A friend of mine was fortunate enough to procure a copy of Sekai wa Atashi de Mawatteru, the DS game starring a selfish princess with quite a bit of will power, and was kind enough to enlighten me as to how her will affects the environment. She has the unique ability to bend her environment, the nature of her world and enemies' actions in battle, to her liking. This means she can not only determine what an area will be like, but also the level of enemies and battle bonuses.
First of all, the world map is a bit unconventional. Players choose a town area for the princess to visit, and once she enters there will be a grid. One square will have a town, one will have a gate, and the rest will be environment squares she can change. In order to unlock the gate, the princess has to fulfill a request from the town's mayor (like gather x items or defeat y enemies).
She may have to change environment areas to fulfill requests, since certain items and enemies are only in certain areas. So she has the ability to make an environment area barren, grassland, a forest, a meadow, farmland, an island, a fire pit, a graveyard a desert or more. She starts out with two land types (grassland and barren) and quickly acquires new abilities while traveling.
Once she is in an area, she can press the A button to enter battles or search for items. Of course, after a while, the area will run out of items or opponents. She can then use her will power to refresh the area, drawing more enemies there.
She also has a few other options in the world map, which affect battles. If things seem to be too easy, or too difficult, the princess can also increase or decrease the abilities of opponents by 10. She can also create a bonus chain, where if she fights x number of battles in a row in that spot, she'll receive extra money or experience points.
It really sounds interesting. I hope a US publisher picks this title up and localizes it.
Images courtesy of Global A Entertainment.
Published: Jun 25, 2008 09:11 am