Moshimo no Meikyuu - Review
2007, PC (RPG Maker 2000)
My introduction to Enryuu's work was their earlier Alex no Mousou (アレックスの妄想), a rather strange JRPG that combined a silly multi-crossover plot with unique and fascinating battle and equipment systems. It was also so hard, I still haven't beaten it. Moshimo no Meikyuu is both less difficult and less unusual, being a DRPG¹ with more recognizable systems and drawing from the VIPRPG community's collective Moshimo setting rather than a dozen different licensed works, but it's little less interesting. The lukewarm early-game had me unsure I would finish it, but once the game finds its groove, it really shines.
Nowhere is this clearer than in its dungeon design. B1F is linear and largely empty and the next few floors aren't much better, but, starting with B5F, most floors have interesting geometry, unique central gimmicks (occasionally descending into Labyrinth of Touhou 1-level meme floors, but generally better than that), or both. Furthermore, while unique dungeon events are sadly absent, exploration is rewarded with chests containing powerful equipment or unique stat boosters, along with the occasional valuable NPC, making exploration feel worthwhile. One heavily defended chest had a sword that boosted its holder's experience gain by 50%! Furthermore, common DRPG annoyances like excessively bendy corridors (Rothdam!) and ceaseless gimmick spam (Class of Heroes 2) are absent. Note that, like other RPG Maker 2000 DRPGs but unlike pretty much any other game that expects you to draw a map, Moshimo no Meikyuu does not feel beholden to a fixed-size grid -- floors will start and end at whatever coordinates they please (or rather, whatever coordinates allow cross-floor ladders to line up), and some of them are quite massive; do not use physical graph paper if you value your money or sanity.
But there's a dark side to this dungeon: the walkbacks. Until lategame, there are no Etrian Odyssey-type unlockable shortcuts, only an elevator that covers each five-floor zone and is unlocked after defeating its boss; if you are currently exploring, say, B15F, getting back to where you were means walking to the 1F elevator, hopping off at 5F, descending to 6F, getting on the 6F elevator, getting off at 10F, navigating all the way through 11F, 12F, 13F, and 14F... and finally walking halfway across 15F. On the way back, this is an exciting test of resource management and judgment—did you get out while the getting was good, or flee with no MP and two dead party members; and in the latter case, can you make it back to town without suffering an expensive wipe? On the way there, this is dead boring: really just a colossal waste of time. Eventually, high-MAG characters learn MALOR, the classic teleport-anywhere spell; typically I resent it for short-circuiting dungeon design but here I was just happy to be free from trekking at last. Making matters worse is the omnipresent clock: after a certain number of steps, enemies massively power up until you sleep at the inn, meaning that the longer the walkback (or rather, walk-there) is, the less time you have to explore before enemies start taking and dealing much more punishment. (This increased EXP this comes with sadly isn't worth the trouble.)
Character progression uses a system inspired by how human characters grow in the Shin Megami Tensei series. Each level, each character may assign a single point to their choice of STR, MAG, AGI, VIT, or LUC. Then, in an original twist, if they've met one or more skills' (invisible) prerequisites, they may choose one to add (replacing an existing one if they've hit the nine-skill cap). Each stat has a large pool of skills to choose from; add in character-specific skills and multi-stat skills and a single party won't even scratch the surface. Add in the choice of five protagonists and fifteen additional possible party members and you're spoiled for choice. And the individual abilities get pretty amusing: beyond basic spells and special attacks, my characters could do things like self-buff themselves with yuri power and damage and blind enemies with a "Pokemon Flash." Note that any character can theoretically be built in any way: unique skills and small base stat differences push most of the cast in particular directions, but most skills seem to be character-agnostic (along with all equipment); there's nothing really stopping you from turning a burly warrior into a thief or caster.
This system does unfortunately have its frustrations: no matter how many skills you meet the prerequisites for, you may only ever see the next two in the queue, and only learn or reject one per level; furthermore, forgotten skills may never be relearned, so if you forget, say, Fire I, you're never getting it back (and if you haven't learned any of the fire magic gated behind it, you're never getting any of that either!). MAG-based characters, with their massive spell pools, can end up stuck rejecting crap spell after crap spell level after level while great stuff awaits further back in the queue, and even with two dedicated casters in the party, I found it a nightmare to keep ahold of both combat spells, healing, and vital DRPG utilities like light, floating, and coordinate display. Theoretically, you could always fix any character's build by reincarnating them, resetting them to Lv. 1 with base stats and no skills, and grinding them back up; but no matter how fast levelling is, who wants to do that?
Whichever one I don't pick will stick around in the queue until I do.
Combat uses a custom CTB system that's a nice break from the RPG Maker 2000 default. Random encounters are often a bit weak at base power but a respectable challenge when you're forging ahead or have tripped the clock; bosses are consistently challenging. Bounty enemies, who start appearing on earlier floors as you clear later ones and can be defeated for cash rewards, are somewhere in between, and can be a rude surprise if they pop up when you aren't expecting them! As usual, fixed random encounters (i.e. random encounters triggered by specific tiles rather than movement) drop treasure chests, which may be opened for money and loot. After acquiring a certain item, you can also challenge NPCs. This, rather than any advice they give, is what makes them valuable: compared to random encounters of similar availability and strength, NPCs are ridiculously lucrative to farm; Falcon is great for early-game money, while Wateri allows you to earn EXP ridiculously fast (frankly too fast) from the midgame on. Unlike in Vipzardry, defeated NPCs don't die, meaning you can farm them as much as you like.
This game is the only DRPG I've seen that copies Wizardry's perhaps least loved quality: its Scroogian early-game stinginess. Inns and particularly resurrection are expensive, enemy money drops are small, and item drops are a mix of consumables and bland store-brand crap. Again, once you get to the midgame, you start getting a wider variety of better, more interesting loot -- equipment pieces with both useful and painful quirks (reduced damage from magic, HP-draining attacks; no in-battle healing, a massive hit to speed); weapons with attribute requirements but great stats, to reward specialist characters; boomerangs that hit all enemies even with a basic attack; and singularly powerful items like the aforementioned EXP-boosting sword. This stands in contrast to the author's previous title, Alex no Mousou, where equipment is interesting from the start. Furthermore, rather than the usual DRPG abundance of slots, characters have just two: one for a weapon and one for a piece of armor (and monster characters forgo the former in favor of natural ATK growth). The game compensates for this with a different kind of complexity: equipment also comes with numerical plusses and Diablo-style random effects (elemental and status resistances, monster-type-slaying, simple damage/accuracy boosts) which can be transferred from piece to piece via (hilariously expensive) fusion. I think I prefer the traditional DRPG multi-slot, fixed-equipment-qualities approach, but this is definitely preferable to games that have lots of slots and random effects on every item, like Labyrinth of Refrain and some Five Ordeals scenarios, which tend to feel overwhelming.
Graphics are, like Vipzardry's, an odd mishmash of asset rips; the wall graphics are directly borrowed, but enemy sprites this time favor SNES RPGs like Romancing SaGa and Shin Megami Tensei. SFX and BGM are a similar mix — one floor's BGM will be the ever-popular Beware the Forest's Mushrooms, the next will be a classic Legend of Zelda dungeon theme, and so on. This look is something of an acquired taste, but as someone who's been playing Super Mario World romhacks since childhood, I quite liked it.
Past the initial lull, I greatly enjoyed my time with Moshimo no Meikyuu, and I would expect anyone who enjoys manual mapping and turn-based RPGs to feel the same. I skipped the postgame—my first random encounter in the new area stomped me, and the main game was long enough—but I'll be back to conquer it someday. In the meantime, I should take another crack at Alex no Mousou...
¹DRPG: 3D Dungeon RPG (３DダンジョンRPG), a popular term for first-person dungeon crawlers. I usually see it used specifically for games with modal, JRPG-like combat—i.e., games in the Wizardry/Might & Magic tradition. Think Etrian Odyssey, Shin Megami Tensei I-II, and so on. Contrast games with amodal real-time combat in the Dungeon Master tradition, like Legend of Grimrock.
Moshimo no Meikyuu on VIPRPG@Wiki (includes download)
EasyRPG Player (RPG Maker 2000/'03 interpreter)
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