Re: VGStorm Presents Manamon, a new fully featured RPG!
@jayde:
Yes, you need them both in your party.
So here are my general thoughts about the game. This post will contain spoilers.
The storyline was way too dark for my taste, but the gameplay is great. I'd say this is perhaps the first English audiogame comparable to those from forign countries.
The musical score is awesome. Even though I'm not a fan of the storyline, the music captures just about every environment very well, and even has you remembering events from the storyline, such as the music on Sancot Beach remaining somber even after that storyline event has cleared.
I really enjoy the sound design as well. The ambient environment sounds are great, and I'd say probably 95% of the attacks have very suitable sounds, with many of them just sounding awesome, such as mudslide and flame blizzard.
Aside from being far too dark in my opinion, I think the storyline had other issues. For one, the ending was terrible. You go through all of that dark, depressing journey and finally complete everything, and your character remains depressed and unhappy? Sorry, maybe that's realistic, but I don't play games for realism, especially not when the world is a dark enough place already without that darkness invading games.
Eliazar just seems like he was only put there to give you the gamma net and has no other purpose. I felt as though something were missing, because he tells you to come back and talk to him about his research at any time. For one, as far as I know, you never actually find out what he's researching, other than just manamon in general. Also, he comes and finds you to give you the gamma net, and from then on his house becomes useless, so you don't actually need to return there at all as he hints that you should when you leave.
What happened to Yavin? That part of the storyline made no sense at all. Literally from one moment to the next, he goes from a kid who hates what his father is doing, almost hates his father, to suddenly, he's going to complete his father's plans. At first I thought maybe he got possessed by irroadium or something, but in that case he wouldn't need to go to a correctional facility once Irroadium was banished. He never even seemed conflicted to me, he just outright didn't like what his father was doing, so for him to change so abruptly and suddenly become a problem child seems completely illogical.
This game has many similarities to the pokemon games, but not enough to be an exact copy, which is a good thing. I found myself missing things from the games, like moves usable outside of battle, but then I just stopped comparing the two games and enjoyed Manamon for what it is. I enjoyed capturing the mythical beasts and the mythical dragons, and I like how the robot manamon remain fairly distinctive from other manamon, especially the ones with extended memory and dual types.
I think this game has a lot of potential to turn into something even more awesome than it already is. I don't know what's in the works, if anything at all, but it would be awesome to be able to explore the other countries hinted at like you can in the further generations of Pokémon. Each storyline could be individually downloaded, or they could be games in their own right. I can't decide which sounds better. I know that a restart would be the best thing, so that you're playing as a different tamer in each country, though it'd be cool to be able to complete an entire manapedia of all manamon in all countries somehow. Not sure how all of that would work, and it's all obviously just speculation at this point. I also know that a huge amount of effort already went into this game, and it would take a huge amount more effort to do what I'm suggesting, so by no means am I pushing this as more than just an idea that would be cool. I expect nothing to happen.
I believe my time with Manamon is almost at it's end, though I very much enjoyed the game while I was playing it. I disagree with anyone that says the price is too steep, I'd have paid $60 easy for this game, just as games are being released in the mainstream communities for that price tag, or were last I remember. It's worth every cent and easily compares to the mainstream Pokemon games.
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