Adventure Bar Story - (by RideonJapan)

[Vovin]

Originally Posted by Echoseven

It's definitely awesome - I tested it and it is rather good.

Errr... so... is it "definately awesome" or is it "rather good"? You are confusing me.

Imho, I am glad that it is finally here. Finally!

0.99$ must be a steal for this, especially if you look at the last (and most promising) paragraph:

※iAPs are absolutely unnecessary for the full completion of the game. Only 50-70 hours of your time is! There is also no waiting time in the game. It’s NOT a pay or wait game.

50-70 hrs is a big load... as long as it is not too repetitive. But I doubt that it is always the same.

Really looking forward to 01:30 o'clock.

Oh, and i really wished that people read the full app description first before throwing around with wild speculations or questions about IAP's.

[Echoseven]

Originally Posted by Vovin

Errr... so... is it "definately awesome" or is it "rather good"? You are confusing me.

It's definitely awesome - I just couldn't say "awesome" two sentences in a row.

[trundley]

Will be staying up until midnight to get this. Only the 7th in the UK

[toythatkills]

Originally Posted by Vovin

Oh, and i really wished that people read the full app description first before throwing around with wild speculations or questions about IAP's.

Sorry, Sir.

I'd just rather hear it from someone that's played it, rather than the app description which obviously would say that.

[Appletini]

Originally Posted by Ayjona

The combat looks a bit more involved that traditional japanesque FF-style timer-based combat, since this engine seems to offer positioning (which really makes all the difference in interactivity. See Final Fantasy Tactics versus traditional FF combat ).

Actually, from what I can tell, the presentation of the battlefield is purely cosmetic: you can't move your characters around, and you can hit any enemy on the field at any time, regardless of the "distance" they are from you.

Walking around the town feels very FF6-ish, and wandering the wilderness has you picking up masses of ingredients off the ground, interspersed with standard random JRPG battles. The ingredients respawn each day (and change with the seasons), but you can only run through an outdoor zone once per day; returning to town ends your adventuring (similar to the way Recettear handles things, except without the time management element). The rest of the time is spent buying ingredients and equipment (both kitchen and combat), making food to eat and sell, and setting up the menu for dinner. Progression opens up more of the story as you go along.

Already looking forward to digging into this a bit deeper: I was randomly creating recipes at the stove, and the very first one I happened to put together (not the simplest) brought in a new character (a mage), who joined the party after a brief scene involving the food item in question, and also hinted at the existence of a new recipe with a specific effect (left vague to avoid spoilers). I reloaded to see if this event was just supposed to happen with the first thing you make, and found it was specific to that item; based on that, it looks like there may be a bit of depth with regard to finding hidden events and characters through experimental cooking.

[Ayjona]

Originally Posted by Vovin

50-70 hrs is a big load... as long as it is not too repetitive. But I doubt that it is always the same.

Wow. That's a lot for any game outside of MOs, and for iOS, it is massive, probably only exceeded by the likes of FFT, The Quest, etc.

My guess is there will a quite a lot of repetition, in the manner of most sims, but that this will be repetition with plenty of context, making it feel like a part of an large important on-going process (unlike simple grinding to increase stats), and therefore perhaps even be entertaining

[L.Lawliet]

Originally Posted by Appletini

Already looking forward to digging into this a bit deeper: I was randomly creating recipes at the stove, and the very first one I happened to put together (not the simplest) brought in a new character (a mage), who joined the party after a brief scene involving the food item in question, and also hinted at the existence of a new recipe with a specific effect (left vague to avoid spoilers). I reloaded to see if this event was just supposed to happen with the first thing you make, and found it was specific to that item; based on that, it looks like there may be a bit of depth with regard to finding hidden events and characters through experimental cooking.

oh man... sounds so good!

well it was a psp game before right? so it should be like a full fledged game

[Ayjona]

Originally Posted by Appletini

Actually, from what I can tell, the presentation of the battlefield is purely cosmetic: you can't move your characters around, and you can hit any enemy on the field at any time, regardless of the "distance" they are from you.

All the other mechanics you mention seem very interesting, and just the right stuff for an engrossing, in-depth title, but this was a bit of a letdown. Outside of a matter of time and money, I find it hard to understand why anyone would implement these kind of combat mechanics when the addition of movement and placement just makes battles more involved and tactical.

Ah, well, the rest of your post is enough for me to still be excited (especially seeing as this is the only title so far tonight that appeals to me, what with Kid vs Goblins being iPad 2 (and 3 ) and iPhone 4S only).

[Daver16]

You could probably finish the main story in well under 50 hours but it depends on if you go for 100% completion or not. Also it takes time to find or figure out recipes which definitely added to my time for completing the game.
As for being repetitive a lot of the progression for the story line is based on sales and contest standings. That being said contests are held every 10th day and you don't actually have to leave town to be able to progress to the next day and you don't even have to sell food at the restaurant but generally you want to because it's how you can get money to buy new items and ingredients.

I'm glad this is on the appstore now! Going to have to pick it up and play it again!

[Appletini]

Originally Posted by Ayjona

Outside of a matter of time and money, I find it hard to understand why anyone would implement these kind of combat mechanics when the addition of movement and placement just makes battles more involved and tactical.

In this case, it's probably because (like Recettear and unlike FFT) combat isn't the primary focus of the game. Killing enemies gets you ingredients, but you make money by selling food in the bar, and the main character levels by eating the food she makes, not by killing monsters. Some foods also give different effects that last one day and help out in the field.

Saying that, the default rate of random encounters is certainly rather high, and the developers haven't skimped on skills (for party members or monsters), as each character has quite a few they can learn as they level: Fred's "Butcher" ability, for example, increases the chance of an item dropping if the attack is a killing blow. If the battles were tactical in nature, getting through even one field or dungeon could potentially take a huge amount of time for little reward (which would get old quickly, considering that it seems you'll need to keep running the same ones).

The combat setup is much the same as in FF; you have three front row slots, and three back row, as does the enemy, with a blank row in the middle (as you can see in the screenshots). From what I can tell, positioning a unit at the back means they deal less physical damage, but receive less in return (so casters go behind melee, and so forth).

The focus is more on cooking, constantly finding ingredients, creating new recipes, finding dish combinations and mixing up the menu for the restaurant so that customers don't get bored of eating the same things over and over. You can also go fishing, and enter cooking competitions.