Noora to Toki no Koubou

Compy having problem recently, not sure if GPU was seriously damaged because of excessive Terraria or what, but yeah, not on my own PC right now.

So after a weekend of “GRRR USPS WHY!?”, I finally get my hands on Altus’s new DS game today. *gasp* Someone actually buy their games!

I’ll add in picture if/when my computer’s fixed. /o\

Anyways, been playing it for about 3 hours so first impression?

Go read the manual.

No, seriously, go read the manual. I kinda don’t do that often nowadays and jump right into games. For normal RPGs, that totally works. Not quite the same for Noora. They do have in-game tutorials, but on your first few in-game days (which passes by real fast, you’ll be kinda “huh?” over how you’re supposed to figure out what to do with the ingredients to get what you needed.

Other than the initial confusion though, it’s an easy little game so-far. If you’ve played an Atelier game, the item creation is more or less that. You’ve got ingredients that can be broke down into smaller items or refined into other stuffs, and then you can take some of those and manipulate their time to age them through Noora’s ability. There’s the tavern where you get item gathering quests from, and there’s battle while you’re collecting items, so …yeah it’s pretty much an Atelier style game. Not that I’m complaining. :D

For everything you do, a day passes by, so you gotta manage your days carefully if you’re on a quest. (All the tavern quests are timed.) Sometimes you’d end up with quests that ask you to look for something you don’t have in 7 days, and that can be a huge problem if it’s a not-as-common. You may end up having to reload the game several times before getting it within the due date. See, when you gather materials, whenever you touches an icon in the location, a day passes by. So yeah… Uncommon + bad luck = reload. Not sure if it’s just the beginning quests though, ’cause the ones I’m getting now all gives me at least 10 days to do it, some even 50 or so days.

One of the things I absolutely love about this game, other than all the pixel arts and whatnot, is the ability to layout your own house and the garden. Just about everything can be put somewhere as decorations. Ok, maybe other than your attic. I still can’t figure out what I can put up there. The stuffs you put out will also age, if the game allows them to, so you can put some flowers out in your garden for example, and after a month or so it’ll turn into berries. (This is actually the main point of Noora’s ability, but sometimes you just can’t spare days for it.)

OK weird place to end and all but I’m getting sleepy and need to pretend I didn’t actually used this computer, so gotta cut it here. Overall I’m liking this game and if you’re a girl, you may be interested too.

PS: Koyasu. Voicing all the shop NPCs. Why?