Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Incline About Laplace No Ma (Translation fixed)

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
EDIT : 2.00 Translation patch available here.

OLD :
The fan translation is available here.

I never took the time to try the game because the translation was incomplete and the description wasn't reassuring.
So far the game proved to be completely playable after the first fight, the combat command texts are fucked (and so are the stat names), the order of the words in combat log are sometimes reversed but it's not a serious issue and descriptive and explanatory texts are fine.
The combat commands are like this, in case you don't want to waste five minutes trying everything :
iQFWT7J.png
YDGRckc.png
By weapon I mean what you have in your hand, that can be a camera or the machine of the scientist.
Magic includes magic spells of the dilettant and spirit skills of the medium.
Special is the special attack.

My first impression is that it's a very :obviously: game. It has interesting classes and skills, the character progression is very slow, I have only upgraded one skill at most per character and haven't even gained a level yet.
The game seems to be hard, a group of banshee easily beat me, and so did of a group of fire spirits.
 
Last edited:

getter77

Augur
Joined
Oct 12, 2008
Messages
861
Location
GA, USA
Game is good, translation getting there full and proper is just a matter of time now and some additional patience.
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

Self-Ejected
Joined
Aug 23, 2005
Messages
17,978
Location
Florida
ho hoh o what is thisss. mind posting a brief video of u playing it? looks tight.
 

CryptRat

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Sep 10, 2014
Messages
3,548
I've played for a while now.
The translation is complete, it's just filled with some bugs, but not that many. The broken combat screen is not representative at all of the quality of the translation, the game is fully playable (although I have not finished yet, and I'm probably very far from the end).

The game takes place in the beginning of the 20th century. You're pursuing Benedict Weathertop in an haunted house after two children were killed and a girl was reported missing.
The themes are occult/horror/investigation/fantasy, with in particular interesting character classes. You'll cast a lot of spells and fight many kinds of monsters but the game definitely has a special atmosphere.

You start by creating one character. They are 5 available classes :
- The detective, whose skills are COMBAT (efficiency with melee weapons), GUN, PARLEY and CLUE. He can use any armor or weapon.
- The journalist, whose skills are COMBAT, GUN, PARLEY, CLUE, MEDIC (efficiency of the HP healing items used by the character) and PHOTO. Its particularity is that PHOTO skill, he/she uses a camera to take photos of monsters, which you sell for money and is your main way of incomes. He can also use any armor or weapon.
- The medium, whose skills are COMBAT, SPIRIT (it has its own list of spell, especially a couple of useful spells to fight ghosts, and some more general ones, next spells unlock as you increase the skill score) and PSYCHIC (efficiency of the MP healing items used by the character). As a magic user he can only use basic weapon and armor.
- The scientific, whose skills are COMBAT, MACHINE and MEDIC. He owns a machine with 2x2 slots, each couple of slots can be filled with particular items that you find in the dungeon, and gives you one particular skill which depends on the combination of the two items. He can only use basic weapon and armor.
- The dilettant, whose skills are COMBAT, GUN, CLUE, MAGIC (you have to find his/her spells in the dungeon, that's nice), PSYCHIC and PARLEY. He can only use basic weapon and armor.
The PARLEY skill is very probably what determines your ability to talk with monsters, since you can miss, I don't think it has another purpose. I don't really know how the CLUE skill works.

Then you can recruit pregenerated characters for a party with up to 4 members, one character of each class is waiting for you in the bar. You'll find some more recruitable characters during your travel. Sometimes you also temporarily control an additionnal 5th character.

The game is an adventure RPG, with inventory puzzles (off-topic : if you have played Sweet Home, and you should have played Sweet Home which is very good too, Laplace No Ma is very more of an RPG and closer to a classic RPG than Sweet Home).
I'm liking everything about the game so far.
Something to mention, since it's something I really like is that there are some dialogs and texts, but dialogs between your characters are very rare. Despites lack of party creation, the game plays a lot like your average dungeon crawler with party creation and that's very cool.

The exploration part is very good. You start in a manor with 3 floors. The multi-floor agencement is a very good point of the game. The manor is finally not that big, with small floors, but after that you'll get lost in a big multi-floor area with some blocking or not blocking inventory puzzles here and there. It's very fluid but not stupid, keys are automatically used but you have to figure out and use by yourself more specific items.
The rooms are interesting, there's a real agencement, it's not random, and there are many furnitures and other things to inspect, the best thing being always to find a spell book inside a library.
You can consult a map of the floor you're currently in, but first you have to find the map. That's always a very good feature, but even more in this game where you simultaneously explore several floors.
There's a hub where you can buy, rest and get treated, chat, get some hints and quests, and upgrades your skills.

As far as combat and RPG systems are concerned, the game is also very good. Characters gain classic experience level-ups and another set of skill point that you'll freely use to upgrade skills. Character progression is slow, and the system is very robust.
You don't only encounter monsters you'll easily get rid off, especially when you venture towards distant floors, and at worse you can always try to talk to the enemies (you can't talk with any enemy, and you can fail trying to flee or trying to talk, in that 3 cases the enemies get a free round to attack you where you can't do anything, then you can try again). The game is not grindy at all since you gain a lot of your experience via handplaced fights and "quests" (mostly what you do along the way, not really side quests), if you want to flee or talk a lot instead of fighting then you can. Encounters are clearly above average, the game uses random encounters, and they are good, the game will sometimes throw you a pack of 4 monsters with breath attacks that you won't get rid off easily, to say the least, and having to try and flee from powerful monsters if fun. There is also a decent amount of handplaced encounters, which is sometimes missing from games with random encounters first and foresmost.
By talking, you're putting an end to the combat and the enemies give you an hint. The hints are generally real hints regarding your exploration, you often get the same hints if you're in the same place but the reason is exactly that they are real hints and not random banal statements.
During exploration, you can freely rest one time (it's safe), between two battles, which restores some of your HPs and Mental Points.

You have got HPs and Mental Points. Mental Points are used to cast spells. They can also be targeted by your enemies if they use certain skills. If your mental points decrease to zero, then you're unable to fight. You can be still be healed in town if your HPs or MPs decrease to zero.
You have 3 bars of Mental Points, your current MP, your max MP, and between them a "current Max MP" which is restored only when you rest in town or via using relatively expensive items. It decreases each time your character is frightened, which may happen in or outside combat. For example some of your characters generally lose some current Max MP when your enemies surprised your team (and they gain a first free round by the way), but a lot of small events outside combat, like touching a furniture and listening to some weird voice will also decrease your current Max MP.
Regarding combat items and equipements, I guess it suits the slownless of the progression, I only got one available armor upgrade so far. I found some accessories which uprade a stat and some weapons. I never use items during fights. It's cool that the efficiency of the healing items depends on your character's skill. I have only got 2 items for the machine of my scientific so far, but I don't doubt that's going to give interesting choices.

The spells and skills are relatively interesting. For example you need a way to be able to deal with ghost and other immaterial enemies, which only have MPs. Some enemies have both HPs and MPs and with different skills you can target one or the other, and some other enemies like the golems only have HPs. There are various status change skills. Overall when you take everything into consideration (including party composition, the character specialisations, every type of skills between spells, spirit skills, the scientific's machine ...), the combat part definitely has variety besides being very well balaned.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom