Date A Live Ars Install

Just beat the game’s true ending.

The game is really quite similar to the previous Date A Live game Rinne Utopia, with more characters and volume.

The game takes place after volume 7 (while Rinne Utopia takes place after volume 4), so there are 3 additional Spirits: Kaguya, Yuzuru and Miku (well, Kaguya and Yuzuru are twins).

Since Mana has recovered (she was heavily wounded in volume 4), she also appears in this game, but just a sub-character. Mikie that is more prominently featured in Date A Strike spin-off manga also made an appearance as well.

Just like Rinne Utopia, player has to first get all good endings of the visual novel characters (Tooka, Origami, Yoshino, Kurumi, Kotori, Kaguya, Yuzuru, and Miku) before being able to go to the true ending route that focuses on the brand-new characters.

So 8 initial routes to go through (5 in Rinne Utopia). The interesting thing about Kaguya and Yuzuru is that they start with the same route (you can’t choose them separately), then you can choose between one of the two near the end.

The two brand-new characters in this game are white and black Ars, although white Ars is the one player mostly interacts with. Since white Ars thinks that ‘Ars’ is just a surname, Shidou gives white Ars the name Maria (since her design looks like a sister). Black Ars also has a name but it’s only revealed near the end.

Also, as we beat more endings, Maria gradually has a few extra lines in the next playthroughs to keep the repetitions somewhat fresh.

I forgot what they did with Rinne Utopia to make the repeating world possible, but this time the plot device they use is more straightforward and that’s virtual reality.

Believe it or not, Ratatosk made ‘Koishite My Little Shidou 2′, a sequel to galge that was made to train Shidou in dating the Spirits. This time however it’s not just a simple galge but super simulated virtual reality, as such it can only be run with Fraxinus’ supercomputer, and it’s where the game mostly takes place.

So Maria and black Ars are not real Spirits but artificial, digital Spirits (i.e., computer programs). They are mostly 2 separate entities (so they’re not one character with split personality). They also did something interesting with the true identity of Maria. The common illustrations of Maria and black Ars do not show them in astral dress form btw, since the design is kind of spoilers.

The basic premise is that Maria mysteriously appears in the game world while Shidou is trying out the game, Shidou gets trapped, and then all the girls also log into the game to try to save Shidou. They face Maria, who turns out to be non-hostile and simply ‘wants to learn about love’. In the end Shidou and the girls agree to show her the answer by living in the game world as they would normally in the real world (there’s time difference between the game world and real world so that it’s no problem for them to stay for long time in the game world).

So Maria begins to observe how Shidou dates with the girls. Maria, having control of the game world, can reset the world and even manipulate the settings to create unusual date events, such as Tooka becoming a school doctor, Kotori a magical girl, Kaguya and Yuzuru succubus etc. This basically allows ‘dream situations’ that are not possible in the main story.

Here’s a spoiler of the true identity of Maria btw (highlight the next text): she’s Fraxinus AI personified, thanks to the contact with black Ars. She can be considered as Fraxinus herself. When Kotori and Reine mentioned to Shidou that Fraxinus is equipped with high-level AI, she is the one they are talking about. She’s also the one that ‘comes up with choices’ during date situations. When black Ars, the artificial Spirit created by DEM organization, broke into Fraxinus’ main computer, the AI trapped black Ars together with herself in the virtual reality world (the Koishite My Little Shidou 2 game) with strong protection. To understand and deal with the unknown enemy she’s facing, the AI collects traced information about the enemy and recreates a version out of herself (that’s why she gains appearance similar to black Ars and a personality). The AI is also locked out of her memories, since she’s also trapped inside. As a result the AI can’t remember anything, except for her purpose. That’s why she wants to know about love, since she’s originally an AI created to support Shidou in love situations with the Spirits. Her astral form design aptly resembles the design of Fraxinus ship. So unlike Rinne Utopia, she doesn’t really ‘disappear’ at the end of this game. In fact, at the very last part of the true ending, she manages to get installed as a virtual assistant app in Shidou’s phone while Fraxinus is under restoration (image) (and that’s why the game is called Ars Install ^^;).

Black Ars spoiler: her full name is 或守 鞠奈 (Arusu Marina). Unlike Maria, her name Marina is not given by Shidou but by her ‘father’ (presumably Wescott)..

So is this game better than Rinne Utopia? I think I would need to read Rinne Utopia again, but I think so. It’s also more straightforward and easier to wrap my head around. The true ending of this game is also quite touching I almost cried.

Slow updates ^^;

Due to family events, I can hardly use the TV these days to continue playing Fairy Fencer F (and I can foresee this would also apply to the upcoming Date A Live game) -.-;

And my Vita is still taken hostage by Neptune Re;Birth 2’s send-and-wait mini-game Nariyuki Dungeon. I’m still playing it though and I’m up to the last few dungeons now (where I’m sure the real difficulty awaits ^^;)

I find a strategy that generally works in the latter half of this game is to 1) first go halfway in the current dungeon with the latest equipments (halfway since I might still be not powerful enough to defeat the final floor boss even with the equipments that can be gotten in the current dungeon), then 2) go halfway in the next dungeon to get better equipments and finally 3) equip these better equipments and go all the way in the current dungeon and defeat the final floor boss.

Of course, there is no next dungeon for the final dungeon ^^;

Fairy Fencer F [5] 2nd Fairize Form music

Progressed on the game a bit. It’s a bit inconvenient when the living room TV is shared ^^;

Apparently Fang upgraded (well, it’s his partner and weapon, Arin, actually), allowing him to execute one more combo. So previously he was missing the 4th combo extension, but he can do 4 combos now. So if I unlock the last combo extension, he can do 5 combos? The UI for combo edit screen doesn’t seem to accommodate 5 combos… either there isn’t 5th combo and I was lucky I didn’t grind and upgrade too soon, or the screen would scroll horizontally for the 5th combo. The 5th combo should correspond to Neptune series’ EXE attacks (not the finisher but the one more attack thing).

The battle music when characters transform to Fairize form has also changed.

From this: (the first music)

To this:

Which I think is also very cool. The first one sounds like Power Rangers, while the second one sounds like modern Kamen Rider shows.

Also obtained more trophies, one for the upgrade and one for maxing a Fury’s level (so their max level is 10). Gotta switch to another Fury for Fang. I can imagine there’s a trophy for maxing every Furies’ level ^^;

Fairy Fencer F [4] Didn’t see it coming…

Finally I received another story-related trophy.

I was wondering why quite a number of the characters, even though they are enemies, just die left and right when I defeat them. Even the beautiful ladies. Seems to be a waste of creative efforts to me. Now I know why… I didn’t see it coming, but yeah, this game apparently has ‘that’ plot device (you should be able to guess it ^^). On a hindsight I should’ve noticed it, seeing how things are moving a little too fast ^^;

Gameplay-wise, it’s bad news to me though. The enemies now seem stronger than ever, that chipping away the boss health feels a bit unbearable now (and the tug of war of healing before dying). I think more than ever I need to upgrade my character parameters and skills (instead of saving the WP to get their last combo extension). I think I should’ve reloaded and done some more grinding before passing through this story point, but it’s too late now (yeah, my save management sucks ^^;)

Fairy Fencer F [3] Progress

Advanced in the game a bit.

I really want to try messing with the character customizations, getting new skills and attacks etc, but what’s keeping me is the last combo extension (so that the character can attack 4 times in a turn) costs 1000 WP (per character)! One enemy gives roughly 1 WP in battles for every characters -_-” So far the protagonist Fang has around 380+ WP, but yeah, still a long way to go even for him. Somehow I’m still doing pretty fine in the game, even though I’m barely upgrading. Well, maybe I could’ve been more powerful and breezed through the game…

I haven’t looked at the trophy list yet (don’t want to get spoiled), but so far I unlocked a few trophies for doing a certain number of battles and air combo. Progress feels slow, but this game has a lesser amount of trophies (29 vs the usual around 50). I can kinda guess the hard trophies though… like master every characters (i.e., purchase all customizations).

I’m kinda confused at one thing in this game. Apparently in the enemy list, the enemies might have a list of items that can be stolen from them. But so far I have not been able to find a way to steal from them. I’m guessing a character would join later that would have steal ability, but to make me unable to complete some low-rank quests for so long?

One thing I also forgot to mention in my previous posts is this background music that played everytime one of the characters enters Fairize form. It’s pretty cool:

But yeah, this game is like a more mainstream Neptune + fantasy setting. And there are also guys instead of all-female cast :p

I think Tsunako doesn’t illustrate every characters in this game. I think he (or she?) drew almost every female characters, like Arin and Tiara, but the male characters are drawn by the artist from Agarest Senki.

Nariyuki Dungeon [3] ギョウカイ墓場

This dungeon took me several tries.

Even though I used the latest equipments and focused on VIT (and my VIT reaches about 260 by the last floor), the last boss (the thousand-year turtle) still deals a lot of damage that Stella would die in 2 hits.

My breakthrough was I used the accessory マタタビネクタイ, which increases the chance of encountering enemies. It may seem counterintuitive at first (more danger to Stella), but since she encounters more enemies, she actually gets to level up more and her stats rise more. Her VIT reaches 270 plus, still lower than I expected, but apparently enough that she doesn’t get killed by the last boss easily.

Well, it could also be luck ^^;

p.s., the accessories that increase stats by chance in a battle just applies to the battle where they successfully activate (i.e., not permanent) so I think they are not too useful…

Nariyuki Dungeon [2]

For a while, I thought that the best stats to raise are HP and STR. It seems to make sense to have lots of HP to survive in the long run and STR so I can quickly kill the enemies.

But now I’m thinking it might be VIT and LUK. When my VIT is high, the enemies seem to deal 1-2 damage, which is better than say my HP is higher but the enemies deal 6-7 damage. According to the help screen, LUK not only increases item drop rate (from enemies, doesn’t seem to affect treasure discovery), but also chance of critical attack and perhaps more importantly, chance of avoiding enemy attack.

i.e., Stella can be low of HP, and low of STR which makes her take more turns to defeat the enemy, but if the enemy deals only little damage anyway… (and Stella might find potions to recover her HP) and LUK might help avoid attack/increase my damage.

Anyway, I think I will be sharing configurations of my attempts from now on (i.e., where I failed, had to change my equipments and then succeeded):

Failed attempt:

Success:

See how in failed attempt I was thinking that increasing HP was a better idea? ^^;

I believe there’s still some luck involved though, i.e., whether Stella found potions etc ^^;

Fairy Fencer F [2] More observations

– In this game, the normal attack doesn’t have ‘square target’ that can attack multiple enemies if they’re inside it unlike Neptune games.

– The bad status effects persist after battles, I guess to make the healing skills more important.

– Each character’s weapon has 3 different forms (changes depending on the attack) out of several available forms (so some characters can share the same form). Each form has an advantage (better for uppercut, more chance of critical etc). Each enemy is weak against certain forms. If manage to hit the enemy with the weapon form it’s weak against plus critical = bonus attacks from other characters.

– Only 3 characters can join the battles. Now that I have 4 characters, I even need to purchase an ability for the back character with WP so that he/she can gain EXP etc even though not in battles.

– It seems anyone can switch out with anyone in the reserve list though. Not like in Neptune games where I have to set the back member for each front member.

– All the abilities listed in weapon improvements for each character seem to be the full list. It’s just getting them all is gonna be a big grind -.-” Not a big fan of this since I constantly have to ask myself whether I should grind to get more abilities or just tough it out with what I have through the story.

– Because of the uppercut -> air chase attack combo’s additional damage, I think it’s not a good idea to skip all attacks (with L2 button, just like Neptune)

– Harler talks like the mechanic in Lastation chapter of Neptune Re;Birth 1 (Shion? Sian? I can’t remember ^^;)

– The main idea behind the game seems to collect ‘Furies’, and use them to pull out the swords from either goddess or evil god. Not sure what happens when I pull out all the swords. I think the endings change depending whether we awaken the goddess or evil god (or even both?). The pulled out swords (fused with Furies) can even be used to ‘stab’ on the dungeons on the world map to change enemies, increase EXP gain etc (kinda like Neptune’s dungeon change system).

Nariyuki Dungeon

After failing in 世界中の迷宮 for a few times, I finally managed to clear it.

Apparently the level boss, デネブ, would perform a one-hit kill if Stella takes too many turns during the battle.

So I use this configuration:

To ramp up STR. I could’ve also used トゲトゲの首輪 (chance of STR up during battles), but I use 警報の鈴 (avoid traps) because when there are lots of floors, Stella often gets hit by traps and the damage adds up ^^;

I think the general idea when tackling a level is to first only go halfway, equipping Stella with items to increase treasure finding. Then hope Stella gets the good weapons and armors from that level. Then equip Stella with those weapons and armors and a different set of items (no more treasure up, but give her more chance to survive to the last floor and defeat the boss) and go all the way to the last floor.

Fairy Fencer F

Started playing Fairy Fencer F.

Some comments:

– Gameplay wise, it’s really like an evolved Neptune Victory system. There are even character challenges ^^;

– The enemies chase harder in this game. The map edges are not really safe anymore ^^;

– The UI modification so that it looks different from Neptune game is kinda annoying. For example, the main menu navigation is horizontal -.-;

– The characters don’t have 4-combo by default (default is just 1). As part of weapon improvement system, need to spend WP acquired during battles to extend the combo. Having played Neptune games of course I would improve this first ^^; The third attack costs 200 WP though… -.-;

– The combo system seems to be evolved. The basic idea seems to make a combo of uppercut attack followed by air chase attack for additional damage. There are also attacks that change weapon’s form, but yeah, I still need to figure things out.

– Basically I can’t just level up and get all the skills in this game unlike Neptune series. Need to manually obtain them and decide which ones to get etc.

– To transform to Fairize form (goddess form in Neptune series), need to let tension gauge reach certain point. The tension gauge can rise/decrease depending on the action in battles (pretty intuitive). Still haven’t checked if the tension gauge steadily decreases during Fairize form or it’s just normal (the game says that the characters do can get kicked out of Fairize form if the tension gauge reaches certain low).

– Arin (the red girl) is a bit like Noire, more friendly and childish one.

– Tiara (the blue girl) is a bit like Vert. I think she is those ‘weird rich lady who never stepped to outside world until now’ kind of character.

But yeah, this game is like the fantasy version of Neptune series ^^