ShangriLa Frontier Chapter 421 Part 1
ShangriLa Frontier Chapter 421: The General Comments Coming Straight Out of Your Heart And the Barking President Part 1
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When it comes to the languages of this world, there is a certain wonderful and almost magical word that surely you must have heard of at least once in your lives: it’s “compromise”.
This word means more or less that two distinct parties are willingly changing their original goals or quotas about certain topic or issue and instead work up a goal or quota that is going to be equally satisfying for every party involved in the process or problem, without any side coming unsatisfied from it or with more demerits than merits. Originally, that word was supposed to pertain to the idea of ideology clashes and differences in opinions, but in this day and age it has become a term that can easily be connected to almost any kind of conflict or problem across all the disciplines of life.
This may sound overly complicated and difficult, but it really is not all that bad. It’s the best to simply illustrate it on a certain example. So let’s say…… Oh, yeah! Bare with me for a moment and try to imagine a following situation: let’s say that you want to make a game where you pilot a giant mechas that can fly in the sky, make complicated manoeuvers in three dimensions at high speed, and use various kinds of weapons, like rifles, swords and shoot missiles from all over their bodies. However, during the production period it turns out that you don’t have either the budget or technology to make that ideal concept of yours a realty, and that you have to start changing stuff and downgrading it quite a bit to be able to fit with what you have at your disposal. This is called a compromise. However, the results of compromises does not have to be all good every single time. Because you remember that great idea for a mecha game that you had? Well, it turns out that your detailed mecha is only a single dot on the screen that can only move in straight lines either vertically or horizontally, and that it can shoot grain-sized dots at other bigger dots that represent the enemies.
It’s something that makes you want to either laugh or cry, but that is sadly the reality of the market. This is the final product that you are going to be stuck with, a result of many various compromises that you had to make alongside the way.
Unbelievable? Oh, trust me, there was a point in time where I did not wanted to believe stories like that either. However, during my times as a Shitty Games Hunter I have come across many specimens of shitty games that were so imbalanced and seemed like the unfinished bugfest that I had to change my mind. And those were not mecha games only, but other genres as well! So yeah, apparently the swamp called “Shitty Games” run so deep that it actually shifts into the Abyss, and that Abyss must somehow connect to the dark and cold void of the outer space.
But then again, let’s try to think in reverse in here for a moment. Does that mean that when a game has all the elements in it that the production team came up with during the early stages of the project automatically make that game a godly game? That’s right.
At the very least, ShangriLa Frontier seems to be an example of a game that managed to become really successful after all of the elements brought up during its creation were finally put together. It is a game that is really satisfying to play, and even though there are some portions of it that seem to be a whole lot rougher than the other one, I would still recommend it to anyone who asked and consider it a masterpieces without even a second of a doubt.
Then again, what about the Kazegumo President? If I were to put it as shortly and as accurately as possible…… If ShangriLa Frontier is a gourmet dish where everything is flawless and perfect, then Kazegumo President is a poorly made local diner dish where literally everything that could have gone wrong went wrong, and then it went wrong some more. Even the ingredients were all wrong. Not to mention that there was way too much seasoning in this dish, and that they were all contradicting one another. Yeah, that sounds about right.
「This whole world…… Let is sink…… Let it be erased into nothingness…… Let is succumb to the darkness……!」
「Hmm? Oh, you must be the Destroyer, huh? So that would mean what? A fifth form of the last boss? Talk about a lot.」
The Demon Emperor Kyomulus. The last boss of this game, a being that is supposed to have a pretty interesting and rich backstory that neatly ties some of this game’s lore together. But while I say that, I have particular interest in this topic right now. I might as well check it out sometime later, after the credits are done rolling through the screen.
I have come a long way to get right here, to this very moment. Without going into too much detail, I had to overcome some ridiculously stupid encounters on the overworld, and then do a boss rush with the bosses all cranked up to eleven. Let’s just say here that I do not wish to hear the phrase “Four Heavenly Kings” being muttered in my presence for quite a while now. That should give you clear enough picture of the experience I was having with this here endgame content.
And now we were here. Right at the doorstep of the Demon Emperor, knocking at the door of his Demon Castle Avisuma, the last dungeon of the game. And by “we” I mean the whole army of the United States, which now consists of the every group and nation that was present on this continent. And while the army is stopping the Demon Emperor’s cohorts, I could use that opportunity for my President to have the perfect fighting conditions.
And let me tell you: finding a good quest that would reward you with lots of experience points for your army was a bitch to find. And then there was the issue for doing that quest over and over again, which was even more of a bitch to continue.
…… Thinking about it, a compromise is the art of never giving up. Making everything special only leads to the entire thing feel not even a bit special and changes it into something mundane. And if you are going to pack every single one of your ideas inside of the game, it will come with its own set of disadvantages.
Normally when you get down to playing some shitty games, there are certain things that are done right in them, even though the rest might be a hot pile of flaming garbage. Sticking with a cooking analogy; some ingredients might be good. The cooking method at least deserves a passing grade. And the utensils are picked just right for the job, being used as they were intended to be used. …… Unfortunately, none of the above statements is fitting for Kazegumo President.
For you see, Kazegumo President is that type of a shitty game where the elements of Real Time Strategy, Action game, Nation-Building Simulator and Hack and Slash are all jam-packed and curb stomped into a single product.
As for the players, they are forced into the shoes of the President. They are forced to command the entire army. Sometimes the player is forced to stand at the frontlines and lead the charge. And sometimes they are tasked with sitting at the negotiating table, drawing up treaties and forming up alliances.
What’s more, the player has to wield weapons, defeat many enemies, give instructions to the army, expand the influence of your country and territory while considering the environment and climate, take care of the chain of command and worry about the success of the many deals and negotiations.
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