Anybody here try the game Elona before?

[Ghaleon]

I'm drooling over aquastyle, and got myself into the mood for some kinda Roguelike RPG, I'm thinking of trying Elona because Elona shooter, a game on kongregate, is one of my fave games there, and it's made by the same guy, so I figure I'll give his other game a shot. Anybody know this game? wondering what your opinions on it are.

[Seventh Holy Scripture]

Elona is wacky fun and worth trying once, but the actual dungeon crawling is pretty unbalanced. Prepare to die a lot of random deaths (even compared to other roguelikes.)

[Heartbeam]

Not in a great position to judge it because of lacking experience in other games of this field.  In fact, after the first few sentences of the next paragraph I'll try to pretend I've never played any other roguelike because I can't remember much else from the games other than what I saw my older relatives play way then.  Anyway...

It's not quite as intricate with the details and scenarios like other roguelikes, but in return you have a game with graphics not limited to ascii.  Death is much, much more forgiving because you actually respawn.  There are several penalties for dying at level six(?) and above, included but not limited to permanent stat loss (prevented by equipment with 'maintain' property?) and dropping items on the ground.  It's a sure way to spiral into a cycle not too different from Gradius syndrome if you don't have the general understanding of things yet.  You're probably better off starting a new character.

I'm not sure where to place the difficulty.  After learning the ins and outs you really shouldn't land yourself into inescapable situations in the future, but there are a few disasters not limited to dungeons that can catch you by surprise.  Of course, they can be predicted or at least contained after learning the first time, or doing a search if you really want. 

Spoiler:

"Let's RAGNAROK!"

I'd dare to say this game is to roguelikes what Touhou Project is to shooters.  A little bit of things here and there that make it, a niche within a niche.  Or I should say MyFirstShmup?.  You can run around building and making your party function cohesively, collect furniture and customize the floors of your home, stock the shops with loot from dungeon crawling (of course).  All with the graphics to make the world lively, but that might be a limiter to your imagination.

That's all I can say, really.  It's good enough for me but that's not saying much without standards to measure up to.

May as well throw in a screen with my own slow and steady progress.  Didn't touch it for over a year, picked it up again, then putting it off like many other games in favor of progressing in this genre, but I'm really slacking off currently.  Nevermind that.  Definitely planning to continue.

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/5158/tgm96.png

Also, I highly recommend you create a backup of your save files at the end of each day or when you're finished playing as a safeguard against possible save corruption.

As of February 3, all new images over 400x400 must be thumbnailed, resized, or linked. Sorry. ~Matsuri

[Ghaleon]

Thanks... I tried it for a few mins, then realized learning the interface would take awhile, wasn't in a learning mood but I'll try in earnest later.

[Edible]

Isn't this the game where you can do terribly unfortunate things to a loli sidekick?

[Ghaleon]

Isn't this the game where you can do terribly unfortunate things to a loli sidekick?

Maybe it's famous for that, but as I understand it the number of sidekicks you can have is limited to your charisma or something, I rekon you cannot have any at all of you're a golem or snail.

Speaking of snail is there a point to rolling one? I mean if you reach a certain point of the game as a snail do you get some kind of achievement or something that might buff future characters or something?

[Heartbeam]

I mean if you reach a certain point of the game as a snail do you get some kind of achievement or something that might buff future characters or something?

As far as I know, nothing of the sort.

Speaking of snail is there a point to rolling one?

I'm sure you know the answer now.  And it's not 'no'.

[Ghaleon]

As far as I know, nothing of the sort.

I'm sure you know the answer now.  And it's not 'no'.

well, I kinda meant other than your name being Tenshi.

[Sinner]

I tried Elona out of curiosity and having never played a Roguelike before I was caught off guard by the difficulty and the interface just seemed horrible at first. After playing around for a while on a test character and getting to know the basics though it's a pretty good game to come back to now and again but it doesn't seem like the kind of thing I'd play for extended periods of time.

[Tapsa]

I found this game some where in start of 2009. It's v. 1.14 and the only thing I enjoyed about it was messing around with the debug mode and getting your pet loli pregnant to make her give birth to an alien that OHKOs you. If you like a roguelike with fake difficulty and content cranked to southeast, I think you can enjoy it.

[Heartbeam]

well, I kinda meant other than your name being Tenshi.

No, nothing like that.  Think about it, the humble beginnings of the snail.  Barely able to travel from town to town without exhausting its food supply, always turning to the wild for food sources.  It's near impossible to escape from pursuers but thankfully it has its faithful companion to turn back the attackers.

Even so, your average common foe is more than a match for the two.  Many times they must leave behind treasured loot to save their own life, and buying suitable equipment is expensive.  So the snail turns to performing to get by.  The earnings are small and salt-throwing cleaners are in the area, and party quests never turn out well because the poor snail can't finish even one performance before it ends. 

Slowly but surely the snail and its companion are moving up.  Forgoing delicious costly meals from the city they risk the wild to collect food.  Eventually they save up enough to buy a weapon, piece of armor, or a handy scroll for escaping.  Through many failed performances the snail somehow gains leadership qualities and attracts others to join its cause.  The power of friendship drives this ragtag group to accomplish great things and become rising heroes.  It's all mutual; like true bros looking out for each other the snail can rest easy from all the ill-intentioned cleaners.

It's endearing, really.  The writing here may not convey the emotions (I have no place in creative writing) but you know the journey of a snail and its triumphs will be a heartfelt story for the ages.

[Ghaleon]

By heartfelt, that's probably your laughter at any poor fool mad enough to roll one. =p