Beschreibung
"Sagashi ni Ikouyo" (aka "Let's Go Look For It") is a very early PS2 RPG developed by the little-known team at RIZ Inc. at the beginning of 2001, being one of several titles released within the system's first 12 months. Through some odd twist of fate, Sony also selected the game to be on Japanese PSN (PS3) in 2015. In the realm of RPGs, this is to the genre what "Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest" or "World of Final Fantasy" is to "Final Fantasy", what "Dragon Quest XI" is to "Dragon Quest", what "Pokémon Mystery Dungeon" is to Roguelike and Mystery Dungeon games... or to put it plainly, a game that is very much "Baby's First RPG" (i.e.: easy) for all intents and purposes, but enjoyable all the same. Being designed for children and having rudimentary components of most RPG/JRPG staples, it was also RIZ's first game and arguably their best one.
The game has a general story, but it is barely there and the vibes within the game are very casual; the narrative basically just goes with the flow and dialog is lighthearted and fairly shallow. Gauntlet, a craftsman and his son (the player / nameless protagonist) have moved to the town of Liz, a small place with several secrets. You become acquainted with other children that live there as you explore the town essentially tackling various shenanigans, myths and urban legends with the power of friendship and "purpose". "Purpose" is a driving factor of the plot as well as the justification for the objective / mission-like structure of events in the game which eventually leads to the legacy of "The Chunk Gang", "The Oath of Limrid" conspiracy, and the separation of humans, fairies, orcs, elves and other races. At the center of it all is the existence of "Lukinoela"... but what exactly is it? The game's short run time of 10-12hrs and thin plot won't sweep you off your feet, but the carefree character interactions are earnest and one of the better aspects of the game.
The game is not complex and has heavily restrained JRPG systems, but one thing that does stand out in the game is the way these familiar mechanics are integrated in SnI. For starters, there is no leveling in the conventional sense... there is no currency farming in the conventional sense, non-standard exploration, scripted combat events, and puzzles that can't be managed by a single individual and will require the player to leverage allies and the different quirks they bring. The town of Liz serves as a small hub that gradually branches off into other areas as you gather more information and gain new insight to clear objectives with purpose, and sometimes one objective serves as a key to opening other objectives. What's interesting is that you can select which objective you want to focus on at any given time by going into your menus and selecting it, which will alter the dialogues of the townsfolk accordingly to offer info that correlate to the current objective. While it's rare to have more than two meaningful objectives to tackle at a time, you have a bit of agency in which order you tackle events and which characters you'll meet and when.
When you are first introduced to a character, you can invite them to join your party. Each character comes with two specialties that aid in adventuring such as "Lock-picking & Eloquence", "Fire & Fairy Language", "Boastfulness & Ancient Language", etc., and these abilities must be used regularly under a feature called "Leave it to Them", which utilizes their different skills. Using these skills, as well as inviting them on trips and battling will increase your friendship score with different characters... clearing quests and fighting will gradually raise your parameters over time and characters will also gain new combat abilities when certain thresholds are reached, but you will not receive experience, money or items from fighting otherwise. Speaking of items, you can't use healing items in battle, so having someone with Blue Magic (Ice) is indispensable early on for healing. You can bring two or three friends with you depending on the objective and battles are scripted and money is scarce, so you shouldn't waste it if you don't have to (you can "train" to build friendship with characters you don't use in the underground if you use a "Chunk Ticket" around skeletons).
Most tasks can be cleared in one go with the "right" set of allies, but if you have preferred characters, expect to make multiple trips to town. This is made relatively painless with a smart "Move" command to instantly return to areas you've been as well as "Teshron Cards" when you finally go "outside" to call characters to your home to join you. The visuals are basic in an early / launch PS2 way (slowdown in spots, mainly the town square, bad camera, etc.) but the music is pretty good with multiple battle themes. While I'd struggle to call this a "gem", I had fun with it. This is a video of the game in action (right before the "outside"). Enjoy.
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