Clear #120 - Madou Monagatari
New year, new clear! It's too bad this sweet little dungeon crawler is so expensive, but you're going to need to burn a CDR to play supper's fantastic translation patch anyway.
The Good: full screen, decently animated, nicely detailed, and colorful cut scenes; oodles of different enemies, ranging from cute to gruesome; simplified status system that fits well with the theme, where most stats are unknown though your health is revealed in Arle's facial expressions and your XP is shown on a ribbon that progressively changes color as you near leveling up; and this has got to be one of the funniest, most adorable games around, with the teasing dialog, oft cute enemies, and darling attacks like mini-elephants and sleep, where Arle dons a charming sheep costume and blows a horn to send tiny little sheep at the enemy for them to count and subsequently fall asleep.
The Bad: some extra grinding needed near the end, but few RPGs don't have
some grinding, usually lots more; one overly obtuse puzzle on Floor 4; there's a lot of items that don't seem to have any real use, like toothpicks and crayon boxes; and it's almost too cute, making me feel a bit bad about killing some enemies (especially puyos).
The Ugly: Drunk Tanuki and his big hairy sack which he pulls up over himself as a Scrotal Barrier - now I'm no prude, but this perv really doesn't fit the character of the rest of the game, nor does it seem appropriate when the protagonist is a six year old girl.
