Contact - Review

Contact was billed as a game that would bring a breath of fresh air to role-playing games. No more cliched plots, spiky-haired kids, or same old battle systems. This game would be different and special! Early screen shots showed an aesthetic that was similar to Earthbound, a cult classic for its humor and presentation on the Super Nintendo. Thus, I came to this game with high hopes, not even dashed by the luke-warm reviews it received.

Contact certainly is innovative, especially in the story department. It is post-modern in that it involves you, the guy pushing buttons on the DS, in the game. There is no fourth wall here. When the game starts, a professor has been sending out messages and makes contact with you. Your DS gives you the ability to communicate with him and you begin telling him about yourself. You two are interrupted when his spaceship is attacked by an unknown force and crashes on the nearest planet. While doing so, it picks up a local boy, Terry. Once the professor and Terry recover, the professor realizes that the energy source for his ship, cells of the mysterious element 117 are gone and scattered all over. Terry agrees to help the professor find his energy source. Then the professor has a private conversation with you where he tells you that you should control Terry and help him along and figure out where to go. As the game goes on, you find another group, the CosmoNOTs are also looking for element 117, and are responsible for crashing the professor's ship. Apparently they want to use it for some nefarious purpose.

As stories goes, the one in Contact definitely holds your interest because it seems to unfold like a mystery. You slowly learn more about the CosmoNOTs and their plans. It kept me going so I could see what happen. I was disappointed that, even at the end of the game, the motivations of the professor and the CosmoNOTs are still not clear. Certainly, neither is presented as purely good or evil at the end of the game, but I wasn't much closer to understanding what their eventual goals were.

While the story itself is fairly good, the localization of this game is amazing. Clearly, the guy from Atlus that localized this game put a lot of effort into making the characters understandable and sympathetic. Oh, and funny! There are a lot of great uses of language ("He put his eyes on the prize and used his thighs!") and plenty of inside jokes which admittedly may not stand up so well many years on ("Hit his weakpoint for MASSIVE DAMAGE!", "I wish a base like this belonged to us."). Still, when the text of a game that is very Japanese in origin makes me smile like this, I know it is doing something right. I mean, Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime also had a great and roughly equivalent localization, so for a much smaller market game like Contact, I am impressed.

The gameplay consists of you controlling Terry, either with the D-pad or the stylus. Occasionally you also use the stylus to interact with something on the bottom screen (such as shaking fruit off of trees). When you encounter an enemy, you can press B to go into combat mode where Terry will periodically whack the enemy with whatever weapon he has equipped. Because combat is real-time and there is no menu system to choose what to do, positioning Terry in battle and choosing special attacks at the right time is important. The game doesn't rely on reflexes so this isn't an action RPG, but it does make the game different from a more typical menu-based system.

Terry has a variety of statistics such as health, stamina, strength, wisdom, blade proficiency, blunt weapon proficiency, blade resistance, fire proficiency, fire resistance, courage, karma, cooking, fishing, and thieving. You raise these statistics by using them. So, attacking an enemy will raise strength, aim, and blade proficiency (if have a blade weapon equipped). Getting attacked increases agility, and if you get hit, health, stamina, and resistance to whatever kind of attacked hit you. Thus, Contact is different from the traditional RPG by eschewing the level system in favor of skill increases.

Throughout the game, you will acquire various costumes. The costumes you wear changes your stats in various ways and gives you special powers you only have available by wearing the costume. For example, the Knuckle Mole costume increases your hit points, slows you down (I think), and allows you to dig and make special earth-based attacks. The more you use these earth-based attacks (or weapons that include an earth component), the more your earth proficiency goes up and when it goes up enough you get new earth-based skills and attacks.

Besides being a costume for each level, there are three "job" costumes: Mr. Cuisine, Fisher King, and Shadow Thief. Mr. Cuisine allows you to cook. In the game, you restore health (and raise attributes) by eating various kinds of foods. These foods also fill your stomach to a certain extent and take a certain amount of time to digest, so you can't just keep eating. Cooking is the art of making one food into another. You may cook meat and turn it into tasty BBQ. Or cook lettuce and tomato to make a salad. Fisher King allows you to fish when you are near water. When fishing, you wait until a fish yanks down your bob then pull up. If you have enough fishing skill for the fish that bit your line, you will reel it in. To be honest, I never found fishing to be very useful. Finally, Shadow Thief allows you to pick locks. This gives you access to extra treasure chests or rooms.

The game also makes use of decals - stickers you can peel off and use. ? Decals are ones that boost Terry's stats. You will find them in treasure chests and monsters drop them. You then peel them off to find out what they do (such as +2 Strength and +1 Defense) and then choose whether to attack or discard it. There are also super decals that have special functions in the game. Some have utility like recovering a cell or returning to the ship, but most effect the enemies on screen in some way.

The game world is divided into a series of islands. The professor has attached his ship to an old galleon and you use it to sail around to the different islands to find the cells. Islands do not show up on your map until you have heard about them. Generally, you go around a new island talking to anyone on it, figure out where you are supposed to go, then trek through the "dungeon" of that island (the dungeon may be a pyramid or a military base or a huge store). There are quite a lot of people to talk to in the game and various side quests you can do involving them. The island dungeons themselves are put together well and fun to explore, though you generally won't get too far on your first time through. You'll trek through, raise some skills, then have to retreat. Eventually you'll be able to make it to the end, fight a boss, and then get a clue as to where the next cell is. The Habara dungeon is clearly the best of the game, putting Terry into 8-bit video game worlds.

The biggest problem with Contact is the tedium. RPGs have long since passed the day where you need to spend hours fighting and leveling up before progressing on to the next area. Some grinding can definitely be required, but it should not detract from the game. The game is very difficult early on and it can take 20 tries to finally get through the second dungeon. This necessity to sit and fight enemies instead of progressing seems intended to length the game as there are only six major dungeons in it. Beyond just fighting, plenty of other things seem to just serve to take time unnecessarily. If I want to fish while the ship is crossing the ocean, the time it takes to get from place to place is fine. But if I want to just get there, the only way to skip ahead is to save. And saving takes time because, after you actually save the game, you then have to play with Mochi (the professor's dog) for a period of time. Cooking, which becomes necessary later on to make the health items you'll need to survive in dungeons also has an unskippable animation. This may have been the first negative paragraph I have written in this review, but it is a huge issue. The game just ceases to be fun when you have to pound monsters for 10 minutes before progressing or wait forever when traversing between islands to complete a side quest.

The graphics in this game are quite nice. As mentioned, the graphics of the professor and Mochi in his spaceship are a nod to Earthbound. They have a very minimalist stylization. The rest of the graphics are a mixture of nice 2D art and 3D modeled-looking art. It works very well and makes the game colorful and detailed. The sound in the game consists mostly of the grunts and slashes of you or enemies attacking. Each type of person has their own sound they make when talking. Sound is used nicely in cut scenes, but otherwise in forgettable. The music is appropriate for each area you are in and helps set the mood. It isn't incredibly memorable as it took me awhile to remember anything besides the music in the professor's room.

I'm sure some people enjoy RPGs where you need to grind through enemies to raise your stats. I don't mind that as part or as a side quest in a game, but to me RPGs are about exploring new areas, interacting with people, and strategizing over how to beat new enemies. They are not about killing the same enemy a hundred times so you are powerful enough to move on (or at least they haven't been since Dragon Warrior). This game is very clever in parts and the costume system and stat raising system are fairly unique touches. The story kept me going so I could find out more about the characters (and I was disappointed I never did) and the localization kept me smiling. I didn't really have to force myself to play through this, but I was never looking forward to playing it either. If you want to try a quirky RPG, you might give it a try, but be prepared for some monotony.

Rating: 6 / 10

Contact - Beat the Game

There are some things Contact does really well, and others it does poorly. What it does well is entertain me with its story and dialgoue.

The basic plot is that the CosmoNOTs are attempting to acquire crystals of elements 117 to use for an unknown, but apparently nefarious purpose, and the mysterious professor is attempting to recover the crystals, which are apparently from his ship. The fact that there is a mystery as to peoples' motivations makes it interesting. The CosmoNOTs seem to be doing bad things, but perhaps nothing too awful. And the professor seems benevolent, but you never really know his motivations. At the end of the game, you don't really learn much more, so the game left me with some blue balls, but at least it didn't disappoint me like Chrono Cross. The ending was just kind of weird, and didn't make a ton of sense, but did leave me feeling sorry for Terry, the character whose actions you control (literally, you don't take the role of Terry, you are yourself, controlling him through a device known as the DS).

The excellent part of this game is the localization. This game was more than just translated, each piece of text was lovingly gone over by someone who understand both Japanese and English and modified to always make sense and often be funny. Yes, the humor in this game is quite high. From internet in-jokes ("I wish a base like this belonged to us" and "Hit its weak point for MASSIVE DAMAGE!") to clever uses of words ("He kept his eyes on the prize and used his thighs!"), it is hard for me to lavish much more praise on the localization of this game. This is the second game I've played recently (the other being Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime) that has had such an amazing localization.

The gameplay itself, unfortunately, is just mediocre. While changing costumes is a nice touch and I like the way you build up skills, actual combat is fairly boring. To build up job skills, you have to repeat a lot of boring tasks.

There are a bunch of side-quests and extra things to do after beating the game, and overall I enjoyed myself, but I think not enough to do them all. That means, unlike Metal Gear Solid 3, a review will probably shortly follow.

Contact - Reached Akumojo Castle

So, after acquiring the Shadow Thief costume, I went back to pick the locks of all those treasure chests I couldn't open before. I used to like this mechanic in games. In the Dragon Quest games, after getting new keys, I would enjoy going back to all the previous towns and seeing what they unlocked. I have become less enamored of this game mechanic in more recent times. Partially it is because games are much bigger, so remembering where all the possible doors to unlock are is tough. Also, there is generally more travel time required to get to them (Contact is especially bad for this, because in order to go to another island you must set course and then either wait for a period of time, or save your game which is shorter but still takes time).

Anyway, after acquiring all the new stuff and selling off some extra items I had, I did indeed have enough money to purchase the song and so I set off to Rizo isle to replace the Stormy song with the Blue Sky song.

I now head to Akumojo Castle.

Alert: Semi-exclusive game information coming up

The name Akumojo Castle seems to be a reference to the Castlevania series. In Japan, the games are called Akumojo (or Akumajo) Dracula, which roughly translates to "Demon Castle Dracula". So, why would the castle be named after Castlevania?

Apparently, the game designers wanted to reference Castlevania. In the Japanese version of the game, the castle was called "Belmontal Castle", where the Belmont family are prominantly freatured as the vampire killers in most of the Castlevania games. As the man in charge of localizing the game writes*:

In the Japanese version it was "Be-ru-mon-ta-ru" Castle. The translators wrote it as "Vermontal" which I couldn't figure out the reference of. So I did a little katakana-magic of my own and read it as "Belmontal." Doesn't sound right, but I do like Belmonts. And "mojo" is a funny word.

So I did a play on the Japanese title for Castlevania, as you guessed. Akumojo Castle.

Fascinating!

*No, I didn't actually interview him. He posts on the message board I read and posted that in response to someone asking if Akumojo Castle was supposed to be a Castlevania reference.

Conatct - Acquired the Shadow Thief Costume

Contact prides itself on being "quirky". One of the ways it does that is in the costume system. Throughout the game, you acquire various costumes. In your room on the ship (your main base), you can change costumes. Each costume you wear gives you different abilities. Some give you elemental abilities (Knuckle Mole, AquaShot, NitroBoost, and FlyBoy). Others let you perform certain jobs (Mr. Cuisine for cooking, Fisher King for fishing, and Shadow Thief for stealing and lockpicking). In some ways, these are like the jobs or classes of more traditional RPGs, where switching ot a new job or class adjusts your statistics and skills. The main difference is that in most RPGs, when you change jobs or classes, you keep the skills of your previous ones (a Cleric changing to a Fighter can still cast healing spells, for example). In Contact, you don't - it's a straight up change. While you have certain special skills that can be used no matter what costume you are wearing, others can only be used in the appropriate costume.

So, feeling like I'm near the end of the game, I realized I have yet to acquire the final costume - that of the Shadow Thief. I haven't figure out how I should do this yet, so I had to look it up online. Another way Contact is quirky is that it forces you to use the stylus to do a few things. Up until now, the only thing I knew I had to use the stylus for was knocking fruit out of trees. It turns out I also had to use it to scare a bird into dropping a map to the island where the guy you would give me the Shadow Thief costume lives.

So now I have the Shadow Thief costume and can go back and pick the locks on all those chests I passed up before. I'm currently at 6000 of the 10000 gold I need to buy the tune to get past Rizo island, so hopefully I'll pick up the rest while acquiring the items in the chests.

Contact - Rizo Island

The more I play Contact, the less it enchants me and the more I'm finding it pretty average. It's a shame, because I want to like it. It's quirky! Quirky games must automatically be better than normal ones! Alas, this is not the case. The suit-changing mechanic is probably the best of the quirkiness, and I do enjoy picking the right suit for the right occasion. Otherwise, the cooking and decals are merely okay. I'll grant that I probably don't use the super-decals as much as I should. Maybe I'll try that.

I finally got the fisher king costume so now I can fish. A friend of mine recently commented on fishing in video games and this is one of those cases where it doesn't quite live up to expectations. It's okay, but I'm not loving it. Perhaps I just need to level up my fishing skill a bit so I can catch some big ones.

I did love the video game worlds in Habara. Moving around in the early-mid 80s style arcade games was pretty cool.

And what's up with the professor acting like I'm about to be at the final level? Is the game really that short? I mean, I guess the grinding I'll have to do to earn the 10,000 gold to buy the song will lengthen it...

Contact - Reached Habara

So now that it's the holidays and I'm visiting my parents, my gaming will be pretty much confined to games that are portable. On the plane ride, I played a bit of Animal Crossing: Wild Word, but I am really getting burnt out on that, so I figured Contact woud be a good break.

I mentioned in my last post about Contact, that while it has several quirky elements, it still feels like a fairly typical modern 2D RPG. One thing I do appreciate is that you can see enemies so you can choose whether to fight them or avoid them. It's a bit like Chrono Trigger in that sense as you don't have to fight an enemy unless you get too close to it.

Some of the quirky things that are supposed to set Contact apart work well and some don't. I like cooking, but it frustrates me when I attempt to combine things and it tells me "You can't make that yet." I want the freedom to experiment and if my cooking skill isn't good enough to make it, just have me fail. Also, some of the super-decals seem really gimmicky. I can't figure out what use calling Mochi is, and have been desperately playing with him every time I save. The balloon blowing also seems ridiculous.

Still, I'm enjoying this game as a fairly light-hearted romp. The plot is still way beyond me. I can't figure out what the CosmoNOTs are up to or what their motivations are. The professor seems benign, but I wouldn't put some sinister motivations past him. And I'm really clueless on where the natives of this planet fit in with regards to the outer space people or why Terry is so special. Having me be a character in the game makes plot developments even more interesting and makes Terry being a silent protagonist less of a cliche.

I didn't get it from the name, but once I arrived, I immediately realized that Habara island was a tribute to the geek neighborhood of Tokyo, Akihabara. What with all the people there looking for video games and toy figures. Very cute. The translation on this game is top notch. "Hit its weakpoint for massive damage!" and "I wish a base like this belonged to us." being highlights.

Contact - Got Third Cell

I had a conversation with a friend recently about our choice in video games. He said that, now that we are older and have played all the standard games, we are much more likely to pick up quirky games, because, even if they aren't any more fun than normal games, they are at least new and different. This was in my response to my describing Contact to him.

I'm enjoying Contact just fine. It is a good, solid game. But it really isn't any better than a traditional good, solid Japanese RPG would be. It's just different.

It breaks the fourth wall by involving you, the player, in the game. It is generally real-time with you telling the main character what to do and him doing it. The main character wears different suits to give him different abilities and can apply decals to increase stats and make other things happen. While the main screen has more traditional RPG artwork, the professor, his dog, and his spaceship look straight out of Earthbound.

All of this quirkiness is nice, but it doesn't really make the game significantly better than something like Golden Sun (well, except that it doesn't have uninteresting dialog that drags on forever). Still, I'm having fun with the game. There was a slight hiccough where I couldn't figure out the thing I had to attack as the boss of the third cell, but now I've done that and am moving on the next area.