Hanako Games

Usefuleness of white magic? *spoilers*

#1 by Faithe - Jul 10 2011

It's my favorite color magic, so I maxed it as soon as I could, but it doesn't seem very useful in this game x.x

The only times I ever had any use for it was during the dungeon with the opponent you have to race (for farspeak/communication). And even in that dungeon you can just root him in place and talk to/walk past him, or teleport him away somewhere etc.

The 100-point white spell was also only useful in the last dungeon, and again you can just use something from another school or use farspeak which needs much less points.

Because of that, it feels like a waste to spend time learning white magic (unless I want enough for the sleep spell) when the other colors can do the same things and give you much more on top of it.

I think the main problem is that the spells focus a lot on emotions, which is useless in dungeons, and spirits, which i encountered none of in my playthrough... other than getting hurt by casting detect spirits during the dance haha >.<.

It would be much more useful if you could cast Empathy and similiar spells during conversations with other characters. Maybe this is already done in other paths, I only did Damien's endings xDD. But I think that would be the best way to make it feel unique ^-^

Sorry for writing so much, I hope my feedback is helpful in any way to you:)

#2 by Pixelen - Jul 10 2011

I kind of know what you mean, I didn't used to study it but soon got shouted at by Potsdam! I found it quite useful in the final exam because you could use Spirit Echoes to find the monsters but other than that, it was probably the least useful colour.

#3 by hanako - Jul 10 2011

Outside of exams, Spirit Echoes has a use on Damien's path, but yeah, examwise White is not the most useful of colors in this particular game because there's not a lot of creatures to use it on.

I'm willing to put in some Empathy checks during normal conversation, with minor caveats - In general, people are aware when you're casting spells on or near them. It would quite likely upset/offend the person you're talking to if you try to 'spy' on their minds/feelings. There are times when that would be worth doing anyway (Particularly with Damien!) but I don't want to make it available too often in locations where the likely response is just going to be making whoever you're talking to MAD, because that's a boring option.

Are there particular locations you can think of where you really wanted to make use of the spells you had on hand?

#4 by Muse - Jul 10 2011

Hanako, I can think of a few scenes where you can use Empathy. (Hope it's okay if I jump into this conversation here.)

Well, there are various times when you walk in on people talking, such as Virginia and Pastel or Damien and Pastel, and it might be interesting to eavesdrop on their thoughts more so. I know the first is probably too early to actually do such a high level spell, but it might be interesting in the latter.

Two other times I can think of are during the candle sale event, when Grabiner is busy reading, and maybe for fun when Big Steve is playing pinball? Also perhaps when Donald leaves the dung bomb at your door you could try to mind-read instead of just going to see what the noise is? Another thing where you could get caught but for fun is when playing the game with the flowers on the rocks; you could say you thought he was too distracted so you tried but Damien tells you not to cheat.

I think there are some other times you could try it, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.