Carpe Fulgur's next Import : "Fortune Summoners" DEMO

Just a FYI for anyone interested, Carpe Fulgur (Reccetear / Chantelise) just released a demo for their next imported translation, Fortune Summoners. VERY different game this time around - a side scrolling chibi action RPG. Demo Get.

IMAGE(http://www.carpefulgur.com/fs/gameplay_3.jpg)

IMAGE(http://www.carpefulgur.com/fs/gameplay_8.jpg)

IMAGE(http://www.carpefulgur.com/fs/gameplay_6.jpg)

Even with clumsy old keyboard controls, combat seems quite fun, once you get used to the floaty-ness of moving around. Sounds like it might have shades of The Lost Vikings to it as well (swapping between three characters with different abilities to solve different puzzles in dungeons).

I would advise turning the music waaaaaaaay down, but other than that it seems like it might be a reasonable distraction in an otherwise dead January (they say it should be on Steam/Gamersgate on the 17th).

Neat! I'm still planning to go back to Recettear and finishing the story. I'm told Chantelise isn't as good since it was produced earlier.

Noticed it was now available on Steam today, and it definitely looked like those other two games. Loved Recettear but passed on Chantelise. This looks kinda fun though.

Doesn't seem to be a Steam demo, so thanks for the above link. Might as well try it first. 25% off on Steam until next Mon.

EDIT: The FAQ even says demo saves will transfer to the full game, so even more reason to try.

Turns out the protagonist is a girl named "Fortunesum" with a fairy friend named "Moners."

Definitely fun. Reminds me of a 2d Tales of Symphonia, one of the Gamecube games I quite enjoyed. Combo system, melee, magic... and a grand adventure.

Only thing holding me back right now is performance. Yeah I can't believe it either. But this tiny little game that only needs a Pentium 3 and 384mb of RAM, well it just completely chokes up every time I open the menu. Being an RPG, this is quite often. I have the FPS on display. It's generally locked at 60, sometimes dips down in the lower 50s. But when I open the menu it goes down in the 0-5 range. And the menus behave just as sluggishly as you'd expect at that rate.

Poking around the site to see if these issues are common or addressed in the full game, before making a purchase.

But the combat is quite fun, gameplay seems solid, and teammate AI is more than adequate. Sometimes I think my team is doing all the work and I'm just standing there. If the performance hiccups have been ironed out, sign me up.

Stele wrote:

Poking around the site to see if these issues are common or addressed in the full game, before making a purchase.

They delayed it a week or so to work on some issues that the demo brought up, so that might be one of them - I never had any trouble with the demo so I can't really compare and contrast unfortunately.

A few posts in the demo issues thread with the same thing. And two more posts in the main forum with the Steam release still having the problem. Doesn't seem to be a specific hardware thing either. Mostly Win7 users, but not all 64 bit... and both ATI and Nvidia cards...

Didn't seem to do it when I loaded it back up a few min ago, but I only played for maybe half an hour. Perhaps it's a memory leak or something that gets worse the longer you play?

stevenmack wrote:

Even with clumsy old keyboard controls...

I owned Racettear for literally months before I figured out how to start the game. Who knew that, er, was it "v"? was the "action" button? I only figured it out by systematically hitting every key on my keyboard.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Turns out the protagonist is a girl named "Fortunesum" with a fairy friend named "Moners."

Padmewan wrote:
stevenmack wrote:

Even with clumsy old keyboard controls...

I owned Racettear for literally months before I figured out how to start the game. Who knew that, er, was it "v"? was the "action" button? I only figured it out by systematically hitting every key on my keyboard.

Good news! Arrow keys and enter work, then you can switch up the controls to your heart's content.

If you're using a 360 gamepad, you'll need to turn on the analog controls first. With the keyboard, go to options, Analog Gamepad, then enable the first option, then save and exit that menu. The gamepad will work after that.

Stele wrote:

A few posts in the demo issues thread with the same thing. And two more posts in the main forum with the Steam release still having the problem. Doesn't seem to be a specific hardware thing either. Mostly Win7 users, but not all 64 bit... and both ATI and Nvidia cards...

Didn't seem to do it when I loaded it back up a few min ago, but I only played for maybe half an hour. Perhaps it's a memory leak or something that gets worse the longer you play?

Are you playing full screen or in windowed mode? I just tried it in windowed mode and I'm getting the poor menu framerate thing. Full screen it was fine yesterday though.

Both I think. Started in windowed, then tried the double-full-screen thing.

Wish there was a double-res-windowed mode. So silly.

I see this is on sale. So what's the verdict? I loved Recettear, do you think this would be up my alley?

Just played this for about 2 hours today. I'd best describe it as a side scrolling platformer. with Heavy JRPG elements.

I don't think it's my speed. I didn't really want to continue after going to the magic cave for the 3rd time in a row.

Tamren wrote:

I see this is on sale. So what's the verdict? I loved Recettear, do you think this would be up my alley?

There's a demo here, I'm gonna try it out before deciding. The scant few reviews I found were not encouraging.

Demo is up on Steam now as well, might be an easier install and quicker download.

It reminds me of Tales of Symphonia (only Tales I've played). Heavy JRPG, items, stats, story-wise... but combat is all action, combo, brawler-like... and its' 2D instead of 3D.

EDIT: Looks like I said the same thing 6 months ago after the demo, a few posts up.

Tales of Symphonia was one of my favorite gaming experiences ever, but that was mainly because it was the first game my eventual-wife and I really played together. Any idea if this can be played couch co-op?

Well I got it, since no one got it for me. :p

Still having the same menu slowdown from the demo. Apparently there wasn't a patch at all over the last 6 months.

But at least they tracked down the cause. If you have dual-monitors, you get the major menu lag. Turning off one of them should fix it. A little bit frustrating. Almost makes me want to relegate this game to something I play on my laptop when I travel. We'll see how long I can play without my other monitor.