(Epilepsy warning for videos:)

Unlike the terror of YIIK, I’m only going to do the occasional post every few parts while videos will come out weekly. Becuase hey, this game isn’t an awful mess.

In these two videos, I fight Tower of Gray up to Strength (aka the boat stand of the actual orangutan), recruiting Polnareff on the way. During the course of the adventure, we get into a whole lot of fights with remote controlled Stands (which is pretty much the only justification to have enemy encounters) and meet Utah, an original character that pops around the place, and his Stand Saints. They’re named after the Utah Saints, an English electronic band, and to keep on brand with Gaming, here’s their take on the Mortal Kombat main theme:

7th Stand User is both weirdly faithful and not faithful to the Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure canon. A lot of characters and things from before and after Stardust Crusaders show up in contexts that make sense and some of them aren’t too “in your face” – like, I didn’t notice the Golden Wind gang hanging out in the restaurant where you meet Polnareff until a second viewing. However, it doesn’t make sense for a lot of these characters to be showing up; Rohan being a recurring character that advises you on Stands, for instance, makes no sense considering that he had no idea what Stands were by the time Koichi meets him.

But then again, considering that Stroheim the Actual Nazi shows up as a bonus boss and even he’s confused by the circumstances, there’s probably some weird time bullshit going on. Maybe the stuff that happens at the end of Stone Ocean is the reason for all this. Anyway, whatever, I’m being a pedantic nerd.

Also, this isn’t directly related to the game, but fuck Stroheim, dude. I know that Araki was trying to go for a “mankind comes together to fight a bigger existential threat” plot and Battle Tendency was made in the 1980s, but don’t make an actual fucking Nazi a good guy – especially when his first appearance is condemning a bunch of prisoners to death. Fuck, dude. Battle Tendency would probably be my favorite part if it weren’t for his existence. Anyway, you can apparently recruit Stroheim if you approach him with Joseph and this probably leads into a sidequest, but I wanted to kill Stroheim on principle.

As for the game so far, it’s pretty alright! In between the story segments (which are usually points of no return) you can explore around the area to grind against enemies and do sidequests. From what I’ve seen in the third video, you can get small events depending on your Stand and whoever you have in the party; Wildhearts came in the clutch to prevent me from chasing a fast NPC down a third time, I got Kakyoin to help find a wallet and enjoyed sushi with Avdol. There’s probably a lot of these things in the game, but I’m trying not to spoil myself here; the only thing I spoiled myself on was Avdol and that was only because I looked up the wiki to see if there’s anything else to do with Stroheim. Rest in shit, idiot.

And you know what, when I do level grind in this game, it’s not a big deal at all because anything that isn’t a boss battle goes by super fast. Fuck you, YIIK.

The biggest flaw of the game so far, in all honesty, is the water, which flashes in a rather annoying way. The game has succeeded in making a game with monochrome visuals hurt my eyes. The way the water flickers is just godawful on my eyes, and I bet its effects are worse for people that have worse eyes than me.

Also another, smaller issue I have is with the vendors. So, I understand that they present a more expensive option of healing up in contrast to using a hotel that uses up a day and that it’s realistic for them to be selling multiple items. But also, like, I’d appreciate it if you put how much each food item healed in the choice screen when you’re buying stuff. And honestly, just present me the best food, I’m not in it for the Hot Cola. Sometimes realism isn’t welcome.

But anyway, I’m liking 7th Stand User so far! It’s a very good RPG Maker game with a lot of love for the source material! I wish that more game adaptations of anime were nice RPGs. Oh, they’re making one? Oh, it’s for Fairy Tail? Oh.