Hayate no Gotoku! Dream Apocalypse

Background:
I have no knowledge on the anime this game is obviously based on. It was, mostly, the tongue-in-cheek humor that the game seemed to present that quirked my eyebrow.

I know other people have reviewed this game, and I might have even read those reviews. However, I'm reviewing this game based on the experience I had.


Why this game is BAD:

The combat engine is a huge barrier to my enjoyment of this game. At first, I had trouble recognizing which graphics on the screen were indicative of having my party being hit and which graphics on the screen were indicative of hitting the "boss". Granted, having the screen suddenly turn red (indicative of a character dying) is a good indication that I was doing something wrong, but I was fighting the "tutorial" fight. The tutorial fight! While the point of a tutorial fight is to get the player used to the combat engine, I got two Game Over screens before I was competent with the system enough to be victorious. Even then, half my party was dead. Not a good sign, I'd say.

When I finally won the tutorial fight, I earned 10 experience. 10 experience might have been a proper reward if the fight was on the scale of a tutorial fight. However, that fight was not on the scale of a tutorial fight. Not even close. To be perfectly frank, I felt like I should have earned five levels from it. So yeah, game balance is way off-kilter on this title.

There's a "1-directional" battle system, where the in-battle control scheme turns into tank-like controls. Left and Right turn the character, while Up and Down move the character forward and backward based on the direction that is faced. This system sounds so convoluted and anti-intuitive, I question why it was even included. No, I take that back. I can kind of see why it was included. See, most characters need to face the monster to attack. Using Down to move away from the enemy while still facing it means you can mash the "attack" button more efficiently. That seriously what the system amounts to, from my perspective. Out of sheer curiosity, I enabled it, just do see how effective it was. Turns out the code hasn't been implemented yet. Was the text, "The maker of the game himself doesn't know how to use it effectively!" supposed to clue me off to the fact that it wasn't implemented? Kinda missed that, with the hilarity of the previous scene...

I mention in my review of Super RMN Bros. that I enjoy going from point A to point B in the fastest way possible. So when I found that dash was disabled on the overworld map, it frustrated me greatly. It might make sense to have dash disabled, but it also shouldn't matter that it would make sense.

What's with the words with asterisks? How are those words pronounced, even? Obviously, they're rather distracting to me. They seem to be references to games, or perhaps other anime. I can guess some references, but others are just one big question mark. Do away with them, or make them easier to guess.

Actually, the worse offender in the writing category is the interspersed Japanese words. Fans of the anime might fall head over heals by seeing the terms the anime uses for their favorite characters. Everyone else (like me) will just be plain turned off. "Look this up on Wikipedia what this term means" should never, ever be an answer. On this front, I'm glad at least the term "ojou-sama" was discussed on the RMN boards before I came into this game. Anyway, either have a translator's note in-game (such as explaining the term "gokiburi" in relation to Maria's aversion to cockroaches), have a miniature translation guide in the manual, or ditch the Japanese entirely.

I get that Nagi is essentially a rich, spoiled brat, and that starting with max money makes way to much sense. However, when the game says that Gyen is the monetary unit, and says that 1 Gyen is 9,999,999 Yen, I start to wonder. Then I check my status screen, and it says that I have 1 Gyen instead of having 9,999,999 Yen. That's just plain terrible. Here's my suggestion. Only bother with Gyen. Sure, Nagi can have her millions of Yen. She can even flaunt her wealth in random cut-scenes for all I care. However, shops will still only take Gyen.


Why this game is GOOD:

Outside of the problems with the writing I mentioned above, it's as tongue-and-cheek as I expected. The fourth wall is broken in several places, and is hilarious ways. This is done mostly by the narration, but the characters themselves break it with snide commentary about cliche video games.

The characters themselves are hilarious. They are on a crusade to create a video game adventure with a non-cliched video game plot. While I never quite finished the demo to it's most complete point (read the blat on the combat engine), I think it would be terribly ironic if their adventure hits all the video game cliches known to man. If written properly, and the writing seems to be very capable, it could make for some serious laugh-out-loud times.

I could be wrong, but the entire OST of the source anime is in the BGM directory. I've gotta respect that kind of devotion from a fan game, even if it makes the download larger than I'd like an RPGM game to be.


Summary:

The combat engine makes this game unplayable for me. Personally, I'd like to see damage numbers when damage occurs. If that's not feasible, then at least have a health bar for the "boss" foe so I can see which characters are most effective against him/her/it.

What I'd like to see happen is instead of having the option of "1-directional" vs. "direct control" is the ability to switch between the two on the fly. I have no idea what kind of mess this would make, code-wise, but there are situations where running around dodging things has priority to defeating monsters and visa-versa.

Pandering to the fan-base (such as using the Japanese terminology) is important, but it should never come at the cost of alienating non-fans. If the terms are left in-game, there should be some kind of explanation for them somewhere. In-game is preferable, but putting them into the manual is also acceptable.

The humor is awesome! I have high hopes that it will be consistently so for future updates. Failing to choose Nagi as a party member is the most epic way to get a Game Over screen. Ever. I mean, how obvious can you get?

If this game is supposed to relay the feel of an episode of Hayate no Gotoku!, then don't mess with the music. Otherwise, I'd get rid of some of it, just to make the game smaller, and therefore more accessible. Actually, I'd get rid of some of the tunes anyway, just to make the game smaller. However, I have no clue which songs are "necessary", as I have no knowledge about the source material.

I usually review completed projects, but this game seemed just up my alley. Since the project isn't complete, and the programmer is still working on polishing out the game, I feel inclined to not rate this game. Perhaps when the project is complete, I shall re-visit this game and revise this review accordingly.


BOTTOM LINE: Not Applicable!