QUESTER | OSAKA

I can't recommend it at all. The mechanics are excellent, but they're held back by not being able to select your targets in battle. That's kind of the theme of Quester: Cut corners and player-hostile design choices that get in the way of great ideas. It asks a lot of the player while going out of its way to be as stingy as possible with level-ups and stat growth. Not only do you gain very few stats per level-up, but there's a level cap in place that only raises when you defeat a boss, and only by a couple of levels. This wouldn't normally be a problem. This may, in fact, be desirable -- if there was something else going on in the game. But there isn't. USB ports, which are scarce, produce some dialogue but nothing substantial. Food and materials are so plentiful, they may as well not exist. Your only goal, really, is to uncover the map in search of bosses. But nothing actually happens throughout this process other than a high encounter rate that quickly stops rewarding XP. Why is my level cap so low, but there are so many enemies in front of me all the time? I get nothing for fighting them. I only lose fuel. Fuel that, mind you, is absurdly limited. You need fuel to explore, and you automatically return to camp upon running out. The result is a game that wants you to waste time fighting battle after battle while it denies you XP and frequently forces you to backtrack. It's repetitive and unrewarding by design, and that's inexcusable. It ends up feeling like just another DRPG that's more concerned with inconveniencing you than it is with giving you an actual experience.

Quester: Osaka is a followup to Quester both of which are fast-paced turn-based Dungeon Crawlers that have you lead a team of the titular Questers through the post-apocalyptic underground ruins of various Japanese cities. Last time it was Tokyo, this time it's Osaka! So, how does this journey fare? Short Answer: If you liked Quester in Tokyo, you'll find much to love in Osaka and then some. Long Answer: Osaka builds on top of what worked in Tokyo but also demands more of the player. You are given more starting options in Osaka with 5 themed teams each with different strengths and weaknesses. Many of the Questers return from the previous game but are joined a few Osaka denizens as well. Most of the gear returns from base Quester with a few tweaks such as Party-Wide Barriers costing Fuel. The tight gameplay loop from the first is largely unchanged with a few tweaks made to accommodate Osaka's new feature: water traversal. You can go onto the water via Piers and use it to travel across rivers and onto islands. Sometimes this is the best way to escape from being chased down by a pack of enemies, other times you'll get to the pier and find it crowded by aquatic enemies from all sides (enemy density seems a lot higher in Osaka). The small difference of water travel costing 1 more fuel makes a huge impact in late game and I was pleasantly surprised to see it come up while moving through those last couple areas. I really enjoyed the map design of Osaka. It's a lot more organic and willing to let the player take different paths than its predecessor. There seems to be a design pillar of almost never obligating a player to have to find a key to open a Gate as there are usually enough paths around them. Keys exist mostly to open up shortcuts letting you use your Fuel more effectively on dungeon excursions. Boss monsters serve as the actual hard gates both in terms of party level (as you need to beat bosses to increase your level cap) and in terms of traversal (they are often blocking the passage between you and the next area). I was less enthusiastic about some of the new enemy additions in Osaka which while adding more variety to combat do tend to have moves that either ignore Hate priority and beeline for whoever has lowest HP or drain HP on hit or keep healing their allies out of range. They are more taxing and can cause a bit of frustration by stretching out fights you already thought were in the bag. The new bosses were quite enjoyable with the Minami Emperor being among my favourite fights in the game. Osaka tries to have more narrative beats by including a familiar looking Navigator character on your phone. These are mostly welcome as they give more context to the USB lore entries that you find and also serve as a nice sandwich for each boss fight (going up to the boss you are given some hints on its capabilities and after the boss you get some details on how to cook them and yes, the Dungeon Meshi influence is clear). The Navigator did grow on me over time and so I was surprised with where the game went with the ending. Definitely more memorable than its predecessor and hopefully a sign that they want to build on this aspect with each game. Overall, I really enjoyed playing Quester: Osaka. It felt like it reasonably builds on top of the experience of the base Quester game and has teeth which pressure the player in different ways. I really look forward to where Quester goes next from here. Would be happy to play through the metro dungeons of more cities if the devs are also looking to change up how map traversal and how classes and gear works with each one (if we are still in Japan: Kyoto, Nagoya, and Fukuoka come to mind and if the devs want to venture outside: New York, London, Berlin, Moscow, Shanghai could be great too). If I had a few points of criticism they would be: - Its clear that the game was machine-translated for English and while that doesn't hinder your experience in a major way you will often run into gear and skill descriptions that are a bit off. For example, some items have the Strength+ trait but there is no attribute called Strength (maybe they meant Vitality or Melee?) and others that have the Defense+ trait but there is no matching attribute (there is one called Guard). There are also multiple message boxes where you see colour tags which have not been closed which might be a result of running a JSON file through a machine translator and importing it back into the game. You do eventually get the hang of how everything works but it is clear that a better localisation is necessary. - The UI while stylish in its presentation does fail a bit when it comes to Inventory menus. They give you sort options, however, Weapons of all types have the same icons and colour (despite a rarity system being in place) can only be distinguished by their name which gets a little cumbersome at endgame when you have 16 pages of items to shift through. It would also be nice to be able to mark equipment as Favorites or Junk so you can disassemble multiple items at once and not risk disassembling something your party uses. Also for Level Ups, the ability to do multiple level ups on one UI window by using a bar to let the player determine how many Levels they want to boost a character and the estimated Material Cost. Hope this review was helpful and leads you to check out this awesome little game :)

1周クリア。ちょこっとだけ変更点はあるけれど感想としては構成要素の9割以上がほぼ前作と同じなのでもうそっちみてもらえばそれでいいのではというレベル。 https://steamcommunity.com/id/adituki/recommended/1754460/ 一応追加点を挙げるならナビキャラが追加され要所でちょっとだけ会話が挟まり単調さが軽減されつつなんか重要そうなワードとか少しだけでてる(気がする)ことや、初期PTが数パターンから選べてある程度序盤のバランスが保証されること。あと図鑑(完成率表示あり)とか追加アイテム、スキルとか。たぶんMAPもそこそこ広くなって最大Lvも能力一個分は高くなる …とはいえ、あまりにもプレイ感が同じ過ぎるので実質同じゲームのシナリオ2(設定的には前日譚なのでシナリオ0か)という感覚でしかない。 一応前作レビューにも書いた通り、これはこれで最低限ポイントを抑えつつそれなりに楽しく遊べる仕上がりにはなっている。実際ほぼやってること同じでも久しぶりにやったせいもあってそこそこ楽しめたのは事実 [strike]やっぱり定価だと高すぎるとは思うけど[/strike] 個人的に感じた最大の問題点は[spoiler]これ話や設定的にはこっち先にやって前作いったほうがいいと思う…のだけど、ボリュームとかシステム的には当然前作の方が物足りない点[/spoiler] PS：確認のために前作起動しなおしたら今作購入ボーナスとかで追加クエスターとか図鑑とか逆輸入されたので……まあもう一度遊ぶ気がある…なら…？

I wholeheartedly recommend this game. It's a relatively light and simple dungeon crawler made after original Quester game, a bit more fleshed out in few aspects and serves as prequel story, so you can dive in if you didn't play original Quester game. It introduced water to dungeon design and few other features compared to original, but overall core is the same. Map is a little bigger, and a bit more complicated this time around, which makes it quite fun to navigate. It would take roughly 20 hours to beat the game, but there is always NG+ loops to enjoy at your own pace and try different party combinations which can be many. Dungeon Crawlers is particular genre I personally struggled to finish any game I played, but Quester for some reason is very easy to pick up and play at your convenience, for short or long sessions. You are very free to experiment and fail, via party or weapon composition, there is no big pushback in case of party wipe. Glad that I managed to finish the game during DASH campaign, hopefully this review will give some visibility boost. Ending wise, a bit bittersweet, isn't it? I hope we'll see full grown tomatos in next game.

前作クリア済み、未クリアでのレビュー。 QUESTERおよび本作いずれも購入しておらず、遊んでみたい方はどちらか一方購入すれば良いと思う。 キャラクター(クエスター)、装備類、クリーチャーは基本的にほとんど両作品とも同一。 違うのはマップと、ちょっとしたシステム面のみ(補給クリーチャー?みたいなのが増えたとか) 正直、前作は楽しかったと言う印象だが、前述のとおり、ほとんど前作と一緒のゲームを同じ料金で購入することになるとは思わなかった。 DLCで良いレベル。(無論、デザンイン費やシステム開発費を抑えた価格での「良心的」販売) 次作は他のユーザーのレビューを確認した上で購入を検討しようと思います。 正直がっかりした。

I've finished both of the Quester games now. Osaka is pretty much the same thing again as the first Quester. I found it a little more difficult, requiring more strategy and grinding. The raft travel adds an extra dimension to exploration which I love in the Quester games. The Fleshog is back :(

セールだったので軽い気持ちで購入したが、パーティが着実に強くなっていくので面白い。レトロすぎるビジュアルとやや不親切なシステムがとっつきにくいがプレイするうちに慣れるし、慣れたら面白くなる。きっちり探索してレベルを上げれば詰まることはない。 ただ、装備のUIが使いにくく面倒なため同じ装備を使いがちになることと、似たようなスキルが多いのでメンバーを変更するインセンティブがなかったのは残念。