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Ah! My Goddess PS2 game report (part 2)
Game report time again! Like last time, I'm going to be reporting on dialogue and story events, rather than gameplay. For those of you who need help playing the game (and it does get devilishly difficult), Terminal Dogma has a very detailed walkthrough of the game available already. So from now on I'm not going to bother describing the action or puzzles so much. My report will focus on the story and dialogue.
AH MY GODDESS! PS2 GAME PART TWO
Standard disclaimer: Dialogue translation is going to be extremely rough. I'm going by memory and trying to get it down as fast as I can. There are going to be mistakes and mistranslations. You've been warned.
If you remember where we left off last time, we had just completed Stage 1 of the first chapter of the game, "The Guiding Path," aka the tutorial chapter. So now we're ready to enter Stage 2 of the tutorial chapter. Here we go!
Okay, first challenge: You have to borrow Belldandy's wind magic in order to open a complicated door thingy. Also, this is the part of the game where I figured out that if you accidentally walk into one of the Goddesses, Skuld will shout at you. "Hey, that hurt!"
Next, there's another door. Belldandy's wind magic can't open it. You have to run around until you find a purple magic clock thingy, similar to the blue magical clock thingy that you walked through in the first stage. If you step into the purple clock, you can switch Belldandy for Urd. Now Urd is normal size again, and Belldandy is chibi. You go back to the door and use Urd's lightning to open it. Urdbolt for the win!
Next it gets complicated. You find some plants that you need to make grow with water. Of course, you can't use water magic without Skuld. So you need to find a red clock in order to be able to switch out Skuld and be able to use her magic.
The rest of the stage is basically this - running around, encountering a specific obstacle, figuring out which of the three sisters can use her magic to overcome it, then going to find the correctly-colored clock in order to switch out that sister. To review: A blue clock gets you Belldandy, the purple clock gets you Urd, and the red clock gets you Skuld.
Okay, we're in an event again! Keiichi and company are standing in front of a Marumaru-kun. Keiichi says that being able to use magic is like living in a dream. Belldandy says, "It's not a dream. This is all possible because of the power that Keiichi has always had inside of him. We're just helping you out, just a little bit."
Next, Urd says that Keiichi needs a name for his magic. Keiichi decides on Kikou Houjutsujin. If I had to translate it, it would be something like "Opportunity Mechanism Framework." Yeah, I know, it sounds a lot more elegant in Japanese. Skuld thinks that this is a terrible name, but Belldandy says that it sounds lovely. Next, the sisters explain to Keiichi that his kikou houjitsujin won't allow him to manipulate every object that he sees. Uh-oh.
Next stage!
Here comes the infamous Clock Tree. In order to get the clock to rotate, you have to do something very simple - hit it with an Urdbolt - but this turns out to be hellishly difficult to do. The game controls are terrible, and if you don't line up the shot perfectly (which is nearly impossible), you won't be able to move forward. It took me forty-five goddamn minutes to be able to get Urd's lightning bolt to strike where it's supposed to. Goddammit.
The trick is to hold down the X button while the lightning bolt hits, otherwise it won't work.
Next comes the robot and door and... Okay, very bored now. I was hoping that this game would be a fun run-around-and-blow-things-up game where I didn't have to use my brain so much, but... It's a puzzle game! I hate puzzle games. I hate being arsed to figure out all of these cryptic puzzles when what I really care about is having fun and getting through the story.
I also did the robot puzzle wrong, and I made the door attack me instead of open. Well, now I have to start the level over again.
And I keep running into these problems. Eventually, you reach a point where there are several actions that you can do, and if you do anything out of order - or perform the wrong action on an object, like using "open" on a particular door instead of "hit" - then you'll basically be trapped with no way to move forward, and will have to start the level over again.
Blargh, I can't believe I just wasted an afternoon on that. The game started out so fun, but once the cryptic puzzles and bad controls keep getting in your way, it just... blargh again.
Stage 3 took me an embarrassingly long time to complete, because I am not one for puzzle games. Thankfully, Stage 3 is the last stage in the tutorial chapter. So if you can make it through Stage 3, you get to the center of the island. You see the magic circle that Hild cast, and the floating pocketwatch in the center of it. Keiichi suggests that all they have to do is break the magic seal. Then Hild and Marller appear to mock him. "No human could ever break this spell," Marller says.
Belldandy, a bit slow on the uptake, exclaims "Hild! Marller!!!"
"Aha," Keiichi says, "So it WAS you who were behind this!"
Hild replies coyly, "All we did was fulfill the wishes of a customer."
Keiichi looks at her and asks, "Customer...?"
In place of the floating watch, the Clock Spirit suddenly appears. "Have you enjoyed your time on this island so far?" she asked. Note: No sarcasm. She just asks that, like, genuinely asks.
SKULD: Who?
URD: Some sort of spirit... She doesn't appear to be either a god or a demon.
HILD: I'll introduce you. This is our client.
CLOCK SPIRIT: It's a lovely place, isn't it? Your satisfaction is my happiness.
BELLDANDY: (PISSED AS HELL, or as close as Belldandy ever gets) Give us back our song right now!
CLOCK SPIRIT: Why are you looking at me with that frightening expression? What's wrong?
KEIICHI: You took away their song, didn't you?! Give it back right now!!
CLOCK SPIRIT: I will, but... Why are you so angry? I only want you to enjoy yourselves. And if you would be so kind as to repair me...
KEIICHI: Repair you? What?
HILD: Ne, ne, maybe they're angry because there isn't enough of the island for them to enjoy!
CLOCK SPIRIT: Oh, is that it?
Then the Clock Spirit casts another spell. She tells Keiichi and company that she has scattered the goddess's memories across the island. Marller and Hild tell them to go have fun looking for them! Hild says with a big smile, "Hey, I bet we could play together here for a thousand years!" The Clock Spirit replies, "Oh, if you all would stay here for that long, I would be so happy!" (I really don't think that she picked up that Hild was taunting the goddesses. Or maybe she did. It's hard to tell.)
KEIICHI: Hey, wait a minute! One thousand years is a little...
CLOCK SPIRIT: But you're gods, right? One thousand years will not be a problem for you.
KEIICHI: But I'm a human! I can't live for one thousand years!
CLOCK SPIRIT: (*gentle laugh*) A human? You are very good at telling jokes! I have been watching you this whole time. If you were a human, how could you use that magical power?
Hild interrupts this conversation by saying, "Well, it's time for the game to start!" Keiichi and Belldandy scream, and fade to black.
Scene change! Keiichi and the goddesses find themselves passed out on the beach where they first arrived. Banpei-kun walks over to them. (Oh, hey, Banpei-kun. I forgot that you were on this island.) Urd explains angrily that she's figured out Hild's objective. Hild wanted to trap them on the island so that, without the goddesses around to interfere, the demons could run around freely in the rest of the world and increase their market share. Skuld gets pissed and says, "So for a dirty reason like that, that clock spirit helped them out?!"
BELLDANDY: I don't think so...
SKULD: Eh?
BELLDANDY: I think that the silver clock spirit is being used.
KEIICHI: I agree. There was something strange about her.
BELLDANDY: She really seemed to deeply love this island.
Keiichi goes on to say that their objective is to get off the island, right? And to do that, they need to break the barrier. And to do that, they need the goddess song. Belldandy reminds us that the Clock Spirit hid their memories all across the island. Without their memories, they can't sing. "To a goddess, memories are very precious... With our memories gone, so is our song."
They decide to search for the memories. But Belldandy is worried because she's putting Keiichi in danger. Keiichi says that he's fine, and anyway, he's got his kikou houjitsujin, right? "And," he says, "We can't just leave the Clock Spirit like that..."
Cue lots of agreement that this is what they must do. Then Skuld says, "By the way, Onee-sama, weren't you wearing a ring?"
Belldandy says, "A... ring...?"
Fade to black. Oooh, I'm being prompted to save my game. (*saves*)
Okay, another scene! We're at the abandoned beach house that we saw at the beginning of the game. Skuld is bragging about how she just finished building a communication device from Banpei-kun's parts. Keiichi asks, "Um, is Banpei-kun all right?" Banpei-kun appears with an emo tear drawn on his face. Priceless. Skuld tells him, "I promise to fix you up when this is all over!"
Urd asks where the heck Skuld is planning to use her "communication device" to communicate to. "Are you going to order ramen?!" she asks. Skuld tells her to shut up, and switches on the device.
Success! Instant connection with Heaven, and who should answer Skuld's call but... Peorth!
Urd demands that Peorth save them, and Peorth is like, er, what? Belldandy says that they're in trouble. Peorth answers that yeah, that's terrible, but she can't leave her post in Heaven right now. Heaven has sensed the development of a terrible demonic power in Earth's ocean. And Urd is like, hey, yeah, guess what? We're in the center of it!!! Well, okay, she doesn't say all of that. But Skuld says, "We're trapped inside the barrier of demonic power! Please, if Heaven has any information on this, please tell us!"
Peorth says, "Well, what are you doing in the middle of a demonic barrier? Ah, never mind. Listen carefully. A powerful barrier of demonic magic has completely swallowed the island. There is no access between inside the barrier and the outside world. However, we can detect faint traces of goddess power from within the island."
Keiichi says, "That's gotta be the stolen memories!"
Peorth starts to say something else, but all of a sudden she's distracted. "The magical energy just increased!" Like, by a lot. Everything goes red and the whole island rumbles. When things return to normal, Peorth says that the magical energy has just dramatically increased. Thanks. We noticed.
Peorth says that she is going to continue monitoring the situation and gathering information from Heaven. "If you need anything, give me a call," she says.
The scene ends with more of Keiichi and company vowing to search for the stolen memories.
Okay, scene is finished! Now we're back on the island map. However, this time the island map looks different. There are three distinct zones to enter: Past, Present, and Future. Belldandy explains that the island must have been split up during the energy spike that they just felt.
Now you have to choose a zone to enter: Past, Present, or Future. As for me, I have to do my laundry, so I quit.
I will probably only be able to play the game on weekends. Like I said, it's a puzzle game, and I both suck at and hate puzzle games with a passion, so I expect that my progress will be slow. I will continue to report on story and dialogue here, but for those of you who need more help with the actual gameplay, I again refer you to Terminal Dogma. There are lots of screenshots of what gameplay looks like there, too.
Oh, and by the way, once you've saved a couple of times... From the game's opening screen, you can access several interesting things. One is a Character Encyclopedia. You can view biographical information about all of the characters who have appeared so far, as well as all of their 2D and 3D artistic renderings. The fact that you can control the camera zoom means that you can get some really interesting viewing perspectives on the 3D renders of the characters. You can also check out the Machine Encyclopedia, where information about all of Keiichi's actions are stored. You can also preview what a certain action does to a certain object - i.e., what happens when you use the "open" action on a Marumaru-kun robot. (Its face opens up.) This is the sort of information that you need in order to be able to solve all of those complicated tricksy puzzles. Finally, you can access a "Memories" menu that lets you revist all of the event scenes that you have completed so far.
PS: Oh yeah, Pluggity Plug Mcplug Plug.
AH MY GODDESS! PS2 GAME PART TWO
Standard disclaimer: Dialogue translation is going to be extremely rough. I'm going by memory and trying to get it down as fast as I can. There are going to be mistakes and mistranslations. You've been warned.
If you remember where we left off last time, we had just completed Stage 1 of the first chapter of the game, "The Guiding Path," aka the tutorial chapter. So now we're ready to enter Stage 2 of the tutorial chapter. Here we go!
Okay, first challenge: You have to borrow Belldandy's wind magic in order to open a complicated door thingy. Also, this is the part of the game where I figured out that if you accidentally walk into one of the Goddesses, Skuld will shout at you. "Hey, that hurt!"
Next, there's another door. Belldandy's wind magic can't open it. You have to run around until you find a purple magic clock thingy, similar to the blue magical clock thingy that you walked through in the first stage. If you step into the purple clock, you can switch Belldandy for Urd. Now Urd is normal size again, and Belldandy is chibi. You go back to the door and use Urd's lightning to open it. Urdbolt for the win!
Next it gets complicated. You find some plants that you need to make grow with water. Of course, you can't use water magic without Skuld. So you need to find a red clock in order to be able to switch out Skuld and be able to use her magic.
The rest of the stage is basically this - running around, encountering a specific obstacle, figuring out which of the three sisters can use her magic to overcome it, then going to find the correctly-colored clock in order to switch out that sister. To review: A blue clock gets you Belldandy, the purple clock gets you Urd, and the red clock gets you Skuld.
Okay, we're in an event again! Keiichi and company are standing in front of a Marumaru-kun. Keiichi says that being able to use magic is like living in a dream. Belldandy says, "It's not a dream. This is all possible because of the power that Keiichi has always had inside of him. We're just helping you out, just a little bit."
Next, Urd says that Keiichi needs a name for his magic. Keiichi decides on Kikou Houjutsujin. If I had to translate it, it would be something like "Opportunity Mechanism Framework." Yeah, I know, it sounds a lot more elegant in Japanese. Skuld thinks that this is a terrible name, but Belldandy says that it sounds lovely. Next, the sisters explain to Keiichi that his kikou houjitsujin won't allow him to manipulate every object that he sees. Uh-oh.
Next stage!
Here comes the infamous Clock Tree. In order to get the clock to rotate, you have to do something very simple - hit it with an Urdbolt - but this turns out to be hellishly difficult to do. The game controls are terrible, and if you don't line up the shot perfectly (which is nearly impossible), you won't be able to move forward. It took me forty-five goddamn minutes to be able to get Urd's lightning bolt to strike where it's supposed to. Goddammit.
The trick is to hold down the X button while the lightning bolt hits, otherwise it won't work.
Next comes the robot and door and... Okay, very bored now. I was hoping that this game would be a fun run-around-and-blow-things-up game where I didn't have to use my brain so much, but... It's a puzzle game! I hate puzzle games. I hate being arsed to figure out all of these cryptic puzzles when what I really care about is having fun and getting through the story.
I also did the robot puzzle wrong, and I made the door attack me instead of open. Well, now I have to start the level over again.
And I keep running into these problems. Eventually, you reach a point where there are several actions that you can do, and if you do anything out of order - or perform the wrong action on an object, like using "open" on a particular door instead of "hit" - then you'll basically be trapped with no way to move forward, and will have to start the level over again.
Blargh, I can't believe I just wasted an afternoon on that. The game started out so fun, but once the cryptic puzzles and bad controls keep getting in your way, it just... blargh again.
Stage 3 took me an embarrassingly long time to complete, because I am not one for puzzle games. Thankfully, Stage 3 is the last stage in the tutorial chapter. So if you can make it through Stage 3, you get to the center of the island. You see the magic circle that Hild cast, and the floating pocketwatch in the center of it. Keiichi suggests that all they have to do is break the magic seal. Then Hild and Marller appear to mock him. "No human could ever break this spell," Marller says.
Belldandy, a bit slow on the uptake, exclaims "Hild! Marller!!!"
"Aha," Keiichi says, "So it WAS you who were behind this!"
Hild replies coyly, "All we did was fulfill the wishes of a customer."
Keiichi looks at her and asks, "Customer...?"
In place of the floating watch, the Clock Spirit suddenly appears. "Have you enjoyed your time on this island so far?" she asked. Note: No sarcasm. She just asks that, like, genuinely asks.
SKULD: Who?
URD: Some sort of spirit... She doesn't appear to be either a god or a demon.
HILD: I'll introduce you. This is our client.
CLOCK SPIRIT: It's a lovely place, isn't it? Your satisfaction is my happiness.
BELLDANDY: (PISSED AS HELL, or as close as Belldandy ever gets) Give us back our song right now!
CLOCK SPIRIT: Why are you looking at me with that frightening expression? What's wrong?
KEIICHI: You took away their song, didn't you?! Give it back right now!!
CLOCK SPIRIT: I will, but... Why are you so angry? I only want you to enjoy yourselves. And if you would be so kind as to repair me...
KEIICHI: Repair you? What?
HILD: Ne, ne, maybe they're angry because there isn't enough of the island for them to enjoy!
CLOCK SPIRIT: Oh, is that it?
Then the Clock Spirit casts another spell. She tells Keiichi and company that she has scattered the goddess's memories across the island. Marller and Hild tell them to go have fun looking for them! Hild says with a big smile, "Hey, I bet we could play together here for a thousand years!" The Clock Spirit replies, "Oh, if you all would stay here for that long, I would be so happy!" (I really don't think that she picked up that Hild was taunting the goddesses. Or maybe she did. It's hard to tell.)
KEIICHI: Hey, wait a minute! One thousand years is a little...
CLOCK SPIRIT: But you're gods, right? One thousand years will not be a problem for you.
KEIICHI: But I'm a human! I can't live for one thousand years!
CLOCK SPIRIT: (*gentle laugh*) A human? You are very good at telling jokes! I have been watching you this whole time. If you were a human, how could you use that magical power?
Hild interrupts this conversation by saying, "Well, it's time for the game to start!" Keiichi and Belldandy scream, and fade to black.
Scene change! Keiichi and the goddesses find themselves passed out on the beach where they first arrived. Banpei-kun walks over to them. (Oh, hey, Banpei-kun. I forgot that you were on this island.) Urd explains angrily that she's figured out Hild's objective. Hild wanted to trap them on the island so that, without the goddesses around to interfere, the demons could run around freely in the rest of the world and increase their market share. Skuld gets pissed and says, "So for a dirty reason like that, that clock spirit helped them out?!"
BELLDANDY: I don't think so...
SKULD: Eh?
BELLDANDY: I think that the silver clock spirit is being used.
KEIICHI: I agree. There was something strange about her.
BELLDANDY: She really seemed to deeply love this island.
Keiichi goes on to say that their objective is to get off the island, right? And to do that, they need to break the barrier. And to do that, they need the goddess song. Belldandy reminds us that the Clock Spirit hid their memories all across the island. Without their memories, they can't sing. "To a goddess, memories are very precious... With our memories gone, so is our song."
They decide to search for the memories. But Belldandy is worried because she's putting Keiichi in danger. Keiichi says that he's fine, and anyway, he's got his kikou houjitsujin, right? "And," he says, "We can't just leave the Clock Spirit like that..."
Cue lots of agreement that this is what they must do. Then Skuld says, "By the way, Onee-sama, weren't you wearing a ring?"
Belldandy says, "A... ring...?"
Fade to black. Oooh, I'm being prompted to save my game. (*saves*)
Okay, another scene! We're at the abandoned beach house that we saw at the beginning of the game. Skuld is bragging about how she just finished building a communication device from Banpei-kun's parts. Keiichi asks, "Um, is Banpei-kun all right?" Banpei-kun appears with an emo tear drawn on his face. Priceless. Skuld tells him, "I promise to fix you up when this is all over!"
Urd asks where the heck Skuld is planning to use her "communication device" to communicate to. "Are you going to order ramen?!" she asks. Skuld tells her to shut up, and switches on the device.
Success! Instant connection with Heaven, and who should answer Skuld's call but... Peorth!
Urd demands that Peorth save them, and Peorth is like, er, what? Belldandy says that they're in trouble. Peorth answers that yeah, that's terrible, but she can't leave her post in Heaven right now. Heaven has sensed the development of a terrible demonic power in Earth's ocean. And Urd is like, hey, yeah, guess what? We're in the center of it!!! Well, okay, she doesn't say all of that. But Skuld says, "We're trapped inside the barrier of demonic power! Please, if Heaven has any information on this, please tell us!"
Peorth says, "Well, what are you doing in the middle of a demonic barrier? Ah, never mind. Listen carefully. A powerful barrier of demonic magic has completely swallowed the island. There is no access between inside the barrier and the outside world. However, we can detect faint traces of goddess power from within the island."
Keiichi says, "That's gotta be the stolen memories!"
Peorth starts to say something else, but all of a sudden she's distracted. "The magical energy just increased!" Like, by a lot. Everything goes red and the whole island rumbles. When things return to normal, Peorth says that the magical energy has just dramatically increased. Thanks. We noticed.
Peorth says that she is going to continue monitoring the situation and gathering information from Heaven. "If you need anything, give me a call," she says.
The scene ends with more of Keiichi and company vowing to search for the stolen memories.
Okay, scene is finished! Now we're back on the island map. However, this time the island map looks different. There are three distinct zones to enter: Past, Present, and Future. Belldandy explains that the island must have been split up during the energy spike that they just felt.
Now you have to choose a zone to enter: Past, Present, or Future. As for me, I have to do my laundry, so I quit.
I will probably only be able to play the game on weekends. Like I said, it's a puzzle game, and I both suck at and hate puzzle games with a passion, so I expect that my progress will be slow. I will continue to report on story and dialogue here, but for those of you who need more help with the actual gameplay, I again refer you to Terminal Dogma. There are lots of screenshots of what gameplay looks like there, too.
Oh, and by the way, once you've saved a couple of times... From the game's opening screen, you can access several interesting things. One is a Character Encyclopedia. You can view biographical information about all of the characters who have appeared so far, as well as all of their 2D and 3D artistic renderings. The fact that you can control the camera zoom means that you can get some really interesting viewing perspectives on the 3D renders of the characters. You can also check out the Machine Encyclopedia, where information about all of Keiichi's actions are stored. You can also preview what a certain action does to a certain object - i.e., what happens when you use the "open" action on a Marumaru-kun robot. (Its face opens up.) This is the sort of information that you need in order to be able to solve all of those complicated tricksy puzzles. Finally, you can access a "Memories" menu that lets you revist all of the event scenes that you have completed so far.
PS: Oh yeah, Pluggity Plug Mcplug Plug.