3DS eShop Thread

[Helmsly]

 

[darksnowman]

There's a backlog everywhere.  

Was unable to turn up an individual thread for Attack of the Friday Monsters! A Tokyo Tale and this is where a good bit of the chat for it happened... a decade ago. It was interesting to read back through that just now.

With Natsu-Mon coming out in a month, it seemed a good reason to unwrap the Friday Monsters. 

After taking the above snaps, I cranked the 3D and got stuck in. There's linked content if you have qualifying save data from Liberation Maiden, Aero Porter or Crimson Shroud. That's out of reach for me now so I started a new file without it. It opened with a nice little song, there's not much love lost between your parents in their scene-setting exchange and then you're in control. Word to the Wise tells you to head for the map marker anytime you're unsure where to go. 

The first marker was just around the corner, so naturally, I went the opposite way. And it got weird. The game is divided up into episodes, and while looking around, it said I'd started into episode 11! So, I legged it back to the original marker and took it from there. After a little progress, no matter how many times I talked to people again, the episode would not complete, so I gave in and headed to the next marker: episode 3 was underway.

I soon started thinking of these episodes as quests because there was little rhyme or reason to the ordering of when they'd begin and end. My initial worry when I saw episode 11 had started was that I'd bypassed almost half the game—not something I wanted to happen in my first file. That didn't seem to be the case. Nevertheless, from then on, I didn't deviate much from following the markers.

There's not a great deal to it. No brain teasers to solve though I suppose I opened a gate to make a shortcut. Just follow the marker and see what's going on. There's some card battling (janken!) between the kids but it isn't the main focus—which is good because retrying battles is pretty slow. Cards are obtained by collecting shiny orbs (glims). Some are in plain sight, others are tucked behind the foreground, you get a few for completing an episode. I still ended up not getting some cards despite being fairly thorough.

It's all about the scenery, character interactions and their relationships. Your dad worries if you've seen the mail, your mum worries that you found her stash of cash. You get a feeling of what other people have going on in their lives. It's charming how the other adults play along with your childish investigation into the monsters and how it plays out. The kid's perception of the monsters, what the adults want to keep from them, the secrets you keep, what you're oblivious to. The truth is an amalgamation. 

Unfortunately, the credits did not thank me for playing.  When they're done, it puts you back into a bonus stage: Saturday. Basically to do a victory lap and talk to everyone again. After several retries, I got a card win against S-Chan at which point I was everyone's boss and took it as a good point to save and quit. 

I'd recommend it if the eShop were still open for business. But if you're someone like me who's left it unplayed on your system, give it a whirl. It isn't a big commitment—I spent less than four laid-back hours on it these past evenings.

Fridays will never be the same again.