While looking on Animetric’s bishoujo game to see what TSS meant (mentioned in the insanity thread by Spectator Beholder), I saw that this review was up.
I seem to have found my first definite error in the event progression of Hourglass. When I ate with Kaho at the cafe, I recommended the spaghetti, and Kaho ordered it. Later in the game, during the dinner at the main character’s house, Kaho says that she at the fish burger that day, and the main character remembers the “date” and agrees with her. I’m pursuing Ai’s path, if that matters.
I really liked Hourglass of Summer’s storyline(s). Hmmm I think I should also mention that another positive point of the game is the price – it is a lot cheaper than most bishoujo game releases.
Don’t get me wrong–I love Hourglass so far. But the complexity of the plot invites scrutiny, and I’ll be truly amazed if the timeline really holds up all the way through. Once I’ve gone through the game a few times, I might just construct a timeline of events out of pure curiousity. But yes, this game is definitely a steal at its current retail price. I generally feel the b-games we get are somewhat overpriced compared to similarly-priced RPG’s, but Hourglass is worth every cent, and it’s certainly worth more in my regard than almost every $50 b-game I’ve ever played.
[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 11-14-2004).]
Ha, ha, ha…I finally got Ai’s ending. Shoo feels relief. After…something like 6-10 hours of play since saving Mana, that is. I believe that makes the Secret of Mana the halfway point, no? I recorded EVERY decision point (though there’s a few where I didn’t write the password), and the saving Mana chapter terminates about 60% through the decision tree as well (at least on Ai’s path).
I feel proud of myself for only running into one bad ending the whole time through (which involved Mana). I managed to circumvent this by changing a single decision a few decisions back in the exhaustive record I’d made. I’m not usually that great at these games…getting to Ayano’s path in Private Nurse completely stumped me, forcing me to consult a walkthrough. Ditto with the “good” path in Snow Drop, every path I attempted in Crescendo :\, and a couple of the paths in Tokimeki Check-in! as well. I only got Asumi in Heart de Roommate after some consummate guessing, and the same with Tsugumi in Come See Me Tonight. The “violent” types seem to give me trouble. Anyway, after such a track record it should be clear why I’m quite happy with my “performance” in what many have said is one of the more difficult games out there.
Anyway, I felt that the decisions in Hourglass were logical and had a clearer effect than with other games. In many of these other games, the “choices” you make are between two different phrasings of the same thing, and it can be puzzling figuring out which one is supposed to be right. In other “other games”, the choices have seemingly random effects (i.e. Tokimeki Check-in…). In Hourglass the choices were clear and distinct, representing different actions rather than rephrasings of the same thing. The game was challenging without being frustrating, and I throughly enjoyed agonizing over some of the tougher choices, though I do wish you could “rewind” back to the choice like you could in Kana, allowing you to quickly review the effects of choices before settling on one permanently.
Overall, I think this game ranks right up there with Kana among the great story heavyweights of b-gamedom. Kana is simple yet moving: a focused story of unsurpassed poignance. Hourglass, in contrast, is beautiful in its complexity, a story that challenges you consider every choice as if the very future depends on it…which it often does.
While I’m at it…Private Nurse is boring and Crescendo is frustratingly puzzling.
[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 11-14-2004).]
Oh, and just to balance the good with the bad…Hirameki got a little sloppy with the translation after the main character and Ai “discover” each other. They mislabeled the main character’s speech as Ai’s and vice versa a few times, and Ai is referred to as “I” sometimes, which results in a bit of momentary confusion. Tsk, tsk.
I like Private Nurse…
The game should have had at least 4.5 stars, after noting the price. I don’t think the password system being clunky really classifies as one whole star less. It’s a DVD player game, not a PC one. It’ll be hard if not impossible to improve on the current system.
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though I do wish you could “rewind” back to the choice like you could in Kana, allowing you to quickly review the effects of choices before settling on one permanently.
I think you shouldn’t do that. It takes away of the game’s realism, and isn’t really fair play.
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Originally posted by Benoit:
The game should have had at least 4.5 stars, after noting the price. I don't think the password system being clunky really classifies as one whole star less. It's a DVD player game, not a PC one. It'll be hard if not impossible to improve on the current system.
Just because the system can't be improved doesn't make it good, or acceptable. That said, I don't find the password system terrible, but it's somewhat of a hassle as well. They could at least display the whole password at once instead of generating it letter by letter...
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I think you shouldn't do that. It takes away of the game's realism, and isn't really fair play. [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/frown.gif[/img][/B]
Fair play? The game's trying to screw you over at every turn. Realism? The game's trying to screw you over at every turn. [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img] I like how the game is challenging, but I also like not having to restart the game 5 times because I missed a single event trigger either. In the end, it feels far more rewarding to have "sneaked a peek" at the other choices, and moved on, then to have to backtrack and pick choices randomly because you have no idea what you did wrong. Implementing my idea would be easy too...just make the decisions separate chapters.
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Originally posted by bishounen_blue:
I like Private Nurse...
It seemed like there was a lot of needless filler to me. Some might call that character development, but in that case I think Kana did it way better...
With character development, each plot element, each character interaction, should tell you something new about the characters. Rehashing the same thing over and over isn't character development...it's just tedious. This is what I feel Private Nurse did.
[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 11-14-2004).]
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Just because the system can't be improved doesn't make it good, or acceptable.
But if it's the best and only way it can be done, it should be acceptable. You have to keep in mind for which platform the game is for, here the DVD player, and go from there.
Else you could say that the games of the 8-Bit console era all suck because most find they have crappy graphics while they could be the best they could do. You need to think of the time and the circumstances.
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Fair play? The game's trying to screw you over at every turn. Realism? The game's trying to screw you over at every turn. I like how the game is challenging, but I also like not having to restart the game 5 times because I missed a single event trigger either.
Yeah well, it sounds like cheating to me, in part. That the game screws you over is the impression you get.
The decision loses much of its weight if you can see what both of them will do right away, and you shouldn't be able to anyway.
Of course, that's just my stance.
You’re cutting out the parts where I qualified my responses.
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But if it’s the best and only way it can be done, it should be acceptable. You have to keep in mind for which platform the game is for, here the DVD player, and go from there.
Else you could say that the games of the 8-Bit console era all suck because most find they have crappy graphics while they could be the best they could do. You need to think of the time and the circumstances.
Ah, but we DO have better technology now, they just chose not to utilize it in favor of making the game compatitible with a greater variety of playback devices. Since the game won’t even work correctly on my computer DVD player, they’ve even failed in that. And, as I pointed out, there’s ways they could’ve improved on the existing design…they just didn’t choose to.
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Yeah well, it sounds like cheating to me, in part. That the game screws you over is the impression you get.
The decision loses much of its weight if you can see what both of them will do right away, and you shouldn’t be able to anyway.
Cheating? Well only as much as replaying the game after you got a bad ending the first time is cheating. You shouldn’t be able to do that! That’s not realistic!
Furthermore, you can’t necessarily see what the result of your decision is right away. You only see immediate reactions (well, at least that’s all I sit through).
Major Hourglass spoiler for first time through
If you don’t walk home with Mana (at least on Ai’s path), she gets in the accident and you get the bad ending. There’s hints after the choice (if you chose correctly), but the net result of your action isn’t realized until several choices later…
end spoiler
So it’s just another tool, rather than a sure-fire easy way out. And you don’t have to use it…it would just be nice to have the option. When a game has 50+ decision points, many of which result in a bad ending if answered incorrectly, I think it’s almost expected that you preview choices at least occasionally…
Yet you seem to not have previewed choices at all. I’m curious…how many times did you have to backtrack to get your first good ending? Perhaps the game isn’t as unforgiving as I think it is…
[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 11-14-2004).]
I initially ignored these DVD games, but if it really is long and well-written, then combined with the price I’m interested… How difficult are these to play on different platforms? I don’t actually have a DVD player, but I do have a couple of DVD drives in these computers and I think someone around here has a game console that plays them too…
It will work for sure on all modern PS2’s (if it’s a non-Japanese release, that should be modern enough). Separate DVD players and computer DVD players seem to be a hit-and-miss affair. The game box itself recommends you play it on a PS2 or a computer DVD player, but cautions that it may not work on some computers. If it doesn’t work you could always ship it back, I suppose. I think Hourglass, at least, is worth the risk.
BTW, I think Hourglass animates better on my PS2/TV. The animation sequences look kind of fuzzy around the edges on my computer. That might have to do with the resolution though. I tried changing it (with the media player still open) and I remember it causing the computer to hard-lock…coincendentally, Windows Media Player refused to open it for a while after that (even after a reboot).
[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 11-14-2004).]
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They could at least display the whole password at once instead of generating it letter by letter...
I agree with Dark Shiki. Displaying the whole password at once would have made the system a lot less tedious. When playing on the PC, sometimes my game would "hang" in the middle of generating the password letters... what a nightmare -- and I don't bother getting every single password for every single decision point so you can imagine how it's going to be if the game freezes at a part that's quite a long way off from my last "save".
Even if it's theoretically not possible for Animeplay DVD games to have a real save system, there IS room for improvement on their current password system.
[This message has been edited by rowena (edited 11-15-2004).]
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You're cutting out the parts where I qualified my responses.
That means it wasn't a qualification to me, obiviously. [img]http://princess.cybrmall.net/ubb/wink.gif[/img]
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Ah, but we DO have better technology now, they just chose not to utilize it in favor of making the game compatitible with a greater variety of playback devices. Since the game won't even work correctly on my computer DVD player, they've even failed in that. And, as I pointed out, there's ways they could've improved on the existing design...they just didn't choose to.
-It's a DVD player game. DVDs are made to play in those DVD players that hook up to the TV.
-Since you seem to know it better, tell me how they could improve, especially on a complex game as this.
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Cheating? Well only as much as replaying the game after you got a bad ending the first time is cheating. You shouldn't be able to do that! That's not realistic!
Nice try. But you know that's not what I meant. Replaying it is an effort, rewinding isn't. It's like picking up a book and looking quickly at the ending to see if it's a good one, to decide whether or not to read the book.
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Furthermore, you can't necessarily see what the result of your decision is right away. You only see immediate reactions (well, at least that's all I sit through).
Then what's the point?
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I agree with Dark Shiki. Displaying the whole password at once would have made the system a lot less tedious. When playing on the PC, sometimes my game would "hang" in the middle of generating the password letters... what a nightmare -- and I don't bother getting every single password for every single decision point so you can imagine how it's going to be if the game freezes at a part that's quite a long way off from my last "save".
-Play it on a normal DVD player that doesn't hang (as much) like traditional PCs.
-It sounds like you would prefer it to not show anything when it freezes. If understand the mechanism correctly, it shows its progress - the password letters - while generating it. So you'd rather see nothing if the game freezes? A couple of letters is better than nothing.
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-Play it on a normal DVD player that doesn't hang (as much) like traditional PCs.
I did play it on a normal Pioneer DVD player, and my main problem was not being able to fast-forward through the parts/dialogues which I had already encountered in previous games. Thus I opted to play on my PC DVD-ROM which allowed me to fast-forward through the repeated scenes.
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It sounds like you would prefer it to not show anything when it freezes. If understand the mechanism correctly, it shows its progress - the password letters - while generating it. So you'd rather see nothing if the game freezes? A couple of letters is better than nothing.
I don't understand the point? What happened to me was that as the system was generating the password letters one by one, sometimes it would "hang" in the middle of the password. If it just showed the WHOLE password in one go I could've copied the password completely and not have to restart the game. Anyways successfully getting a couple of letters isn't exactly useful... ^^;
[This message has been edited by rowena (edited 11-15-2004).]
Since I couldn’t get my dvd-playing devices to work properly and generate the save passwords, let me throw out this question to those who did get the pws. . . do the passwords actually let you reload back to the decision points where the passwords were generated?
@Ecchifan: Yes.
@Benoit: We’re just going in circles. I’m done debating this with you…we’re obviously not even on the same wavelength, and nothing you or I say is going to change that. I honestly can’t understand where you’re coming from anymore…
[This message has been edited by Dark_Shiki (edited 11-15-2004).]
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I don't understand the point? What happened to me was that as the system was generating the password letters one by one, sometimes it would "hang" in the middle of the password. If it just showed the WHOLE password in one go I could've copied the password completely and not have to restart the game. Anyways successfully getting a couple of letters isn't exactly useful... ^^;
I was saying that if the algorithm used to make the password worked like generating the letters one by one, and showing it one by one, it wouldn't matter whether it's letter by letter that it displays, or the whole password at the same time.