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Ultra can blow up everything…except rocks.

  • Puddor
  • 02/12/2012 02:43 AM
  • 1310 views
Mystical Princess Ultra is a fairly unknown game (only two comments on the games profile) that was made in a couple of days and tells the odd-ball story of a man who meets a mysterious, bitchy sorceress *cough*.

First expectations of Mystical Princess Ultra, to be perfectly honest, were not high. The game was made in two days, and under any and all circumstances to make a balanced game requires time. Mystical Princess Ultra is not a balanced game. Item to battle distribution is low, and there are random battles in a puzzle. I’ll admit straight off that I’m not a patient person even on a good day, but random battles in a puzzle is like shooting the player(me!) in the foot. If I wasn’t playing this for Secret Santa I probably would have closed and deleted it right there and then.

The game does have a few charms, though. The ability to rename your characters is always a plus (I eventually ended up with Dickface and UltraAAAAA) and the mapping is good, solid, RTP fare. The eventing is quite solid too, though the guards in the town square move quite erratically (random move route?) and there are a few problems from a to-English translation. The music is ok, I think it’s RTP, and as always the battle theme eventually got on my nerves, but the cursor sounds were the real kick in the pants. They literally sound like a dog barking. A dog barking in real life is annoying enough (especially when you’ve got erratic insomnia and it’s hard enough to sleep sometimes anyway) but every time I move my cursor? There was also a bit of a consistency issue with the first playable map- the entire atmosphere speaks power and spookiness, but the music makes me think I’ve just stepped into an episode of Seinfeld.

The real issue with Mystical Princess Ultra is the lack of real direction. You are given a ‘command’ (CONQUER THE WORLD BY KILLING SOME JERKS) and that’s…pretty much it. The only other time I got an indication of what I was supposed to do was when Oliver (his real name) said he was hungry, and even after I bought apples and oranges I wasn’t sure what to do with them. I was in the sewer part before I even ate the apple. And it didn’t even do anything! I found the underground section thanks to comments made in the game profile asking for assistance, or else I would’ve been stuck above ground the whole time, too. I talked to ‘all’ (the warriors in the beginning part all seemed to only say (…)) the NPCs and they were either shop keepers or an old man who wouldn’t talk to me.

As I mentioned before the game is not balanced. I should not have to grind in a ‘half hour’ long game, which is what I would have had to do to keep up with the rate the game was throwing enemies at me when I decided to kill the shopkeeper. Apparently this is the ‘hard route’, however, it was the only time I actually felt like I was doing something somewhat productive in the game. When I didn’t kill her, I got stuck in a boulder puzzle- which, yet again, gave no indication of how to solve it, no ‘reset’ button besides leaving the map, and the ability to royally screw the puzzle up (so you HAD to leave and come back, encountering at least three enemies in the process). Apparently this was how I would have had to progress if I had continued with the non-aggressive route (why can’t I just blow them up? *sigh*). I don’t think a game should really reward me for making the decision to blow someone’s brains out with mental power, which is what it felt like. I actually got to the leader’s base, at least…

The story is honestly very odd. You meet an aggressive (aggressive as in, she will blow your head up if you disagree with her. +1 for interesting ways to get a game over) sorceress bent on world domination who makes you her lackey- which happens to be your class title, by the way. She then teleports you to a town to kill the leader. It’s all very abrupt and feels sort of aimless, even though it isn’t, simply because of the way it is introduced. To reiterate my biggest gripe with the game, it feels directionless, and seems like it leads you into unpleasant situations (easy to break puzzles and strings of enemies, which to defeat you have to go grind- literally). I stick by the belief you should only need a game’s random encounters (such as exploring a dungeon and coming out to a boss) to actually win, and grinding should be required if you’ve been escaping a lot (which you shouldn’t be! Battles shouldn’t be ‘mash X’, which is what usually leads me to escape a lot) and it irks me when I have to out of my way to grind in order to beat a ‘short’ game. Battles and level progression don’t work as well in games of this calibre. The entire set up felt like something from Final Fantasy I or Astonishia Story, which, while both good games in their own right, are longer and have more room for aimlessness. I shouldn’t be encountering this in a short game that was made in two days. Short games should probably be kept within the bounds of a few winnable or strategic battles for RPG’s sake and focus more on story, and if this game had done so, it probably could’ve been a whimsical, funny adventure that I could’ve won without feeling cheated. As it is I couldn’t pass either routes of the game due to lack of items and that silly boulder puzzle, so I’m unfortunately left with an overall sour taste in my mouth.

Orochii seems to have his head screwed on straight when it comes to games and his eventing and overall dialogue (besides the minor translation issues) are solid. I would like to play a longer game from him that had more time, effort and thorough thought put into it, because I think, judging by this game, that he’s very capable, but more suited to broader-scale games.

Posts

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I really love this review. Don't care about the score (but... it gives me some extra Kbs at the locker yay!). But everything you said is fair, and lets me too much to think and learn. I hope that, when the time comes and I get to release the demo for Ragnarökr, you... well... play it.

Thanks again for the review,
Orochii Zouveleki
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