Becoming A critic

The Breath of Fire series is absolutely legendary. Anyone who has played the first 4 titles in the franchise will agree, they are a little outdated, and it is very easy to get lost if you haven't played in a while, but that's the hardcore experience and if you don't like it then screw you, go play Call of Duty.You may notice I have left out the most recent title in the franchise Breath of Fire 5: Dragon Quarter. I find it very difficult for me to dislike a Breath of Fire game but man did this one really get to me. It wasn't like any of the others, due to its dungeon crawler rogue-like feel. What kills me even more because I LOVE dungeon crawler and rogue likes especially when they are twisted with RPG elements, so you could say playing this game for me was like a teenage girl trying to get with the big bad ass in school and when she finally gets him to date her all he does is beat her. -that’s it, that’s breath of fire dragon quarter!What I'll be doing here is comparing it to the formal elements in games I talked about in one of my earlier blog posts by breaking it apart piece by piece and finding out where this game went wrong.Player vs. system: system wins 8128/8129 timesWe will start with the concept of players. This game is definitely a single player vs. the system, and let me tell you, the system whoops your ass without even taking names.Characters in Dragon Quarter are all assigned a number known as a D-ratio. The short of it is that the higher your ratio the more chance you have at "linking with a dragon" and the more respected you are in the society in the game etc... Think caste system. But how does this affect game play?Ryo (that’s you, the player) is introduced as having a D-Ratio of 1/8192 which is the absolute lowest D-ratio you can have, so you must be asking, is there a way to increase my D-ratio!?Well yes there is but I will get to that a bit later. First let's look at how this affects Game play. A higher D-ratio means you have access to different areas of the world, access to bonus items and gives one of your weapons a higher attack power. The highest possible D-ratio is 1/4 which only a few people in the world have ever achieved. (just to be clear, I am talking about the in game world AND in the real world) , This is a pretty cool system because it interweaves story and game together very nicely, and it’s cool to see how scenarios change when you up your D-ratio. Eventually Ryu gets the ability to transform into a dragon, which greatly increases his abilities, but unlike the other games there is only one dragon form and the game penalizes you for using it. This upset me a little because transforming into dragons was one of my favorite parts of the series as a whole, but the only time it is efficient to use it is during the final boss fight.It is also important to note that all characters (Ryu and his party) have an ATK, DEF, MAG, SPD, and MOV stat, which is a function of the player’s level, and equipment, usually a sword and shield. Other than that the player has HP which is just health and AP which are Action points. More on these later. So far it seems pretty standard fare for an RPG and I actually really like the characters in this game, but just wait. There is so much more.What’s my next objective? *spend 2 hours online studying the gameThe main objective at any time in Dragon Quarter is to get as close as you can to the next save point without dying. This seems like a good time to introduce the Scenario Overlay system or as the game appropriately refers to it as "SOL" because really if you haven't made it to the next save point or failed to find a save token, that is what you are. Shit out of luck. Like some other recent dungeon crawlers, dying and starting over in this game is a necessary component to progressing through the story, and while some people already shake a stick at this idea, I think this was the correct move forward for the genre. It allows you to play it the way a dungeon crawler was meant to be played, while adding some new content each time.  Dragon Quarter on the other hand did not handle this transition as nicely, and the first time I died I actually had to spend about 2 hours online researching how I should proceed.The SOL triggers when you either Die, "give up" or your D-Counter hits 100%.D-counter is raised when you take steps, fight battles, and is greatly increased when you become a dragon and use any of its moves. So pretty much doing anything and everything, especially if that thing is a cool mechanic in the game that actually (god forbid) makes the game fun and manageable, you are penalized. I understand the developers were trying to go for a resource management type experienc, where you really had to think about how you are going to take your next move, but this game takes it one step too far, by penalizing you for taking a "step".When either of these 3 scenarios are met you may either SOL: Restore and SOL: Restart. Restore allows you to go back to the last save point with all your stats intact and Restart takes you back to the very beginning of the game. Fortunately the game lets you carry over weapons and skills as well as some “party" XP which you can use to level up your party as you see fit. Each Time you do a full reset your D-Ratio will go up based on the amount of time you spent on the play through, the number of chests opened the number of doors opened, steps taken and exp earned from battle. I will admit its fun to see the new content and fights always get easier allowing you to progress further much faster, but trying to go about it efficiently will break you from the inside as a human being. You never know if you should use your party exp because what if you need it later in the game? Should I use it or should I do a restore? or should I do a restart??? more cut scenes are good right? The game provides a very little amount of feedback as to how all of this is effecting your ability to go through the rest of the game, which is daunting for most, and despite the games well-paced system, when you get to a fight that you can NOT beat, you are just scared to choose an option, and end up never playing again. One more thing I want to add is that you can also direct an enemy’s attention away from you buy throwing some raw meat, this allows you to take them on one at a time, reducing your chances of getting SOL.I believe that little rant went a bit over explaining just the objectives and started to talk about the games rules, and conflicts so I will refrain from discussing those much further.is there anything good about this game?Other than being afraid to use any cool moves, I actually really enjoyed the turn based encounter battle system. You are given a set amount of AP which is always full at the beginning of the player turn, you can use this to move closer to the enemy (each step = 1 AP) by using the analog control stick,  use a lv 1(x button) 2(o button)or 3(□ button) attack, the higher the level the more AP it consumes. This is actually really cool because you can create different combos by chaining different buttons, which can sometimes trigger special attacks. This helped to keep me going through the rough patches of the game, and it especially gets cool when the dragon is introduced. Despite the fact that you technically shouldn't use the dragon until the last boss because it brings your D-Counter up way too fast, thus negatively affecting your D-Ratio. I also really liked upgrading my equipment, which you could buy upgrades for at shops using the Zenny currency, (wait was this the same team that made megaman legends!? come ON guys! you're better than this!) Upgrades means better attack or defence, but you could also learn new attacks from upgrades, though some weapons have attacks built in already.  Zenny along with health potions and fresh meat is collected by winning battles and also finding them in boxes, which is finally a nice double positive break as the number of crates you open positively effects your d-ratio.Ok that seems to cover procedures and resources now what’s left is outcomesWhat did I get from this experience?Dragon Quarter just had SO much potential to be a great game, and personally I enjoyed it much more than it deserved to be. Each time I played I usually quit in a raging fit whipping my controller across the room, but for some reason I kept going back. The story was really gripping, and I loved how scenarios were unlocked with each successive play through. I believe the developers were trying to minimize the exploitation aspect that players of RPGs always abuse to get through the game faster, by making you think carefully about how you used your resources. Resource consumption is usually an aspect I love about dungeon crawlers because you know you are going to have to go to the bottom floor again anyway so there is no point in saving them. But when almost every procedure is also a resource it makes it difficult to keep track of everything and it causes the player to get overwhelmed.I guess since this is technically a review I am supposed to give a score so I will give dragon Quarter a D-ratio of1/1168. (which isn't even enough to unlock all the secret cut scenes)