The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

Dark Chronicle

You know what's great about games?
They offer a great escape from reality.
There's nothing more relaxing than coming home after a hard day of work/studying/slacking, popping in a nice game and just walk around in a world where logic and realism don't apply.
Anything can be performed by the press of a simple button, it's a nice break from the complexities of real life, which is rather hard to navigate with a D-pad.

NOT SO DARK CHRONICLE.
Christ, this game is like some kind of activity therapy for people who have too much time on their hands.
The idea of the game in itself is simple, like most games. The world is being threatened by this Evil Emperor Griffon who wants to destroy the planet on general principles, which is as good a reason as any if you're President of the US.



So what he does is, he erases anything that causes any of his enemies to be born, and it's up to YOU as Yuris (his English name is Maximilian which is unbelievably stupid, so I'll use his Japanese name) and Monica to restore the origin points that cause the existence of anyone who might help you. Sounds cool right?
Well, it would but let me introduce you to the basics of the game in the form of this interaction between the main characters:

Monica(M):"Okay, so we need to restore the Big Holy Tree Jurak in the future, so he can give us advise on how to beat Griffon, and we need to do that by making sure his origin points are here in the present, got that?"

Yuris(Y):"Okay, makes sense, let's go!"

M:"Wait, to know what his origin points are, we need to go into these random generated dungeons where we can find a Geostone on each floor, which contains data on the origin point requirements. Then we have to build a town of sorts that meets those requirements"

Y:"Umm, okay, I had a feeling dungeons would be involved, so that makes sense, let's go already!"

M:"Wait, in order to revive Jurak we need to make sure we create his nose, two of his eyes, have enough water around, a couple of straw houses, with the right people living in it, and we need to have at least 50 Culture Points!"

Y:"Okay, that makes sense in a Video Game kind of way, so let's build already!"

M:"Wait! To be able to create all this, you need Georama parts which you can also find in dungeons but which can also be bought from a Dwarf with glasses. Then you need to go back to your home town and talk to people and ask them to join you, but most of the time they will ask you to complete some kind of subquest for them, like upgrading your weapon, making pictures of certain objects, or bringing them specific items, and then, when they join you, you have to customize their house in the way they see fit, otherwise they won't go inside!"

Y:"Well, that makes sense in a Twin Peaks kind of way. Phew, I'm sure glad the world isn't in a particularly big hurry to be saved, hunh? Let's get to it!"

M:"Wait! I didn't tell you about the many subgames yet, like Fishing, Spheda Golf, Fish Weighing and Fish Racing, the Invention system, the Photograph system, the Weapon upgrade system and the I-have-to-lie-down-for-awhile System!"

Y:"Screw this, I'm going to get loaded!"

And that's like only the fucking FIRST CHAPTER.
And I swear, I'm not even making most of this up.
I'm a rough 28 hours into the game, and I have to backtrack to previous dungeons now, to get 4 Sacred Elements which I couldn't reach before and which I need to reach some floating continent (Gee, I've NEVER seen one of those before) so I can recreate some guy's fucking GARDEN, by looking at pictures of it, instead of getting verbal hints. So I'm looking at at least another 10 hours I think.

Surprisingly the game IS actually a load of fun.
More on this when something interesting happens.

posted by Ingen! @ 12:43 PM