RPGCast – Episode 510: “The Anna Marie Seal Of Mediocrity”
We hope you’re not sick of Fire Emblem: Three Houses from last week, because we’ve got even more this episode. We discuss strategies for raising professor rank and recruiting, in case you need some tips. We also cover a variety of games and their official release dates. Finally, our briefs are more like long underwear this week.
Question of the Week
What font choices in RPGs have annoyed you?
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Xenoblade Chronicles X was mentioned as an example of a game with font issues and I don’t think anyone could argue otherwise. I also remember the issues were especially bad if you tried to play it used the Wii U gamepad, where the text was basically illegible.
Sword & Fairy 6 also really suffered from the “too small text” issue. I had to sit closer to the TV just to read the subtitles comfortably during cutscenes and that doesn’t even account for the issue of them being borderline unreadable whenever a scene was really brightly lit.
Unfortunately, this is a very common problem and developers keep making the mistake of not accounting for different set-ups and accessibility issues early on. I understand that it’s not an easy thing to fix but it’s important for these issues to be taken care of as it can negatively impact the enjoyment of a game for some people.
Aside from the previously mentioned Xenoblade X, which I tried to review at work on the Gamepad before I realized that was a total non-starter, I’ve noticed the Switch version of Pillars of Eternity’s text completely flaking out and becoming illegible a fair bit.
Chris is correct, it’s a bong.
As for text, there’ve been some odd ones throughout the years, but I’ll say that the tiny text is far more prevalent of an issue. I just finished Dragon Quest Builders 2, and as Anna & I talked before, that game has size issues.
QoTW: Wild Arms 1 & 2 for the Playstation had an “artistic” font that was difficult to read; it didn’t help their localization issues at all. Later Wild Arms games, including the remake Wild Arms Alter Code F, had much more eye-friendly fonts.
I’ve been having a blast with PictoQuest, because I enjoy nonogram puzzle games such as the Picross series (which also got two recent Switch releases, Picross S3 and Picross Lord of the Nazarick). The RPG elements of PictoQuest, such as using items or obtaining more health, can easily be ignored. I think they’re mostly there so that players unfamiliar with nonograms can get a little extra help if they want it.
The PictoQuest gameplay adds a little more challenge to traditional nonograms, usually to solve a puzzle before a monster knocks the hero out. Some “sidequests” have an additional challenge, such as to solve a puzzle within a (generous) time limit, or to solve a puzzle while making no mistakes. Some of PictoQuest’s puzzles are bigger than the largest nonogram puzzles of the Picross series (which caps out at puzzles that 20×15 squares).
The PictoQuest story is cute with the occasional joke, but it’s mostly an “excuse plot”. PictoQuest isn’t a story-driven puzzle game like the Puzzle Quest series; it’s a puzzle game with a little bit of story for added flavor.
PictoQuest also has a solidly above-average soundtrack, especially by puzzle game standards. It’s a “must-have” for nonogram fans, in my opinion.