It's time for another entry in my Madou Monogatari Marathon, this time with yet another detour, because with my discovery of the Saturn Madou translation I decided to switch to that game, instead of doing MM3 next, like I initially planned. So buckle up guyz, this one is going to be a bit different.
Story
The beginning the game tells us of the tales of Lagnus the Brave and how he managed to defeat the spawn of the evil Yoggus and seal him away in the fittingly named ''Tower Of Sealing''. In the current days thought the seal is starting to weaken and Lagnus sees no other choice but to head to the tower and take Yoggus out for good. When it seems like he is about to lose against the evil monster the light warrior channels all of his power into his sword and makes one final strike, however he forgot that the Yogs exist in every dimension, so the central Yoggus that all the other ones spawned from(only killing this particular one will take them out for good) opens a warphole to another dimension and sucks the weakened Lagnus into it, leaving his fate uncertain. We cut to a different location where we see a hooded man tell this story to a bunch of children, Arle is also listening from farther away, but can't help but feel like it might be more then just a story. That night something crashes in the mountains near the town close to where Arle lives and it not only causes everyone there to go mad, but also engulfs everything in some kind of smoke, so she and Carbuncle decide to try and find the root of this problem.
They eventually find out that it was caused by some kind of plant that suddenly grew there and contaminated the area. Carbuncle destroys it with his laser and the two decide to team up with Rulue. They also run across Schezo, who initially isn't interested in helping them out, but end up saving them later on and suddenly shows himself quite knowledgable about the Yogs and their goal to disrupt the natural order of the world. The girls are naturally confused about his sudden change of heart, but ultimatly let him join them, however as the game goes on they notice that Schezo is acting stranger by the minute, going to investigate on his own for a bit, only to return later on and claim that he has no idea what they want from him, it get's to the point where even he starts to worry about his mental health, since he essentially keeps passing out and finds himself in situations with no idea how any of them came to be. Eventually the other Schezo personality reveals itself to be Lagnus, who has periodically taken over Schezo's body in order to do something against the Yogs, however he can only ever take over Schezo for a short period of time, before he get's forcefully ejected. His real body is sealed away in a crystal, so the heroes go and ask Satan if he knows anything and in fact he does reveal that he is not entirely innocent, as far as everything that's going on is concerned, he escapes and the heroes go to fend of the last Yogs in hope that it will break the crystal. It does and they even get Schezo to help them on his own accord, however Lagnus' body has regressed to the one of a child, due to him using up all of his power in the prolog. The heroes meet Satan in an underground complex and find out that he was the one who opened the portal that the Yogs came from, not knowing they were malicious creatures and has been trying to keep Yoggus from entering the Madou world since then, he also saved Lagnus' live by sealing his body and letting it heal for some time, because he would have died otherwise. Lagnus reclaims his sword and his power and is accompanied by Arle and Rulue for his final battle against the original Yoggus. The heroes prevail, but Lagnus decides to not stay with them, but to return to his own home world instead, but not before Satan reveals to him that he was planning everything that happened, since he wanted to see if the citizens of his world are willing to fight for it (a nod to the Shin Madou novel series) and also tells him that his sealing cured Lagnus of any curses that got inflicted on him on his many adventures, so that he doesn't need to worry about being dangerous to the Madou world, should he ever come back and the two part ways at last, promising to meet each other again.
Graphics
The visuals are a treat, especially in battles where they are nicely detailed and just have a ton of personality to them, the attack animations are also very fun to watch, whether it's Arle engulfing her enemys in a spiked iceball or Schezo slashing his opponents at superhuman speed via Areiado Special, it never got old for me and they are fast paced tooo, so they don't slow the battles down to any degree.
The non-battle visuals are good as well, they are bit unusual with the dungeon layout practicly floating over a very detailed backround, but I think it woks in it's own odd way:
Also, just to bring up the mugshots during dialog sequences real quick, Schezo has the best ones, without a doubt:
Sound
Yet again, completely subjective, but you can be sure that I liked the music, with the regular battle theme being my favorite:
Gameplay
This game yearns to be more like your typical JRPG and it shows in many ways. such as playtime, while the dungeon crawlers are usually 4-6 hours long at the most, this one is around a tad longer then your average Mario RPG, which I had no problem with, since no point in the game felt like uninportant filler.
The different locations are accessed via a map, just like in Super Mario RPG, the towns are ptetty basic and small, there is one time where there is more going on, but usually you are only there to buy items/equipment and talk to NPCs in order to find out about the next location.
The ''dungeon'' areas are build like mazes, where you go on a restricted path and uncover areas, in order to progress or find hidden treasures, it is actually very much like the dungeon crawling in previous games, just in an isomatric perpective, I was suprised at how similar it felt. Of course there are also puzzles, but they never get anymore complicated then something you would see in a Pokemon game, just pay attention to your sorroundings and know how to use the field abilitys of your characters and you will be fine. I do wish there was some kind of map feature thought, it's sometimes easy to get lost at times and some simple look around optiond would have prevented some pointless sessions of back and forth, especially in the final ''full'' dungeon which is quite massive, to the point where you are better off uncovering the secrets on you way out, so that you only have the right way, without any extra paths to confuse you.
The battle system has also changed, the game drops the numberphobic nature the series is known for and gives you actual stats for your HP and MP, in addition to that there is also also a SP gauge, that will build itself up much like in a fighting game and will allow you to unleash an especially devestating attack, once it is filled up. Another addition is that you now have a party and don't just travel on your own, you initially start as Lagnus, but then switch to Arle, Rulue will be the second member for most of the game, but there are plenty of other ones that will join you at certain points, with the most prominent one being Schezo, but you will also be accompanied by Draco or Momomo for instance, just to name two, with Lagnus returning to the fray during the climax, all of them have their own specific abilitys and they feel balanced, so that you don't feel like you were forced to trait a good member for an inferior one. The battle system itself is exactly what you would expect it to be you have your offensive and defensive spells, elemental attacks, physical attacks, debuffs, multy and silgle target spells,etc,etc, if you ever played an RPG you know what you are getting yourself into. Big praise goes to the bosses and grinding, the former because they all feel very unique and often have some gimmick, such as Owlbear, who needs to be set on fire, before he can be damaged and latter because I never needed to do any of it, no matter how tuff a boss was I always got trough just by strategizing well and never needed to stop in my tracks and grind for a few levels.
If you want to know more about anything specific feel free to ask, I have quite a bit on my mind having just beaten the game and have a bit of a hard time to really express everything in a coherent way, so I could have glanced over something that may interest you and if that's the case just ask away.
From a personal perspective I was amazed at how much I loved this game, it's pretty divisive for breaking from the usual gameplay style and yes, there are more complex RPGs out there, but for my money it did everything it did well really well, never got boring for me and it is awesome from a fan perspective, with how it crammed almost every character that appeared in Puyo Puyo at that point into it, even minor ones like Jan or the Banshee Trio and it's just nice to see Lagnus essentially be the main character of the game, given how much he tends to get the shaft.
I'm going to take a small break from the marathon from the time, because Star Fox Zero has been sitting on my shelf since friday and it's demanding my attention.
