Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth: Difference between revisions

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The game begins in the [[Floating Continent]] of Mardias, where [[Heterosexual Life Partners]] Fazz and Leimrey-who are mercenaries-are just hanging out minding their own business. Unfortunately, [[The Empire]], Valaim, attacks Fazz' now-[[Doomed Hometown]]. Leimrey gets separated from Fazz, who goes off on a journey to recover his friend. In the process, Fazz discovers that this game's particular brand of [[Green Rocks]], "Coinfeigms," are bad because using them causes irreparable drains on [[The Lifestream]] - and that various forces are conspiring to bring about [[The End of the World as We Know It]] via this very mechanism. Fazz, being [[The Hero]], decides he's not going to stand for this. A [[Cliché Storm]] of [[Hilarity Ensues|Gameplay Ensues]].

Coming out on the heels of ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' and marketed as a [[Spiritual Successor]] because many of the same programmers worked on both games, ''Hoshigami'' featured a [[Sprite Polygon Mix]] graphics, a [[Class and Level System]] and grid-based gameplay, just like ''FFT''. However, there the similarity ends. ''Hoshigami'''s class system is much more limited: characters can worship one of six gods, which gives them access to a [[Weapon of Choice]] and an alignment on the [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors]] hexagon (catalogued below), and that's it- none of the Mix & Match which made ''FFT'' so fun. Coinfeigms had particular spells engraved on them and could be customized as well as leveled up, an arrangement which, though not uncool in its own right, simply increased the feeling that the game was derivative of [[Final Fantasy VII|other recent acts]]. The damage modifiers were pretty messed up: you expect lower damage when attacking head on, sure, but how about about doing ''100 times'' more damage when you [[Back Stab]]? (Oh, and, the fact that the enemy ''always'' outnumbers you means that there's only one person who's going to be taking that 100x damage up the booty, and it's ''not'' the AI.) Finally, MaxFive's brave attempt to avert [[Death Is Cheap]] simply drove home why that trope is an [[Acceptable Break From Reality]]: any character who wasn't a [[Required Party Member]] (and very few were) could die a [[Final Death]], and if they did, you had to recruit a brand-new [[Player ~~Mooks~~|Player Mook]] ''and train him up from scratch''. This [[Forced Level Grinding]] did not go over well with players - especially when combined with the [[Nintendo Hard]] difficulty level which practically guaranteed at least one soldier lost per battle.

Coming out on the heels of ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' and marketed as a [[Spiritual Successor]] because many of the same programmers worked on both games, ''Hoshigami'' featured a [[Sprite Polygon Mix]] graphics, a [[Class and Level System]] and grid-based gameplay, just like ''FFT''. However, there the similarity ends. ''Hoshigami'''s class system is much more limited: characters can worship one of six gods, which gives them access to a [[Weapon of Choice]] and an alignment on the [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors]] hexagon (catalogued below), and that's it- none of the Mix & Match which made ''FFT'' so fun. Coinfeigms had particular spells engraved on them and could be customized as well as leveled up, an arrangement which, though not uncool in its own right, simply increased the feeling that the game was derivative of [[Final Fantasy VII|other recent acts]]. The damage modifiers were pretty messed up: you expect lower damage when attacking head on, sure, but how about about doing ''100 times'' more damage when you [[Back Stab]]? (Oh, and, the fact that the enemy ''always'' outnumbers you means that there's only one person who's going to be taking that 100x damage up the booty, and it's ''not'' the AI.) Finally, MaxFive's brave attempt to avert [[Death Is Cheap]] simply drove home why that trope is an [[Acceptable Break From Reality]]: any character who wasn't a [[Required Party Member]] (and very few were) could die a [[Final Death]], and if they did, you had to recruit a brand-new [[Player Mook|Player Mook]] ''and train him up from scratch''. This [[Forced Level Grinding]] did not go over well with players - especially when combined with the [[Nintendo Hard]] difficulty level which practically guaranteed at least one soldier lost per battle.

On the plus side, the Coinfeigm system was appreciated by most reviewers, as was the RAP system: instead of characters having one saunter and one action per turn, every square moved, sword swung, spell cast or special move deployed would add to the character's "[[Fun with Acronyms|Ready for Action Points]]" Gauge. Nominally, once the gauge was up to 100 RAP, the character's turn was over, but you could keep filling it past the 100% mark if you had a [[Goddamned Bats|Goddamn Bat]] to kill or a character who needed to limp to safety. Of course, that just slowed down that character's next turn, which would only arrive once their RAP Gauge had emptied again, so it paid to think twice before you overloaded your character with RAP and abandoned him in an exposed position. This system was well-received by reviewers and players, and, with little modification (changing to a count-down-''from''-100 "Action Points" system) was reused in the team's next game.