{"id":111,"date":"2012-07-18T13:46:56","date_gmt":"2012-07-18T18:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/?p=111"},"modified":"2012-07-18T13:46:56","modified_gmt":"2012-07-18T18:46:56","slug":"game-review-septerra-core","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/?p=111","title":{"rendered":"Game Review: Septerra Core"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: Game reviews will contain spoilers.<\/p>\n

A Decade in the Making<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don’t recall how I first purchased Septerra Core, as it was literally over a decade ago. \u00a0It was likely back in college, ordered off online before Amazon<\/a> was ubiquitous, possibly from Ebay<\/a>\u00a0(though I believe I got it new). \u00a0It would have been before I got my now main email address at GMail<\/a>, and definitely before I realized the importance of archiving all the old emails. \u00a0It definitely is amusing to think of all that has happened in the past ten years or more, but back to the relevance to my story. \u00a0Septerra Core is an old game, and while using DirectX, backwards compatibility wasn’t always the greatest in the earlier versions. \u00a0It is also a pretty long game (as they really could be back then, with lots of filler and backtracking and the like), so it took awhile to play through and probably got put to the side several times. \u00a0As a college student, I also was able to get new OS discs for cheap, and so would routinely jump to a new OS from Microsoft whenever I was able. \u00a0But at some point upon doing so, Septerra Core would no longer work, and so it was relegated to the “pile of shame,” referring to games you started but never finished.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t for a lack of trying, as with upgrading to XP I would try compatibility settings in hopes that it would run and searched around for any new patches. \u00a0But with Valkryia Studios going bankrupt and closing their doors. \u00a0After a few years of trying, I eventually gave up. \u00a0Unbeknownst\u00a0to me, a patch was eventually released in 2006 that would address these issues, but by then I had more or less given up, though I did still have the disc in my possession just in case. \u00a0Then one day several months ago, while looking through GOG<\/a>, I happened to stumble upon the listing for Septerra Core<\/a>. \u00a0I noticed in the compatibility that it only lists XP and Vista, but looking through comments I ascertained that it would also work with Windows 7 64-bit, which is what I have installed. \u00a0So, still unaware of the patch, I plunked down the $6 to purchase the game and blew the dust off my old saves (figuratively) and excitedly loaded up the game. \u00a0And behold, it all worked! \u00a0My last save file was dated October of 2002, meaning that almost ten years had passed since I had last been able to play this game, but due to the great people at GOG<\/a>, I was able to finally finish it.<\/p>\n

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Western JRPG on PC<\/strong><\/p>\n

While coming from a western developer, this game has a much more feel of being inspired by Japanese style of RPGs, with strongly defined characters and a linear story. \u00a0Naturally, having not actively played the game in quite a long time, I was pretty rusty on the story and what I was supposed to be doing in the game. \u00a0Fortunately the internet is a great trove of information for this sort of thing, and after skimming through a few walkthroughs I was able to piece together most of the backstory. \u00a0So, with some sense of what happened and a few clues about what to do next, I was finally able to start playing again.<\/p>\n

The way that you play the game is controlled entirely by the mouse. \u00a0You use it to lead your party around the maps and to give orders in battle. \u00a0Enemies are seen wandering around on the map and the battles also take place there, in difference to older Final Fantasy style games. \u00a0During battle, you have a gauge that fills up over time and has three levels that allow you to perform increasingly stronger attacks. \u00a0It appears that the strength increases linearly, so you get a little bit of strategy in figuring out if you want to save up for a stronger attack with the possibility that it could miss (I generally favored ‘mid’ level attacks). \u00a0You also have magic which is controlled by playing cards. \u00a0With three people in your party, you can play up to three cards together to achieve a variety of effects. \u00a0The main card determines the attack while the others act as modifiers, such as adding an elemental type or making it affect all. \u00a0The magic uses up a shared resource, so you don’t have to worry about managing the magic levels for each individual member.<\/p>\n

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Old School Problems<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is interesting to go back and replay older games, viewing them through the lens gained by experience with more modern games and their\u00a0conveniences. \u00a0The pacing of this game definitely felt slow by today’s standards, with lots of waiting around for the ability to take turns during battle, followed by animations that seems sluggish and longer than needed. \u00a0Maps were also padded to be larger than need be, and there were many cases near the end where I had to get so many keys in order to unlock doors to get more keys, to finally get where I was going. \u00a0Plus after getting the treasure or killing the boss at the end, the wonderful walk of shame out of the dungeon (fortunately much faster in reverse, but with enemies\u00a0re-spawning\u00a0with each area change, still not\u00a0pleasant). \u00a0It is a testament to the progress of games design that these stand out so much nowadays.<\/p>\n

While I do appreciate the art and the confines of the screen from those days left not much to work with, it still felt cramped and wandering around the map wasn’t too enjoyable since you could only really see about ten feet in front of your character. \u00a0The particle effects were nice, but were pretty basic by today’s standards. \u00a0And the characters have a bit of a “plastic” look to them. \u00a0For the time it was really nice, but with all the advances in graphics we have these days it can be a little hard to watch at times.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Another Off the “Pile of Shame”<\/strong><\/p>\n

While the end was a bit of a letdown, I do have to say that I am glad I repurchased the game and was able to finally finish it. \u00a0It is a bit eye opening to think about how technology is progressing and how our medium of storytelling and experience is so very tightly coupled to it. \u00a0It is very likely that over time older games may become unplayable and it is a refreshing sight to see places such as Good Old Games<\/a> working to preserve the history (and make a buck or two while they are at it). \u00a0I enjoyed having the experience of playing a game over such a long period, and giving me time to think about all that had progressed during that time. \u00a0Video games have come a long way, and I eagerly await to see where they will go from here on in the future. \u00a0Plus, that is one more game off my pile of shame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: Game reviews will contain spoilers. A Decade in the Making I don’t recall how I first purchased Septerra Core, as it was literally over a decade ago. \u00a0It was likely back in college, ordered off online before Amazon was ubiquitous, possibly from Ebay\u00a0(though I believe I got it new). \u00a0It would have been before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-game-review","category-video-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions\/180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sigmel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}