i am removing this from inventory right now. From the japanese reviews i have read (herp depr, actual japanese reviews so you know they must be legit!), Ray gigant was/is Exp. Inc. / Team Muramasa's recent and most blatant attempt at creating a "teen-friendly" "RPG-crawler-lite" out of their existing game assets and all of the japanese bloggers and reviewers agreed that:
- It was easy. (But that this was not necessarily a bad thing.)
- It is easily the most gorgeous DRPG (i.e. "RPG-crawler-lite") to come out in years. The graphics are beautiful.
- Its mechanics are 'simple'. (But, once again; this was not necessarily a bad thing.)
However, what
were bad things:
- The dungeons ranged in quality/complexity wildly with long stretches of uninteresting "long-hallway-design" meant to serve as backdrop for the "Shounen-type" teen-drama storyline.
- The fact that there are at least 2 legit, "Wizardry-style" dungeons in the game only serve to further annoy the player seeing as how the game forces them to spend the majority of their time in non-good maps.
- The attempt at creating an interesting "Shounden-type" teen-drama storyline failed miserably for most of the japanese bloggers/reviewers as basically anyone who was even mildly interested in playing the game were DRPG/'crawler fanatics, and
not especially looking for a "more traditional story-based RPG". Hence the massive word-of-mouth dissapointment.
ALL THAT SAID:
- It sold extremely well in japan; well enough that Exp Inc / Team Muramasa decided to localize it into English for both the VITA
and also for Windows PC (Steam).
I'll definitely be making a thread all about it as soon as I finish downloading/installing it later today, and I'll be fair and balanced. I already know it's not meant to be Elminage: Gothic or even Stranger of Sword City-level of complexity, so don't expect me to write a huge rant about how "dumbed down" the game is mechanically. I'll try to concentrate on what it actually has to offer and see if it is worth giving it a shot.
After all, if someone is "desperate" for a less-known japanese 'crawler there are many that can be recommended right now that, while mentioned constantly in these threads, I am 100% sure are still not being played by the people who read these threads such as:
- The NDS 'crawler "The Dark Spire".
- The Windows PC (Steam) 'crawler "Paper Sorcerer".
Hell, I'm sure a lot of the people asking about Ray Gigant still have not even played through the fantastically amazing Wizardry Empire 2 translation done by
MrRichard999 and
Helly for Windows PC.
