Piece Of Wonder
Genre: Hybrid Visual Novel with Strategy RPG
Released in japan (2002) by Studio CrossFire and in USA (2007) by Hirameki International
Rate: Teen
Platform: Microsoft Windows
Average Playing Time: Medium (10-30 hours)
background story: Japan government has keep it as a secret, but some peoples are evolving, or more precisely transforming into a monster. The main character Kazuya has lead a happy life, until he also began to transform to a monster…
gameplay: Visual Novel
like any other visual novel, the game progress by the gamer clicking the screen, reading the story of a dialogue between the characters. In some part, the game will pause, and the gamer will be given an option that alter the story, make the game have some different endings.
an example of choices that lead to a story branching
After the choices you made through the game, the story will then branch into focusing on a single heroine (from 3 heroine), and a conclusive ending about that heroine will be presented at the end of the game.
After reach the end of all the heroine, an additional final route will be unlocked.
this is a scene that will lead to a battle (different gameplay)
gameplay at the battle- Strategy RPG Part
the display will be changed to a map of tiles.
First, you will be given a condition of victory and loses, but often it’s oblivious that you have to kill all enemies where you have to stay alive.
On the map you can see your character, the enemies (a triangle), and you can also see your status bar.
The turn based on your mobility status. The higher it is, the more often you can do action (like move, attack, skill, defend). After you finish your turn, you have to wait until your action gauge be filled again. With this method of turn, it is possible that you move several times (say 5 times) without the enemy’s turn arrived, if the enemy’s mobility status is very low that they filled their action gauge very slowly.
when it’s your character’s turn, you can move, choose where the character’s sprite facing, and finish your turn. For the scene above, you cannot attack just yet because the hero’s attack is not ranged, and it cannot reach the enemy who is distanced by 2 squares. So the only option is to finish the turn.
On the picture 3, it is the enemy’s turn, and he move to the side of the hero and launch an attack, and as you can see the hero’s health gauge is being decreased.
Please notice that after the enemy attack, their Action Gauge dropped to the very left. (It is located on the left of the timer)
And after the enemy closing in, the hero can attack using his attack named Shadow Slash. But please also notice that Shadow Slash consume Action Point by 20point, and so the hero’s action gauge decreased. After using Shadow Slash several times, soon it will be the enemy’s turn again. This is how the turn-system work. Do action, consume gauge, finish, and give the next turn to the one with most of the gauge next.
after several fighting, the hero obtain an item (bondage, to heal health) by defeating the enemy. Other than defeating, there are some other ways to obtain an item such as picking from the map.
after you win the battle, there’s a chance for your hero to level-up if the required experience gained.
the parameter to obtain a high score is: enemies defeated, your remaining hp, and the time needed to clear the battle (less better).
After that, you can start distributing points to 6 status which is hp for more health, offense for higher attack, defense for less damage taken, mobility for faster action gauge filling, healing (increase the amount hp recovered after some time passing), technique(increase effect from skill, damage, hp healed for healing skill). Also after leveling-up it is possible for the character to learn new skill.
This is still battle1, but in the future you can control up to 4 characters, with each have their specialty, their special skill, and each of them can level up too.
after the battle, it returns to the visual novel part, to continue the story
score, the story is so lovely and beautiful. You can feel the emotion of the characters, their reasoning behind each of their action. The graphic is nice for its era (2002), but what’s important is that you can catch the emotion of each of the character’s feeling, when they are angry, sad, feeling down and hopeless, when they try to cling to the most tiny bit of hope and wonder… The sound I say it is quite good, especially the opening song, it truly describe flow of the story, from your usual days into terrifying fight. The gameplay I find it is very addictive, it seems simple, but has all that it can do in that term, move, attack, def, spesial skill, action gauge which determine your turn, etc.
credit to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbaSvPgd8W4
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piece_of_Wonder
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLmEaNukp10
http://www.cheatcc.com/pc/pieceofwondercheatscodes.html