And we will slay a god together!".
Oh geez, I can super relate to the notion of static EXP gains and thresholds. As soon as I heard that self recovery moves give static EXP, I immediately knew the logical conclusion. "Super Robot Taisen", "Luminous Arc", "Final Fantasy Tactics", "Tears to Tiara 2", "Relayer", "Hoshigami", the list goes on. If given the opportunity to throw all strategy out the window by repeating the same simple action over and over again to over level is given, relatively quickly as that, I'm super taking it for a good laugh. Granted, you don't really see it that much anymore, due to I want to say improved standards of balancing, but you can still find an occasional SRPG where it's notably exploitable. But yeah, this was interesting. Not often you get to discover what is essentially a forgotten game. Being an SRPG fan and mildly interested in Lovecraftian works also helps. I actually wouldn't mind to have played this myself...though the specific and janky requirements for some plot things do dissuade me a little. Never really been a fan of that kind of thing.
Seems like you could possibly limit the abusability of such a mechanic by capping the amount of EXP a single character can acquire this way per encounter. It still encourages the player to do it, but hard limits how much it can be exploited to overlevel.
The randomness of Reiji's death for some reason made me think of Gai's fate in the TV series Jetman, which in turn had me wondering if it is part of some trope in Japan. The character that lost their "true love", and in what is treated as a manly meaningful way effectively choose to "give up" on self-preservation, and thus end up getting themselves killed in the epilogue. You could even argue that Spike from Cowboy Bebop fits this idea.
It's definitely a drama trope, and while it's quite popular in Japan it used to also be popular in western storirs (Snape in the Harry Potter franchise, most of the good guys in Bram Stoker's Dracula, technically even Conan the barbarian has this happen,though he was never too into safety to begin with)
@@enriquejoseantequerasanche6180 I hadn't thought about those examples, but I mean when it happens in the epilogue, or at the least after the main conflict is resolved. Jetman is an example. After the defeat of the main villain, the series jumps ahead three years for an epilogue. Gai's best friend is marrying Gai's "true love". On his way to the wedding, Gai is randomly stabbed stopping a pickpocket. Instead of doing something sensible like going to a hospital, Gai goes to the wedding, takes photos with his friends afterward (telling them he's simply hungover), and dies alone on the bench after sending them off.
@@BainesMkII i know that its meant to be tragic and poignant, and it probably is when consuming the source, but just reading that summary made me giggle
@@Georgiaplains I've never heard that fan theory before. Not only does nothing in the story support it, it would actively undermine a driving theme that runs through the entire series, the idea of being stuck in the past (akin to being dead) versus accepting change to live in the present. Spike's refusal to move on is a defining aspect of his character, and why his death was necessary. It is the tragedy of Spike and Faye's relationship, as he convinced her to move on, but refused to do so with her. It was a theme of the entire Bebop crew, with Jet caught in his own past until he learned to move on, while Ed was the one that always freely lived. It was a key for other characters, like the immortal kid where "living" involved physically dying. It was was a meta theme; the bounty hunter show being cancelled and the actors moving on, the Bebop crew forming and then separating, and even the anime itself ending.
Hot damn, I hope you make more of these narrative reviews of untranslated JRPGs! Also, that reveal of the pun in Mizuki's name almost hurt as much as realizing the power icon is just a 1 overlayed on a 0
That feature reminds me of Final Fantasy 2.... you can go into a fight vs weak enemies that have no chance at hurting you.... and have your party PvP each other for Xp..... or whatever weird stat system that game has instead of traditional levels. Thing is... you can do this ENDLESSLY, and there's no downside unless you TPK yourself.
@@marhawkman303[ ...or whatever weird stat system that game has instead of traditional levels.] I think that might be a D&D thing, not sure since your wording is vauge.
@@lunyxappocalypse7071 FF2 doesn't have character levels, instead you get stat increases by "using" the stats. taking damage in combat gives you more HP, using MP gives more MP, etc.... It's kind of like each stat has it's own XP bar.
Currently learning Japanese with my main motivation being able to play all of these obscure Japanese games. I'm not sure why, but they fascinate me so much... Great video btw!
When you mentioned that Mizuki’s move that inflicted all ailments on the target didn’t work with the kids, my immediate thought was instant death. Disappointed that wasn’t the case, because would’ve been hilarious.
excellent video!!! this is the kind of content i love most, obscure, niche games. love getting to hear the stories of games i may never have come across otherwise. thank you punchy!!!
I have no good name to offer for this type of video. What I really appreciate is that you use your language proficiency so that people like me can learn new unexpected things. So thank you very much! In a way, your like a kind of cultural ambassador to me... which is probably a bit pretentious. What can I say? English is not my first language. Cheers!
Thank you for capturing the words for why I enjoy Punchy's work. I tend to consider games like this a summary or review, but neither are quite right either. The point is it teaches neat little things like the kana meltdown he has with Crow. Your English is fine, by the way. You got your meaning across, that is all that matters in an informal setting.
This game actually seems kinda delightful. Balance aside, it seems like it has some fairly neat ideas, and it's neat to see horror-game mechanics transposed into a Tactics Ogre/FFT-style battle/world system. I know that translating it would be a lot of work, but I hope that somebody takes a whack at a translation patch someday.
5:45 THANK YOU for actually playing the game audio after making a comment about it. It irks the fckoutta me when videos remark on the great OST/SFX and what a banger such and such is just to never play even a clip. Like why mention it all you want me to leave your video midway to see wtf you're talking about? Lol anyways *SUB TO PUNCHY!*
the bizarre balance choices remind me of summon night. those games try to balance it by giving you optional rewards for only having units below a certain level land kills but that just means you have to ferry in your god unit to land some big punches before letting willy weakman finish guys off afterwards
A bit late to this but personally I like what youtuber Marsh does for his videos and calls them “Experience” like “the SMT II experience” or “The G-Hul experience” since it is your experience with said game
The ending stinger seems like a joke to my boi MC. What will the girlfriend do after throwing that line? Scare him to death? Even with out her buffs, MC was solo John Wicking people in the island. Can her one liner surpass MC's gun-jutsu?
Travelogue is how I interpret a video like this. If you let yourself relax and slow down, I'd put this next to Noah Caldwell Gervais kind of thing. I can hear the level of interpetation and analysis being pushed to read faster.
This was great, I liked the addition of how comprehensible the game is for people of varying skills in japanese. I'm as beginner as they come right now, but an idea of what it takes to play these obscure games and understand them is a nice bonus
The combat and XP system seems *very* similar to that of Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced. I can't speak to other FFT titles, but in that one it was 100% viable to sit in a mission and clobber your own White Mage with weak attacks and then use AoE healing to heal everyone. Anything that affected your own character always gave at least 10XP, and it has the same 100XP per level thing. There was at least some disincentive for this, because of the class change system, but it's not a huge downside for most of the game, and lets you absolutely steamroll big chunks of the game.
I'd go with "overview" as a term to call it, it doesn't have as much information outside the game to feel like a retrospective and not enough opinionation to fall into a review. another good phrase would be "Lets Talk About X" if you want to think of it as a lets play but condensed
never heard of this game before but i know if it was translated back in the day it would have been the EXACT kind of thing i would have stared at longingly in game stores for. weird strategy RPGs with a bit of jank really a special kind of sweet spot.
Been really enjoying these types of vids you've been putting out! And I agree with another commenter, this seems like a "overview" of the game, where you start from the beginning to the end covering mostly the major details. To me It feels like a narrative overview, rather than a typical review, since you're explaining mechanics and story beats while taking us on your own playthrough. Great stuff, looking forward to more!
Pretty entertaining video! I came across this game myself on a whim due to the cool title, and it's a pretty fun time! Seems like I stumbled into the good ending by accident, lol.
Great video as always! I love hearing about new retrogames that missed me by. Its an utter shame there's a load Japanese only releases that never got translated (either officially or unoffically) that are either good or have interesting premises. I definitely would have tracked this down for myself as the story premise alone is decent. I wonder the creative choice not to just say "lets try to port it to the PS2 instead" but committing completely to PS1 release that late in the console's lifecycle. Maybe this might be playable with Google Translate on phone but can see that getting tiring fast. At least with text only/subtitled stuff its an option but not always viable. Like, there's an FMV game that came on 4 discs on the PS2 called "The Fear" and from what I gather has good acting, good production values but has no Japanese subtitles and was never translated. I love that somebody said "we're going to release a 4 DVD disc FMV game, I don't care that the genre has largely died out at this point AND we're not going to release it on PC, which historically has the best market for it, but only on the PS2. Also we're not going to halfass it". Even if it was bad, I still admire the commitment to a goal but sadly I can't play it cause I have zero Japanese and its not subtitled for trying Google Translate.
Good video on a very neat and interesting game. Despite usually avoiding semantics, I think essay is _technically_ more fitting, while what we usually think of as a "video essay" might be more accurately called a treatise, or dissertation. Maybe the "appraisal" might fit?
I enjoyed this video immensely. I don't think I'll ever play this game, but I really liked someone giving an in-depth look to an obscure untranslated game from the PS1 era. I'm new to your channel and it doesn't look like this is your normal content, but I'd love if you did similar videos in the future!
Does he do PS1 at all? He's specialized in SNES/SFC, as far as I know. Maybe he worked on a couple PS1 games, but it's definitely not his area of expertise.
The 'bracelet reacts' bit was ambiguous because that's how that cultural 'meme' is. In very old far eastern writings, like Son Wukong's Journey to the West, there are mentions of artifacts that 'react' to other things. That's all it states is it 'reacts'. As a result, this ambiguity isn't a missed explanation but rather a cultural caveat, because most people have already developed their assumption of what 'react' would mean in this situation.
To answer your question, mr. Video-maker man, I guess I'd call it either a "review" or a "synopsis?" It's not just a "plot synopsis" because you also describe the act of playing it.
It's funny looking at this and seeing a lot of the genes of FFT influencing it, coming at it solely from the strategy RPG angle. Very interesting game.
"But why would you not?" That's my stand on when i used an exploit in Dragon Age Origins where you could reach level cap and end up with several hundreds (if not Thousands if you wish) of Gold before you've left the first village after leaving Flemeth's hut. Yes enemies do scale with you, but counter argument, i got enough money to fully kit out my whole team, and Merchants alter their stock as you gain levels.
I managed to land a sealed copy of this one. Always wanted to play it, but I was hoping for a fan patch to come along. I think this video has convinced me that I ought to experience it despite the language barrier.
I randomly stumbled across this video and i found this really interesting, and i like the bits of perspective you bring, talking about playing this as a non-native reader and even talking about the language and reading complexity for the interest of other learners. Really cool stuff, definitely subbed!
Thanks for showing off the game's good art in the thumbnail! It got me interested, and I'm glad I got to learn about a rare game that I'd otherwise would've never. The video was good and entertaining!
I love these types of videos. They're incredibly helpful to me in particular since I like to record shitty games for longplays and researching obscure stuff that often has no faq takes a lot of effort.
the levelling mechanic is pretty weird; there's no way they didn't know what they were doing, they must've realized the structure of the game doesn't let you go back and grind like most RPGs. but they picked a pretty silly workaround. also Keisuke being a monster-lover is great; i imagine after crossing the moral boundary of killing, and then doing it again and again until you're an expert killing machine, you're gonna stop worrying about a few errant scales
This entire game can be summed up with
“We will defeat you with the power of love and this gun I found!”
This sounds like a great Huey Lewis and the News track
It certainly does showcase the power of love. And guns. And monster girlfriends. ...honestly, there's probably at least one manga out there that has such a premise.
Maybe the real treasure is this GUN i found on the way!
*Starts playing Kid With Guns by Gorillaz*
@@Cowboycomando54 IIRC that also applies to one party member in Chrono Trigger. Granted, Lucca might not be a KID kid since she's 19, but she most certainly has a gun.
Not only does she have something to say no to, but she's also got something to say no WITH. The latter line being what I thought the line was for a long time, until I eventually realized that it was "they've got something to say no TO". But to be fair, if a kid has a gun, it'd make sense that they've got something to say no with.
Bro the kinda guy to immediately answer “yes” when asked: “Would you still love me if I was a worm?”
I for one audibly cheered when the main character embraced his monster GF
*girlfriend becomes monster*
Keiske: Feature not bug
Keiske is a man after my own heart
Feature and a bug
@@lioneldvaz9879 I mean, going with Lovecraftian rules... being corrupted like that isn't necessarily even bad. The real issue is going insane. And THAT is what the ending hinted at. Mizuki has been trying to act normal, and hoping that she'll actually return to normal, but... she feels it.... the call.... And in the end realizes she's no longer fully Human.
Which makes me wonder.... how many of the party ARE actually fully Human at the end? 2?
"No Takeru, don't parry the child!" took me out 😂
Elden Ring pvp
😂😂😂 same lmaoaoa
My favorite rpg trope is the one random item that nothing is communicated about that either has a crazy Easter egg or the true ending
I hope you're not being sarcastic because I honestly agree. Secrets and such that have insanely obtuse requirements are so fun to me.
@@329link Game designers making secrets should think, "What would be an unbelievably awesome rumour to be told as a kid in the playground during recess"
"No Takeru, don't parry the child!" is probably one of the funniest sentences I've heard coming out of someone's mouth ngl
I can't actually read Japanese, but I do know a bit of katakana and a lot of Lovecraft. I'm pretty sure the dark continent in the last level is R'lyeh, even more mangled by the Japanese language than the average mortal tongue. And the twist ending of Mizuki craving the waters of the island is more or less just a shoutout to the twist ending of Shadow Over Innsmouth.
Very plausible.
It tracks. Even in English it's hard to know how to "officially" pronounce Lovecraft's nuttier names, let alone render them in katakana. Unlike Tolkien, I'm not sure Lovecraft ever issued any official word on how stuff like "R'lyeh" and "Cthulu fhtagn" SHOULD be pronounced.
@@forestsavior having an official pronunciation would be counter to the premise of "so bizarre, whoever attempts to comprehend it goes insane".
Generally, the syllabic structure in Japanese is very simple, but it makes consonant clusters nearly impossible to render in Japanese in a way that would be easy to comprehend if you don't know the language well. For example, Christmas = Ku-ri-su-ma-su. So yeah, you're absolutely correct - Ru-ri-e is R'lyeh for sure (it's often spelled ルルイエ as well to my knowledge).
@@forestsavior There is an 'official' way to pronounce Cthulhu outlined by Lovecraft in one of his letters (dude wrote a lot of letters). From Wikipedia:
Lovecraft transcribed the pronunciation of Cthulhu as Khlûl′-hloo, and said, "the first syllable pronounced gutturally and very thickly. The 'u' is about like that in 'full', and the first syllable is not unlike 'klul' in sound, hence the 'h' represents the guttural thickness" yielding something akin to /ˈq(χ)lʊlˌhluː/. S. T. Joshi points out, however, that Lovecraft gave different pronunciations on different occasions. According to Lovecraft, this is merely the closest that the human vocal apparatus can come to reproducing the syllables of an alien language.
>turning overpowered monster gf back into regular gf
weak move keisuke
Well, she wanted it, so... he let her. If the locals are any indication though... it's not really needed. but she wants to be normal again,.
@@marhawkman303 oh i know, i was just making a goof
@@freezehorn I do have to wonder.... the ending hints that she really didn't go back to normal and is actually still transformed just more subtly. CAN she choose to turn mermaid again? Is she only looking normal because she wants to?
yees
@@marhawkman303 Maybe it's like her Devil Trigger now.
>Dude's girlfriend becomes a fish monster lady and he doesn't even care
For once I find myself able to connect on a personal level with a JRPG protagonist.
Hell yea
Based MC.
HAHAHAHA XD UR SO QUIRKY
@@Fazberrygooday
bro 🤨
Truly a man ahead of his time.
Crow might be named after Titus Crow, the protagonist of Brian Lumley's cthulhu mythos novels
this is probably the best theory I've heard so far
@@PunchyYT great video by the way! really love your style of coverage and just finding out about this game was a treat.
Only a minute in the video, but could Crowley be an inspiration? The Japanese seem to reference him more than most in occult storytelling.
If I had a nickel every time I saw a Japanese made video game based on the Cthulhu Mythos with a major character who is a reference to Titus Crow in it, I would have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.
@@starryeyes1190 Demonbane sure was...something 💀
So after this, the three things I learned about Keiske is
1: He is a bloodthirsty, overpowered god through the use of meditation.
2: He is a devoted partner.
3: He would make a biblical angel tell him to be more afraid.
BE NOT AFRAID.
"Try me, you divine bitch."
Imagine your ancestors go through the trouble of making a dark pact with alien gods to get you an immortal fish monster body and the last thing you see is a hairgel-abusing college student drawing down on you.
He's a cultivator.
tumblr sexyman?
I know it's bad for gameplay reasons but the idea of your everyman protagonist becoming an unstoppable god of death through meditation is hilarious.
The protag basically says "monster girl, hot" when his goes green
I just realized that nothing is explained about the plane crash, but then you find out one of the characters that was with you at the beginning has fish skin under a bandage that had all along, no one else is “cursed out of nowhere” from the original party, and then he says he has been in two plane crashes here.
I have the feeling knowing Lovecrafitian lore that Dagon may have lulled him into unconsciously causing the crash. The “Innsmouth” curse can’t really be permanently cured in the lore, only suppressed and it’s genetic. Mizuki and all her descendants will hear the call of the sea to join the Deep ones.
Dagon and Hydra (yes both are considered gods in the myth) are basically impossible to kill, certaintly not with a gun as much as the protag is a badass. He did the equivalent of banishing it and the undersea city (can guess what the name is) for some years at best, but the islanders, his girl and any child the two are gonna have are basically screwed.
In very lovecraftian fashion, the cultists were the most “sane”, accepting their doomed status and joining their sea bretheren.
Ryleth!
In my head I call this sort of thing a TAG video - Talking About Game. Whatever it's called, it's informative and enjoyable. There's a lot of interesting stuff that either never really left Japan or flew under the radar in Europe/the US.
(Also Koudelka deserves more love.)
Im stealin that.
That ending sting in the best ending is especially weird since... they beat the source of the monsters. If Mizuki needs to visit the island every, what, 4 years to stay sane or whatever that should be fine? Just feels to me like it's there because it's the Done Thing in horror to ruin any happy endings with a stinger, post-credits or otherwise.
They already took Dagon and the deep ones from Lovecraft, this is his style of doing things.
This is likely a reference to The Shadow over Innsmouth. Makes sense, seeing how much stuff is straight up lifted from Lovecraft in this game; in Lovecraft's lore, you can never permanently win against the gods. She is either slowly losing her mind or is no longer fully human. So yeah, it makes sense, even though this is the best ending.
Don’t want to ruin A Shadow Over Innsmouth for you guys so stop reading here if you’ve not yet read it.
But yeah basically the exact same thing happens to the main character at the end of the book, he has deep one blood in his lineage and after escaping Innsmouth he feels called back and can’t resist the call of the sea - he also has been changing very visibility
To a bestial, reptilian/froglike visage, with bulging, glassy eyes, scaly sagging grey skin and eventually gills and webbed fingers
Man meditates enough to kill god in order to have a monster girl wife. This would be really fun to try if there ever is a fan made translation, though odds sound pretty low on that
I could get a monster girl wife by killing a god through meditation!? Time to get started.
Of note, the final dungeon (the floating continent) is named R'lyeh, which yeah that's unshocking considering this is a Lovecraftian themed JRPG.
Having one of the characters that helped kill god go off and die in bar fight or something is such a "fire emblem" thing to do
i think of videos like this as the video game version of an abridged audiobook. you get the story, you get the vibe, you get the best lines, and you can finish the whole thing while felling asleep. and this was a fun one. cheers.
33:50 I know the devs probably didn't intend on this but hearing you mention how the geography of the cemetery doesn't seem to make sense reminded me of the city Cthulhu was trapped under and that got a giggle out of me. I wasn't expecting the game to pull out actual R'lyeh in the end lol
I felt the call of Cthulhu as soon as the video started talking about the island. I immediately grokked "the planes were pulled here."
I’m a bit unsatisfied about the game not having any description of “cyclopean pillars” or “cyclopean structures” (I mean the TH-camr didn’t point it out).
The way you can abuse healing to level up reminds me of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance where you can corner a helpless enemy (or do this on the like one quest that doesn't end when all enemies die) and spam the Boost skill from Archers for like 10 EXP a pop, it's also a game where the EXP to level up remains the same. The speedrun used to do it for like 40 minutes straight to get to level 40, but there's a new route I'm more unfamiliar with now.
Or Grandia with Water Spells.
Or Final Fantasy Tactis where you smack your own team mates and heal them bdsm style. It always was dumb
"Parry the child, Takeru. Corrupt them all."
This is why fire emblem has healing staffs only work so many times before you need a new one.
At least it does most of the time
And that is why I prefer mana or some other mechanic to limit it. Even if it's functionally the same between "using MP potion", "using recall potion to recover your spell slots" and "equipping new staff/book", I just hate losing items.
@@enriquejoseantequerasanche6180 the problem with that is that you can't easily give the player a later game resource early but with limited resources.
I guess some people are allergic to resource management in the same way others are allergic to time limits.
I had to play this game for a mystery game tournament (called Tondeuse Dorée). I couldn't read a single word of japanese but I really had fun for the hour my time on the game lasted. I really wish someone releases a translation one day.
A horror strategy RPG? I'm so sad it isn't translated because that's basically my dream game
In that case, you should love Koudelka
Or Parasite Eve
The guy who hosts the FAQ kind of reminds me of Sword Of Moonlight. That guy/group has maintained that site and kept it updated for like, 30 years! They are finally starting to get some love with all the interest in Dark Souls/Elden Ring.
I hope this video drives enough interest for a fan translation
me too. Probably not though
Maybe even a fan sequel, or game inspired by these themes
Same
I hope so too, this has a lot of things I love: trpgs, Lovecraft, monstergirls, psychodrama...
pin this comment immediately
I think of this format as an "overview" rather than and essay or review
The thing about wasting turns to get experience brought me back to playing Final Fantasy Tactics as a kid, and having my characters form a group punching each other around a monk spamming chakra. lol
the "villagers brainwashed by evil statues" level was a memorable one in vandal hearts too
ptsd intensifys
Feels like these devs were inspired by final fantasy tactics. Yes you can waste turns and level up using buffs or having characters hurt each other and heal in that game. But what makes it better is the opponents in random battles will always scale to be more powerful than you. When when you hit the level cap at level 99 the cpu opponents will be level 115. So it stays fun and can be pretty hard at higher levels.
Ahem
Parry the damn child
New favorite character
Katakana names that could be either EN or JP names depending on how you squint at them are my worst enemy, you are definitely not alone in that 😩
Cool look at a funky little game though! Gotta love those monster gfs.
Virgin Lovecraftian protagonist "Oh no, fish people are so scary, i`m going insane just looking at them!" vs. Chad Keisuke "I don`t care if my girlfriend turns into a monster. As long as we love each other, we will make it work. And we will slay a god together!".
Oh geez, I can super relate to the notion of static EXP gains and thresholds. As soon as I heard that self recovery moves give static EXP, I immediately knew the logical conclusion. "Super Robot Taisen", "Luminous Arc", "Final Fantasy Tactics", "Tears to Tiara 2", "Relayer", "Hoshigami", the list goes on. If given the opportunity to throw all strategy out the window by repeating the same simple action over and over again to over level is given, relatively quickly as that, I'm super taking it for a good laugh.
Granted, you don't really see it that much anymore, due to I want to say improved standards of balancing, but you can still find an occasional SRPG where it's notably exploitable.
But yeah, this was interesting. Not often you get to discover what is essentially a forgotten game. Being an SRPG fan and mildly interested in Lovecraftian works also helps. I actually wouldn't mind to have played this myself...though the specific and janky requirements for some plot things do dissuade me a little. Never really been a fan of that kind of thing.
Seems like you could possibly limit the abusability of such a mechanic by capping the amount of EXP a single character can acquire this way per encounter. It still encourages the player to do it, but hard limits how much it can be exploited to overlevel.
The randomness of Reiji's death for some reason made me think of Gai's fate in the TV series Jetman, which in turn had me wondering if it is part of some trope in Japan. The character that lost their "true love", and in what is treated as a manly meaningful way effectively choose to "give up" on self-preservation, and thus end up getting themselves killed in the epilogue. You could even argue that Spike from Cowboy Bebop fits this idea.
It's definitely a drama trope, and while it's quite popular in Japan it used to also be popular in western storirs (Snape in the Harry Potter franchise, most of the good guys in Bram Stoker's Dracula, technically even Conan the barbarian has this happen,though he was never too into safety to begin with)
@@enriquejoseantequerasanche6180 I hadn't thought about those examples, but I mean when it happens in the epilogue, or at the least after the main conflict is resolved. Jetman is an example. After the defeat of the main villain, the series jumps ahead three years for an epilogue. Gai's best friend is marrying Gai's "true love". On his way to the wedding, Gai is randomly stabbed stopping a pickpocket. Instead of doing something sensible like going to a hospital, Gai goes to the wedding, takes photos with his friends afterward (telling them he's simply hungover), and dies alone on the bench after sending them off.
@@BainesMkII i know that its meant to be tragic and poignant, and it probably is when consuming the source, but just reading that summary made me giggle
It’s up in the air if spike dies n it’s more of a blade runner thing since spike is a synthetic (his eye is fake “clue”)
@@Georgiaplains I've never heard that fan theory before. Not only does nothing in the story support it, it would actively undermine a driving theme that runs through the entire series, the idea of being stuck in the past (akin to being dead) versus accepting change to live in the present.
Spike's refusal to move on is a defining aspect of his character, and why his death was necessary. It is the tragedy of Spike and Faye's relationship, as he convinced her to move on, but refused to do so with her. It was a theme of the entire Bebop crew, with Jet caught in his own past until he learned to move on, while Ed was the one that always freely lived. It was a key for other characters, like the immortal kid where "living" involved physically dying. It was was a meta theme; the bounty hunter show being cancelled and the actors moving on, the Bebop crew forming and then separating, and even the anime itself ending.
Hot damn, I hope you make more of these narrative reviews of untranslated JRPGs!
Also, that reveal of the pun in Mizuki's name almost hurt as much as realizing the power icon is just a 1 overlayed on a 0
12:33 you'd run away in fear too if you're at gunpoint by a teenager
A teenager that has clearly stopped being afraid and is now using a pistol as if he was born with it it his hand.
Detroit or Chicago in a nutshell.
"I, for one, have no sense of fair play."
Could you be one of my people?
That feature reminds me of Final Fantasy 2.... you can go into a fight vs weak enemies that have no chance at hurting you.... and have your party PvP each other for Xp..... or whatever weird stat system that game has instead of traditional levels. Thing is... you can do this ENDLESSLY, and there's no downside unless you TPK yourself.
@@marhawkman303[ ...or whatever weird stat system that game has instead of traditional levels.]
I think that might be a D&D thing, not sure since your wording is vauge.
@@lunyxappocalypse7071 FF2 doesn't have character levels, instead you get stat increases by "using" the stats. taking damage in combat gives you more HP, using MP gives more MP, etc.... It's kind of like each stat has it's own XP bar.
24:18 some might say having a monster girlfriend is a positive.
Currently learning Japanese with my main motivation being able to play all of these obscure Japanese games. I'm not sure why, but they fascinate me so much... Great video btw!
Me playing all the eroge that'll never get localised
@@KnightCrown I mean, if it motivates you to learn another language, go for it! 😂
When you mentioned that Mizuki’s move that inflicted all ailments on the target didn’t work with the kids, my immediate thought was instant death. Disappointed that wasn’t the case, because would’ve been hilarious.
excellent video!!! this is the kind of content i love most, obscure, niche games. love getting to hear the stories of games i may never have come across otherwise. thank you punchy!!!
I have no good name to offer for this type of video. What I really appreciate is that you use your language proficiency so that people like me can learn new unexpected things. So thank you very much! In a way, your like a kind of cultural ambassador to me... which is probably a bit pretentious. What can I say? English is not my first language. Cheers!
Thank you for capturing the words for why I enjoy Punchy's work. I tend to consider games like this a summary or review, but neither are quite right either. The point is it teaches neat little things like the kana meltdown he has with Crow.
Your English is fine, by the way. You got your meaning across, that is all that matters in an informal setting.
Thank you, I really enjoyed this video! Then I went off and died in a fight against the mafia.
I love strategy rpgs and all things Lovecraft, so it's a shame that this hasn't been translated yet. Thanks for bringing attention to the game.
video GAMES
This game actually seems kinda delightful. Balance aside, it seems like it has some fairly neat ideas, and it's neat to see horror-game mechanics transposed into a Tactics Ogre/FFT-style battle/world system. I know that translating it would be a lot of work, but I hope that somebody takes a whack at a translation patch someday.
Dang, this sounds like the kind of horror game that would have been right up my alley.
I bet max lvling Stacey would be a funny speedrun category
5:45 THANK YOU for actually playing the game audio after making a comment about it. It irks the fckoutta me when videos remark on the great OST/SFX and what a banger such and such is just to never play even a clip. Like why mention it all you want me to leave your video midway to see wtf you're talking about? Lol anyways *SUB TO PUNCHY!*
What a treat! Thanks, Punchy, you're the best.
the bizarre balance choices remind me of summon night. those games try to balance it by giving you optional rewards for only having units below a certain level land kills but that just means you have to ferry in your god unit to land some big punches before letting willy weakman finish guys off afterwards
A bit late to this but personally I like what youtuber Marsh does for his videos and calls them “Experience” like “the SMT II experience” or “The G-Hul experience” since it is your experience with said game
The ending stinger seems like a joke to my boi MC. What will the girlfriend do after throwing that line? Scare him to death? Even with out her buffs, MC was solo John Wicking people in the island. Can her one liner surpass MC's gun-jutsu?
Travelogue is how I interpret a video like this. If you let yourself relax and slow down, I'd put this next to Noah Caldwell Gervais kind of thing. I can hear the level of interpetation and analysis being pushed to read faster.
Fun video, though I don't know what genre I'd classify it as either.
Thanks for the video, it was a great watch. I wish you would've covered the other endings though, I'm curious on the bad endings.
gotta leave something for the inquisitive folks to see for themselves if they're so inclined!
This was great, I liked the addition of how comprehensible the game is for people of varying skills in japanese. I'm as beginner as they come right now, but an idea of what it takes to play these obscure games and understand them is a nice bonus
Missed joke opportunity at 18:35 -- coulda used the MST3K The Movie clip of Tom Servo saying "Suddenly I have a refreshing mint flavor!"
The combat and XP system seems *very* similar to that of Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced. I can't speak to other FFT titles, but in that one it was 100% viable to sit in a mission and clobber your own White Mage with weak attacks and then use AoE healing to heal everyone. Anything that affected your own character always gave at least 10XP, and it has the same 100XP per level thing.
There was at least some disincentive for this, because of the class change system, but it's not a huge downside for most of the game, and lets you absolutely steamroll big chunks of the game.
The swimsuit cracked me up. Japan sure does have its priorities straight. Hilarious.
I'd go with "overview" as a term to call it, it doesn't have as much information outside the game to feel like a retrospective and not enough opinionation to fall into a review.
another good phrase would be "Lets Talk About X" if you want to think of it as a lets play but condensed
never heard of this game before but i know if it was translated back in the day it would have been the EXACT kind of thing i would have stared at longingly in game stores for. weird strategy RPGs with a bit of jank really a special kind of sweet spot.
This is the Tim Rogers style energy I need! Love seeing someone covering old japanese games like this!
Learning about a strange PS1 game that I’ve never heard of from a developer I’ve never heard of, is exactly the kind of content I am here for.
This game seems cool, great video as always
The Mark of Mermaid experience.
It's like classic Shin Megami Tensi and Endless Blue ram into each other really, really hard.
Been really enjoying these types of vids you've been putting out! And I agree with another commenter, this seems like a "overview" of the game, where you start from the beginning to the end covering mostly the major details. To me It feels like a narrative overview, rather than a typical review, since you're explaining mechanics and story beats while taking us on your own playthrough. Great stuff, looking forward to more!
Ah one of those hidden gems blast from the past ps1 jrpg we never got, thank you very much for the discovery!
Pretty entertaining video! I came across this game myself on a whim due to the cool title, and it's a pretty fun time! Seems like I stumbled into the good ending by accident, lol.
Great video as always! I love hearing about new retrogames that missed me by. Its an utter shame there's a load Japanese only releases that never got translated (either officially or unoffically) that are either good or have interesting premises. I definitely would have tracked this down for myself as the story premise alone is decent. I wonder the creative choice not to just say "lets try to port it to the PS2 instead" but committing completely to PS1 release that late in the console's lifecycle. Maybe this might be playable with Google Translate on phone but can see that getting tiring fast. At least with text only/subtitled stuff its an option but not always viable.
Like, there's an FMV game that came on 4 discs on the PS2 called "The Fear" and from what I gather has good acting, good production values but has no Japanese subtitles and was never translated. I love that somebody said "we're going to release a 4 DVD disc FMV game, I don't care that the genre has largely died out at this point AND we're not going to release it on PC, which historically has the best market for it, but only on the PS2. Also we're not going to halfass it". Even if it was bad, I still admire the commitment to a goal but sadly I can't play it cause I have zero Japanese and its not subtitled for trying Google Translate.
Good video on a very neat and interesting game.
Despite usually avoiding semantics, I think essay is _technically_ more fitting, while what we usually think of as a "video essay" might be more accurately called a treatise, or dissertation. Maybe the "appraisal" might fit?
24:44 this game is taking the "eould you love me if i was an ant" to the next level 😂
I enjoyed this video immensely. I don't think I'll ever play this game, but I really liked someone giving an in-depth look to an obscure untranslated game from the PS1 era.
I'm new to your channel and it doesn't look like this is your normal content, but I'd love if you did similar videos in the future!
I like how it went from
"Keisuke is useless and contributes nothing"
to
"Maybe the real eldritch horror was the Meditation we found along the way"
I do like how the weakest characters at the start of the game eventually become the strongest characters by the end.
Monster transformations, damn. I'm in.
Also "Compressed Let's Play" is a good term for videos like these
I'm surprised Gideon Zhi hasn't cranked out a patch
Does he do PS1 at all? He's specialized in SNES/SFC, as far as I know. Maybe he worked on a couple PS1 games, but it's definitely not his area of expertise.
The 'bracelet reacts' bit was ambiguous because that's how that cultural 'meme' is. In very old far eastern writings, like Son Wukong's Journey to the West, there are mentions of artifacts that 'react' to other things. That's all it states is it 'reacts'. As a result, this ambiguity isn't a missed explanation but rather a cultural caveat, because most people have already developed their assumption of what 'react' would mean in this situation.
To answer your question, mr. Video-maker man, I guess I'd call it either a "review" or a "synopsis?" It's not just a "plot synopsis" because you also describe the act of playing it.
It's funny looking at this and seeing a lot of the genes of FFT influencing it, coming at it solely from the strategy RPG angle. Very interesting game.
"But why would you not?"
That's my stand on when i used an exploit in Dragon Age Origins where you could reach level cap and end up with several hundreds (if not Thousands if you wish) of Gold before you've left the first village after leaving Flemeth's hut.
Yes enemies do scale with you, but counter argument, i got enough money to fully kit out my whole team, and Merchants alter their stock as you gain levels.
Awesome new channel discovered! Thank you!
I managed to land a sealed copy of this one. Always wanted to play it, but I was hoping for a fan patch to come along. I think this video has convinced me that I ought to experience it despite the language barrier.
For a video *specifically* like this that deals with an untranslated and potentially obscure game, I think I’d call it a Retrospective.
I have been fascinated with this game for so long. Something super neat about Anime Lost
I randomly stumbled across this video and i found this really interesting, and i like the bits of perspective you bring, talking about playing this as a non-native reader and even talking about the language and reading complexity for the interest of other learners. Really cool stuff, definitely subbed!
just checked and it s on rom sites, so if a translation happens i wouldnt mind giving it a shot
Final Fantasy Tactics (or Tactics Ogre for the purists here) with Cthulhu monsters and a horror vibe, got it, I'm sold, off to the web I go
Right down to Treasure Hunter...
Thanks for showing off the game's good art in the thumbnail! It got me interested, and I'm glad I got to learn about a rare game that I'd otherwise would've never. The video was good and entertaining!
I’d called this an essay or a review
I kind of love the overpowered vibe here. Something about stability in times of crisis, etc.
Also I’d call this a summary.
Cool game. I grew up playing turn-based jrpgs so it's pretty sweet to see one I never knew about being played and translated. Thanks.
12:36-12:45 made me chuckle, never underestimate the horrors a protagonist with the moral blessing of an author can commit
Neat video. So many little games like this on the PS1 I would never play but still interesting to hear about.
I love these types of videos. They're incredibly helpful to me in particular since I like to record shitty games for longplays and researching obscure stuff that often has no faq takes a lot of effort.
the levelling mechanic is pretty weird; there's no way they didn't know what they were doing, they must've realized the structure of the game doesn't let you go back and grind like most RPGs. but they picked a pretty silly workaround.
also Keisuke being a monster-lover is great; i imagine after crossing the moral boundary of killing, and then doing it again and again until you're an expert killing machine, you're gonna stop worrying about a few errant scales