Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled (RPG, Project Exile)

:cool:
Também recebi um desses.

No entanto não deixo de estar um pouco apreensivo em relação a essa história do encounter rate ser demasiado alto. É que não são só os reviewers que se queixam disso, mesmo jogadores veteranos de jRPGs por turnos se queixam disso.

Mas enfim, valerá concerteza pela nostalgia que o resto irá invocar. Além disso parece ser unânime a complexidade da história.
 
:cool:
Também recebi um desses.

No entanto não deixo de estar um pouco apreensivo em relação a essa história do encounter rate ser demasiado alto. É que não são só os reviewers que se queixam disso, mesmo jogadores veteranos de jRPGs por turnos se queixam disso.

Mas enfim, valerá concerteza pela nostalgia que irá invocar.

Pois... também tenho lido uns comentários semelhantes :confused: Sinceramente o facto de ser um rate demasiado alto nem é tanto um problema (era até jogar DQ... ;) ), o problema é os combates serem demorados...

Ohh well... a ver vamos ;)
 
Por acaso torna-se um pouco irritante, estive a ver uns videos e se for como lá está em que a cada 5 passos tens um encounter....

Alguém sabe a release date para a Europa?

Cumprimentos
 
Bem, muita gente se queixa de o jogo freezar de vez em quando... :( Primeiro pensou-se ser apenas em cópias piratas, mas parece que não...

Vamos lá ver...
 
A minha cópia chegou hoje.

Ainda não tive tempo de jogar a sério para poder dar grande feedback. Posso dizer que as primeiras impressões foram mistas. Se por um lado o jogo tem um aspecto muito próximo do Chrono Trigger e a música é porreira, por outro o manual quase que parece um trabalho de amador (imagens desfocadas), as animações dos personagens parecem ter muito poucos frames (o que é estranho num jogo para a DS) e os combates - pelo menos os iniciais - são muito lentos.

Ainda é muito cedo para grandes opiniões por isso vou ter de jogar muito mais tempo para poder dar uma definitiva.
 
Também chegou hoje por estas bandas, e estou exactamente como o Garm nos aspectos que frisou. O aspecto está bastante bom, nisso não haja dúvidas bem como os menus de equipamentos e stats (só descobrir o que cada icone de trata, ex: uma pena é o save enquanto que uma armadura é o equip.).

Confesso que não sou grande fã do design escolhido nas 2 cidades onde fui (estou agora numa terceira), parece-me demasiado cheio e com pouca distinção entre quartos/casas importante e aquelas que servem mais para encher. Isso e a caracterização dos "Inn" e lojas, têm de estar mais atentos desta vez (é facil de distinguir num DQ por exemplo ;))

Música, até agora estou boas mas a melhor continua a ser a do combate. Não gostei lá muito da música overworld, deve ser de Golden Sun a mais :P

Quanto ao problema do encounter rate, de um certo ponto de vista compreendo perfeitamente. Primeiro, a aproximação que foi feita do mapa "overworld" não é a melhor.. perspectiva angular demasiado inclinada e texturas lisas e algo "esticadas", isto dá logo outra sensação quando andamos pelo mundo... completamente diferente d eum Chrono Trigger, DQ no meu caso e um Golden Sun (que é o que mais se aproxima) mas que dá uma melhor sensação de estarmos a andar por alguma coisa. O facto de o boneco só andar quando lá está fora não ajuda muito quando de facto encontramos várias vezes os inimigos.
Até à data não era grande fã de demasiadas batalhas, só o DQ me puxou, porque as batalhas eram rápidas, havia variedade de tipo e quantidade e acima de tudo, a sua animação. Já me aconteceu no espaço de 3s ter 2 batalhas ;)

E aqui entra o tal problema, ao ínicio não mete grande piada e as lutas "sentem-se" lentas, mais por culpa do seguinte na minha opinião, animação (frames) algo limitada, nem todos os inimigos têm animação parados, falta de efeitos sonoros quando morrem e uma música mais "emocionante" no fim de cada batalha teria sido melhor. Pequenas coisas que pode afectar ou não a percepção que temos das batalhas. Outra coisa que poderá não ajudar, as entradas para as batalhas random são simplesmente (boneco pára -> ecrâ desaparece -> volta a aparecer), ás vezes deu-me a sensação de que ia ocorrer um evento ou que tinha entrado na cidade, mas não, apenas era mais uma luta.
Apesar disso, a coisa já melhorou com os ataques combo com a segunda personagem e já ganhou outras cores o combate. Não tive problemas com o tempo de espera para atacar nem tão pouco com o tal problema de só atacar o inimigo quando não está bloqueado, faz parte da estratégia (os mapas de luta vão alternando, há uns que há mais obstáculos que outros)

A história até agora tem sido o que se esperava, um gajo diferente dos outros por não usar magias e por carregar consigo um fardo do passado. É por isso imediatamente julgado e gozado à força toda, e até agora tem sido isso. De resto, o feeling old school está lá, portanto experimentem ao menos :p

PS: Cheira-me que as animações vão melhorar com combos novos lá para a frente, o único que tenho já é bastante fixe de ver :p
E.. não esperem um grande menu de entrada no jogo, nada mais simples e directo com o logotipo do jogo, um background com um efeito ou dois e artwork das personagens a aparecer de vez em quando (que já foram vistos aqui no tópico), Não esperem entradas de cortar a respiração (literalmente) como as de um Chrono Trigger ;)

Mais lá para a frente porque só ainda estou com 2h :002:
 
Review RPGFan: (8/10)

Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled

There is a strong neo-retro trend in gaming these days, and independent RPG developers have been ahead of that curve for a long time now. There is a strong desire to recapture those warm fuzzy feelings of rose-colored nostalgia that gamers around my age felt back when we were tweens or teens playing Final Fantasy IV-VI on the SNES or Phantasy Star II-IV on the Genesis. Studio Archcraft's debut DS RPG, Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled, is certainly a pair of rose-colored glasses, albeit with a few scratches on the lenses.

The most prominent attractant to rose-colored nostalgia is Black Sigil's graphics. Put simply, the game looks a lot like 16-bit Square/Enix classics such as Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, or Terranigma. Sometimes eerily so. To some gamers, Black Sigil looks like a blatant forgery of these classic games, whereas other gamers see Black Sigil as homage to a bygone RPG era. My opinion falls more in line with the latter sentiment. Games such as Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, and Terranigma still look good to me and therefore I think Black Sigil looks nice too. There is no mistaking the vibe of the aforementioned classics in Black Sigil's sprites, tiles, spell effects, and text font. There is also no mistaking the nod to 16-bit classics in the Mode 7 overworld, though it does not look as pretty as the lushly detailed towns or the expressive character portraits that accompany dialogue. Black Sigil may not have strikingly original visuals, but it is an attractive game that captures an intended retro essence.

Complementing the retro visuals is an equally retro soundtrack. These MIDI-based orchestral compositions would not be out of place in a 16-bit RPG. The score is enjoyable to listen to, with nicely composed tracks, but despite the consistent quality the score itself is not very memorable and not a single track stands out to me. At least the music sounds good through the DS's speakers. It is hard to imagine any other kind of soundtrack accompanying this style of RPG.

If you have played a traditional JRPG, the gameplay does not deviate from that classic "town-overworld-dungeon, with occasional sidequests" formula. Towns have NPCs that sometimes say different things depending on who is speaking to them and some dungeons will really kick players' butts. Battles occur randomly and play out similarly to those in Anachronox, meaning they are Chrono Trigger-style ATB battles with multi-character combination attacks and an option to move characters around the field, thus adding additional strategic elements. All characters gain full experience regardless of whether they participate in battle, but they can only learn combination attacks if they fight together.

Some of the gameplay aspects that players will either like as cute quirks or dislike as outdated annoyances are as follows: One is that although there is a dash button to allow running in dungeons and towns, there is only a single slow walking speed on the overworld. Two is that it is sometimes hard to tell whether a wall in a dungeon is a dead end or an obscured passageway, or whether a floor can be walked on or not. Three is that, though items are pooled outside of battle, each party member can only carry his/her own limited inventory of items into battle. Four is that, despite a quicksave feature, opportunities to save (whether via save points or the overworld) are often spread too far apart. These are gameplay aspects that, though mildly annoying, I am able to somewhat overlook. There is, however, one aspect that I find impossible to overlook.

I find it impossible to overlook a random encounter rate that is too high. Getting into battles every three steps is not fun and makes exploring more tedious than need be. I often wanted to escape from battle, but I had to figure out how to on my own since the instruction manual does not mention how to escape. And like in most Final Fantasy games, the enemies will pound on you while you try to escape. The "randomness" of the random encounters does not end there. Due to a plot element, the main character sometimes enters battle with random status ailments, which can be aggravating until rectified by a plot point much later in the game. I do not have the kind of patience for high random encounter rates that I used to have as a kid.

Enduring the negative gameplay aspects is made much easier by Black Sigil's solid story. Players will not find some crazy, convoluted, avant-garde plot here: just a good, clean RPG story harbored by cool characters and fun dialogue. The story is a slow burner that takes a good 6 to 8 hours to pick up, but once it does, it maintains its momentum for its 35 to 40 hour duration. The ending has multiple outcomes depending on how many subplot-based sidequests are completed and if one or both of the hidden characters are discovered. These sidequests generally do not open up until the latter portion of the game when the party obtains a sky ship, so the tale is fairly linear for the most part.

The tale starts out in the snowy country of Bel Lenora where magic flows through peoples' veins like blood. Bel Lenora saw great turmoil fifteen years ago when the traitorous General Vai, a magicless marauder, wreaked havoc on the land. Vai was defeated by Duke Averay who subsequently adopted Kairu, a young boy orphaned by the terror. Kairu was reared alongside Duke Averay's biological daughter, Aurora, as his own son. Unfortunately, Kairu does not possess any magic and that similarity between he and Vai makes him a pariah in Bel Lenora. Thanks to his supportive and loving family, Kairu has become a strong, level-headed young man and not the whiny, despondent angst-bucket you would expect him to be. He is tight-lipped and standoffish with most people, but is devoted to Duke Averay and lets his guard down with Aurora. So long as Kairu has his dad and sister on his side, he can endure the seething hatred from everyone else in Bel Lenora.

In true RPG fashion, Kairu's destiny leads him far beyond Bel Lenora's snowy mountains. A government order forces General Averay to exile Kairu to the Cursed Caves. Kairu takes his exile like a man, but who should he encounter in the cave but his dear sister Aurora! There is no way she is letting her brother disappear without her, so she snuck out to be part of the adventure. So now, a cool-headed boy and his fiery-tempered sister venture off into the unknown where they will embark on the adventure of a lifetime filled with colorful new friends to meet, an evil empire to topple, treacherous areas to trawl, and shocking revelations to learn.

It is certainly no revelation that I enjoyed Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled. The game took its sweet time to grow on me, but grow on me it did. The more I played the game, the more I liked it. This is definitely not a game for the impatient or easily frustrated, and if you can look at the game's foibles as endearing "retro-chic" quirks, then there is joy to be found in Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled.


Post Script Note: Many people have reported their games freezing up after as little as 3 hours of play. In my playthrough of the game, I did not experience any freezing, lock ups, or crashes. Graffiti even issued a statement that freezing only occurs with pirated versions of the game. The one or two glitches I did encounter were inconsequential and did not affect my experience in any way. Even modern RPGs by big name developers on major consoles aren't always glitch free, and Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled is a pretty clean game in that regard.
Fonte: http://www.rpgfan.com/reviews/Black_Sigil_Blade_of_the_Exiled/index.html

E vocês que o importaram, como vai isso?
 
Sinceramente... ainda não lhe toquei. Tenho tido pouca oportunidade de jogar DS e ainda estou a acabat o DQIV e Shiren The Wanderer. Em princípio vai ser o meu jogo das férias ;)
 
Entrevista:

What is the difficulty of creating a complex game as an RPG in a relatively small and new studio?

Vincent Dehaut:
RPGs are probably the most difficult single-player games to develop. Unlike, say, an action game, there are numerous different but interrelated systems to develop. Many art and musical assets are also needed. In addition, designing a good quality game and story is a lot more difficult than it looks. Making an OK, basic story and design is easy - but making it good requires literally months of re-reading, of changing stuff, of going back and editing the dialogue to match the new elements, etc.

Finally, the largest issue is probably testing. Not only is it important to test for gameplay issues, you also have to go through the entire game several times in a row to flush out all the bugs - it's a lot easier on an action game, when the various events are a lot less complex and each level is a single entity. In a RPG, a bug may be triggered five hours before it becomes obvious.

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How is the routine work, working together as a team in the same space or separately?

VD:
Black Sigil 1 was developed without a central office - everyone worked from home. That is not an efficient way to work, and securing office space is one of the things we're currently working on.


We followed the Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled since it was called Project Exile for the GBA, and many times, we thought it could be just another vaporware or simply a game that would never come to light. At some point you thought of quitting the project?

VD:
Pretty much everyone on the team thought about quitting at some point or another. However, we knew we had a great project, so we managed to stay motivated.


Black Sigil is a great game with a total retro style graphics and feel, to play Black Sigil is like to revive the great SNES RPGs. What led the team to take the retro road, since many players and developers now put beautiful 3D graphics over a 2D and a good story? At some point you feared not having a good audience of fans?

VD:
We were never really worried about the game not finding its market. Since handhelds can't yet produce really spectacular 3d, we thought that beautiful 2d could still make an impression. Besides, there was clearly an audience for games inspired from the SNES era - the Chrono Trigger board on gamefaqs is one of the most active boards.

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In many reviews, Black Sigil received good praise, especially in the story aspect. You want to expand the world of Black Sigil with prequel or a sequel?

VD:
We might - we have a few ideas regarding that. However, whether or not we develop those games depend on how well Black Sigil sells.


Graffiti Entertainment was a great help in bring Black Sigil to our homes. How is the relationship between Graffiti Entertainment and the Studio Archcraft?

VD:
It's great. Graffiti was extremely patient with us during development, and they've dealt with us fairly from day one.


Despite the difficulties of being a small studio, you are happy with the outcome of the game and the public response? Is the Studio Archcraft satisfied with the sales?

VD:
We're really proud of Black Sigil.We're also really happy with the fan response. Clearly, people like that kind of games and especially liked our story.

As to sales - I don't want to go into specifics at this point, but we're at about what we expected.

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You are already working on any new projects? Can you talk a little about new projects?

VD:
A lot is still up in the air at this point. We've made some progress on a new game, and we're also studying other projects we might want to develop at the same time.
We're probably going to post some information on this subject on our blog in the near future.



And about Nintendo, as a small company, how hard was getting one of their development kits? Did you guys get any outside help on that matter? How was the support?

VD:
I'm not certain I can discuss the process in detail without breaching some NDAs, but we must thank Graffiti for their help in that matter.


Some final words to your fans?

VD:
Thanks for the support! It's always a pleasure when we receive encouraging emails, or people from around the world commenting on the game after playing it. I try to send a personalized response to everyone, as frankly the fan support has been great.
Fonte: http://sidequestblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/entrevista-exclusiva-sidequest-blog.html

Entrevista também em português no site deles, mas não está 100% bem traduzida, e as respostas eram originalmente em inglês pelo que decidi antes compor o inglês das perguntas e deixar as respostas "as is".
 
Review: Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled

blacksigil-1250006960.jpg

Some time ago movies were made in only two colors. Likewise, not much time has passed since games were produced in two dimensions. While it's true that occasionally black and white movies are released and two-dimensional games are published, trying to make money doing it is practically financial suicide. Luckily for me and a handful of other movie and video game nerds out there, this doesn't stop determined film and game makers from doing there their thing and making them anyways. And Studio Archcraft has definitely done their thing with Black Sigil: Blade of the Exiled.

If it wasn't for the second screen this game could have been released on the Super Nintendo - no changes needed. It looks and plays like a mash-up of Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana, which should be enough to make a dedicated RPG nerd immediately stop reading and get out their credit card. It isn't perfect (stick around and you'll see why), but I will go ahead and say that if you like old school style RPGs, you will probably like, and maybe even love, Black Sigil.

Fantasy stories, to me, are always fairly silly. I don't care if you're a 12 year old kid writing The Lord of the Rings fan fiction or if you're J.R.R. Tolkien himself; it all sounds pretty goofy to me. So if you like that kind of stuff don't take my abridged version of the story too seriously – chances are you'll like it (you weirdo).

You play as some dude who can't do magic but who is badass with a sword. The sword thing is cool and all, but you're a freak to everyone else, because they're all casting awesome-out-of-nowhere spells like it's no big deal. You're adopted (or something), which is, let's face it, pretty mysterious. So your not-dad, who is usually a pretty cool guy, uses his kingly authority to banish the hell out of you for not knowing any of those sweet spells all the cool kids know. Your sister follows you into the cave you were banished to because she's an annoying little sister and loves you. So you go through some warp or portal or have a bad acid trip and you wake up in a place with all sorts of drama going on. The twist? In this world/dimension/alternate reality you're a freak if you know magic, not if you don't! (:-D)
What is your fate in this strange land? Will you ever learn magic and be accepted and loved by the jerks that kicked you out your homeland? Was that place ever your home land to start out with? Speaking of, what is up with your history? What wacky characters will you run into and fight alongside? And most importantly, what crazy tomfoolery will your sister get into next? So many questions! And it's up to you, dear player, to unmask these questions. Questions that very well may have more than one answer; the game has multiple endings.

The standout feature of Black Sigil is its battle system. Like most RPGs, you roam the world map and stumble into random encounters. Once in a battle you are allowed to move somewhat freely (think of a mix between a strategy RPG like Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgea and a traditional RPG), which opens up more strategic play and some cool tag team powers. The game could use a better in-game tutorial (the internet had to tell me how to run away from battles), and it isn't a perfect system - especially when party members get in each others' way. But it does mix things up and forces you to do something other than mash a button to get through battles. Which brings me to another point worth mentioning – battles in this game kick your ass. Hard, and frequently. Even if you devote a good amount of time to grinding your characters up in level, be prepared to watch them get their lunch money stolen and their asses shoved in lockers. Honestly, this is awesome to me - I like a good challenge. However, there is one very important thing that turns what would be this noteworthy characteristic into a hair pulling nightmare.

There are way too many random encounters. Way too many. Often you'll only take a few steps before you're back in another teeth-kicking encounter. Sometimes the number of random encounters in this game makes you want to find the cutest animal on the planet so you can gnaw it's fuzzy little head off with your back teeth and send it in a box to Studio Archcraft with a note hanging on a toothpick, jammed into one of its now sightless, adorable eyeballs, which has "LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE ME DO" written in the blood of a thousand baby seals. Unfortunately this isn't that much of an exaggeration. For the casual player, this flaw will be more than enough reason to stop playing. I guess there may be some hardcore players who enjoy the high number of encounters. If you think you might be one of these people, please email me with your home address so I can come to your house and slap you in the back of the head.

If you can get over this flaw, and it is a bitch of a flaw, you should have a lot of fun. The story is well paced and the characters are intriguing enough to make you care about what happens to them (even if it is in a soap opera kind of way). The environments are nice to look at and the sprites are wonderfully done. The combat is satisfying, partially thanks to the cool moves and spells you can throw around in battle. You'll log over 30 hours of DS time, and that's if you only finish it once. If you're the type to worry about getting your money's worth in a dollars-to-minutes kind of way, you've come to the right place. The world is vast and heavily populated, sometimes to the point of almost being overwhelming. This is a compliment.


Final Thoughts

Black Sigil is a good game, despite it's one large flaw and handful of smaller ones (most of which aren't even worth mentioning). Still, it takes a special kind of person to want to play this game. You have to like old-school style RPGs. You have to like, or at least be able to tolerate, 16 bit style visuals. You have to be very patient and enjoy, or once again at least be able to tolerate, an insane amount of random encounters. But if you've read this entire paragraph and you aren't turned off, you should get this game. You nerd.
Fonte: http://www.n-philes.com/news/4803/ds-review-black-sigil-blade-of-the-exiled/


A malta que comprou o jogo... que tal vai isso?
 
Bastantes bugs, de tal forma que os bugs têm bugs.

Mas a história e a jogabilidade para mim compensaram, pelo que apesar de frustado com a quantidade de bugs consegui acaba-lo.

Cumprimentos
 
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