Plutia

perpetually sleepy lesbian

i play a variety of videogames and enjoy Girls
nsfw rts
minors DNI
https://misskey.io/@plutia <-some sort of thing that works with fedi stuff
play hat world


Mani-Kanina
@Mani-Kanina

The best way I can quickly describe Hat World is that it's an indie developer's take on a SaGa game, complete with multiple story paths to play through.

I finished the game quite a few months ago at this point, but I figured I'd write a blog post just to bring more awareness to it. I'll dedicate a fairly large portion of this post to spoiler free stuff, but I will eventually get into some of the nitty-gritty; you'll know when.

Dora, one of the protagonists, fighting against an scythe wielding redhead in the arena.

Have you seen this Hat?

Hat world is a game that wears it's inspiration on its sleeves. It's heavily inspired by the SaGa series, which if you haven't heard of, is a long running series of JRPGs, many of which haven't seen official English releases till very recently.

Tangentially, fuck the rat cave. If you know, you know.

Not everyone in the west have heard about this video game series, and even fewer have played any of the games. That's fine, really, the most important thing to take away from it all is that the series not very traditional. SaGa games don't have EXP and level ups, not like how the wast majority of RPGs out there do things. Instead your characters grow dynamically based on what they do, often this happens mid battle.

Characters learning new special moves and immediately being able to use them in the same fight is the norm in this series.

Hat World specifically takes its cues from the Romancing SaGa games. So you've got a selection of different characters with their own stories to play through, in this case six of them. You could consider the game beat having only done one of the routes, but if you're hooked then there's a lot of content to see and enjoy.

The game is split up into two phases: Navigating the world, and combat. This is not unusual, but what is unusual is the out-of-combat gameplay. Which is entirely two dimensional and includes some very light platforming mechanics.

Shiki opening a treasure chest in her home world.

Each game area, or world as the game refers to them as, is divided up into several rooms. Each room has six potentially connections to other rooms: left, left & up, left & down, right, right & up, and right & down. The way you move around the world was honestly the hardest thing for me to get used to when it comes to this game, I've not really played anything like it.

Okay but what is the game about?

Hat World has, as briefly mentioned, six protagonists to choose from. All of the stories are quite different, so there isn't an easy summery as to what the game is about; though there are many elements that carry over.

For one reason or another, each of the protagonists seek to collect Hats. Hats in Hat World can be considered powerful artifacts, each bestowing powerful abilities onto its "keeper". All six protagonists already have a Hat of their own, but for reasons that range from sensible, to contrived, to deranged, all of them seek to gather the hats of other powerful keepers.

This means you'll end up seeing the entire cast no matter which route you decide to play/play first. I think this is somewhat of strength of the game, because it lets us view characters in different light depend on who's perspective we follow.

In order to collect the hats of the other keepers you end up going through the worlds that hat has dominion over. This involves fighting off a boss at the end of each world, and then the keeper itself eventually once the time is right.

I think my partner said it best when they alluded to that this game would make for a great shonen show, what with how all the characters keep getting into fights with each other.

Shiki and her party are fighting some, debatably, sentient clocks.

Where can I find this head accessory?

For some of you, that might be enough to be sold to try out the title, and by all means, do so. But I've got a few spoiler free tips when it comes to the game that you might want to read first. Still, if' you'd rather just jump in then the info bellow is for you.

This game was released in Japanese, so in order to play it you'll need to grab the fan translation. You can find that here: https://tinyurl.com/2u4yjsyt In order to play it you might also need a piece of software called Locale Emulator, in order to make your computer pretend its running in Japanese. Don't worry, the text is all translated, but text boxes will glitch out and not display any text if it's not being run correctly.

The party performing a combo special move with all party members.

How to hat?

The game has six protagonists:

Dora
Shiki
Natalie
Janice
Lavie
Mel

The game let's you play any the routes in any order you like, however, that does not mean all the routes were made equally. The game has a really good plot, but things that are considered twists or reveals in one story might just be mentioned off-hand casually in another story.

Generally, I think I lucked out with the order I did the stories in. A friend of mine also gave me a very good tip which I will be passing along here in just a bit. I will below provide some spoiler free assessments as to what might be ideal depending on what your preference is.

If the game sounds neat and you want to give multiple routes a chance, I recommend you start with either: Shiki, or Janice. Both of these serve as a good introduction to some of the core concept of the setting, while not really spoiling any of the other routes. Shiki's story is a slower burn, so if you want something that gets into it quicker then pick Janice.

If you're not entire sold on the game but is willing to give it a try to see if it's your jam. Depending on how many hours your willing to invest before getting hooked will determine what I'd recommend. Shiki's route sold me, but you'd need to be able to give the game at least three to four hours for that. That's a tough sell; I was actually planning on dropping the game, I just wanted to see the route to it's conclusion before doing so; evidently I changed my mind, but, you know.

Janice's route gets going way faster, but it also does less to sell the narrative of the game, I feel. If you got two hours or so, you'll get the gist of the story. It's blatantly unambiguous about where it's going and what where the end of it all will be.

Natalie has quite a strong narrative too, but it's also a bit slow burning. It's not quite as slow to get going as Shiki's route is, and does a better job with keeping up engagement between the big plot points.

You can, of course, ignore my thoughts on this and pick whichever character seems the most interesting to follow. Regardless, the absolute most important thing when it comes to this game is this: Play Mel's Route last. You can draw your own conclusions as to why, but this was the recommendation of my friend that had played this game before. And I'm extremely glad that I decided to adhere to their advice on this.

Also, another suggestion I can make is that, if you don't do Janice's route first, then I recommend doing it fairly late in whatever order you decide to go with.

If you're curious about the specific order I had when it came to the routes in this game then it was this:
Shiki -> Natalie -> Dora -> Lavie -> Janice -> Mel

I pick the order based on what I felt seemed interesting or what would be convenient.

Welcome to Hat World

That's basically everything spoilerfree I've got to add. If you wish to experience game on your own, I recommend not reading much more of this post. The very next section of here I'll be posting some tips when it comes to the actual game. So if you read those, I recommend coming back to this once your ready to punch out the final boss on your first route.

That was your spoiler warning.

"Time Magic has some frankly unfair abilities." The tutorial lady says.

Time Magic has some frankly unfair abilities

This line became somewhat of a meme among me and my partner as I played this game. I did Shiki's route first, and she starts with time magic, which, is busted as all hell. Later stuff in the game has specific resistance against damage done by the highest tier time magic spell. Which, they need or there'd be no challenge.

So, something I didn't mention earlier is that this game has NG+, of sorts. You can carry over some progress between stories. How much depends on how many "achievements" you complete. There's an extra menu on the title screen that unlocks once you've beaten any single route of the game. It still ended up being called "???" for me, so I actually missed this for some time, but it's very useful.

Before you finish your first route, there are a few things you should consider doing:

1. Completing the Dash move challenges.

If you don't know what this is, then don't worry about it. Some NPCs hints towards this side quest, but it can be a bit vague. In the third world for the hat of life, (the giant tree), there is an NPC hidden on a screen you need to have double jump to reach.

He'll give you really garbage side quests in regards to platforming and similar. If you do these you unlock more movement tools and similar. What's important about these is that they will carry over to NG+. I kind of regretted not unlocking all of them earlier, because they are really useful.

The final challenge in the cave sucks arse though; this engine was not built for platforming.

2. Side quests and 00parts

All major side quests in the game reward a red 00part for your time. All 00parts carryover into NG+, so the bigger library you can amass the better. Collecting every single part in your first route is not worth it, but there are a few really good ones.

Most enemies carry 00parts, but they got very low drop chance/steal rate. I highly recommending kitting out one of your characters to be able to steal. Since drop rate affects steal chance, then that's also something you can tweak by equipping the right gems.

You've likely seen the Heavy Metal Slime at least once at this point. They are slippery little buggers, but if you've picked up the optional dash ability, then you've got a much better chance at catching up to them. Getting their 00part as a drop or a steal is one of the best things that can happen to you.

3. Crafting recipes carry over

If you feel your characters have enough decked out gems and you're about to kick the final boss in the shin, then spending your excess crystals on buying crafting recipes can't hurt. The final world of every story has some of the best crystal drops in the entire game, so take advantage of that.

The tiny guys that run away drop the most; which is where time magic comes in handy so you can strike first.

Also, it's a bit worth mentioning, that while a lot of the end game side quests are quite difficult, most, if not all, of them have strategic ways to overcome them. Guns can not be countered, for example. There is also an 00part that lets your attacks bypass blocking (Super Stainless). There is generally always a tactical way to get past these challenges, rather than just brute force.

The giant Teddy bear drops a blue 00part called Melos' Letter, which I consider one of the best and most fundamental parts in the game. Despite the length of the side quest to get to the fight, it might be worth to do it on multiple routes so you can get four of them.

Best character (Primrose) says it like it is.

That's it folks

I really like this game. If I didn't I likely wouldn't have taken the time to do a huge write-up about it. I've got some more thoughts, but they are even more spoiler-y as to the nature of the game. To say that I ended up getting really into the plot by the end would be an understatement.

There are of course things I don't like. There are several conversations in the game I absolutely despise; generally because they are on too many levels of anime or otaku for me to gel with. Thankfully that stuff is generally relegated to side NPCs that don't matter, but man, some lines are just yikes. The second boss in the world of dreams is like, can we nuke this one so hard that it gets removed from the game, please?

I get that they are not even a real character, but for fuck sake.

Anyway, I'll now proceed to talk about some of the bigger plot points of the game, leave now if you don't want that.


Dora standing on a giant chest.

Can I pester you for some tea?

Not that I actually drink tea, mind, but you know.

The best parts about Hat World are the reveals. This is critically why Mel's route is the absolute worst to do at any point other than last; because it spoils basically everything. You'd think that'd make her route the best one to do if you want the compressed experience, but it's really not.

Even though it spoils everything, it also just rapid fire goes through all the plot points. So if you're unfamiliar with anything then it won't even explain it or give it time to settle before it just moves on to the next big thing. Frankly, even though I did her route last, I consider it one of the worst in the game. It also feels incomplete, which, knowing the game as a whole make sense.

No, the absolute best part about Hat World is the hidden route you unlock after having completing the other ones. That one is on crack, to put it lightly. The final boss in most routes can be quite hard, but outside of that the other routes are not really challenging for anyone who is familiar with RPGs.

This route though? It's just completely brutal. But... it was also really worth it. It wouldn't have been good in a vacuum, but once you've got the context of the rest of the game behind you already, it becomes one of the best JRPG plots I've had the pleasure of enjoying in recent times. Sadly I can't extend that praise to the game as a whole, some of the routes are a bit so-so, and there is a lot of time spent on things that don't matter (see every regular World Boss that isn't a keeper).

I'm a critic, especially when it comes to narratives. If I think a story is shit, I tend to be pretty open about it. The hidden route of this game had me at the edge of my seat to see what would happen next and how things would resolve. Usually I only really get that into a story if it's a really good novel I'm readying, rarely does a video game story grab me that hard.

But yeah, this is getting kinda devolving into rambling. I just really wanted to spread some more awareness for this game and share some thoughts on it.


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