OK, so I just finished the first chapter of Ragnarok Odyssey and here are my more accurate impressions.
- Graphics are gorgeous and colorful! But I'm sure that most if not all anti sony/vita will call it ugly. The graphics are a far cry from uncharted but it does what it sets out to do and is pleasing to the eye. So, all the nay sayers can suck eggs coz I give this game top marks on the graphics department (I judge graphics by not comparing it to other games but by judging it against itself and if it achieves what it wanted to)
- Sounds/Music. The Asian English Verison uses the original japanese audio which is cool! There isnt much voice acting nor are there spoken dialogues. You're gonna have to read read read which doesnt bother me since I'm an RPG gamer and am accustomed to reading a lot of story and dialogues. The music isn't the greatest but it aint bad. It wont hurt your ear. This acutally makes the free original soundtrack that I got kinda useless since I wont be listenting to it lol!
- Gameplay. Like I said, it felt like playing a hack and slash game, at least for the sword warrior. The good news is that it controls like a charm and the game plays is so addicting that I planed on playing for an hour last night but ended up playing for over 6 hours! damn! Like most hack and slash games, there are two attack buttons, the weak and strong slash. You can chain your weak attack for a max of 5 hits, but you can mix and match the weak and strong attacks for some nice combos. Also, you can launch the enemies into the air and follow up with an air combo, or you can also smack them away..which really reminded me of Gof of War's air juggle..SWEET! You can also map potions onto quck access buttons on the vita screen and is very easy to use. There is also a block move apparently which, after over 6 hours of gameplay, I still havent figured out ahahaha!
Locking on is also easy since all you have to do is press and hold down on the left shoulder button until the lock on icon appears. Switching between enemies is easy also, you just have to tap the left shoulder button to switch between enemies.
There's also a jump and dash button. Jump button as we all know is you know, jump :p. The dash button, though it does its job could have been improved a bit. It only has one animation, and that is the dash. You use it to get closer faster and to dodge attacks. Its not bad, but a different animation for dodging and dashing would have been nice. Also, the dash feels kinda unfulfilling due to its short range. But it looks like dash can be upgraded via cards
Speaking of cards. You apparently dont level up, you improve or upgrade your abilities via cards which you can slap on to your clothing. I say clothing coz thats just what it is, its not armor. If you change costume/clothing, all it does is change your appearance. So you can go with whatever costume you run into that you like. Now to upgrade your abilities/stats you mount cards on to the costume. each card has a specific cost to mount on the costume. By cost i mean slot usage, like say a poring card uses one slot but some cards uses 2-3 or more slots. Costume slots can be upgraded with the right materials. For weapons, you can buy them or look for drops, then they can be refined to increase their stats attack power. Only costumes have slots sooooo..bummer. With that, this game will be mostly a hunt for the best cards since cards are rare monster drops and kinda hard to come by.
Now for the head gears... they're not armor. They're just cute decorative pieces on your head as they have no slots nor do they have stat boosts...as far as i've seen at least. So, whats it for? Its there to make you look cute, dorky, awesome or badass. How can a head gear make you look bad ass you say? well, crafting head gears, requires materials, and the best or coolest head gears requires very rare drops from very nasty monsters. So, if some dood has a head gear that requires some uber rare drop, you can bet your ass that that dood has either soloed or played in a party to kill that uber strong monster.
There is also a job change but I havent tried it yet coz i'm just in chapter 2 :p only reason I know this is because i browsed through the trophy list lol
Now for the bad news, if you happen upon an ambush by a bunch of enemies, enemies not on screen can and will smack you which is irritating. most monsters if not all also wont get stunned after getting hit, so if they were performing an attack and you try and hit them to cancel it, it wont get canceled and you'd get hit. To cancel enemy attacks your gonna have to wack them at least 3 times, which is lame. especially when monsters are ganging up on you. Postions are lame as they add very little to your life bar making it essential to be really skilled. Also, with just costumes, there is very little customization for character appearance, all you get is the head gear which is you know, cool but not all that.
Online. I managed to get one online game in with some random dood and it was a bit lagy and choppy but didn't break the game experience. It was also a bit difficult to join rooms coz thee wasnt a lot of rooms so i ended up making my one and just prayed to the gaming spirits that someone would join lol! what really surprised is that even with my super crapy 3g internet with a max speed of 2mpbs (megabits mind you not megabyts) I was still able to play online! cooooool!
Well..thats it for my more in depth initial impressions. Now back to the game.
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. Not Japan at the moment though...
