Cladun - This is an RPG. Anyone?

[Vyk]

Just sorta stumbled across this game. Giving it a try now, and thoroughly enjoying what I've experienced of it. For those that don't know, its a retro-styled satire of RPG (and general old video game) cliches. Much like the Bard's Tale game. Its stylized a lot like 3D Dot Game Heroes. Everything looks just above 8-bit quality. Much better than 8-bit, really, but y'know; new-age 8-bit I suppose (again, like 3D.GH). The characters are charming, and its got a typical NIS personality. From what I've gathered its an action RPG with lots of interesting gimmicks. One being you can eventually set anyone as the "main character". And I just watched an ending sequence 10 minutes in, so obviously there's going to be potentially dozens of endings depending on who you beat the game with and when (Chrono Trigger fans, anyone?)

Not only that but you can create your own game sprite eventually to create your own main character. Its quirky, interesting, entertaining, and pretty innovative, but also paying a lot of respect to its roots. I'm wondering why I never heard much about this game. NIS is almost the new Atlus, people generally love the games they choose to develop, especially the quirky throw-backs like this

Anybody try this game, or have any thoughts on it? I've got high hopes for it right now, and can't wait to start switching characters and eventually design my own~

YouTube - Cladun This is an RPG Debut Trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKkrYLMOAHE) (about halfway through the video they actually start talking about all the interesting details and "meat" of the game)

Either way, even if I lose interest, much props on the design choices. Games don't have to be state-of-the-art to be pretty, fun, and engaging

[Rase]

I may finally get a PSP so I can play this and that port of FFT from like two years back. Looks fun, and <3 co-op.

[Vyk]

I'm not sure how fun the co-op is, but over-all I'd honestly advise against this game :( It has zero substance. I've put in about six hours and I want them back. There's a story. But you only get maybe a minute of it after each dungeon, and its mostly to randomly and inexplicably introduce a new character. There's about 8 characters available for me now (I've made two), and I know next to nothing about them. They just come in, ramble off something meaningless about wanting to find a treasure, and then you go back into the dungeons. Which are extremely short, repetitive, and uninspired. I'd read a review, or watch a Let's Play of it before getting it. The retro novelty wore off fast. I love me some retro games, but they need to actually try to be a game. This is barely even a dungeon crawler or a hack'n'slash. Its just kinda mindless :(

(I torrented the game, and had I liked it I was seriously going to give Amazon the $20 for it and just not use the digital download since I already had it. But as it stands I feel this is more of just a free trial or rental and I'm glad I didn't waste money on it x_x)