Stuck In The Past
Japanese RPGs are one of the most fondly remembered genres from the SNES era of gaming, when dozens of potential adventures crossed the ocean to hit American store shelves. While the games made many advancements in their time, some players will be all too quick to bring up the negatives involved in the genre as well. Pier Solar and the Great Architects fits the classic JRPG formula near perfectly; whether that is a good or a bad thing is yours to decide.
Adventures almost always begin in the most humble and innocent of settings, as does Pier Solar which sets you off to adventure from a small village with two friends, a spunky girl named Alina and a geeky boy who goes by Edessot. These two companions will join Hoston in a world spanning adventure in which the secrets of an ancient society are discovered.
The plot might be identical to nearly every game from the SNES era, but unfortunately the writing isn't exactly up to par. The characters sometimes manage to feel lifeless and drab, with humor and other emotions coming across at the wrong times in the plot. The story itself isn't very bad, but the presentation is what makes it mediocre at best. The delivery by each character is akin to watching someone try to act out a story as they read it for the first time, and doesn't come across as particularly interesting as a result.
In typical JRPG fashion, Pier Solar has you adventuring different locales and natural forests searching for answers to the plot, and sends a number of battles at you as you wander around. Battles are, like the rest of the game, something straight out of any typical JRPG, with attacks, spells, defense and not much else. There's a storing system to save up points, much like Bravely Default, but this doesn't even do much to break the tedious battling. Attacks in the game sometimes seem to last an eternity as well, and while seeing a well animated attack is satisfying at first, after a while it leaves you bored and spamming buttons to try to end the battle sooner. An option to skip over longer attacks, which is found in games such as Golden Sun, would have streamlined the process much more.
If there is one major redeeming quality about Pier Solar, it would be the beautiful pixel art adorning every screen. The game is stunning. There are even options to switch between the classic and more updated art, which is displayed in HD. While the gameplay might become boring, at least you'll have some well drawn art in motion to watch as you play.
It's just too bad that the rest of Pier Solar and the Great Architects isn't held to this same level of modernization. While the tired and true battle system, story and more all work, they don't have any touches of modern gaming in them to make them feel new, not even any options to do so either. There is a beauty in old classic games, but over time games have evolved. By not meeting with the times and learning from past mistakes, Pier Solar plays exactly like it was released twenty years ago. If you enjoy classic JRPGs, go buy Pier Solar as it was made for you; if modern games are more your thing, Pier Solar might be too old fashioned to impress you due to its lack of modern features or options and repetitive gameplay.
6/10
Review copy provided by: WaterMelon
Thu Jan 22, 2015 7:46 pm by Knuckles