(FDW2K13) El Dorado Gate

Renfrew · Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 9:29 am Post subject: (FDW2K13) El Dorado Gate

Last night, I dipped my feet a little into Capcom's Japan only episodic Dreamcast JRPG series, El Dorado Gate. Here's some pictures from Volume 1

The game begins with the black mage looking guy in the center sort of introducing the story a little. Various things pop up on the screen, like the 12 heroes we will be meeting over the course of the game

And the main character of this chapter, Gomez

Something about the game really reminds me of ads for Facebook games

The battle scenes are kind of weird. They are done Dragon Quest style with some fairly lackluster artwork.

So far I haven't had to do anything besides the normal attack.

The first dungeon: a journey through the mountains

The VMU shows your current health!

Playing games in Japanese still wears me out pretty quickly, it was getting late, and I started freaking out because I couldn't find a save spot (ended up having to consult the manual), so I didn't get very far last night. I also just realized that if I'm going to do a screen shot thread I should probably actually take some screenshots. I'll try to play a little more tonight.
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Wall of Beef · Joined: 04 Dec 2006 Location: Fart Beach

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Renfrew · Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 3:22 pm

The inn. BTW: you have to talk to the lady to save your game

Inn, item shop and weapon shop, all conveniently located right next to each other.

I really like the weapon shop.

nice little item shop

The town eve has a church!

Basically, I rescued this girl from some bandits in the mountains and then she had to use her family's savings to spring me from jail when I got in another bar fight with the same guys I previously posted. So now they are letting me crash with them while I go to the mines every day to look for magic stones.

The game uses a map with points on it instead of an actual overworld. Not complaining

Time to go to work

I am the king of conveyor belts

Here are some of the jabronies I met in the mines

I chucked some fire crystals at this guy

While I was making mine money, plot was going on above ground. This guy, who works for an even badder dude, offered to square the girl's debts, if she married him.

After going back into the mines and finding a really special magic stone of the kind everyone is looking for, I fell in a hole and met these guys who speak in really hard to read text

The more I look at this game, the more I like it. Along with reminding me of a Facebook game ad, it reminds me of King's Quest 7

Looks like something up ahead

This statue gives me a special emblem

And it unlocks Gomez's special ability: COUNTER!

And that's it for tonight. A bit of a lackluster celebration of the Dreamcast's anniversary on my part, but I just can't devote all that much energy to gaming anymore. I had planned to also dig into some DC fighters this week, but I found out the green goblin I just bought doesn't work all that great.

I'll try to have some more El Dorado tomorrow, but I'll be busy, so no promises.
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Renfrew · Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 3:24 pm

geinou · Joined: 07 Apr 2010

Shame on me: I've never heard about this game before. Thanks for the impressions, Renfrew! It looks lovely.

Schwere Viper · Joined: 14 Feb 2007 Location: Western Australia

This looks crazy legitimate.
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Loki Laufeyson · Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 3:50 pm

considering they were pumping these out monthly, the graphics are really high quality!
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Renfrew · Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2013 3:58 pm

BenoitRen · I bought RAM Joined: 05 Jan 2007

Don't get down on yourself, Renfrew! This is the kind of thread we need more of round these parts! It's very relevant to Dreamcast week.
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parkbench · Joined: 12 Dec 2006

wow i love the aesthetic. battles look a little boring. but i can't believe i've never heard of it either. fan translation project........?
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Renfrew · Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2013 12:07 am

Victor · Joined: 07 Dec 2006

I am interested in learning what the sprites/bg artists worked on previously/went on to do.

rye · Joined: 06 Dec 2006

I always was curious about this series. I think they made a big deal out of having yoshitaka amano draw the characters and battle "sprites", but his stuff seems really at odds with the fantastic spritework in the rest of the game.
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Wall of Beef · Joined: 04 Dec 2006 Location: Fart Beach

Yes, everything looks real nice - minus the battles. Those battles look like a monster catalog.
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SuperWes · Joined: 04 Dec 2006 Location: St. Louis, Missouri

I have this, but it always seemed like too much work to play it. These pictures look nice, but is the actual game any good?

-Wes
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Renfrew · Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 1:56 pm

Sorry, I didn't have any time to play tonight. I'll definitely play some more and take some more pictures tomorrow.

Wall of Beef · Joined: 04 Dec 2006 Location: Fart Beach

So there is 7 volumes of this game released over a 1 year time frame - how much were these new? I assume the idea was that this would either be some MASSIVE Rpg that needed to be spread across 7 GD-Roms, or its just as long as a typical Rpg but the volumes are cheap and you can test the game out for a cheaper investment with early volumes rather than pay a typical retail price for a stand alone game. Yes?
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Renfrew · Posted: Wed Sep 11, 2013 4:57 pm

I think they were in the $20-30 range. I'm not sure about the overall length yet. It's really weird that not only did they go for making this thing episodic, but also radically changed the normal jrpg battle system (there is no experience and no level ups).

I really like the intro movie that I posted at the start of the thread. There isn't a consistent style between any two scenes in the thing, so it is a great showcase of the schizophrenia of the actual game.
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Loki Laufeyson · Posted: Thu Sep 12, 2013 11:41 am

Renfrew · Posted: Thu May 29, 2014 1:27 pm

I've been keeping my eye out for the last few volumes of this every time I go to a game store. I finally found them today! I was thinking it would be a good excuse to start working on this Let's Play again. The final two were a little expensive, but I picked them up anyway. When I got back to the place I was staying at, I took them out to look at them and realized that the last two are sealed new copies. I guess the hunt isn't over yet. I will play some next week though and start updating this again
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