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RPG Community |OT| Take the Epoch to a New Era
- Thread starter Deleted member 419
- Start date
Anyone following this game? It looks really interesting.
After finishing Fire Emblem Three Houses and Dark Souls Remastered I was looking at what to play next and wasn't sure what I really wanted to play but I felt like I needed something more light hearted or at the very least not so bleak after the two games I mentioned above. At first I was going to jump into Paper Mario on Lumi's suggestion but when I went to check to see if I owned the game on my Wii U instead I remembered that I had never played more then the first chapter of Tokyo Mirage Sessions. I remembered liking the game well enough so I figured I'd jump back into that and see if it was what I was looking for.
It was a lot of fun, well at least at first. TMS is actually rather interesting as I think its a pretty good RPG early on if not great. The way you pull off Sessions and chain attacks is fun, the way you get rewarded with item drops from getting higher and higher combos which is how you unlock new weapons/abilities was also fun. The characters are also enjoyable despite being a bunch of anime stereotypes. The theme of the game being centered around Japan's Idol culture and entertainment was also fairly interesting and I thought Chapter 1 of the game was very well done in really grabbing the player into the story with some high stakes right off the bat for our main Heroine Tsubasa trying to save her Sister.
It started off great and while the modern Persona connections the game used were obvious the lack of spending time on a daily/year system was great as it felt like A lot of the fluff and filler of the Persona games (which do get bogged down at times) was absent. I liked that I could start a chapter and get right into the main plot of that chapter fairly quickly and optional stuff really felt optional. Theres was something nice about playing a game thats setup like a Persona game in various aspects but not having to spend time each day doing various things to raise stats or develop bonds with characters. The session system I mentioned above as well felt like somewhat of an evolution of the Press turn system of SMT/The all out attack system of Persona with you chaining attacks together and eventually being able to use Duets between various characters which had special effects and kept the combo of the session going gaining more items each time you did it.
All of this was fun and for the first half or so of the game I was really enjoying it... The Problem though is that the same systems I mentioned previously that I really liked early on felt like they bogged down the latter half of the game once you got your full cast of characters. Sessions became longer and longer with you only being able to skip the animations for the first attacks and any Duets you performed, each battle would generally raise multiple weapon skills meaning you had to menu constantly to add/change new abilities even if you didn't want them, you eventually get many weapons you can create at once and between doing the menus and trying to skip through things as quickly as possible to make said weapons it still takes like half of an hour to get through all of it each time you go back to Tiki to do it.
All of this just made the latter half of the game drag. I constantly wanted a turbo button to go through the menus/sessions and everything quicker. I didn't end up hating the game, on the contrary I still think its quite good but Its a rare experience that the game giving you more of something you actually really like about it early on ends up making the gameplay actually worse.
The characters I did enjoy for the most part. The one character that is an exception to this was Barry who is just the worst and unnecessary to the plot and really should've just been axed from the game entirely. Everyone else though is pretty good, I ended up really liking the way they did Yashiro's character. He looks down on you and your 'power of friendship' stuff early on and serves as a bit of an antagonist in the first half of the game but he comes around rather quickly after that and his development between him and Itsuki plays out surprisingly well and its not drawn out like you typically see these kinds of character arcs.
As for everyone else... Itsuki himself is pretty bland, rather typical light novel kind of protagonist that is able to 'bring people together' despite not really doing much to really do that. Tsubasa was adorable I just wish the game didn't try to sexualize her so much. Touma was okay, nothing all that special but nothing really bad to say about him either. Kiria was more interesting then I expected, her Performa being Tharja had me curious at first but her side stories get to show that shes got a more interesting personality that it first appears. Ellie was great except that she wouldn't shut the fuck up about Hollywood which really got old after awhile. Mamori was pretty meh, her stuff being centered around Barry didn't help at all. She's not a bad character but she just isn't given all that much to do. She makes for a damn great character in battle though as shes able to protect other characters automatically from damage and her defense is really high so shes really quite useful.
Speaking of the battles, its one of the few RPG's I've played where I really felt like all of the characters were usable at any time, I ended up subbing them out rather frequently and each had their own advantages and disadvantages. I never felt like I ever got the perfect or strongest party. Theres never a character that just massively outperforms someone else. I just wish Itsuki could've been swapped out in battle to, not that hes not fun to use but theres a lot more interesting combinations you could do for your party makeup if you didn't have to use him.
Well this is gone way longer then I originally intended so last thing I want to leave with is that despite my complains I did enjoy the game overall and I really appreciated the attention to detail on various things. When your characters complete side stories or new performances (such as releasing a new song, getting a part on a new show, ect) you'll see the posters around town change to reflect that. When your characters are in battle the little magic circle they use to cast magic is them signing their signature, The background of the battles features an audience. All of these and more do such a great job giving the theme of the game so much more of a presence but also something I think thats somewhat easy to miss after your first few hours. Theres a lot of really nice touches they did throughout the game like this to really give it a unique feel.
If the game ever gets ported or remastered I'd hope they'd add in a turbo feature with how common those are becoming and while its doubtful the game will ever get a proper sequel I do hope the mechanics from the game like Sessions are used again in a future project. Theres a lot of potential to really evolve the standard SMT/Persona battle system and I think TMS makes a great example of what that could be like, it just needs more refinement.
It was a lot of fun, well at least at first. TMS is actually rather interesting as I think its a pretty good RPG early on if not great. The way you pull off Sessions and chain attacks is fun, the way you get rewarded with item drops from getting higher and higher combos which is how you unlock new weapons/abilities was also fun. The characters are also enjoyable despite being a bunch of anime stereotypes. The theme of the game being centered around Japan's Idol culture and entertainment was also fairly interesting and I thought Chapter 1 of the game was very well done in really grabbing the player into the story with some high stakes right off the bat for our main Heroine Tsubasa trying to save her Sister.
It started off great and while the modern Persona connections the game used were obvious the lack of spending time on a daily/year system was great as it felt like A lot of the fluff and filler of the Persona games (which do get bogged down at times) was absent. I liked that I could start a chapter and get right into the main plot of that chapter fairly quickly and optional stuff really felt optional. Theres was something nice about playing a game thats setup like a Persona game in various aspects but not having to spend time each day doing various things to raise stats or develop bonds with characters. The session system I mentioned above as well felt like somewhat of an evolution of the Press turn system of SMT/The all out attack system of Persona with you chaining attacks together and eventually being able to use Duets between various characters which had special effects and kept the combo of the session going gaining more items each time you did it.
All of this was fun and for the first half or so of the game I was really enjoying it... The Problem though is that the same systems I mentioned previously that I really liked early on felt like they bogged down the latter half of the game once you got your full cast of characters. Sessions became longer and longer with you only being able to skip the animations for the first attacks and any Duets you performed, each battle would generally raise multiple weapon skills meaning you had to menu constantly to add/change new abilities even if you didn't want them, you eventually get many weapons you can create at once and between doing the menus and trying to skip through things as quickly as possible to make said weapons it still takes like half of an hour to get through all of it each time you go back to Tiki to do it.
All of this just made the latter half of the game drag. I constantly wanted a turbo button to go through the menus/sessions and everything quicker. I didn't end up hating the game, on the contrary I still think its quite good but Its a rare experience that the game giving you more of something you actually really like about it early on ends up making the gameplay actually worse.
The characters I did enjoy for the most part. The one character that is an exception to this was Barry who is just the worst and unnecessary to the plot and really should've just been axed from the game entirely. Everyone else though is pretty good, I ended up really liking the way they did Yashiro's character. He looks down on you and your 'power of friendship' stuff early on and serves as a bit of an antagonist in the first half of the game but he comes around rather quickly after that and his development between him and Itsuki plays out surprisingly well and its not drawn out like you typically see these kinds of character arcs.
As for everyone else... Itsuki himself is pretty bland, rather typical light novel kind of protagonist that is able to 'bring people together' despite not really doing much to really do that. Tsubasa was adorable I just wish the game didn't try to sexualize her so much. Touma was okay, nothing all that special but nothing really bad to say about him either. Kiria was more interesting then I expected, her Performa being Tharja had me curious at first but her side stories get to show that shes got a more interesting personality that it first appears. Ellie was great except that she wouldn't shut the fuck up about Hollywood which really got old after awhile. Mamori was pretty meh, her stuff being centered around Barry didn't help at all. She's not a bad character but she just isn't given all that much to do. She makes for a damn great character in battle though as shes able to protect other characters automatically from damage and her defense is really high so shes really quite useful.
Speaking of the battles, its one of the few RPG's I've played where I really felt like all of the characters were usable at any time, I ended up subbing them out rather frequently and each had their own advantages and disadvantages. I never felt like I ever got the perfect or strongest party. Theres never a character that just massively outperforms someone else. I just wish Itsuki could've been swapped out in battle to, not that hes not fun to use but theres a lot more interesting combinations you could do for your party makeup if you didn't have to use him.
Well this is gone way longer then I originally intended so last thing I want to leave with is that despite my complains I did enjoy the game overall and I really appreciated the attention to detail on various things. When your characters complete side stories or new performances (such as releasing a new song, getting a part on a new show, ect) you'll see the posters around town change to reflect that. When your characters are in battle the little magic circle they use to cast magic is them signing their signature, The background of the battles features an audience. All of these and more do such a great job giving the theme of the game so much more of a presence but also something I think thats somewhat easy to miss after your first few hours. Theres a lot of really nice touches they did throughout the game like this to really give it a unique feel.
If the game ever gets ported or remastered I'd hope they'd add in a turbo feature with how common those are becoming and while its doubtful the game will ever get a proper sequel I do hope the mechanics from the game like Sessions are used again in a future project. Theres a lot of potential to really evolve the standard SMT/Persona battle system and I think TMS makes a great example of what that could be like, it just needs more refinement.
So, I wrapped up The Last Remnant this morning after chipping away at it since December.
I initially was one of those people waiting for the PS3 version for what seemed a lifetime. Once it hit PC, I put about 15-20 hours into it before eventually just falling away from it. I'll blame FFXIV for that. The PS4 announcement was a chance for me to reset and try again. I was already in the renewed mindset of Complex Battle System what with Resonance of Fate coming out on PS4/PC. RoF is one of my favorite games, so finally completing it gave me a lot of energy and confidence to tackle the monstrous Kawazu game - The Last Remnant.
First off, TLR is a big game. It doesn't track your time, but I'd wager I put about 80 hours into it. While the game is big, it comes off as even bigger than it appears. This is due likely half of the game being completely optional. Sidequests seem to make up the bulk of the game. You could mainline the story and miss questlines, towns, entire regions, and lore if you didn't poke around talking to everyone. While having so much discoverable content, in modern times it just becomes a large spreedsheet of sidequests and what areas they unlock. I imagine the Availability Of Side Quests wiki page has 10-20 times the traffic of any other page. That said, with the way games work nowadays, I wasn't really turned off by the wall of checklisted content. I feel like I always had something to go after without the game telling me to do it. I'm sure some people will be turned off by it, but I was surprisingly ok with it.
Graphically, it looks great. The remaster features an upgrade from the Unreal 3 to Unreal 4 engine and it shows in a lot of cases. Some people might miss the older engine's lighting, but I felt it was an improvement from what I could actually recall. My only disappointment was that the glittery dust when an enemy dies doesn't look as pretty anymore. Perhaps that's for the best. Presentation wise, it has a slick UI that has...most of the info you need. Dozens of hours in, I was still stumbling around some parts of the menus and UI to find what I wanted to know. I'm sure I knew it prior, but it dawned on me a few days ago that I could swap the view to see what moves the party would use. This was a relief as I'd been counting AP costs to see if a certain move would come out. I wish there was a better way to display that, but I'd say the fault was mostly on my end as I'm sure the game told me PRESS BUTTON, SEE MOVES.
On the subject of moves, I'll shift into talk about the battle system. This is the best part of the game (tied with music, I suppose.) Every battle feels like a grand conflict. From a small group of 5 troops to 18 party members scattered in various groups, each conflict just felt so... big. The enemies were always varied in types and sizes, so I never felt like I was doing the same fight twice. I never got that feeling like I did in FFX where I'm doing the same move to the same enemy for the same effect. It was a lot of fun shifting my soldiers around to form unions, putting them into formations that played to their strengths, and allowing them to work with one another to get the most out of their abilities. I found myself building entire unions for the same of one particularly crushing move at times, then shuffling it around to fill a role such as a tanky, hard hitting melee squad that would run interference.
Near the end of the game, I had three main strikeforces and one support force. Each strikfreforce had the ability to withstand hard hits, dish out big damage, do a bit of support and minor healing when needed, and just be quick and mobile. It was nice to have a strikeforce that I tailored myself. My fourth unit was my wildcard of support. They were practically a group of doctors sitting on a nuclear arsenal. Most encounters, I was able to deadlock three groups of enemies and let my fourth unit standby and heal as needed. At times, they'd get attacked but they were always able to hold their own. They were nigh invincible with an absurd healing output, ability to revive, and buff spells. The best part? They had two nukes that I could use when the right conditions were met. The number of battles that I ended with a single spell was quite astounding. Both spells - Megalore and Blackout - were army killers.
At the end of the game, I didn't do all of the content. I'd say I did maybe 90% of it and was short a few quests that were frankly huge time commitments that I didn't really want to engage in right away. It's not that they're bad, I just wanted to move onto a different game and come back for a replay at some point to build the perfect units with the right skills. I was missing a lot of moves that I think would have made my life much easier. Combat oft relies heavily on morale - both unit and overall army moral - to gauge the strength of blows and general effectiveness of your unions combat. In most encounters, I had very low morale and was constantly beaten down with spells that crushed it even further. Yet I persevered, fighting back to a clutch victory or simply turning the tables and stomping the enemy into the dirt. I had pages upon pages of stat boosts being given out at the end of fights, so I felt like every single battle count. I fought everything stronger than me and often in huge linked battles. The number of struggling back and forth battles I went through was absurd, but also exhilarating. Pulling my entire force back from the brink of death and counter-attacking with incredibly powerful blasts was quite fun. I felt like I was often the underdog, toppling the giants of the world.
While in said combat, a fantastic symphony of guitars, drums, horns, and strings are blazing in the background. This game has one of the best and energetic OSTs I've heard in a long time. The soundtrack shifts as the tide of battle turns, going from chugging and ominous heavy metal when you're on the ropes to some high speed power metal when you're cutting the enemy in twain and reducing them to naught but dust to be blown away. There are some real standout tracks that sound like they'd come straight off of a Guilty Gear OST. It really shines and is a highlight of the game, especially if you're a fan of rock, metal, or intense music in general. Town themes are quaint and charming with their own sense of emotion to them. Underground themes fit well with the myriad caves you're traversing.
Continuing on with the aural front, the overall sound is great but what stands out to me are the sound effects themselves. Hearing sword clanging in the background in fights, explosions rattling the earth, and even the janky mechanical clicking of large summoned creatures engaging in combat was a treat. Paired with the visuals, the grand battles, and the overall 'bigness' of the battlefield, I really enjoyed the collective package. While combat is round-based, the combatants are actively clashing with the enemy that they're deadlocked with. It adds more life to the battlefield, rather than standing around waiting to get hit. It was just a little touch, but it made every encounter feel fluid and alive. Additionally, when you selected what to do and saw your character performing the move, it felt like it was just one of the few attacks they'd thrown out during the encounter. There was a rhythm and flow to it that I really appreciated.
While I've praised the game a lot, there are some shortcomings. I suppose the first one would be that the game is very Wiki Friendly, almost to the point that a Wiki or a Guide are almost required. Perhaps I didn't dig deep enough into menus, but there are times when characters will ask for parts of enemies and I've not a clue where to even start looking. You can also lead your characters into classes/roles you may not want them to go down just by letting them be. You're encouraged to turn off arts or styles to help a character focus on one thing, but unless someone told you that... it'd be quite difficult to know. To add onto that, you never really know what character will excel at what, which arts are the best against which types of monsters, or why certain schools of magic are inherently weak and useless. I went through the game trying to tinker around and tailor my army to fill rolls, but I also skipped over stuff or just never found it. To this day, I don't know where to get materials for traps. As far as I'm aware, they're useless anyways in comparison to the big mystic and combat arts.
Regarding the characters, some received a lot of development while others didn't receive much up front. Sidequests added a lot of backstory to Pagus, Torgal, and Emma as well as entire quest chains revolved around appeasing certain characters. However, some side characters got little of the light shined on them, leaving me with some questions regarding the Sykes family. I enjoyed Rush and Irina's interactions, but then again any interaction with Rush is a treat. He's a delightfully dumb young man who has a good heart. He wears his emotions on his sleeve and speaks his mind. Sure, what he says can come off as stupid or ignorant of the situation, but he means well and is a sincere character in every aspect. He's a great character who doesn't fit the typical protagonist role.
That said, I felt David was a very strong character who wanted the best for his people. He was charming, charismatic, and quite easy on the eyes. All the way until to the end, I felt he was a strong pillar in the games story and he carried through with it. He's a man of the people, and it shows. For the rest of the characters, my army was certainly full of a lot of my favorites, but I did have some characters I don't necessarily care for that filled a good role. I will say that Darien - a character made to be absurdly annoying and self centered - is probably my favorite character. He's such a little bastard that it's hard to hate him. The thing that made me think "I love this little shit" was when he gets an item he wants from an enemy and simply screams maniacally. The voice actor did a wonderful job with him.
I'll round this up by saying that The Last Remnant is a truly great game. I had a lot of fun with it. The combat is a blast when you get your head wrapped around all that it asks of you, the OST is a blazing aural rush, and the concept is both fun and ambitious. There was some things it could do better, but I think it's well worth the time and energy put in. It's grand, it's rewarding, and its a nice step away from the typical world of RPGs. I've heard many great things about it from SaGa fans and people enjoy Kawazu's work. As someone who's not really messed with any of the SaGa games much (I'll correct this some point in the near future), it was still a fun game that delivered on many fronts. At only $20 on PS4 and Switch (and likely soon to be re-released on PC with the new engine), I think it's well worth buying. That said, avoid the 360 version like the plague - I'm told its a completely different game and truly a poor alpha version of the game with many bizarre things such as punishing the player for fighting too much.
It's a difficult game to just play blind, but I think it's well worth giving a look. Just be prepared to spend some time in the wiki to ensure you see all of the world.
I initially was one of those people waiting for the PS3 version for what seemed a lifetime. Once it hit PC, I put about 15-20 hours into it before eventually just falling away from it. I'll blame FFXIV for that. The PS4 announcement was a chance for me to reset and try again. I was already in the renewed mindset of Complex Battle System what with Resonance of Fate coming out on PS4/PC. RoF is one of my favorite games, so finally completing it gave me a lot of energy and confidence to tackle the monstrous Kawazu game - The Last Remnant.
First off, TLR is a big game. It doesn't track your time, but I'd wager I put about 80 hours into it. While the game is big, it comes off as even bigger than it appears. This is due likely half of the game being completely optional. Sidequests seem to make up the bulk of the game. You could mainline the story and miss questlines, towns, entire regions, and lore if you didn't poke around talking to everyone. While having so much discoverable content, in modern times it just becomes a large spreedsheet of sidequests and what areas they unlock. I imagine the Availability Of Side Quests wiki page has 10-20 times the traffic of any other page. That said, with the way games work nowadays, I wasn't really turned off by the wall of checklisted content. I feel like I always had something to go after without the game telling me to do it. I'm sure some people will be turned off by it, but I was surprisingly ok with it.
Graphically, it looks great. The remaster features an upgrade from the Unreal 3 to Unreal 4 engine and it shows in a lot of cases. Some people might miss the older engine's lighting, but I felt it was an improvement from what I could actually recall. My only disappointment was that the glittery dust when an enemy dies doesn't look as pretty anymore. Perhaps that's for the best. Presentation wise, it has a slick UI that has...most of the info you need. Dozens of hours in, I was still stumbling around some parts of the menus and UI to find what I wanted to know. I'm sure I knew it prior, but it dawned on me a few days ago that I could swap the view to see what moves the party would use. This was a relief as I'd been counting AP costs to see if a certain move would come out. I wish there was a better way to display that, but I'd say the fault was mostly on my end as I'm sure the game told me PRESS BUTTON, SEE MOVES.
On the subject of moves, I'll shift into talk about the battle system. This is the best part of the game (tied with music, I suppose.) Every battle feels like a grand conflict. From a small group of 5 troops to 18 party members scattered in various groups, each conflict just felt so... big. The enemies were always varied in types and sizes, so I never felt like I was doing the same fight twice. I never got that feeling like I did in FFX where I'm doing the same move to the same enemy for the same effect. It was a lot of fun shifting my soldiers around to form unions, putting them into formations that played to their strengths, and allowing them to work with one another to get the most out of their abilities. I found myself building entire unions for the same of one particularly crushing move at times, then shuffling it around to fill a role such as a tanky, hard hitting melee squad that would run interference.
Near the end of the game, I had three main strikeforces and one support force. Each strikfreforce had the ability to withstand hard hits, dish out big damage, do a bit of support and minor healing when needed, and just be quick and mobile. It was nice to have a strikeforce that I tailored myself. My fourth unit was my wildcard of support. They were practically a group of doctors sitting on a nuclear arsenal. Most encounters, I was able to deadlock three groups of enemies and let my fourth unit standby and heal as needed. At times, they'd get attacked but they were always able to hold their own. They were nigh invincible with an absurd healing output, ability to revive, and buff spells. The best part? They had two nukes that I could use when the right conditions were met. The number of battles that I ended with a single spell was quite astounding. Both spells - Megalore and Blackout - were army killers.
At the end of the game, I didn't do all of the content. I'd say I did maybe 90% of it and was short a few quests that were frankly huge time commitments that I didn't really want to engage in right away. It's not that they're bad, I just wanted to move onto a different game and come back for a replay at some point to build the perfect units with the right skills. I was missing a lot of moves that I think would have made my life much easier. Combat oft relies heavily on morale - both unit and overall army moral - to gauge the strength of blows and general effectiveness of your unions combat. In most encounters, I had very low morale and was constantly beaten down with spells that crushed it even further. Yet I persevered, fighting back to a clutch victory or simply turning the tables and stomping the enemy into the dirt. I had pages upon pages of stat boosts being given out at the end of fights, so I felt like every single battle count. I fought everything stronger than me and often in huge linked battles. The number of struggling back and forth battles I went through was absurd, but also exhilarating. Pulling my entire force back from the brink of death and counter-attacking with incredibly powerful blasts was quite fun. I felt like I was often the underdog, toppling the giants of the world.
While in said combat, a fantastic symphony of guitars, drums, horns, and strings are blazing in the background. This game has one of the best and energetic OSTs I've heard in a long time. The soundtrack shifts as the tide of battle turns, going from chugging and ominous heavy metal when you're on the ropes to some high speed power metal when you're cutting the enemy in twain and reducing them to naught but dust to be blown away. There are some real standout tracks that sound like they'd come straight off of a Guilty Gear OST. It really shines and is a highlight of the game, especially if you're a fan of rock, metal, or intense music in general. Town themes are quaint and charming with their own sense of emotion to them. Underground themes fit well with the myriad caves you're traversing.
Continuing on with the aural front, the overall sound is great but what stands out to me are the sound effects themselves. Hearing sword clanging in the background in fights, explosions rattling the earth, and even the janky mechanical clicking of large summoned creatures engaging in combat was a treat. Paired with the visuals, the grand battles, and the overall 'bigness' of the battlefield, I really enjoyed the collective package. While combat is round-based, the combatants are actively clashing with the enemy that they're deadlocked with. It adds more life to the battlefield, rather than standing around waiting to get hit. It was just a little touch, but it made every encounter feel fluid and alive. Additionally, when you selected what to do and saw your character performing the move, it felt like it was just one of the few attacks they'd thrown out during the encounter. There was a rhythm and flow to it that I really appreciated.
While I've praised the game a lot, there are some shortcomings. I suppose the first one would be that the game is very Wiki Friendly, almost to the point that a Wiki or a Guide are almost required. Perhaps I didn't dig deep enough into menus, but there are times when characters will ask for parts of enemies and I've not a clue where to even start looking. You can also lead your characters into classes/roles you may not want them to go down just by letting them be. You're encouraged to turn off arts or styles to help a character focus on one thing, but unless someone told you that... it'd be quite difficult to know. To add onto that, you never really know what character will excel at what, which arts are the best against which types of monsters, or why certain schools of magic are inherently weak and useless. I went through the game trying to tinker around and tailor my army to fill rolls, but I also skipped over stuff or just never found it. To this day, I don't know where to get materials for traps. As far as I'm aware, they're useless anyways in comparison to the big mystic and combat arts.
Regarding the characters, some received a lot of development while others didn't receive much up front. Sidequests added a lot of backstory to Pagus, Torgal, and Emma as well as entire quest chains revolved around appeasing certain characters. However, some side characters got little of the light shined on them, leaving me with some questions regarding the Sykes family. I enjoyed Rush and Irina's interactions, but then again any interaction with Rush is a treat. He's a delightfully dumb young man who has a good heart. He wears his emotions on his sleeve and speaks his mind. Sure, what he says can come off as stupid or ignorant of the situation, but he means well and is a sincere character in every aspect. He's a great character who doesn't fit the typical protagonist role.
That said, I felt David was a very strong character who wanted the best for his people. He was charming, charismatic, and quite easy on the eyes. All the way until to the end, I felt he was a strong pillar in the games story and he carried through with it. He's a man of the people, and it shows. For the rest of the characters, my army was certainly full of a lot of my favorites, but I did have some characters I don't necessarily care for that filled a good role. I will say that Darien - a character made to be absurdly annoying and self centered - is probably my favorite character. He's such a little bastard that it's hard to hate him. The thing that made me think "I love this little shit" was when he gets an item he wants from an enemy and simply screams maniacally. The voice actor did a wonderful job with him.
I'll round this up by saying that The Last Remnant is a truly great game. I had a lot of fun with it. The combat is a blast when you get your head wrapped around all that it asks of you, the OST is a blazing aural rush, and the concept is both fun and ambitious. There was some things it could do better, but I think it's well worth the time and energy put in. It's grand, it's rewarding, and its a nice step away from the typical world of RPGs. I've heard many great things about it from SaGa fans and people enjoy Kawazu's work. As someone who's not really messed with any of the SaGa games much (I'll correct this some point in the near future), it was still a fun game that delivered on many fronts. At only $20 on PS4 and Switch (and likely soon to be re-released on PC with the new engine), I think it's well worth buying. That said, avoid the 360 version like the plague - I'm told its a completely different game and truly a poor alpha version of the game with many bizarre things such as punishing the player for fighting too much.
It's a difficult game to just play blind, but I think it's well worth giving a look. Just be prepared to spend some time in the wiki to ensure you see all of the world.
So, I wrapped up The Last Remnant this morning after chipping away at it since December.
I initially was one of those people waiting for the PS3 version for what seemed a lifetime. Once it hit PC, I put about 15-20 hours into it before eventually just falling away from it. I'll blame FFXIV for that. The PS4 announcement was a chance for me to reset and try again. I was already in the renewed mindset of Complex Battle System what with Resonance of Fate coming out on PS4/PC. RoF is one of my favorite games, so finally completing it gave me a lot of energy and confidence to tackle the monstrous Kawazu game - The Last Remnant.
First off, TLR is a big game. It doesn't track your time, but I'd wager I put about 80 hours into it. While the game is big, it comes off as even bigger than it appears. This is due likely half of the game being completely optional. Sidequests seem to make up the bulk of the game. You could mainline the story and miss questlines, towns, entire regions, and lore if you didn't poke around talking to everyone. While having so much discoverable content, in modern times it just becomes a large spreedsheet of sidequests and what areas they unlock. I imagine the Availability Of Side Quests wiki page has 10-20 times the traffic of any other page. That said, with the way games work nowadays, I wasn't really turned off by the wall of checklisted content. I feel like I always had something to go after without the game telling me to do it. I'm sure some people will be turned off by it, but I was surprisingly ok with it.
Graphically, it looks great. The remaster features an upgrade from the Unreal 3 to Unreal 4 engine and it shows in a lot of cases. Some people might miss the older engine's lighting, but I felt it was an improvement from what I could actually recall. My only disappointment was that the glittery dust when an enemy dies doesn't look as pretty anymore. Perhaps that's for the best. Presentation wise, it has a slick UI that has...most of the info you need. Dozens of hours in, I was still stumbling around some parts of the menus and UI to find what I wanted to know. I'm sure I knew it prior, but it dawned on me a few days ago that I could swap the view to see what moves the party would use. This was a relief as I'd been counting AP costs to see if a certain move would come out. I wish there was a better way to display that, but I'd say the fault was mostly on my end as I'm sure the game told me PRESS BUTTON, SEE MOVES.
On the subject of moves, I'll shift into talk about the battle system. This is the best part of the game (tied with music, I suppose.) Every battle feels like a grand conflict. From a small group of 5 troops to 18 party members scattered in various groups, each conflict just felt so... big. The enemies were always varied in types and sizes, so I never felt like I was doing the same fight twice. I never got that feeling like I did in FFX where I'm doing the same move to the same enemy for the same effect. It was a lot of fun shifting my soldiers around to form unions, putting them into formations that played to their strengths, and allowing them to work with one another to get the most out of their abilities. I found myself building entire unions for the same of one particularly crushing move at times, then shuffling it around to fill a role such as a tanky, hard hitting melee squad that would run interference.
Near the end of the game, I had three main strikeforces and one support force. Each strikfreforce had the ability to withstand hard hits, dish out big damage, do a bit of support and minor healing when needed, and just be quick and mobile. It was nice to have a strikeforce that I tailored myself. My fourth unit was my wildcard of support. They were practically a group of doctors sitting on a nuclear arsenal. Most encounters, I was able to deadlock three groups of enemies and let my fourth unit standby and heal as needed. At times, they'd get attacked but they were always able to hold their own. They were nigh invincible with an absurd healing output, ability to revive, and buff spells. The best part? They had two nukes that I could use when the right conditions were met. The number of battles that I ended with a single spell was quite astounding. Both spells - Megalore and Blackout - were army killers.
At the end of the game, I didn't do all of the content. I'd say I did maybe 90% of it and was short a few quests that were frankly huge time commitments that I didn't really want to engage in right away. It's not that they're bad, I just wanted to move onto a different game and come back for a replay at some point to build the perfect units with the right skills. I was missing a lot of moves that I think would have made my life much easier. Combat oft relies heavily on morale - both unit and overall army moral - to gauge the strength of blows and general effectiveness of your unions combat. In most encounters, I had very low morale and was constantly beaten down with spells that crushed it even further. Yet I persevered, fighting back to a clutch victory or simply turning the tables and stomping the enemy into the dirt. I had pages upon pages of stat boosts being given out at the end of fights, so I felt like every single battle count. I fought everything stronger than me and often in huge linked battles. The number of struggling back and forth battles I went through was absurd, but also exhilarating. Pulling my entire force back from the brink of death and counter-attacking with incredibly powerful blasts was quite fun. I felt like I was often the underdog, toppling the giants of the world.
While in said combat, a fantastic symphony of guitars, drums, horns, and strings are blazing in the background. This game has one of the best and energetic OSTs I've heard in a long time. The soundtrack shifts as the tide of battle turns, going from chugging and ominous heavy metal when you're on the ropes to some high speed power metal when you're cutting the enemy in twain and reducing them to naught but dust to be blown away. There are some real standout tracks that sound like they'd come straight off of a Guilty Gear OST. It really shines and is a highlight of the game, especially if you're a fan of rock, metal, or intense music in general. Town themes are quaint and charming with their own sense of emotion to them. Underground themes fit well with the myriad caves you're traversing.
Continuing on with the aural front, the overall sound is great but what stands out to me are the sound effects themselves. Hearing sword clanging in the background in fights, explosions rattling the earth, and even the janky mechanical clicking of large summoned creatures engaging in combat was a treat. Paired with the visuals, the grand battles, and the overall 'bigness' of the battlefield, I really enjoyed the collective package. While combat is round-based, the combatants are actively clashing with the enemy that they're deadlocked with. It adds more life to the battlefield, rather than standing around waiting to get hit. It was just a little touch, but it made every encounter feel fluid and alive. Additionally, when you selected what to do and saw your character performing the move, it felt like it was just one of the few attacks they'd thrown out during the encounter. There was a rhythm and flow to it that I really appreciated.
While I've praised the game a lot, there are some shortcomings. I suppose the first one would be that the game is very Wiki Friendly, almost to the point that a Wiki or a Guide are almost required. Perhaps I didn't dig deep enough into menus, but there are times when characters will ask for parts of enemies and I've not a clue where to even start looking. You can also lead your characters into classes/roles you may not want them to go down just by letting them be. You're encouraged to turn off arts or styles to help a character focus on one thing, but unless someone told you that... it'd be quite difficult to know. To add onto that, you never really know what character will excel at what, which arts are the best against which types of monsters, or why certain schools of magic are inherently weak and useless. I went through the game trying to tinker around and tailor my army to fill rolls, but I also skipped over stuff or just never found it. To this day, I don't know where to get materials for traps. As far as I'm aware, they're useless anyways in comparison to the big mystic and combat arts.
Regarding the characters, some received a lot of development while others didn't receive much up front. Sidequests added a lot of backstory to Pagus, Torgal, and Emma as well as entire quest chains revolved around appeasing certain characters. However, some side characters got little of the light shined on them, leaving me with some questions regarding the Sykes family. I enjoyed Rush and Irina's interactions, but then again any interaction with Rush is a treat. He's a delightfully dumb young man who has a good heart. He wears his emotions on his sleeve and speaks his mind. Sure, what he says can come off as stupid or ignorant of the situation, but he means well and is a sincere character in every aspect. He's a great character who doesn't fit the typical protagonist role.
That said, I felt David was a very strong character who wanted the best for his people. He was charming, charismatic, and quite easy on the eyes. All the way until to the end, I felt he was a strong pillar in the games story and he carried through with it. He's a man of the people, and it shows. For the rest of the characters, my army was certainly full of a lot of my favorites, but I did have some characters I don't necessarily care for that filled a good role. I will say that Darien - a character made to be absurdly annoying and self centered - is probably my favorite character. He's such a little bastard that it's hard to hate him. The thing that made me think "I love this little shit" was when he gets an item he wants from an enemy and simply screams maniacally. The voice actor did a wonderful job with him.
I'll round this up by saying that The Last Remnant is a truly great game. I had a lot of fun with it. The combat is a blast when you get your head wrapped around all that it asks of you, the OST is a blazing aural rush, and the concept is both fun and ambitious. There was some things it could do better, but I think it's well worth the time and energy put in. It's grand, it's rewarding, and its a nice step away from the typical world of RPGs. I've heard many great things about it from SaGa fans and people enjoy Kawazu's work. As someone who's not really messed with any of the SaGa games much (I'll correct this some point in the near future), it was still a fun game that delivered on many fronts. At only $20 on PS4 and Switch (and likely soon to be re-released on PC with the new engine), I think it's well worth buying. That said, avoid the 360 version like the plague - I'm told its a completely different game and truly a poor alpha version of the game with many bizarre things such as punishing the player for fighting too much.
It's a difficult game to just play blind, but I think it's well worth giving a look. Just be prepared to spend some time in the wiki to ensure you see all of the world.
Just wanna say that i really enjoyed the 360 version. It is definitely worth a play if that's your only access to tyhe game.
I finished another of my blitz games a while back - Slay the Spire. As in, I finished Act 3 with all three characters and then the unlockable Act 4 ending with one character, which seems like it should count.
It's an incredibly fun game and it lives up the praise it received from pretty much everyone. I'm not a huge fan of deckbuilding games (my first experience with them was the Dominion base set, which instantly soured me on the whole genre) but I was still immediately hooked. The main idea of using deckbuilding as RPG character progression works incredibly well. It's really fun seeing your deck grow from complete trash to a combo-filled monster capable of dealing hundreds of damage per turn. The character/card and enemy design also have a lot of diversity, with the three characters playing quite differently from each other and different enemies presenting different problems that have to be dealt with differently depending on your character and build.
One thing I really love is how the game handles difficulty. In a lot of other roguelikes I've played, beating the game simply unlocks a hard mode and that's that. Then I either beat the hard mode or decide it's too hard and stop playing the game. In Slay the Spire, on the other hand, beating the game unlocks a new "ascension" mode, which adds a new small difficulty modifier to the game (harder normal enemies, harder bosses, less healing...) every time you clear it. The modifiers do a nice job of gradually ramping up the difficulty instead of just dumping you into an incredibly difficult hard mode. Additionally, since there's 20 of them for each character you now have an incentive to finish the game 60 times (or more when the new character drops). What's even better is that you only need to clear Act 3 (and not the really hard Act 4) to unlock a new ascension, which means you can also gradually ramp up the difficulty until you're good enough to clear Act 4.
There is one thing that's kind of weirdly disappointing for me though: I don't feel like I've actually gotten any better at playing the game even after roughly 20 hours of playtime. Usually, my experience with roguelikes has been that I would die pretty much instantly in the first few rounds and then get progressively better as I learn how the game works. With Slay the Spire, I won in my first playthrough, won again in my first playthrough with another character and then only needed two runs to win with the third. After that I've played a bunch more of the game and beat the real final boss in Act 4, but I still don't feel like I'm any better at the game then I was when I started. I still get runs where I just die after a few battles and also games where I just tear through everything and do pretty well on the final boss. I don't feel like I've really learned any new strategies or that I know how to play the game more optimally. I just do the same thing I did from the beginning: pick the cards that look good and fit my build and hope they work. There have to be more optimal strategies than the ones I'm using out there but short of reading a strategy guide I don't really know how I'd find out about them.
Not that it really matters much since I the game is still great and I'm still having a lot of fun playing it.
It's also currently an early unlock for Humble Bundle and it's on Game Pass so getting it is cheap at the moment.
It's an incredibly fun game and it lives up the praise it received from pretty much everyone. I'm not a huge fan of deckbuilding games (my first experience with them was the Dominion base set, which instantly soured me on the whole genre) but I was still immediately hooked. The main idea of using deckbuilding as RPG character progression works incredibly well. It's really fun seeing your deck grow from complete trash to a combo-filled monster capable of dealing hundreds of damage per turn. The character/card and enemy design also have a lot of diversity, with the three characters playing quite differently from each other and different enemies presenting different problems that have to be dealt with differently depending on your character and build.
One thing I really love is how the game handles difficulty. In a lot of other roguelikes I've played, beating the game simply unlocks a hard mode and that's that. Then I either beat the hard mode or decide it's too hard and stop playing the game. In Slay the Spire, on the other hand, beating the game unlocks a new "ascension" mode, which adds a new small difficulty modifier to the game (harder normal enemies, harder bosses, less healing...) every time you clear it. The modifiers do a nice job of gradually ramping up the difficulty instead of just dumping you into an incredibly difficult hard mode. Additionally, since there's 20 of them for each character you now have an incentive to finish the game 60 times (or more when the new character drops). What's even better is that you only need to clear Act 3 (and not the really hard Act 4) to unlock a new ascension, which means you can also gradually ramp up the difficulty until you're good enough to clear Act 4.
There is one thing that's kind of weirdly disappointing for me though: I don't feel like I've actually gotten any better at playing the game even after roughly 20 hours of playtime. Usually, my experience with roguelikes has been that I would die pretty much instantly in the first few rounds and then get progressively better as I learn how the game works. With Slay the Spire, I won in my first playthrough, won again in my first playthrough with another character and then only needed two runs to win with the third. After that I've played a bunch more of the game and beat the real final boss in Act 4, but I still don't feel like I'm any better at the game then I was when I started. I still get runs where I just die after a few battles and also games where I just tear through everything and do pretty well on the final boss. I don't feel like I've really learned any new strategies or that I know how to play the game more optimally. I just do the same thing I did from the beginning: pick the cards that look good and fit my build and hope they work. There have to be more optimal strategies than the ones I'm using out there but short of reading a strategy guide I don't really know how I'd find out about them.
Not that it really matters much since I the game is still great and I'm still having a lot of fun playing it.
It's also currently an early unlock for Humble Bundle and it's on Game Pass so getting it is cheap at the moment.
I'm actually quite interested in this now. The art style is great and I like the concept of the game so far.
Off-Screen footage, 10 mins that shows the battle system.
Feels like a mixture of Etrian Odyssey, Disgaea, and Darkest Dungeon in some ways.
Also, nice write-up Eridani ! I've seen a lot of talk about Slay The Spire but I've never been big on Deck Building Games either. I'm trying to change that, slowly, but STS is certainly on my list.
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I have to mirror Eridani's glowing impressions on Slay The Spire. I've been playing it a lot lately and it's wonderful. It's pretty impressive how addictive it is, always leaving me wanting one more run despite these lasting as long as an hour and sometimes even more.
The variety the different characters bring is pretty clear, they have very distinct play styles and what can be a trivial obstacle for one can result in a life or death challenge for another; personally my favorite is The Silent, I just love to exploit poison-esque status effects in RPGs. I'm nowhere as good at the game as Eridani is tho, it took me like 9 runs before I beat act 3 with anyone and I've only managed that one victory so far in like 16 hours (with The Silent), but on the contrary, I do feel like I've improved significantly and use more clever strategies with each character.
I also love how they implemented permanent upgrades. I usually don't like these in roguelikes, but here they are extra cards that are added to the pool and while they're good and add new stuff to the table, they aren't essential, so it doesn't feel like you /need/ to unlock them to stand a chance.
I think my only complaint is that while the game looks good, the presentation feels like it lacks something. The music isn't very remarkable and barely changes, and given that the game's look is clearly inspired by Darkest Dungeon, it's disappointing that there aren't more graphical effects or camera movement to better sell your attacks; they feel like they lack impact.
Overall I'm very impressed with the game. It's wild to me how well the formula works. You'd think losing your entire, well-thought deck upon losing would be more devastating, but the pace at which you build it and progress through the game is so fast that if anything losing gets me excited to start a new run and see what I can come up with next.
The variety the different characters bring is pretty clear, they have very distinct play styles and what can be a trivial obstacle for one can result in a life or death challenge for another; personally my favorite is The Silent, I just love to exploit poison-esque status effects in RPGs. I'm nowhere as good at the game as Eridani is tho, it took me like 9 runs before I beat act 3 with anyone and I've only managed that one victory so far in like 16 hours (with The Silent), but on the contrary, I do feel like I've improved significantly and use more clever strategies with each character.
I also love how they implemented permanent upgrades. I usually don't like these in roguelikes, but here they are extra cards that are added to the pool and while they're good and add new stuff to the table, they aren't essential, so it doesn't feel like you /need/ to unlock them to stand a chance.
I think my only complaint is that while the game looks good, the presentation feels like it lacks something. The music isn't very remarkable and barely changes, and given that the game's look is clearly inspired by Darkest Dungeon, it's disappointing that there aren't more graphical effects or camera movement to better sell your attacks; they feel like they lack impact.
Overall I'm very impressed with the game. It's wild to me how well the formula works. You'd think losing your entire, well-thought deck upon losing would be more devastating, but the pace at which you build it and progress through the game is so fast that if anything losing gets me excited to start a new run and see what I can come up with next.
Hi, RPG thread. With Divinity OS2 surprise appearing on Switch, I thought it would be a good time to ask a couple questions about how it compares to DOS1.
Now, isometric WRPGs and I usually don't get along super well (to the point that I don't even really consider playing them anymore, outside of the very rare exception like Disco Elysium), but I have played DOS1 and mostly enjoyed it. I didn't finish it, though. You always hear that DOS2 is supposed to be quite a bit better, and I liked the option to play as a number of different fantasy races. How is the story compared to 1? I know it's supposed to be less generic, but is it interesting? Written fairly well?
And one other, very important question: how does the play speed feel compared to 1? Probably my single biggest problem with DOS1 and a large part of why I eventually dropped it was that it did this weird thing where I swear it felt like everything took about 15% too long to do. I don't mean I wanted to run the game at 1.5x or anything like that, I mean that from a design standpoint it felt like everything was designed for periods of time that were too long. Equipment took too long to set up, run speed was slow, conversations, everything. No other game I've ever played has made me feel like this (and I dropped DOS1 probably over a year ago at this point), so I can't describe it super well. Did anyone else feel like that? Was DOS2 any better about it?
Now, isometric WRPGs and I usually don't get along super well (to the point that I don't even really consider playing them anymore, outside of the very rare exception like Disco Elysium), but I have played DOS1 and mostly enjoyed it. I didn't finish it, though. You always hear that DOS2 is supposed to be quite a bit better, and I liked the option to play as a number of different fantasy races. How is the story compared to 1? I know it's supposed to be less generic, but is it interesting? Written fairly well?
And one other, very important question: how does the play speed feel compared to 1? Probably my single biggest problem with DOS1 and a large part of why I eventually dropped it was that it did this weird thing where I swear it felt like everything took about 15% too long to do. I don't mean I wanted to run the game at 1.5x or anything like that, I mean that from a design standpoint it felt like everything was designed for periods of time that were too long. Equipment took too long to set up, run speed was slow, conversations, everything. No other game I've ever played has made me feel like this (and I dropped DOS1 probably over a year ago at this point), so I can't describe it super well. Did anyone else feel like that? Was DOS2 any better about it?
I'm no WRPG or CRPG expert, but I've played quite a bit of DOS2. I beat DOS1 but haven't completed 2 yet. DOS2 is a bit quicker in some aspects, especially in the story front. You have a choice to play a created char of whatever race (including undead and dragonborn/lizard person!) and there are far more options available to you in how you want to approach combat builds. For starters, BUILDS are ACTUALLY VIABLE this time around. You want to be a tank? Go for it. You want to be support? Yup! Pure DPS? A-OK. You wanna be a crowd controlling ice-based tank mage that heals the party and freezes everything? Go nuts. You want to be a necromancer melee DPS with a giant sword who eats shields and constantly restores their own health while crippling the enemy? Be my guest. You can do so much and it actually works this time. I found in DOS1 I couldn't really tank worth a damn and weird fringe builds just seemed wholly ineffective.
Onto combat, it does feel a little faster to me but also a little less immediately deadly. In DOS1, I always felt like I was 1-2 hits away from death regardless of gear. Due to the introduction of physical/magical shielding in 2, effects aren't slapped on you right away and health doesn't drain until those shields are gone. I personally like the system quite a bit, but some people do lament their addition. It makes you play a bit more tactically, at least in my opinion. I set things up before hand when I look at the enemies and decide whose shields I want to strip so I can apply status effects and who I want to send out to tank due to their own shielding.
Combat is round robin now too, so its always moving. Some people hate this, as it means you will always alternate turns versus it being more speed/agility based in the first one. In DOS1 you could have all four chars go before the enemy got a single turn. In this one, it alternates. That said, you still see the order and can set things up to delay enemy turns or make them lose it by tossing more status effects/crippling/stunning/knocking down/etc. I like it as it keeps things active, but you may not like it if you're a fan of gearing your party to attack one after the other and set up speedy combos.
Back to the characters, which leads to story - you can make your own and do whatever, or you can play as the created characters who actually have quite good stories, themes, personalities, and more. They're fully fleshed out this time around with intertwining stories and tons of dialogue with one another. The story starts off with a bang and carries along quite well. To be fair, I've only made it through act two so I can't tell you if it falls off a cliff after that.
For conversations and general plot speed, I wouldn't say its faster but I'd say its more interesting. I found myself caring more about what people had to say about the current situation or whatever quest they wanted me to go on than I did in DOS1. I've also played this game exclusively co-op (and DOS1), so my concept of time passing may be weighted somewhat. Still, both my friend and I stopped to listen to dialogues together or muse about where the story was going. Hell, we even roleplayed our characters with the dialogue choices. Many a time I knew I was going to get us in trouble by picking something, but I picked it because it was what my character would say. We both grew sick of dialogue in DOS1 after some point and also felt it took a bit too long to do things/get to places/things to occur in the story. In DOS2, more happens and at a quicker pace, I'd say. Some of the plotlines don't feel as frivolous.
Anyways, sorry to wall-of-text / slap you in the face with an essay. I think DOS2 just does everything better. I wouldn't say its night and day, but I think it's a greatly improved game for many reasons. If possible, I'd recommend playing it with a friend.
Moon remix rpg adventure is the biggest localization megaton I've ever witnessed. I think only a Zero/Ao no kiseki official localization could top it.
Thank you for this detailed breakdown. It's not something I'm eager to go run out and play right away, but I will keep it in the back of my mind as a possibility if I get in the right mood for it.
I'll probably make an LTTP thread later on this later.
I'm playing through Fallout 4 (changed to it from tactics ogre) and wow, despite being a major fan of Fallout 2 and New Vegas and thinking 3 was just "ehh", I'm liking this more then I thought I would. I still have a lot of mixed feelings though.
+ The settlement building system is an ingenious addition to the Bethesda "go wherever, do whatever at your own pace" formula. Now you need every scrap of every little item placed in the world!
+ The workbench allows you to quickly dump all of your crafting materials into a container, and pulls from said container when you build something. This makes hunting for specific materials far, far less obnoxious then most crafting systems I've experienced. The material warehouse is even accessible from different settlements if you take a perk and set up trade routes!
+ Building settlements and cleaning up the wasteland adds a nice feeling of progress beyond "watch the numbers going up", and I like that.
+ Speaking of which, the leveling system is much better then in 3. I like systems where you can theoretically max everything if you're crazy enough, and open world sandbox games should not have a level cap anyway.
- These two points unfortunately mean that you pretty much have to have the strong back and local leader perks, which require you to invest into strength and charisma.
+ The city areas nicely implement a vertical dimension to the game, where you can climb up fire escapes, duck in and out of rooms, and hop from roof to roof.
+ The gunplay feels nice, and the enemy encounters are well done. For example, a raider was looking for me, and I wasn't sure where he was. I went up some stairs and he shot me through a hole in the wall he was waiting for me to pass. Later, a feral ghoul crawled through a small window I passed and smacked me in the back.
+ You have a greater reason to use VATS to target different body parts then the torso for accuracy or head for damage. Shoot robots' or ghouls' limbs off, make enemies loose their balance and fall, that sort of thing
+ I like the new Borderlands/Diablo style loot system with legendary items.
+ I'm on a personal mission to screenshot every teddy bear doing something I see. One with an officer cap driving a bus, one with glasses and a coffee mug reading the newspaper, two playing chess. This is a nice running gag.
There's plenty of problems though:
- The voiced protagonist. This greatly limits your dialogue possibilities, and they are not really much of a "character" to make up for this setback. Almost every dialogue prompt has been:
1. Yes,Agree,More Information (Nice)
2. Yes,Agree,More Information (Sarcastic)/Give me more money
3. No
4. Bye
And this gets old fast.
- Why, oh why, can't the game tell us what we're going to say before we say it? Example
1. Should have helped
2. Do the right thing
3. That sucks
4. Sarcastic (this one in particular is a complete wild card)
- Every single quest so far has been some variation of "go to area X and kill monsters/get item". Given this series's history of diverse quests that you can approach from multiple angles, this is extremely disappointing.
- Holy goddamn crap are the loading times obscene. The first time I transitioned to the overworld, I thought the game crashed on the loading screen. 90+ seconds later it loaded. This deters me from darting in and out of buildings. Thankfully someone made a workaround mod that speeds up the loading by disabling whatever makes it take so long, then re-enabling it when it's loaded. Bethesda games man.
- The story is really not gripping me. I've gotten to
and the protagonist's reaction to these game changing revelations is... barely existent? They don't really behave differently after the revelation then they did before This moment could have been fantastic if they were better characterized.
- I might not have gotten to it yet, but what exactly is The Institute's goal? I have a theory
But that goes against how they're been treating them - like disposable robots. I feel like I should know a bit more about what's going on before potentially making such a drastic change in allegiance.
TL;DR: Settlement building and exploration are great and go hand in hand, but the writing and quest design are lame.
I'm playing through Fallout 4 (changed to it from tactics ogre) and wow, despite being a major fan of Fallout 2 and New Vegas and thinking 3 was just "ehh", I'm liking this more then I thought I would. I still have a lot of mixed feelings though.
+ The settlement building system is an ingenious addition to the Bethesda "go wherever, do whatever at your own pace" formula. Now you need every scrap of every little item placed in the world!
+ The workbench allows you to quickly dump all of your crafting materials into a container, and pulls from said container when you build something. This makes hunting for specific materials far, far less obnoxious then most crafting systems I've experienced. The material warehouse is even accessible from different settlements if you take a perk and set up trade routes!
+ Building settlements and cleaning up the wasteland adds a nice feeling of progress beyond "watch the numbers going up", and I like that.
+ Speaking of which, the leveling system is much better then in 3. I like systems where you can theoretically max everything if you're crazy enough, and open world sandbox games should not have a level cap anyway.
- These two points unfortunately mean that you pretty much have to have the strong back and local leader perks, which require you to invest into strength and charisma.
+ The city areas nicely implement a vertical dimension to the game, where you can climb up fire escapes, duck in and out of rooms, and hop from roof to roof.
+ The gunplay feels nice, and the enemy encounters are well done. For example, a raider was looking for me, and I wasn't sure where he was. I went up some stairs and he shot me through a hole in the wall he was waiting for me to pass. Later, a feral ghoul crawled through a small window I passed and smacked me in the back.
+ You have a greater reason to use VATS to target different body parts then the torso for accuracy or head for damage. Shoot robots' or ghouls' limbs off, make enemies loose their balance and fall, that sort of thing
+ I like the new Borderlands/Diablo style loot system with legendary items.
+ I'm on a personal mission to screenshot every teddy bear doing something I see. One with an officer cap driving a bus, one with glasses and a coffee mug reading the newspaper, two playing chess. This is a nice running gag.
There's plenty of problems though:
- The voiced protagonist. This greatly limits your dialogue possibilities, and they are not really much of a "character" to make up for this setback. Almost every dialogue prompt has been:
1. Yes,Agree,More Information (Nice)
2. Yes,Agree,More Information (Sarcastic)/Give me more money
3. No
4. Bye
And this gets old fast.
- Why, oh why, can't the game tell us what we're going to say before we say it? Example
1. Should have helped
2. Do the right thing
3. That sucks
4. Sarcastic (this one in particular is a complete wild card)
- Every single quest so far has been some variation of "go to area X and kill monsters/get item". Given this series's history of diverse quests that you can approach from multiple angles, this is extremely disappointing.
- Holy goddamn crap are the loading times obscene. The first time I transitioned to the overworld, I thought the game crashed on the loading screen. 90+ seconds later it loaded. This deters me from darting in and out of buildings. Thankfully someone made a workaround mod that speeds up the loading by disabling whatever makes it take so long, then re-enabling it when it's loaded. Bethesda games man.
- The story is really not gripping me. I've gotten to
Father and the Institute
- I might not have gotten to it yet, but what exactly is The Institute's goal? I have a theory
humanity has destroyed itself so we're building the new and improved succesors to humanity, synths.
TL;DR: Settlement building and exploration are great and go hand in hand, but the writing and quest design are lame.
Well, that theory is as good as anything because I'm pretty sure the game never tells you. [/SPOILER]
I was an idiot who was wrong about Valkyrie Profile: Covenant and it's actually very good.
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Finished Final Fantasy V Advance for my Blitz. I liked it but I don't think I'll ever be more than lukewarm on the series. Except Final Fantasy Tactics which is perfect.
Started the SNES version of Dragon Quest 3. The fan translation translating some abilities takes some getting used to. But I haven't played the games when they were titled "Dragon Warrior" and only got to experience the newer translations so the fan translation might be closer to the former. "Blaze" and "Upper" lack the charm of "Frizz" and "Kabuff" though.
Not far in yet. Only opened the door with the magic ball in the second dungeon but so far I really like it. Coming from DQ2 kinda strange that your party is as mute as you but no biggie.
Visually though the game is stunning and probably one of the best looking SNES games. What I really like are the enemy animations which to me almost seem like polygon models in movement at times.
Having played through quite a few Dragon Quests in the last couple of years I also find it amazing how consistent the series is at its core formula. While each series entry added something to its predecessor and iterated on some stuff the knowledge of things in a later entry can easily applied to earlier entries.
Seeing how much I enjoy the series it kinda males me more mad at FFX. Because I played that as a child and didn't really like I thought for a while that JRPGs not called Pokemon or Golden Sun weren't for me so always put DQVIII back when I held it in my hands in stores.
Also playing Pyre for my Blitz and I dig it. The art is amazing. The Basketball game is alright but I would be just fine with it being a visual novel. It isn't that long so I hope I can finish it this week and start Baldur's Gate.
Started the SNES version of Dragon Quest 3. The fan translation translating some abilities takes some getting used to. But I haven't played the games when they were titled "Dragon Warrior" and only got to experience the newer translations so the fan translation might be closer to the former. "Blaze" and "Upper" lack the charm of "Frizz" and "Kabuff" though.
Not far in yet. Only opened the door with the magic ball in the second dungeon but so far I really like it. Coming from DQ2 kinda strange that your party is as mute as you but no biggie.
Visually though the game is stunning and probably one of the best looking SNES games. What I really like are the enemy animations which to me almost seem like polygon models in movement at times.
Having played through quite a few Dragon Quests in the last couple of years I also find it amazing how consistent the series is at its core formula. While each series entry added something to its predecessor and iterated on some stuff the knowledge of things in a later entry can easily applied to earlier entries.
Seeing how much I enjoy the series it kinda males me more mad at FFX. Because I played that as a child and didn't really like I thought for a while that JRPGs not called Pokemon or Golden Sun weren't for me so always put DQVIII back when I held it in my hands in stores.
Also playing Pyre for my Blitz and I dig it. The art is amazing. The Basketball game is alright but I would be just fine with it being a visual novel. It isn't that long so I hope I can finish it this week and start Baldur's Gate.
Not much, just use a side quests guide, so you don't miss any important ones and don't bother with the dlcs.
I beat Mother 3 the past weekend but since a lot of people are playing it I think I won't write a long post about it or it'll be full of black bars...
What I can say about it is that:
-I don't know if I like it more than Earthbound or not: It's super emotional but EarthBound feels super nostalgic too.
-Playing the last scenes of Mother 3 was almost painful.
I really don't want to say more than that. It's the last month so I'm expecting to read more comments about it. :madduck:
What I can say about it is that:
-I don't know if I like it more than Earthbound or not: It's super emotional but EarthBound feels super nostalgic too.
-Playing the last scenes of Mother 3 was almost painful.
I really don't want to say more than that. It's the last month so I'm expecting to read more comments about it. :madduck:
After 2 hours I can definitely say that Greedfall could either turn out to be pretty good or really, really basic. Which is a very helpful statement, I know.
So far the game has shown promise to be a decent RPG but it all depends on how much things evolve from where I'm at. I finished what is basically the tutorial area which took me roughly two hours. There were a couple of quests which ranged from kinda bad to pretty good.
In one of the more interesting quests you actually get a decent variety of solutions (tho nothing too out of the ordinary) whereas in the bad quest you pretty much just follow the objective marker, talk to people and in the end either fight or talk with really nothing in between. At one point you just find a note out in the open that basically reads "Make sure you bring food to THIS place but make sure nobody follows you *wink* *wink*" and that's just.....bad design.
Put that note behind some guards so I have to stealth (or fight) my way there. Put that note in a box so characters with lock picking can get it. Hide the key somewhere in the house so characters without lockpicking can get it. Put an NPC there that you can either charm or bribe. You get the idea. Which, weirdly enough is exactly what they did with another quest. So it remains to be seen which type of quest will be more common. The thing I am really more worried about is the "follow the quest marker" design of all the quests in the first area.
As is tradition in western RPGs your first companion is a rough, boring, no nonsense guy which is always exciting and your second companion is....another rough, no nonsense guy hooray. I hope those characters get better later on but so far I can't say I care about either of them. They basically feel like the same character. The city you start in also feels very bland and boring but again it is just the tutorial area so who knows. (I do think that the first area in a game matters a lot, but if things get better later on who cares, right?)
You meet two "faction leaders" in the first area, one of which is part of the religious faction and immediately talks about burning heretics at a stake, and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to dislike this faction already but I definitely do.
Combat is...okay. Nothing mind blowing and hopefully it get's more interesting once you get more abilities (the main reason I play as a mage) and meet more types of enemies since you only fight humans in the first area.
Ultimately, what the game did achieve so far is it makes me want to replay Gothic II which is objectively a perfect RPG and I will hau dir volles Pfund aufs Maul if you disagree.
But seriously I am genuinely curious how the game will continue since it could really go in any direction. The first area didn't impress me much but it also didn't feel terrible.
So far the game has shown promise to be a decent RPG but it all depends on how much things evolve from where I'm at. I finished what is basically the tutorial area which took me roughly two hours. There were a couple of quests which ranged from kinda bad to pretty good.
In one of the more interesting quests you actually get a decent variety of solutions (tho nothing too out of the ordinary) whereas in the bad quest you pretty much just follow the objective marker, talk to people and in the end either fight or talk with really nothing in between. At one point you just find a note out in the open that basically reads "Make sure you bring food to THIS place but make sure nobody follows you *wink* *wink*" and that's just.....bad design.
Put that note behind some guards so I have to stealth (or fight) my way there. Put that note in a box so characters with lock picking can get it. Hide the key somewhere in the house so characters without lockpicking can get it. Put an NPC there that you can either charm or bribe. You get the idea. Which, weirdly enough is exactly what they did with another quest. So it remains to be seen which type of quest will be more common. The thing I am really more worried about is the "follow the quest marker" design of all the quests in the first area.
As is tradition in western RPGs your first companion is a rough, boring, no nonsense guy which is always exciting and your second companion is....another rough, no nonsense guy hooray. I hope those characters get better later on but so far I can't say I care about either of them. They basically feel like the same character. The city you start in also feels very bland and boring but again it is just the tutorial area so who knows. (I do think that the first area in a game matters a lot, but if things get better later on who cares, right?)
You meet two "faction leaders" in the first area, one of which is part of the religious faction and immediately talks about burning heretics at a stake, and I'm not sure if I'm supposed to dislike this faction already but I definitely do.
Combat is...okay. Nothing mind blowing and hopefully it get's more interesting once you get more abilities (the main reason I play as a mage) and meet more types of enemies since you only fight humans in the first area.
Ultimately, what the game did achieve so far is it makes me want to replay Gothic II which is objectively a perfect RPG and I will hau dir volles Pfund aufs Maul if you disagree.
But seriously I am genuinely curious how the game will continue since it could really go in any direction. The first area didn't impress me much but it also didn't feel terrible.
My second game for this Blitz is finally beaten.
103 hours total, but it definitely would have been 110+ if I hadn't started taking... stronger liberties... with the mods in the very late game. After the 100 hour mark there was a huge spike in difficulty and I just wanted the dang thing to end instead of having to reload every trash mob fight several times.
It went from me feeling overpowered in the previous chapter due to all the high-level items and abilities I was getting to starting every battle with at least half my party automatically paralyzed, feared, and level drained no matter how many protections I pre-buffed with.
It was a truly epic story, taking my characters from level 1 to level 19 by the end (which in D&D terms is huge). Fun gameplay but poorly paced. I like it a lot but I don't see myself replaying it.
103 hours total, but it definitely would have been 110+ if I hadn't started taking... stronger liberties... with the mods in the very late game. After the 100 hour mark there was a huge spike in difficulty and I just wanted the dang thing to end instead of having to reload every trash mob fight several times.
It went from me feeling overpowered in the previous chapter due to all the high-level items and abilities I was getting to starting every battle with at least half my party automatically paralyzed, feared, and level drained no matter how many protections I pre-buffed with.
It was a truly epic story, taking my characters from level 1 to level 19 by the end (which in D&D terms is huge). Fun gameplay but poorly paced. I like it a lot but I don't see myself replaying it.
Hey RPG Era, nice to see some progress is still being made on those blitzes. There's still time!
I'm still on chapter 4 of Mother 3. Been watching Netflix with the wife and continuing on Xenoblade Chronicles 2, even though there's no way I can finish it by the end of this month!
Hope you all are doing well, and keep on blitzing.
I'm still on chapter 4 of Mother 3. Been watching Netflix with the wife and continuing on Xenoblade Chronicles 2, even though there's no way I can finish it by the end of this month!
Hope you all are doing well, and keep on blitzing.
Oh shit, totally forgot Judgment was my final Blitz game. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to finish it this weekend. Gotta do all the side quests and shit before I finish the main story, cause I have a strange tendency to lose all interest in doing any optional content after I see the credits roll, even if I loved a game otherwise.
I'm the same way, though I also tend to just finish the game I'm close to the end even if I have a stack of side quests.
Not sure why this happened, but I'm in chapter 4 of XC2 and I'm getting a deluge of side quests.
There's so much to this game. I've got a team of blades doing quests all the time now, dev levels in cities, aux crystals. I've got some new rare blades for Rex but I can't really tweak my party composition too much because Tora has called all-time tank and I don't have any damage blades for Nia yet, or at least not any rare blades.
I do have a rare blade with an earth element on Rex now (rare earth?), but I don't have a setup that lets me hit the third level of any combo that doesn't involve fire, so at least for the time being, Pyra it is.
There's so much to this game. I've got a team of blades doing quests all the time now, dev levels in cities, aux crystals. I've got some new rare blades for Rex but I can't really tweak my party composition too much because Tora has called all-time tank and I don't have any damage blades for Nia yet, or at least not any rare blades.
I do have a rare blade with an earth element on Rex now (rare earth?), but I don't have a setup that lets me hit the third level of any combo that doesn't involve fire, so at least for the time being, Pyra it is.
You're exactly where I'm at! I have a rare thunder and wind blade but can't seem to get their element combo things...
I'm probably at 28 hours now, roughly.
The only two level three combos I can do in my party right now are Fire->Water->Fire with Rex and Nia and Earth->Fire->Earth with Tora and Rex. I'm sure in time some more will unlock.
How's Iceborne?
I think I have the same combos too.
Iceborne is tough because I'm dragging my 371 defense Vaal armor through monsters that have armor sets that give 680+. Needless to say some moves one-shot me. Teaaaaaars.
It's very good though!
I've been getting some progress with Tokyo Xanadu, nearing the end of chapter 6. Also getting somewhere in Suikoden, with the inevitable confrontation getting closer.
I don't think I'll get to the other games during this blitz :yossy:.
I don't think I'll get to the other games during this blitz :yossy:.
I'm playing Underrail with its newest expansion and I think that this game has a really excellent combat system. Almost every fight feels like a dance of life and death.
I'm also playing Persona 5. I think that I like 3 and 4 better, but I've got to give it to Atlus: The game oozes with style. My problem is that most characters aren't doing it for me.
I'm also playing Persona 5. I think that I like 3 and 4 better, but I've got to give it to Atlus: The game oozes with style. My problem is that most characters aren't doing it for me.
Really hard to talk about Mother 3 because of spoilers!
PK Hugs is OP! I'm enjoying playing as Lucas so far. I've even started to use him in Smash a bit.
I'm about 10 hours into GreedFall now and sadly I don't think I can recommend the game.
The combat just lacks variety. The attacks you have at the start of the game are the attacks you have 10 hours in (+1 new one).
So there is just no variety in combat at all and it get's tedious pretty fast.
I'm also playing on the highest difficulty setting so combat should be incredibly demanding but playing like that just reveals how same-y it is
The combat just lacks variety. The attacks you have at the start of the game are the attacks you have 10 hours in (+1 new one).
So there is just no variety in combat at all and it get's tedious pretty fast.
I'm also playing on the highest difficulty setting so combat should be incredibly demanding but playing like that just reveals how same-y it is
Finally finished my fourth and last blitz game, Judgment.
Ergh. Arrggh. Buhguhhlr. POIJhoiashfouhasdgoiughsghghh. UUGHUGUHGGERRRFGH.
I fucking hate to say it, but I think this is a pretty bad game. The new major mechanics they've introduced, particularly tailing, chasing and investigating are all atrocious. Not only are they boring and braindead easy, every single tailing and chase sequence is essentially identical, once you've done one of each, you'll know exactly how they'll play out for the rest of the game. It's beyond repetitive, it's incredible. And investigating is just looking around until your controller rumbles. Exciting.
Side cases were by and large weak as all hell compared to Yakuza games. They were repetitive, unimaginative and just plain annoying, considering how much you're going to be doing the aforementioned three things in them. There were a couple of gems for sure, but as a whole, they don't hold a candle to almost any of the Yakuza games, maybe Kiwami excluded. That said, I missed a couple of them due to the idiotic way some of them are locked behind a grindy friendship system. I've heard they're good, but I don't fucking know mahjong, so I wouldn't know.
EDIT: managed to finish the mahjong thing by buying a wildly overpriced (in-game) cheat item for it, saving before sitting at the table (as the cheat item seems to activate on the very first round) then reloading until I got wareme first lol. And I can confirm, the second to last side quest that requires all 50 friends was pretty great for sure.
I've never enjoyed the Yakuza brawler combat system, but it feels extra frustrating and annoying in Judgment. Admittedly, that might be because unlike with Yakuzas, the other major gameplay mechanics are also shit in Judgment, so maybe that's coloring my impression. Also, shout out to the asshole who thought it'd be a good idea to add a 3 minute cooldown to the cheat items you can only get by buying the, well, cheat items DLC that cost 7 or 8 euros. I went as low as paying for fucking cheats, and they still have restrictions? Get fucked.
Yeah, I'm goddamn frustrated. Every single game I really looked forward to this year has been a disappointment on some level. KH3, Sekiro, Rage 2, Fire Emblem, Astral Chain. None of them are terrible, but none of them are really that great either. And now this. I figured Judgment would be the one game that simply couldn't disappoint, but here we are.
All that said, it's not all bad. I absolutely loved the main story and cast, and that goes a looong way for me. Might even be my favorite RGG Studio story so far, though I'll have to replay Yakuzas 3 to 5 before I can really say that. The main story is half the reason I play these games, so I still kind of want to say Judgment is a 7/10 experience or something solely thanks to the story.
I'd love to replay 3-5 right now, but I'm so fucking sick of this combat system that I'm gonna wait for the hopefully inevitable PC ports of the 3-5 remasters and just cheat my way through the combat.
And just for fun, here's my current rankings for RGG Studio games:
Yakuza 6 > Yakuza 0 > Yakuza Kiwami 2 > Judgment > Yakuza Kiwami
Ergh. Arrggh. Buhguhhlr. POIJhoiashfouhasdgoiughsghghh. UUGHUGUHGGERRRFGH.
I fucking hate to say it, but I think this is a pretty bad game. The new major mechanics they've introduced, particularly tailing, chasing and investigating are all atrocious. Not only are they boring and braindead easy, every single tailing and chase sequence is essentially identical, once you've done one of each, you'll know exactly how they'll play out for the rest of the game. It's beyond repetitive, it's incredible. And investigating is just looking around until your controller rumbles. Exciting.
Side cases were by and large weak as all hell compared to Yakuza games. They were repetitive, unimaginative and just plain annoying, considering how much you're going to be doing the aforementioned three things in them. There were a couple of gems for sure, but as a whole, they don't hold a candle to almost any of the Yakuza games, maybe Kiwami excluded. That said, I missed a couple of them due to the idiotic way some of them are locked behind a grindy friendship system. I've heard they're good, but I don't fucking know mahjong, so I wouldn't know.
EDIT: managed to finish the mahjong thing by buying a wildly overpriced (in-game) cheat item for it, saving before sitting at the table (as the cheat item seems to activate on the very first round) then reloading until I got wareme first lol. And I can confirm, the second to last side quest that requires all 50 friends was pretty great for sure.
I've never enjoyed the Yakuza brawler combat system, but it feels extra frustrating and annoying in Judgment. Admittedly, that might be because unlike with Yakuzas, the other major gameplay mechanics are also shit in Judgment, so maybe that's coloring my impression. Also, shout out to the asshole who thought it'd be a good idea to add a 3 minute cooldown to the cheat items you can only get by buying the, well, cheat items DLC that cost 7 or 8 euros. I went as low as paying for fucking cheats, and they still have restrictions? Get fucked.
Yeah, I'm goddamn frustrated. Every single game I really looked forward to this year has been a disappointment on some level. KH3, Sekiro, Rage 2, Fire Emblem, Astral Chain. None of them are terrible, but none of them are really that great either. And now this. I figured Judgment would be the one game that simply couldn't disappoint, but here we are.
All that said, it's not all bad. I absolutely loved the main story and cast, and that goes a looong way for me. Might even be my favorite RGG Studio story so far, though I'll have to replay Yakuzas 3 to 5 before I can really say that. The main story is half the reason I play these games, so I still kind of want to say Judgment is a 7/10 experience or something solely thanks to the story.
I'd love to replay 3-5 right now, but I'm so fucking sick of this combat system that I'm gonna wait for the hopefully inevitable PC ports of the 3-5 remasters and just cheat my way through the combat.
And just for fun, here's my current rankings for RGG Studio games:
Yakuza 6 > Yakuza 0 > Yakuza Kiwami 2 > Judgment > Yakuza Kiwami
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Today, I tried the demo for Solasta: Crown of the Magister. It currently has a Kickstarter campaign. It's a low level D&D (adventure) rpg with part-based, turn-based combat. I liked the demo enough to back it, and I know that some people here would like it.
I finished Fallout 4, allied with the Minutemen.
What a lousy ending. 30 seconds of generic footage voiced over by the protagonist. I'm getting Deus Ex Human Revolution flashbacks. Compare this to 1/2/New Vegas's ending slideshows that had a million different variables and permutations.
Still an improvement over Fallout 3 though, and I'm glad to see that Bethesda is playing to their strengths of low-pressure nearly-endless character development sandbox style over the more focused approach with a definitive beginning, middle, and end. I hope they apply this design philosophy to Elder Scrolls 6 and don't pump up the microtransactions/creation club nonsense. (I'll continue ignoring Fallout 76.)
What a lousy ending. 30 seconds of generic footage voiced over by the protagonist. I'm getting Deus Ex Human Revolution flashbacks. Compare this to 1/2/New Vegas's ending slideshows that had a million different variables and permutations.
Still an improvement over Fallout 3 though, and I'm glad to see that Bethesda is playing to their strengths of low-pressure nearly-endless character development sandbox style over the more focused approach with a definitive beginning, middle, and end. I hope they apply this design philosophy to Elder Scrolls 6 and don't pump up the microtransactions/creation club nonsense. (I'll continue ignoring Fallout 76.)
I finished my 5th blitz game a couple weeks ago: Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth3 V Generation. Took me around 35 hours to 100% it. The game is pretty much the same as the previous one so I'll just link my writeup for that one since most of it applies to this game too: https://www.resetera.com/threads/rpg-community-ot-take-the-epoch-to-a-new-era.793/post-20087625
As a small note to add, I liked the post game stuff a lot, the villains are a representation of microtransactions and it seemed pretty on point on the topic and the various jokes, and specially considering the current state of gaming.
I'm currently on the final stretch of Lightning Returns and expect to finish it this week, thus completing my blitz a bit earlier than scheduled.
As a small note to add, I liked the post game stuff a lot, the villains are a representation of microtransactions and it seemed pretty on point on the topic and the various jokes, and specially considering the current state of gaming.
I'm currently on the final stretch of Lightning Returns and expect to finish it this week, thus completing my blitz a bit earlier than scheduled.
Early on in Chapter 5 in Mother 3. With many people playing it I don't want to say much more than that, other than the fact that it's growing on me. The first three chapters were rather difficult for me.
Yeah, Mother 3 starts off even slower then Earthbound did. But the moment to moment dialogue is the best:
Best new feature: a run button! Earthbound gave you a bicycle then took it away once you got more party members. The desert section combined with the nearest revive station being all the way back in Threed on the other side of a tunnel was not a pleasant experience.
Did you get mistaken for an underage kid and a dog again?
Best new feature: a run button! Earthbound gave you a bicycle then took it away once you got more party members. The desert section combined with the nearest revive station being all the way back in Threed on the other side of a tunnel was not a pleasant experience.
I've been playing Front Mission 3 while traveling and I recall last time I played it (~15 years ago...) being pretty lukewarm on it. It does run pretty slow, but I've been enjoying it more as I understand some of the systems better.
I really do like the "small-scale" plot compared to a lot of RPGs - most of the game so far involves trying to find a new prototype bomb that was stolen and might be used for nefarious purposes - and although the various factions involved have been tricky to keep straight (there is probably plenty of exposition available on the game's "internet", but it's a slog to get through), it's been good so far. Mechanically it's pretty neat, but a lot of the randomness involved is hard to take. You want to get enemy pilots to surrender (or forcibly eject the pilots and steal their wanzers) as much as possible to get money and parts, but between skill activations, hitting parts randomly with any given weapon, and the hidden morale system it's difficult to consistently do so. Probably by design. There's been plenty of money to go around, but I want to get my hands on a more diverse set of parts so I can learn more useful skills - Ryogo + Alisa are the most consistently useful members of my party due largely to the parts they start out with. It's not like the game has been difficult or anything - just looking to min-max my party a bit.
On some level, I want to turn off the animations... but I'm not sure I'll enjoy the game as much when I don't see the satisfying weapons effects. I wish the animations were individually skippable or could be fast-forwarded, because some animations (shotguns) are fun to watch, while others (missiles) are tedious.
I probably won't end up finishing it, but that's true of most games I play lately. When I have more time, maybe.
I really do like the "small-scale" plot compared to a lot of RPGs - most of the game so far involves trying to find a new prototype bomb that was stolen and might be used for nefarious purposes - and although the various factions involved have been tricky to keep straight (there is probably plenty of exposition available on the game's "internet", but it's a slog to get through), it's been good so far. Mechanically it's pretty neat, but a lot of the randomness involved is hard to take. You want to get enemy pilots to surrender (or forcibly eject the pilots and steal their wanzers) as much as possible to get money and parts, but between skill activations, hitting parts randomly with any given weapon, and the hidden morale system it's difficult to consistently do so. Probably by design. There's been plenty of money to go around, but I want to get my hands on a more diverse set of parts so I can learn more useful skills - Ryogo + Alisa are the most consistently useful members of my party due largely to the parts they start out with. It's not like the game has been difficult or anything - just looking to min-max my party a bit.
On some level, I want to turn off the animations... but I'm not sure I'll enjoy the game as much when I don't see the satisfying weapons effects. I wish the animations were individually skippable or could be fast-forwarded, because some animations (shotguns) are fun to watch, while others (missiles) are tedious.
I probably won't end up finishing it, but that's true of most games I play lately. When I have more time, maybe.
Hm, was there no Fast Forward button? Maybe that was only added in 4.
Finished my blitz with Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy 13. I think as a final assessment I liked it less than the previous entries in the trilogy.
My main gripe was with the combat system. While seeing SE experiment a bit and take some risks (something that I think worked and I praised for the previous entries), this time it wasn't really good for me. I have an inherent dislike for anything timing-based in RPGs and the combat system for LR is very timing-dependant.
The game introduces a guard ability which reduces the incoming damage for a brief time, and if you time it perfectly (I believe the window is 1/6th of a second) you get a Perfect Guard which nullifies most of the damage and can help stagger the opponent. The problem is, for a few boss fights if you don't perfect guard you either get one-shotted or take a lot of damage, and the game is not really forgiving when it comes to healing options (items which are very limited or the use of magic points which are also really limited). For me, that gets frustrating fast and I found it obnoxious to have to replay some bosses up to 6 times until I had the timing down.
The offensive part of the combat system is more fun but still timing based. It gets satisfying once you learn a few good combos and you have the finger muscle memory to execute those flawlessly. I also liked the dress system, it added a ton of variety and figuring out equipment combinations and setups was cool. I think in the end I would've liked the whole thing way more without the guard mechanic.
In terms of the general gameplay, the game throws you into a fairly big world with almost no guidance, and to make it worse you have a limited in game time to do stuff, with a big countdown on the screen as a permanent reminder. I have to admit I was pretty lost in the beginning hours of the game since I didn't know what to do or what to prioritize. Once I became familiar with more stuff and read some things online it was much easier, and admittedly the game is very forgiving and provides you with a way to stop time that's relatively easy to spam all the time. So, by the time I had finished almost all the content I had a couple of days to spare.
The story is interesting at times but certainly a mess. I'm sure someone online has managed to make sense of the entire trilogy and how everything connects between the games but in my opinion they just looked for excuses to make Lightning seem cool at the expense of a good plot.
Finally, I think the PC port was an improvement over the previous 2 games. I had no crashes while playing and best of all, the controls were fully customizable on the keyboard so I could avoid the awkward scheme of 13 and 13-2. The game also looks very pretty and the soundtrack is great.
Overall, I enjoyed playing through the trilogy and exploring the different ideas Square had for each game. I think they certainly are worthy additions to the FF saga and hopefully more people can give them a chance.
My main gripe was with the combat system. While seeing SE experiment a bit and take some risks (something that I think worked and I praised for the previous entries), this time it wasn't really good for me. I have an inherent dislike for anything timing-based in RPGs and the combat system for LR is very timing-dependant.
The game introduces a guard ability which reduces the incoming damage for a brief time, and if you time it perfectly (I believe the window is 1/6th of a second) you get a Perfect Guard which nullifies most of the damage and can help stagger the opponent. The problem is, for a few boss fights if you don't perfect guard you either get one-shotted or take a lot of damage, and the game is not really forgiving when it comes to healing options (items which are very limited or the use of magic points which are also really limited). For me, that gets frustrating fast and I found it obnoxious to have to replay some bosses up to 6 times until I had the timing down.
The offensive part of the combat system is more fun but still timing based. It gets satisfying once you learn a few good combos and you have the finger muscle memory to execute those flawlessly. I also liked the dress system, it added a ton of variety and figuring out equipment combinations and setups was cool. I think in the end I would've liked the whole thing way more without the guard mechanic.
In terms of the general gameplay, the game throws you into a fairly big world with almost no guidance, and to make it worse you have a limited in game time to do stuff, with a big countdown on the screen as a permanent reminder. I have to admit I was pretty lost in the beginning hours of the game since I didn't know what to do or what to prioritize. Once I became familiar with more stuff and read some things online it was much easier, and admittedly the game is very forgiving and provides you with a way to stop time that's relatively easy to spam all the time. So, by the time I had finished almost all the content I had a couple of days to spare.
The story is interesting at times but certainly a mess. I'm sure someone online has managed to make sense of the entire trilogy and how everything connects between the games but in my opinion they just looked for excuses to make Lightning seem cool at the expense of a good plot.
Finally, I think the PC port was an improvement over the previous 2 games. I had no crashes while playing and best of all, the controls were fully customizable on the keyboard so I could avoid the awkward scheme of 13 and 13-2. The game also looks very pretty and the soundtrack is great.
Overall, I enjoyed playing through the trilogy and exploring the different ideas Square had for each game. I think they certainly are worthy additions to the FF saga and hopefully more people can give them a chance.
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Caught up to me and passed me.
The only true competition is with myself.
Or the calendar, in this case. Seven days remain to finish Mother 3.
I gave up on finishing my fourth Blitz game on time. I could attempt to do it but I don't want to if that means rushing it and ruining my enjoyment in the process.
makes sense. I'm pretty comfortable with the pace that I think I need to play to finish in the next week.
I'd like to finish my third before the month ends so I'll have a weekish before Indivisible, but I suppose my actual end-date goal should be Oct 7th...
I'm pretty close in Lulua, I think. On chapter 8 of 11 and I've finished a lot of the alchemy riddle. Of course, once I finish the basic quests all of the advanced ones will show up...so my 17 tasks will turn into 50 I imagine.
I'm pretty close in Lulua, I think. On chapter 8 of 11 and I've finished a lot of the alchemy riddle. Of course, once I finish the basic quests all of the advanced ones will show up...so my 17 tasks will turn into 50 I imagine.
I played FF XIII-2 last blitz, and need to slot in Lightning Returns in the next one.
You played on PC, right? Did you play Requiem of the Goddess?