Once again, Rockin’ Android comes out strong with a wonderful doujin-soft (Japanese indie) game titled Crescent Pale Mist. I still remember seeing the demo video at the Rockin’ Android booth when I was at A-Kon Dallas 2010 this year showing their progress with some of the translation. It was spectacular looking then and the translation progress was quite good. However, the game is a PC game by birth (circa 2007) and did retail for 1,890 Japanese yen (approx. $22.80 US dollars). Keep in mind, for some of those who have played the Japanese doujin-soft version of Crescent Pale Mist, some of the Japanese culture jokes have been localized to things English speakers can understand.
There used to be an embeded media player here, but it doesn't work anymore. We blame the Tumbeasts.
The plot is simple. The world is being corrupted by an out of control magic force called the Pale Mist. It’s basically corrupting the world out of control and setting monsters off to go on crazy killing sprees. You play as Yunou, who is gifted in manipulating the Pale Mist and decide to go straight to the source of the Pale Mist: the realm of Gasyukal. Once you enter Gasyukal, there’s no exit; there’s only the mission ahead to contain the Pale Mist and drive it back to where it came!
I will encourage the tutorial as it does acquaint you to the detailed battle system the game has in addition to the snarky localized humor of Rockin’ Android. The game is presented as a 2.5D platformer where you have nice 3D style magic attacks and worlds, jumping to the background or foregrounds, and movement in a X and Y axis. The gist of combat is pretty basic, but can get really flashy quick. Yunou can attack with a sword and combo slashes from it, however the enemies will leave behind little clouds of Pale Mist when hurt. The Pale Mist is where Yunou really shines. She can manipulate the mist in 2 special attacks: Fear and Rowanveld. Both of these have a standard form as well as an amplified “Pale Mist” version. Yunou also has a dagger that can be thrown as a single, a fan of 5, or used to teleport her to her enemies.
Yunou also has the ability to absorb attacks from her enemies at less damage (endurance magic) as well as being able to dash through some enemy projectiles. Endurance magic isn’t without penalty as you cannot get any Pale Mist from enemies if you are using it while attacking. The benefit of endurance magic is that Yunou takes significantly less damage than she would without it. Also, in some rare cases, endurance magic will allow Yunou a second chance evasion where she is invincible until she is attacking. Not all attacks can be endured, some enemies who know how to use the Pale Mist can use magic to break your endurance to cause critical damage. Beware though, some major enemies can also use endurance magic… Meaning you’ll have to learn when you have to use magic attacks like Rowanveld to break their endurance magic.
Crescent Pale Mist has 6 total levels and tons of secret artifacts that can be found within these levels. Some of them being quite invaluable for pumping up Yunou’s stats so she can become much stronger and some are a complete secret on what they do. There are also trophies for those who want to hunt those down, but beware… They are not easy and require good mastery over the game’s mechanics. For the score and glory hunters, there is also a leaderboard that evaluates your total scores as well as individual level scores. For the price of $5.99, Crescent Pale Mist is a great bargain. If you were a fan of games like Strider and don’t mind the visual fireworks, it’s well worth the cash. I would like to personally thank Sony Online Entertainment and Rockin’ Android for providing us a copy of the game because it was such a blast to play.
[nggallery id=77]
[Images provided by Rockin’ Android]
