Game of the Month: March

My oh my, this new year goes by just as quickly as the last one did, or is this just my imagination? It’s the end of March already, so time for another Game of the Month. It wasn’t very hard to keep track of what I’ve played in March, as I got hooked on one game: Atelier Rorona Plus: the Alchemist of Arland on my Vita. I started playing it at the end of February, and it has me occupied since then. It’s the perfect blend of fighting, exploring and crafting that has me hooked. Add to that the storylines in the game, and the nice graphics, and I would almost say it’s the perfect game for me. For those of you who haven’t read my review, here are the essentials of the game:

Ortega ruins, traveller's way, nabel lakeRorona is tasked by her Master Astrid to save the alchemist workshop when the king decides they should prove themselves by completing a task every three months. The real reason behind this is that some evil minister in the kings court wants the ground that the workshop is on, to build much more profitable factories there. Rorona explores territories to find the ingredients needed, aided by her longtime friend Cory and other people she can hire to fight with her. Depending on the choice of people she goes exploring with, the storyline of the game changes. It’s all a matter of building a friendship with them, by fighting alongside, or by doing alchemist requests for the villagers. The goal is of course to make the best quality items, for which she needs the best quality ingredients.

The crux is timing: everything costs days, to travel somewhere or to make items. Depending on the difficulty more time is used, and you only have 90 days for every major quest. I’ve found out the hard way that the game is very strict about that: during my 10th quest (out of the 12 quests available) I failed to meet the deadline. I hadn’t realized it until it was too late: I had 20 days left out of the 90, but the game told me that wasn’t enough to travel to the area for the ingredients and get back in time. And so, that’s where my adventure ended…

I’ve finished my second adventure and got one of the possible endings. I had wanted to finish this weekend, before I start Story of Seasons. But fiddling around with the game, kinda feeling like I didn’t want to leave Rorona’s world, I found to my surprise that I can play on for one game year. Free to roam the world, and with a brandnew storyline which involves Totori and Meruru too! All I can say is “wow”! Atelier Rorona Plus is without a doubt game of the month March for me.

Poyo, japanese, anime, ie entertainmentHmmm, I guess this blog shows clearly how enthusiastic I am for the game! So, what other games did I play? I made a review for a Japanese game, PoyoPoyo Kansatsu Nikki for my friend BriBri. You’ll find the review here.

 And I went back to the app game HayDay to participate in the Derby. The Derby is a race in which the neighborhood that you belong too tries to do as many tasks as they can to win nice prizes. The neighborhood is the place where one can chat in HayDay, only some 30 players can belong to a neighborhood, and chat as much as they want to.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *