Second Generation's Still As Chaotic
Though it's a marked improvement over the first GoC, Aedis Eclipse is a long way from a must-have SRPG.
Published: May 7, 2007
I remember when I first got introduced to the Generation of Chaos franchise. Though it was the first PSP game in the series, it was actually the fourth in the series proper, and a sloppy, painful port from the PS2 (yes, that means Aedis Eclipse is the fifth game, and, in some ways, it's an improved port), rife with so many menus, sub-menus and screens of information that I was almost instantly overwhelmed.
Thankfully, the folks at NIS America were kind enough to offer a strategy guide with the game that went over nearly everything you'd ever want to know about the game. The thing weighed in at eighty pages. That's the kind of investment a GoC game is, and despite some improvements to both the performance and introduction of the game, the sequel isn't any less of a head scratcher, and this time, I didn't have an 80 page guide to help me out.
Instead, I had the manual, the game's entire first 1/3 which is more or less a tutorial wrapped around a hackneyed and utterly stereotypical tale of teens saving the world, and more than a few beers to help me through things. Even after restarting the game four times to redo the intro tutorial at various points, trying each time to get into the game before giving it up and moving on to other reviews, I still didn't know what half the things in the game did. In fact, the documentation both inside the game and its case just aren't up to the task of laying everything out. PSP manuals have a page count limit, and Aedis would have hit it just trying to explain the basics of combat.
I, frankly, don't have it in me to go over all the details, mainly because we already touched on most of them in our initial preview, and rehashing it all here would probably end up about as boring as the first couple hours of the game. Once you get things down, though, learn how to build structures on each stage's grid, learn how elements can restrict or completely block movement and how to rearrange things or shift weaknesses through terraforming, you start to get the confidence to just poke around.
And really, to be perfectly honest, that's how I learned nearly everything about the game -- some stuff, like building graveyards, even after embarking on my save-and-experiment ritual, were just as perplexing after I did them as before I started. There are entire parts of the game that I ended up just largely ignoring for the first half or so, stuff like capturing rival captains. Instead, I stuck to the strategy RPG truisms of power leveling and visiting shops whenever new gear was made available, and in that respect, Aedis is quite a bit more accessible than the first game. The general presentation of the battle sites and moving around the world (or, uh, worlds, since the game is split into three separate but vaguely linked storylines, something you can learn more about in the preview) is done with quite a bit more polish and refinement.
But that's only in the most basic of areas. The meat of the game -- both in battles and in navigating the absolute quagmire of menus -- is still nearly just as busted as it was in the first PSP effort. That's not to say improvements haven't been made, but rarely does one button accomplish the same basic task across all menus, and often the info that's spilled out over all those endless screens and sub-screens isn't labeled or presented in a way that's digestible.
It's the battles in particular that best exemplify the better-but-not-quite-there nature of the sequel. For starters, it all runs about a billion times better than the first game ever did. Even with the bigger armies running around, the game at least tries to keep up, though the second you kick off a special attack, the game turns into that old, familiar slide show. There's also the larger issue of the battles themselves just being painfully bland and bordering on nearly non-interactive. Since AI guides the actions of everything from your captain to all the little grunts running around, only the initial formation commands and the most rudimentary of instructions like fight or move are useful. Even then, enemies often just stand around doing nothing or wander off. That's not to say the fights themselves can't be entertaining, but it's hardly a strategy RPG when the only strategy is moving the camera around and constantly re-ordering your troops to attack.
But the game is improved, mostly in how it looks. Rather than the grainy, fugly visuals of the first game, the textures here are higher-res, filtered nicely and more aptly complement the hand-drawn sprites and character portraits. The animation itself, though, is limited to just a handful of frames, which is pretty damned bad in this day and age. I'd also be loath to suggest that the voice acting is worth enjoying if not for the fact that you can toggle on the Japanese voice actors. Everything sounds better when you can't understand it. The music, too, is pretty mixed; good in that it carries the game's stoic cutscenes for the most part, but annoying in that it loops so damned often.
Though Aedis Eclipse initially seems like a far better, more accessible entry into the genre, the most time spent with it, the more one realizes how little it's actually improved. Sure, load times are better and the game at least tries to explain the basics, but too much of it is a mystery, and when bland storylines and clunky interaction with even the most basic parts of the game combine, it doesn't make for a very engaging experience.
I can't be nearly as forgiving this time around -- not when games like Final Fantasy Tactics, Jeanne d'Arc and especially NIS America's own Disgaea all headed to PSPs over the next few months. Even though Aedis is a different kind of SRPG, the sheer quality and gameplay of the stuff hitting the PSP this year means games like this just won't cut it anymore.
Thankfully, the folks at NIS America were kind enough to offer a strategy guide with the game that went over nearly everything you'd ever want to know about the game. The thing weighed in at eighty pages. That's the kind of investment a GoC game is, and despite some improvements to both the performance and introduction of the game, the sequel isn't any less of a head scratcher, and this time, I didn't have an 80 page guide to help me out.
Instead, I had the manual, the game's entire first 1/3 which is more or less a tutorial wrapped around a hackneyed and utterly stereotypical tale of teens saving the world, and more than a few beers to help me through things. Even after restarting the game four times to redo the intro tutorial at various points, trying each time to get into the game before giving it up and moving on to other reviews, I still didn't know what half the things in the game did. In fact, the documentation both inside the game and its case just aren't up to the task of laying everything out. PSP manuals have a page count limit, and Aedis would have hit it just trying to explain the basics of combat.
I, frankly, don't have it in me to go over all the details, mainly because we already touched on most of them in our initial preview, and rehashing it all here would probably end up about as boring as the first couple hours of the game. Once you get things down, though, learn how to build structures on each stage's grid, learn how elements can restrict or completely block movement and how to rearrange things or shift weaknesses through terraforming, you start to get the confidence to just poke around.
And really, to be perfectly honest, that's how I learned nearly everything about the game -- some stuff, like building graveyards, even after embarking on my save-and-experiment ritual, were just as perplexing after I did them as before I started. There are entire parts of the game that I ended up just largely ignoring for the first half or so, stuff like capturing rival captains. Instead, I stuck to the strategy RPG truisms of power leveling and visiting shops whenever new gear was made available, and in that respect, Aedis is quite a bit more accessible than the first game. The general presentation of the battle sites and moving around the world (or, uh, worlds, since the game is split into three separate but vaguely linked storylines, something you can learn more about in the preview) is done with quite a bit more polish and refinement.
But that's only in the most basic of areas. The meat of the game -- both in battles and in navigating the absolute quagmire of menus -- is still nearly just as busted as it was in the first PSP effort. That's not to say improvements haven't been made, but rarely does one button accomplish the same basic task across all menus, and often the info that's spilled out over all those endless screens and sub-screens isn't labeled or presented in a way that's digestible.
It's the battles in particular that best exemplify the better-but-not-quite-there nature of the sequel. For starters, it all runs about a billion times better than the first game ever did. Even with the bigger armies running around, the game at least tries to keep up, though the second you kick off a special attack, the game turns into that old, familiar slide show. There's also the larger issue of the battles themselves just being painfully bland and bordering on nearly non-interactive. Since AI guides the actions of everything from your captain to all the little grunts running around, only the initial formation commands and the most rudimentary of instructions like fight or move are useful. Even then, enemies often just stand around doing nothing or wander off. That's not to say the fights themselves can't be entertaining, but it's hardly a strategy RPG when the only strategy is moving the camera around and constantly re-ordering your troops to attack.
But the game is improved, mostly in how it looks. Rather than the grainy, fugly visuals of the first game, the textures here are higher-res, filtered nicely and more aptly complement the hand-drawn sprites and character portraits. The animation itself, though, is limited to just a handful of frames, which is pretty damned bad in this day and age. I'd also be loath to suggest that the voice acting is worth enjoying if not for the fact that you can toggle on the Japanese voice actors. Everything sounds better when you can't understand it. The music, too, is pretty mixed; good in that it carries the game's stoic cutscenes for the most part, but annoying in that it loops so damned often.
Though Aedis Eclipse initially seems like a far better, more accessible entry into the genre, the most time spent with it, the more one realizes how little it's actually improved. Sure, load times are better and the game at least tries to explain the basics, but too much of it is a mystery, and when bland storylines and clunky interaction with even the most basic parts of the game combine, it doesn't make for a very engaging experience.
I can't be nearly as forgiving this time around -- not when games like Final Fantasy Tactics, Jeanne d'Arc and especially NIS America's own Disgaea all headed to PSPs over the next few months. Even though Aedis is a different kind of SRPG, the sheer quality and gameplay of the stuff hitting the PSP this year means games like this just won't cut it anymore.
