The RPG Duelling League
Social Forums => General Chat => Topic started by: Grefter on December 31, 2017, 11:42:24 PM
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FFD2 - okay they port over way more mobile F2P DNA than I was expecting. It handles all encounters in the same way Record Keeper does where everything is a set number of waves. They are pretty mindless and easy and can be auto battlefests by default if you get ahead of the curve even a little.
So I will probably champion it a bit less than FFD1.
Ooon the other hand though it does mean it is a stronger fit on mobile where FFD was more “here is a fun budget FF game you have to play on your phone/tablet. It is great if you can ignore the controls!” Instead I am more annoyed that I have to play it in Landscape.
No Stamina or anything to fight with, just a game that has mobile game core mechanics. It will probably pan out to be a fun game to play to pass time on public transport.
Good Rec Djinn!
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AA6 - I just finished the Investigation of Day 2. This is a rare, bizarre case where I have actually enjoyed the investigations and did not enjoy the trial day very much. I thought the day 1 investigation was fun because it has a cast of colorful characters to bounce off of (and Alhbi, but you can't win them all I guess.)
For the trial, I think that the Divination Seances are really fun partially because Rayfa is so great to piss off and partially because it's a fun and not outplayed mechanic, but the rest of the trial day was a big dud because the 'key witness' is such a lying hack and an idiot, which really drains the tension out of the case and makes the prosecution look really stupid. It's also an overly long sequence which leads you absolutely nowhere. Just throw the bum out! There is so much melodrama. Also, why does the game treat me like I am braindead and flashback things that happen minutes ago?
Day 2 Investigation was quite interesting. I liked the dialogue stuff with Rayfa and the exploration of what makes that character tick, and the scene withDats is really interesting and helps shed a lot of light on the setting and the backstory. That sequence goes a long way to redeeming that character from that dreadful trial. I am interested to see where they go with the relationship between Dhurke, Sahdmadhi, and Apollo. I actually thought Datz would be Apollo's dad though! The Day 1 Trial really soured me on the case, now the Day 2 Investigation has restored my faith in it. Give me your best shot, Day 2 Trial!
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FFD2 - okay they port over way more mobile F2P DNA than I was expecting. It handles all encounters in the same way Record Keeper does where everything is a set number of waves. They are pretty mindless and easy and can be auto battlefests by default if you get ahead of the curve even a little.
So I will probably champion it a bit less than FFD1.
Ooon the other hand though it does mean it is a stronger fit on mobile where FFD was more “here is a fun budget FF game you have to play on your phone/tablet. It is great if you can ignore the controls!” Instead I am more annoyed that I have to play it in Landscape.
No Stamina or anything to fight with, just a game that has mobile game core mechanics. It will probably pan out to be a fun game to play to pass time on public transport.
Good Rec Djinn!
Do not be fooled, the game does ramp up in difficulty. Especially some of the side missions. There's literally no penalty at all for dying though, so one could probably brute force it with enough lucky AI exploits or hoping for crits at the right times.
I thought I had made a post about it earlier where I said the game's opening is shit? I was expecting nothing out of the game, especially after it dropped FFD1's awesome Job system. It just happened to deliver a lot better than 'nothing'. Especially the character episode missions. Those are genuinely fun/funny/cute/emotional, depending on the character.
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I figured it will grow into the combat system a bit (RK did as well and the original release was 2015? Which puts it what 12 or so months after Record keeper probably? And the game clearly owes some of its design to RK...)
But yeah nothing sarcastic in there man. The opening is weak but going in with 0 expectations and actually liking some of your mobile game or incremental game play loops when you remove predatory business practices and I am completely unironically there. For me personally this is a decent recommendation for a thing I will happily put time into.
Edit - it also helps with the autobattle fest statement that the autobattle is actually really good, letting you change which moves are queued up on the fly, letting it run kind of like Persona 2.
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Going to put this on the shelf a bit and finish Nier: Automata before really getting sucked in, because wow that is definitely going to happen if I keep going
HEY GUYS GUESS WHAT I DID ALL WEEKEND
Nioh: I'm starting to feel a little sorry for the bosses. Come in with a full Living Weapon gauge, Sloth Talismans and a full stock of bombs, and there's almost nothing they can do at this point. This is more relevant for large enemies, who take more hits from the big bomb and storm kunai. The small, fast and aggressive ones can still be dangerous, but a mage build has gradually cracked this game in half (no surprise there given Nioh's game design model). I'm rarely ever in danger of running out of resources anymore, let alone healing. It's still fun! But bosses are gonna need to step it up a notch to keep up with the kind of bullshit I can do at this point.
The weekend's boss roundup:
Centipede Demon: 1
Dumpling: 6-7
Bake sale: 0 (no-hit kill)
Cold as Ice: 4-5
Tragic cat battle: 1*
Too ridiculous to spoil even by suggestion: 0 (he hit me once at the end of Living Weapon--damn, no title!)
Bloody Tears: 0 (no-hit kill, didn't outlive the Living Weapon gauge)
*I insisted on doing this one 100% melee, not even using support spells; I ran out of healing and didn't notice until watching the video afterward.
How did I not mention the mimics before? Nioh's mimics are the best. It is my mission to make all of Japan's mimics happy.
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It's still fun! But bosses are gonna need to step it up a notch to keep up with the kind of bullshit I can do at this point.
Oh, they will. Especially if you pick up the DLC.
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GBF - The gacha keeps on forcing Titan on to me. Just how many time I have to say that I don't want to grind Baal?
On the other had I got enough copies of Tezca to FLB it. I also got Yggy to make a good use of it.
I also got the Light version of pyscho les. Good timing.
I am finishing up my Zeus grid this year, and she'll certainly be helpful to me team.
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The small, fast and aggressive ones can still be dangerous
CASE IN POINT: around a dozen deaths to the Edo Castle boss. Nimble little minx, isn't she? Sloth Talismans don't help much when the boss constantly dodges them! And, probably, flies across the arena and kicks you in the face for trying. I tried a lot of different approaches here--the usual bomb and spell spam, poison, paralysis, wind damage for the slow effect, auto-life and buffs/debuffs--but nothing ever worked except doing it the old-fashioned way, which is to say actually memorizing her goddamn moves and just running it pure melee.
Then the next boss did basically all the same awful shit I'd been doing to bosses the whole game and also suplexed my face into the ground just to drive the point home. Okay, game has had enough with my cheese, I get it. Should note that boss quality is on average quite high in this game (Seath x3 wasn't inspiring, but I guess there's gotta be a gimmick boss somewhere to stay true to formula).
That Iga Ninja full set bonus looks delicious. I just need the sword! Had a copy earlier but scrapped it for parts (it'd be obsolete by now anyway--I just need the smith to be able to make this stuff already).
At some point William converted to Japanese underwear. I wonder when specifically in the game this happens.
Umbrellas are surprisingly dangerous!
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The small, fast and aggressive ones can still be dangerous
CASE IN POINT: around a dozen deaths to the Edo Castle boss. Nimble little minx, isn't she? Sloth Talismans don't help much when the boss constantly dodges them! And, probably, flies across the arena and kicks you in the face for trying. I tried a lot of different approaches here--the usual bomb and spell spam, poison, paralysis, wind damage for the slow effect, auto-life and buffs/debuffs--but nothing ever worked except doing it the old-fashioned way, which is to say actually memorizing her goddamn moves and just running it pure melee.
Then the next boss did basically all the same awful shit I'd been doing to bosses the whole game and also suplexed my face into the ground just to drive the point home. Okay, game has had enough with my cheese, I get it. Should note that boss quality is on average quite high in this game (Seath x3 wasn't inspiring, but I guess there's gotta be a gimmick boss somewhere to stay true to formula).
That Iga Ninja full set bonus looks delicious. I just need the sword! Had a copy earlier but scrapped it for parts (it'd be obsolete by now anyway--I just need the smith to be able to make this stuff already).
At some point William converted to Japanese underwear. I wonder when specifically in the game this happens.
Umbrellas are surprisingly dangerous!
Iga ninja set is boss, yes. Makes cutscenes with Hanzo a little confusing tho. Also does not come with clock cat - IMMERSION RUINED.
AA6
Datz is a delight. His facial expressions are perhaps the best thing about the game.
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I have played games recently!
Axiom Verge: Played, beat, started a replay on hard. This game rules, it's an atmospheric platformer that owes a huge debt to Super Metroid but also does its own thing in a lot of ways and plays really well. Highly recommend on the off-chance that I'm not the last metroidvania fan in the world to buy it.
AA6: Just started case 5. Not a perfect Ace Attorney installment by any means but I'm really enjoying it; there's a lot of variety in the cases and I like the Divination Seances. Case 4 was.....very weird, though? It's a random introductory-style case except it's stuck in the penultimate slot, and while there are a lot of fun moments with the GUEST ASSISTANT they also serve to undermine Athena compared to where Dual Destinies left her. So that's a strike against it. In general I have greatly enjoyed the Khu'rain stuff, though, so I'm looking forward to 6-5, and case 2 was also neat so I'm willing to call 6-4 a one-off misfire.
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I bought Axiom Verge! I just haven't played it.
Nioh: Ishida's generals both got stomped with no trouble whatsoever. Sloth Talisman -> Weakness Talisman -> Power Pill -> Living Weapon. Done when the timer runs out.
Giant-Sized Nito Thing was awful, though. Why is this in the gaaaaame. Unquestionably the worst boss Nioh has thrown at me. It proves that old Fromsoft boss rule yet again: the bigger they are, the crappier a fight it will be. His attacks seem to hit everywhere, it's often difficult to tell what the hell is happening, where he falls seems completely random and costs you a lot of damage time when you predict the wrong landing spot, and what was the point in spawning random mooks into this already terrible fight? Ugh.
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If only there was a Soulslike game where most of the fights were against human shapes opponents that were only a bit bigger than the player character🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔 Darksouls2bestsoulsLaggy
FFD2 - up to Chapter 2. No idea how many chapters there are but I am super ready to unlock more party members or costumes for the main three. Not because I dislike these ones or anything, I just want to see what the fuck they do with them.
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I have played games recently!
Axiom Verge I couldn't really get into. Lots good going on in the game, both in terms of art and presentation, and in terms of how the powerups frequently give you a solution to a movement problem that is not the solution you thought you would have. I just...kinda got the feeling like the game's creator has issues with women? That's true in a lot of games, butit felt different here...
I liked AA6's final cases lot. Other DLers, I think, liked them less (or at least liked the finale less). Will be interested to hear your take on it.
Giant-Sized Nito Thing was awful
p. much. I kinda feel like the generals were an apology in advance for it. It's not the last large boss, but it's the last large boss that is also awful.
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AA6 - Simon likes Sadhmadhi about as much as I do. I'm glad at least someone calls him out for his hypocritical, unethical garbage.
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Fire Emblem Warriors - So I have been playing a lot of Azura and trying to level Oboro. I also need to level Niles
it okay bbe gme i still love u even if ciatos hates you and thinks you are trash not worth mentioning
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AA6 - Finished Case 4. Simon 'King Tsundere' Blackquill makes everything great. <3
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I do love that he saved a man's life because he was too goddamn lazy to find a new noodle shop.
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FFD2 - up to Chapter 2. No idea how many chapters there are but I am super ready to unlock more party members or costumes for the main three. Not because I dislike these ones or anything, I just want to see what the fuck they do with them.
Chapter 2-2 is when I think things start unlocking in any meaningful way. Go do the Tower of Babel fights. Not only are the rewards great, but that's basically 90% of the good challenges in the game. Do note that if you do them, you'll probably be so high-leveled that the story fights will be pushovers for the rest of the chapter.
The side Episodes should unlock soon, too, I believe? Those are unlocked based on the number of skills you've mastered with each character. They aren't challenging fights, but they do provide passive stat boosts and occasionally new Signets. And you get the awesome character vignettes that make up 90% of the 'good' storytelling in the game.
New characters will coming Soon(TM). I can give you specific Chapters, but really you should just be able to power through the story pretty quickly if you can beat the Babel Tower challenges, so whenever you want a new party member, just blaze through following the Main Quest markers.
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Yeah man I was vague on specifically where I was and unlocked the fourth party member like 15 minutes later on my way to my flight back to Melbourne.
Tower of Babil is neat and aside Stories is a cool thing. Kinda like the stories in Lost Odyssey, less well written but at least feel like they are part of the same game. Some of the early ones were like 5-10% stat boosts at the time, so pretty significant.
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Hollow Knight - First ending get. Final boss was...easier than a bunch of other bosses, tbh. Won on second try. Went and progressed some more optional plot stuff which apparently will make the second ending gettable, but before that I'm off to the arena to get those out of the way. The arena area in HK is...not great, imo? It overstays its welcome pretty hard, each Trial is just mind numbingly long and so far in the first two the biggest danger is fatigue instead of any given wave of enemies. The giant hopper when the walls collapse in on you in the second trial is pretty bs, though.
Ultra Sun - Made a team based on Tiger Mask W which I recently watched. There was a Fire/Dark cat as a starter, so it was kinda easy to do.
Team
Incineroar: Takuma(aka "Tiger the Dark"). Kicked a lot of ass and took a lot of names. Darkness Lariat is a great move, and Malicious Moonsault is the single most extra thing I have seen from any pokemon game. Summon a ring of fire under the enemy and then diving body press on the enemy right through the ring making it EXPLODE. This is a great pokemon.
Lycanroc(Midnight): Kevin(aka Kevin Anderson aka Miracle 2). The loyal dog to Takuma's Tiger the Dark of course. Arguably overall game MVP, he did work every time I needed him to and was my go to pokemon for "I don't know how to deal with this". My designated fairy slayer with early Iron Tail from surfing BP. Also had a unique Z move which I obviously used.
Hawlucha: Tanahashi(aka "It's The Ace"). The first of our actual NJPW wrestlers instead of fictional characters. With Hawlucha available early and going for a wrestling theme, it was a no brainer to pick one up. Very good through the whole game, Flying Press is a neat move and fittingly one of Tanahashi's own signature moves is the "High Fly Flow" which is basically a flying press. Good stuff. I ran either a Lum Berry or no item for Acrobatics on him the whole game, shoutouts to Poke Pelago making berry farming painless enough to use in game.
SHINY RIBOMBEE: Haruna(aka "Spring Tiger"). Wasn't originally planning to use Ribombee with a wrestler theme, but when I found a shiny cutiefly I had to. One does not pass up the opportunity to use a shiny in game. My designated special attacker, since I did need one, and also my Amulet Coin holder since honey gather wasn't super useful. Surprisingly fast and hard hitting, just couldn't take much abuse in return ever, probably my most knocked out 'mon. Ah well, can't be perfect. Also the first of our Divas(and the only one to make the final cut, sadly).
Bewear: Makabe(aka Sweets Makabe). The second actual NJPW wrestler, and also the only one who voiced himself in Tiger Mask W. Respect. A burly dude who is a notoriously big fan of sweet stuff, so I just thought Bewear was a perfect fit. Fluffy is a great ability, tank hits all day and give back with high attack power. Was speed+ nature(SpAtk-) so I was constantly outspeeding things that surprised me. Even after playing Sun before US, I forgot how much gen 7 is the gen of slugs. Got him Thunder Punch from BP as well, for some coverage.
Kommo-o: Okada(aka...well, don't know if he has any nicknames. He is the champ though, and also basically Japanese Ted Dibiase). The latecomer to the team, and also an NJPW wrestler, Okada...didn't really help all that much in the final stretch but was able to chip in a bit. Dragon/Fighting is a fun typing at least. I didn't level him enough to get Close Combat which would have helped. Clanging Scales was neat though, and I wanted to get the unique Z move for it but found that was aftergame. Alas.
Honorable Mention to:
Crabominable: Queen Eliza(beth). One of the other divas from TMW(who is buff and wears blue, hence being the crabrawler). She...hit hard. And that was about it. Was too slow and didn't have enough defenses, so I was always switching her out instead of actually cleaning up a fight, hence getting dropped for Okada near the end. Had a good run though.
Unsure how much of the aftergame I'm going to do though I hear there is a lot of it. Definitely a big step up from Sun overall, though I wish the final fight after the elite four hadn't changed the way it did.
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AA6: finished investigation day 1 of case 5. Count me in the "love it" camp so far. This trial.... probably won't be as good as I want it to be, but the setup rules.
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I haven't finished the investigation yet of 6-5, but I really like this case so far! I love Dhurke. He hits all the right notes, being affably dorky and adorable.
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6-5 trial day 1: That wasn't quite as good as I wanted it to be, but it was still pretty darn good!
Investigation day 2: Very good. Juggles the various characters well, and promises payoff for a lot of stuff that's been building since case 1. Also, Edgeworth should only ever appear wearing a dog as a necktie from now on.
Trial day 2: I'm only up to the second witness, but still: o_O
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Trial Day 1 is good. I love Sarge.
<-Dhurke appreciation month
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Calling the final epiphany of the trial: NAYNA IS QUEEN AMARA
Update: okay, I wasn't giving the game enough credit with that one. Works for me.
Also, DEER
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Since Sopko was linking Simpsons memes in IRC chat lately, someone made an Ace Attorney one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-QtsAf9xyU
Needed more irrelevant evidence in the inventory to tempt you to present it, though. Oh well.
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Aria of Sorrow - Currently dicking around at the Clock Tower, farming Lightning Dolls for their soul. It's annoying that they kept the worst part of CotM's DSS system in AoS (the random drops for your skillset), but at least the drop rate is far, faaaaaaaaaaaaaar better. I also like how some of the better design sensibilities that made Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclesia very fun actually had their origins here, including the formula revamp. Playing as Soma is pretty fun and he has a ton of options with his souls. I do kinda question his stat growth, though: it constantly feels like he's kinda overstatted compared to the enemies, and the changed damage formula mechanics emphasize this a bit further (I notice damage boosts even at -individual- level-ups, which certainly wasn't remotely a thing in, say, SotN. Feels pretty clear they swapped the basic subtraction formula with low-ass growths with a typical mixed formula, which actually works well with the numeric scale they use... sometimes even too well at times). It's not like the game's been a total laugher, at least - like, Death gave me a couple resets before I actually bothered to learn his visual cues and attack patterns, but sometimes, Soma feels obscenely tanky, almost like Samus in Super Metroid. Oh well.
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AA6: Done! Except for DLC, but I want to give the main game a few weeks to breathe before I consider that.
Anyway. Holy crap, even by Ace Attorney finale standards, 6-5 is BANANAS. It's not the first time they've pulled out the stops to give the final case stakes beyond "Sympathetic Defendant/Main Cast Member X will be convicted if you lose!" but that was all the stops, and by and large it worked, if only because things were escalating too fast for me to think about it in detail. Hell, just the queen going full supervillain even compared to Dahlia, Gant, von Karma, etc. was enough to crack me up with WTF-glee. I called some of the plot twists, but then they doubled way the hell down on that, and in particular the sudden, certain realization of what happened to Dhurke and why he knew he was a goner hit me hard.
Backtracking a bit, the first day pretty much deserves consideration as a separate case, and it's not nearly as mind-boggling but still quite solid -- not everything I wanted from Apollo vs. Phoenix but I'm still glad they went for it. Apropos of which, I also agree that Sarge rules, and in particular I kept flashing back to the character of Rufus Whedon from Locke & Key (http://lockekey.wikia.com/wiki/Rufus_Whedon), which is excellent company to be in. Still kinda miffed that there's only one brief Phoenix segment in the whole case but it's justified, if not ideal from a player perspective.
Overall case ranking: 5>3>1>2>4. Nothing particularly wrong with 2, just that the Khur'ain plotline is quite strong compared to the series' other attempts at putting together an overarching narrative, plus divination seances are both new and fun. Easily the best entry since PW3, with the caveat that I still haven't played Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney.
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Aside from some multiplayer games I play to unwind, I've mostly picked up two games recently.
DOOM: Got it as a Christmas gift, and decided to try it out on the "Hard" difficulty, and while I was making progress, every battle was a pyrrhic victory. Restarted at the regular difficulty and it has been very fun shooting demons. Very cathartic.
Nioh: Picked this up, and started with the dual-wield and the wind spirit.
Tutorial area felt really weird and disconnected from the rest of the game, especially since they re-tutorial right after? Uncertain what that was about, but it went from feeling like a Souls game to a better Souls game, so now I'm excited. I haven't really been sticking to any particular weapons or stances, but I'm liking the Sword, Spear, and Axe quite a bit. Spear I was not enamored with until I learned I can trip people with it~ I'm now somewhat walled at the first Real Boss, because I do not know how to fight something that 2-3HKOs me and takes up about 1/4 of the room I'm trapped in, 1/2 when it attacks. Also sometimes I just don't get up when I get knocked down, even when I have Ki? Don't know. Might be easier if I were to find a way to use a controller, as well? Don't know.
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I haven't tried keyboard but I think Nioh will probably turn out to be significantly easier on controller. There's a lot of buttons to be managing in real time for keyboard, especially when you want to do things like change stances, fire ranged weapons, or switch item tabs during combat. As for the boss, I found the move that killed me most often to be its twirl - it makes circling around the dude pretty unsafe and it comes out quickly. Also don't forget to use living weapon.
As for what I've been playing:
(https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/guitar_hero.jpg)
Turns out he ended up writing for Future Tone (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqKx_0jwNvg&list=RDxqKx_0jwNvg) instead of Guitar Hero, but you get the idea (2:45 in the video).
EDIT: Also, yay AA6! Great game!
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Case 4 in last? Crazy talk.
Since Sopko was linking Simpsons memes in IRC chat lately, someone made an Ace Attorney one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-QtsAf9xyU
Needed more irrelevant evidence in the inventory to tempt you to present it, though. Oh well.
Nice. Though yeah, do agree that I would have liked more interface/inventory-related jokes. I kept expecting psyche-locks to appear over Skinner.
Cosmic Star Heroine - 11 hours in. This game is Chrono Trigger with some Phantasy Star 4 mixed in with a Zeboyd battle system (quite different from Cthulhu Saves the World, but still recognisably has their mark). Pretty fun! Finn is a terrible PC.
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Time to wax some more about Mega Man (Anniversary collection)
Mega Man 4:
Pop in password, farm energy tanks in Skull Mans stage, and take off for the citadel. Of course, when I try for it, Fliptop refuses to cough one up for over 30 tries. While I'm familiar with the game, it's been years since I last played so energy tank farming also doubled as a session to get back into the rythym of the game and play around with special weapons. I end up using only 2-3 E-tanks throughout the end stages, heh.
At Cossack 1, Flash Stopper makes the trip across the slippery rooftops go by much faster. Climb up, beat boss with weakness, uneventful. Little to report on Cossack 2; beat boss without E-tank usage. I missed a few shots but still felt I did well avoiding its' shots. Had a stupid death on Cossack 3 due to missed jump. Boss went as planned with charge shots. It's the third fortress boss to use the single aimed shot as an attack, was Capcom running out of creativity by this point? Cossack 4 went by smoothly and charge shots brought the boss down faster than it could damage me. While I could just hang out on the right side of the screen and win a damage race, opted to put some effort into dodging the 3-way shots this run.
Wily stages; Died once trying to hop an underwater spike pit. OK, next go I play it safe with Rush Marine. Not going to use it the rest of the game anyways. The disappearing blocks aren't that hard to do but I was lazy and used Wire adaptor to skip the second. Came close to death at the boss and it was a bit tense as I risked finishing it off without an E-tank. Died once at Wily 2 boss. I tried the trick approach of climbing onto it's perch instead of using the moving platforms but kept inching too close to it's hitbox or getting knocked off. Next attempt went better and cleared with no E-tank usage.
Refights: I'm out of practice with Skull Man and Ring Man and took a number of lumps. Still got it for Dive Man: buster only, no damage. Toad Man is Toad Man. Bright Man is more manageable as I know his gimmick. Took advantage of the autofire button at Pharoah Man to spare my finger from mashing. Wily Machine 1 is still the chump it has always been. Flubbed it at Wily machine 2 and ended up using TWO E-tanks. Part of it was because I mucked about using the Wire adaptor on him; it turns out he can angle fireballs nearly straight down. Farmed weapon energy for Pharaoh Shot for last boss. I already know Wily stays in the same location for a few seconds after flickering in so straightforward fight other than whiffing a few shots.
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Case 4 in last? Crazy talk.
It's a great concept but the execution falls flat because so many of the good gags or moments rest on Athena either being incompetent compared to her other cases, or committing the cardinal sin for an AA lawyer and wanting to give up on her client. Kept throwing me out of the narrative.
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AA6 cases: 5b>5a>3>4>2>1
5b is very good and does a great job of sewing up the overall plot of the game. 5a also very strong both on its own merits and as a leadup to the finale. 1 is fairly dull, in the tradition of first cases. It's not bad; just there. 3 does a great job of exploring the game's main mechanic, the divination seance, but it overstays its welcome and is marred by the extreme finickyness of getting the right answer during the seance sessions. I think it's as bad as PW has ever been in terms of my knowing the right answer but not being able to tell that to the game in the way it wants. Also: Datz is awesssssssom. A++++++++ Witness of the year. 4 is fine. I liked it better than 2 because of a stronger slate of witnesses. 2 was the best case in terms of the mechanics of how the murder was carried out, but that's all it had going for it.
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Datz rules, easily the best the series has ever done at introducing somebody who looks like a one-off nobody and integrating them into the game's main cast.
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Well, I thought case 4 was the best in SOJ. I get what you're saying about Athena, but that's a general problem with most Ace Attorney protagonists, as the narrative absolutely insists that Our Heroes are taking wild leaps into the unknown that no Proper Competent attorney could even contemplate, then escaping by the skin of their teeth, even when this makes no damn sense and the prosecution's case is already in shambles. Phoenix suffered from a bit of backsliding in SOJ too (after building him up as the ultimate badass in AJ, and mostly sorta keeping to it in Dual Destinies). Anyway, I think it largely depends on the plot of the case it's in. I mostly bought the plot of case 6-4 on all sides, so it more came off as "excuses for Simon to do awesome shit" because you have to let him do his cool things too, but also letting Athena do her cool stuff.
Case 5-3 is actually the worse offender for me on that, to the point that it actively detracted from my enjoyment of it... it's fine that Athena is the rookie and to the extent this means she's trapped or makes silly mistakes more easily, fine, BUT that case could not resist calling out Athena on total bullshit and then acting like it was her fault. "Haha the prosecution hid evidence or dramatic details that should have been told in advance from you, you're bad and should feel bad." This would be fine if somebody told them to jump in a lake in response, but they act like this criticism is merited and Athena actually made some sort of error. It's a general problem with case 5-3 not actually making tons of sense in general. (Definitely qualifies as the villainous plan most likely to go down in flames before ever reaching a trial in DD...)
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Super Mario Odyssey - Guess who bought a Switch for his birthday. Anyhow, just started the Desert, not a lot of time spent on the game. But MAAAAAAAN, this is a gorgeous game and the hat mechanics are really FUN. I'm not sure I like requiring the detached joycons for the full extent of the moveset, I wasn't very fond of the Wiimote, but the joycons themselves, when attached to the large grip, are far more functional than the Wiimote could ever be as a controller. I still may shell out for the pro controller, but they work fine as of now. The 2D Mario segments so far are WORKS OF ART.
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Yeah, I'm with Snowfire on this one. While I did feel like SoJ was selling Athena short at points, on the whole it made sense: she's still a relative newbie at this, it was a tough mystery to crack, and of course she didn't get any investigation/prep time. And while it sells her short in some aspects, it does pump her up in others: I love the scene where she starts interrupting to Nahyuta's "let it go" blather with "NEVER!" Absolutely cathartic.
Phoenix is the character I enjoyed playing as least by far in SoJ (after feeling like DD had done a pretty good job with taking him to a reasonable post-AJ place) because it often felt like he was missing giant holes in the prosecution's case + his internal monologue generally being OH MAN I HAVE TO BLUFF even when the solution was obvious (as most solutions are in the tutorial case). He also is terrible at standing up to Nahyuta for some reason which is frustrating because Nahyuta does so little that's impressive as an opponent (special shout-out to case 3 day 1 being one of the worst prosecution jobs in the series; granted, when you live in a police state you don't need to try very hard...).
I thought the bit where Athena considered giving up on Bucky was both believable and powerful.
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Pretty sure there is button presses on the pro controller for everything Snow? Not sure about with stuff docked. Maybe you just flail the whole console? I watched my little brother beat most of it main lined quickly without much exploration, it is a good game
WoW - I can stop any time I want so I resubbed.
FFD2 - I don't have much more to add, its nice though.
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Pretty sure there is button presses on the pro controller for everything Snow? Not sure about with stuff docked. Maybe you just flail the whole console? I watched my little brother beat most of it main lined quickly without much exploration, it is a good game
From what I saw, some minute things (like fine control of the hat mid-toss) require you to detach the joycon. Not sure if the pro controller allows for finer maneuvering than that, since I don't have it.
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FFD2 - This is not a big update, damn this really has some F2P Phone Game stuff pretty deep sometimes.
(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/0/01/FFLTnS_Mindflayer_Alt.png/revision/latest?cb=20150417215515)
Mind Flayer.
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Regarding FFD2: I recently found out that the likely reason that FFD2's plot has been of surprisingly not-bad quality lately is because it's built off the ideas that were originally pitched for Chrono Break. The time travel plotline stuff makes a lot more sense now.
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Beat Ys1. That was a thing. Nice little thing full of olden charm, but nothing amazing.
New year, so Soppy's randomized backlog playthrough comes first. This year, Front Mission 4!
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Dragon’s dogma Dark Arisen:
Finished everything.
They figured out that the best thing in Dragon’s Dogma is jumping on roofs in a city (Assassin’s creed, take notes) and put them in the DLC. Much appreciated.
More than 10FPS made the game extremely pleasant. I tried every class and there are so many cool ones, but chose Magick Archer as my final class because Ricoshet Shot is fucking absurd in BBI.
Did Cid play this recently or is his level infinite Sophitia cosplay pawn a relic from the PS3 days? Regardless, I never did use her or she’d have ripped the challenge in half. Sorry.
I tried to have the most stylish UOM as my pawn and one rando player liked him so much he added me as a friend on PSN and sent me a message praising him. (?)
Hard difficulty was immense bullshit and I’d not recommend it to anyone. I still enjoyed it more than I would have normal though.
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Regarding FFD2: I recently found out that the likely reason that FFD2's plot has been of surprisingly not-bad quality lately is because it's built off the ideas that were originally pitched for Chrono Break. The time travel plotline stuff makes a lot more sense now.
Yeeeeeep. That makes a ton of stuff I thought of as cute nods into pretty straight rewritten plot points. At Chapter 3-2 and got Fifth party member. The first thing you do with each recruit is go to the Time Rift.
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I've been immersed in the Flames of Eternity hack, so immersed that I haven't made the time to write stuff about it. I enjoy it even though the balance can be rather wonky and the difficulty has its spiky moments. While it's possible to level grind nearly all the challenge away, I've gotten more enjoyment out of working out strategies to win fights without grinding my way out of them.
This is a mod that uses Crimson Echoes as a foundation and is not endorsed by the original team.
Will have more to say about this one at a later time when I sort my thoughts out more.
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Mario Odyssey - Unlocked the third world. There are WAY too many moons, mang.
Aria of Sorrow - Currently at the Underground Reservoire, which is kind of annoying. Running around with a subpar Soul just to walk underwater ain't great. ON THE OTHER HAND, I picked up Lightning Doll, Medusa Head, Devil and Beam Skeleton souls.
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Darkest Dungeon and La-Mulana: started these up so that when one frustrates me I can switch to the other. I forsee no problems with this plan.
So far, have been to like 5 areas in La-Mulana and have accomplished fuckall in each. Darkest Dungeon, have a healthy number of rank 3 adventurers, and have unlocked the first stage coach upgrade. Currently grinding deeds and portraits like a motherfucker. Upgrades take too damn many resources all things considered. Game has been surprisingly gentle so far - only lost like 7 or so adventurers. Boss fights thusfar have been pretty cool. As expected, the narration continues to own.
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Darkest Dungeon doesn’t want to kill your Adventurers. It wants to break them. Dead Adventurers don’t cause problems (unless you play on hard mode). Do you have the Crinson Court DLC?
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GBF - To my own surprised. Instead of using the Surprise Ticket to trade for something that'll further boost the water team I main, I use it to trade for Glare.
Glare turns out to be a very good substitute for Strum dono. And when short term outburst of damage is concerned, Glare is actually better!
A team of Berserker, Rackam or Metera, Glare, Anilla can dish out 700K~800K per hit on the first turn using Shiva after the proper buffs. The damage goes up to 1.1M~1.4M if they crit! The second and third turn damage is also consistent 400K~600K damage per hit.
The Xeno Axe ougi buff + Anilla unique buff also ensures 60% TA rate for the first three turn. This just feels too good.
And I am now deeply regretting that I didn't upgrade the Suzaku Katana during the Four Beast event.
The damage would have been even more amazing if I did...
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Fire Emblem Echoes
Finished my Blitzkrieg playthrough:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/UuonatO50J2Dakyo2
https://photos.app.goo.gl/NswBTojVWefVlA5x2 (just boring achivement-proof pics here)
Pretty fun. Mostly went pretty similar to my first playthrough despite having less levels, which just goes to show how grinding out a few extra levels post-promotion does not in general matter THAT much. I'd argue that grinding in the Thieves Shrine DID weirdly pay off though - speeds up and makes C1 safer by a good bit.
Alm didn't have enough power to insta-KO Jedah without a crit, and he somehow managed to miss both crit opportunities (despite being hugely boosted!) AND not dodge the Death. Thankfully I healed up before going in, of course, but still, a little scary. (Reverse thing happens in the Rudolf battle - find a brave volunteer to bait him, and Mila's Turnwheel if one of his two hits crits. Or have a Baron bait him, but that can be difficult to set up.)
500 turns is a a pretty generous limit - of course they only tell you your PLOT map count at the very end of the game, but I suspect that I had plenty of room for grinding battles. (And certainly attempting to skip content would have made no sense, i.e. skip Tatiana / Zeke would be dumb). So measuring out a few of those when needed and it'd help is definitely worthwhile.
It'd be interesting to theorycraft if recruiting the DLC characters would help speed things up. Oh well, didn't try it.
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Azure Striker Gunvolt
I figured this would be a very quick play in-between other portable gaming. 3DS version.
It's... better than I expected? But expectations weren't hugely high. Quick & fun "MegaMan but we own the IP" type game but not interested in playing it to death or anything. The biggest complaint is that Gunvolt's electrical powers are very visually noisy. Some enemy projectiles get blocked by his electric forcefield, some don't, you get to pick out which is which while half the screen is getting zotted by GV. Also, getting good stage scores seems to be based on zipping through Sonic-style which isn't really my jam. There are some MINOR rewards for completionists who want to poke their nose into every nook & cranny, but for the most part, the game would rather you just dash on through. Also, why on earth do you have to select the Challenges you're attempting? And why does it reset if you don't complete them every single time? This is incredibly dumb. (Basically, you don't get an in-game achievement unless you declare you're going for it. And you have to continually re-declare "Yes, I want this" every time. Luckily the item creation it enables doesn't matter THAT much.)
I had to look up some of the bosses special attacks on the Internet to figure out how the hell I was supposed to not get insta-killed. Carrera's Quasar Collapse being a good example; I didn't know about the dash button until I looked this one up, and that fight is flat impossible without it. Arguably my bad, but since you can go through without dashing before then or only using the double-tap a direction to dash, it might have been worth being a little noisier about that gameplay point.
EDIT: Oh yeah, worth mentioning that 10-4 did the localization, and did a great job. For characters with very few lines, they did a great job in immediately giving lines that both made sense in-context and provided character to the various bosses & NPCs, and also were sometimes funny. Cut the Horsejitt indeed.
Anyway, I got the "bad" ending. We'll see if I feel like grinding up the good ending.
And oh yes, Inti Creates. If you're gonna make a plot wherein the Big Evil Corporation wants to use J-Pop to rule the world, I think it is worth investing in some GOOD J-Pop. I dunno, maybe NotMiki has opinionz on this, but Lumen's main power-up track is peppy but forgettable. (Checking YouTube, Lumen apparently has other stage-specific songs, but it was always Anthem - Reincarnation for me?!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUg3Wy9sXPw&index=39&list=PLNFxflsE6IYzcXj0ky7Pu7XcLcLpfWGHK
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Omega Quintet - For reasons unknown, I was conscripted by Snowfire to play this game. So I started it last night.
Thoughts about the first two hours:
-holy fuck is the voice acting bad
-Momoka is actually pretty funny and was a highlight in the otherwise dreadful cast (commentary on idol culture?)
-The male lead is somehow a worse version of Itsuki, good work
-There is a lot of dialogue and 95% of it is bad
-Gameplay seems like it could be okay, but right now it just seems like it has too many different gauges to fill and solo RPG gameplay is super boring and the game STILL hasn't given me a second PC!
-There is a scene where the female lead (who is a total moron) runs into the breasts of one of the other idols and there is bouncing followed by a scene where she keeps her head drove into her coworker's boobs. Awk.
-There is another scene where the female lead's clothes randomly fall off. Awk.
-It is sooo low budget. There are just a few generic backgrounds where people talk.
-The people zooming in and out when they talk to you is really weird
-I hate you Snowfire
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Hey, I wanted to suggest Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars. Blame Grefter for Omega Quintet instead!
Also the fact that 5% of the dialogue is comprehensible is an achievement - the scouting YouTube videos I looked at seemed to be just pure nonsensical blather that said nothing, but slowly and in great detail.
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Why would you do that to someone?
Playing Okami. It is still amazing.
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La-Mulana: sure is a game. I have no idea whatsoever how far I am in it, but I do know that I haven't gotten badly stuck yet, so there's that! The delta between the time this game must take to speedrun and to play normally must be vast.
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Conception II is a role-playing video game with turn-based battles, in which players control a student at a high school that doubles as a training facility for demon hunters. The protagonist possesses an extremely high amount of ether in his body, which allows him to conceive Star Children to fight demons by 'classmating' with his other classmates.
That's a sweet euphemism you've got there for a child sex ring, Conception II.
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Dissidia Beta: It's fun but I'd like stabler online and actual single player content that doesn't involve REALLY BAD LOW LEVEL AI PARTNRES WHAT THE HELL SHANTOTTO HOW DID YOU GET KILLED BY THAT!?
Dragon Ball FighterZ: It's fun but I'd like stabler online and actual single player content that isn't just a boring training mode so I could actually learn my GOD DAMN CHARACTERS SOME!
Pokemon Ultra Moon: In the Desert, trying to find a Gabite via an SOS Fight because apparently that's the only way to get them. If I fail, I'll stick with Goodra instead, since Garchomp and Goodra are really the only two Dragonites that are feasible to get in the main game due to shear levels.
Also Totem Togedemaru was far more competent than it had any right to be.
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Dragon’s dogma Dark Arisen:
Finished everything.
They figured out that the best thing in Dragon’s Dogma is jumping on roofs in a city (Assassin’s creed, take notes) and put them in the DLC. Much appreciated.
More than 10FPS made the game extremely pleasant. I tried every class and there are so many cool ones, but chose Magick Archer as my final class because Ricoshet Shot is fucking absurd in BBI.
Did Cid play this recently or is his level infinite Sophitia cosplay pawn a relic from the PS3 days? Regardless, I never did use her or she’d have ripped the challenge in half. Sorry.
I tried to have the most stylish UOM as my pawn and one rando player liked him so much he added me as a friend on PSN and sent me a message praising him. (?)
Hard difficulty was immense bullshit and I’d not recommend it to anyone. I still enjoyed it more than I would have normal though.
Save files from the original Dragon's Dogma don't carry over to the PS4 version, so what you're seeing there is my file from when I replayed on the rerelease last summer. (Besides, I was cosplaying the protagonists from Noir this time.) BBI really is the best part of the game, and Magick Archer really is stupidly good there. Ricocheting everything to death is soooo satisfying. I wound up liking all the magic classes markedly better than the pure physical ones, but MA was usually my go-to out of that lot. Filling up an enemy with explosive bolts and then making them all explode at once might not be the most efficient way to down a boss, but it's so fucking cool to watch. And hard mode is so, so stupid on a new file.
Fenrir have you done a bare fists run yet.
Nioh: chewed through endgame and DLCs 1&2 at Grefter's place. Final boss was respectable. Giant enemy that isn't ass for engagement and doesn't fuck up the camera, can't just blitz it down with living weapon because multiple targets. I'll take it. Killed me 4-5 times? Better than any of the other endgame bosses, which all got torched in one or two tries. Clone boy was a no-hit kill on the first attempt--which is in stark contrast to dealing with him in the Tower of London basement in the epilogue mission. Holy shit that was a nightmare, and only Okatsu gave me more trouble as far as maingame content goes. (Ozzy Song Boss got burned on the second try, though.) DLC notes:
-Lady Maria was fucking bonkers. DLC bosses generally were good at making the game hard again, but this was just off the charts. I probably died like twenty times, never getting her more than 40% down (and dying before dealing damage more often than not), before giving up to go do DLC2 instead. Then I came back and threw all the kunai and beat her without getting hit. I don't even know. I guess if you can just survive long enough for her to power up, she's a sitting duck.
-I was so mad at DLC2 for starting off with the Ringed City Infinite Arrow Works bullshit, then I noticed afterward that there's a consumable that protects you from arrows. Whoops.
-Tonfa are pretty rad, I might start leveling up skill now since everything else of importance to my build is at the point of diminishing returns. Unfortunately, I mistakenly traded in my awesome flaming tonfa for glory.
Oh yeah, I saved up 70k glory while grinding weapon levels and burned it all on Ginchiyo skin (I decided she had better fashion than Okatsu). Worth it. Also, I'm not sure how I'm not done with maingame. There are no missions left on any region map or in the dojo, but I didn't get that All Missions trophy, so there's gotta be something out there. They don't count twilight missions, right? Those alternate randomly, and the devs for this game were generally pretty smart about not holding anything vital to RNG (loot excepted, but you pick up so much random crap that it's a moot point).
Thinking I might go back and finish Nier: Automata before hitting DLC3. Is there anything permanently missable I need to worry about on the C and beyond routes? I read something about a skullface quest that requires all maxed weapons to unlock it, and that sure isn't happening without grind.
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Mario Odyssey - This game is ridiculously easy to pick up and play when I'm not doing anything. Look at the Switch charging, pick it up, whoops I just blazed through another kingdom. I'm about to begin Metro Kingdom, finally saved up enough monies to buy Mario's undies outfit. I'm yet to tap into the best Fashion Odyssey around, but I love swapping outfits every kingdom. I also like the overall design a lot - Mario's kinda slippery, but the game's entirely designed to take this into account and the platforming feels very organic because of it. I also love the 2D/3D integration done on the 8-bit segments, it all looks obscenely gorgeous in a strange-ass way. Currently up to 80 moons, too. The concept of mixing up Mario platforming and pseudo-open world shenanigans sounded way too foreign to work, but I'm definitely digging it, and Cappy's possessions are a JOY to pick up.
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Fire Emblem Warriors: Finally got around to starting this thing. It is a joy. It is also frustrating. I wish mission assignment and completion notices were properly instant instead of this weird delayed thing that Warriors games loves to do. Not knowing what the current objectives are supposed to be at any given time is irritating beyond belief.
I found I had this problem with Hyrule Warriors when it came out, but I assumed that it was just me not being able to read Japanese fast enough that was the problem. So I waited for FE Warriors to come out in English and yet I'm still finding myself raging at mission objectives not being made clear. Guess it's just the Warriors series's intention? I suppose in an actual war, sending and receiving orders would have some significant lag too? Is that what they're going for? ...cause I hate it.
The rest of the gameplay is great though. Most problems can still be solved just by mashing buttons (therapeutically fun and visually rewarding!), but the game actually rewards you for learning how to push the buttons with intent this time around. And Weapon Triangle matchups, along with character-switching-on-the-fly, means there's some actual strategy to the game beyond the button combos.
The story is dumb cheese and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Unless that way included Ike, goddammit. (Why isn't he in the DLC!!!!!???? RAGE!!)
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Did you get the Season Pass? I don’t think it is quiiiite as good as Hyrule Warriors stuff was, but I am generally enjoying it and like that it is giving the game more legs.
I only just unlocked Anna last night on a 40 minute grinder of a map. Celica should follow soon once I get some levels into her and Niles/Takumi (ugh).
I should also really play Zelda more but Warriors is so cathartic.
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I'm boycotting its DLC ever since I discovered there's no Ike coming.
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Hollow Knight: Picked this up on the Steam sale, been playing it for the past couple weeks. 2/3 dreamers down, just finished the first two challenges in the Colosseum of Fools. I've found the game alternately great and infuriating – the visual style is really really good, and when the exploration clicks it's hugely engrossing. On the other hand, tougher fights really show the weaknesses in the controls (mainly that there's so much cooldown on basically every animation), and there's a frustration snowball effect when you have to go back to the scene of your defeat to get your shadow, so you attempt the boss or the platforming challenge or whatever over and over and over, eventually getting so irritated that you slip up on the way there and lose all your Geo. I've probably dropped about 4K that way, which isn't great. Still, enjoying it on the whole.
Bayonetta: Felt like playing something on an actual console for a change, realized that while I've played the crap out of the sequel I never even booted the copy of the original that came with it. The game holds up! Still quite challenging and also fun as hell to get into a groove with, and it's been long enough since I played it that stuff like the Alfheim challenges feels new again. Almost to the halfway point with C10.
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Azure Striker Gunvolt
Finished up. Final final boss was decent, but still felt like a little less epic a showdown than the old final boss? And the miniboss of the final final stage was a complete and utter chump. I guess there's still Challenges to harvest, but that's all "complete the stages extremely fast without getting hit" stuff that I'm not super into. I'd rather survive a harder game than master an easier one, I guess. Apparently the Steam version has more stuff and optional stages & modes & stuff? Oh well. Still pretty enjoyable overall.
Also, as a random shower thought, there's an odd tendency of the female characters in this game to have some sort of multiple personality-ish thing... weird.
Oh, and one other thing. Considering the MegaMan heritage of the game, I was amused at Copen's gimmick. (he steals the abilities of the robot masters adepts you've defeated... hmm, sounds familiar. But he's an antagonist, not the PC.)
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Oh, and one other thing. Considering the MegaMan heritage of the game, I was amused at Copen's gimmick. (he steals the abilities of the robot masters adepts you've defeated... hmm, sounds familiar. But he's an antagonist, not the PC.)
He is, in the second game.
He also plays by a completely different mechanic, including how his points system works.
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I'm boycotting its DLC ever since I discovered there's no Ike coming.
Find attached, now get that DLC. It has some good stuff.
I was actually going to grab a link to some and PM you then tell you to check your PMs and then make the same joke, but this being the number 1 return on a search for that was too good to ignore.
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Hollow Knight: Picked this up on the Steam sale, been playing it for the past couple weeks. 2/3 dreamers down, just finished the first two challenges in the Colosseum of Fools. I've found the game alternately great and infuriating – the visual style is really really good, and when the exploration clicks it's hugely engrossing. On the other hand, tougher fights really show the weaknesses in the controls (mainly that there's so much cooldown on basically every animation), and there's a frustration snowball effect when you have to go back to the scene of your defeat to get your shadow, so you attempt the boss or the platforming challenge or whatever over and over and over, eventually getting so irritated that you slip up on the way there and lose all your Geo. I've probably dropped about 4K that way, which isn't great. Still, enjoying it on the whole.
There's a charm you can pick up (fairly late but if you've beaten 2 dreamers you likely have access to it by now - it's in Kingdom's Edge and you need double jump to get it) that increases your swing speed by, like, a lot. That should help with bosses and the Colosseum.
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Yeah, grabbing that is literally the next thing I'm planning to do in the game. I didn't find Kingdom's Edge until I went through Deepnest, so I may be a bit behind the curve.
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The curve is pretty elusive in HK. Once you pick up Mantis Claws, the routes you can take are VERY open. Getting to Deepnest has fewer prerequisites than Kingdom's Edge - you can even do it straight from the first time you visit Mantis Village - but many players dip into Deepnest then nope the fuck right out of there.
p.s. there are 2 endings, and once you meet all of the prerequisites for the good ending (it'll be pretty obvious) you are locked out of the bad one.
(My favorite crazy thing that can happen - go to Deepnest at your first opportunity and pick up the Tram Pass, then use the tram to enter Resting Grounds from crossroads without ever touching Crystal Peak. The Path of Most Resistance!)
I should add: it's possible to get to Kingdom's Edge without touching Deepnest, but it requires finding the entrance from the eastern part of City of Tears. So it's not all that likely on an initial playthrough.
Also: how did you initially get into Deepnest? There's a few ways in, that deposit you in varying levels of "nope"
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Nier Automata: "I am coming for all your heads. Fuck you."
Route C cleared. ...And, apparently, route D. "What's this, chapter select mode? Yoko Taro must be getting generous in his old age." So reload, do that fight over again from the other side to see what happens. Okay, looks like the same credits. I need to hit the bathroom, I'll sit the song out this time. Walk away, start to hear dialogue, which includes the word "deletion." Oh boy. I say "No" because Nier ending D was a thing, then suddenly it's bullet hell credits. This looks okay at first. I might get through this on the first try? Then the Squeenix logo shows up and everything goes to hell. Die a couple times. "I'll keep trying, this is probably close to the end." Die a few more times. Dammit game, stop it! It's late! I just want to go to bed! Force hard shutdown of game because I can't deal with this danmaku shit right now.
So this is where the real troll was hiding.
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Jackass, best android.
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I found the main entrance to Deepnest shortly after getting the Mantis Claws, but died to the Mantis Lords fight and noped out. Then I found the side entrance and cut through a corner of it that links.....Crossroads and Fungal Wastes, is it? Something in that area. Found a few shinies but nothing to indicate it was more than a foreboding but largely empty network of tunnels with jump-scare bugs. Then after getting the double jump I went back to the Mantis Village while hunting around for Spirit Roots, remembered the boss fight, and beat it to open the main door.
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Sensible!
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More blather about Chrono Trigger: Flames of Eternity
Difficulty in a few sentences: Start out merely "harder than the original game" until about 25-30% of the way in, then gets dangerous for the most part until finishing The Darkness of Noon chapter. It relents somewhat (wiping in randoms is unlikely) until the final boss. Just about any party (when you can choose) is viable and still win required fights (though don't use Crono, Lucca, Magus in segments where you're locked into the choice unless you stock up on items).
Turns out I need to level grind anyways for want of magic defense. I've gotten to the last savepoint with a party average of about 40-41 (Ayla being about 4-6 levels higher) which is not enough. The last boss' strongest magic attack does 4 digit damage with a magic defense of 81 and it's MT. High defense is also desirable as it has a physical (thankfully only single-target) tech that does about 650 to a 200 defense character. I have won at about 42-43 with a certain game-breaker item but would like to avoid resorting to it.
Quick thoughts on PCs: This is under the context of no Tabs, which are very scarce, and little Tech grinding.
Crono feels like the team scrub. Simply by restricting his weapon availabililty, his damage capabilities lag. He's still an important member for using Triple Techs but is nowhere near the dominance of the original game. Until one finishes the grind for the Rainbow, that is.
Marle somehow feels improved despite her damage output being worse. The only change to her techs in Haste being full-party. Some of this is that the game overall is more dangerous so her role as a healer carries more weight. Her status weapons are quite useful for the period they're found.
Lucca feels one-dimensional. Full-party Protect is nice for physical-heavy opponents. Her Techs are otherwise unchanged and being only one element means shes either really good at sniping fire-weakness or nearly deadweight on high magic defense opposition. Low speed drags her worth down too. There's also some forced Lucca/Robo fights that are easier if she's dead which doesn't help my perception of her.
Glenn has a slow start. However, he gets a very strong weapon from a sidequest that can be completed quite early. It also does double damage on Magic enemies making his physical one of the best against Scouts (which have over 3000 HP now). He can inflict poison status. Since there's no way to poison enemies in the original game, I guess the programmers slacked off with handing out immunity so it can tag some boss type enemies. Poison also lowers enemy damage and increases the damage the victim takes so it has its applications. Balanced defense and magic defense make him survivable at the last boss earlier than the others. Feels like one of the best characters in this hack though mileage will vary.
Robo is most useful for his high HP pool, healing techs, and decent damage. He's useful early but not really viable for endgame due to game worst magic defense. He's the main source of the Stop status which is handy at times. Has a bunch of changed techs that end up quite MP intensive. Having game-worst MP, this will result in greater resource consumption. Mid Ethers are easy to come by so it really depend on one's playing style.
Ayla's subjectively awesome. The way I go through the game, she joins several levels higher than the party so I rotate her in from time to time when I want someone to punch past a roadblock. Still has great Dual Tech options.
Magus feels like a Jeigan though in some ways different. He starts strong with his level 2 magic but it's a long time until he learns a tech with higher damage (if at all as I haven't bother to grind out his last skill). He remains useful with groups, less so with lone opponents. Does fall off temporarily due to his HP growth curve. Enemies that have high magic defense or absorb all elements make him cry, though to a lesser degree than Lucca.
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Full-party buffs sound crazy good in CT, unless the effects themselves have been nerfed. And Crono being "dominant" in the original game is... not something I agree with, to put it mildly.
Fire Emblem Fates - Conquest Lunatic Classic
It's in progress and progress is slow, both due to other things going on and the intensity of the game. It remains pretty great, albeit not something I'd recommend to many people. But for me and my tastes, I'm so very glad it exists. I'm not sure I've ever played another RPG that does high challenge this well.
Chapter 20 (wind map) was absolutely grueling. The swarm from the northwest corner (which guards the chest with money) has a brutal array of enemies and once you aggro them, you get reinforcements at the end of the subsequent enemy phase. The extra complication of the wind is very tricky. As I mentioned in chat, I enjoyed this well enough, but I couldn't do a whole game of it or anything close.
Chapter 21-22 were both much easier. The dragon veins on the Eternal Stairway give you plenty of what amount to almost free turns, which is good because the stone throwers do incredible damage. As for Sakura's map... man I can't believe that on my first playthrough I mostly ignored the dragon veins. You can set up for some incredible player phase blitzes to neutralise all the nasty traps the enemies have. Definitely a battle which rewards minimal pair up use.
In between I did Siegbert's map which was very nasty. I've recruited Percy, Sophie, Ophelia, Dwyer, and Siegbert this run, although Sophie got benched pretty quickly. Kana's sitting around if I ever need him I guess, but I usually find Kana underwhelming so I'm not bothering unless I need a lategame exp push. I could write more team details (I've done lots of reclassing this time: Corrin, Jakob, Elise, Odin, Camilla, Effie, and Percy have all eaten at least one Heart Seal) but I'll save that for when I'm done.
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Happen to be around so returning to writing about old school Megaman via the Anniversary collection
Megaman 5
Played all the stages, though not in one sitting. Was mostly smooth sailing once past Gyro Man, which I took second. Got a game over at Charge Man to my surprise; really out of practice with his pattern. I skipped to Stone Man third after Gyro Man because I wanted to make more use of special weapons, especially for Crystal Man's stage. No more than one death to any of the other robot masters.
Last stages went by much easier than I remember due to tactical deployment of special weapons. I remember where the M Tanks spawn so no issues with weapon energy. Only section that really gave me trouble was the conveyor belt segment in Protoman 2. Died about seven times there, though the net loss of lives came out to about 3 or 4 due the high drop rate of 1-ups.
I feel this entry is the closest example of "Megaman comfort food." Even though I don't think that highly of its quality, it's still easy to pick up and romp through. Charge shot is really powerful. Not quite the destructiveness of X4's Plasma shot (then again, very little is as crazily bonkers/broken), but the wide vertical range and ability to pierce past anything it kills gives little incentive to use special weapons.
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Nier Automata: "ARE YOU SURE THAT YOU WISH TO HELP?"
-YES
It seemed only fair, since I wouldn't have made it through that section on my own. Anyway, I didn't feel any motivation to go back and grind through all other optional bosses and endings and what have you (even though the five or six fake endings I did find were hilarious). Though it occurs to me after the fact that cloud saves probably trivialize the cost of Yoko Taro moments like this, which is a little sad.
Nier Automata is an amazing experience. It isn't always an amazing game, since the gameplay isn't really a main draw (although it's markedly more fun than in this game's predecessor) and was mostly dead easy outside of the final challenge, but I have rarely ever seen such wholehearted commitment to exploring narrative themes. I can easily see myself replaying this someday just for story, which isn't something that I can say often enough. It's also batshit crazy in that special way you just don't find outside of the Taroverse.
I don't get the sense that crafting an anti-war story was expressly his intent, since a more personal brand of existentialism is consistently at the heart of quests, character arcs, references, and dialogue, but damned if this doesn't wind up being one anyway. You have two gangs of automatons engaged in an endless war for no better reason than that this is what they've always done on behalf of ancient orders from superiors that they've never met. And of course the creators on both sides are long dead and it ultimately turns out that both factions of robots are based on the same technology, which are kind of inevitable developments but no less effective because of it. No one ever comes right out and says HUH! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing, but we're as close as you can get.
I like the soundtrack a helluva lot more now than I did during the music tourney, but that's pretty normal. Context! Really, my favorite thing here might just be the melancholy piano that plays in the background whenever you're out exploring the city. It's like a few seconds of that is somehow instantly evocative of the entire experience. EDIT: this track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmS3EJKBCFc Also 9S what are you even doing.
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Emil’s optional fights are worth youtubing. If you’ve watched the trailer, there’s something he says in it that requires a little context.
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Mm. Crono's pretty good in CT. That said I agree with Elf that CT buffs are really good ST, so if they're MT, I dunno how you balance around that, in the same way that maybe giving poison damage to the PC party isn't wise either. I guess you can just make the enemies uber enough to demand using the buffs, but that's kinda lame too.
Anyway if I was doing a remix of CT's PCs, Ayla is the one that I hope got the most modification. She's very good but extremely one-dimensional in an uninteresting way. I guess they balanced her around "well she doesn't have magic, so her physicals better be really good", but there just aren't enough enemies that demand magic (uh Spekkio), and for enemies that do, just use her in a Dual Tech anyway. So her "weakness" is irrelevant and she just unloads tons of damage quickly.
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Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward
Two milkmen do comedy!
This one's been sitting in my backlog for a long time. Did 999 have cursing? It feels like the characters in this one have slightly pottier mouths, but I could be imagining things. As usual, the first room's puzzle is weirdly the toughest albeit largely due to BSy reasons. Oh well.
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There's actually quite a lot of enemies which reward magic damage! Just... mostly before Ayla joins (Yakra Cathedral, Shadows, Heckran Cave, Zombor, Magus Castle). Ayla's main problem is lack of crowd control for a while (and enough bosses immune Rock Throw to avoid her completely running away with the ST damage curve; Cat Attack and associated unites are solid but not amazing) but later on she picks it up with unites (mainly Fire Whirl which is great). There's a good chance she's the best PC but it's not by some large amount, and in particular if you brought Triple Kick down by even ~20% damage, she would stop standing out (beyond being one of the very few RPG characters with a steal command which is legit useful).
Chrono Trigger remains one of the very best RPGs out there for character balance, impressively so for a game so old.
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I don't get the sense that crafting an anti-war story was expressly his intent, since a more personal brand of existentialism is consistently at the heart of quests, character arcs, references, and dialogue, but damned if this doesn't wind up being one anyway.
Yes, the theme of the story is based on Taro's pessimism of life, and his view of futility of it.
Some info that might give you more perspective on the story.
You know how Machines goes berserk with their glowing red eyes? That actually is not going berserk, but become "normal".
All Machines were built as death machines for the sole purpose to kill. For them having intelligence and other purposes are actually abnormal.
Them going violent with red eyes is merely a reversal back to the normal state. Though what exactly is the switch that cause this reversal is not properly documented.
But anyway, the point is, there is nothing wrong about the machines going death and destruction with red eyes.
And when you follow this line of thinking, you can arrive into a perspective like the Pascal village is merely a bug. It's destruction in flame is the right thing to happen instead.
Also, remember the picture books scenes from the 9S route? Recall the one telling the story of a god that rise from the mountain and gave Machines intelligence and tell them to seek out the meaning of life?
That's the source of bugs that made Machines stop being red eyes glowing death weapons.
The said god in that story is P-33 from the first NieR name. Androids and Machines that heard his call and stopped fighting were taken by him when he travels into outer space.
And yes, Terminal A & B's plan is a parallel of that, and also a disastrous failurem compared to P-33.
Finally, I recommend taking a look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiNKk3fPed8
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FFD2 - just finished Chapter 4. I am digging some of the plot ideas they are playing around with here. Like in ways that making his into Dimensions 2 works really well thematically. It isn’t plot tied in or anything, but in the same way Dimensions was dumb and kind of cute throwbacks to FF1 plot all through it, this is a weird mosh mash of Chrono Trigger style plot run through a Final Fantasy filter. It is super budget though so I don’t think it would hold like say Elfboy’s attention, but if you like mobile games and want to check out something a bit different then this is pretty good at it. Like instead of leaning into trying to make a super pretty mobile thing like Chaos Rings did back in the day, it agilely embraces mobile game play patterns and tells a budget JRPG plot through it.
Did you finish it yet Djinn?
Breath of the Wild - So I picked it up with my Switch and shelved it during the tutorial to playing Fire Emblem Warriors. Over Christmas I played a bit more and started to get into it, but shelved it to play something much worse. There was a long weekend this weekend and I think I sunk like 30 hours into it. Holy damn this is good when you are in the mood for it. I picked up the DLCs and there is a bridle that maxes out a horses stars and a saddle that will teleport it to you. When I worked out how to use them I found out that I could also give my horse French Braids or let it wear its mane super long and put flowers in its hair. The DLC fancy bridle hides the mane and looks ugly as shit. So fuck that noise I will just have a horse that looks fabulous and teleports to me.
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Yes, the theme of the story is based on Taro's pessimism of life, and his view of futility of it.
That's been evident in every game he's ever made, but I feel like certain points in Nier: Automata suggest that he's maybe, maybe mellowed out a little bit. Specifically, ending E + occasional dialogue points to the extent of "Yeah, everything sucks, but if we work together and try really hard, there's maybe a chance that we could make things a little better." Events in the game are still hella bleak, but that final note seems almost reluctantly, grudgingly positive, at least in comparison to previous final endings in his games.
Also, cool song.
Emil’s optional fights are worth youtubing. If you’ve watched the trailer, there’s something he says in it that requires a little context.
That was definitely a thing. Emil head danmaku, I approve.
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Nioh: I forgot to mention that the best part of DLC is that there are masked ninja dogs with kunai in their mouths so when they bark they shoot kunai at you. No part of this sentence is an exaggeration.
Done with every mission that is not Twilight/Abyss stuff, which I don't care about. Don't quite know why the All Quest trophies never pinged for maingame or DLC2, but whatevs, feeling pretty done here. Nioh is a good game; it's 50% of Bloodborne transported to circa 1600 Japan. If the 50% of Bloodborne that you care about is the crazy lore, then you can give this a pass, but all the good points of combat are here, and the Nioh devs are mayyyyybe a little better at recognizing the value of potential quality of life improvements than Fromsoft tends to be. I'm not really a fan of the randoloot, but it's not like this ruins the game or anything. Just means I have to spend 5-10 minutes unloading garbage on the tea house after every 2-3 missions because my inventory's capped again.
I kind of feel sorry for the final final DLC boss, because it looked super cool and ultimately just got cheesed out the way almost everything else in the second half of this game did (ninetails at least hit me a couple times, that's something to be proud of?) I didn't take a video of that boss fight specifically, but this is pretty representative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zAbpQuxjRk I'm also pretty sure that Sanada's ninja bud was supposed to spawn in midway during the DLC3 rematch with him, but I nuked Sanada so fast that Sasuke only ported in after his boss was KO'd.
Exploration was generally a lot scarier than boss fights by the end, but even then there was relatively little the game could do to blunt the cheese potential of my build. Throw all the things until I'm out of things -> living weapon because my armor set refreshes ninjitsu items after living weapon expires -> repeat ad nauseum because I'm using a guardian spirit with the fastest recharge time (and which also boosts ninja power).
Probably hit Horizon: Zero Dawn DLC next.
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Yes, the theme of the story is based on Taro's pessimism of life, and his view of futility of it.
That's been evident in every game he's ever made, but I feel like certain points in Nier: Automata suggest that he's maybe, maybe mellowed out a little bit. Specifically, ending E + occasional dialogue points to the extent of "Yeah, everything sucks, but if we work together and try really hard, there's maybe a chance that we could make things a little better." Events in the game are still hella bleak, but that final note seems almost reluctantly, grudgingly positive, at least in comparison to previous final endings in his games.
There are more story to tell about this.
Taro's first sign of mellowing out is in the Fire of Prometheus when DoD3 was released.. Aka that story of P-33, where he found his meaning of life and took all the peace loving androids and machines with him to outer space.
But DoD3 was too fucked up, so little people actually paid attention to Fire of Prometheus.
Then comes the NieR: Automata Concert, where 5 different voice drama were played, including what happens after Ending E.
The script of the drama were given out to the attendant of the first concert. The post ending E drama, which is scheduled for the fifth concert was then spoiled ahead.
The content of post Ending E was that 9S committed suicide by completely deleting his memory sector so there is no chance for him to get rebooted. Then 2B, who discovered this was plundered into despair and lost all her will to live.
S0, when attending the actual fifth concert, most people were all prepared for the worst. But the actual drama played out differently, and it ends in 2B and 9S's happy re-union. This effectively created Taro's the biggest mind fuck to his fandom ever since DoD1's Ending E.
The chaos and mixed feeling Taro had created in that concert is quite a thing to see.
But I am still not certain what message he is trying to send by doing this.
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Oh damn, speaking of the concert plays: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF0y083mMHA
Kyle McCarley and Kira Buckland get some friends together and read the scripts for those! They're all full spoilers, so I've been holding off on them, but now Sierra's done and it needs linked again.
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FFD2 - just finished Chapter 4. I am digging some of the plot ideas they are playing around with here. Like in ways that making his into Dimensions 2 works really well thematically. It isn’t plot tied in or anything, but in the same way Dimensions was dumb and kind of cute throwbacks to FF1 plot all through it, this is a weird mosh mash of Chrono Trigger style plot run through a Final Fantasy filter. It is super budget though so I don’t think it would hold like say Elfboy’s attention, but if you like mobile games and want to check out something a bit different then this is pretty good at it. Like instead of leaning into trying to make a super pretty mobile thing like Chaos Rings did back in the day, it agilely embraces mobile game play patterns and tells a budget JRPG plot through it.
Did you finish it yet Djinn?
Breath of the Wild - So I picked it up with my Switch and shelved it during the tutorial to playing Fire Emblem Warriors. Over Christmas I played a bit more and started to get into it, but shelved it to play something much worse. There was a long weekend this weekend and I think I sunk like 30 hours into it. Holy damn this is good when you are in the mood for it. I picked up the DLCs and there is a bridle that maxes out a horses stars and a saddle that will teleport it to you. When I worked out how to use them I found out that I could also give my horse French Braids or let it wear its mane super long and put flowers in its hair. The DLC fancy bridle hides the mane and looks ugly as shit. So fuck that noise I will just have a horse that looks fabulous and teleports to me.
Haven't finished it yet, I'm currently fighting Chaoses throughout time in some crazy parody of Bill and Morrow's Excellent Adventure.
Have you found Alba's sidequest line yet?
BotW: How are the DLC story chapters? I heard they focus on the guardians, which is extremely relevent to my interests.
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HZD: I am unsure why the Banuk opted for the Thing That Goes Doink model of building bridges as opposed to, you know, just building bridges.
I forgot how apt the blue and purple lighting they flood all technological environments with in this game is to giving me motion sickness. Which is a shame, because that's where all the neat plot business occurs. Tech companies, please, do not feel it necessary to make every computer monitor and phone and PDA include glowy blue and purple screens over the next couple decades. I realize it will make them easier for videogame protagonists to spot someday, but in the meantime, please consider your customers' well-being, before the robocalypse arrives and they all get eaten.
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Yeah found Alba. The Side Quests thing tells you all the currently open quests that you haven't started >_>
I haven't done the DLC stuff in BotW yet, just that couple of chests that are added to the main game world. I could go do the Trial of the Sword, but meh. I haven't even done any dungeons yet, so I am not super up on the Champions yet and Guardian stuff is idk, they are just Beamos aren't they? Zelda memory sequences though? Those are my jam. Zelda is fucking rad.
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La-Mulana: been playing this a lot recently, trying to make it through without an FAQ. The puzzles are for the most part great, and you feel really good solving them. But. Some of them are legitimately unfair in the sense that the clues are just bad, or in the sense that there are things that you trigger that are not hinted at at all. On top of that, quality of life is very low, and the game is not particularly respectful of your time, requiring manual healing, requiring use of subweapons that you may need to grind money to replenish, and occasionally including platforming segments that prominently feature you helplessly falling three or four screens down if you make the slightest mistake - this in a game where movement is so clunky that intentionally getting hit is often the most efficient way to deal with enemies. So it's a really interesting game with some great ideas and I'm not sure I would recommend it to anyone. Except that I'm still playing the hell out of it and excited to have made some real progress. Go fig.
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FF Dimensions 2:
So I've spent the majority of Chapter 6 on a whirlwind tour of refighting nearly every boss in the game and you'd think that would be awful. But FFD2, in another surprise move, manages to weave a bunch of character arc payoffs into this retread format. Once again demonstrating that it's a game that respects your time.
The main fights are still a little too weak for someone who has been completing all side content as it becomes available, but the side content in the form of submissions and Babil Tower fights continue to offer some challenge.
Honestly, while it's not groundbreaking storytelling or anything, it is a lot more competent than its cookie-cutter opening made me expect. And I think if Square had actually used this plot for a Chrono Trigger sequel, it would have been hailed as the Chrono sequel people had been waiting for. (presuming the gameplay was more CT-style with CT-level balance)
Almost done with the main campaign, but it seems there's a Seraphic Gate-style postgame chapter to play following the ending that I'm looking forward to for some higher challenge.
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Dissidia Opera Omnia day one. Pulled for Chocoblades for Bartz. Got two of those, two Cloud swords, Vaan knife, and Yuna staff. Plus Vivi staff from tutorial.
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Surprise Choron Trigger discovery; poison ticks do not remove Chaos status. So it's a very safe, though slow, way of handling some enemies such as Ruminators, which have been buffed from their original incarnation. I've been too lazy to test whether sleep persists with poison ticks.
Poisoned targets deal around 15-17% less damage and take about 10-12% more. So it's more of a added bonus than a gamebreaker and most of the hardest opponents are immune anyways.
Actually saw Lucca miss with Napalm on a Byte. What the hell? It his Spekkio just fine so it was quite the surprise to see.
To answer an earlier question, protect status hasn't changed. The Eidolon boss counters any damage 90% of the time with a fairly strong MT physical so full party Portect is nice to have there. (It also has high enough magic defense that Lucca feels like deadweight for damage dealing)
I'd intended to keep quiet about going through Grandia 2 for a while longer but had a surprise discovery at the Valmar Core. As I was trying to get through without spamming SP or MP recovery items (which I had very few of), I used a lot of physicals on the main body. Turns out it has trouble doing much when 3 or 4 people are gangbeating it. Even when the core was close to death and I had enough SP to finish it with techs, I still consciously chose to stick to combos to keep the core reeling more. Also seems somewhat fitting that Elena's staff whack dealt the finishing blow. Level 46 average, feels a bit low?
As for the final, final boss being weaker than previous fights, the group already kicked its tail once already so it makes sense from a story perspective that's it would be in a weakened state. Things played out conveniently such that Millenia dealt the killing blow with a big attack spell. Refights were funny for me in that I kind of thought about taking out one or more parts first but the way things played out, the main body ran out of HP first.
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Dissidia Opera Omnia day one. Pulled for Chocoblades for Bartz. Got two of those, two Cloud swords, Vaan knife, and Yuna staff. Plus Vivi staff from tutorial.
Gacha bullshit aside, the BRV system in this is pretty fun. I like how it handles making each character unique by giving them a unique gimmick and then focusing literally all of their support skills around it. Rem's turn-shift abilities look super-broken, though. Can't wait.
If you want a Ogrenix Cloud buddy:
Friend ID: 432 578 462
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Dissidia Opera Omnia day one. Pulled for Chocoblades for Bartz. Got two of those, two Cloud swords, Vaan knife, and Yuna staff. Plus Vivi staff from tutorial.
Also started this! On my first few pulls (the game frankly showers you on the free currency at the very start and they also give you 15k of the free currency... and the first pull is half-off... AND you get guaranteed 5*s off the bat. This would've made the first year and a half of FFRK SO MUCH SIMPLER), I got unique weapons for Rem, Vaan, Hope, Zidane, TWO PENELO DAGGERS (wtf i haven't even unlocked her) and Lock (who I haven't unlocked EITHER). I'm rotating between the former four, who are undeniably my best units as of now. Red Spiral is really good for action economy (BRV => HP damage is really nice) and Stellar Circle 5 deals a lot of BRV damage! Shell's also nice for buffs and avoiding Brave Breaks. I haven't really -used- Rem's Cure, since at this point you really shouldn't be taking HP damage, but good lord the turnshifting skill looks tasty.
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Ys 8: translation patch hit, so I started a new game on inferno difficulty. no major changes I've noticed so far - some terminology and proper nouns are different but most of the things that stuck out in terms of localization don't show up for a while. Inferno difficulty is not messing around in terms of damage, but enemy HP seems somewhat in line with hard. Three bosses in, I haven't struggled too badly with anything. But boss difficulty definitely ramps up as the game goes, so I can't read much into that. The next area is the coral forest, the game's first "dungeon." Sahad is even more the MVP this time around than on hard, and I expect this trend to continue. Best damage and an early special with big range and damage, in a mode where you need to be frontrunning at all times. Adol is really struggling right now - his normal attacks are the shortest and he doesn't have any specials that do a good job of keeping him out of harm's way. This won't continue, but for now he's LVP by a lot.
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Hollow Knight: After screwing around for a while I realized that despite having beaten the Waterways boss I didn't actually get the traversal item hidden there (or the map) so I went back and cleared it out, and was then able to get into the proper Fog Canyon entrance. Followed that up with a visit to the Abyss and now I've taken out all three Dreamers and got half of the True Ending token. Only problem is that the other half requires a boatload of Essence that I don't have (Currently at 1200, need half again that much for the Awakened Dream Nail). If I get the base/bad ending, I can go back for the rest later, right?
Bayonetta: Beat the third Cardinal Virtue. Which means Gracious & Glorious are a thing now. Ouch. Also I have to do The Broken Sky again because I missed an Alfheim and god dammit that level is a pain. On a happier note, I forgot about the highway stage, and specifically about the positively delightful scene where Bayonetta starts a motorcycle by flipping it off.
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If I get the base/bad ending, I can go back for the rest later, right?
Yes. There's at least one dream boss that will net you a lot but is pretty hard to find on your own. Shouldn't be that hard to get what you need without it though. Not sure how much of a purist you want to be, just throwing that out there.
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I've taken out three dream warriors and the dream version of the Ancient Basin boss. Found the Failed Champion (armored slug) but that thing is stupid.
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Celeste
This is pretty fun. Play it.
Final Fantasy XV: Assassin's Festival
Why am I even reviewing this? I played it on literally the last day it's available, today. Grumble grumble stupid limited-time content that happens in this age rather than physical media. You better be downloading this right now if you want to play it.
https://kotaku.com/final-fantasy-xv-s-fascinating-assassin-s-creed-expansi-1822428475
Explains it better than me. I think I had more fun with this DLC than I have had so far with vanilla FFXV. It's really well done DLC! And makes its own bizarre but internally consistent sense! Good times. (I don't think I'm gonna do all the optional puzzle hunt stuff at the end, though, beating up a giant robot after a cinematic chase sequence after a failed assassination attempt will have to do.)
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I've taken out three dream warriors and the dream version of the Ancient Basin boss. Found the Failed Champion (armored slug) but that thing is stupid.
How about the dream version of Soul Master?? Ok there is also a dream version of Dung Defender, in a hidden room beneath his boss room that you need to dive into, under the big ol' acid machine, and if you do a bunch of prerequisites, a dream version of Zote, for which you need to have saved him in both locations, fought him in the colleseum (after you've rescued him in both locations he will appear as the final boss of the first trial) AND rescued Bretta. Dream versions of Soul Master and Failed Champion def. feel like they're balanced for you to have nearly completely upgraded health and damage.
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Ys 8. I had to use healing items to beat the chameleon boss in coral forest. If you need me, I’ll be over in the shame corner.
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Haven't posted here in a while, but I'll just go with the most recent.
Monster Hunter World. Been doing reasonably well so far, I think. The game is absolutely beautiful, it's fun to play, and the netplay isn't bad. Well, when I don't get disconnected for random reasons. Gunlance for life, though I've been trying to teach myself the Charge Blade as of recently. With...mixed results in field practice.
also Kadachi gear is aesthetically the best thus far and anybody who thinks otherwise is wrong and a liar.
[EDIT] welp, can officially say I sub Charge Blade now. It's too good against some monsters, especially with the raw damage it can pump out in very short order.
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HZD: DLC plot finished. Just some sidequestiness left now. As usual, robot factories and plotdumps are the best parts of this game.
The new "final boss" bot is a severe pain in the ass. There's a probably a good way to fight these things, but damned if I can find it. "Target the bits that explode" sounds nice, that's my go-to strategy for most enemies and it usually works very well, but this thing's shoulder napalm compartments are small, armored, and the critter's erratic movement almost guarantees it's gonna juke out of the way as soon as you fire. The chest plate is heavily armored and takes forfuckingever to detonate even with the uber new bows. The exhaust port is a small target on its back and the fucking thing is so hyper aggressive that you almost never get a chance to shoot it in the butt because it swivels 180 degrees before you can release a shot. They're also very reluctant to leave their patrol area and wade into my trap fields, preferring to toss molten rocks and cause earthquakes from afar instead. Robot t-rex is a cinch to take down in comparison. And at one point you have to fight two of these things at once! It is robobear buttstomp city.
But at least now they're all dead and I never have to deal with them again.
Picked up FFVII on PS4 since I just noticed it was on PSN. Haven't played this in like fifteen years. Feeling a need to revisit past favorites right now for a lot of reasons.
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DFFOO: I'm liking Bartz as a main. His Doublehand+ does huge brave damage, and he has a passive that gives bonus brave to team members when he breaks someone.
Battle system is fairly dull so far, but I'm expecting it to be better once you unlock more abilities.
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GBF - my gacha luck exploded and I now have my fourth Katrina Sword.
I just need to grind Fenrir really hard next week and I can finally join the high league of Varuna Men.
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MHW - Odogaron is a big jerk.
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DFFOO - Welp, I completed Normal and Hard for all the chapters so far. After landing two Ogrenyxes for Cloud, I pretty much solidified my party setups.
As of now, I have eight characters with their personal weapons (Cloud, Vaan, Zidane, Hope, King, Penelo, WoL and Rem), and I got second skills for all of 'em too. Hope's surprisingly good with both his buffs - Protect and Shell were instrumental to avoid Brave breaks on a few fights on Chapter 4 and 5 Hard mode and the Brave battery shenanigans are nice, though nothing fancy compared to Yuna's insane quickcharge Esuna spamming. That and he troubleshoots slimes and other phys-resistant enemies. Cloud's boosted Cross Slash is -crazy- good, Paralysis locks are amazing and HP attacks with Brave damage attached are always good. Vaan's also nuts, Red Spiral and White Whorl's gimmick of having a Brave+HP chase on the third cast onwards is ridiculous and those two moves are ridiculous to begin with (HP attacks with good Brave damage attached, the damage isn't physical-typed so it's great against slimes and flying critters, the relic gives Vaan ATK UP after casting Red Spiral... uh yeah). Zidane shits out Brave damage like no one's business with Stellar Circle 5, and it even can debuff speed to boot, which segues very nicely into Penelo's Great Haste (who just spams it when I'm bringing her. It's pretty one-dimensional, but it's a good thing to be one-dimensional at). WoL is a very good tank - Shining Shield to weather Brave damage and avoid Breaks, Throw Buckler to goad enemies into attacking him. The lowish offense is honestly forgivable given how abusable that combo can be. King's mostly about troubleshooting fliers and dealing a lot of Brave damage with Rapid Bullets at a lightning-quick pace. That's actually better than it sounds. Rem's the weak link, though - Cure isn't very useful, since you're not often taking HP damage and Swap Turns isn't particularly abusable either, since it doesn't have enough of a fastcharge to really capitalize on flexibility. Also, low Attack and melee physical healer, that doesn't help when my biggest hole lies in having some magical damage to deal with slimes and ghosts.
Right now, I'm just amassing gems and materials to finally cap my equipment and hopefully get something nice for when Terra banners drop.
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Celeste
Continues to be awesome. Finished stage 5, the Mirror Temple. The platforming is just really fun.
My only complaint - and it's minor - is that... well, let me back up. Something nice about the game is that, like many modern games, it doesn't send you very far back if you die; you can keep trying to difficult platforming maneuver you want to pull off until you get it right. The one exception is that if you go "too far" the path can lock up behind you. This will never stop you from completing the stage, but might mess with your completionism if you want all the strawberries. I had 30/31 on the last stage where I had an "extra" key that I got too close to Path A forward, found Path B that didn't consume the key, welp locked door I can't open anymore. The game isn't usually this evil, but so it goes!
Virtue's Last Reward
I suppose I should get my speculation on a 2012 game down so I can look foolish. (I even BOUGHT it back then. Dunno why I was so slow in getting to it.) Except without spoiling 999 for those who played it. Which might be difficult. Hrmm.
Anyway, 9 people are trapped in another Nonary Game of puzzles + deadly peril for complicated reasons (which were crazy yet surprisingly rational-ish in 999). Zero III, the runner of this third Nonary Games, has the AI representative claim that Zero is chilling with out participants. So... using meta knowledge... who is it likely to be? I haven't cleared any endings yet, so I can't spoil that much, and sometimes the endings can be misleading anyway. 999 certainly is happy to let its Zero get killed in some of its routes, so even that isn't necessarily a guarantee. (Also, side note, I like that unlike other anime-inspired stuff, the Zero Escape series has a full gamut of age ranges. Maybe that's why it apparently didn't sell very well in Japan and did better overseas.)
* Sigma, Our Hero, 22-year old college student or so. Very unlikely to be Zero short of hacking his own memory, because that would kill any exploration or learning, and he sure acts like this is all new to him. Would be kinda at odds with the narrative anyway.
* Phi, the female lead, of a similar age to Sigma, but interestingly enough not portrayed remotely as a love interest possibility. Obviously Knows Way Too Much. But also very earnestly talks about trying to defeat the "system" / game as a whole. Gonna say unlikely as well.
* Luna, the sweet demure innocent maybe-a-doctor character that everyone makes romantic banter about between Sigma & Luna. Obviously highly suspect... but maybe TOO obvious? Like it's the level 1 juke, and maybe they're next level.
* K, the burly adult dude (possibly a robot?) who has curiously specific amnesia. This series really likes that since 999 had one of these too?! Suspicion level: low. "Haha I was lying about amnesia" would be a really lame reveal, and... okay this series MIGHT have some sort of Eden of the East type character who intentionally mindscrews himself for plausible deniability, but it'd be really wacky.
* Dio, the brash asshole who is antagonistic and makes enemies and does dumb shit. Heck no. Possibly the henchman of Zero - here to stir up some trouble and make sure nobody trusts each other entirely - but no way he's the boss.
* Quark, the boy (looks 10-12 years old?). Possibly a robot as well. No. 999 took its realism pretty loosely at times, but it did bother to set up excuses for both the original Zero and the second Zero as to how they had a zillion dollars to repurpose a facility for eccentric Nonary Game purposes. There might be an 18-year old zillioionaire who can order something complicated like this, but no way to a 12-year old one.
* Tenmyouji, the old guy. Possible... but doubtful, as well? His mien - slightly protective and mournful - isn't a common one used by villains, who tend to either be confident or else intentionally look-I'm-harmless. Also seems a case of "too easy."
* Alice. I thought she was Orochi from 999 at first. Anyway, we don't really know a lot about her.
* Clover. 100% cleared, no way. Exceedingly dangerous when she gets wrong ideas in her head - I still remember what you did with that Axe, I'll have you know - but not a villain, just clearly the chosen luckless continuity person to get repeatedly kidnapped for these games.
* Someone else, the AI is lying about Zero taking part in the game. This is... actually reasonably possible. The Zero from 999 back for more, perhaps?
So yeah, I have something like Alice > Luna > Tenmyougi > Phi >>> Someone else > K > Dio > Sigma > Quark > Clover. There, I wrote it down. I'll be able to laugh at myself later, at least.
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Hollow Knight: Cleared out most stuff over the past few days; White Guardian gave enough essence for me to awaken the Dream Nail, so I went ahead and got the bad ending (and boy is it clear that that's not the real last boss), completed the Voidheart (Hiveblood makes the White Palace fun instead of frustrating!), picked up the remaining grubs thanks to the Collector's Map, and did 2/3 of the Grimm Troupe quest. Also went back for Zote in Deepnest and found that he was surprisingly still hanging in there, despite the wiki saying that if you see him and ignore him for too long he's dead forever. I guess eight hours isn't enough time for him to get eaten. Also cashed in a bunch of relics so I could make the Fragile Heart/Strength charms Unbreakable. I might do Greed just for completion's sake? I'd have to grind the arena a bit, but it's not like that's hard.
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Did you fight the Gray Prince? You definitely need to fight the Gray Prince.
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Monster Hunter World.
So first, some information about me: It had been my opinion that previous Monster Hunter titles could generally be referred to as 'mindless shit games where you do nothing but grinding'.
Monster Hunter World seems to have understood that what came before made some egregious errors and has taken all of the appropriate steps to cut the crap.
Monster Hunter World is fun. They toned down the grinding. They upped the strategic components. They added proper player feedback to the UI. They made sure that everyone gets a cat-buddy to join their party. And they moved the setting to someplace new so that none of the old MH stuff really matters anymore (not that there's much of a deep story in the first place, it's all setting lore).
*Things that still keep it from being the best game ever: It is still a Solo ARPG, and there's no levelling, only equipment upgrading, and there's no unique skillsets/trees. So it's only an RPG in the same sense that Zelda is an RPG.
But that isn't to say it is a bad game, just not an RPG. And while this was a pretty big no-sell before, the streamlined grinding loops, improved world-building, actual voice-acting, increased strategy options, and smooth online options for playing with fellow DLers has really sold me on the what the series DOES do well:
Dinosaur Ecology. And by extension: Hunting muthafuckin T-rexes for fun, profit, and fashion.
(And also you can turn the T-rex into clothes for your cat-buddy.)
The game simultaneously launched worldwide for the first time ever and allows for cross-server play, so I'm hoping to see a DL group get formed sometime soon for awesome dino-hunting good times.
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I mentioned it before, but if you want a game similar to Monster Hunter but without 40-minute long fights, check out Dragon Project on mobile. It is a gacha game but it's pretty f2p friendly.
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MHW: oh god why does odogaron keep showing up in area 3 investigations now. also I have discovered super dimensional anti-gunlancer monster kirin. i have yet to defeat it with my gunlance.
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Final Fantasy VII: I have a long and complicated relationship with this game. My first encounter with FFVII was more directly responsible for me wanting to make games than any other event in my life (the fact that I've spent the following twenty years actively avoiding doing anything about this is an issue for an entirely different kind of post). I'd never been predominantly a fan of the RPG genre before this. I'd played a few and enjoyed them, but never thought of the genre as my specific favorite. But it was instantly apparent from just a few minutes of watching my cousin play FFVII at our grandparents' house that there was far more potential for creative storytelling in the medium than I'd previously considered. And that was just the Cosmo Canyon dungeon, arguably one of the low points of the game (the prison is the worst part, just like in FFVIII and XG and wow, I guess I could go on like this). It'd be a year or more after that before I could find a chance to play it, but finally doing so more than confirmed that if you wanted to tell a complicated and involved story in a videogame, RPGs were the way to do it, and FFVII was a sterling model for how. I don't think it ever enjoyed official place as my favorite game (because Star Control 2 existed), but opinion that this was one of the peak quality examples of the genre, and a prevailing influence in the field of Perpetually Undeveloped Cid Game Ideas, persisted for a long time.
I don't remember precisely the last time I replayed it, but I would estimate sometime during college (so 2002 at the latest). A great deal has changed in the interim. Years of internet fanboy exclamations of "Sephiroth greatest villain ever!1" and the like gradually ate away at my affection for the game--as well as, quite possibly, developing a degree of elitism from DL association. Anyway, this was the PS2 boom era of console JRPGs and I had too many new things to play to go back and revisit FFVII again. After a while, I concluded it couldn't possibly live up to its reputation and the visuals would look so painfully dated that it would be best to just stay away.
Sometime in 2016 or 2017 (it grows difficult to tell, the awfulness of real life events since late 2015 all blending together now into one everlasting scream), I read the FFVII LP. That four-year labor of love made the case, I would say very convincingly, that FFVII is a smarter game than we tend to give it credit for, and the reasons it was great tend to get lost or misidentified by its fandom. The FFVII LP is a fantastic read and I strongly recommend it; I will probably be reading it again after I finish the game. But ultimately I had to wonder what exactly my prevailing opinions were based on, and whether that patina of faint distaste for the game might be wholly unwarranted.
Lately, for the same fundamental reasons that I've been rereading Terry Pratchett and Carl Sagan, I've found it attractive to revisit what I regard as formative influences. That road could only lead back to FFVII (PSIV is probably on the agenda afterwards). These days, feeling inspired or moved by anything is profoundly difficult, but it isn't proving difficult to see what made FFVII appear so revolutionary to 18-year-old Cid. I'm enjoying it so far, and not giving much of a damn that Square is trying to tell a deep and moving narrative with Lego people, because few things earn my suspension of disbelief more winningly than earnest sincerity of purpose. Midgar is an outstanding introduction to a story.
The most obvious consideration playing something this old for the first time after multiple console generations have passed is "How has it aged?" And the most immediately obvious way in which games as a medium prove their age is indeed graphically.
For a long time, I figured FFVII would just look godawful in the 2010's and avoided replaying it partly for this reason. This turns out to be only partially true. Actually, the prerendered backgrounds are very endearing. There's a lot of character crammed into these, and I don't find them offputting for visually showing their age because the hand-drawn look is more the peak of a style that wasn't used much past this generation than the blocky first experiments of a new style. This is basically the same reason that I consider Valkyrie Profile the nicest-looking game of the PSX era (except VP did it one better and used sprites instead of polygonal character models). The way that the Lego people interact with these backgrounds is not always spotless--as impressive as the introductory sequence is cinematically, one can't help but be distracted by the way the Shinra soldiers at the train station wobble as the camera zooms in on their location--but the backdrops themselves are actually still quite nice to look at. I love seeing even throwaway NPC houses crammed with all the extraneous bricabrac of everyday life. The world map is substantially less great. And I'm still on the fence about the character models themselves, but I tend to regard work like this as just of its time and no more in need of a remake than Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is of colorization.
Combat remains the most braindead that I've encountered in a mainline FF title. Oh, whoops, Hobocat's pestering me for food because it's after dinnertime and I'm still sitting here playing the game, okay, no problem, I don't have to stop playing the game at all to fix this, just take the controller with me to the kitchen and hold down X. When I plan RPG combat systems, FFVII is usually the model for what I don't want to be. Given how much experience Square had by this point, I have to assume that FFVII having the simplest (and therefore most accessible) combat was a deliberate design decision. It's forgivable in-context because I care about the narrative, boss fights are basically just an excuse to listen to Still More Fighting while the Turks say pithy nonsense (FFVII's only dangerous bosses are the plotless ones), and this makes complete sense on a design level for a pre-sceneskip production that's loaded with lengthy cutscenes around boss fights. But if there's any specific aspect of the game I deliberately seek not to emulate, it's the battles. Surrounding narrative makes them good for drama, but the battle design never makes the player feel pressured technically.
The soundtrack makes me wonder why I've never nommed anything from this game for a music tourney, because Uematsu's themeing work is at least as on point as it was in FFVI. God, just listen to the main theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UARM4q7hHU It's exactly the right mood roller coaster for this narrative, and every musical motif gets taken apart and repackaged for use again right when the game needs it. There was probably a time somewhere in the PS2/PS3 era when I would've counted the mid-90s synth quality a mark against the game, but that seems pretty stupid by this point. Guys, I listen to ELP.
The translation is certainly a thing. If there's anything in the game that could use a fresh coat of paint, it's this. Even mid-90s localization can't disguise how clearly drawn the cast is, though (at least the Midgar quartet; I'm inclined to say things get a little fuzzier from Red XIII on, but we'll see). Unreliable narrators are great and I love the Footage Not Found effect every time Cloud's brain scrambles to cover the gaps in his memory. I just got out of Midgar and saw The Flashback. When I played this in college, I never picked up on the fact that Tifa knows there are huge inconsistencies in Cloud's story and can't figure out how to address this problem for like the entire game (in part because she isn't the assertive one--Aeris, working against type, is that). As the LP points out, the reasons that FFVII fanboys think it's a great game aren't always the reasons it's actually a great game--and the way that they remember and celebrate character personalities isn't always all that accurate, which is a little comical considering the nature of Cloud's character arc.
I'm not really sure why I set out to do this with dialogue options, but Tifa is getting friendzoned hard.
Presently have to get a chocobo to cross the swamp (and boo to the game making you scrape together money for this right after you probably spent all your money on new materia and weapons in Kalm).
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It never ceases to amaze me how well FF7's writing stood the test of time. The ways in which the main cast is completely fucked up in a downright fascinating manner always bring a smile to my face, and the game really deserved a far better translation than what it got. I just wish the gameplay wasn't so braindead - that game could've been pretty much the best there is if the sheer amount of vision they had could be matched in polish.
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FF12 Zodiac Age: This is my first time playing any FF12. Games like FFBE have made me want to play it for a long time though. I now understand why it was so amusing Rasler got a character in FFBE.
Combat is a bit offputting, and I can see why people didn't like it. It's essentially ATB, but the characters walking around and not doing anything while waiting for bars to fill makes it seem worse than it actually is.
I'm enjoying the story, and the voice acting is top notch. Graphics are slightly weird which I attribute to the HD remaking; there's some odd shading around Vaan's eyes.
Between Fran's well-rendered ass and Balthier's voice actor, I'm unsure of my current sexuality.
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Re:FF7 music. That is the Midi effect. Music compression was iffy then so you were looking at CD quality audio only when you had lots of space left on disc and Square wanted to use all that on poorly compressed video instead, so you you get beep bop midi music.
Still has its charms of course.
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Cid you replayed Dragon’s Dogma and got up to level infinite?? Do yoy like it even more than me?
Ys 8: I cannot believe that moment when the nun changes clothes. Notmiki did you mention it? If not, why? JFC, Ys 8.
It’s a really effective game, enormous, and a joy to control and explore. Running speed is Nier-like, which is the highest compliment. There’s a fucking Suikoden castle in there too.
I’m not hot about the JRPG trappings. Party members are walking tropes and should be abolished for a better battle system. Dana and co’s clothes are extremely embarassing.
Stop action games with menu healing at all costs. That’s too in a row there
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Cid: It's quite possible to cross the zolom's swamp without a chocobo. Walk out to the furthest spit of grassland, watch the zolom, wait for it to get as far away from you as possible off to the side, and make a dash for it. Save first, obviously.
That is my constructive addition to your post. Otherwise I enjoyed reading it and it mirrors a lot of my thoughts. I played it again in 2015, like you, for the first time since college, and it was a good time despite the game's warts. If you're in the mood for it I do recommend Tonfa Fantasy 7 at some point, because you get the same FF7 experience with way better gameplay design.
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Fenrir: What do you mean by a Suikoden castle in Ys 8? I am intrigued. (Also, what other action game did you play with menu healing? That sounds horrible.)
Cid: re: FF7:
You know, it has also been a long time since I have replayed FF7. But the recent FF7 Machina Abridged series on YT has rekindled my interest. Due to its parodic nature, I wonder just how many of those misconceptions you mentioned are being propagated in fans like me, who only half-remember all the key plot points and characterizations. Would be interesting to compare my thoughts about FF7 now and my thoughts after a replay alongside the now-completed LP.
(Also, nice breakdown. It was a good read.)
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Cid: It's quite possible to cross the zolom's swamp without a chocobo. Walk out to the furthest spit of grassland, watch the zolom, wait for it to get as far away from you as possible off to the side, and make a dash for it. Save first, obviously.
That is my constructive addition to your post. Otherwise I enjoyed reading it and it mirrors a lot of my thoughts. I played it again in 2015, like you, for the first time since college, and it was a good time despite the game's warts. If you're in the mood for it I do recommend Tonfa Fantasy 7 at some point, because you get the same FF7 experience with way better gameplay design.
I missed that part (reading before the edit), this, but you can also save part way across and it resets position, so if it isn't 1999 and you have more than one save slot that you have to use otherwise your brother will get SO MAD, you can always just get halfway in that safe spot, save, reload and keep trying from there.
Also seconding the rec for TF7 for anyone interested in a replay that they want some crunchier mechanics. It is amazing and so are the people behind it.
Finally, Fenrir! It had been a bit since I remembered seeing your posts and was getting worried you had abandoned me again :( Edit - That was a finally as in my last point, not FINALLY a fenrir post idon't mean to be that clingy.
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Thanks!
I’m not dead I’m just getting married in 10 days so not playing much
Djinn: dragon’s dogma and the new zelda have menu healing
In Ys 8 your ship sinks and you’re on a deserted island like Tom Hanks. You soon create a base and search for castaways. As castaways go to your base, they start building things there and helping you out. Sidequests are tied to this too: some dude asks for wood and feathers to make beds, you give them, later you’ll find the actual 3D beds in the village
BTW one of the castaways is a serial killer
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Notmiki did you mention it? If not, why? JFC, Ys 8
I thnk I rolled my eyes so far they did a 180.
So I am playing this on Inferno and no healing on bosses (except the forest chameleon because fuck that guy.). Just got to Serial Killer and...I’m hopeful, but man. Tough boss, can’t develop a crisp strategy because of all the zoning.
Also, it’s kind of amazing how bad Laxia is before she learns Lethal Raid, which suddenly transforms her into an MVP whenever you don’t need AoE
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Character balance is pretty interesting, but so far I’d say that Adol dominates with Force Edge and Hummel is second best thanks to range.. Ricotta’s the worst by far.
I’m already struggling on Nightmare with items (no farming) I can’t imagine Inferno with items. You pretty mich have to learn every boss perfectly and just chain guard/evade over and over with no mistakes?
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Cid you replayed Dragon’s Dogma and got up to level infinite?? Do yoy like it even more than me?
Q: Does a game let me design a female alternate self and dress up in lots of cool clothes? A: Yes.
Then I will play that game until it is dead (as long as the gameplay is at all worthwhile, and DD excels at gameplay). It took until close to max level to learn all of every class's skills anyway.
I kind of wish more action games would adopt Nier: Automata's interface for healing: yes, you can pause the game to use an item if you feel like you have to, or you could just press one button to bring up this quick submenu that doesn't interfere with combat at all.
Also I suppose that congratulations are in order.
I'm enjoying the story, and the voice acting is top notch. Graphics are slightly weird which I attribute to the HD remaking; there's some odd shading around Vaan's eyes.
Enjoy the story while it lasts, because it doesn't. FFXII has a lot of promising early leads that just get completely dropped as the game goes on. I dunno what Zodiac Age changes, but I doubt they took the time to add actual writing to the second half. Also that weird graininess to some skin textures is something I remember being a little offputting even in the original game. I don't think it ever fell into uncanny valley territory or anything, but it definitely put me in mind of a game aiming for graphical detail that was a bit beyond its grasp.
It never ceases to amaze me how well FF7's writing stood the test of time. The ways in which the main cast is completely fucked up in a downright fascinating manner always bring a smile to my face, and the game really deserved a far better translation than what it got. I just wish the gameplay wasn't so braindead - that game could've been pretty much the best there is if the sheer amount of vision they had could be matched in polish.
Funny thing, I actually almost gameovered yesterday. First thing Jenova did was cast Stop on Aeris. I only have one Restore materia. Guess who had it? Everyone was at 20% or so by the time the status finally wore off and I could heal the party. I guess not all of the plot bosses are completely toothless. Also, that Jenova boss theme, you guys. So good.
FFVII: CPR minigame. There's no talking about a revisit to FFVII without addressing its minigames, specifically re: the clunkiness thereof. And Junon is almost a nonstop sequence of minigames.
In retrospect, it isn't difficult to see why they're there. It was a new console era, Square had new technological capabilities to play with, and new opportunities tend to engender a passion for experimentation. And most of them, I'm starting to conclude, probably were put in the game for the sake of immersion. Sometimes this works: the motorcycle minigame might handle a little sloppily, but probably the devs felt like it was better to have you doing something there rather than just sitting and watching the party flee the city. It doesn't play amazingly well these days, but it seems reasonable for it to be there because Square wanted the player to be in control when exciting things were happening. For better or worse, FFVII launched the idea of the console RPG as interactive movie, and you can't say that Square didn't give it their all trying to make that work.
But some of them are just wallbangers. CPR minigame. CPR minigame! Guys, I cannot say it enough. Why is this in the game. At least I can laugh when I fail at the parade sequence. I had to skip the Fort Condor minigame, though, because I didn't have the dough. Boo hoo.
Apparently you can recruit Yuffie before leaving the eastern continent. Never knew this before. 12.5% chance encounter in the woods and I got it on the second try. Aaaand if I recall correctly my least favorite part of the game is next.
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Character balance is pretty interesting, but so far I’d say that Adol dominates with Force Edge and Hummel is second best thanks to range.. Ricotta’s the worst by far.
I’m already struggling on Nightmare with items (no farming) I can’t imagine Inferno with items. You pretty mich have to learn every boss perfectly and just chain guard/evade over and over with no mistakes?
There is a lot of flash evade/guard involved, for sure. It hasn’t been as unforgiving as I expected, though. Usually each character can survive 1-2 hits. I’ve been grinding a little bit, but grinding in 8 is not the ezmode switch it was in past ys games, so it’s only a marginal difference. I actually haven’t gotten that much use out of Hummel - I usually go for rushdown strats, and once I get it, for range use Sahad’s Magna Wave. Totally agree re: force edge. It is silly good. Ricotta gets a couple moves late that put her on much better footing, but til then she’s a little underpowered considering how her best damage early moves leave her open to hits.
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Character balance is pretty interesting, but so far I’d say that Adol dominates with Force Edge and Hummel is second best thanks to range.. Ricotta’s the worst by far.
Riccota stays the worst until after game.
She has this one amazing AOE move that can make after game content a piece if cake.
But she needs a lot of ATK topping to make that useful, which isn't happening until after game either.
In the main game it kinda goes like this.
Adol: Only if you need slash type damage.
Laxia: Lethal Raid is good againt almost everything.
Sahad: Best AOE
Hummel: If you need range or play safe in boss fight. Too bad they nerfed his counter. It was bonkers back in PSV.
Riccota: Useless in main game outside stealing.
Danna: Ultimately a better Adol due to her self buff.
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I pretty much agree with that assessment. I would say that Sahad is boss MVP for most of the game, and remains so in the aftergame. Laxia is better in some specific fights, but Sahad's damage and range tend to win out. I mostly favored Adol over Dana, but that's just personal preference based on their movesets (I never got tired of bump attacking dudes, even though it's tricky to do so without taking hits).
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Funny thing, I actually almost gameovered yesterday. First thing Jenova did was cast Stop on Aeris. I only have one Restore materia. Guess who had it? Everyone was at 20% or so by the time the status finally wore off and I could heal the party. I guess not all of the plot bosses are completely toothless. Also, that Jenova boss theme, you guys. So good.
Jenova-BIRTH felt like probably the most competent plot boss in the game, to be honest? Accurate Stop basically being the big killer here. Also immunes Poison.
At least I can laugh when I fail at the parade sequence.
Honestly, the parade sequence is what I feel is better design for B-list minigames (with A-list being stuff like the bike chase, snowboarding, and Xenogears' gear battling minigame). It's there, quick and easy, and the failure result is kind of amusing on its own with the infrastructure at Shinra being so incompetent that when someone says "send that soldier a bomb", they just send you a bomb to use, not a bomb to blow you up with.
Says a lot of how late President Shinra ran the company.
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I'm inclined to say things get a little fuzzier from Red XIII on, but we'll see).
I'm going to assume that pun was intentional. But yeah, FF7's been a game I've been meaning to go back to as well, but there's just... So many games to play as it is. Breath of the Wild, FF14, 2.5 different Gacha games, and then trying to get back into DDR, plus Dissidia and getting better at fighters in general... Yeah.
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the infrastructure at Shinra being so incompetent that when someone says "send that soldier a bomb", they just send you a bomb to use, not a bomb to blow you up with.
Says a lot of how late President Shinra ran the company.
I only vaguely recall how this sequence played out, but just from how you describe it here, it makes me think:
President Shinra is a cool dude who knows what Soldiers like: bombs!
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I pretty much agree with that assessment. I would say that Sahad is boss MVP for most of the game, and remains so in the aftergame.
Riccota begins to dominate in after game once you start topping her ATK. You should have enough resource to do that 1/3 into the after game content.
Her bone tossing move actually has a infinite range. The hit box only disappear when it reaches the other side of the screen.
This actually becomes extremely valuable when you start tackling the after game siege fights.
She in literal sense, can cover the entire battlefield without moving a single step and can pretty much kill before getting killed. It stands out even more in higher difficulty where you don't want the enemies to get close int he first place.
BTW, who do you prefer when doing DPS rush down on bosses?
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BTW, who do you prefer when doing DPS rush down on bosses?
Depends on the boss, but mostly Sahad. If Raging Deluge can get all its hits in and is safe, it's no contest. Laxia is good on fights you need to move around more with, especially since Lethal Raid gives you an opportunity to get out of trouble. I imagine Dana is very good for this but I never got the hang of using her (outside her solo dungeons.)
Good to know about Ricotta's ultimate move - I never did that many of the aftergame raids but it's not hard to see how good that would be.
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DFFOO - There's not much content to do now that I completed Squall's event and mastered all of the current story chapters, but I guess that's okay. Lots of levels to get for my ever growing party (the weekly banner had Terra's Falchion at a boosted rate along with Rem and Penelo weapons... felt like I could squander the risk. Two pulls garnered me two more copies of Penelo's Orichalcum Dirk, which is now at three limit breaks, and two copies of Terra's weapon, which is a great result - I seriously needed a non-Hope magical damage dealer, and now that I got into the groove of her Meltdown/Meteor chants, she's a quite solid, if setup-heavy, magical tactical nuke). Also got two of Bartz's hat, which I won't complain about). So now I'm catching Terra up in crystal augmenting and levels - she's almost there, L36 and 25 crystal levels! Once every other main party PC reaches L39, I'll have Terra ferry up some low-level losers for extra ranks and gems. Feels like I can actually hoard for a long time after Vanille's banner, which should be up late in the month and comes with Yuna's AoE Esuna rod. If I land that, I can bench Hope as my Brave battery and use him only when I -really- need the damage resistances. Otherwise, my party's pretty well set for a good three-four months.
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I'm inclined to say things get a little fuzzier from Red XIII on, but we'll see).
I'm going to assume that pun was intentional. But yeah, FF7's been a game I've been meaning to go back to as well, but there's just... So many games to play as it is. Breath of the Wild, FF14, 2.5 different Gacha games, and then trying to get back into DDR, plus Dissidia and getting better at fighters in general... Yeah.
Never assume I made a pun on purpose! Also, part of the reason I personally stopped FFXIV was that it meant I wasn't playing much of anything else. Witness the backlog of notable 2017 games I'm just now getting to (and I still haven't touched Persona 5 or The Last Guardian).
FFVII: Chocobo racing makes my brain bleed and the blood comes out of my eyes.
But at least that's over with. Walked into Gongaga with Tifa and Aeris in the party without remembering this would be at all significant for either of them. Tifa lying to avoid admitting she knows Cloud is delusional and/or lying, pretty great. Aaaand almost gameover on the way out because some random plant thing sleeps the party, casts Bio 2 on 2/3 of them, and then uses like 99% gravity on all of them. Tifa woke up just in time to run away at 1 HP with the other two dead.
I didn't even remember what Seal Evil did but used it on the Turks just for the hell of it. "Wait, why aren't they attacking or moving? ...Ohhhh, right." Rude has the laziest walk-off animation, it's great.
I'm actually trying to keep everyone up-to-date on weapons and armor and it turns out this is hell on your pocketbook in FFVII (I'd always just picked Cloud + two people I liked and stuck with that the whole game).
EDIT: I'd forgotten about the triceratops-on-tank-treads-with-afterburners enemy and I have no idea how.
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EDIT: I'd forgotten about the triceratops-on-tank-treads-with-afterburners enemy and I have no idea how.
FF7 enemy designs are pretty glorious. Animistic Rube Goldberg-esque giant houses that drop mortars on your face. Skeleton ghost motorcycles. The aforementioned triceratops on tank treads. You have to wonder what kind of mutation Mako poisoning causes on random wildlife in that game.
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I don’t think FF7 wants you to only use 2 other characters the whole game, but it definitely feels like they want you to do sprints between shops with them by the economy. Sometimes a weapon will disrupt that, but not heaps while money is still relevant.
Slay the Spire - I am bad at this and it makes me sad. Roguelike deck builder. Super early access but yeah keep an eye on it if those 2 words sounded interesting.
Nine Parchments - I am bad at this and it makes me happy. Arcade style Twin stick shooter from the studio they put out Trine. Have played 1, and 3 players. 3 is hectic, 4 would be bonkers. You have some Magicka elements there but it is less zany spell combos and more focused on replaying and unlocking stuff and different spells. I recommend it if that sounds cool at all. Art style is the same as Trine, which is to say it is vibrant and really contrasting. It makes some of the visuals to read sometimes, but it looks nice.
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El Cid, you play GBF???
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Nope, I don't. Why?
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Nope, I don't. Why?
Some one with an ID of El Cid using the English UI popped up into my raid yesterday. So I have to ask.
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Well, El Cid was a real (Spanish) dude and a Bard's Tale PC, so there's plenty of chance for someone else to have derived the same screenname from non-PSIV means.
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Dragon Ball FighterZ- Finished all three story modes.
So the third mode is a bit miserable in a few ways, mostly because you spend SO MUCH of it without having three characters to field while enemies do the usual. Compounded by 16 being kinda gimped in story mode's format. Also the AI starts to try and I suck at these games but that's not nearly as at issue as having that extended wait to having character options.
Still, god damn this feels like Super's filler. Which is the best part of Super. It is goofy and self aware and just wants to let all the minor characters exist and breathe and BE, and I love it. It has substantial amounts of Bulma and sometimes Whis shows up to sass at everyone (usually assisted by Bulma). The "Waifu 21" meme was earned but I kinda love it because it's so easy to laugh at and I think we're supposed to kinda.
The ArcSys style is really good at making you feel like you can do STUFF even if you suck, and everything looks way fancier than it really is which really adds to that.
Real good, not that I need to tell anyone to play it exactly. 8/10 feels right in the moment, although I could see dinging it 1 for a few frustrations towards the end.
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Still, god damn this feels like Super's filler. Which is the best part of Super.
🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
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For me, the hardest battles in Grandia 2 were Eye of Valmar, Valmer's Claw, and Melfice (tacking him at Lv 30 is scary.) From that point on, resources shift in my favor as my team has enough MP to last a drawn out battle and enough SP so that members can use their techs more than twice on a full tank. Actually cruised through the game without needing to retry battles and slacking on keeping my equipment up to date until Valmar's Eye walled me hard. Everyone ran out of MP and I used most of my recovery items. Still ended with one character dead and I probably only got past because the main body got stuck somehow. Then Valmar's Claw comes by and nearly empties what HP recovery items I had left and managed to build back up. One Healing Herb and one Holy Wound Salve were all I could lay claim to after that struggle. Nothing quite as troublesome as that trio for the rest of the game other than Valmar Core (Devils at Raul Hills nonwithstanding)
Got a really strong LUNAR vibe from the story and progression as I went through (not really shocking given the developer) that I ended up making lots of comparisons in my head. Sometimes I refer to the real main antagonist as not-Zophar, the ugly forms even ooze blackness in nearly the same way.
Just for amusement, I even made my own list of which LUNAR character the cast is most like.
Ryudo: ??? OK, I'm stumped here since I don't recall anyone in LUNAR being so jaded and cynical. Has most in common with Jean I guess with the whole "running away from past and eventually confronting it over the course of the game" act going on. Their exterior personas are radically different though.
Skye: Nall The non-human sidekick Mostly there to make wisecracks and stick with the male lead through anything.
Elena: Luna Really talented singer, has feelings for male lead but mostly conceals them, jealous at the idea of him being with another. Also good at being a healer and low on the offense stats in battle. I feel they share the same sense of righteousness too.
Millenia: Ruby Hot tempered, likes the male lead and is rather clingy about it, enjoys burning things. She's got most of Ruby's personality traits included being soft-hearted towards children. Though I doubt Ruby would dress that daringly in a human form.
Also, I find her battle quotes the most enjoyable by far. "Deep fried goodness!"
Roan: ??? Mabye Mia, they both have that polite demeanor in nearly every circumstance. Also pushed into leader roles at a young age and generally admired by the citizens of the communities they lead.
Mareg: Mel In battle, this is the closest one would get to a playable Hell Mel. Clobber stuff with an axe and leave the spell slinging to their teammates. Both are parental figures as well and act respectably off the battlefield.
Tio: Lucia Another easy comparison; both learn about human emotions through the course of their journey and their manner is very mechanical when they first appear. It's off the beaten path (stay the night in St. Heim after Tio joins) but Tio also gets a scene where another character experiences embarrassment because of her unfamiliarity with human conduct. Nowhere on the level of the hot springs scene but feels in a similar spirit.
Valmar: Zophar On a surface level, reminds me strongly of Zophar. Looking back, all that talk about preventing the Day of Darkness ought to have been a big tipoff that he would appear just like in LUNAR 2. The motivations seem more like a certain Magic Emperor.
Mostly playables right now, may or may not get around to others if I feel inspired to.
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Celeste
Beaten. Well, the Summit. Haven't done the Epilogue or the B-Side alternate versions of the stages yet (and... seems like the Epilogue is blocked to me at the moment anyway). It was really good! My only complaint *might* be that the stages can drag a bit if you're trying to be completionist - maybe a little too long - but whatever, that's your own fault, skip the Strawberry and move on.
Sir Alex had a good point in IRC that the aesthetics of the game being more acceptable than certain other hardcore platformers. There was a post on Kotaku that expressed a vague but reasonable feeling - which I agree with - that while the game has some tough challenges, it wants you to succeed. You can just move on if you're stuck, the game doesn't make fun of you with a bad rating for being slow or dying a lot, and in fact encourages you by noting the death count is a point of pride. (Also, the characters being relatable and pretty cool, rather than lingerie models or whatever the heck Super Meat Boy is.)
130/175 Strawberries, although I checked the occasional online guide.
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DK0, I dunno about Luna "concealing" any feelings of the male lead, since that couple is famously written like, well, an already-married couple from the very start. She's a lot more assertive than early-game Elena, too, basically skipping any "get more resolve!" character arc. (The others mostly look good, although I agree Ryudo doesn't really have any close comparisons. Wouldn't even attempt to use Jean. Maybe KYLE but there's a lot of differences there too.)
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FFVII: Forgot to wonder aloud how no one in the party doesn't immediately suspect Cait Sith when they start talking about a Shinra spy in the group. Dude who forced his way into the party for no reason whatsoever and is the only person we haven't known for a while with an obvious reason to hate Shinra? Who else is it gonna be, guys? (Ignoring Yuffie because she's optional, dialogue would be the same even if she wasn't there.)
Cosmo Canyon -> Nibelheim -> Rocket Town. Cid + Shera is the most openly abusive relationship I've seen in a game. Not sure what you were going for there, Square. That Cid themesong, though. I was so spaced out when I played this part last night that I might've convinced myself I dreamed Palmer getting hit by a truck out of nowhere if I hadn't played this game before. Who puts lard in their tea, anyway? I'm also unsure what the logic was in no one telling Red XIII what happened to his dad for like years (or even decades, given how old he is). How is that not gonna come up? Why deliberately hide it instead of like dedicating a statue to the town's savior? (Oh wait.) I dunno, maybe all that stuff happened right before Shinra grabbed Nanaki so no one had time, but it doesn't read that way. That whole backstory just feels so perfunctory.
Wutai is the armpit of the game. Taking away materia reduces FFVII to Hold X: the Game. Also I forget Yuffie's last couple hiding spots and spend way too much time running back and forth all over town. Then the boss's Aero 3 OHKOs people and it's 2AM so I just ragequit for the night.
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Aura is totes doable after you unlock the Tiny Bronco, but I am pretty sure they meant for you to do it after the Temple of Ancients. A couple of levels go a long way and you have some of the 0 slot weapons. It is also easy to hit trying to find the shallow water while circumnavigating the world.
Also you didn’t notice Cid was that bad? There is a reason I never liked him and never really use him.
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Celeste
while the game has some tough challenges, it wants you to succeed.
"You can do this" is the theme of the game, from start to finish. Great stuff.
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Celeste: completed the main game. great platformer, basically agree w/ SF and Alex. 154/175 strawberries, and beat the stage 1-3 b-sides. will definitely be going back to do the epilogue and other b-sides. Some of the specifics of how it goes about communicating its life affirming message seemed a bit off to me, but that's looking at some pretty small trees in a great big forest. I liked it a lot. it's very pretty. the music is good, occasionally great (stage 2 in particular). It has an extremely cool boss fight.
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Cid: My last playthrough of FF7 was helping Tonfa test TF7. When I got to the marsh, RICHARD and Laggy peer pressured me to ford the it. I think there was a good 15 minutes spent trying to figure out how to cross it without getting caught. Alternatively, I think they were having too much fun watching me wipe repeatedly. You don't need the Chocolure materia at all - the entire thing feels honestly a little clunky.
For me, the hardest battles in Grandia 2 were Eye of Valmar, Valmer's Claw, and Melfice (tacking him at Lv 30 is scary.)
The only way I can really have fun with Grandia 2 anymore is when I purposely hamstring myself. Fighting him at level 25 with very limited coins makes the most difficult fights obvious (and the easiest fights also very obvious). Eye = Core >>> Melfice by far.
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For me, the hardest battles in Grandia 2 were Eye of Valmar, Valmer's Claw, and Melfice (tacking him at Lv 30 is scary.)
The only way I can really have fun with Grandia 2 anymore is when I purposely hamstring myself. Fighting him at level 25 with very limited coins makes the most difficult fights obvious (and the easiest fights also very obvious). Eye = Core >>> Melfice by far.
I think the re-release had a hard mode, which might also help.
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Didn't G2 hard mode just up enemy HP or something?
Aura is totes doable after you unlock the Tiny Bronco, but I am pretty sure they meant for you to do it after the Temple of Ancients. A couple of levels go a long way and you have some of the 0 slot weapons. It is also easy to hit trying to find the shallow water while circumnavigating the world.
Also you didn’t notice Cid was that bad? There is a reason I never liked him and never really use him.
Point A: it turns out this boss does not immune Stop. Aeris solves all problems (though not for much longer).
Point B: interpersonal relationships, a thing which college Cid did not recognize existed, abusive or otherwise.
Also, something that popped up in chat after I went to bed last night:
<Tide|SuperisKnoll> Altneratively
<Tide|SuperisKnoll> you can have so much materia that Yuffie can't steal all of it
I'm curious now, how does that work?
FFVII: Had a couple gameovers walking from Wutai back to the Tiny Bronco, which is kind of hilarious considering the timing. Mobs of four birds that like to spam MT spells for close to 400 damage. No one in the party has 1,600 HP yet. This must have been shittastic RNG, because I don't remember that being an issue on the way up. (PS4 edition of FFVII has a trophy for dying, by the way.)
Anyway, Temple of the Ancients. This is a lot of dungeon by FFVII standards. I die once to the boss at the end because Demon's Rush is OHKO damage to people in the front row. Okay, I get it, keep everyone in the back row at all times! *Cid promptly puts everyone in the front row when rearranging the party after the dungeon* The mechanical logic of this is a bit lost on me when there's no front row to be protecting the "back row" anyway.
Cait Sith cheerily marching off to sacrifice himself might be more touching if I didn't know he'd immediately respawn afterward (and if he didn't rejoin at the most awkward time and in the most awkward manner possible). Also, kind of wish I had brought Tifa with me to see her reaction to Cait Sith announcing Cloud x Aeris OTP, but I'd brought Yuffie instead. (I do actually like Tifa, but it seems like even the writers meant for her themesong to be Born to Runner-Up.) It says a lot about the closeness of the core party that Tifa and Barret still want to trust Cloud even after he had a crazy fit and gave Sephiroth the Black Materia. It's hard not to conclude that Aeris marched off on her own at least in part because she realized there was no way of knowing what Cloud may or may not do at the next high-stakes encounter. Her final words don't scan this way at all--she addresses him directly in terms of "Please take some time off to figure yourself out before you have a complete breakdown, for your own sake"--but you can tell she knows she's dealing with someone dangerously unstable, even if it is a dangerously unstable person that she actually cares about. Also seems pretty clear Aeris martyring herself was never the plan--she talks too much about things she intends to do later in life, and not in any wistful sense but in genuine expectation that she'll have time. In a less close-knit party, I could see what happens to her becoming grounds for recrimination later, but FFVII's PCs just want to help each other--they just don't always know how.
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Yuffie will only steal the 48(?) most valuable materia in your inventory. It's possible to mass buy cheap materia to break past this limit and keep some Fire/Ice/Bolt/Restore. Doing the sidequest late in the game also makes this more likely, but then of course you won't have any trouble with Rapps regardless.
Thunderbirds use Lightning 25% of the time so yeah you got haxed pretty hard. It is an unusually good enemy attack for FF7.
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Didn't G2 hard mode just up enemy HP or something?
I've heard it was more comprehensive in terms of boosts (still not necessarily great, but anything to add an iota of extra challenge is good in a game like G2).
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Yuffie steals exactly 48 Materia. This total doesn't include any she has equipped which is why I remove all of her's when I'm triggering the sidequest.
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Cosmic Star Heroine -
Beat this (a couple weeks ago). It was a good time. Zeboyd's previous RPGs had some clunkiness in their dungeon design which is excised here; both the dungeons and battle aesthetics are very Chrono Trigger, which is a big improvement. Looking at the credits it's still the same guy doing the graphics work, so he's just getting better I guess? Cool anyway.
There's a lot to like about this game. It's fast-paced (just like the games it is paying homage to), the gameplay is interesting. The serious writing isn't much as usual but it has some decent funny moments mixed in at least. It looks and sounds nice, and manages to capture a distinct feel in its space opera meets cheesy spy movies setting.
The gameplay design is interesting to be sure. The Zeboyd tradition of enemies getting stronger and punishing you for stalling remains, but skillsets play very differently - they're now primarily based around setting up for and making use of predictable turns where each PC gets a damage bonus. Most skills can only be used once (the defend command recharges them) so thoughtful use of skills is rewarded and mindlessly spamming things is not.
My biggest complaint about the battle system is that what enemies do rarely matters. The game wnats to make it possible (and often even desirable) to win without ever healing, which means a well-crafted offensive blitz is always good enough, and in turn enemies aren't really able to do much to stop that. This is extra true because characters can survive for one turn at negative HP, so you even get a "warning" turn before that character actually dies for a real. I couldn't actually tell you what many enemies in this game actually do. It's still an interesting system, but it's a one-sided one.
I played on Heroine Mode which is the second highest, which has generally been an enjoyable way to play Zeboyd games for me. It's definitely easier than other Zeboyd games on this difficulty, or maybe I "got" the system well, I dunno. But difficulty can be adjusted on the fly and there's a higher one; I just figured I'd save that for replays myself. Of course it says something that I'm quite sure I will replay this game.
Usual Zeboyd good design like allies healing to full after fights and everyone levelling equally remain. MP's also gone and I don't miss it. Fights are individually crafted now which is great.
I rotated PCs some but ultimately settled on a party of Psybe, Orson, and Chanh. Different characters went through different phases of usefulness (e.g. Alyssa felt incredibly OP midgame with water boosting, but the weapon which does that falls off). In general my master strategy of crushing everything was using Sara's Gunmancy+50 and Chanh's Unleash->Focus->Orbital Assault with a bunch of buffs piled on, including Psybe's Hyper Awareness and Orson's Astralize to take advantage of her "+50% damage vs ghosts" trait; her hyper turn generally did around 50000. Kaboom.
I died twice, once to the mechdragon in the final dungeon (and only because it OHKOed the "right" person on turn 1) and once to Arete. In both cases I fell about 1% of their max HP short of winning. Mrgrgr.
Definitely recommended. Might need a replay to sort out my feelings but 7.5/10 works tentatively; I do want to see if the hardest difficulty makes me care about the enemy design.
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I need to make sure I label discussions like that so when they are quoted future me doesn't think I am absolutely slamming the shit out of people I like while skimming to find the last post I had read. This is what I saw.
...
Also you didn’t notice Cid was that bad? There is a reason I never liked him and never really use him.
Point A: it turns out this boss does not immune Stop. Aeris solves all problems (though not for much longer).
Point B: interpersonal relationships, a thing which college Cid did not recognize existed, abusive or otherwise.
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It's okay, I know the difference between a Cid and a Cid and when a Cid and a Cid isn't the same.
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Celeste
Beat stages 1-3 B-Sides, beat the Core, got Heart of the Mountain.
It's a damn fine game, and I'm sure that people better than me at these didn't have the issue, but one minor complaint I have that both 3-B and Core had, notable when doing them twice in a row, was the combination of having moving obstacles as well as extremely tight timings. IOW, say there's some sort of procession of a spikes equivalent that just goes back and forth. If you're in a safe spot, you can just time when to jump through it. Maybe you get it wrong a few times, but it's clearly your fault or a learning experience. Over in the other corner, suppose there's some intricate jump where you're bouncing across three scenes with no respite and attempting to slow down will just mean losing too much momentum and plummeting to your doom. Okay, that's exciting and fine too. However, combine them, and you get potential frustration. There would be times where I damn well knew I was jumping to my death but had no choice because slowing down would be death too, so I guess I'm just jumping and hoping the obstacle isn't in the way and timings all line up for me? I'm sure speedrunners have things like the *initial* time of departure really down pat to mitigate this, but it's a bit frustrating for me because I don't feel like I have a lot of agency in those deaths. (On the other hand, these are basically challenge stages, so it's my own damn fault for attempting 'em.)
But, to be clear, it's more that it's easier to talk about nitpicks than it is to talk about good stuff. This was pretty amazing, highly recommended.
Also, patch just came out recently for PC, hopefully PS4 gets it soon! Also the speedrun.com leaderboard for this game seems to have a new world record every day. Intense stuff.
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I am midway through Mirror Temple B side in Celeste. 175 strawberries and all blue hearts except for Reflection’s, which is some impossible puzzle shit.
Celeste is indeed very good, I like how momentum plays a much smaller role compared to games like Super Meat Boy. Jump windows are usually huge.
It’s pretty incredible how far I’ve gotten considering how I thought I had mastered the base gameplay by Chapter 3 A-side.
RANKING THE CHAPTERS
2 Old site
3 Celestial Resort
7 Summit
5 Mirror Temple. B side best music BTW
1 Forsaken City
-gap-
4 Golden Ridge
8 Core
6 Reflection
I am glad the b sides exist because the early chapters have the best visuals / gimmicks and they’d be wasted on low challenge areas
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I figured out the stage 6 puzzle and my immediate reaction was "boy is this gonna make some folks salty."
If you care for one, here's a hint: it's related to the puzzle in stage 1.
Slight further spoiler warning: I actually couldn't figure out stage 1's puzzle til I solved stage 6's, which is cool how that can work but probably the exact opposite of what was intended.
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I didn't even find the heart puzzle in Reflection! 'course, I didn't find any of them in the A-Sides, barring 3/6 of the Summit pieces.
I will be contrarian and say that Golden Ridge was my favorite stage. Straining against the wind, yet pushing yourself forward anyway? Was the stage to make me most feel like a badass taking on an inhospitable mountain, at least.
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RANKING THE CHAPTERS
2 Old site
3 Celestial Resort
7 Summit
5 Mirror Temple. B side best music BTW
1 Forsaken City
-gap-
4 Golden Ridge
8 Core
6 Reflection
6>2>7>>>5>1>3>>8>4
4 didn't upset me or anything. They're all good! But it didn't stand out much. As for 6, the part that isn't a boss fight is cool-looking but mechanically pretty meh. The part that IS a boss fight? A++.
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RANKING THE CHAPTERS
2 Old site
3 Celestial Resort
7 Summit
5 Mirror Temple. B side best music BTW
1 Forsaken City
-gap-
4 Golden Ridge
8 Core
6 Reflection
6>2>7>>>5>1>3>>8>4
4 didn't upset me or anything. They're all good! But it didn't stand out much. As for 6, the part that isn't a boss fight is cool-looking but mechanically pretty meh. The part that IS a boss fight? A++.
2>6>7>5>3>4>1>8 but it's hard because they're all good. 8 kinda underwhelms me for what it is though.
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The Golden Ridge would be strong thematically but who the hell is throwing those 100% accuracy snowballs? We never find out. 0/10
I’m surprised to see such love for Chapter 6 but I guess the boss fight was pretty cool. I didn’t like how the gar moved further and further away from single-screen rooms, and found the moving platforms and feathers to be the worst chapter exclusive gimmicks (I was especialy annoyed about how feathers impose joystick use over d-pad use) Fortunately Celeste’s level design is good enough that every level still feels allright
Chapter 2’s gimmick is so good but I think what sells it the most is the SFX. I want to dash through galaxy water all day just to hear that sound.
Notmiki I guessed that, but have no idea how to light all the torches. I think I’ll just check a guide honestly
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The Golden Ridge would be strong thematically but who the hell is throwing those 100% accuracy snowballs? We never find out. 0/10
Spoilers for those who don’t know who threw the snowballs (https://youtu.be/cNgxyL5zEAk)
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FFVII: Timely reminder that this classic title includes a minigame wherein two women slap each other while standing on the barrel of a giant cannon.
The City of the Ancients is still altogether great. Coral reef architecture + that music, it's just a fantastic environment to have a confrontation. It's alien, dead, but eerily beautiful. You know something big is about to go down, and That Cutscene is still very effective at what it sets out to do. I feel that there's a decent chunk of filler in between FFVII's major plot moments--much of what's between the Kalm flashback and the Temple of the Ancients feels this way, as does Cid's tenure as party leader (short as it is, and justifiable as it is for Cloud to have time out). But the big moments all still land. Was flipping through Twitch streams during dinner a few days ago and happened to catch someone at the orphanage scene in FFVIII. Last night I hit the Cloud & Tifa lifestream scene in FFVII. The contrast here was extremely striking. Cloud's history is convoluted, but you can tell that it was very well thought out and planned in advance. All the pieces fit, what seem like inconsistencies earlier between Tifa and Cloud's stories are deliberate and there for dramatic tension if you can spot them, and when you finally have a complete explanation of what happened, it forms a compelling explanation for why Cloud's so dysfunctional. It's actually touching to watch them work together to get him back on his feet. It's also oddly easy to forget after the fact that it isn't actually Sephiroth you're chasing for the first third of the game, it's Jenova, but the game outright tells you this at the crater. FFVII is very smart about its mysteries. FFVIII's big backstory reveal by comparison plays like The Omega Glory of Final Fantasy cutscenes.
That Fort Condor minigame, gawd. I spent all the money I had at the time on soldiers and ran out of goons and had to fight the boss instead of winning the minigame. I think the boss got two-rounded in actual combat? Geez, I should've just saved my time and money and intentionally lost the minigame in the first place. I am probably also sticking to one standard party from here on out, too, because everyone seems behind on limits (Tifa and Yuffie only recently got the first L2, everyone else other than Cloud is stuck on L1s). I've not put Vincent in the party at all and likely won't except to trigger the Lucretia flashback scene.
The dread CARRY ARMOR is next.
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4 & 7 just feel the most like "you are actually climbing a mountain" to me, complete with moutain-esque dangers like evil snowballs.
2 & 6 are awesome as well for Madeline's plot arc of course. I think the boss fight in 6 might stretch a little too long? Could be a few screens shorter. Great stuff though of course. 2 has the best gimmick, sells the entire game.
All the other stages are fine.
8 is worst, but so it goes. The Fire/Ice gimmick just isn't as fun as some of the others. But whatevs, it's a bonus stage.
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Def. agree about 2 selling the game. After 1 you're starting to think maybe this will be a little pedestrian, or have challenge but not a lot else. 2 makes quick work of that.
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Europa Universalis 4- The French are such dicks to fight against; they have annoyingly high morale and are probably the strongest power in Europe. I decided to play as them this time and.. .whoof. I used the Holy Roman Empire as my chewtoy, and it was great. I didn't bother colonizing, I focused on smashing the Empire and eating into Italy.
Orcs Must Die- Beat Great Gorge with no barricades, guardians, or autobalistas. Was less awful than expected, mostly due to the Knowledge Weaver being too damn good.
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So this is a thing I said:
FF Dimensions 2:
So I've spent the majority of Chapter 6 on a whirlwind tour of refighting nearly every boss in the game and you'd think that would be awful. But FFD2, in another surprise move, manages to weave a bunch of character arc payoffs into this retread format. Once again demonstrating that it's a game that respects your time.
The main fights are still a little too weak for someone who has been completing all side content as it becomes available, but the side content in the form of submissions and Babil Tower fights continue to offer some challenge.
Honestly, while it's not groundbreaking storytelling or anything, it is a lot more competent than its cookie-cutter opening made me expect. And I think if Square had actually used this plot for a Chrono Trigger sequel, it would have been hailed as the Chrono sequel people had been waiting for. (presuming the gameplay was more CT-style with CT-level balance)
Almost done with the main campaign, but it seems there's a Seraphic Gate-style postgame chapter to play following the ending that I'm looking forward to for some higher challenge.
And upon immediately finishing that retread arc...
Another retread arc! No really, this time it's not just revisiting times and locations, it's literally just the characters watching their own memories with a sepia filter. 18 fucking times in a row... No change to the cutscenes at all... Just the characters spewing empty platitudes about how far they've come since then and OH MY GOD YOU JUST DID THIS LIKE 1000x BETTER WITHOUT BEATING THE PLAYER OVER THE HEAD WITH YOUR POINT LESS THAN 20 MINUTES AGO.
Soooo... yeah, Final Fantasy gotta screw up this otherwise good Chrono Trigger sequel plot with its Final Fantasy-ness.
I had to put the game down in the middle of this about a month ago, and coming back to it... it's still pretty bad. Maybe the final character's walk down memory lane will actually reveal something new? There better be some kind of payoff for this bullshit.
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I am still a bit before that (currently doing first set of time jumping I would peg it at). I wonder how much of it is also the original mobile staggered release? If they were running short on time and need to put out something, but it had been a while since an update or 12 months since the start of the game a refresher might seem more appropriate.
A shame if its the case because the start works pretty okay as a translation to a pay to play mobile game.
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FFVII: You are a poor scientist, Mr. Hojo.
At this point there's just Ultima Weapon (who I can't find) and triggering some stray flashbacks between me and the final dungeon. I may also grind out L3 limits for at least my main party (Cloud/Tifa/Yuffie) before calling it a day. Ruby and Emerald and KotR are right out. I've never bothered with any of that shit before and I'm not any more interested in the timesink now.
I wiped twice to Carry Armor and there was nothing I could do in either instance. Lapis Laser 2HKOs the entire party and he used it twice before anyone in the party could even get a turn. I fiddle around with equipment, is it water or ice maybe? I mean, it's blue. Turns out not, but it doesn't matter because he only opens with it once on the third attempt, then he gets clobbered with Haste + Slow. Maybe worth noting that I didn't bother to get Big Guard and somehow seem to have avoided ever even finding a Barrier materia. Possibly this is why PC durability is getting worse in lategame than I remember (I had one gameover to the Turks in Midgar that went largely along the same lines as Carry Armor KOs, lose init -> Tifa gets overkilled -> all downhill from there). Most everything in the Gelnika was a horrifying OHKO machine that I instantly ran from (the "boss" fight in that area is vastly less threatening than the randoms).
The submarine minigame ended in thirty seconds.
FFVII definitely has some dead periods, as is probably evident from the delay since last post. Why are we trying to get all the huge materia from Shinra, again? Let 'em fire the damn rocket if they want to. The worst that happens is that it doesn't work.
Does the Mideel weapon shop vendor just straight up disappear after the town gets nuked? Pri-tty lame, Milhouse.
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One of the npcs, I think the one with the white chocobo, got all those shops instead.
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FFVII definitely has some dead periods, as is probably evident from the delay since last post. Why are we trying to get all the huge materia from Shinra, again? Let 'em fire the damn rocket if they want to. The worst that happens is that it doesn't work.
And when it doesn't work, we'll already be on our way over the only bridge out of town while everyone else is here twiddling their thumbs going doooo doodoo doo doo doo doodoodoo doodoo doo doooodoo doo doo doo doodoo doodoo doodoodoo.
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FFVII: You are a poor scientist, Mr. Hojo.
Hojo's qualifications as a scientist involve smashing things together and hoping they work. He's like South Park's Mephesto. Just that instead of creating a 4-assed monkey, he decided to get a lion to screw a woman, injected himself with cells that can cause insanity and murdering his colleagues for being more successful. So, y'know, about the same.
I wiped twice to Carry Armor and there was nothing I could do in either instance. Lapis Laser 2HKOs the entire party and he used it twice before anyone in the party could even get a turn. I fiddle around with equipment, is it water or ice maybe? I mean, it's blue. Turns out not, but it doesn't matter because he only opens with it once on the third attempt, then he gets clobbered with Haste + Slow.
FYI, Carry Armor has a built in Sneak Attack - Lapis Laser programmed in his algorithm. I don't know it's chance of procing, but when it does, you're pretty much guaranteed to lose because he will hit you for 2x Lapis for about 3k damage. Unless you have a ton of HP Plus Materia and know it's coming, it's pretty fatal. You can also circumvent this by being faster than him, but ATB can be finnicky.
Maybe worth noting that I didn't bother to get Big Guard and somehow seem to have avoided ever even finding a Barrier materia. Possibly this is why PC durability is getting worse in lategame than I remember (I had one gameover to the Turks in Midgar that went largely along the same lines as Carry Armor KOs, lose init -> Tifa gets overkilled -> all downhill from there). Most everything in the Gelnika was a horrifying OHKO machine that I instantly ran from (the "boss" fight in that area is vastly less threatening than the randoms).
Big Guard can be found from the weird shellfish enemies near a beach in Gogonga. Barrier materia can be found in Rocket Town for 9000 Gil. They are good ways for damage reduction, but for all the late game bosses in FF7, I found that Barrier doesn't matter that much because you can have other seriously OP type builds. Really depends on how you go about it though. For the record, if you stack a char with 2x HP Plus Materias, at about this time, they will have about 80-100% more HP which lets you pretty much absorb all the damage you take pretty easily. Midgar Turks for the most part are pretty mild since they hover within the 700-1000 damage range. Rude is the exception since he can crit for close to 4k. Backlining your team pretty much solves this problem though.
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(https://static1.i4u.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/main_image_large/images/2018/02/tide-superbowl-2018-ad.jpg)
Yep, it's a Tide post.
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I'm confused. Are you implying that its a good thing or a bad thing?
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I guess you didn't watch the Superbowl.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gGXnE1Dbh0
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Nope, too busy with the superb owl. What's the dad from Stranger Things got to do with Tide?
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FFVII: See "Supernova" tag appear on screen -> order Tifa to use Megalixir -> Tifa gets confused somehow -> Tifa uses Megalixir on Sephiroth. Oh come on! Status hax only made the fight longer and scarier in the end, but there's another log entry for the RNG-screwed run. I still have no idea what is happening in Sephiroth phase 1 or why I should need to bother with the second team, but I had cost-free Ultima so it hardly mattered. Phase 2 could still be decently scary when it wasn't using shit like DEEN. I didn't build for status protection, so someone getting confused could be lethal (especially if it was Tifa, because that only meant she would status someone else out in turn). 2x Mystile blunts a lot just through evasion, at least.
"Excerpt from 'The Creation' by Joseph Haydn." I remembered this being in the credits, but I still have no idea where in the game it--oh wait, is this playing in the background when Rufus gets blown up?
Final time was about thirty hours, final levels for main party were low/mid-sixties. Main party Cloud/Tifa/Yuffie for the endgame (and it took a couple hours of grinding just to get all the limits--sans Omnislash, because fuck the Gold Saucer--unlocked for those three, so I don't see any way upper tier limits unlock in normal gameplay without forced grind).
Cloud: I went with attack mage since he had the highest base MAG stat. All the Bahamuts were stacked up in his inventory but none of them mattered because MP Absorb + Ultima. I have no idea of the mechanics behind MP Absorb materia, because the amount restored fluctuated wildly. I had long stretches where he got more than the spell cost back! Free Ultimas! Just what, game. Anyway. Maybe should've been the designated attacker because Ultima Weapon + my obsessive need to have people at max HP all the time, but Ultima spam wrecked faces enough as it was.
Tifa: Party brute squad. Cover + Counter + Add Effect & Hades + all the Luck-boosting materia. Also 2X Attack, but that doesn't trigger on counters. Minimal magic materia so she had more HP to soak all the hits (Sephiroth wing slash was still close to a OHKO). Add Effect + Hades is amazingly satisfying to watch in action, counter every physical attack against the party for breakdancing dragons, woo. Maybe not the best choice for the physical build in the end since her ultimate weapon appears to work off of Maximum Risk rules and I'm rarely comfortable letting people sit at low HP, but it did mean Sephiroth ate 18k damage to the face after Supernova, so I'll take it.
Yuffie: Party healbot. Regen is great in FFVII. Wall unlocked only after Jenova Synthesis, but it was nice for Sephiroth. Also maybe would've been a better physical slugger since Conformer hits were at the damage cap vs. Sephiroth and I have no idea why, but oh well.
Very good game, glad I replayed it. Validated my old impression that it was an extremely important thing for its time, and while aspects of it very much deserve that "for its time" disclaimer (notably the FMVs), the core party dynamics and plot scenes are still solid and worthy of esteem. FF7r still seems like a dubious venture to me. Not that there's anything innately wrong with giving a twenty-year-old game a facelift, because I concede that it could use one, but I'm highly skeptical that any remaining staff at Squeenix have the directorial sense to do it right. FFVII needs a better translation; it doesn't need more over-the-top action sequences a la Advent Children. But I'm pretty sure the latter is what it'll actually get (assuming it isn't just vaporware like I tend to think it is).
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MP Absorb gives MP equal to 1% of damage dealt as long as the target has MP > 0
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Significantly, MP Absorb's healing is based on total damage dealt, across all targets. So if you hit three enemies with Ultima for 5000 apiece, that's 150 MP healing. Against a single target, it won't be free, though it'll be inexpensive enough.
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Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - So I beat this finally, its only 12 months or so after release? Cool. I don't really know how to recommend the game, but I do see exactly why it got all the accolades it did, it is exactly the kind of thing that mainstream games media and gamer opinions in aggregate latch on to.( I think I already made these points back when I started but I will reiterate anyway) The obvious one is of course Brand, Nintendo brand value is a monster in the market space and Zelda is enormous within Nintendo. Not to say it got 10/10 goty every year awards BECAUSE it was Zelda, but a shoe in the door goes a long way. The controls generally feel good, they are a bit loose because of the scope of the game, but generally when you want to do X you do a close facsimile of X, it is only in some of the finer points of platforming or when you are trying to fight in an area where there is a bit too much context sensitive stuff going on (like hey let me sprint out of the way of this attack, oh no now I am climbing that tree and got trampled by that Lynel). That minor bit of slack on the controls is pretty much completely justified and overlooked because the thing it brings is the level of detail in the world. It is huge and there isn't really anything in there that you are not interacting with in some way. If it isn't something you can pick up and throw/knock around/set on fire then it is probably something you can climb on to get somewhere to throw/set on fire/knock around and get one of the miniscule collectables or crafting materials that you can use to upgrade your pretty big wardrobe of rubber underwear and tiaras.
Other things it does well that you have heard before, it really is pretty damn good at capturing my understanding of what "Classic Zelda" was in a big explorable world with secret hidden nooks to find tree man poop in, but presenting it in a more modern style. It also does that reboot on the gameplay formula that people have been saying they need to do for forever, since OoT set the formula back like 20 fucking years ago it was time for a fresh start (that is without having a discussion about how much OoT is just LttP in 3D). There is some things in there that sort of make me struggle with recommending it, but that might just be because when I am thinking of recommending games to the DL I am actually thinking of "Would Elfboy like this?" instead of the rest of the DL. The crafting is a bit of a drag, cooking is really strong and powerful and simultaneously incredibly simple with 0 useful tutorials in game. Armour upgrades are generally worth doing, but take a big Rupee investment and specifically targetting an upgrade you want is really grindy. The weapon durability really is only a problem for the first 6 or so hours until you start getting some weapons with actual durability AND weapon slots from tree poops. That scaling up exponentially is probably a serious misstep, but the Master Sword being something you can get that really reduces concerns about durability is another misstep. It should have been tied to either a mix of Stamina/Hearts or taken Shrine Count into account for it rather than raw base heart value. Effectively you get punished for taking Stamina with your Spirit Orbs, which you presumably prioritise if you are into exploring. You are only really likely to find the Master Sword early on before you get the quest breadcrumbs to it if you go exploring. So it is something the game does well competing with the less interesting rewards.
It is another Zelda with plot! There is less of it than even Ocarina, let alone Skyward Sword or Wind Waker, but that isn't to say what is there isn't good. I think it is probably the best they have done because of how much they do with what there is and letting you nearly completely opt into it. Most of the cutscenes you are forced into are front loaded or are in the main quest stuff (which is optional of course) so you really only engage with them when you actively seek it out. If you want to just go mountain climbing for a new pair of shoes so you can walk in the sand better then knock yourself out. You are looking at an active cast of 6 people and Link still doesn't talk, so its only 5 people actively speaking. The 4 guardians are in maybe 3 scenes each. Every other scene is pretty much all Zelda all the time and that is a damn good thing, because even though it is a cliche story I LIKE this story about Zelda. Essentially it is about accepting/rejecting destiny at its core, but I like that even though Destiny happens to Zelda no matter what in spite of her efforts, it really was just because it was going to happen and had nothing to do with her choices. Her choices were not only valid but ultimately do help with the inevitable victory.
There is that unfortunate part though where they use a flower for symbolism of a teen girl even though it is about resilience and surviving, it is still an unfortunate trope to lean on.
I didn't do the Ballad of Champions DLC yet, but sometime probably. Trial of the Master Sword kind of fucking blew. I started them up and got fed up with them because they are long and you can't save. Presumably to make them harder and a longer trial and you can't cheese them with saving, but fuck that I would have accepted the option to cheese it if you would just let me stop playing. It is the only thing in the game that didn't let you pick it up and put it back down on a whim. That was very off putting and frustrating. The reward in general wasn't even going to be worth.
But I am a negative mofo. It isn't my favourite or the best game of last year to me personally, but I can see exactly why people liked it. It is a really polished gigantic game that never really felt like it was something I wasn't having fun with. So... not exactly what I look for in games that I love, but definitely stuff I don't mind playing. Not best game of the year, but definitely high up on a list if I did one and worth a look if you somehow were waiting for my dumb opinion on it.
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Mega Man Anniversary Collection:
Will come back and do a bigger writeup later but this little thoughtdump stuck out about Mega Man 8.
"Jump, jump" "Slide, slide" "What is the Turbo Tunnel doing here, fuck you?" (I died a lot there)
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Celeste
https://photos.app.goo.gl/RFUyxoG9n38RbCHx1
Think I'm just about done here. I thought I clearly sucked at first, and then I saw that the YouTube video I used as an occasional reference had 745 deaths for C6-B, so I didn't feel so bad. That said, the later chapter B-sides are clearly approaching "frustrating" over challenging, so I dunno if I'm gonna bother with the C7 B-Side. Balance of the B-sides feels (understandably!) more tilted for "can you perform the one sequence that might get you through this impossible room" rather than creativity / adaptation. (i.e. I recall watching NotMiki grab a chapter 4 winged strawberry in totally the wrong way then I did it / was 'intended', but hey, it worked! a lot less of that here where the margins are so tight.) I wouldn't have minded nerfing some of the more pixel-perfect feather corridors in C6-B a little just for sanity's sake here.
Edit: Also in the realm of trivia. The music in the last section of the Mirror Temple is the first section played backwards with spooky backwards speech. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE8diav5I1k
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Chapter 7 B-side's hardest bits are not quite as hard as Chapter 6 B-side's hardest bits. I still died more getting through it, but it's a little longer so no big surprise. Definitely a lot of rooms where there's One True Way tho. I liked it a lot better than 6, fwiw. Haven't braved Chapter 8 B-side yet because it scares me.
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Also, since I think PS4 is still unpatched... one alarming looking change upcoming:
http://www.celestegame.com/changelog.html
Changes to explode-launching Madeline (caused by Bumpers and Seeker respawn shockwaves):
Previously, Madeline’s x-axis launch speed was multiplied by 1.2 if her x-axis input was neutral or in the same direction as the launch at the moment of impact.
Neutral inputs will no longer grant the launch speed bonus. X-axis input must now be in the same direction as the launch at the moment of impact.
What the #$%^ is this. Smashing yourself into bumpers often happens when you WANT to go in the "opposite" direction, e.g. dashing to the left to get to a bumper to send yourself soaring right & upward. Those bastards move back and forth too. So rather than, say, directly dropping down to the right edge to send yourself either right or right & up, you won't get the boost unless you start veering right at the last second - which very easily can cause you to plain miss the bumper and fall to your doom. Don't think I like this change, if I don't want the speed boost I'll just hold the reverse direction rahter than neutraling into it.
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I played through a bunch of stuff on this patch. it's not a big deal at least as far as I've played.
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Ys 8: I am apprently 90% of the way through, ready to jump to Ys Origin afterwards
Man this is huge. So huge that I am starting to nitpick about every little thing. Why is flash guard so luch worse than Flash Evade, as it’s higher risk? Nevermind. Great game.
There is STILL no antagonist! Just imagine an RPG without an antagonist. Every cutscene I’m like « oh, I guess this mysterious guy in draped robes is going to be an antagonist » but no.I think the only real boss in here is going to be Darwin.
The boys continue to dominate the game, though i reckon that I could get a good use out of Dana’s Dragon Power outside her solo sections too.
Cheono Trigger: I am playing this on the phone for the first time in 10 years, avoiding most enemies. The game is still very breezy, i am OHKOing everything with multi techs and never run out of MP.
Robo is more dominant than I remember, the Robo + Crono full MT ultra early multitech is extremely sweet. Lucca is way worse, she doesn’t have much beyond Firewhirl up to this point. Generally lacking in MT, and trash tier if walled (which happens often) unlike every other character
I put a Berserk Ring on Ayla in her chapter and she basically soloed everything but Nizbel. I then put a berserk ring on Frog in his chapter but he’s still garbage
I just lost two times to Flea. How did that happen? I even used Marle for Aura Whirl. My god.
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Ys 8: I am apprently 90% of the way through, ready to jump to Ys Origin afterwards
Man this is huge. So huge that I am starting to nitpick about every little thing. Why is flash guard so luch worse than Flash Evade, as it’s higher risk? Nevermind. Great game.
There is STILL no antagonist! Just imagine an RPG without an antagonist. Every cutscene I’m like « oh, I guess this mysterious guy in draped robes is going to be an antagonist » but no.I think the only real boss in here is going to be Darwin.
The boys continue to dominate the game, though i reckon that I could get a good use out of Dana’s Dragon Power outside her solo sections too.
It's really funny how backended the Ys 8 plot is. Looks like you're most of the way there now, at least. As for flash guard, I think the olny good part about it is how you can accidentally trigger it when you use a skill <_<
Hope you enjoy Ys Origin when you get there! Have you played Oath in Felghana?
p.s. have you been helping out the villagers? You need to do a large amount of that in order to get the true ending.
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I’m helping all the villagers ASAP. I’m playing on nightmare so the rewards actually matter. After every micro advancement in the plot I scan the quest board + map for new points of interests like a predator. Every new recipe book I imlediately go back to the village to cook it then to Gendarme to give it to the weird ass mascot cat. I hauntingly check Adol’s big book every now and then to see if I didn’t miss a fish for Shoebill. I crave new village blood to finally destroy those pesky blockades.
Man, even on easy mode, who would ignore the sidequests in Ys 8?
I’ve played Oath and enjoyed it enough, and Origin sounds better to me. I am unreasonably hyped for this. Just a big ass tower to climb. I like it.
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I enjoyed Oath a lot more when I went back to play it on higher difficulties fwiw. Its slate of bosses is a ton of fun to really try and get good at. In terms of a casual playthrough, though, Origin is a lot better.
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Mega Man 6:
I've dabbled in it via emulation; this is my first playthrough with a controller. Feels good buster killing Flame Man, fire pillars always got me before. Got a game over on Plant Man stage; there's one jump near the end that's rather tight with a fish to dodge as well. Plant Man is a chump though getting pinned does happen if misreading his jump arc. Had trouble with Centuar Man's pattern, lost a few times and resorted to an E-tank to avoid playing the stage again. The game is rather generous with them though they're scattered through the stages and aren't saved on quitting a session. So may as well use them on the first 8 stages.
For the first time ever, I access the alternate path through Mr. X 1 using a strat I saw on the LP archive. Was more difficult than I recall to go through the fortress levels though I somehow make it without a game over. Run into weapon energy issues and then I lose my last life on Wily 3 to a spike wall. Um, weapons situation solved I guess. Blow through the rest of the game and Wily is behind bars. Not really a spoiler to say it doesn't last but still satisfying to see Megaman had enough of Wily's begging here.
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Fire Emblem Fates - Lunatic Conquest beaten.
Rundown of the lategame maps, spoilers I guess.
-Takumi's map now has two of the four stairwells blocked, which basically forces you to come up in an extremely dangerous area. Managed to get a Xander who could survive one turn there then run to safety and engage with a big ol' set of dual strikes to deal with Oboro's gang. I beat this map first try but I lost Jakob.
-Hinoka's map is basically the same except that there are more reinforcements and Azama now carries multiple Hexing Rods just in case you thought waiting him out was a good idea. I beat this map first try but it involved diciness at the very end duelling Hinoka where a bad miss or two would have left me completely overwhelmed by the last reinforcement wave.
-Ryoma's map is brutal, possibly the hardest in the game. It introduces an all-new skill called Inevitable End which makes stat-downs stack. No tank is safe for long. Worse, the big two existing traps are still in play - a chain of Lunge Spy Yumi puppets all with Seal Defence which will destroy anyone (freezing/entrapping one of them makes the chain manageable) on Saizo's side, and a ninja death trap hallway on Kagero's side. Worse, there are even more ninjas than ever with Spy Shuriken and those are just horrific. After several tries I finally get down effective strategies for both sides, which I take one at a time (making this also the longest map in the game) but I make a costly error and lose Azura during the second. I decide to accept this since I had already had like 10+ resets at this point getting everything down right.
-Iago's map now features more Maids and all the Maids have Staff Savant (mostly with Freeze or Enfeeble, though a couple have Entrap; one will entrap you right into Stoneborn range but fortunately that one can be kited). One maid in the hero room also has Hex, so I silence her the turn I open the doors and kill her the next. Iago also has a Hexing Rod now, but still runs a predictable pattern so it's possible to keep him from hexing anyone important. As I usually do I only take down the right side, with a wave of attack stances overwhelming the mages. The bottom of the map proves fearsome indeed, as now every single enemy has a Beastkiller or a Hammer (some both) so it's slim pickings for good tanks here, with axe-users like Camilla and Percy (both with defensive pairups and rallies) being who I turn to. Takes a couple tries to get right but oh-so-satisfying when I do. Oh yeah and I remember someone here (Eph?) hyping using Entrap on Hans. On Lunatic at least, this is a terrible idea, as it summons a huge wave of reinforcements to the bottom of the map making it even nastier. Much better to open the doors and bait out the first wave, THEN aggro Hans (by baiting his minions) and face the second.
-Garon's map is basically unchanged. As tricky as I found this on my first playthrough it's now trivial: solid pairups can deal with the turn 1 Entraps, and then it's a matter of baiting down the lancer/merchant brigade (which is improved with an extra member, new skills, and more gold bars to spend) then sneaking through the stairs for an assassination.
-The final battle... MAIDS. RUIN. EVERYTHING. There are now SEVEN staff users, four near the middle of the map surrounding by the main group of enemies, and three more down near the boss. None move (so none can be Entrapped). All have Staff Savant. Five have Enfeeble (the others have Freeze and Hex), and like Ryoma's map, both they and the ninjas have Inevitable End. They can and will ruin your day with Enfeeble spam. Oh yeah and the boss himself now fires his Skadi death beam every two turns, instead of every three; dragon veins still help of course). It's often recommended to use some cheesy combination of Azura, Rescue Staff, and Pass to blitz the boss, but I don't have those (aside from one shot of Rescue) so we're doing this legit. Silence Staff can control one Maid, though I only have three uses of that (out of the 4 total you get). The turn you actually engage the maids almost has to be scary as hell since it puts people in range of the second wave of staves AND loads of enemies. I tap Camilla for the job and she bravely OHKOs the mage and three ninjas who attack her, but eventually falls between them, the generals, and the Enfeeble. At this point the horses near the bottom also get aggroed (a turn earlier than Hard, which I wasn't counting on). I throw all my efforts into killing the most dangerous enemies and ensuring that Corrin and Xander live long enough to reach the boss. A rescue to bring one of them forward helps. My army falls like flies as I bravely use them as bait to try to keep pressure off the units who will matter before Corrin, who has been twinked specifically for this, can reach the boss and take off most of his health in one attack. Unfortunately due to shenanigans involving status I'm not able to engage in the order I'd like and it takes two turns to get the job done, and in the process even more units die, but I win.
In total 11 units died in that fight, but I wasn't going for a pretty victory, just a victory.
Great stuff. Wouldn't want to do that often as it's rather gruelling.
Due to greater enemy density, I had three units (Corrin, Effie, and Camilla) who had more kills than any unit on any previous Fates file. Detailed unit notes:
Corrin (140) - +Str -Luck. Paladin talent (switched after getting Draconic Hex) which is a fine idea, but I ended up marrying her to Silas so whoops, not so much. Generally built for OHKOs on frailer enemies (Gunter + Elbow Room helps) including notably Hayato. Monopolized the Kodachi.
Effie (135) - General until Wary Fighter, then Great Knight. Often had the highest Def which has its place though is far from unbreakable. High Str too of course, as usual. MVP of the ninja cave (chapter 17) where enemies basically couldn't damage her if she kept a javelin out.
Camilla (119) - Best unit in the game as usual, did a Berserker build with Trample/Axefaire for the "OHKO all the goddamn ninjas" build. Not much else to say.
Peri (85) - Great Knight. Had generically good offence and mobility. Fell off a bit towards the end as the good str/spd just weren't quite good enough but was never bad.
Ophelia (78) - Sorcerer. Great offensive stats and good enough Res, so she had dual use both for surviving mages and carving through many other enemy types (Calamity Gate / Horse Spirit are both huge helps as always). Nosferatu wasn't really worth it on her much so maybe I should have gone with another class, but Sorc stats are good anyway.
Xander (74) - Vanilla, did his usual tanking business. Charlotte support actually gave him pretty good offence.
Odin (65) - Favoured him a lot early with Nosfeatu and a dip in Myrmidon for Vantage, which let him tank in places that nobody else could sometimes (the reverse is also true; others could tank where he couldn't). Also let him pass Vantage to Ophelia, more importantly. That said eventually his bad stats caught up with him; once most enemies doubled him it wasn't really worth trying to find ways to prop him up, especially with two other magic attackers, so he got dropped around the start of Hoshido.
Charlotte (64) - Kills stuff dead. Could probably be more accurate, but Dual Club (which she used most although Camilla had it sometimes too) is a big help as always. Made a good team with Xander since if one wasn't useful, the other sure as hell would be (unless I needed to tank a big group of mages).
Elise (61) - Maligknight! New build. Works pretty well though would be better if Elise had more skill. Her Bolt Axe hits super-hard and quite fast, and tomes give her some weapon triangle control. Ground her axe rank from E to D (mostly on the ninja map, where even lowish-str axes do good work) then Arms Scrolled her. It worked. I had enough staff users.
Percy (53) - Wyvern -> Berserker after L5. Provided a dual rally and his usual dodge support. Got speed-screwed but was very tanky. Low offence left him underlevelled (he never got Axefaire) but he was still very useful.
Jakob (50) - Switched to Strategist for Inspiration. The usual healer/buff-bot with combat that starts decent then later stinks who died in some lategame map, feels like most of my Jakobs.
Niles (47) - Died on the boat map which was hard. It's a pity because there are actually a lot of really useful units to capture late - maids with S ranks, units with 2-4 rally skills, etc.
Silas (31) - Quite good at first with Vow of Friendship sometimes giving him a nice extra push as a tank, but falls off when compared to say Effie, so got dropped midgame.
Shura (26), Dwyer (5), Izana (4), Flora (3) - The lategame staff brigade. Shura joins the earliest and has the best combat + thief utility, Dwyer provides Inspiration from dad, Izana has rally magic/luck, and Flora has the best skl/mag for status staves (along with dogshit durability), also picking up Inspiration late as a Strategist. Conquest Lunatic definitely makes those status staves feel really useful.
Siegbert (22), Kana (4) - Random kids picked up midlate and late. They had passable combat but were largely filler.
Gunter (18) - Great support buddy for an atk-oriented Corrin. When Corrin got speed-screwed I switched him to Hero to help her with that. Combat is obviously useless but he could draw staves before hiding in pairup!
Azura (9) - Dances.
I only actually lost three units before the final battle but all took some very valuable utility with them. Oh well~
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Good lord. I have enoigh frustration with simple FEH grand hero battles.
Reading NEB challenge run logs makes me feel I am missing several layers to game strategy. Still fun to look at someone else suffering!
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NEB is his own level of the Meta.
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FFD2 - Holy damn you were right about Chapter 6-3 Djinn. That shit is really egregious.
Vermintide 2 - I only played a few maps, but a friend that was manning Dwarf let me play him. Still feels good as Ranger. Look forward to unlocking tank though because I live and die by my shield.
A little miffed they cut out to bottom tier difficulties, Recruit plays about at old Normal levels in terms of Specials. Everything else I am super positive on. I think the engine even is better optimised.
Edit - I say that about FFD2 and then like immediately after the worst the game has been it kicks into gear and actually gets really damn good again. Like some of the best time travel stuff Square have done.
Sorgue is also the fucking best. It is straight up Magus copy paste, but they really really extend it way beyond what Magus was being painted as. I would nearly recommend it just on how neat that bit of character work is, but it is a big time investment just for a cool execution of story telling.
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AA6 – Finished, finally. Still processing my thoughts somewhat on the game, but here’s kind some general thoughts.
Case 1 is the worst case 1 in the series. I know it’s supposed to introduce us to the setting, but just doesn’t really work? Ahlbi is boring, the villain is kinda boring, and the murder mystery is boring. It’s probably the longest case 1 in the series besides AAI2, but unlike AAI2, the case has no meat and is just too much blather. In addition, Phoenix as a character is increasingly boring on his own; either you have to make him ‘too good’ or make him uncharacteristically derpy. They chose the latter. Not a great look.
Case 2 is better. It features Apollo and Athena, which is now the dynamic duo of this series. This case is very fun even if it is super contrived. I think Roger oozes charisma and Apollo and Athena have such fantastic chemistry that this case is generally great. Nahyuta seems kinda wanky at first glance, which sadly is not wrong. Can’t win ‘em all.
Case 3 is weird. Trial Day 1 might be the worst trial day in AA history? Just terrible and pointless. And makes the prosecutor look like a huge fucking idiot. And the weird weird twist at the end. The investigation of this case is great, o nthe other hand. Rayfa as an assistant/antagonist works pretty well and much hilarity ensues. Day 2 trial is decent, the showdown with the villain is pretty cool and interesting, but the ultimate resolution to the crime is so over the top unbelievable. It’s a decent case, but not great.
Case 4 is a pretty good case, it feels like the old style Case 3’s from the first three games without the investigation. They all share this irreverence and goofiness that this overdramatic, serious game really needed. I don’t think it’s as good as the old style Case 3’s, partially because the investigations are a good chance for those goofy characters to shine outside of the courtroom, but it was good fun. Bonus points for Simon being utterly magnificent in this case. I missed you, Simon. Can we call Athena and Simon the dynamic duo of the games now?
Case 5… let’s split this baby into two parts, since it should have been anyway.
Case 5 Part 1 – Weird case. I think this game is very weird in that there are multiple cases (3, 5) that the investigation is more enjoyable than the trial, straight up, which is not necessarily an opinion I normally hold about Phoenix Wright games. Dhurke is shockingly fantastic as a character, featuring both humor and character depth in a way I wasn’t expecting. He is an endearing rogue. Sarge is the hilarious case-specific investigation character that I’ve been waiting for the whole game. Paul is funny and poignant in these dark times.
However, the trial of this case is a little… problematic. The contrived reason for your opponent being who it is ends up being really silly, especially since a bit of communication would have solved the problem relatively easily. I still think the trial’s pretty good, but the murder mystery is pretty damn abrupt and seems pretty simple. There is so much fake drama in this part of the case.
Case 5 (Part 2) – This feels like the true final case – all of the mysteries of the previous cases end up being wrapped up and the primary players are very vital. Apollo is very kickass in this case and I love it. Dhurke continues to be amazing, and the final plot twist involving him is shocking and totally hinted at. Great twist. The ultimate resolution is a little too obvious and requires some stupidity on the part of multiple people so I didn’t like that so much. Nahyuta decides to be something besides a useless shitstain ultimately, but it’s too late.
The game is very slow paced compared to some earlier games. It seems like it takes too long to do everything, and often likes to make things longer and more dramatic than it has to. DD has this problem as well, but it seems to get worse with each game.
Overall? Not a wonderful game, but not bad. Probably my second lowest AA game. Case 4 and Case 5 really save it.
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Monster Hunter World: I have decided to branch out into the wide world of music. And by music, I mean murdering monsters with a musical instrument. And by that, I mean using the Hunting Horn.
Weapon is badass. It goes without saying that all Hunting Horn users can self-buff to ignore deflection entirely, which is Gunlance levels of "fuck your shit", but it's also a really hard-hitting weapon in its own right. Also it gives monsters concussions.
...in fact, it's so good that I find myself accidentally killing monsters that I intend or have to capture. rip.
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FF15 Comrades: Decided to finally get this now that I learned there's plot and it ties in with the Royal Pack's updates.
I originally was making Meepel's Cousin Darosel (anagram of "Lard" and "Eos"...yeah that's basically how I name all my characters these days), turns out the end result was...just Meepel in her Samurai outfit...which in turn works beautifully if you've been paying attention to Stormblood Abridged and know the story behind her!
Anyway, it seems mostly grindy for progression but I think what I appreciate the most is just the world building it does. FF15 just kind of going "Ok, TIME SKIP!" after a point and us seeing only the after-math worked for a shock value but little else. It's nice to actually see some of the stuff referenced in Chapter 14 as well as some of the lead up. There's a certain kind of disturbing feeling you get going to areas you were visiting throughout, but now with a Post-Apocalyptic Doomsday filter on it. It honestly feels like this is sort of what FF6's World of Ruin might look like if it ever got updated appropriate given where FF15's final chapter chapter takes place and how FF15's ending clearly wanted to take elements of FF6's "A World Reborn" feel in the final shots, using similar visuals with the rising sun over various parts of the world, seemingly restored.
Azure Striker Gunvolt: Reached the halfway point, so 3 bosses dead. Game is actually a decent Mega Man clone thus far, with it's own identity on top of that. I'd play more of it but things keep getting in the way because I'm stupid.
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Ys 8: Basically 100% cleared
I’d have be so down with the final reward of solo mode, but there are several drawbacks that make me basically ot even consider it.
For the end I think the game loses its way a little by ramping up shit too much. All player ultimates are super evasive or have super good range, in return bosses become monstrously fast and the game throw dozens of regular enemies at once. It sort of turns into a Top 10 Anime Battle, which might look good, but in practice I’m just mashing buttons. Balance was already dead because of instant healing, but there was at least some finesse involved before.
I did love how the optional dungeon had only two save points and respawning bosses. Made meals shine for the first time.
Ricotta suddendly went from LVP by far to pretty good thanks to Dino Throw’s obscene range. My team has an actual sniper and his range is pathetic compared go the little girl throwing giant dinosaur bones.
Ys Origin: This is much more low key but I enjoy it a hell of a lot more
Mobility and dungeon exploration are perfect, I love the gameplay loop of initially struggling in a new area, then having an easier time after finding a few chests, then a boss.
The first couple bosses commited some eye rolling cardinal flaws,but every boss afterwards has been a joy. I like how quick, easy and powerful levelling is, so you can fuck up any bad boss with a 5 minutes grind. This does make the prospect of not levelling up for a good boss and retry dozens of times instead require immense abnegation (but it’s worth it)
I’m playing with Yunica who makes a good Yattaf: Girl, solo, hyper, has an axe, first letter is an Y. I just regret how nice she is. Hugo sounds ridiculous and I wonder how gameplay changes as a result.
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FF8: Started up a new game, played for a couple hours. 75% of that time was Triple Tried.
I'm sure I'll have something more substantial to say eventually, but guys, that Biggs & Wedge card isn't going to win itself.
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Oooh. As a level 5 card, if you fail to snag it before leaving Balamb for Galbadia, no one will play it for the rest of Disc 1.
Got Phantasy Star 2- Numan Revolution running. Having access to the whole party from the start makes a difference for me and double Exp and cash helps speed up the pace. Character balance changes help bring weaker ones closer to the power levels of Rolf and Rudo. (Shir, for example, learns high damage magic to go with her high speed and gains more TP to be able to cast them more than twice) Otherwise, it still feels like Phantasy Star 2 but better. No real reason to recommend it to anyone who dislikes the original though playing the original will feel like a chore after experiencing this.
Stat topic to come.
Being used to getting walloped by Neifirst, it was very satisfying to see a fully armored Rudo with Deban reduce the sword strike to a measly 25. Was fortunate enough to have a Moon Dew without specifically grinding for it so I had Nei join in on the action. Apparently, if Nei is alive at the end of the Neifirst battle, the game keeps playing "Movement" through the cutscene. I was not aware this was a thing.
Also, taking a full team of squishies and getting lucky enough to clean out the Yellow Dam in one pass was a surprise. With a team of Kain, Anna, Nei, and Amy, I fully expected a random to go sour at some point but the game showed mercy and only gave weaker formations. (Mod comes with a code to replace someone with Nei until the next time the party reorganizes at Rolf's house so I kicked out Rolf to keep character EXP more even.)
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Celeste: Just before C4
I wanna play as shadow me she was right
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Oooh. As a level 5 card, if you fail to snag it before leaving Balamb for Galbadia, no one will play it for the rest of Disc 1.
It turns out that Kadowaki has a full collection of regular monster cards. Not coincidentally, I now do as well (except for Wendigo, which she stubbornly refuses to play a second time). I may be ready to start with the plot now.
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Bayonetta - I bought Bayonetta 2 for the Switch and they hand you a free download code for the first game as well with it. I'm not used to running this game at mostly 60 FPS, guys.
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I had to go look up this Numan Revolution thing.
The first thing I found was a review of it on what I can only assume is a hardcore Phantasy Star II (specifically 2) message board. The review praises all the hard work and rebalances, but tears into it for the story revisions.
The story revisions.
Of Phantasy Star II.
Someone cares enough about the story of Phantasy Star II to get offended that a hacker would try to improve it.
Oh. My. God.
Quotes:
So, I'm not that far in, and I'm already reminded of Yoshiyuki Tomino's statement in an interview that "Fans of anime should not make anime." Basically, people who are fanboyish about some things will be all about throwing in things they personally find cool without concerning themselves with how it fits in with good storytelling.
Basically, the only reason to play this hack is for the gameplay changes. I think it's nice in theory that there's a new story. But it's like Aero says: the way of fanboyism is pure madness.
I have to know how bad this new content is for people to care so much about PHANTASY STAR II PLOT.
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Just let Super do it for you man.
Vermintide 2 -This is good and more Vermintide and people should know I liked Vermintide if they care about 4 player coop shooter games.
FFD2 - Into the after game. Levelling the last (?) PC you get. Plot got a bit silly, but I don't mind it to have more stuff in the game and it giving me more Sorgue plot. Sorgue is great you guys.
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Let's be fair, Djinn. Even for Phantasy Star II I would still trust the usual 98% Shit/2% Good ratio for fan content.
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Ys Origin: Finished as Yunica, started as Hugo. They should have swapped personalities!! Refreshing to have such an arrogant bastard as the main. This also fits because he’s vastly superior.
Chrono Trigger: Ocean Palace. I really didn’t remeber CT being this easy. I am just dicking around all the time and face no danger, even at low levels and with constantly swapped members.
I tried doing the sand/forest sidequest ASAP (after the first visit to Zeal) and it was hard for CT but still manageable.
Double tech spam makes me appreciate Marle a bit more, she does no damage on her own but can be not dead weight when the team goes on the offensive. Frog meanwhile seems to only have crappy double techs, he can’t catch a break.
Twister is ridiculous and I’m struggling to not just spam this every battle including bosses. It worked on both GigaBastard and Dalton (who was 2HKOed)
Cutscene integration is bad for two reasons:
- Normal Crono is a slender, fast, katana wielding teenager. Cutscene Crono is a monstrosity with muscles that look like tumors. He’s more of a beefcake than Ayla which makes no sense
- No scene is cut in normal gameplay, cutscenes are added on top of it. Which means you always get to see the same thing twice, both in and out of cutscenes
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Chrono Trigger: Ocean Palace. I really didn’t remeber CT being this easy.
I think you actually said that on a replay for picking up boss stats ten years ago. Sometimes I'm scared of how much my memory clings to irrelevant minutia.
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Oh no Snow, you are extremely scary
I just had the Crono revival scene, I really like how the characters in your party that matter to him the most will have a bigger role in the cutscene.
Trying the cutscene multiple times you can deduce that, if I’m not mistaken, Crono preference goes Marle > Lucca > Frog > Robo > Ayla >>> Magus (weird that Ayla isn’t high)
I always like to play the scene with the characters who are the lowest on the list because they don’t even seem to care that much about reviving him. With Robo / Ayla / Magus you can sense that Robo takes the lead only because no one else does and somebody has to do it. Obviously Crono also gets 0 hug that way. You expect Robo to give him a hug? Magus is always a staple for that part because he couldn’t give less of a fuck
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I really like how Magus' reaction to Crono being revived is "git gud" almost verbatim. And then he doesn't because half the endgame dungeons, including the Black Omen, make a mockery out of Lightning damage.
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Ys Origin: Finished as Yunica, started as Hugo. They should have swapped personalities!! Refreshing to have such an arrogant bastard as the main. This also fits because he’s vastly superior.
Hugo's okaaaaaaay. I much prefer Yunica. Hugo never gets a big fuckoff phoenix blast that simultaneously obliterates and pushes enemies, and his version of i-frames is way lamer. Certainly has an easier time in the early going, though.
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Persona 5: "Is anime real y/n?"
"y."
"DENIED."
This is an introduction Star Ocean would envy. Two+ hours in and the game's still rolling through tutorials and declining to provide regular combat or control of more than one PC. Wow.
Anyway, what narrative content is in there looks encouraging so far. It's screamingly obvious there's gonna be tons of "KIDS! ADULTS! KIDS! ADULTS!" themeing in this one, but I'm feeling pretty okay with stringing up stupid and obtuse old people these days. And at least Silent Protagonist #6 has some actual background this time that looks actually relevant to the plot.
What kind of school includes plaid pants in its uniform? A school run by Principal Kingpin, apparently.
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It really would be nice if there was a non-shitty adult SOMEWHERE in the first 50 or so hours of Persona 5.
You should keep a running tally on the number of unrealistically shitty things people do in Persona 5. Starting with the main character's parents basically disowning him for stopping a sexual assault.
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Niijima seemed potentially okay-ish, but that might just be the "Good cap, fascist cop" effect talking. Regardless, game isn't subtle and I could see this becoming grating over dozens of hours of story. We shall find out in due time.
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Bayonetta - I'm gonna do a second run through Chapter 2 so I can get something less awful than a Stone Statue for rank and then go for Chapter 3. I know I said this before, but Bayonetta at 60 FPS is a thing of -beauty-. It feels just so fluid and controls so well. The Switch does what PSthreendon't.
Dissidia Opera Floozy - Still going at it. Of note, I pulled Tidus' Brotherhood off an 11-pull and three Astral Blades for him off ticketspamming. Slash Combo is simply nuts.
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Ys Origin: Finished as Yunica, started as Hugo. They should have swapped personalities!! Refreshing to have such an arrogant bastard as the main. This also fits because he’s vastly superior.
Hugo never gets a big fuckoff phoenix blast that simultaneously obliterates and pushes enemies, and his version of i-frames is way lamer.
He gets a chippershredding, long-duration, near-half screen-wide fire laser that moves along with him instead, and his invinco shield is so much more abusable (blocks all attacks, for starters. Also blocks multiple moves and can even utterly trivialize some big called shots) than Yunica's melee-only, mostly randombusting-friendly wind circle. Playing as Yunica may be more entertaining and feel more impressive because her arsenal helps patch up her shortcomings pretty well, but Hugo sorta uh doesn't have those shortcomings to begin with. He's easy modo through and through.
This said, Ys Origin definitely took a course in the "making everything crazy good at base equals balance" school of design!
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Hugo is by far the worst at dodging, and shields aren't always plausible to have up all the time. It works out.
Cid: I've stated my differences with Djinn before on this, but it largely worked for me. A good story requires a good conflict. The classic problem with Persona mains is that they're way too sparkly special everyone-loves-them. P5 brings this mildly into balance by having large numbers of people hate Our Hero, and even it still goes too far toward Joker hagiography at times. So I'm happy that society is ready to bring down the beatdown on poor glasses boy.
Dragonknight: I Googled that PS2 hack for fun and see that one of the review comments thought that Shir was obviously the modders favorite character, as she turns out just the best. I see that your stat topic has confirmed those suspicions. (Also, why did games back then think differing XP gain rates by character makes a lick of sense? Okay, old skool D&D did that too, but it was nonsense there as well. Just trying to make level hard to use to compare by.)
Also, does the hack give Nei back for endgame? Seems a case of giving the audience their second helping of dessert without them eating their vegetables... you can't give people what they want, because then it deletes the whole mild claim to fame that PS2 had to begin with.
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She's not selectable at Rolf's house, if that's what you're asking. The hack provides a code to have Nei replace a member of the party until the next time the party reorganizes at Rolf's house. Using it is 100% optional. It's repeatable so Nei can join in whenever with a bit of extra effort. It also requires an emulator with Game Genie functionality and I can't say if it will work on anything besides GENS.
By the way, the OTHER big plot twist (at the end of the game) has also been rewritten to be something less shocking. Part of the fun of playing through is seeing all the changes but not everyone is going to feel the same about story changes. I found the NPC dialogue to be more helpful overall. It's better at providing hints at where to go in the stretch where it's not clear where the next dungeon is. I use a guide and maps but the effort is appreciated anyways. Hugh Mahlay and Anna Brangwim felt gratuitous though that has no impact beyond their introductions.
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Trails of Cold Steel- Chapter 3 was so much fun. Felt like a beautiful, updated version of WA 3. Very enjoyable and well structured game so far (particularly in terms of creating and utilizing plot devices).
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Yeah, there really is a lot to like about ToCS1's presentation and structure. Curious what your take on the end will be.
Pokemon Platinum: kinda puttered out on FM4. Started this. I blame Andy and Andy alone. Chose Turtwig, cause WORLD TURTLE. Only gen I haven't played yet, so fight as well fill that gap while I'm in the mood. No theme this playthrough though.
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Atelier Escha and Logy:
Started, playing as Escha because of the demands of a tyrannical 5 year old.
I like the item system limiting how many you can take on an expedition but also auto-refilling on return to town. That puts the emphasis on just making neat stuff rather than constantly having to worry about registering/buying items. The expedition system itself is neat, although I am a little confused by the "Fill up a gauge and select a random boon for the area you are in" piece.
Combat is more fun than other recent Atelier games I've played on account of assists featuring more heavily, as well as decent challenge being available. I tried one of the "Hopeless" fights in the earlygame and managed to barely come out on top.
Plotwise the game doesn't grab me as there isn't much conflict to be had. The characters are likable enough although I could stand for Logy to have more of a personality. The biggest trace of one so far has been some mild snark directed at Escha and Wilbell. Maybe the game will surprise me with likable characters or development.
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Yunica / Hugo: Having just finished Hugo’s side, I found him overall slightly to vastly superior all the way theough, except during the mantis fight, which was harder than anything in Yunica’s side. Playing on hard.
Mystery third character looks very fun for rushing through the game and then hitting a brick wall against every single boss.
Infinifactory: I watched a video by matthewmatosis mentioning how, while this game looks intimidating, it actually eases you in very competently until you’re building extremely complex structures without even noticing. So I got it, and am now mad addicted, about 10-15 hours in. I can’t stop thinking about it.
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Xenoblade Chronicles 2:
This is the most I have ever loved and hated a game within its first 5 hours~
The Good:
I actually really love the dialog. It's got a lot of personality in it. The British VA cast really adds a unique flavor to the work that you don't get in a lot of its contemporaries.
The setting is pretty fantastic, and the characters are really interested in exploring its mysteries. It's highly reminiscent of the world from Skies of Arcadia, but with living continents. The little shoutouts to earlier works in the Xeno franchise, like the Zohar shape, are a nice touch, too.
The Battle System. It's a nice upgrade from the base battle system from XBC1, but somewhat more streamlined in command-selection. The other features of positioning and party interaction are all still there, and somewhere enhanced by the Blade system's own positioning quirks. The Blades themselves are basically like the Djinni system from Golden Sun (but instead of cute critters, you have Anime babes, random monsters, and like 2 fully-clothed dudes).
Exploration is streamlined compared to the previous games. The world still feels pretty huge compared to most games, but areas are a lot more intimate than XBC1/X. Honestly, it's just better and really cuts down on the amount of tedious walking through somewhat empty space. It takes the best bits of exploration/sidequests from XBC1 and cuts out all the cruft.
The Mixed:
The plot is REALLY anime, but mostly the good kind of anime. It's fun and somewhat lighthearted, but there's enough mystery and creativity that it doesn't feel too stale. The dialog and worldbuilding helps this aspect a lot, too. It's just kind of a tonal shift from previous XBC games.
The Characters are all pretty likable so far, but very very cliched. They suit their roles in the story and world well, and seem like there's room for them to be fleshed out, but they all start out as pretty archetypal. The voice acting and dialog REALLY helps this from being too big of a problem. And Gramps is a great trope subversion/blend. Taking the wise mentor character and the annoying mascot character and combining them like this was pretty inspired.
The Bad:
The art is atrocious. It just sucks. I know Monolithsoft prides itself, for some reason, on not having a dedicated character designer, and therefore can have a new look for each of its games. BUT THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE A HEAD CHARACTER DESIGNER FOR A SINGLE GAME. Holy crap, that is a terrible decision. Rex does not fit in the same world as Malos. There's so many clashing art styles that it's actively painful to look at. Especially compared to the unified design ethos of XBC1, it's just unforgivably poor decision-making.
Costume design is even more egregious. Like, I get fanservice. I'm even okay with skimpy costume designs on adult characters. Heck, I prefer it to the fully-armored-style personality-less designs of games like Dark Souls! But... there's a limit. Pyra in particular is just really poorly designed. The shapes of her outfit are nonsensical and don't even make a particularly nice silhouette. I'm just not sure what was going on there. There's also the enormous tits on nearly all the female cast, which are just laughably huge and some of the worst anatomical contortions I've seen outside of Rob Lyefeld. Like, if you want to make a fanservice design, PLEASE learn how to draw/model boobs that don't look like misshapen condoms filled with pudding!
The game just feels rushed. The mishmash of art from too many different artists, the abundance of reused mechanical assets, lots of little things. You can sort of tell this game was thrown together a bit fast than previous installments.
Also, there's Gacha mechanics, somehow. Despite not even being paid content, they imitated gacha mechanics just to induce that same psychological gambling loop in players. WHY? Well, apparently I can get long-winded about this topic, so I'll just leave at that.
Overall, though... I actually really like the game. It just has some VERY big flaws.
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Might this be The Worst Videogame Of All Time
Chrono trigger iOs: it has been fun to run through CT again, but I have three objections:
- God damn was this easy. People call FF6 easy?
- Come on Sun Stone you got 65000600 years of sunlight. Do you really need 1700 more?
- All optional new stuff is bad. Do not give 300$ to a new team to make them churn new content out of it. Results are predictably terrible
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Costume design is even more egregious. Like, I get fanservice. I'm even okay with skimpy costume designs on adult characters. Heck, I prefer it to the fully-armored-style personality-less designs of games like Dark Souls!
Dusk and her fabulous dress want words with you, Djinn.
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Ain't no party like a Yarnham party. (https://bloodborne.wiki.fextralife.com/file/Bloodborne/Queen%20Trio.jpg)
I have been playing some dumb clicking games of various genres. Whether it just be legit incremental game clikers. Path of Exile or Diablo 3. Clicking is about all I do in my downtime at the moment. Sometimes I play Fortnite and Vermintide 2 if I want to change to from spamming click to pointing at heads and clicking.
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Might this be The Worst Videogame Of All Time
Chrono trigger iOs: it has been fun to run through CT again, but I have three objections:
- God damn was this easy. People call FF6 easy?
- Come on Sun Stone you got 65000600 years of sunlight. Do you really need 1700 more?
- All optional new stuff is bad. Do not give 300$ to a new team to make them churn new content out of it. Results are predictably terrible
I really like the Dream Devourer fight as I recall but yeah, basically anything else would have been a better investment. Like... pack in Radical Dreamers! That’d Be cool!
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Might this be The Worst Videogame Of All Time
Chrono trigger iOs: it has been fun to run through CT again, but I have three objections:
- God damn was this easy. People call FF6 easy?
- Come on Sun Stone you got 65000600 years of sunlight. Do you really need 1700 more?
- All optional new stuff is bad. Do not give 300$ to a new team to make them churn new content out of it. Results are predictably terrible
CT's time travel is best not to be thought about too deeply.
CT shows teeth on occasion, especially if you don't know what to do about certain puzzly bosses. The Golem Twins completely destroyed me the first time I played the game and I know I'm not alone. Giga Gaia and Lavos can be pretty tough too. Overall though, yeah, it's easy. (And yeah, certainly easier than FF6.)
Speaking of CT, I've started I Am Setsuna. I believe Snowfire described it as "CT, but not as good as CT, but that's okay since CT is pretty damn good" and that seems a spot-on assessment so far. One obvious way it feels worse than CT is despite having the same system where targeting groups/lines of enemies is important, it doesn't tell you in advance via the cursor which enemies currently count as being in a group or line. Ah well. Still, to be clear, I'm enjoying it.
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It's amusing to me, that of all the potential successors to Chrono Trigger, the one that's made by a newbie studio basically ended up winning the honor, beating out Xenogears (started as a CT sequel), FFD2 (literally rehashed the proposed plot of a CT sequel), Radical Dreamers (who even remembered this existed?), and even Chrono Cross itself (widely regarded as being better if it *wasn't* a CT sequel). I guess you could toss Cosmic Star Heroine in there as well, since it apparently just lifts the CT battle system. But CSH isn't exactly a game with a huge pedigree or any relation to actual creators of CT, unlike Setsuna. And amusingly, after my experience with both CSH and Setsuna, the one that's NOT officially endorsed by Square is the better game.
Chrono Trigger, why do you have such strange luck with sequels?
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Tales of Berseria: beat
Like Tales games? play this one. Real review later. Below TotA and ToV to me, solidly above everything else. And although it's below them it does some things better. Notably: the plot is coherent from beginning to end, and never loses focus despite the game being quite long.
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In regards to discordant XB2 character designs, I think some of the characters were designed by Nomura (but just a few?).
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They used a large number of prominent guest artists for designs - this was a selling point for the game albeit not one that got a lot of attention out west.
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In regards to discordant XB2 character designs, I think some of the characters were designed by Nomura (but just a few?).
Heh, now that I'm a little further into the game... It looks like the entire Evil Organization is drawn by Nomura.
Monolith Soft, did you seriously hire Nomura just so you could cash in on that game-starved KH2 Organization XIII fanbase?
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Zelda: BoTW
Whoah. I have never seen such an amazing open world. And the interplay of the game's freedom of movement with the combat can lead to some fun outcomes. Scrambling up a small tower mid fight to rain down bombs for example.
Any good Wii U suggestions?
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Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward
Finished. I'm sure you have many questions about it, but as this is a prerecorded message, I'm afraid I can't answer them. There are many things I wish to tell you, but alas, my time is limited. I have chosen two things of great importance to tell you.
First, I will tell you about termites. Have you ever seen a termite mound? They are splendid structures. Some might even call them works of art. Termites are natural architects, and their mounds are both structurally sound and make excellent use of space. So are they following some sort of plan as they build? Are there termite blueprints, detailing which room goes where? No. Of course not. Each termite is simply an oblivious cog in a tremendous machine programmed by millions of years of termite DNA. It is doubtful an individual termite has any idea what its contributions are helping to create. But... a human does. We can appreciate the elegant forms of their alien cathedrals... We can see the simple beauty of their perfect functionality... We can understand the splendid planning of their structure. In other words, only an intelligence of a higher order can understand the beauty of what the termite builds. Now, consider humans. We are oblivious cogs in a tremendous machine programmed by millions of years of human DNA. No doubt you see now what this analogy is supposed to illustrate. Yes, I mean to say that humans are no different from termites. We trudge through our lives with no greater understanding of our ultimate goal. You might say we don't understand what we're building. Only an intelligence of a higher order than ours can understand what we're doing. Imagine how we might look to such an intelligence... We may be building some structure so perfect and elegant we can't even perceive it. Whatever it is, we've likely been building it on a dimension just above the ones we know since time immemorial. If we are like the termites, then what we've created is almost certainly something of tremendous beauty. And you are about to catch a glimpse of it.
Now, let's move on to the second topic. The game was pretty awesome and I'm puzzled at why I waited so long to play it. Oh well, guess it'll be nice & fresh in my head when I go through the third game in the series. Japan once again has great taste in developers with weird ideas getting funded but no taste in what people buy, as VLR apparently flopped in Japan for whatever reason. Maybe it needed, like, a dating sim on the side or something to satisfy the audience. The game is playable enough without having played 999, but it does spoil the hell out of 999 if played first, so. (Speaking of which, shout outs to reusing some of 999's music in appropriate places for returning characters. Hosoe did some good work on the music in the series - not always amazing out-of-context, but works very well in-game.) Some real nice plot twists, some of which I guessed and some of which I didn't, but generally in the good way. I'm kicking myself for not distrusting a few suspicious omissions as well as being intentional rather than just odd. The puzzles are still kinda lame? Better than 999 but still. Definitely a "don't feel bad about FAQing" them if you get stuck deal. Some of the puzzles very nicely play into the themes the game is going for elsewhere, at least. But yeah, this is a game you play for the plot, which I thought was very good and reasonably cohesive, with the head-fakes it has being mostly "fair", and the insane conspiracy philosophizing parts making considerably more sense, than, say, Metal Gear Solid. Compared to Ace Attorney, it's definitely a bit grittier, although ultimately not THAT gritty, but has the advantage of not indulging in AA's tendency to let sympathetic characters who do desperate things for sympathetic reasons "off the hook" narratively.
Have a nice traitor!
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Dragon Project: Finished my Plague Doctor cosplay.
(https://i.imgur.com/1pKHbnv.jpg)
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Any good Wii U suggestions?
Mario Kart 8/Smash 4 are obviously fun games for everyone. Personally, I did all of Mario Kart 8's single player mode and had quite a good time with just that. DLC is quite inexpensive and has some good maps (both the F-zero and the Zelda maps are very cool and cute references).
Super Mario 3D World is probably my favorite Mario platforming game since, I dunno, the NES? It's really fun and has some serious bite (especially compared to the newer Marios which tend to be pretty wussy). The multiplayer mode is fun and cute but not really what the game is about.
New Super Mario Bros Wii U is a classic new-style Mario, has some fun stage design but is overall a little on the easy side. I had a really good time playing the game with two other players, the game is quite hilarious that way, but it can be done single-player as well.
Hyrule Warriors is quite enjoyable. It is very colorful and has a lot of charm. The game pretty much has as much content as you want to do with all of the different modes. The bosses are surprisingly competent, especially at higher levels. I can take or leave the army aspects of the game, but it’s honestly a pretty cool action game.
Bayonetta 2 I haven’t actually played yet, but I watched it and it seems pretty good if you enjoyed the first game.
Splatoon is a silly spin on the shooter / territory grabbing style game. I’m not sure how many people play it now that there is a sequel, but it’s pretty damn fun. I’d definitely check into its playerbase before buying, though.
Captain Toad / Yoshi’s Wooly World are both reasonably enjoyable, but quite easy and seem a little more designed for kiddos than for adults. I think YWW would be a good introduction as a platformer for a kidlet. <3
Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is a glorious trainwreck of a game. It has decent gameplay but it’s held back by a few baffling decisions. Plot is hilariously bizarre, sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a terrible way. it’s not an all time great game but if you are in the mood for a game that is slightly off-kilter, it’s not a bad choice.
Shovel Knight / Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse / Shantae and the Half-Genie Hero are not WiiU exclusive but are fun old school platformers if you haven’t gotten your hands on them yet.
There’s also a Xenoblade spinoff game on the WiiU. Since I didn’t like the first game I never played this one, but it exists ??
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Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology- Fin.
Okay, so the natural point of comparison here is the DS version of Chrono Trigger. In the main the new content is fairly extraneous and when it even tries to be serious, it's really fan-ficcy.
Except it's handled better and the content itself is better: you can outright choose to turn it off when you start the game, it's distributed throughout the game, it's moreso short vignettes than endless grind, and while I stand by the fan-fic descriptor, some of it is really good at it.
But mostly I feel like I underestimated my appreciation for the game originally. It cruises through the necessary background and setup parts of the game by constantly anticipating that the player knows what's coming, then having the characters know what's coming and planning appropriately. The major reveals feel paced so they last just long enough for the characters to get invested, then put out Stocke figuring something out at regular intervals to maintain that appreciation for his smarts. Not just the major emotional scenes, but the little ones of the cast struggling along the way reliably got to me.
I have a big giant text block talking about the game at a thematic level in a folder to be worked on for some reason.
So now I'm like... do I like this more than FFX? About as much as Suikoden III?
Yeah... yeah I think I do, and I'm surprised I didn't notice that originally.
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But mostly I feel like I underestimated my appreciation for the game originally. It cruises through the necessary background and setup parts of the game by constantly anticipating that the player knows what's coming, then having the characters know what's coming and planning appropriately. The major reveals feel paced so they last just long enough for the characters to get invested, then put out Stocke figuring something out at regular intervals to maintain that appreciation for his smarts. Not just the major emotional scenes, but the little ones of the cast struggling along the way reliably got to me.
This, THIS.
This is what's truly well done about RH.
I remebered how angry I was at Trail series when I replayed RH earlier.
As it really reminds me all the stupid RPG writing flaws that Kiseki has been consatntly making, Trail series is like the polar opposite of what RH did right.
It pains me to see people praise Trail's writing when it is now a load of garbage.
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Xenoblade Chronicles 2:
Being on vacation is great for actually finishing games. I started and finished this in less than a week. Quite the record for me. Especially considering I am STILL on my first run through the FE14 games.
Anyway, XBC2 has the distinction of being best 'anime' game I've played in ages. It has a LOT of tropes that are commonly associated with anime - too much focus on romantic subplots, a hotsprings scene, overcomplication of a simple message, Organization XIII, robot goddesses, more cleavage than the Grand Canyon, and the list goes on.
But apart from its MANY MANY visuals flaws, it has a really great story grounded on a good anti-technophobe theme and a solid plot structure. The characters are all well fleshed out, and even Organization XIII (despite their Nomura designs) are compelling villains. It stumbles here and there with some scenes, but overall, it is good where it needs to be.
I'm not sure how much of that is the localization, because it seems quite clear that a lot was smoothed over in the transition. Just the way a lot of scenes are acted gives each of the more 'cringey anime moments' in the game a completely different feel/direction from how it's usually portrayed. There's just a lot of competence on display here, too. The setting is fully realized and explored and internally consistent. Plot points and Chekov's Guns are all interwoven properly into both the comedic and serious aspects of the story. Characters grow and remain relevant throughout the entire narrative. There's no casual sexism or lengthy diatribes about fantasy racism, despite one of the core themes of the game being about 'what is a human/artificial life' (it IS a Xeno-game after all).
The hotspring scene ACTUALLY SERVES A PURPOSE and at no point does anyone attempt to peek on the women's side or start talking about how big someone's breasts are. If nothing else, this is a stand-out achievement.
While the game is overall very lighthearted compared to Takahashi's previous Xeno games, it still has its serious moments. And while Jin is a complete wanker and Rex is a grating optimist, their final confrontation was surprisingly poignant and actually delivered a message that resonated with me. Despite all appearances, this game is ABOUT something, and it's a refreshing change (fuck off FE14).
...it still has the worst character design ever, even as I was sobbing towards the end of the game, I kept wanting to throw up in my mouth whenever two characters were in a single closeup shot together...
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Fire Emblem Warriors - Good times, good times. Currently enjoying the increased fanserviceness of Chrom, who seems to get hotter in each new game
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Zero Escape: Zero Time Dilemma
Well after inexplicably waiting 5-6 years to play Virtue's Last Reward, I decided to plow into the third game right away.
Side note: The game opens up with the slightly trollish option to, well, basically not play the game. You can nope your way out to the credits in 10 minutes. I unironically like this a good deal... remember chatting in IRC chat about how Far Cry 4 does something similar. It forces the player to say yup, I'm up for this. The writer said basically the same thing about a Super Mario Maker level of all things awhile back:
https://www.polygon.com/2016/5/18/11707866/kotaru-uchikoshi-super-mario-maker-level-interview-zero-escape-zero-time-dilemma-devs-make-mario
Short version: you can skip the entire level by warping to the end and back dooring the content, or you can attempt a very challenging Mario course. The choice is yours.
This makes me think of one of the few redeeming features of Golden Sun, that the game lets you refuse the Heroic Call and just bail at the start in the same way. This makes me want to do the reverse, some day, though... some setting where the town elder calls the band of three eager youths to tell them about their Great Destiny or whatever, and if you accept it just rolls the credits and says "And they were known as great heroes and saved the day and stuff, until the next villain thirty years later, and nothing really changed," and declining will get you the rest of the game. (Maybe everybody is trapped in some fantasy dream land a la FFTA Ivalice and you need to actually break shit rather than fix the pleasant illusion, say.)
Anyway, not TOO much to say about the game... aside from some of the character designs in 3D looking a bit weird. The three VLR characters look fine, but the 999 characters in Junpei & Akane look off... Akane especially, her trademark little flower thingy looks different and more like a hair band. Maybe due to more distance in time from the original artist's work? Not sure. (Also, apropos of nothing, but ZTD basically confirms a rare case of creator-endorsed Ace Attorney Japanamerica... yes, Junpei / Akane / Aoi / Hongou / etc. are all Japanese who were just chillin' in the United States for Reasons, even in the Japanese version, as best I can tell.)
I guess I can't say too much about the ZTD plot that's accessible, but the one thing I'm a little less into is the tone of the game: it seems the darkest of the series. Apparently Chunsoft's marketing research in Japan said that 999 looked "too scary" for why it drove some buyers off, so VLR was lightened up a bit. And... that is fine by me, honestly. Uchikoshi has a number of interviews out there, including in English, but it seems like a case of Be Careful What You Wish For... so as noted, 999/VLR flopped in Japan but did well internationally, which caught the creators by surprise a bit as they thought it'd be a Japan-only game. Uchikoshi has said that he personally would prefer to do the darker stories, and since he had to do a campaign (complete with English Twitter account) to convince the higher-ups to make a third game for the benefit of us Westeners, and they folded, he clearly "won"... which means that his auter instincts seem to be able to run wild in Zero Time Dilemma, as this feels closer to a slasher movie so far. I dunno, "tense" is good a la 999, but while I'm glad he got to finish the series, I wish he'd still had to deal with the studio reining him in a bit. Well, maybe, it's too soon to say.
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Pokémon Platinum: Ponyta owned the second gym (and Eterna Forest mostly). I do enjoy the Eterna town music, and I totally dig (har har) the not-Minesweeper game for the underground. So far it is balancing meh grinding with the breezing-no effort feeling I got from Moon. So I'm having fun so far.
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Beat Phantasy Star 2: Numan Revolution Again. It can go by surprisingly fast as I rarely stop to grind for equipment. With a source of Deban and a Gires item for everyone, Motherbrain is still a HP sponge. I can heal infinitely for more than it can damage anyone so it's a foregone conclusion after the second round.
Surprising discoveries: Some of these apply to the original game as well.
- When deciding how Dezorians and Musk Cats speak, the game only checks if Rolf is alive and which hat he's wearing. This makes me happy when I'm plodding along with Nei rather than him. Also, since only Hugh can wear the Magic Cap (changed to Bio Translator), all those dialogue options are inaccessible. Whether the creator wrote new dialogue and this is an oversight or an intentional choice, I'll never know. On a similar note, Rolf only needs to be alive to enter Esper mansion the first time; game doesn't look for him in the active party.
- There is a sanity check in that someone in the party must have the Neisword in order to enter Noah. Just don't be dumb and use character replacement codes to replace the person with the Neisword while in the last dungeon.
- Dark Force's MT attack (as well as Motherbrain's and Blaster's) can miss. It's extremely rare though such as one can go an entire game without ever seeing that. Guessing the chance to whiff is something super low like 1 in 256 or 512.
- All damaging enemy specials ignore defense. I'm guessing the formula is Power * V/100 I don't know the range for V though 84 to 115 makes enough sense and holds up with the draining attacks of the Mosquito family.
I tried to cast magic with someone who had been cursed by Dark Force's "can't focus to use techniques" curse to see what would happen. The character will revert to the attack command. This attack also bypasses the chance that an attack will fail while cursed.
If a character is dual-wielding, being cursed can only stop one of the two strikes. Casual observation suggests about a 1 in 3 chance that a physical will fail. I've seen the item command fail when a character is cursed but that was only once ever so the chance is something really low. (Shields don't matter at Dark Force anyways; it's damage ignores defense)
- Decided to see if I could buff Agility enough on someone to outspeed Motherbrain. Didn't start happening until over 200 Agi before the character would occasionally go first. Above 210, this would happen more often but still not consistently. Without looking at the code, I'm guessing Motherbrain has 216 Agility. (which would make it surprisingly dangerous in a duel)
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I am just guessing, but I suspect most of those poor coding 'features' in Numan Revolution are also present in vanilla Phantasy Star II. I recall the first time I played PSII was on an emulator, not long after learning how RPGMaker works. So when I got to the set of dungeons for the Nei equipment, I was like "fuck slogging through 4 plotless dungeons" and just used the emulator's built-in game genie to get a Neisword in my inventory. I figured "it took like 2 minutes, might as well see if this works."
And yeah, the game literally just checks to see if you have the item. Apparently PSII was coded before event flags were a thing.
So I would guess that all of the odd checks in Numan Revolution are just leftover amateur coding from the original.
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Fire Emblem Fates:
Revelations finished. Finally. God this game is an utter slog towards the end. I can't think of another game that I have gotten so soured on. Like... there's plenty of games that have dropped the ball on their plots (Xenosaga, FFD2 come to mind immediately), but none quite so consistently bad while still showing signs of how easily it could have been good.
Like... at least when XS veered wildly into Bible Fanfiction territory, you could tell it was intentional, even if ill-conceived.
Fates' plot is so bad that it made me feel dirty for any amount of enjoyment I got out of the gameplay or support conversations. It is bad and should feel bad for managing to make the wrong decision at every possible turn.
What started out as something that conceptually could have been a 10/10 game has the honor of being the worst Fire Emblem plot. Ever. Even worse than the likes of FE1.
There's enough good in the gameplay and battle animations that I can't completely give it a 1/10 or anything, but it is painful to even concede that. XS3/10. Fuck this game for ruining such a good premise with the most shit execution.
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Bayonetta - So, I'm guessing Stone Awards are just the Bayonetta experience on first playthrough, I suppose? God damn that QTE by the end of Chapter 4.
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Bayonetta - So, I'm guessing Stone Awards are just the Bayonetta experience on first playthrough, I suppose? God damn that QTE by the end of Chapter 4.
Grefter would beg to differ. 100% platinum, best player ever. Very Easy is hilarious.
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Bayonetta - So, I'm guessing Stone Awards are just the Bayonetta experience on first playthrough, I suppose? God damn that QTE by the end of Chapter 4.
Grefter would beg to differ. 100% platinum, best player ever. Very Easy is hilarious.
I'm getting better! Got Platinums and Golds for the first two chapters on return. I partly blame Kulshedra for this, though - love that damn whip.
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I think I got all of one top-rated chapter in the entirety of Bayonetta, and it was a late chapter with only a boss in it. You know the one.
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Niijima seemed potentially okay-ish, but that might just be the "Good cap, fascist cop" effect talking. Regardless, game isn't subtle and I could see this becoming grating over dozens of hours of story. We shall find out in due time.
I've only been able to play Persona 5 in very short bursts for precisely this reason. It's definitely a good game, a damn good game even, but it feels almost too timely with respect to current events, in a way that makes it deeply uncomfortable to play. I suspect that some payoff will eventually be forthcoming, but if it's anything like a typical Persona game then I'm probably still 30 hours away from it and the game thus far is kind of badly missing the core essence of what I play video games for (to escape from shitty reality, not remind me of it).
As social commentary though? It hits the mark right on the nose.
I haven't posted for a while, so some collected thoughts on crap I've played lately:
Super Robot Wars V
Incredibly enjoyable game, even beyond the novelty of being a licensed SRW game you can play in English. The translation is even legitimately quite good - it's not flawless, but it's a game you could sell in US stores and not be embarrassed about the localization. One of the better SRWs I've seen writing-wise in terms of integrating the different plots together, for sure. The game itself is quite easy, but for SRW I consider that a net positive because it means you can use whatever units you like for character favoritism without really worrying about how good they are. Cross Ange cast was surprisingly much more likable than I was expecting given what I knew of the show. It managed even to not really drag so badly like SRW games often do in the endgame, which is a plus. (Still slowed down some, but not nearly as badly as is typical.)
Super Robot Wars OG: The Moon Dwellers
Not as good as V, in any respect. The translation is functional but pretty bad. The game itself is much harder than the usual SRW fare, which takes some getting used to, and is frankly full of mechanics that are often more annoying than fun (enemies that evade or defend against your attacks are interesting the first time, then you realize that they're nothing but padding to make everything take longer and they do it over and over and over and over again).
The plot itself is also a clear transitional game; the main focus is on the SRW J and GC characters, with a secondary focus on Fighter Roar from the Great Battle series. And the focus is definitely in that order; the J plot dominates the game overall, and it's executed quite a bit better than its home game. Touya isn't a whiny prat, for one. Calvina is initially a bit more bitchy but also mellows out a little faster and has much, much better reasons to forgive Al-Van than in J (like, for instance, the fact that in OG he actually had nothing at all to do with killing her comrades). The Fury are given an internal faction war which mostly serves as a vehicle for making Al-Van thoroughly a sympathetic character, as opposed to the more gray character he was in J. I can't speak for how the details of the GC plot in this game differed from their original context since I don't know GC much - the main thing I know is that the two playable Gardisordians defect much earlier in this than originally - but its protagonists are enjoyable characters. However, their plot practically feels like filler between the J and Great Battle arcs that conveniently gave them a chance to recycle some 2nd OG assets by having the Zuvorg/Zovork/whatever have a rogue faction for the GC villains to ally with, and is wrapped up in a way that basically ensures the characters will have no future impact on the OG series plot besides being there and having a cool mech. And all of it feels like it's essentially a filler arc to bridge the gap between Alpha 2 and Alpha 3.
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Trails of Cold Steel- Just beginning chapter 5. Sadly, I think giving nearly everyone large AoE damage techs + semi debilitating status kind of wrecked the in-game battle balance, which was something I had been really enjoying.
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Load up my lategame Star Ocean 2 file.
Dive into deep Cave of Trials to beat up Gabrie Celeste. Chisato has an Algol and no instant death resisting equips (important even though this excludes some of the best equipment of the game).
Owlbear attacks. I use the regular escape command. My attack power sucks and I don't want to spend 10-15 minutes on a random. I'm also trying to preserve Skandas for the nastier stuff and feel confident that someone will successfully run.
Owlbear smacks Chisato in the back. Owlbear dies.
GameFAQs message board, you have failed.
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Maldita Castilla - Found this game by chance on a recommendation list, it was free so I decided to try it out. It's basically Spanish Mythology Ghouls and Ghosts (Ghosts and Goblins? I keep forgetting which one). Feels more merciful than what it's based on (in large due to having three hits rather than two). Decent weapon variety too, though sickles and flails tend to be overall better than daggers or axes? They hid the tears on stages 1 and 5 damn well, for sure.
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Platinum: Third badge obtained. Got a little distracted by things, both outside the game and poking around the digging/minesweeper minigame. I'm enjoying the challenge. I'm not grinding more or less than I usually do in a pokemon game, and while the lack of some of the QoL improvements are missed, the game doesn't get steamrolled as easily as X and Moon. Mooooostly though because Exp Share isn't just raising the entire party? Results in a sort of Chicken and Egg really. Suppose I should just then turn the Exp Share off from now on.
Third gym mostly kicked by Chatot and Chatter, mix of other pokemon's Sp.Atk moves as well. Chatot has been fun to use, glad I did the in-game NPC trade I usually don't partake in for it. Always about doing something different. Got kinda lucky with Grotle getting a crit on Mismaigus to finish off the fight though. Coulda been dicey if that hadn't happened.
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Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Path
Extremely belated review! It took me like 3 years from start to finish, but so it goes.
Anyway, NotMiki was mostly right: case 5 was pretty good. Not perfect, and I dunno if it redeems the rest of the game, but I'll take it. This is good because case 4 was awful… surely one of my least favorite cases in the entire series. The idea of some threat so bad that it forces Edgeworth to relinquish his prosecutor status and walk his own path is fine, but the implemtation was completely nonsensical, and the villain was horrible. Basically Manfred von Karma if he was a complete dumbass but nobody called him on it.
Anyway, the good:
* Sebastien was pretty rad. Da Best indeed, ends up a better Franziska type arc.
* Courtney… well, it doesn't explain her extreme hostility to Edgeworth and inane contradictoriness earlier, nor really sell how exactly she was allegedly fighting the bad guys from the inside, but she was fine in Case 5, which was good.
* And hey, for once, the policy of "eh let the lawyers keep the evidence, whatever" has the predictable effects.
* A few times in this case, the bad guys commit massive unforced errors, and the plot owns this, which is also something I like! I'm fine with weird evidence left over and doing blatantly the wrong thing if you need to give the player an in, it makes more sense than the "I HAVE PLANNED EVERYTHING WITH LUDICROUS PRECISION" types that luck out by having no civilians observe their evil deeds. (Not really sure why the real blackmailer was unable to tell the blackmail victim to do exactly the reverse of what the other would-be blackmailers wanted…)
* The mastermind was pretty cool, too. I like the idea of a mostly indirect villain with a reasonably sympathetic cause. As usual, Ace Attorney games insist on having them do some dumb incriminating shit directly when there was no need to, as well as some pointlessly complex tricks for no apparent gain, but whatevs.
* Oh hey this case remembered Gumshoe exists. (Although didn't the "hey we're the new Yatagarus now" scene already happen at the end of AAI1…?)
The bad:
* Sheesh, did some people fail their Perception checks HARD "two nights ago". It was a freaking party at the Grand Tower that night, with the auction, the Conductor, Kay, Crane, the Prez, Courtney, the mastermind, and Lotta all there. Complete with a gunshot and a dude getting crushed when either the mastermind decided to go for an extra bit of revenge-on-behalf-of-another, or the prez decided that he should open fire at night on suspicious balloons, also while Courtney is oblivious in the lobby or something, and there's a masked party going on a mere 2 floors below, and Lotta 1 floor below. (And remember, Kay was awake enough to remember the Man in the Red Hood "flying" later, which was presumably AFTER the gunshot and crushing.) That said, I'll give 'em a pass on this, it doesn't REALLY work but it's interesting I suppose.
* What's up with even more pointless amnesia? This is some FF7-level "totally bonkers due to Mako poisoning" shit. Why on earth not omit amnesia for the boys, omit remembering who-was-who when one kid tied the other up complete with memories of this happening, and give the Culprit an authentic motive to kill his friend Knightley?! Just have "the police screwed up identifying Pierre Houquet's kid" to explain why Our Heroes get confused as to which kid was which. I really don't get the dad-swap plotline they came up with.
* I'm willing to give this one a bit more of a pass because CRAZY IDENTITY SWITCHING is something that many people, including me, love, but… the president of Zheng-Fa plot twist was half-baked. Especially since the existing plot it replaced was perfectly fine and dramatically interesting. The president growing bitter and estranged from his allies after a mistake that led to him getting kidnapped makes perfect sense. (This is, incidentally, exactly what happens to Aerys Targaryen in the backstory of A Game of Thrones… he becomes a paranoid and vengeful leader after being held captive for a ransom.) Very much an "unneeded" twist for the sake of twists. It raises more questions than it answers… we get the impression that family is very important in Zheng-Fa, so did the president really have no family, even extended family, who could immediately notice a swap? How about the unnamed double's family? Hell, how about the unnamed double's friends and coworkers? Did he just mysteriously disappear from their life? Also, the "evidence" to prove this even happened at all is pretty weak-ass. A dead witness maybe said the prez was still at the embassy… at MIDNIGHT. First off, if this was a scandalous secret liaison with a foreigner, of course the bodyguards would be covering for it by lying and claiming he wasn't off to see his sekrit son. Second, even if they were straight-up not lying, you kinda don't expect super-specific times that late at night, when people are asleep or at the hotel bar. This is the kind of present in other Phoenix Wrights where fine, you made your point, then opposing counsel just says "yeah but maybe that dude was mistaken" and you move on.
* While I'm loathe to ask for MORE super-badass awesome assassin action (the game thinks de Killer & Sirhan Dogen are way cooler than I do…), it's a little odd that Dogen's "disciple" is the one who takes up the mantle of vengeance (even if it somehow involves getting Jill Crane killed as well… whatever.). If Dogen is such a badass as to be able to wander out of prison whenever he wants and blackmail Warden Roland, and Body Double Prez / Blaise / Patricia Roland tried to KILL him presumably before even paying him… it seems weird that he didn't bother trying to get them in trouble. Maybe he mellowed out enough to not want revenge and kill them, but merely knowing that the president was dead should have given him enough leverage to ruin all three if he wanted, since uh they did kinda try to kill him. (Of course, it's also wacky that Warden Roland was soooo terrified by him that she didn't dare try to murder him somehow, but whatevs, that's more of a Case 2 concern.)
* Speaking of which, I don't quite get why de Killer is that annoyed at the red-hooded man. He withheld the fact that the president was really the body double? Who gives a rip? The body double IS the president now. As best I can tell, this was a legit assassination attempt; red-hooded man really wanted the president to die for backstabbing Dogen, and he was not directly TRYING to get de Killer in trouble. Maybe I'm misremembering Case 1.
* The game head-faked me a bit by making me assume Nicole Shields is the mastermind by having her recoil after Kay crushes the bug. Okay sure. But don't we learn later that the mastermind turned off the bug during that conversation…? Did crushing it turn it back on again mysteriously? ...whatever.
* Speaking of which. This is a minor whine, because Edgeworth DOES properly treat it as total embarrassing nonsense, but Lotta / Nicole / Penny's insistence on seeing a fictional character is maybe a bit of a stretch even for a silly humorous game like the PW series. This is the kind of thing a 10-year old might do where they insist they saw the Hulk in real-life. You're in your twenties, damnit, you did not see the "real" Moozilla, he is a fictional character.
* This is also more a nitpick than a critical flaw, but… okay so the red-hooded man lured Kay to the Grand Tower so he could set her up as a (very, very weak) suspect for whatever shit went down with Blaise, and so ensure Edgeworth, his chosen tool, would take the case and ruin Blaise. But it seemed way too potentially deadly? Like, it's a miracle Kay didn't just die after cracking her head after her fall. Was the convenient amnesia fall unintentional? (Oh well, more case 4 nonsense.)
* Also more of a nitpick, because the bad guy styling around with ludicrous counter-claims that everyone you like really did it is a PW series staple, buuuut the seeming crime of opportunity in deciding to attempt to frame John Marsh for the president's death doesn't seem to fit with the mastermind's MO, and certainly couldn't have been planned for anyway, so I guess he just likes to inject a little chaos. Given that he did it, it was already pretty well established that even if legit, it would have been a tragic workplace safety accident that would get Global Studios sued out of business maybe, but not really incriminate a 13-year old kid. Reminiscent of case 1-5 where the prosecution threatens to pin the crime on Ema instead even with a theory of the crime that would make it blatantly an accident, even if true. But at least that was an evil police chief trying that; a random guy testifying "hey I totally told a 13-year old he should kill someone, but I have no evidence I did this, and I didn't really say to kill him" compared to two characters testifying "I totally heard the mastermind confess over the telephone, and you can see the cell phone call in the records" seems a little lopsided in the realm of reliability. Like I said, go ahead and have our villain taunt Edgeworth and co., but "hey police arrest this kid" is a bit over-the-top even for PW.
Anyway, it was definitely worth a play. Fan translation & technical localization work was pretty great, too. Still one of the weaker series entries overall, which is a shame, because Edgeworth himself is a great character, and Kay is a solid assistant. Just.. as Elf / NotMiki have noted, the case logic is really convoluted and zany a little too often and to too much an extreme; the cases often don't make tons of sense in retrospect if you imagine writing a side story from the villain's point of view. And as a personal complaint, too much of the game - cases 2, 3, and 4, basically - are a Gregory Edgeworth simulator, not a Miles Edgeworth game. I can already be a defense attorney in your other series, lemme be a prosecutor in this game.
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(AAI2 spoilers)
Yup yup, agreed with a lot of that. I kinda like Courtney's face turn (which helps my opinion of case 4) but your criticisms about Blaise are on point. I kinda forgive the game for Blaise because it makes him NOT the final boss like I was expecting but he's definitely not great. I'm not a huge fan of case 5 for a number of reasons which you basically already went into (fake president plot baaad, John Marsh stuff bad, assassin worship bad, plus it being generally too long... but I do really like the mastermind and that goes a long way towards redeeming it). Pretty sure case 1 or 3 are my faves.
And as a personal complaint, too much of the game - cases 2, 3, and 4, basically - are a Gregory Edgeworth simulator, not a Miles Edgeworth game. I can already be a defense attorney in your other series, lemme be a prosecutor in this game.
Funny, I was thinking about the AAIs recently and I was definitely thinking the same thing. One thing I really like about AAI is that I'm playing as Prosecutor Edgeworth, being a badass prosecutor and taking down a criminal syndicate, which is a suitably prosecutorial thing to do (if we assume prosecutors are also genius investigators, but that's fine - still less of a workload than an AA defence attorney after all). Basically, using the power of the justice system for good. For a lot of AAI2 the game instead becomes "fight the system" which is well-trodden ground in PW already and not really what I want from Edgeworth. Alba and Blaise are superficially similar villains (powerful men who believe the law can not touch them) but one works really well in the context of AAI and one feels like a reject from a PW game.
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Agreed re: Blaise. He does admirable duty as a fake final boss and as a catalyst for Sebastien. On a more general note, AAI2 can be seen as a very weak PW game if your focus is on the internal logic of the cases, but if your focus is on the overarching plot, the themes it raises and wrestles with, and the cast, it's one of the strongest. I particularly like that the ultimate antagonist gives you some legitimate stuff to think about regarding whether manipulating other people into voluntary criminal acts is something that the justice system can or should punish. Even the direct crime can be argued as self-defense. And AAI2 is uniquely positioned to raise that ambiguity because, since it's an investigation and not a trial, you don't find out whether a guilty verdict is ultimately rendered. (I think. Been a while.)
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I think the overarching plot connecting the cases has a few too many logic problems but I agree with your final sentence for sure. I do somewhat think the game takes a bit of an easy way out by making him a murderer just like anyone else - it would have been really *interesting* if he hadn't killed anyone directly.
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Heroes of Hammerwatch - Hey if anyone is interested in a top down dungeon crawler roguelite that is pretty well polished and supports 4 player coop (can do more with console commands) this one is worth a look. I haven't finished it yet with anyone and the difficulty scales up pretty rapidly as you descend, but it seems well constructed/polished and is still getting patches frequently.
Its about $12 at the moment and is like 100mb. Runs on pretty much anything. Fun little thing I have been playing the last few days and its good enough to throw out there.
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I Am Setsuna - Fin. Time was... about 20 hours I think? The Switch isn't as precise as previous Nintendo consoles. Final level was 39. From what I've read I get the impression this is low, but I fought everything! Didn't do all the endgame sidequests though I guess.
Good game. Definitely recommended. Could have been much better.
Let's talk gameplay first. At its core, this game is Chrono Trigger. Three PCs, ATB, easy to switch between PCs, double/triple techs are a thing, characters each have their own skillset. Not the deepest system, but not a bad thing to crib off of by any means. Like Chrono Trigger, it's too easy overall. Most randoms can be one-rounded, especially by certain too-powerful unites (but even those aren't necessary). Mind, they're just in this range where you might need to think about how to one-round them, and hey that's fun. The parallel here is Shadow Hearts: Covenent, for sure.
Bosses... largely I facerolled for most of the game. Only towards the end did I start having any trouble. Ryderrich was the only boss to kill me, with a surprising quick-assault; even fighting it again it took some thought to control properly. Everything before then was a joke, especially if you know that this game has similarities to Final Fantasy and therefore Slow and to a lesser extent Haste is super-great. I also had a bit of trouble with Eutess but won first try. Then the final battle... well, it's modeled after that of Xenogears in that you can defeat four support bosses first. I did and uh the final boss seemed like kind of a joke? I saw a lot of moves but all were some flavour of unimpressive damage.
Anyway, those specifics aside, the game takes some steps forward from Chrono Trigger, but on the whole, more back. My favourite improvement is kinda underutilised, that techs often move enemies around. This opens up a neat design space for something like Demi, which gathers enemies into a group, as well as certain high-damage AoE moves which scatter the enemies, preventing you from using further AoE moves. Also the game's pause function allows you to directly check all status effects on any PC or enemy, and since status is huge in this game (another plus!), this is nice.
The downgrades are several though. Like... AoE moves are huge in this game, but unlike Chrono Trigger, there's no visual indication of whether an enemy falls in an AoE or not. Also, many PC-side moves are AoE too... but you are given zero way to control where PCs stand beyond a very few moves with very specific effects (e.g. making a PC move next to an enemy they target). The game also suffers from a glut of pointless systems which detract a bit. Spritnite crafting is a big one. Maybe this could have been done well, but as is, significant parts of a PC's skillset can be locked behind drops which you didn't get, and the game won't tell you how to get. The spritnite crafting menu is awful, too - it gets super-cluttered, and searching for spritnite you haven't yet crated but can is very time-consuming later in the game (why not remove any spritnite you've already crafted?). The game definitely has way more skills than it needs. Singularities are pointless RNG bullshit. Fluxuations or whatever they're called are pointless RNG upgrades to skills. You don't need all these dumb layers; have faith in your solid base combat system, guys!
Item balance is also really wonk. There are three tiers of potion; the mid-potion heals all the HP you need almost to the end of the game, and hi- is overkill. Ethers are even more potent; the basic one is full for a lot of the game, and Mid was basically to the end. I never even saw the basic Tent not restore all HP/MP, but the game has Cabins too! Way too good. Lack of MT is there only downside.
But, overall it's still fun, don't get me wrong.
Writing... this game has a somber tone and by and large it nails it, I respect it for that. The game has some humour and I cracked a smile now and then but overall it's got a very melancholy tone which really sells you on the shitty setting. But there's lots of positive stories within it too, so it doesn't feel too grimdark or anything. This works.
It's one of those games where you're obviously being withheld some key mysteries. And some of the things behind those mysteries are actually pretty damn cool. My main issue is that... it really backloads them. There's a lot of key stuff you don't learn until the very last dungeon (which, incidentally, I was surprised was in fact the last dungeon). You know the lategame is going to reframe some things and it does, but as soon as this happens, you are told you can solve everything by punching this one monster in the face, you do so, and the game ends. At the same time, one or two key plot points are really underplayed. It's by design somewhat, but I'm not really a fan of the-player-should-fill-in-the-blank plot, and the game does have some.
Past that, let's talk about characters. Some spoilers from here on.
Endir: Silent main. Terrible dialog options on average, you often have to choose between "asshole" and "idiot", or perhaps some combination thereof. Silent mains shouldn't exist, and if they do they should not be this edgy. Also the most undercooked character plotwise. Endir SHOULD be at the centre of some pretty cool plot. Was he created by Samsara to either kill the sacrifice or kill him (Samsara), kinda like Fides? Seems possible! The twist that he wasn't in any previous version of this journey is neat and explains some things; do more with it! Also there's like... no resolution for his relationship with Cornelius at all? Cornelius just says "hey man let's pretend we don't know each other" and they do forever?
Gameplaywise... he's one half of the uber crowd control move, making him great in randoms. Rather underwhelming past that; a damage-dealer without much utility (I missed his most notable utility spell because IAS bullshit) and not actually that good at damage.
Setsuna: Setsuna's pretty interesting. Obviously very superficially similar to Yuna, but the personalities are very different (past a very high affinity for the main; I'm sold on Yuna's a lot more there). Setsuna has... I might even call it a martyr complex. She's not focused on her mission the way Yuna is, and often risks her own life (and therefore pilgrimmage) in order to ease any suffering she sees along the way. She wants deeply to see the best in others... and we see this both pay off (her helping to turn Fides) and not, which is neat. In a more morally simple game she'd be frustrating, but here she works. Her maybe dying in the ending is like wow, girl. I don't really buy for a moment that she had to do it, which is part of why I say she's got a martyr complex. The game's a bit ambiguous on this plot point so it could be a misread.
Gameplaywise... a bit underwhelming early on, slow and low HP and Cure is just a slight money-saver compared to items. Gets some great moves in boss fights, though; Cure 2 is MT full healing forever (WTF) and somehow Luminaire is better. I only discovered its momentum boost later but uh. That is a thing. Inspire's solid for bosses too, moreso if you aren't using Kir.
Aeterna: My favourite character; not super-deep but gets some cool plot and is a bit of a badass y'know? She feels a bit like Auron, Rose, and Citan in a blender; she knows way more about what is going on than the rest of the party and uses them to accomplish her goals. (Fortunately her goals are noble, or you'd be fucked.) I don't think she's as deep as those folks but not too far off. I'd probably have played up her manipulativeness a bit more. She also shares there penchant for dying in the ending too. Obviously ties in with Eutess who has a very key and memorable role in the story for like 10 minutes; I wish the game had expanded a bit on their relationship. While like-minded their personalities are obviously rather different.
Gameplaywise, really goddamn fast. Matters a heck of a lot for utility. In randoms she's not special though Demi is cool and the speed helps you get the drop on enemies if you don't just ambush them (you usually do). In bosses she might be the best because holy shit, Slow. Haste to a lesser extent; it's kinda balanced but it's still a functional turn-shifter. Speed to use items faster. etc. Not great at damage but not actually bad either, which to be honest she probably should have been...
Nidr: Nidr the superficial character is pretty likable. He gets some solid interactions with Kir in particular and provides his own unique voice to the team; veteran but not "hey guys I read the script". The underlying character is... I won't call him a bad character, he's actually kinda interesting/unusual, but he is a bit of a bad person! He's... really a rather big coward. Abandons his pregnant wife and child so he can... kill some monsters and maybe feel a bit less bad about his failed pilgrimmage? Duuuude. Then he realises Setsuna is his daughter and he says fuck-all about it forever; Setsuna guesses in the final dungeon that he has a connection to her and he nopes out of it even then. It's kinda funny because when you first meet him some NPCs call him a coward and you assume that'll be wrong but nope, pretty on the nose!
Gameplaywise, see Endir. Their combo is just that good. I found him a bit more useful than Endir otherwise because he hits harder generally. Diffuse is nice as well, at least on paper; I kept forgetting about and then didn't use him for the lategame bosses it might have helped against.
Kir: Definitely the game's shallowest character (silent mains notwithstanding), you... pretty much know everything there is to know about him by the time he joins. He's a pretty fun voice in the party (gets lots of lines, it felt like; he's chattier than most of the team) but he's along for the ride. I'll take that over other along-for-the-ride PCs like Red XIII who aren't fun, though.
Gameplaywise, a weird case, but decent overall. If you ambush randoms he's a very solid choice since he hits hard and hits MT. A bit fire reliant but spoilers fire is a good element in this freaking snow world. in bosses he has easily accessably debuffs on top of his good damage; Bio makes a number of physical bosses sad. But he's terrible in randoms if he doesn't get the drop since he's slooow and in general the slow/frail combo isn't a good one.
Julienne: Unlike Kir, Julienne is very important for a good while after she joins, only dropping off at the end. Her "evil" self is in hindsight one of the very good windows we have into the motivations of Samsara. Her good self actually had one of the cooler "answer some philosophical questions" sequence I can remember in a video game - even a couple times I answered wrong and thought my answer through again and realised that I agreed, I had been wrong! That said, for all that becoming a ruler is her plot arc, it's not actually clear that's really going to happen, since Floneia seemed like the only actually established political power. And she doesn't have as much as she should, on some other fronts. WHY does the game not do anything about the fact that she's the one who ordered the hit on Setsuna. That's a big deal! Underexplored relationship there for sure.
Gameplaywise... well the big problem is ice is a shit element and she's super-reliant on it. You can kinda get around it with Antipode sometimes at least, but not always and that requires Kir (might be some other unites that work). When that's not an issue she's at least quite hard-hitting and her great damage move even adds Freeze which rules. Probably overall LVP though.
Fides: Comes with his very own spoiler name, how convenient. I certainly think it's neat how he joins despite his setup as a pure monster, and he's a neat window into you-know-who which is neat. He himself there's... not much to say about though.
Gameplaywise... well I didn't actually use him. Dat availability. Seems fine on paper (good at like every stat) but you're probably going to do better, or just use PCs you like more.
I settled on the game getting a 6/10. On both gameplay and plot, it's got some nice things going, but it doesn't nail either one to the point where I can be super-happy with it. More of a plot game overall though; it was definitely nice to play one. I think of this game more fondly than it is objectively good, and I think a lot of that is that it has the best/most thought-provoking plot of any JRPG in over two years; I was due for one. Definitely recommended for many DLers though.
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Fan convention gaming area edition:
Arcade games I've not touched in ages as a one-shot deal:
Turtles in Time
The SNES version is probably more familiar to most but there are features of the arcade version I like better. So when I saw the cab for the first time in forever, played a single credit. It's so glorious being able to use specials without losing life. Raph may not be the best choice for this (Mike and Don seem to be best for spamming) but personal favoritism. Got to stage 2 on my 2 lives which I suppose is decent for an arcade game.
Marvel vs Capcom
Haven't played fighting games in forever. This was one of the ones I had more experience with but the only reason I wasn't destroyed by human opponents was that all the really good players have moved on or play elsewhere. Completely forgetting about some special moves is funnier to hear about than to experience. I kind of remember some combo strings but mostly was a spazz. Did pull off the launch into Captain Sword for the first time in my life so felt good about that.
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Suikoden III - After a variety of interruptions, I finally finished my third playthrough of Suikoden III. I decided to choose Geddoe as the Flame Champ, which has an interesting effect on the story, more than I was expecting. You have a main character who, fundamentally, resonates with Luc’s path to insanity much more directly, having also lived with the weight of immortality for many years. I think playing as Geddoe makes Luc a more interesting character, actually, which I was not expecting! Geddoe himself takes a little more initiative than in the other paths but is otherwise fairly static and consistent from the other stories, but he is infused with more justice.
It continues to be a wonderful game with a lot of great ideas and so much potential to be better, if the creators had chosen to go that path with subsequent games. Alas. The gameplay is hands-down the most interesting and tactical of the series, and I would have loved to see more of it in a future game with more transparency in the battle system to make it more fun.
I think the game has good plot writing with a likeable cast of characters, but I think the game falls short of its predecessor in plot, just in terms of the execution of its themes and the resonance of the player with the conflict of the end of the game. I feel like a lot of the interesting set up of the plot with the Grasslands vs. the Zexens is somewhat forgotten about by the game later, laser focusing on Luc as the villain instead. I think Luc is fine but he has a game-warping effect which I don’t consider necessarily desirable.
I still love Albert. He is such a magnificent dickbag. He probably gets his eyebrows waxed.
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The Flame Champ vs. Luc conversation in limbo played out much better when I used Geddoe instead of Chris. Geddoe pretty much just verbally bitchslaps Luc in a way you don't otherwise see him deal with people anywhere else in the game, which makes sense for reasons cited above. My recollection of Chris vs. Luc, by comparison, was two people talking around each other without ever connecting on anything. (I never ran Flame Champ Hugo because Hugo bores me.)
I would have no trouble hyping S3 combat as the best in the series if the pair system wasn't there. You have more customization options than any other game in the series, which is cool, but then you can only command half your team per turn in battle. Why?! It doesn't ruin the game for me anything (I think I still consider it the best in the series), but I still wonder what they were thinking there.
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Yeah, I thought it was really wonderful to see Luc vs. Geddoe. I agree with you about the pairs, but it's not like any of the other games in the series have stunning combat or anything.
Fire Emblem Warriors - Just got Leo. This game's plot is so so bad. But you can play as adorable Elise, so I am happy. :D
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Bayonetta - Up to Chapter 6. Grace and Glory, you jackasses. Also, the Jeanne fights are a complete joy.
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Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age: Started playing this. It is a stellar HD remake, game looks great, and easy-to-toggle 2x/4x speed makes combat waaaaaay better. Will talk about actual content later. For now, just gonna say the opening sections of the game feel way more Star Wars-y than I remember. In a good way.
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Elf: Interesting comments on I Am Setsuna. Also, this has caused me to notice that GameFAQs has been forcibly "upgrading" FAQs to their new format which inexplicably makes FAQs useless and impossible to read by removing the "view as one page" option... WTF. I guess I need to resubmit with fewer subsections or the like, as this is dumb, I prefer HTML format but routinely want to load large portions of a FAQ on my phone and be able to scroll without reloading the page if I'm underground in a subway or the like. Ugh.
The endgame sidequests are okay, but most are still ultimately kinda easy with the exception of a few superbosses that wipe the floor with an MT OHKO if you don't have the right elemental defense Spritnite set up.
Items:
Yeah, items kinda really good, at least if you're not getting massively status'd out or dealing with a rare big MT damage enemy. They're really efficient, Mid-Ether means that resource limitation isn't a thing by halfway through the game.
Endir-Aeterna:
Mentioned this in chat, but while I think your interp is cool, grounded in the story, and hope it was intended, it's also likely there was a dash of this kind of thing being a flattery thing tossed on to make the silent main important. Granted, it's a potentially COOL kind of thing to go "hey you matter", at least.
The world & Julienne:
I kinda assumed when I was playing the game at first that the world we see is just a small subset of the entire world. Then the small number of countries + the fact that everything is buried in snow isn't a big deal, this is just the snowy backwater with the ancient lost empire that probably trades for a lot of stuff off-screen. Of course, this kind of goes out the window once you can fly around and see that the terrain wraps on the edges, so I guess they're growing enough food somehow to support everyone?! Sure. But yeah, makes it a little more obvious that Julienne is a queen without a country, which is awkward.
Setsuna's martyr complex:
My main complaint about this one is that I don't really get why Setsuna had to die in the end. I get that the Sacrifices were being used so that Eutess could power up and magic vamp them or something, so I'd get it if she died that way. But... she doesn't. I don't see how either hitting Samsara really hard OR convincing him to chill out or some combination requires her death. So it just felt arbitrary to me.
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Trails of Cold Steel- Just entered the final dungeon. Final boss fights of Chapter 6 were fantastic, but I'm completely baffled about the swing in difficulty. The game started out with decent general difficulty, became a complete snooze-fest midgame (partially due to poor overlapping move design, partially because the game just starts allowing you start AoE OHKOing randoms before they get a turn and then regain all the resources expended), and then throws in some absurd bosses right at the end when previous bosses were so bad that some of them only did damage once. V and C both made me employ a variety of tactics to get through the battles (wiped twice to C, V overkilled 3 PCs at once with his S-Craft). Made the mistake of putting in Angelica, who just didn't bring much against either (even trying to faint C wasn't too successful, but could have been random luck). Alisa would been a better choice, but her panic-button Master Quartz had been completely useless up to that point.
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On GameFAQs: yeah agreed with the complaints there.
On the world: Didn't the snow chronicles mention a mainland? So we definitely didn't see the whole world (also the airship map doesn't wrap around unlike Final Fantasy, unless I'm going crazy - I remember a "you can't fly past here" line instead). Dunno how much trade goes on though.
Setsuna stuff:
My take on it is that it may not have been required but she wanted to do it anyway, that she had spent so much time mentally preparing to be a sacrifice that she all but insisted on it. Which... is kinda dark and I'm not certain it's what the writers intended, but it's my read anyway. There's definitely some deliberate ambiguity in the ending.
On the note of weird ending ambiguity, you can choose whether to kill Setsuna or not but it has no effect on the part of the ending with Endir wandering through the forest then a ghost(?) of Setsuna appearing. Not sure how to interpret that (or if it deserves interpretation).
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Elf: Okay, I'm happy that my memory is wrong! Or rather that my older memory is right that there IS a mainland. That's something at least.
Dhyer: Yeah, your experience matches mine. The early game is hard, the midgame is a snoozefest, then the difficulty perks back up again in C6. Nosferatu / V / C are all perfectly legit fights. S is a complete joke but I guess they can't all be winners.
As a warning, if you go onto Trails of Cold Steel II, the difficulty falls off a good deal - you can probably safely increase whatever level you're on a rank and still have an easier experience. (I did Cold Steel I on Hard, CS2 on Nightmare, and CS1 Hard was more difficult.).
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Zero Time Dilemma
Finished this earlier this week. It was very good! Maybe not quite as good as VLR, and the tone can be a bit jarring, but it's still great stuff.
Unfortunately, as such a plot-heavy game, it's also nearly impossible to talk about. Doubly so since it's such a direct sequel. You can play Virtue's Last Reward as a first game and it's fine, but ZTD is definitely a direct follow-up to VLR, so would be really nonsensical to play first. It also deals about as artfully as it can with the fact that VLR may have arguably set up "too much" info about ZTD; Zero Time Dilemma could easily have included, like, almost the entire Virtue's Last Reward cast if it wanted to, but that'd be super-constraining with no room for new characters if they did that. So I respect the choice they made even if meant giving a few VLR characters the short shrift (to angst on the Internet, I see). My own personal complaint is that ZTD could have used more Phi - she was tons of fun in VLR, she's great when she's around in ZTD, there just isn't that much of her relatively speaking.
Shinji Hosoe did a pretty great soundtrack as well. It's heavily remixes but the remixes are good and it's not like the songs played THAT much in 999 / VLR, so it's cool. Especially fun when a tension theme is remixed to be way less tense and more sad-but-happy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzNS8Ah139Y&t=0s&list=PLj-ru-1cx_tlMEbtwQ1V4-ATAkfXNHoyD&index=3 --> One of the better escape room backgrounds as an example (with the full playlist here if curious).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eWaxTNbPJk&index=40&list=PLj-ru-1cx_tlMEbtwQ1V4-ATAkfXNHoyD --> A good sad tune. (There are a lot of these.)
Oh, another nitpick. The game sorta lacks a "final boss" escape room? There are 13 escape rooms as best I can tell and then it's all plot / decisions afterward. Kinda odd they didn't find some excuse to save one room for the very end.
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I suppose in accessible things to talk about, there's one "video game philosophy" bit that's right at the start of the game, and the director mentions this in his notes. In your average video game, if there's multiple options, there's a certain presumption that the "best" outcome is always the "real" outcome. If you can succeed, you do succeed. If one path leads to the main character getting kidnapped by terrorists, and another path to getting run over by a truck, and the third path to success and marrying a rich girl and living in a palace, it's the third path that is "real." But what about those other paths? Maybe the one who was hit by the truck worked really hard to rehabilitate himself in the hospital, earned a medal in the paralympics, married a poor but loving wife, and died a happy grandfather. He took the shit that life threw at him and fought through it and made the best of it. Doesn't his story deserve to be told as well? Doesn't he deserve his own happy ending?
It's kinda like how The Cabin in the Woods thought that some other characters deserved the spotlight for once. Alternatively, it's a bit like a hardcore classic Fire Emblem playthrough, where if Rebecca dies due to a freak bandit splitting her skull open with an axe, the rest of the party will just have to deal with the loss and move on, rather than magically reset and pretend it didn't happen. There's a certain honor in it with Zero Time Dilemma has as well. There are people in bad situations that get fully explored as to what happens and how people deal with it. I liked it.
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Zelda: BotW
Finished.
I think this game has gotten sufficient praise for what it does. The sense of freedom with the open world and the beauty of the post-calamity Hyrule are both fantastic. The core concept of a failed knight traversing a world and jogging memories of a tragedy from a century before is a good one even if it doesn't capitalize on that to be a fantastic narrative. The characters that get introduced are likable enough. Zelda herself has an actual character developed/explored, so much so that Zelda herself is arguably the main character of what story there is. I loved hunting down the memories and was honestly a little sad there weren't more of them exploring things other than just Zelda's pre-calamity development.
Some of the game's designs didn't agree with me. Being able to instantly (even in combat or while climbing!) fully restore HP as many times as you want through cooking/eating was silly. The game could have used a tighter theme (maybe go with some character conflict involving letting go of the past?). The weapon system tends to encourage hording good weapons which is unfortunate and less fun then grabbing makeshift weapons in the middle of a battle to clear a fort. A few little improvements could have been made (jump button/run button being diametrically opposed was annoying as all hell). The Shrine combat trials were dull after the first two.
I keep thinking of ways the game could have been better to me but I still loved playing it. Even now, after finding all the shrines and doing almost everything, it is still fun to climb a mountain, survey the land below, paraglide down and examine something or start a fight with an enemy fort. It was a lot of fun to explore this giant Hyrule.
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Rise of Tomb Raider - Beat this. It's more Tomb Raider (reboot). Gameplaywise it's pretty similar/probably slightly better if anything but I wasn't ever playing Tomb Raider for gameplay, it's... very functional; there's not much to say about it. Actually no, I want to say one thing about the gameplay. In the game you basically fight three things:
A. Wild animals
B. Soldiers
C. Immortal magical soldiers (by the way this part of the plot is stupid)
You would think that it would go A < B < C for challenge (certainly the game hypes up the immortal soldiers a fair deal) but in fact it's the exact opposite; a single bear is a badass, as likely to kill you as 10 soldiers, while the immortal magical soldiers are complete pushovers whom you can melee to death effortlessly and I don't think I ever died to them.
But anyway, let's talk about other things.
The first game had a bit of a survival element to it. You're shipwrecked on an island and are just trying to survive. It turns out the island is home to a cult which wants to sacrifice your best friend to their goddess (and kill you). Through the game your goal is to survive and get off the damn island. Over the course of this journey you have to kill members of the cult, who themselves are rather messed up. Still, the game didn't shy from the fact that killing them is awful; the first time in particular stands out as visceral and memorable and there's a lot to suggest that by the later stages of the game Lara is traumatised and messed up by having to do this.
By contrast in Rise... the plot is that Lara wants to seek out a Magical Artifact because her dad believed it existed (which he was ridiculed for before his death) and she wants to clear his name. A secret society also wants said Magical Artifact. What follows is basically a brutal bloody fight over it. It does not leave me feeling like any sort of good guy at all, though the fact that the secret society is painted as eeeeevil makes me think that nah I'm not supposed to feel bad about the fact that we're killing each other over this. But me the player is thinking... why am I even here? This is pointless.
The game does try to show that Lara is still suffering from trauma after the first game. She's pushed all but one of her friends away (for her best friend from the first game, there's a little buried conversation about this fact) and acts rather deranged at points with her pursuit of the Magical Artifact. So... points for that I guess. At the same time I dunno how much the game really commits to this line, since in all her derangement Lara turns out to be basically right about everything and hey by keeping the evil society from getting the artifact she probably saved the world.
So plotwise it's kinda close to being interesting but definitely falls short and as a result just has an atmosphere wiich feels kinda muddled.
Characters... a step down from the first game certainly. There aren't very many of them! I kinda liked the two villains but they aren't the types to carry a story. Lara is decent and well-acted; buying into her is why I'm not harder on the plot than I am. Jakob is Missed Potential: the movie. There's a big reveal about him late and then the game does nothing with it, but that ties in with the endgame plot being dumb.
It's a fun enough game to go through the motions of but I don't think I'll be returning to it and am probably done with the series now. 5/10.
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Snowfire, that sounds unfortunate. Fun battles are what keeps me engaged given the lengthiness of the script at times. I'm just normal to get a DL playthrough sense (meaning that CS 2 normal mode will be even easier).
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I hope I didn't come off as too negative on CS2. Cold Steel II battles are a ton of fun. They're just fun in a rocket-taggy kind of way where you have a lot of unbalanced shit at your disposal. There's some solid challenges at the beginning, some good optional fights if you do them ASAP, and the final series of bosses are potentially legit to be clear. It's just kinda like, say, Final Fantasy 6, where the bad guys CAN mess you up if you let them do their thing - similar to CS1 V, some of 'em have MT OHKOs and the like even on Normal - buuuut their HP scores are such that they just don't tend to live real long to do their thing if you're doing things like casting 2x Earring / Hero Medal boosted Ultima at them. I had great fun by barring some of the most OP shit to make some of the fights interesting.
Also, per Tide, I wouldn't really worry too much about a DL sense for CS2 bosses, they're all really unrankable for the above reason. Amazing skillset & offense, but potentially delay-cheezed and also packing bad HP such that you can quite credibly never see a single move they do on Normal. Not a great fit for the DL alas, and I say this as a fan of using Trails in the Sky bosses in the DL. So go ahead and pick Hard without fear.
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Bayonetta - I'm about to start C12! This game is just so completely insane. Some highlights:
- I've been doing all Alfheims so far. Shuraba is MVP for these, the chargeable strike and the high-damage combos just help so much. Nastiest fight so far was the out of body one, holy hell.
- Luka is so pure and preciously dumb =3
- Cereza is adorable and I probably wouldn't have appreciated her as much before I became an uncle.
- Most of the extra moves you can buy aren't great, are they? I expected the Stinger clones to be more useful, but the mobility isn't as necessary as it was in DMC, since Bayonetta's obscenely mobile as is and can cancel out of essentially everything with her godlike dodge.
- Speaking of which, Witch Time is busted good. The game seriously rewards learning enemy tells.
- Seguing from this, the exceptions from the extra buyable moves: Bat Within's parry is horrendously, horrendously good. It's essentially another window to pick up a dodge and a failsafe of sorts when you get caught by a combo - one that gives an extra-long Witch Time to carve your opposition up.
- Lt. Col. Kilgore is ridiculous. P-P-P-P-K => switch into Leg Kilgore => watch everything melt. It's even amazing crowd control, which is just insane.
- Ever since Grace & Glory's debut, I was kinda wondering why they got such a bad rap. I mean, they're vicious, but their main attacks are easy to read in spite of the speed and that means a lot of Witch Times. Then, I met the golden Grace & Glories in C10. Oh god, why.
- The boss fight chapters are great fun! Nice balance between wrecking face and dealing with dodging patterns.
- Speaking of which, Jeanne fights are fun as hell too. They're really weird in the sense that they can be either vicious or quick affairs depending on whether you land a good Wicked Weave on her or not, though.
- The sudden gameplay swerves aren't all that good, are they? I mean, I appreciate the attempt at variety with the Space Harrier shooter sections and the motorcycle stage, but they're generally just less compelling than the base engine. That motorcycle Verse also way overstayed its welcome, it's one of the longest stages in the game so far. Really good music, at least!
- I did -not- need that ass shot when Bayonetta rescued Cereza, Kamiya. Neither did I need that crotch shot from the Joys' introduction screen.
I've also been redoing stages where I did badly to get better returns! I'm averaging Silver now, with a few Golds here and there. I've at least been managing to avoid Stone Awards even when I die, which is kinda :unsmith:. I'm getting better!
Real fun romp, will be sad when it's over. On the other hand, there's Bayonetta 2 just waiting for me.
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- Ever since Grace & Glory's debut, I was kinda wondering why they got such a bad rap. I mean, they're vicious, but their main attacks are easy to read in spite of the speed and that means a lot of Witch Times. Then, I met the golden Grace & Glories in C10. Oh god, why.
Gold Grace and Glory (also called Gracious and Glorious) are indeed the ones who get hype. I think the regular versions aren't precisely easy either, but yeah not too bad by comparison. Definitely a lot of fun though! Bayonetta 1 just has sublime enemy design. (Mostly.)
The sudden gameplay swerves aren't all that good, are they?
*checks your chapter number again*
Oh dear, if you're saying that now...
- I did -not- need that ass shot when Bayonetta rescued Cereza, Kamiya. Neither did I need that crotch shot from the Joys' introduction screen.
The shredding of the nun outfit near the start of the game kinda warns you about exactly what Kamiya thinks you need.
Joys... same deal, condensed and amplified in a single enemy design. They're one of the only enemies from Bayonetta 1 that doesn't return in 2, even on the stage which is basically a bunch of Bayo 1 enemy cameos. On the one hand I'm disappointed because Joys are such a joy pleasure oh hell there's no way to say this without it being a stupid pun goddamnit Kamiya to fight. On the other hand I can kinda guess why, as Joys pushed the envelope by Bayonetta standards.
Celeste - Some other game which is hard and has a female main. That's about where the similarities end, except that both games are really good. I'm seriuosly impressed with Celeste so far, it kinda feels like a culmination of various indie and quasi-indie platformers I've played in recent years, and I mean that in the best way possible. Good serious writing in a platformer, it's about goddamn time. Early game-of-the-year candidate for me. I'm up to Chapter 6.
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Gold Grace and Glory (also called Gracious and Glorious) are indeed the ones who get hype. I think the regular versions aren't precisely easy either, but yeah not too bad by comparison. Definitely a lot of fun though! Bayonetta 1 just has sublime enemy design. (Mostly.)
I can agree with that wholeheartedly. Bayonetta's enemy designs work in such way that I actually understand how every single individual enemy functions and all of them have their own beats to adjust to - and it has never felt unfair in any way. Although the Kinships kinda push the envelope until you realize Wicked Weaves smart-target. I wish I had thought of it earlier instead of Bronze Medalling my way through them.
EDIT: DAMMIT, Kinships are a visual pun!
*checks your chapter number again*
Oh dear, if you're saying that now...
godDAMMIT
The shredding of the nun outfit near the start of the game kinda warns you about exactly what Kamiya thinks you need.
Joys... same deal, condensed and amplified in a single enemy design. They're one of the only enemies from Bayonetta 1 that doesn't return in 2, even on the stage which is basically a bunch of Bayo 1 enemy cameos. On the one hand I'm disappointed because Joys are such a joy pleasure oh hell there's no way to say this without it being a stupid pun goddamnit Kamiya to fight. On the other hand I can kinda guess why, as Joys pushed the envelope by Bayonetta standards.
Joys are indeed one of the most interesting enemy designs in Bayonetta, but the visuals there are just offputting. I can mostly shake off the rest of Bayonetta's exploitative choices when looking at the strength of the character herself, but the Joys are just... wow. Thanks for vetoing that for future entries, Nintendo.
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Celeste - Some other game which is hard and has a female main. That's about where the similarities end, except that both games are really good. I'm seriuosly impressed with Celeste so far, it kinda feels like a culmination of various indie and quasi-indie platformers I've played in recent years, and I mean that in the best way possible. Good serious writing in a platformer, it's about goddamn time. Early game-of-the-year candidate for me. I'm up to Chapter 6.
Celeste! Yay! Stage 6! Yay! (except feathers. not a fan.)
Celeste is a joy, and such a complete game. It's not lacking in any department. I'll be interested what you think of each stage once you're done. How are you liking the optional stuff?
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FF12: about to head to Draclor Laboratory my roomie asks me if I'm in the aftergame. I tell him, dude, in FF12 the aftergame starts like halfway through the game. And the optional content in FF12 is so good you guys. Almost everything you do that is extra feels worth it, like you get unique loot, open new places, fight cool espers. And the game lets you do so much of this well before you should be ready for it. It's awesome.
FF12 definitely has some major issues here and there - gambits not being good enough is a huge one, and the zodiac version introduces a new annoyance in limiting the number of characters that can cast buffs - but man. Pretty great game.
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Fire Emblem Warriors - Finished the game, now I am hacking through various history mode maps. Game is fun but short of great. At least I can use my favorite Nohrian prince most of the time. I haven't gotten tired of playing as him yet. <3
Mario Kart 8 - One of my students challenged me to a Mario Kart duel, and I foolishly accepted. He said that he got 3 stars on every map in 200 cc. I don't think I have the obsessiveness to compete with a 13 year old, but I've been trying to learn 200 cc! Very hard lololol
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I dusted off Mario Kart 7 because I felt like revisiting it. Good, very solid, but it's a bit played out to me so I'll probably play more 8 next time the itch strikes, since I still haven't gotten around to truly mastering 200cc yet. I've also decided to replay Wild Arms XF, finally bought some cables to connect the PSP to the TV so that's a good excuse for that.
Celeste - Finished the maingame, now hacking through the B-sides.
I have pretty much nothing but warm things to say about the game. The worst complaints I have are along the lines of "I was expecting this to be stellar and instead it's only pretty good", but even that doesn't apply to many things.
Re feathers, analog control makes them feel perfect. I generally switch between that and the D-pad depending on my mood but that's one place where the choice is clear. I liked 'em!
I don't think the story finished as strong as it had potential to. Which is to say I enjoyed the writing from start to finish but it didn't at the end of the day personally leave a huge impact on me, the way e.g. Undertale did. It talks about important things though and is snappy enough.
Thoughts on stages, as requested. This game has seriously good stage design both in how each stage has its own definite feel and platforming gimmicks and in the execution of design to feel tough but fair.
Chapter 1: A fine though not amazing opener, introduces things nicely. The traffic light platforms are potentially quite a tough gimmick because of how their momentum (kinda) matters but this stage generally played with them nicely.
Chapter 2: Kinda weird at first. But then you get the space blocks which are just loads of fun to think about (probably my favourite of the platforming gimmicks overall just because approaching them from different directions completely changes their use, and the SMG-style chase at the end is great.
Chapter 3: I didn't figure out until late in the B-side that the cilia-which-grow-into-creepies are more forgiving than I expected (I figured they gave you a time limit), which made this level pretty tough! Good platforming times in a very classic sense, feels very Mario, I don't have too much to say about it past that. Fun "boss fight" sequence too.
Chapter 4: Plotwise a filler chapter, setting-wise I liked that it felt like conquering a mountain, gameplay gimmicks were all fine but not standout amazing. I liked that room with loads of exits where the game kindly closed them off as you cleared things out of them so you didn't get lost. Actually this game is really good about not wanting you to get lost and waste time, I like it.
Chapter 5: Playing as one of those monster things was weird as hell but neat and beautifully set up what they were trying to do with the story there. Probably one of the weaker chapters gameplaywise (the red bubbles are less interesting than C4's teal ones for pure platforming)
Chapter 6: As mentinoned I liked the feathers, but the stage itself could be a bit plain, and what was up with the lack of strawberries? The boss fight is one of the game's permier moments.
Chapter 7: A great conclusion that ties everything together and gives you a great feel of accomplishment.
I dunno what this works out to ranking-wise. 2 is probably at the top, but like... the rest would depend on my mood, beyond that 7 is high. 4/5/6/ could all go quite high or quite low. Everything's good.
Into the B-sides now, and I have to say, if we're adding them to the ranking, then 1-B is straight-up my least favourite stage so far, by quite a bit. I was kinda worried that I just wouldn't enjoy B-sides but I'm glad to say that's no longer the case (for all that I think the maingame is generally stronger design-wise... which is fine! Put your best face on the stuff everyone will see). 1-B (and to a lesser extent the B-sides generally) sometimes try to be tough on too many axes at once in a way that isn't much fun - there are times when it's difficult to see what to do AND difficult to execute and thus get feedback to see if you have the right plan. Also I felt there were times where the "you get tired and can't climb any more" mechanic started really subtracting from the game (whereas it felt like a pure if minor positive the rest of the time). Having to redo something because you grabbed onto a couple ledges a little too low and thus had to do a bit more climbing than the game "wants" you to do isn't fun; too finnicky.
Speaking of too finnicky, that last room of 2-B . 2-B was great otherwise though, space blocks are the best.
3-B and 4-B were both pretty fun, tough versions of their originals, not much to say.
Guess I'll do 8 next? I missed most of the blue hearts (Celeste is a damn fine game but doesn't really put me in the mood for secret hunting), but the red ones seem to work, thankfully.
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Fire Emblem Fates: After about two years, I finally went back to my original Conquest Hard file, which I had previously downgraded to Normal to complete the first run. Most resets thus far:
C24 (Hinoka): 1 reset when I realized that Azama was immobile and thus couldn't be entrapped, ~4 tries to convince myself that just bumrushing with Corrin+Camilla wasn't going to work, then about ~5 tries with a full team. In the end I resorted to having Corrin+Jakob rush the boss ASAP with dragon vein boosted mobility and depend on RNG to actually kill Hinoka while hexed, because the waves of Kinshi Knight reinforcements were just too much for me to hold off for very long. Exploiting Hinoka's item drop to switch Corrin's weapon from Dual Katana over to Grim Yato for the enemy phase probably helped me survive and kill her backup Oni Chieftain, that was the one moment in the stage where I felt clever. The next turn I would've 100% been overrun and lost someone if I didn't manage to seize successfully.
C10 (Unhappy Reunion): The stage that made me downgrade to Normal originally. Took 5 tries and one strategy tweak to win. This time I played the entire run with animations off, which made all those failed runs bearable in length.
C11 (Rainbow Sage): I had 3 resets on this stage due to repeatedly stupidity somehow. First time around I actually forgot the stage was kill boss instead of rout or sieze, so I accidentally killed Hinoka before I opened both chests. Second time around I forgot that Azama had his personal skill IN ADDITION to Counter, what an asshole. Third time I got overly aggressive with positioning Dwyer. Even a few weeks later it still boggles my mind that I somehow had 3 resets on this one but then went and beat C12 on the first try.
Biggest change besides more game knowledge is using a bunch of the class changing items from path rewards and the Awakening DLC stage this time around, which helped a lot midgame with raw stats. Dread Fighter is also a powerhouse of a class in general, especially on a file where I don't have much access to Master Ninja due to Kaze being underlevelled and barely usable when he rejoined.
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Elf & Jo'ou: I now have an image of Bayonetta double jumping her way into a wall full of spikes and exploding. Thanks.
Suikoden
Finished! Yes, I never actually played Suikoden I (as could be seen from the old RPG Ratings thread). And yes I sometimes voted it anyway, mea culpa, etc. (I did watch my college roommate play through parts and was generally familiar with the game from osmosis.) Hurray for the PS Vita making playing through old PSX games via PSN easy, alas for this twisted and fallen generation that has seen fit to forsake the Vita and leave it no direct successor.
Anyway, it was pretty good, if weird and dated at parts. Which makes sense for a 22-year old game, it can legally drink. A few thoughts:
* The main character is pretty cool, as far as silent mains go. Notably, unlike the Suiko II hero, there aren't repeated parts of the game where I'm pounding my fist at not having an option to explain the plot to people or say sensible things. I think he also fits at about the perfect intersection of Speshulness for a silent main player stand-in: if he's too much of a flat nobody, you wonder why people are following him at all (aka Suikoden II, or various bland Japanese high schoolers). If they are TOO sparkly special prince/princess with secret powers and a magic heirloom and a giant robot etc. etc. then, aside from being too blatant on the wish-fulfillment for my tastes, you probably really need the protagonist to speak. (Suiko V prince suffered from this occasionally, and as a side note, it can also dig into your feeling of agency - if everyone loves you because you're royalty, how much of this is sincere & earned? Chrono Cross is a good example of the "too much plot on Serge = we need to see Serge reacting & commenting on it" side.) Anyway, "son of a famous general" is perfect for having an excuse to be close to power and meet important people and learn leadership, but not have it handed to you completely for free. And "has a super rune"... but... "oh by the way it's cursed to devour and kill everyone close to you" is a good way of giving Our Hero superpowers while adding to the tension and not being a free lunch.
** Okay, the one scene where I thought the hero needed some more dialogue options was the DRAMATIC DUEL WITH TEO. I'm fine with chalking it up to a destiny curse that he has to die somehow, but it'd be nice to try a little harder to avoid it. Notably, there isn't any option to explain why you defected... "hey Dad, I would be loyal to the Empire, except for the part where Windy killed Ted and is trying to kill me."
* I knew that this is the quickest & most moving Suikoden out there, barring maybe Suikoden IV (aka the one we don't talk about), and it… mostly is? The plot points definitely fly by, and to the game's credit, it doesn't feel like it stretches the war out super-long by taking the longest and most torturous path possible to end it that involves visiting every single village to make friends. Really only the Neclord arc feels tacked on, and one sidequest is fine.
* Additionally, and this may be minor praise, but the game "owns" the fact that you're winning by the end, what with random people declaring the empire finished, it clearly being a last stand at Gregminster, the great faint rendition of Gregminster's music after it's obviously been turned into a giant war camp, and Barbarossa being sad about there being nothing left of his Empire rather than cackling and threatening to summon a new superweapon that will allow him to win anyway. (I MIGHT be salty about a certain other game here.)
* I like that Mathiu feels like a dirtier fighter than the later Suikoden strategists - certainly more so than Apple, Caesar, or Lucretia. (Maybe Shu compares.) It's interesting that, say, Mathiu is totally willing to sell out part of the country to foreign occupation just to smash up some Imperial troops, indirectly working with Jowston which is what Teo was sent to keep in line at the start of the game. (Even if this occupation blatantly isn't implemented in-game.) Compare this to Suiko V, which makes a big deal of Nobly Refusing aid from outsiders to taint your cause, attacking the Barows foreign allies to make new enemies and show your True Falenanness, and it's the Godwins that invite in outside armies & foreign assassins.
* This game doesn't feel the need to squeeze the last ounce of DRAMA out of every plot point, which is a refreshing change, but also maybe taken a little TOO far? It's a random evil ant that forces Ted to unleash his dark powerz. Odessa dies to nameless soldiers saving a nameless kid you've never met before. Millich goes down without a fight, with nary a miniboss either at Scarletica Castle or in Soniere Prison, and no dramatic duel. Both the death of the elves & Gremio go basically unavenged, which is authentically frustrating in-setting (other characters complain and want to kill somebody just to do something!). The traitor doesn't cackle and fight you, nor even get executed on-screen. Yuber just peaces out. It's interesting, since a more shonen-y type approach would definitely have been throwing in constant extra boss battles that end with a dramatic redemption or dramatic escape or the like. Helps makes the fights that do happen a little more real, I think. That said, I think a few more plotless minibosses would have been nice from a gameplay perspective if we're not going to get the fight the villain(?)s - throw in a giant evil plant at Scarletica or something, a warden with some cronies guarding the prison at Kasim's base, etc.
* On that note, let's talk gameplay difficulty. Well, the Suikoden series isn't really about randoms, and while it's definitely flavorful to have the Soul Eater murder everything, it means that random balance is completely and utterly shot. That said, the bosses are surprisingly legit? The Zombie Dragon at the Toran Lake Castle is maybe TOO legit, you don't have a whole lot of tools at that stage of the game, so it's basically just "hope he doesn't use his big MT damage attack too often". Neclord can wear you down. And finally, Sonya is one of the most legit lategame bosses in a Suikoden, albeit part of this being that she doesn't warn you to heal up before she attacks. But fast + extremely dangerous magic + she totally spammed that magic at me = pretty terrifying. Sacrificial Buddhas apparently break the game, but whatever, I didn't use 'em. Considering that Suiko 2/5/Tierkreis are usually curbstomps, and 3's required battles weren't usually THAT bad, this was a pleasant surprise. I also kinda like that you only get 1 rune in this game. Other Suikodens make it so you can build multi-talented monster PCs pretty easily; in this Suikoden, if you want a Water/Flowing Rune, either it's on a fighter who will usually have a terrible number of charges and loses a Killer Rune or the like, or you're giving up a lot of offense by having a mage with only healing magic. It's an authentic trade-off.
* Going back to the "speed" / "datedness" issue, sheesh are these some tiny towns with tiny castles allegedly holding all these soldiers. Very little dialog updates as the game continues for the like 2-4 people strolling around in most towns. For the most part this is fine for indirectly suggesting to the player to move on, dang it, but there are a few weird parts that reward you with characters for backtracking through the mostly same-dialog older towns. Would have been nice for a few more PC dialogue in castle updates… Pahn's reaction to nearly dying is to still be hungry. Could have used a few more calibrations.
* In general, I'm a fan of lots of required characters in games like this, both to force you to mix up your team and to get better dialogue / more character-centric narrative. However, if there's one exception, it should be the final dungeon, where you should be able to pick who you want to use, damn it. Viktor & Flik REALLY should not have been required for Gregminster. It's even worse that they're both short-range. With 3/6 required PCs, that means you have a pick of THREE out of 73 units for your remaining team. And at most one of them can be short-range. Come on, game. You could have had Viktor & Flik teleport in for the final confrontation just like the Great Imperial Generals do if you need them for some dialogue.
* On that note. I'm not sure they needed the scary shaking Metroid escape sequence at the very end, especially since the castle blatantly doesn't explode or anything. You can have Viktor & Flik disappear while fighting die-hards without that just fine.
* My final team, if you're curious, was Sonya / Tengaar / Kasumi. Alas that fitting in both Sonya & Gremio of the late-breaking recruits is so hard. I'd have liked to have used Valeria & Hix in the front row for Viktor & Flik, but so it goes. Seems pretty optimal-ish.. Sonya w/ a Flowing Rune basically guarantees you won't run out of healing resources since she's a rare fighter with a good Magic score and lots of charges, and you don't really need Cleo's overkill speed post-boss Sonya, so using Tengaar / Crowley / Luc / etc. for the purer mages with a zillion Rage Rune charges to incinerate randos seems better.
* The strategic battles might be utterly broken (rock paper scissors... where you get to read your opponent's move… sounds fair), but at least you have agency in them! Suikoden II insisted on micromanaging the war battles itself and giving you no options. I'll take my own easy but earned victory over somebody else's complicated win.
* For the most part, I liked that recruitment is mostly closer to Suiko3, where you can lose characters from unwise decisions, but not from arbitrary surprise time-outs where you didn't backtrack fast enough to location XYZ. And if anything, too many of the early / mid-game recruits are totally free… just "oh you know Mathiu I guess I'll join" types. OTOH, some of the later recruits were way too obscure, even with the Old Books to provide hints. Crowley (Find a secret passage in a dungeon with no clues whatsoever he's hanging out there!), Mace (not SO bad, he isn't hidden, but you don't have 4 open party slots very often and there's a strict time limit), Maximilian & Sancho (assumes you don't use the Blinking Mirror constantly, which is unlikely… same with the level 4 castle thing apparently requiring you to enter by boat), Lester (he isn't anywhere near Moravia Castle! There's no indication those stews are tasteable!), and Pesmerga (clue: he's hunting Yuber. Where is he? At the end of a dungeon where you fought Neclord. Not real smart, this guy… if anything he'd make more sense for the Qlon Temple / Cave of the Past, which is closer to where you encounter Yuber, sort of!).
* Lastly. Whatever happened to Miki Higashino after Suikoden II? While she does have a few misses in the soundtrack (neither S1 nor S2's battle theme is anything special), she does do some dang fine town & event music in a distinctive style. Memorable & unique stuff, I could totally hum along to both the original versions and all the cool remixes that have been made over the years.
Anyway, pretty fun, although definitely better with a FAQ.
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Bayonetta - Fini. I need to redo the epilogue at some point because farting out three deaths on Jeanne's motorcycle section just won't do. The ice part of Jubileus was also terrible with the freeze locks, but otherwise the fight was fine. Nice culmination of all the tricks and tech you've picked up along the way. Anyhow, this was a really, really fun and outrageous romp with some beautiful surprises (WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME PHILEMON DAVID BOWIE WAS IN THIS GAME?) and some :catstare: moments (the rotoscopic poledancing at the credits and some of the angles in the ending dance, are you serious). Still, Bayonetta's a crazy compelling protagonist and the overall gameplay and stage design are simply joyful. I actually feel I want to come back to Hard Mode at some point in the near future and just aim for medals and gitting gud. It's that kind of game. I won't have much time to miss Bayo in the grand scheme of things, though, because...
Bayonetta 2 - Yeah. Just finished Chapter 2! YOU PUT JEANNE IN A FRIDGE, YOU MONSTERS. I love Bayonetta's new look, though, she's pulling off some Edgeworth/von Karma chaps with that attire and the short hair looks simply wonderful on her. I also love the more colorful overall palette of the game. They're completely nuts to put Bat Within available the minute you get access to the Gates of Hell, though.
EDIT: Greftar fashion reviews on Bayonetta cast across games plz
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Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle - Why is this game so crazy? Why is it a X-COM-like SRPG? So far, I'm really loving this game. It is great. And crazy. And great.
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Furi: I dunno, this might be one of those games it's more fun for me to watch than to play. I had no idea what was happening with the first fight, but tutorial fight, whatevs, it's a tutorial fight, it's there to teach you the controls. Second fight was tough but fair and did a good job of solidifying lessons the tutorial fight was trying to teach about how the game works. But the third fight seems to emphasize that learning parry timings is going to be key to passing specific phases for presumably every fight going forward. And that's going to be a problem, because if six years of mainlining Fromsoft games taught me anything, it's that I can't learn parry timings to save my fucking life so don't even bother trying. I dunno, I'll go back and try again, but those kinds of reflexes have always been beyond me as a gamer, and Furi seems to like extraordinarily quick and erratic attack sequences that you have to tag all of to counterattack properly. If counters were like one method out of many you had at your disposal to deal with enemies, that'd be okay, but it really seems 100% mandatory to pass the circle duels at the end of each boss healthbar, and my brain can't really handle twitchy responses like that.
Style is off the charts, though. That soundtrack. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeAAi7jWOl8
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I hear that. Really could never quite get into the game myself, despite it being rather obviously in my wheelhouse. Somehow, memorizing the stuff you needed to memorize always felt like a chore in that game.
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Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon
So... an 8bit 'prequel' for the kickstarted 'real' Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night came out today. I thought it looked cool, and it makes liberal use of my favorite platformer mechanic: character-swapping.
So I bought it.
And I beat it.
Holy crap this is a short, but amazing, platform experience. Not perfect, but definitely one of the best Castlevania experiences I've ever had. The game deserves every bit of praise it gets. The boss design is a visual treat, particularly if you have any love for 8-bit aesthetics. The best comparison I can make is "Shovel Knight, but with Castlevania tropes."
I honestly don't know if the actual Bloodstained release will live up to this 8-bit prequel, but if it -does-... :3
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Also playing Bloodstained: CotM
Just playing it a bit so far, got killed by the boss of stage 2 a few times and had to go do other things for the day. Really fun overall though, feels very NES platformer with more polish than most of those back in the day had.
I keep hitting R2 to swap characters instead of R1 though, not sure what game that's a reflex from but it's definitely there. @_@
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Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon- Finished the three modes, I think I'm done here.
Pretty solid. I never played Castlevania 3, but I gather this is basically not!Castlevania 3, so there's certain weaknesses inherent in it. Well, weaknesses. it's kinda weird in a Castlevania context, at least when I've only played stuff after SotN, where you have two characters who shotgun through stages to drag a frail old man to boss fights, who then proceeds to lightning the boss into atoms. Wheee.
On the whole the one basic game type I didn't do, the buster run, seems kinda miserable to me? Powered up Zangetsu is alright, and Ultimate mode version is extra fun overall, but he's somewhat intentionally unresponsive with his base abilities (because the idea is Miriam has the Belmont abilities, not him) and his damage loops are kinda technical, at least for me. Miriam wants to swap through her subweapons faster than the game really lets you, but her base abilities are still fun to play with, honestly Nightmare mode is by a wide margin my favorite.
Gebel of course is there to easy mode some rooms in stages, because sometimes platforming is just too much work.
There's kinda a cap to how much I really enjoy a lighter game like this, even with the overall fun tone and solid gameplay (I mean, I played ~6 hours over the weekend to get all those unlocks, that's not a thing I do in 2018), but I think it hits that fairly easily? 7/10 I think.
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Celeste: Beat the main game, vaguely dying my way through Core. Very fun overall game, I enjoy the platforming quite a bit but don't care for the hidden passageway hunting as much. Core and Hotel feel like the weakest areas, Summit is easily the strongest area. I actually don't mind feathers at all, I found them pretty easy to use. But I'm playing on the switch and have a proper controller with both D-Pad and Stick, so that may be part of it.
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Yep I'm pretty *shrug* at the hidden passageway hunting in the game too. It's pretty ignorable though.
Completed 1-B through 7-B. Wow 7-B was tough. Enjoyed it quite a lot until the end where it introduces a finnicky new mechanic. B-side opinion is pretty much where it was when I last posted: fun but the design is more mixed than the maingame... really good sometimes though, so it's been worth a go for sure.
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Bloodstained Curse of the Moon
Is pretty cool, see others. Agree with CK that Nightmare mode is maybe the most fun.
One asterisk that is a little wacky for game balance is how all the permanent power-ups require allies alive (or super-Zangetsu). This means that if you run into a power-up that you don't have the right character alive for, you might as well commit suicide, since a long-term power-up >>> a single life. This is especially potent for the weapon-power upgrades; subweapons are really good in this game, and going from 20 max -> 30 or 40 is very potent in the boss fights.
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Side blabber on actual C3: CK, if you didn't know, Castlevania III only lets you keep one ally at a time; if you recruit another one, the original leaves. Sypha is also entirely capable of slaughtering randoms, too, hearts permitting. So it's more choose between cheaty mobility allowing you to take the short routes through stages (Grant, Alucard) vs. murdering bosses / rando-enemies with lightning (Sypha). Like Alfred, Sypha is pretty squishy though. (Also, Alucard's basic attack is worse than Gebel's; same style spread, but it does puny amounts of damage.)
Also, random link to the HoD remix of one of the better pieces of music to come from Castlevania III, despite a mere 40 second loop:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF4W_Uzc4Uc
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Finished A Link Between worlds.
A great follow up to A Link To The Past and a straight up better game.
Dragon Quest 7: Fragments of the Forgotten Past
I had forgotten how morbid this game can be. The party chat does a good job establishing that Maribel and Keifer are well suited to dealing with otherwise traumatizing situations. Like "This city full of dead stone statue people is really sad. Time to move on and be a hero somewhere else!"
Maribel is usecul early with the apeed and utility. I didn't remember there being this much distinction between PCs.
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Yep I'm pretty *shrug* at the hidden passageway hunting in the game too. It's pretty ignorable though.
As a guy who likes that sort of thing and collected all the hidden strawberries, I'd give it an 8/10 for quality of hidden stuff. I was able to find it all without an FAQ, but a few were inordinately difficult to track down, mostly because it was vague where in the broader level they might be, and Celeste is a game that doesn't make it that easy to quickly and easily go where you want.
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I feel like there are a few too many points in Celeste where the game just... doesn't let you go backwards for reasons that I'm not clear on why. Like there's merit to sometimes not letting the player go backwards, in order to tell them "nope, you're supposed to go on here, this is not a mistake, don't go looking in earlier parts of the level for the way on" and Celeste does this well! But sometimes it also just has you move throgh a sudden one-way platform at the start of a screen for no real reason. I think I'd like secret hunting more if not for that. May do it at some point anyway.
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That is EXACTLY my issue with the secret hunting, yes.
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Aquarius is an awesome CV3 tune. Better in the Japanese release given the special sound chip there. I also checked out Aquarius in Atelier Shallie based solely on the title. Turned out quite likeable for a blind random pick. But I digress.
Had the urge to storm through Final Fantasy Tactics again (also partly because my budget for games is really small). Really, the feature that keeps me coming back is inheriting skills from crystals. Take out that one feature, (say, a mod that gives all opponents the immortal flag) and the game would not have the immense replay value it does for me.
Chapter 1 does start of slow from a gameplay perspective, at least for my personal preferences. Mostly batting about randoms with Throw Stone, arrows, and black magic. Very little JP to work with and crystal skills don't make much of an impact yet. Also, numerous classes don't have weapons even if I do unlock them so there's fewer options. There's still fun to be had. I have a training path with Delita to get him Gained JP up, Equip Armor, and Move HP up for the showdown at Zekaden. This often involves stretching battles out so he gets enough actions. Chapter 1 fights fall into me taking out 2 or 3 key opponents and letting Delita and Algus take out the rest, supporting them if I feel enough benefit to doing so. Sometimes, there's CT manipulation so I can snag crystals before enemies or guests do.
Very little in the way of interesting happenings in this chapter. I did get a lucky Thunder Rod proc at Thieves Fort so the enemy Priest's support spell was denied on account of the target enemy being dead. Weigraf was luckier than normal. Delita had Move HP up for this (he usually doesn't) so there was less pressure to keep him around long enough to meet my JP goal for him. 38% Weapon Break hit first try. Both Monks left crystals and the one unit I had with Geomancer unlocked snagged them both learning Water Ball and Hell Ivy.
Fort Zekaden was a massacre, for the opposition. Delita had over 150 Geomancer JP so I taught hum Blizzard. Set him up as a Geo with Item, Equip Armor, and Move HP-up and a Small Mantle. Set up the PBF so that Algus would move to take a shot at Delita where Delita couldn't reach him for melee and the chase was on. Close Wizard charges Fire 2 on Wizard Ramza. Bolt and midcharge arrow take her out first. Knights don't get do anything beside a Throw Stone or two before being shredded by black magic and arrows from the fort. Other Wizard did live long enough to Fire 2 someone but that was it for significant actions from the support. Algus kept going after Delita but 18 damage a pop against someone who regens 15 HP a turn, yeah take a wild guess how that goes? That's before taking into account Delita having evasion and a few Potions. Ganking Algus' helmet is like adding insult to injury. Delita actually landed the killblow since Auto Potion went off once or twice but not on the hit that brought Algus down to 12 HP. Delita had full HP too, how about that?
This may be one of the last times in the game that Archers and yes, Charge, shine. A place to climb for a massive height advantage and Algus' Auto Potion almost tailor made to reward throwing high level Charges at him.
Chapter 2 a different day.
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Cold Steel 2- Just cleared the Roer section. The scenes that took place at the end of mission were a bit weird (both from the villain and heroes viewpoint). Anyways, the battle system feels like it is better balanced than in the first game (I realize that at some point soon, they completely blow that up), with magic actually feeling like it has more of a purpose and with some of the CP costs on techs slightly rescaled. After the Roer section, I needed a break though (maybe because the town sections are a bit more boring this time. I feel like the characters interactions in this game are blander than in the first game).
Cosmic Star Heroine- Now on PS Vita! Picked this up since I needed a Tales break. Just recruited the final PC I believe. It's nice to see what the failure of the XB battle system would have looked like if they had actually created it in a turn based game as they should have (Big Difference: Battles in this game are actually fun and tactical). There are also a few design principles that are similar the RPG I'm slowly coding (both games use tech scarcity combined with defending to get around said scarcity and building up to massive damage bursts as core features, although implementation is quite different).
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Re Celeste: I suspect most people know this already, but if you didn't, when you replay a stage, pause the status screen will show you the progression of strawberries in the stage as well as highlight which ones you've found ever, which ones you've found in this current run, and which ones you haven't. While not a perfect guide, it's pretty handy. Additionally, since you can restart stages in the middle, it makes it not too bad to repeatedly run the portion of the stage you think is missing a strawberry. (Same if you somehow missed the B-Side tape.)
In general, I think the hidden strawberries are usually fair because of this telling you where to get out your fine-toothed comb and look real closely. The A-Side crystal hearts, uh, yeah, there's only a few that the curious & observant secret hunter have a "fair" shot at, with the puzzle ones too obscure. Oh well.
Re Dhyer, on CS2: Yeah, the Roer arc kinda annoyed me, and had a few strange decisions in it that also show up elsewhere, but are combined in Roer.
A) The giant mech confrontation: This is where I realized in horror that yes, absolutely nobody else has been dying this whole time. That's the only way Rean freaking out about V's death makes ANY damn sense, that this is the first death in the entire civil war he's been near, and all those tank & mech shots before were firing nerf weaponry or something.
B) Angelica's uncle is portrayed as a pompous, lazy, idiot. There's definitely a place for such villains, but considering the plot of Cold Steel 1, he's a really bad pick for it. The whole reason the Noble Alliance was in this at all was because they had an entire extra division of Reinford working for them that Irina didn't notice that built a fleet of giant robots without anyone else noticing. Sure whatever. But we're clearly not supposed to think Irina is incompetent, so that means her opposite must be an equal super-genius, a deceptive force to be reckoned with, even if his activities are off-screen in CS1. Why not write him as an efficient, dangerous adversary?! I don't get it.
C) Angelica's dad doesn't make any damn sense either, but whatever, I guess I see what Japan trope they're playing into with this. In the sense of honor and fair-fighting concerned samurai lord. I don't really buy having him turn "neutral", rather than just plain switching sides, but whatever, in CS2 neutral = Good or something.
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Yeah, the point in A was the thing that really made no sense to me
I didn't think too hard about villain motivation/quality since the world they've built is too slapdash/inconsistent for me to think the designers/writers even think about things like that. The shining example is that the Liberation Front timed literally all their events to occur at just the place and time where Class 7 was having their training sessions. Even with the relevation that Crowe was C, this was still nonsense (especially since there would only be logistic reason to have something occur where Crowe was). Until that relevation, the only thing that made sense to me was that the Imperial Liberation Front was actually run for the sole purpose of creating problems for Class 7 to solve in order to train them. Consistent and logical villain planning is an afterthought at best (which does seem be a common theme for LoH writing).
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Final Fantasy Type-0: This game's scene direction rivals Lost Odyssey in awkwardness and incoherency. Somehow, its music direction is worse. This game is a disaster. Intriguing, but a disaster. Nice outfits, though, and I love MILF.
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Dragon Quest IX- So, I bought this at launch, and played up to the point you get the ship. Then I set it down to play something else.
and then three months ago I said "fuck it, let's finish DQIX, this is a smart decision". And well... fin.
I swear this game is a victim of studio mandate. Like, it's a DS game to use the wifi features I'm pretty sure, because it's a test run for DQX being an MMO, but the DS could barely do all those things so it just barely runs, and it has to account for outfits so it's actually kinda the ugliest DQ game relative to system to my knowledge? Although most of the NPCs being lower-res sprites is kinda hilarious at least.
But like, there's a way better game this could have been? Admittedly I'm just kinda a complete sucker for the premise, but the endgame is actually fairly strong (main villain being a wanker without nearly enough scenes getting across his original personality to make wankerness work) and flows naturally from the opening. I mean the middle being weird and messy is just kinda Dragon Quest gonna Dragon Quest stuff, but I don't think the game expects to be shotgunned the way I did the back half of the game when I picked it back up, so everything being so disjointed and modular is a lot more... visible than usual. Also kinda completely wrecks the gameplay arc, because despite having a fairly complete plot and world here once you get towards the end it gets kinda obvious that the meat of the gameplay is all in the aftergame: like, I ground out over 10 levels (up to 43) to get basic DQ tools like Insulate, and if I wanted Kabuff I'd have had to grind up another class from L1 for it, because Priest just doesn't learn it. But having done that the only thing that was a mild threat was the final boss, and that was basically unlucky targeting letting him score some kills which are hard to recover form because only Sage gets Kazing.
Like, nah, the gameplay is actually designed on the assumption you're just faffing about, then go over this mild speedbump to get to the aftergame grottos. It's strange. What's here is mostly good, the class system has a good balance of elements, but everything's squashed and stretched in weird places and I dunno what to make of it overall.
I mean, 6/10 I suppose, but... yeah.
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Dhyer: Eh, CS1 wasn't TOO bad on that point. Mostly in that it's less that the villains are following Class VII, and more that Olivert / Sara are explicitly repeatedly sending Class VII into danger / wherever they think villainous plots are afoot, and they have some Spidey-sense of where shit is going down but not specific enough to, y'know, resolve the plot instantly as you arrive or something (but enough to dramatically charge into the rescue at the end).
Now, to CS1's credit, they have that scene where the board meets and wants to revoke this madness after the Garrelia Fortress incident. How exactly they don't vote to end it after repeatedly putting their kids in danger I dunno; I'd have been happy if they included some plot point about Olivert rigging an anonymous vote or something.
(Thinking... Celdic, eh, that was a continuous plot in motion, any time Class VII arrived would've been fine. Bareahard, well, Class VII coming *caused* the incident because Duke Albarea fired his gun half-cocked. Nord... I have no idea how they knew stuff was up there considering the justified comments from the garrison that this is about the last place a war / international incident would break out, but somehow Sara & Millium / Ironbloods separately both knew, so clearly bad operational secrecy here or something. Heimdallr, yeah, Sara being irresponsible again and assigning Class VII to super-dangerous royal bodyguard work. Legram, I have no idea why evil spirits cooked up then, but they appeared to be independent evil spirits rather than bad guy ones. Garrelia... well Crossbell is the obvious place to go to, but I guess Sara knew something screwy was up in Garrelia, although the evil plan there ended up a bit nonsensical if we're expected to believe it was supposed to fail or something. Roer... I honestly am not sure, there. That one might actually be a Grand Coincidence concerning Class VII's timing, although I guess Olivert might have been crazy enough to dual schedule the official royal inspection AND sending teenagers into deadly peril.)
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I forget, what was the order of events in Legram? If the spookies only started/flared up after Class VII arrived, either of Rean or Emma just being there is a pretty valid reason for that.
now granted the supervillains WERE involved, but only in bailing them out. Why the Steel Maiden was there at all is kinda weird of course, although I suspect actually playing CS3 might give a better window on her timeline there
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I either assumed that the purpose of the CS 1 boardroom meeting was either to trick Class 7 so they didn't ask too many questions (I could see several reasons that the board wouldn't care much about the danger- the general recognition of plot armor being high up on the list). After Nord AND the royal city, I'd be super suspicious of anything remotely coincedental considering that none of the actual assigned field study work that remotely similar to the various calamities that befell wherever Class 7 went. Even if just due to Sara and Olivier guessing well, you would think Class 7 still would have noticed what a remarkable string of events they just happened to continuously stumble into (I don't recall any of them ever saying anything?).
On Legram
At the very least, being bailed out in that manner was suspect, and there were a number of coincedences needed to get them into that castle in the first place.
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Cosmic Star Heroine- Beaten. Cute game, fun battle system. Sometimes it's nice to just cut all the BS out and just play something streamlined. Bosses near the end were disappointing though (needed way more HP given the damage spikes you can build). Vita port did have at least a few weird random bugs, but as always, being easily portable makes up for that.
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The end of CSH just rolls up and dies to the raw damage potential you can unleash.
Dragon Quest 7: At Notagen. I liked that they streamlined it so that it doesn't involve so much backtracking. I'd not want to do that again.
A little disappointed that you van't carry over advanced class spells to other jobs. Magic user stats suck anf being trapped into low HP is a horrific weakness. On the other hand they blow stuff up so I guess balance.
I like Maribel. In a more serious game she'd be infuriating but mocking the silent main in over the top ways works so well because I dislike silent mains being a thing.
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Disgaea 5- Fin. Probably the least interesting Disgaea. It's almost entirely just being let down by the script. The core plot is not merely generic but has no real spark; I think they just said "let's play jRPG plot entirely straight" on a dare. No twists, no real comedic hooks (not that they don't have humor, just it's more like a Tales game, not a Disgaea game), and nothing to really give the dialog personality. And since there wasn't any real distinction between how the characters spoke, just verbal ticks, the voice crew similarly just didn't give a fuck. I played in english, but I'm told this is true in japanese as well. And it's not a lack of talent: Kira Buckland and Kyle McCarley are both in the cast among others, and uh... you may have heard of all the ass they kicked in a game last year.
This is criminal. It has probably the best spritework I've ever seen, not just in overall detail but in direction. You could cut the dialog from a lot of scenes and just let the animations play out and get something better. That's nuts.
So I played the Switch version, which lets you just get all the DLC at game start, and thus run all those maps, get the overpowered throwback PCs, plus a leg up on equipment upgrades. Between that and having a basic Cheat Shop from the outset, for the most part this is actually a good blend of elements from DD2 and D4. I can see where if you just want to get to the grindin' it's probably one of the better Disgaeas? But cripes this whole thing misses the point of the series.
So.. I dunno. 6/10 I guess? Feels just a bit better than the games I have at 5, but not that much.
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In fairness the early to midgame bosses of CSH aren't much better. I had trouble with one of them (the crystal dragon the villain summons) but that's only because it killed a PC almost at the start of the fight, and I still managed to pull the fight out.
I do want to play the game on the hardest difficulty to see if that helps. As I've written before, I feel like CSH's system, fun though it is, isn't very conducive to good enemy design, but we'll see.
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon - Beat the first playthrough. Decent enough game, I'll post more thoughts later.
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Final Fantasy Type-0: About 10 hours in now. The game feels like a bit of a remixed XBC with better gameplay, but worse scene direction (than everything). Both games fail to impress me on plot/character writing, although XBC wins that comparison due to having functional scenes which aren’t just laughable. But the gameplay is much more functional and enjoyable than XBC which goes a lot toward playability (not that the gameplay is particular good, mind…). The game doesn’t require you to do its sidequests! What a novelty. I hope the game isn’t too long.
A few notes:
Good stuff:
-I really like that the PCs feel different to play and you really feel like your actions battles influence the outcome of most of the battles. I wouldn’t say the game has amazing gameplay, but it’s good enough to engage the player given other positive attributes about the game. Randoms also have some teeth even on the easiest difficulty which is nice. I find the missions engaging enough and the challenge is at a decent place.
-Many of your PCs are entitled little bitches, which fits the profile of Special Child Soldier. I think that’s a neat touch - they feel stunted and self-centered like you’d expect. I like that several of the students irrationally hate their teacher.
-Al-Rashia (MILF) and Cid manage some stage presence despite the poor presentation. With Cid, I feel like they are going for a bit of Stalin there, although because of the problem I mention in the "Not good" section, he isn’t perfectly executed. Al-Rashia is a sexy female mad scientist, which to be honest is kind of amazing.
-I like the design of the school and enjoy interacting with the students. I think the students give you some insight into the self-awareness of the game about its use of children as soldiers. I never really felt like FF8 quite grasped the unsettling nature of using kids this way. This game definitely does. I think the game is at its best when it is exploring that theme and how it influences the different characters (especially those outside of class zero).
-Outfits are good. I like most of the kids’ designs, and Cid looks like a convincing Communist leader. Speaking of which, the capital city of his country looks a lot like a concrete Soviet city, which is an interesting touch.
Not good stuff:
-The cutscenes are BAD and really undermine the plot. The characters move seemingly randomly during the scenes and often make gestures at inappropriate times. The character work in the scenes is very stiff. The camera is often in weird locations that don’t feel right. I generally like games to have more cutscenes, but this game might have been better with less. There are lots of weird monologues from NPCs that feel awkward as hell.
(The game is better at writing when it is making its characters just riff goofily off each other. Cinque is a terrible character but her line of “Mommy always tries to make us be healthy. I bet that weird thing she puffs on is really healthy too!” (a cigarette) kinda made me laugh.)
-The voice acting is also quite weird in this game. Jack in particular is very bizarre. “Feelin’ good? Yeaahhhhh.” Also, the lines don’t always sync up with the movement of the mouth when the characters talk. It feels very unprofessional, lazy, and dated.
-In addition, the musical direction is also terrible. It plays happy tracks in sad scenes/places and uplifting music at really random times. It is maybe the worst musical direction I’ve ever seen? It is even pleasant and sometimes good music, but is put frequently in the wrong place.
-In the holy shit lazy category, there are these cutscenes that play each time you attend a class at the school, but there are only three (bad) scenes which play over and over. How hard would it have been to hire someone to write some non-VAed scenes for each class?
-Several of the PCs are never formally introduced and you basically just have to rely on walking around Akademia to talk to them to figure out wtf is going on.
-None of the PCs are very well-characterized or are particularly likeable.
WTF STUFF:
What was that weird RTS mode? Why is Cinque four years old? What was that boss fight against Brionac? Why isn't anyone freaked out about a nuke being dropped on a nearby country? WHY IS THERE A MODE WHERE YOU RANDOMLY GET YOUR CHARACTERS THROWN OUT DURING MISSIONS SO THE DIRECTOR OF THE GAME CAN JOIN YOUR PARTY????
Unsure about:
The game’s plot
The comparisons to FF8 are pretty obvious; both are vaguely trainwrecky and about child soldiers who are all kinda fucked up. At least FF8’s cutscenes aren’t a dumpster fire, though.
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The end of CSH just rolls up and dies to the raw damage potential you can unleash.
Dragon Quest 7: At Notagen. I liked that they streamlined it so that it doesn't involve so much backtracking. I'd not want to do that again.
A little disappointed that you van't carry over advanced class spells to other jobs. Magic user stats suck anf being trapped into low HP is a horrific weakness. On the other hand they blow stuff up so I guess balance.
I like Maribel. In a more serious game she'd be infuriating but mocking the silent main in over the top ways works so well because I dislike silent mains being a thing.
Maribel was unspeakably annoying but at least she had a personality. Keifer tore into her really badly at one point in the original, that scene was great. (Probably the highlight of DQ7 which isn't saying much)
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The comparisons to FF8 are pretty obvious; both are vaguely trainwrecky and about child soldiers who are all kinda fucked up. At least FF8’s cutscenes aren’t a dumpster fire, though.
Type-0's advantages over FF8 are a better example of the school setting (There are actual classes!), and no orphanage plot...well, ok, there is, but "These kids have been together for a long time" is a lot easier to believe than "They all grew up together, but then forgot it because plot contrivance"
FF8, though, for all it's flaws, has an actual coherent narrative, characters with something resembling arcs and personalities (yes, even someone like Quistis demonstrates SOMETHING. Even if it's all isolated within the first 3 hours of the game, that's a crap ton more than any individual Type-0 character gets save maybe Machina and Rem, and when Quistis is the benchmark is the frame of reference , you know your game has issues.) FF8 also has general direction that's appropriate for it's time (aged? Sure, but this is one of those times where "For it's time" is a valid argument because of technical reasons.)
Type-0 is like the inverse of Crisis Core to me in many ways (both are directed by the same guy even.) Crisis Core wasn't an ambitious game; a prequel focused on Zack about an event that really has no impact on FF7's larger narrative (it's the exact kind of event that a simple Shinra Cover Up would in fact be a believable reason that no one ever heard of it, and FF7 even established Shinra was doing that constantly), with gameplay that is simple and a single PC who has a crap ton of variety, with presentation on par with what you'd see late PS2 era (which is about what you'd expect from a PSP title.)
Then you have Type-0, which is incredibly ambitious and generally drops the ball in most regards. Yes, a lot of varied characters, but I never felt the game was properly balanced around certain play styles (anytime there was a flying enemy, I felt Melee characters were completely useless since you're just sitting ducks until they decide to land, and enemies near as I can tell do NOT have patterns, or if they do, the pattern is so elaborate, you're still doing nothing but dodging for most of the fight), existence of those RTS fights is a huge case of "This was not well thought out", a large roster of heroes that get nowhere near enough attention, and direction in cut-scenes is awful across the board. I get they were going for more a war documentary style of story-telling, which is a nice touch, but it's not supplemented with traditional style cut-scenes well at all.
I'd go into details, but then I'd start spoilers. All I know is I was interested in Type-0 and came out incredibly disappointed with the result. You can't even play the "well it was a PSP game!" argument because Crisis Core, which is made by a lot of the same team at Square-enix, came out first and basically crushes it in almost every-way that matters. Even technical details, which Type-0 SHOULD beat Crisis Core at, it loses. I know, I sound like I'm just shilling Crisis Core, but my thought process was constantly when playing was "Well this is a PSP game...but so was Crisis Core, and it absolutely didn't have these issues, what the fuck?"
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Prismata
Otter hyped this one up when it was free for a weekend (it's still Early Access). It's fun, but very punishing! Think if somebody made a card game version of StarCraft, except that rather than deck-building like Magic The Gathering, it was closer to Dominion, where you have a base set & a set of extra fancy options that rotate. But BUT, unlike Dominion's shuffling component, there is no RNG whatsoever. This makes it a bit more like chess - perfect information w/ no RNG. The random set of extra "cards" is what makes it so that openings don't get too "solved."
Anyway, I am pretty bad at it! Nice & humbling. One kind of odd thing about how the game works is that turns 4-10 are the really interesting turns, in general. You tend to always do a quick econ build-up at the starting turns, and in the late game, often 70-100% of your economy is entirely tied up in whatever tech choices you made earlier + defense. As an example... if you built 3 Starports in StarCraft, you better be building an air force with them, or you admit you wasted the investment. The lategame - while not without its own desperate charms - is often a big grind as you find out whose engine was slightly more efficient, which forces the other side into worse and worse trades and more and more of their econ devoted to defense, followed by a collapse. It can definitely be interesting, though; just often feels a little preordained by what happened before.
There's also a single-player campaign that I liked a good deal; it's well-written for an indie and uses some interesting slightly-harder-sci-fi than usual. Like. Not REAL hard sci-fi, but it's referencing "real" concepts in a lot of places rather than Star Wars fantasy sci-fi stuff. Only 2 episodes are out right now, which is ~20 missions + 20 brutally hard expert challenge versions of the missions, but it's neat.
Oh, and if you were wondering, no pay2win mechanics. The loot box tricks to get you to spend money are all on cosmetic skins & the like which don't matter.
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The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SECOND CHAPTER: Chapter 4
Well, if the title didn't tip you off, Trails SC likes words. It has a looooot of text. And most of it is pretty well-written dialog, and most lines are just full of personality. It is surprising how solid this localization is.
I both love it, and kind of suffer through it. As an adult with roughly 1/5th the amount of free time I had as a child, really diving into a long-form narrative game like this is kind of daunting. I want to immerse myself in it, but there's the constant nagging of real life. It's really sad because I quite like all the characters and their group dynamics and love how much time I get to spend with them!
All of the major story beats are WELL built up to. There is no payoff in this game that wasn't properly set up ahead of time. Estelle's growth, in particular, is so subtly developed that you hardly notice it until, say, a character who hasn't seen Estelle in a while comes by and comments on it. And then, yeah, you realize, she HAS changed significantly since then. It's impressive!
But it's also kinda tiring. I find myself feeling like I'm watching a slice-of-life TV show in between major story events. And while that would normally be pretty great (more world-building! more character growth! more ludonarrative thanks to exploration of dungeons and gameplay systems!), I just feel like the game demands more of my time than I have to give. Or at the very least, I wish I had more time to devote to it because I've been playing this game exclusively for like a month and I'm only on chapter 4. I FINISHED XBC2 in one week with this level of dedication.
Since I brought up XBC2, another looooong game, it's worth noting that I think Trails SC is the superior game all around, but XBC2 was better with optional content feeling optional. I don't feel like I can skip -anything- in Trails SC without missing something important. Not really an indictment, but it's important to understand why I'm feeling a little conflicted about the game.
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Final Fantasy Tactics shemanigans: Chapter 2 up to Lionel
First things first, gotta knock Dorter out of the way. Other than getting trolled by a Mage Masher proc or the guests getting their helms stolen, not too much to go wrong. I got crystals and chests without needing to heal any enemies. Paralyzing one unlucky Thief has it hide on the roof. Gafgarion could reach it were it not for some other enemy dying in the spot 3 panels away from the thief I drive up there. Kind of funny how Agrias retreats to a hiding spot and pretty much will remain there if there no targets on ground level.
Fight a bunch of randoms and do some propositions before moving on. I'm still mostly in JP hoarding mode at this point. At this arc of the game, Squires, Chemists, Thieves, and Mediators feel like dragging deadweight. Priests and Oracles aren't much better on offense though Priest curative services are welcome. So it's mostly upon the few classes with decent damage (that doesn't eat counters anyways) to carry the rest of the team through randoms. Rad took an inordinately long time to reach job level 2 in Squire (as I am obsessing over which classes units level up in) and learned Throw Stone from a crystal. Which is unusual since it's a staple skill for physically oriented generics. Random battle humans have low job levels at this point in the game though a few people do pick up Hi-Potion as well as lower end Chemist consumables.
Zirekile is fun to play around in. Gaf is focused on assassinating Ovelia which doesn't work out too well with no weapon and 3 Move. Agrias is set to protect Ovelia and will only attack enemies she encounters on her path to the princess. Lv 11 Knight sometimes sports a Wizard Robe though I've never gotten it the few times it appears. It's great fun to have a monk with Chakra accompany Ovelia and restore her MP for MBarrier goodness; if only she'd stick to level ground more. Reset at least once because Delita swiped a crystal (that was mine) and other times for even pettier causes. Often forget that a Knight Magic Breaking Ovelia can be a thing.
More randoms for fun and profit before the next story fight. Got one extra Wizard Robe via invitation. Landing a 38% invite on the overleveled Araguay Woods archer while at 1 HP was an exceedingly lucky outcome. All that shiny gear: the early Lightning Bow and Green Beret are especially nice to score. My starting female Aries moves closer to the required JP for Steal Weapon in preparation for Googorand and Goland later on. Landed a freak 30% Invite on a Skeleton which ended up another piece of deadweight until I dismissed it to make room for breeding pigs.
No Wizard Robes from Zeland, boo. Silence and try to Invite but the guests kill the Wizards before I succeed and none dropped from chests. Lost once to Mustadio dying. I really wanted the extra Brave boost and usually am able to keep him alive but not that time.
Baraius Hill I remember being hard though it's probably my insistence on doing it such that I don't get nailed by an attack summon. Tricky since Agrias will easily wander into Summon range. Ramza with Silence Song and 5 Move drops one on the left side Summoner; the other one takes some more tactics. Trolled her by approaching with a Lancer and Jumping so she couldn't target anyone on her second turn. A combined offensive from my three non-Ranza units brought her low enough that she opted to heal with Moogle rather than blasting people and they finished her off before she got another turn. Enemy Knights went on a roll with their breaks landing several consecutive ones at percentages under 45%. Agrias' sword was broken; never had that happen before. Same Knight also snapped my shiny Lightning Bow into pieces; fortunately it's replaceable after the fight. Also lost Agrias' helm and my Lancer's shield. Got Shiva and Ramuh off a Summoner crystal, score.
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Tales of Berseria:
So I played this for like 10 hours yesterday.
I finished exactly one dungeon. The Water Temple (Palomides Temple, but it is essentially the Water Temple and all the stigma that comes along with that).
I had a lot of fun levelling up, but basically made no story progress. All because I had to keep running all of the temple filling and emptying chalices trying to open a damn door. I eventually just looked up the solution. And jesus christ I am lolsodumb.
Well played, Berseria. You win this round.
Postive notes:
I have now gotten a better feel for how each of the characters are meant to play. Once you get a feel for their individual Break Soul skills (their Gimmick), they are all pretty fun! (Except Laphicet, who is just basically standard Tales mage/healer.)
Velvet is clearly the best unit, but her Gimmick can bite her in the ass really quickly if you don't have enough resources or if an enemy gets a lucky status effect on her. Usually her SUPERGODMODE power levels are enough to offset the attached HP leaking, but if a match goes on too long or if you run out of juice, she's basically dead or dead weight, depending on how fast you can run away whie you're sitting at 1 HP.
Eleanor is a pretty clear #2, with just crazy range and speed and stunning power on her regular physical attacks. Once she gets her second Gimmick, she can pop enemies up into the air and then followup combo them there for pretty safe damage strings that don't put her at much risk. And often can let her escape being surrounded. I can't seem to get her 2nd Mystic Arte to proc though...
Eizen seemed like a total waste of space at first, but once you have a full party, he's basically automatic supporting free damage from anywhere on the field. His Gimmick allows him to teleport to any stunned/downed enemy on the field and just tack on MORE damage to the prone foe. His second Gimmick attack chains into the first and hits a large area, so he's almost guaranteed to keep his resource gauge up once something is knocked down. His normals and spells are kinda trash, though.
Magilou's Gimmick is a lot more situational, but holy crap what a great effect when that situation pops up! Her Gimmick is 'stop all enemy casting, steal the mana and use it back at them'. Seriously, against enemy casters (of which there are many), she just destroys all challenge. It IS difficult to keep an eye out for casting circles in the hectic battles, though. And her spells cast slowly unless you use them in a chain. (Luckily, she has some perfect chain moves so she actually ends up being one of the more fun PCs to play even without using her Gimmick.) I can't seem to proc her 2nd Mystic Arte either, though.
Rokurou is... either Trash or 2TRICKY4ME. His Gimmick is Counterstance based. And no matter how hard I try, I basically only ever activate it on accident. He's decent on AI, though. And his normal physicals are fast and generally safe. I can't seem to proc his 2nd Mystic Arte. (Only seem to be able to get Velvet's...)
Laphicet is a Healer, his Gimmick is 'waste resources on an effect that doesn't seem to work or last long enough to be helpful...' He's still in every party I use since he's just the best Healer and Damage Mage, but absolutely no fun to play for me. (Though I don't mind playing Healer characters in other Tales games if I'm playing multiplayer because then there's a lot more strategizing going on for the healer. Solo, I just have to trust the AI.)
Having a lot of fun, liking most of the cast helps. Everyone but Eizen is very solid narratively so far. And Eizen is... fine. I hope the game can maintain this level of quality.
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That all sounds quite familiar to me, definitely including the taking inordinately long in the water temple. ToB is a game where you sometimes wonder how much time passed without your notice as you were happily smashing monsters. I like how Elenor seems to be designed like a traditional Tales main - straightforward and powerful - when Velvet’s move set screams maximum edgelord. You’re about at the point in the game where it’s viable, so if you don’t mind foregoing some skill learning, stacking enough bonus levels on Velvet’s gear to start battle with a bonus charge makes randoms dramatically easier. I didn’t get around to doing that til the final dungeon, was kinda kicking myself for it (though the game deserves a good amount of the blame for that for having such a fiddly powerup system).
I’ll be interested to hear how or if your impressions of the cast change as the plot progresses.
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Final Fantasy Type-0 – Finished at 29 hours. Probably could have been a bit shorter if I had done a little less sidequesting. Interesting game with many flaws but some good points as well.
The gameplay is enjoyable. I enjoy the multiple characters even if it is very clear that the game had a set team composition in mind; ranged unit, melee unit, healer/support character. There are times when you can feel ‘stuck’ without a ranged unit in your party. I think a warning or reminder for that fact would have been nice, although you can just let the lead unit die in a pinch. The hardest part of the game was the mission in Chapter 5/6, with the battle on the clouds and the clash on the big bridge? I was pretty brutally underlevelled for both of those missions and had some difficulty getting through them. For whatever reason the difficulty/levels spiked a lot there. After that, I did a few extra missions and caught up in levels for the rest of the game. Problem solved. Final dungeon was very weird; the enemies are underlevelled but you have to kill them quickly. I think it was a pretty good idea because you are stuck in the final dungeon, so if it were a ‘normal’ final dungeon it would possibly be too hard for a team that was very underlevelled. (Although you can still play the missions in the Main screen so you’d never be permanently stuck.)
I found both the randoms and the bosses pretty pleasant, with a couple of exceptions. The dragon boss in Chapter 5 was just way too hard (at least for my level). I ended up using the goofy SPP characters to beat him. The final boss is a stupid trainwreck of stupidity. Why in the world did they think that two plot fights and no actual final boss was a good fucking idea? Good grief. I wouldn’t say that this game has the best gameplay ever, but it’s a decently executed ARPG with some warts.
The characters I generally thought were pretty good were Eight, Queen, and King, with Seven and Rem and Trey being decent as well. Everyone’s useable, though, although I wouldn’t bother with Machina.
I really enjoyed the Battle on the Big Bridge. It was probably my favourite part of the game.
The RTS stuff is decidedly less good, but not the worst? I endured it.
The war story is actually quite interesting and really hits you with some emotional notes. I think that the game hits the theme about war sucking really hard, from the cadets being traumatized by battle to the moral debates behind the use of nuclear bombs from both sides. Neither side is portrayed as particularly great; feels a little WWI-esque in that way. I think the war documentary aspect of the game’s plot is one of the strengths of the game. The game is QUITE dark compared to most other FFs and definitely most games set in a school, which caught me off-guard. I also like how people call you the red devils because you go into places and fuck people’s shit up. A lot of the people in both your school and in the outside world dislike the PCs for a variety of pretty good reasons.
The ‘regular’ ending is holy shit dark, with all of the PCs slowly dying and talking about what they would do with their lives if they had any more time to live. Then you see the scene with Rem and Machina where they find the pile of dead bodies of the PCs. I think the ending fits quite well with the ‘war sucks’ theme, especially since usually your own characters rarely suffer from random death like other people do in these games.
That’s about the only thing that I liked about the endgame plot. This is definitely a Fabula Nova Crystallis issue with the totally insane, nonsensical plots at the end. All of the setting work in the game is basically blown up just for some weird apocalypse and it’s all very confusing. And why in the ending is the wanky traitor Machina the true hero???
The character work is quite poor, and most of it boils down to a combination of scene direction, scene choice, and general systemic underdevelopment of all of its characters. Some spoilers ahead, so be warned.
The 12 PCs not named Rem or Machina – Pretty unexciting and underdeveloped as a collective, the characters can hit some good moments, but overall are not that great. I think Queen and Trey are my favorites, just because they are pretty good representation of male and female nerd stereotypes, and I think a few of the others (King, Seven, Sice, Deuce, Cater, Nine) work in their limited roles and feel like different variants on teenagers.
Rem – Feels like the relatively unimportant love interest of the male lead that doesn’t exist. She’s okay, but in distress a little too often and doesn’t quite have enough scenes to make her work.
Machina – What a wanky loser. He feels like a character with some decent ideas (his inadequacy with respect to protecting those he loves could have been good), but good grief is he annoying. He spends all of his time moping and wanking around like a fucking loser, and then he has a face-heel-face turn like Kain Highwind? Great. It think the game really needed to develop his motivations and his relationship to Rem better to make him work. class zero indirectly killed my brother so i will side with the people who killed my brother???? His turn to the empire (temporarily) is so underutilized, and the scene where he and Rem fight is so fucking weird and happens very rapidly.
MILF (Dr. Arecia Al-Rashia) – Oozes style and stage presence and is very mysterious. She’s fine, but her plot arc feels a little abbreviated. Like everything else. She might be secretly god, who knows.
The Council that is not MILF – Dropped plot for the most part. Was the Commandant a traitor or is he just a troublemaking asshole? ???
Kurasame – Not much of a character, but amused me because the kids all irrationally hate him.
Caetuna – Kinda of a weird character. Don’t have too much to say about her.
Cid – I actually really like the idea of Cid, classic junta/autocrat, but again, the scenes he’s in are not well-directed and he ends up feeling undercharacterized. He reminds me a bit of a Soviet leader; understated in his dress, doesn’t have an ostentatious title, but is a control freak. The endgame plot with him has some massive jumping the shark. Why does he act this way? This is not in character. What is going on? (I read the Wiki afterward that said that he was possessed by some other being, but it would have been nice to see that in the bloody game.)
Qatar – Same song, different verse. He has this hook in the middle of the game where he talks about his ambitions, but the next time you see him he dies. It seems like he dislikes Cid and wants to do something about it, but nothing comes of that hook at all.
Incognitus - gee guys, I'm not sure who this character this, look at him just wanking around like a bitch with a skinned knee with a massive popped collar yo. holy shit what a good pseudonym
Aria – Drooooppped.?
Celestia – Feels like that Suikoden character who is loyal to their king even if they are a douchebag, except…
King of Concordia – Who the fuck is this guy? How does he hang on to power? Did Cid have him put in? What are his motivations? Is he the queen’s brother, nephew, cousin, boyfriend? Does he die at the end of the game? Who fucking knows.
The outfits are sweet. The music is good, but the music direction is horrible. Tracks play at very inappropriate times with sometimes very awkward results. The towns are very bland; towns from each country pretty much all look the same, which is very lazy. The scenes always feel a little shorter than they should be and seem to cut out at random times. I wondered if it was NG+ content, which would be very annoying? But the Wiki seems to not think so.
Oh well. It was worth the try. 5/10.
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PSP keeps dying so Wild Arms XF is on hold. Hoping it's just the battery. Meanwhile...
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon - Beat this on Normal and on the strangely-named Nightmare Mode, Veteran both times of course. Was a bit disappointed with Nightmare because it's mostly the same and not actually any harder (and way easier for the first couple stages which is weird). I game overed twice on my first playthrough but none at all on Nightmare (though in fairness the final boss gives you infinite 1-ups to make this impossible). That said the game was short and fun enough that playing it through twice was a fine idea in its own right. Won't be checking out the "solo things with Zangetsu" mode as that misses the point of the game for me.
Anyway, the good:
I love the character swapping, different characters being useful for different things is great. I haven't played Castlevania 3 which this obviouslyis a riff on, but it's still a great mechanic. Without it I'd struggle to recommend the game.
The game's at its absolute best when you discover how to use some combination of two or more characters to get through certain attacks of a boss fight or sections of platforming. Special shout-out goes to the second stage of the Normal Mode final boss, probably my favourite part of the game.
The Nightmare final boss isn't quite the same treat gameplaywise but it certainly gets some style points with the way your friends assist you. And the opening scene to it is, of course, great.
Actually in general boss design is pretty good times, both visually and the actual fights. It fills me with hope that Iga and company still know what they're doing; Order of Ecclesia is one of the genre greats for this has raised my hopes that we'll see the same in Ritual of the Night.
There's some really good NES-style music here. This was always a Castlevania strength so nice to see they've kept that.
The less good:
There are some unfortunate decisions surrounding character-switching (I assume lifted from CV3?) which hurt my praise for the mechanic a bit. One, if a character dies, you have to restart from the last checkpoint. Since the character is still dead, this uh doesn't make sense? Why not just do what MMX8 does and immediately switch in another character? There's also no way to revive them until you everyone (again unlike MMX8, where extended good play would eventually bring them back), and characters are needed to get certain items, etc. So too often it becomes optimum to throw away your last character or two.
I know this is also lifted from NES Castlevania, buuuut the jumping in this game is bad. No ability to control your movement once you've jumped is defensible from a physics standpoint, although there's a reason that few platformers actually do it because it's not much fun. But even worse is the fact that you have no control over the power or direction of your jump. You can jump at a fixed angle forwards or you can jump on the spot, both at a fixed height; that's it. And if you walk off a platform you fall like a stone, again no choice involved. This wasn't unheard of in the NES days but there's a reason that the best NES platformers - e.g. Mario and Mega Man - gave you more flexibility there, and there's a reason that it's their style that survived to the present day for platformers. I dwell on this a fair bit but it really gives the game a clunkiness that prevents it from competing with Shovel Knight or Mega Man 9 for me in the pantheon of great retro platformers.
It would have been nice if the game had engaged me with its writing.
Overall:
It's not as good a retro platformer as Shovel Knight or Mega Man 9, and not as good a character-switch platformer as Mega Man X8 (which admittedly is high standards). It probably ends up pretty close to Ducktales Remastered for me - there's a bunch of things each does better but they end up around the same place. Which means that, as a standalone game, it is good but not great. That said it succeeds well at what its actual goal is, which is to establish that the Bloodstained folks know what they're doing and get me excited for Ritual of the Night, whenever we finally get that. 5.5/10.
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Dark Souls: Remastered: beat. it's Dark Souls, but prettier and smoother. Still looks like a PS3 game when you compare it to BB or DS3 tho. Not sure what can be said about DS that hasn't been said already, but all the good and bad is still true, except the part about Blighttown performance issues, which are gone. I had forgotten just how long the game is. It's long! And the ending areas are a bit undercooked. But the heart of the game, say the first two thirds or so, remains as awe-inspiring as ever. There's so many great details. Here's one I'd forgotten: The Depths is a dank sewer below the undead burg. its upper areas are populated with undead chefs and dogs. below, where they dump their waste, where rushing water fills your ears and you can't hear enemies coming at you, are rats, slimes, and a particularly nasty brand of lizard. There is a series of particularly claustrophobic tunnels in it, barely wider than your shoulders, and when you take a turn in them you see...a light in the distance. A brilliant sunset, straight down the tunnel. you thought you were far underground, and in a sense you were, but here is the sun. You approach, and at the end of the tunnel the space opens out to a balcony overlooking a great aqueduct. you perhaps say to yourself, "I'd like to go down there, to that wide-open area closer to the sunset!" (It's the boss room. The boss is a big boy and needs his space.) That framing is intentional, of course. Not like it's the most amazing sunset to be portrayed in a videogame or anything. But Dark Souls has a way of making you pay attention to its details. It's the sort of thing that justifies the oppressive environments. The point of wading through the depths was to reach this moment.
Yakuza: Kiwami: beat. It's melodramatic and goofy. Clearly inferior to Yakuza 0, but definitely worth playing. Combat is a little improved from Y0; everything else is worse. That's fine. Combat I never really felt like I could tell if I was doing it right tbh. Except for a few bosses that are only sane to do in rush mode (a stance where you fight like a quick-footed boxer, deal weak damage but can chain ducks and dodges.)
BBCTB: Story Mode: beat the Blazblue part, still have the other 3 games to go. It's short but entertaining. Vintage BB, but in a (mostly) good way.
Ys VIII: picked this up after a long layoff. I am doing a challenge run, inferno difficulty with no healing (with the exception that I will buff myself with cooking items prior to boss fights). Beat the spoilery boss at the end of Act 2. It was hard yo. The new localization is different in places but I haven't noticed any changes I consider *that* meaningful yet. That's not surprising since most of the questionable loc decisions are in the latter half of the game. Playing through some of the plot segments, the foreshadowing and attention to detail is really quite impressive, as are some elements of world-building (Falcom playing to its strength in giving a lot of attention to a world populated by a relatively small cast of NPCs). More noticeable the second time through.
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Pretty sure that sunset's new. I don't remember anything about the Gaping Dragon boss room from the original except that it was dark dank and big.
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The light is more visible from the balcony where that channeler is than the bosd room itself. If I feel inspired perhaps I will fire up the ol' ps3 abd compare.
Ys 8: got to the boss at the peak of Gendarme, the midway point of the game. Got dunked on pretty hard. Being forced to really explore mechanics and suss out what vulnerabilities can be exploited in these fights is a lot of fun.
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Cold Steel 2- Top of the Infernal Castle. The music for this dungeon was so good (and thankfully they kept the music for the random battles too). I let all the bosses hit me a little before Delaying them to death, but that was not a great idea with McBurn. 2 PC HP magic and MT OHKO S-Crafts were painful. After dying a few times, I had to reset and reorient more PCs toward Delaying, because 2 just wasn't enough with him (and I only needed 1 Delaying PC for all the other bosses).
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Final Fantasy Tactics Shemanigans: Onward with Chapter 2
I had a unit with Samurai unlocked at the Lionel Castle gear upgrade. Most of the time I usually do not have one this early. So a longer hike to upgrade gear and hopefully another few randoms for more JP. baraius Hill from Lionel scares me. The Chocobo random can get dangerous, especially with mixed colors since it becomes more likely that mages risk getting pounded midcharge. I've gotten a game over before without killing a single one before though it doesn't happen this time. Do the one proposition and it's time to move on.
Zigolas I always reset until the Uribo shows up. Mustadio is a Chemist with Snipe. He came with Seal Evil so in short order, the field is filled with statues. My goal is to invite the Uribo for breeding but Mustadio doesn't care so most of my actions come from healing it until resources or my patience give out. (or Mustadio one-shots it with a high damage critical) It's simple to position people where it can't hurt them for total lack of vertical tolerance so it comes down to spamming Invite with a mediator.
Goug can be kind of trolly sometimes but the enemies have low damage output. My team's is kind of low too so it's not quite a stomp. 5 Speed Summoner dies to gunshot plus Black Magic from Ramza unless he has worst compat with Ramza so he's out of the picture without getting to do anything (unless I misposition Ramza and allow him to get a redirect, oops). 6 Speed Summoner almost never has an attack Summon due to only being job level 2 in Summoner so his annoyance factor comes from undoing my damage with Moogle. Once the Thieves are down, the battle is basically won. I did pull a silly with my Chemist or anyone else not having access to Antidote when Poison Bow archers are around but, eh. Baraius Hill went great. I planned on breaking the Lighting Bow the Ramza side Archer carries but my unit with the skill had worst compatibility. Nailed that 20% Weapon Break first try despite that. Agrias was very cooperative and I didn't lose any crystals to her or any enemies. She also took her time killing the weaponless Archer which allowed me to harvest crystals and chests from most of the other enemies.
Yay, new characters. They're really feeling a lack of skills at this point. Baraius Valley randoms are not nice to undeveloped characters. Agrias did start with Move +1 which is totally sweet. Mustadio started with Leg Aim and Seal Evil. Dammit, of course the most useful Snipe skill is the one he's missing. At least Agrias and Archer Mustadio can help kill squids. I do end up getting Agrias to Lv 14 which pushes her from 5 to 6 PA as a Knight. Very welcome to have at Golgarand. Golgarand scares me still. Sure, having lots of lategame skills and top tier reactions can make it easy but I'm still running around with nothing but Counter Tackle and Weapon Guard for the few people lucky enough to inherit it. Ramza is one of them and it actually blocks a shot in that battle. More about that fight next writeup.
Also started up Wind Waker. It's been a very long time since I've seen a Zelda naming screen. Given I expect to see the name a lot over the course of the game, going to change it to something I like to see. I dno't end up choosing my favorite fictitious character's name. Ayesha felt like a closer match as another character who dresses in green and wears a silly hat. She's close to my favorite character despite having not player her game yet. Much silliness will ensue. When I played Ocarina way, way, back, named Link Hyuga. My favorite characters were so different back then...
I do like how the player isn't thrust into the iconic green outfit from the start. Train with the swordmaster, make story progress. First real battle I'm just flailing wildly, works OK. When it comes time to find a shield, I run around the whole island searching for one forgetting the one place where the game showed one earlier.
More later
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Ys 8: In my inferno no-healing challenge Dana's solo bosses have been giving me a run for my money but the main story ones haven't been too too bad. I actually perfected the midboss in Baja tower. I expect Oceanus will be a pretty significant stumbling block when I get there. Also the initial translation had the boss names as OceanOS and now it's OceanUS and I am peeved they took a greek root and just mashed a latin ending onto it. Philistines. The new translation is better overall, but there are some loc choices that seem to me to be a step back. I'll have more complete thoughts on that once I finish.
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Elf, re Bloodstained:
Actually, that character death mechanic was made-up by Bloodstained. Maybe they wanted an excuse for you to at least try all characters? If you die in CV3, you're always kicked back to the last checkpoint; you don't lose the ability to switch but get kicked back less far. Also, CV3 doesn't let you tank more via switching between characters; you have a shared life bar in CV3. Differences in durability are reflected not by more or less raw health, but by different "defense"; Sypha & Grant just lose an additional bar of health when hit. e.g. 3 damage becomes 4 damage.
Also, I agree with you that the character switching is super-cool, but I think that also gives the Zangetsu challenges merit? Yeah you COULD just use Gebel and skip this nasty platforming bit and feel like a strategic badass, or you could do it the HARD WAY and smash through legit, which makes you feel like a different kind of badass.
Trails of Cold Steel 2
Finally went back to this and finished off the Epilogue, perhaps inspired by wanting to free up space on the Vita for CSH as well as Dhyer's playthrough. I still really don't like the "plot" elements of the epilogue; after a good finish at least at the very end of the normal game (not the end in general, just the very very end), and a good side story with Lloyd, all the plot in the final epilogue vary between being boring (go collect stuff for a flea market! go get bland testimonials about how much people like Trista!), dumb (where most non-Rean characters end up going), and stealing the end of CS1's thunder by doing graduation type beats again.
The actual postgame dungeon is, at least, admirably direct about being optional content. I almost might have preferred if it was intentionally plotless, but having it be "okay this doesn't matter but we're gonna do it as a final bonding thing and because it'll be AWESOME" is the next best, I guess. I don't really approve of requiring 4/7 Class VII members for the bosses, though. I think such a restriction would be perfectly fine in the maingame, but for the postgame, especially since this is the last chance to use a bunch of characters, let players use who they want. Luckily, Elise/Alfin/Angelica can go sulk in the corner, so that really only leaves Toby / Claire / Sharon / Towa to use. And Sara, sorry, you're usable elsewhere in the game so no dice at sneaking in. (Unfortunate since I ended up getting her all the way to L7 for super-Rushes, but so it goes.)
Anyways... I did beat the (original, Infernal Castle) final without Delay hax, which was very rewarding, especially after he nuked my party but I barely survived and hung on to win anyway thanks to unloading some of the broken this game has. For the postgame...
* For the Lacrosse Field fights, I just Delay cheeze'd 'em after I saw that Celestine had Seraphic Ring. Kinda weird in-character, since as usual everyone's talking about what a tough and excellent fight is going on, but if Vandyck had been paying attention, he'd have seen it was just one side standing around in a Delay'd Stupor as giant skulls came down and ate their souls. Followed by him standing around in a Delay'd stupor and giant skulls coming down and eating his soul.
* Reverie Corridor randoms were a little disappointing. The CS1 final dungeon's very final areas actually had randoms that were pretty darn scary, and the occasional Infernal Castle random was scary. Considering that Sharon's back, even with an underleveled Juggalo MQ, enemies deserved to have status resistance decent enough for Sharon's ludicrousness to matter. Toby & Claire's status is also just fine for trivializing randoms. The chest minibosses just don't have the HP to tank an Emma or Elliot 2x power magic blast, or a 2x power S-Craft if that's your style, and you can do dopey Claire or Machias tricks as usual on 'em.
* Bosses die horribly to Delay as usual; after I banned that, they... still died horribly, but hey, you could see what they did for a bit. This is also where Towa gets to shine, as Weakener is a dirty, dirty status; one of the best in the game. Since your actual damage comes from magic nukes, being able to massively amplify said damage is a great debuff.
* Toby, Claire, & Sharon didn't finish off mastering their MQs by the end. :( Kinda thought there'd be a floor 17-20 with the real randoms, but no dice. Towa wouldn't have, but hahaha no at keeping her on Scepter, so I gave her Rebellion instead for the least-likely sounding leadership type MQ based off the name. (But hey, it is a prize for max Academic Rank, and has good spells, so.)
Anyway, final final boss was cool! (Gameplay spoilers here, for Dhyer?) A pretty good shot at attempting to make a boss that could potentially threaten endgame CS parties without being total BS. Somebody needed to have just flat everything immunity. In order to make things interesting, I didn't ever use Chrono Burst, and didn't end up using Machias/Claire turn advance nonsense either. This was a bit unintentional, but I got a random drop of the Revolution Orbment, which seems totally busted; it's +10% damage for every level ahead an opponent is, with a maximum of 10, so against the L150 final, that's just flat up-double damage. I stuck it on Laura to have her in the backline so that I could swap in a 4x damage Radiant Lion if I wanted, but I never ended up needing or using it. In fact, my starting party ended up never doing a single switch: Rean, Toby, Towa, & Emma. So... yeah, Emma had stacked her mastered MQ, a Silver Bell, and the Time orbment that grants 1/3 casting time, so she had ludicrously insanely fast Claimoh Solarions or Phantom Phobias. Toby & Towa were backup nukey spellcasters, with Towa able to stack on Weakener and MT-restore MP with Energy Rain, and Toby occasionally casting Saintly Force on Rean for physical damage buffs. Rean, without his Delay game, was still *just fine* as the guy who cast Chrono Drive to buff everyone's speed, then Impassion on himself to be a Termination Slash - Dawn factory. That and item boy. So yeah, the final made me occasionally have to respond to his tricks, like giant damage with All-Cancel attached to blow away my cheaty buffs, but things like ST OHKO damage is easily recovered from, and spells get eaten by Crescent Mirror as usual. I think the final's best chance was maybe with his MT status attack, reminiscent of Final Fantasy final bosses packing Grand Cross or the like... but... I had a null-all status accessory on Rean, and Toby's Wing L4 still granted like 80% status immunity, so no dice. Once he was low enough on health, I unloaded an unholy stream of magic off Overdrive, and didn't even use any switches or S-Crafts. Good times; now I want to maybe take another shot at him with banning Crescent Mirror as well and using a different team or something.
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It's pretty telling that you have to ban all that and the game still only kind of puts up a fight. You didn't even to get into using Overdrive or Valimar. Good stuff though.
That's why I like CS2 - the game at the end gives you so many broken tools that it kind of snaps under it's own weight. It's like an updated version of how broke FF8 is, except without being FF8. I ran around post game on the floors using only guests (so Alfin/Toval/Claire/Sharon/Towa and Angelica) just for fun and it shows off at how good the guests are at holding their own weight. If you ever get the chance, invest 250,000 mira in a mirror and grab a sekrit character. They have built in Ice Crown effects at the cost of being unable to change orbments. Nothing quite like watching Llyod go into super saiyan mode forever because the game needed more broke ass shit in it.
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Mario + Rabbids - Kingdom Battle - Strangely awesome; a stark contrast to Type-0 where it was strangely unawesome. The gameplay is a variant on XCOM except more information, more polish, and less weird triggers for enemies. The game throws the formations out there and it’s your job to figure out what to do with them.
I’m about halfway into the game right now, and currently I have Mario (all-rounder, is forced), Rabbid Peach (healer and miscreant face basher), Rabbid Luigi (drains people’s life force by bashing into them), Luigi (classic archer/sniper type), Rabbid Mario (ball lightning short range character), and Peach (short range all-rounder). Character balance is pretty good; I originally thought Rabbid Luigi was the weakest, but now that I powered up his Dash I’m not as sure. The game has excellent enemy formations and enjoyable battles. Each ‘stage’ is one or two maps; if it is two, you don’t heal in between so that can make it have a bit of a gauntlet feel (although I think there is a way to go back and heal in those cases if you want to go through the trouble.). I think the difficulty is a little uneven; ranges from quite easy to quite hard somewhat randomly. It’s cool, though. I feel like the game is starting to find its gameplay groove now. Seeing Mario characters use guns is weird; seeing Rabbids using guns while dressed as Mario characters is even weirder.
Plot is… what you’d expect from a Mario and Rabbids crossover. There is madness and chaos, most inhabitants of the Mario world seem to be suffering randomly, and Bowser Jr. is a dick with daddy issues. Rabbid Peach took a selfie with a boss after she knocked over the tower he was standing on. Good times. The person you control is Beep-0, who is a misanthropic robot. My favorite line of his was “I am a robot. I do not dream, but if I did, I would dream of intelligent machines taking over the world.” my kind of guy.
The game has nice music and graphics.
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Yeah, I haven't tried fighting the final boss of the Reverie Corridor yet. I agree that the epilogue seemed completely pointless and that the randoms are super pathetic, especially on status resistance (where enemies are like 15-20 points less than the final enemies in the main game, but you have a 100% decent AoE might-as-well-be-fatal status user). I'm fine with the forcing 4 members of Class 7 if only because I already had 4 PCs who were greatly decked out, and the Reverie Corridor is sad enough that I didn't need to change Sharon or Claire's orbments...even for the boss fights so far (although generally only one is in my active starting party, because I have the 2x initial attack on Laura and the 2x initial magic on Alisa. Also, it's fun to occasionally see Alisa bust out 150,000 magic damage and then have any MP used recover by the next battle).
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Dragon Quest VII:
Beaten. What a long, long game.
The best part about DQ7 is the sense of adventure and world building that goes into it. There are something like 20 standalone scenarios, and you explore the past and present of all of them. Building the world, island by island, is a great system for the game to incorporate. The party reacts to the scenarios in a variety of ways via the party chat and that is interesting to see unfold.
The worst parts of DQ7 are the lack of polish and the game abandoning the two characters driving the earlygame plot (Kiefer and Maribel).
After Kiefer leaves early in the game, there really isn't any more PC conversation to be had outside Maribel's snarking. The game abandons the chance to have PCs grow and develop based upon their experiences because lol silent main. Mervyn the old knight has no explored personality to speak of, Ruff the wolf-turned boy is amusing but boring, and Aira is a late joiner who doesn't get a chance to have much plot development or reaction to events.
The lack of polish shows up in the combat and class system. Combat with randoms is a pointless chore for 95% of the game, and classes tend to overlap with their abilities too much to be distinguished easily. For example the mage PC and the fighter PCs can both get MT damage, MT healing, and so on... One ly the fighter type classes get the big MT damage for free (why?) Itemcasts further mix things up because they aren't tied to who can equip them so anyone can have infinte uses of certain spells...
Also the game's class system only allows one to carry over 'base' class skills, so if you switch from one aecond tier class to another it is as if you had never been in that original second tier class at all... This creates serious balance and power issues that you mostly paper over through liberal use of the free MT damage. Takes all the fun out of the class system though.
Still holds a place in my heart for nostalgia but it really is not a good game
Also has the worst cutscene incompetence ever. "We powerless villagers need you all-powerful adventurers to kill a monstwr for us.... Oh you can't? I am afraid these 3 villagers (an old man, a young girl, and a fat shopkeeper) will effortlessly knock you out and lock you in a barn".
WTF.
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Recently finished a playthrough of WAXF. Primary purpose of the playthrough was the line count project, but I still did a four-person run just for some extra spice. Puts the game in a place which is reasonably tough but I won most fights on the first try (definitely some notable exceptions including 2-4 and the final battle, usual suspects); I know the game pretty well at this point.
Towards the end of the playthrough the PSP started dying randomly during it, a problem which I've not been able to fix despite replacing the battery. The PSP died during the ending, YouTube to the rescue. Sadly I think that's the end of the line for the system, which is a shame since we had finally sprung for cables which connect it to the TV. Ah well, such is life.
Also played through Mario Kart: Double Dash some recently, since this is apparently the year to randomly revisit Mario Karts. I liked it! Not much to say. Maybe at some point I'll sit down and do a proper comparison of the series.
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Ys 8: In my inferno no-healing challenge Dana's solo bosses have been giving me a run for my money but the main story ones haven't been too too bad. I actually perfected the midboss in Baja tower. I expect Oceanus will be a pretty significant stumbling block when I get there.
Ys 8 update: Oceanus was indeed a significant stumbling block. Since I streamed it and clipped the video, I know how long the fight was: 8 fucking minutes. The boss' moves individually weren't that bad, but keeping any sort of consistency for that long is quite a strain. It took an age but I really liked the fight overall - I think I tried maybe four different setups before finding something that worked, and really honed my approach for each phase of the fight and found ways to maximize ways to attack in places where it hadn't seemed possible. The boss can't be damaged much normally - you have to fill its stun meter then attack it, and it takes about triple damage then. And this means that your stats don't actually matter all that much since each stun you can do about the same amount of damage. But, if you hit it with an EX attack at the bottom of the stun meter, you get the full benefit of damage well beyond the "normal" amount. So I equipped Sahad with an accessory that slows his movements but gives him 1.5x damage, basically giving up on using him for the fight except to deliver the final blow, reducing the number of times I'd have to stun the boss from 4 to 3 but consigning myself to basically doing the entire fight other than the final hit with 2 characters instead of 3.
Dana's solo bosses...well, I fought another two, and the first of the two I beat in 2 tries and the second dunked on me hard. I'd forgotten all about the undead boss at the end of Valley of Kings. Interesting design: the boss had adds you needed to be constantly managing. Boss itself had universally slow and predictable attacks, the kind you can flash dodge and retaliate all day long, but waiting for the timing on those big windups was always fraught because maybe one of the adds just shoots you with a projectile from behind in the meantime.
I'm up to the final stretch now, where Dana's plot is finally explained. The plot of the game is better than I had remembered, particularly the way it fosters the sense of mystery about why, exactly, the things that happened in the past happened and what, exactly, it means for the present. (I expect the final stretch to last quite a while because Ys 8 has just a metric ton of cool, tricky bosses, and they are as backloaded as the plot is. There's something like 10-12 bosses left and they're all killers.)
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My Wild ARMS 4 RTA finished at 5:00:54 yesterday. I am 54 seconds away from a sub 5 time. I can only summarize my feelings as such:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGH!
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Final Fantasy Tactics: finishing off Chapter 2
On to Golgarand. My thief had Ninja unlocked so I changed her into one. 9 Speed is quite sweet at this point but can become a liability if she's swarmed and dies before her second turn. Ramza is a Wizard with Magic Attack up so I want him on offense. He did gather the JP for Move-HP up and Equip Armor but neither get used here in favor of Thunder Rod Bolt 2. Ninja has Concentrate; no one else has reaction or support abilities that help win fights besides Weapon Guard for Ramza.
Ninja goes first, tries for a first turn sword snatch, miss. Gaf lands a critical Night Sword on Ramza for 88. Crossbow Archer tires to pop one on Ramza, denied by Weapon Guard! My Priest and Monk go next. Moogle on Ramza and he's healthy. Wave Fist on Cross Bow Archer, guarded. I had positioned my Ninja so only one Knight could reach her but she Counter Tackles the first away allowing the second to take a swing at her. Lucky 30% character evade kicks in keeping her out of danger range. Ice Bow Archer goes for a charge leaving her open to a midcharge from Agrias. After all the enemies do there thing, Ramza is in good enough shape to not need to heal anyone. My supposed misfortune with Knights works to my advantage here as they're bunched up for Ramza to drop Bolt 2 on both. One dies and the other is in critical and no one nearby has Item so they're effectively out of the fight. Ninja spends her next two turns killing off Ice Bow archer and the weakened Knight (out of convenience). Ramza eats a midcharge Night Sword because I decided it was more important to land a fatal Bolt 2 on a Time Mage. Cross Bow Archer goes for a fatal Charge +3 but she left herself open for midcharge whacks from Monk and Priest. Ramza takes one for the team and falls but Monk lands Power Break on Gaf and Priest Raises him up so it's pretty much mop up. Other Time Mage did troll Agrias and Ninja with Don't Move but doesn't do actual HP hurt before dying and the 3rd Knight didn't get to do much besides landing one attack on Agrias before falling.
I hike all the way to Igros for more Cross Helms just because. Magic Contest opens up so I do that prop as well. Get into some more randoms on the walk so other units can catch up with Ramza's EXP level and also play with the shiny Blood Sword I swiped. Lv 17 Ramza is the highest I've had at this point in the game and I was a bit concerned about some of the generics getting too high since 6 Speed is easier to work with for the upcoming story fight. RNG gives me two Wildbows which are both poached during randoms.
Lionel I was a bit worried about my team composition since I went with a Geomancer and a Ninja (along with Knight Agrias and a Oracle with White Magic as my main healer). Given the tight confines, this degenerates into a melee war where it really helps to have durable units which can sustain a few hits. 9 Speed Ninja lacks dominating offense with knife stabbing so I need to watch and manipulate CT so she doesn't take more abuse than I can handle. Geo got the Blood Sword so I'm less worried about him. Anyways, Hell Ivy and a midcharge sword skill drop the Summoner before he can do anything. Archers are higher priority than the Knights due to their range. I do get lucky and no one drops to ill-timed Bolt 2 procs or criticals. Once one Knight and Archer are down, I feel in control. At some point, I get Geo over and break Gaf's sword and enjoy the sight of him stubbornly trying to punch out Ramza at 18 a hit while Ramza recovers 15 a turn due to Move HP-up. Got crystals from the Summoner and two Knights so got some free Summons and Geomancer stuff.
Next battle went better than expected. I went with the "pile on Speed Break and Slow" strategy since I wanted all the Move-Find items. A Knight and Chemist are my Speed Break users and Time Mage Ramza with Summon secondary is the Slow carrier. First Nightmare lands two Sleeps but I have people tossing wakeup rocks to solve that. My first four Speed Break attempts all hit so all Quek gets is a second Nightmre before joining the slugs. Maniacal laughter follows.
For the first time ever, I have an FS Bag in the Fur Shop as soon as it opens. If nothing else, it opens up the option of some painful Jumps, especially since Twist Headbands are now buyable. My main heavy offense tools up to this point are Thunder Rod boosted Bolt 2, Lancer Jumps, and Swordskills. Several people have Ramuh now and Ninja Swords are finally available so more variety. I believe I had one Chantage available but voluntarily choose not to use it yet.
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Super Punch-Out!!
Played this one off a loan from a middle school friend ages and ages ago, played it again off the New 3DS eStore. Still amusing; cartoon "boxing" that is closer to WWE kayfaybe is way better than the actual thing where people's brains get turned into mush. Anyway, Hoy Quarlow, the 78-year old kung fu master from China who inexplicably is allowed to club people with his staff in a boxing ring, remains total BS and flattens me. Oh well, he is the third-to-last enemy at least.
Nier Automata
Finally started this up. Insert usual positive feedback on the graphics & vibe, but, uh, screw this game for having no checkpoints in the prologue and no way to save. Difficulty was perfectly reasonable until the boss, then I find out that the auto-items don't kick in if you get hit again while the screen is grey or something? I don't know. I'm pretty sure I had backup spare items, I'd been collecting these Medium Restores from chests and the like throughout, then SURPRISE dead and no retry after getting trapped between the two spinning death wheels, 1 hour down the drain. WTF. Not really fair to kill someone off this early without explaining the system, I'd have used the items manually if I'd known how.
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I had the same experience with Nier: Automata's prologue, and it put me off the game for a while. It was worth coming back to it, though!
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Also had that experience, and yep, screw it. Game is 100% worth coming back to and doesn't have that problem once you finish the prologue, but it's a shit way to start the game and helps keep it out of the upper echelon of hype for me.
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Bravely Second:
Strange sequel. The game doean't follow the firgt's story beats quite right, it is almost as if something is off.... People who should be dead are alive and so on.
It makes me think that maybe this isn't the same cast... Which should be possible.
Fum enough otherwise, although too easy on Normal. I tend to want to play games as they were 'intended'.
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Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowsers Minions- Fin (a few days ago). Didn't do the Minion campaign, maybe someday.
https://cmdrking.blogspot.com/2018/07/mario-luigi-superstar-saga-so-whats-rpg.html
I didn't talk much there about some of the specific humor points. Like I love just how hard Luigi swoons for Peasley, especially since Peasley himself is actually kinda pathetic, but really good at showing up at just the right time. Sorta the advanced form of Luigi himself really.
This remake honestly fixes the biggest issue with the original, or at least mitigates it some, because god damn was just cycling through a list of abilities less tiresome than constantly juggling the brothers' positions and all that. Having that extra "everyone jump" button also meant you could leave the most relevant command active but still do at least basic platforming. Also the first M&L I've played that wasn't like 10-20 hours too long, which is bonus.
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Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle - Great game if you like strategy games, I’d describe it as a better XCOM overall, with some of the issues that plagued that game eliminated.
Some random points:
- chance of hitting is shown on each panel for each enemy as you mouse over the square you want to move to. No more trying to guess line of sight! For all that M + R line of sight is quite intuitive and I rarely struggled with figuring out why my % to hit was what it was
- not buggy or slow and doesn’t have the weird fog war and SURPRISE ENEMIES FROM NOWHERE
- The game has reinforcements that (usually) spawn at the start of the enemy phase, but you always know the turn before how many, where, and what kind of enemy is spawning
- The movement-as-a-weapon mechanic is quite clever and can be quite advantageous at times. There are a set of enemies that move close and attack you when you attack them, and the movement dash attack doesn’t provoke that. There’s a bit of the ‘rabbid’ role (dashers with more mobility) vs. the humans (more supporty and less mobile).
- Even though there is a sweeping rabbids vs. humans for role, each character feels different from each other.
- Character balance is interesting and can change from fight to fight. Fortunately, the game gives you full exp regardless of how many battles you participated in, which is groovy.
- This game, between the jumping mechanic (increase move by jumping off someone’s head), the dashing mechanic, and the pipe mechanic (you have new movement score when you enter a pipe), has the craziest movement mechanics of any SRPG I’ve ever seen. And the enemies utilize the options, too!
I generally felt that the dashing moves made the Rabbid characters better; Rabbid Mario has a MT Dash, Rabbid Luigi has a really hard hitting and draining dash, and Rabbid Peach has MT healing and multiple dashes (and yes, half of the PC cast are just Rabbids cosplaying Mario characters). Mario, Luigi, and Peach are fine but a little below the top tier. The Yoshis are both a little underwhelming, or maybe just a little too late. Even in boss fights where you can’t dash the boss, the bosses usually have pretty strong support enemies so the dashing characters still have something to do (and do it well!). Luigi is definitely a better boss killer than random fighter, I found.
One of the game’s biggest flaws is that it forces Mario into your party, limiting the options for the number of parties you can use. There are a few chain fights that require that you protect Mario during the first one or two in order to have him for the last one. I often saved the MT healing for that last fight. The other major complaint is that the game’s difficulty is somewhat inconsistent; even in the final chapter, which is quite hard on average, there are a few just inexplicably easy battles. (Although the last time I thought that, the fight was the first of a chain of three…)
Plot is a standard goofy, humorous, and not overly serious Mario RPG with an extra dose of insanity added due to the presence of Chaotic Neutral Personified, the Rabbids, who mostly spend their time torturing Goombas and wrecking havoc upon the kingdom. My favorite moment is when Rabbid Peach took a selfie as Rabbid Kong was falling to his death (after she toppled him). Beep-0 is a sarcastic dick and Bowser Jr. is a loveable fop.
The game is nice looking, with the very colorful, vibrant backgrounds and the classic Mario character designs (and the Rabbids’ horrible, bastardized versions of said characters). The music is very catchy and I often found myself wanting to listen to it again.
9/10, would play again. I haven’t decided if I want to delve into the DLC or just start something else.
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Wind Waker - Tactical Sneaking
Shield in hand, I do try out the Hyoi Pear. Seagull can grab Rupees that I couldn't figure out how to reach at least so it pays for itself though I don't know how much use I'd get out of them in the game. Onto the next segment. Rope swinging tutorial is masked well and as it turns out, it is an important skill in the upcoming area. And the first taste of dungeon crawling is a swordless mission. Well, that's a bit of a twist. With bright green clothing and sunny blond hair, Ayesha seems like a terrible candidate for a stealth mission but i guess the guards are nearsighted and/or numb to cuteness.
I believe this is a tutorial dungeon but it doesn't feel like one unless I consciously think that way. Got into the game and got through in one playing session that took a while. I'm apparently bad at sneaking and got spotted by the very first searchlight. Would get thrown back in the cell multiple times due to missed jumps, pressing the wrong button, wandering into rooms where I was trapped or something else silly. I thought I needed to do something after beating the searchlight guards so i was trying all sorts of stunts around the control panels before moving on. Ran around in circles quite a bit, made even longer by not knowing how to push boxes. Didn't figure out how to reach one chest but was ready for it to be done and left without it. Of course, things can never be simple and rescuing sister is denied by that damn bird.
Next stop: I find the requisite item quickly enough but I hang around a while because of lots of optional sidequest stuff. Free Tingle though I don't really care about him; it's a means to an end. I do find the stolen Picto Box after a wrong turn where I get dunked by a rat. Start the assistant quest and get the first picture due to remembering seeing someone close to the key location. Stumped completely by the second task though as I don't know who is the most timid person on Windfall. I blank on finding a round, white, pale object and leave that quest undone thinking it's something I'll encounter later in the game. I'm just stubborn enough to find the four kids at hide and seek. Three I find easily due to some poking around and a NPC who gives me a helpful tip. Even find the passage to the top level of the bomb shop though it doesn't seem to unlock anything. Fourth kid is more evasive until I happen to peer through the telescope in the right direction. Figures it would be the one tree that I didn't try rolling into. Got that done and the first Joy Pendant as well. Reward goes to waste since I've managed to reach full Rupees at this point (having won the heart piece at Zelda Battleship earlier) After what seems like an age, set sail for more story progression.
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Star Ocean Anamnesis came out today. Doesn't work on emulator, and runs like a snail on my old phone. Works passably well on my wife's phone, so I'll see if I can tolerate the sluggishness to play it.
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Tales of Berseria:
Warning: Spoilers for the first quarter of the game. I avoided outright revealing much of the endgame stuff.
Beat the final boss. So this is the best Tales game. Unquestionably, in my mind. It's not without flaws, but they are mostly nitpicks. Play this game.This is the only Tales game in existence without a cheesy romance plot between the two main characters (or any of the PCs for that matter), if that convinces anyone to play it. Also, this is the only Tales game that doesn't shit itself in the endgame plot, so that makes it the Tales game most worth FINISHING if nothing else!
So Tales of Berseria paints itself as this dark game about REVENGE! We open with some dark stuff (dead parents and demons), then immediately timeskip to idyllic JRPG opening village that you just -know- is going to get destroyed in the inciting incident because of course it will. This might tempt you to distance yourself from the characters but I urge you to resist that temptation, as we will be seeing more of this place than you'd think and it's worth allowing yourself to get invested.
And then the big betrayal happens, and our main character Velvet is traumatized and then locked in a dungeon for 3 years, eating monster corpses. Her desire for REVENGE is completely understandable, but she's genuinely harsh and disturbingly violent about it, making it harder to see this character as the hero. And that's good. Because she's kinda horrible, even if she has a good reason to be. And the people she wants to kill have a demonstrably positive effect on the world as a whole. Velvet is vengeful and cruel and terrible... but ultimately she's not wrong.
The big trick the plot plays on you is that it sets itself as this typical story about REVENGE and how it's wrong and it's destroying the person seeking it. A story we've seen a million times. But in actuality, the story isn't condemning Velvet's quest, it's trying to show a more realistic version of the typical 'topple the oppressive church/government' narrative that's really common in JRPGs. REVENGE isn't a healthy motivation, but it certainly can be focused into doing something good.
And the theme of the story manifests in how the characters all revolve around taking their flaws and channeling them into worthwhile goals, without losing their selfishness or quirks that make the characters who they are.
So while the story is great. It is, of course, the characters that make this Tales game work. I spoke a bit about it in chat, but I think Tales of Berseria is going to be the kind of game that people are analyzing in ten years from now in much the same way that Chrono Trigger gets analyzed for having impressive scenario structure or FF7 for amazing use of foreshadowing and environmental theming. Berseria is just a master class on character writing. And it cleverly characterizes its cast through many parts of its gameplay in addition to the normal cutscenes. Each of the characters has a strong connection to the central theme in their character arcs, and even the weaker characters (Eizen) play a great role in story cohesion. These characters all feel like a part of this world and the various viewpoints in the oft-conflicting cast really fleshes out the sides in the plot.
On a surface level, they are all clearly tied to the main plot:
Velvet is the central driving force
Phi gives insight into the role Malakhim(Angels/Spirits) play within the church
Eizen leads the pirates that would become the party's army and also gives an opposing viewpoint for what Malakhim are like outside the church
Eleanor is a member of the church itself
Magilou is a trickster character that ends up having a strong connection to one of the villains
Rokurou, similarly, gives insight into what daemons are like and has a strong connection to one of the villains
But each of them use their role within the plot to explore the various 'big ideologies' that are clashing:
Velvet embodies the central 'is REVENGE always a bad thing?' conflict with her quest to tear down the one stabilizing social structure in the world because she hates one person
Phi explores what it means to have an identity outside of one's 'purpose', and subsequently is the driving force behind Velvet's growth
Eizen is a little trickier, since the conclusion to his character arc is already known by anyone who has played Tales of Zestiria, the game that Berseria is a prequel to. He's basically there to fill in the backstory for Zestiria and forms the main bridge between to the two games, so his development here can seem a little lacking. He does play his role in exploring questions about Malakhim enslavement and codependence on humans. Knowing his ultimate fate changes nearly every scene he's featured in... It's fascinating, in hindsight.
Eleanor is the lynchpin of the whole church vs. rebels (Reason vs. Emotion) narrative conflict. Without the squeaky-clean exorcist to provide contrast to the nameless church soldiers the party is fighting, the whole conflict would be toothless. She provides neccessary perspective, and throughout much of the game, I found myself siding with the ostensible antagonists. MVP best character in the game in my opinion. The whole plot just WORKS thanks to her. Her big sidequest near the end of the game had me in tears.
Magilou is Magilou. Great comic relief character. Ends up being one of the most important characters. I don't wanna spoil too much with her. She really rounds out the early game with her 'generally-wicked' demeanor really selling the whole 'the party are the villains' facade that sets up much of the game.
Rokurou primarily exists to round out that whole 'the party are the villains' facade, too, being a daemon. His big contribution outside that, of course, is humanizing the daemon faction, and posing all those troublesome ethical questions about killing daemons/monsters that JRPGs like to ignore. Amusingly, Rokurou's outlook is, of course, 'well, I mean, humans kill eachother for a bunch of reasons, so why not daemons too?'
While I'm breaking down characters, let's talk about ludonarrative harmony. I'm a big fan of JRPGs that use their characters' skillsets to inform little things about who they are as a person. RPGs as early as FF4 get praised for this (Rosa is motherly and therefore gets healing, Kain is cowardly and his skillset has him jumping out of battle as much as possible, etc.)
But Tales of Berseria went a bit beyond the usual in this regard, even for a Tales game. Sure, there are some standard character-informing bits, like how Velvet uses a retractable blade and lots of kicks in her moveset because her mentor taught her to utilize surprise and wide-sweeping effects to make up for her lack of size, etc etc.
But ToB was a little different than most Tales games and gave each character their own GIMMICK ability, assigned to the Gimmick Button. And then designed the whole balance of the game around using these. The Gimmicks are called Break Souls and basically function by spending Max SP to do cool stuff (you can recover Max SP by doing various actions in battle like inflicting status or killing enemies). This causes the basic flow of battle to be 'standard Tales attack strings/combos'->OMGBREAKSOULCOOLSHITISHAPPENING->'rebuild Max SP to do attack strings and Break Souls again'. So it's awesome that each character's Break Soul got to be so fitting to their character. Each of the Break Souls even gets an upgrade as part of the plot that relates to the character's growth as well.
Velvet's Break Soul is Consuming Claw, an ability that lets her damage and take on the strength of any daemons she hits with it. When she hits something, she gets a huge powerup and some healing, but quickly starts leaking HP until the powerup ends in an automatic powerful special attack that hits anything around her. The parallels to her (self-)destructive quest for revenge and selfish nature are pretty obvious when you lay it out like that. I particularly like how the move heals her, but then starts draining her health, so her only method of recovering HP is to use it again and again.
Phi's Break Soul is Divide Pain, a protective aura that halves incoming damage to all party members for a while. I never played as Phi, but I certainly always noticed the increased damage I was taking when he wasn't around. Phi's arc sees him grow from a figurative mindless tool to person who learns to think for himself and finally to a person who wants to protect those he's grown to care about. Standard enough, but when he gets his upgrade, the field actually does some minor damage to enemies and breaks their guard, showing a clear transition from support tool to active participant. As the damage effect starts getting outpaced, he sort of ultimately ends up back in a support role, which mirrors his own character arc where he -chose- to be someone who prioritized protecting people.
Eizen's Break Soul is Dragon Dive, which allows him to teleport anywhere on the map to attack an enemy if they've been stunned or downed. This is broken as hell for crowd control and great for keeping him out of danger and building up resources. It's one of the weaker links for character arc parallels, but it DOES reference his Malakhim traits. He has a curse that causes misfortune to anyone around him, so it makes sense that his ability only triggers when the enemy is down on their luck. This kind of exploitative ability does mirror itself in the party's general pragmatic view of exploiting others to achieve their goals, though Eizen doesn't seem to particularly like this aspect of himself. (Fittingly, the animation gives him a dark dragon-shaped aura while performing this skill, which another part of himself that he fears - that he could transform into a draconic monster... it's explored a bit more in Zestiria.)
Eleanor's Break Soul is Aerial Strike, which has her sweep enemies up into the air away from the rest of the battle for a bit to strike/combo them midair for a bit. It also pierces most guarding stances. While much of the rest of Eleanor's standard attacks are crowd-suppressing lance swings or long distance spells/healing, this particular move stands out for how it takes her and the enemy away from battle for a bit, protecting the rest of the party and separating her from their support. It sort of shows Eleanor's independence and protective nature, as well as her streak as a bit of a loner. Possibly the Break Soul least directly related to a character's arc, but even in a small way, you get a picture of who this character is from it.
Magilou's Break Soul is Spell Absorber, which does what it says. If she pops it while any enemies have their casting circles going, she stuns the enemy and absorbs energy from them. When she absorbs enough, she releases a huge powerful spell with the stolen magic. Basically, this plays really well into Magilou's trickster archetype, she's essentially a magic thief and a master manipulator and it's glorious.
Rokurou's Break Soul is Vengeful Stance, which apart from the obvious naming choice tying in with one of the major themes of the game, puts Rokurou into a counter stance that will unleash a stupid-quick and powerful attack if the player times it such that an enemy's hitbox runs into the counterstance aura. The Break Soul can be upgraded to push the advantage later on. Rokurou's counterstance really sells his whole 'martial arts swordmaster' part of his personality on the surface level aesthetic, but I also like how it makes him one of the more cerebral characters to play. You have to be paying VERY close attention to what the enemy is doing to properly respond with his counterstance. It makes the player take on his role as an analytical fighter, but then gives the player the option to violently rush down the enemy once the trap is sprung. Rokurou's lighthearted happy-go-lucky demeanor really masks his dark murder-driven goals, and you get an appreciation for his patience on and off the battlefield when playing as him.
So yeah. Ludonarrative Harmony. I really felt like the designers put a lot more effort into marrying the battles to the character development than most JRPGs (which is impressive considering that I find that to be one of the biggest strengths of JRPGs in general).
But let's talk about those nitpicks I mentioned hours ago:
The equipment system. There's not a lot to complain about in ToB, but this is it. The equipment system is just terrible. There's a passive-skill system wherein characters can learn passive from equipping a certain weapon or armor long enough (similar to FF9). Unlike in some games in the Tales series, this does NOT work here at all. The characters are constantly getting new weapons (that they likely then won't want to switch to so that they can learn their old weapon's passive).
And then there's the upgrade system. There's a ton of features in the game that open up when a character equipments enough weapons that have been upgraded to +1~+10 like extra Break Souls and Mystic Arte gauge...
And you'll never see any of it because it takes hours to upgrade a single piece of equipment.
And once you've upgraded one to like.. +3.. you almost immediately get a new weapon or armor and need to replace the old one (especially since you've probably long-since learned its passive skill and gotta get to work learning the next ones)!
It's just clunky and awful. It's only really usable for the postgame dungeon where you're no longer getting new equipment and have enough money and crafting resources to fully kit out one or two characters to get those cool Break Souls/Mystic Arte bonuses. Luckily you can ignore it for most of the main game if you play on Normal (I got my ass handed to me multiple times on Moderate if I wasn't grinding the equip-upgrading system...)
Though.. it DOES kinda make me wanna start a New Game+ on Maniac carrying over all my upgraded stuff (if that gets too crazy, luckily the Difficulty setting is freely adjustable~)
Anyway, Tales of Berseria is good stuff. It makes me want to play it again... and I never wanna replay games immediately. (Also kinda makes me wanna play Zestiria but from what I played of that before... hmm... could be a trap.)
EDIT: Jesus, almost 3 pages of words and I completely forgot to mention the huge 'Found Family' v. 'Abusive Family' theme going on with literally all of the characters and how that ties into the Identity subplots...
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Star Ocean Anamnesis. This game has been out for over a year and a half in Japan. They have four versions of Claire Lasbard and zero versions of Adray. Fuck this game.
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Troubleshooter: So I've mentioned this a couple of times in Discord, but I've been playing this recently and it's pretty solid. It's a nice mixture of FFT meets X-Com meets Tactics Ogre in a modernized but still animu setting. How is it similar? Well -
* Battles are conducted in a SRPG plane, utilize CTB, and deal with facing, line of sight and such.
* Characters can equip different skills, have a base class and unique skills to that class
* A nice variety of objectives (thus far)
* Player choices that effect the set up of fights and positions.
Some notable differences -
* Actions in the game are determined by the amount of Vigor you have, with each action costing a certain amount. If you don't have enough Vigor, you have to pass your turn and charge it (which is generally slow)
* Instead of Charge time, there is a Cool Down period on certain skills
* Equipment follows more of a MMORPG line - lots of it, but randomized attributes
* Because cover and facing are important, many attacks have substantial accuracy issues (running around with sub 80% hit rates is the norm thus far)
* Skills are unlocked by researching them using old skills scrolls. You can only equip as many as you have the skill points for and the skill slots for.
Most notably, the game is pretty challenging on Normal. I would recommend for those who like any of those 3 titles to give this one a shot. As for the plot I haven't gotten very far, having only played about 5 hours, but from what I've played, it's decent enough so far.
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Ys 8: hit a sizeable roadblock in phase 1 of the true final boss. It spawns a lot of adds that are giant hp sponges and need to be killed, has an unpredictable and devastating move to heal itself, and most problematically has a randomly-targeted attack that is very hard to see well.
98% of the way through the game things are looking a little dicey. we'll see!
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Night in the Woods
Marathon streamed this over the Friday the 13th-Saturday morning window. Absolutely incredible game. I expected it to be good, based on recommendations, but I didn't expect it to be that good. It is that good. NitW vs Undertale is an actual debate my brain is having.
The entire game is a continuous ride of surprise and delight. Detail work is everywhere, from the way the protagonist Mae's eyes change shape and move around, to tiny intentional typos and more. Lines and people that seem like one offs can lead to entire scenes. The music is fantastic. And the writing, well, oof. 110% spot on, hard hitting and relevant. Gonna take me a while to even process it all.
Play Night in the Woods.
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Play Night in the Woods.
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Octopath Traveler - Four and a half hours into this game, it's really good. Going with Cyrus as my main, who is clearly a book-smart Bartz. So far, I did Tressa and H'aanit's prologues and working on Ophilia's as of now. If any of you guys have any love for Bravely Default and SaGa Frontier, you really oughta give this a try.
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Octopath Traveler:
So I got this on release date and played as much of it as my schedule would allow. I apparently started on the exact opposite side of the world as Snow, since I managed to get the other four main characters so far. Primrose's story is the best so far, but yeah, this is the good parts of SaGa Frontier and Bravely Default mixed together.
One of the more interesting features of the game so far is that each of the characters has a 'Map Skill', that essentially turns every NPC in the game into a mini-puzzle/treasure chest.
I grabbed the thief character, Therion, as my main, and his ability is to attempt to steal items from every NPC. The Apothecary, Alfyn, can chat each NPC up to get a brief blurb about their lives and also clues to hidden treasures or useful stuff like a Discount At The Inn. Primrose the dancer can outright -recruit- half the NPCs on the planet and summon them into battle to perform their special technique. Olberic, former knight captain, can offer to spar with any NPC to get a bit extra EXP for himself and the chance at an item drop (it is amazing how many NPC grandmas want to spar with Olberic!).
Since towns and dungeons are actually relatively tiny, this means that the meat of the exploration actually comes from using your Map Skills to fully investigate each and every NPC. Chat them up for no-risk hints and tips, then Steal any good stuff they might have (though don't risk the low-percent sucess rate unless you're willing to save-scum!), then make sure to pick up the latest and greatest new Allured party member from the available bachelors in town, and then finally Duel everyone into submission to grind some extra EXP and item drops (don't worry, they'll thank you for the free training afterwards... from the dirt!).
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Octopath - Can they not make the nax party member 5 instead of 4?
Ophilia had to stay since she is broken and you want to build her up fast.
Primrose makes you walk over mid game dungeon with ease during early game thanks to broken NPC she can bring. Also the EXP HAX.
Therion has to stay for purple chest and stealing.
Cyrus is a must to bait info and magic DAMAGE.
Tressa is totally necessary for she prints money out if thin air. Oh and she has physical DAMAGE.
But that's 5 persons. Why are you doing this to me game!?
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Bravely Second: the mechanics of this game are lovely but I feel like the plot is just hitting similar beats and lacking any soul. Bright side, no Yulyana and such yet. The music is also a step down from Brave 'll y Default except where it just reuses the Revo stuff.
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Final Fantasy 4 Free Enterprise- FF4 randomizer. Been playing this on and off as I have a few minutes. It's a FF4 open world randomizer where you start with two random characters, an airship, and a key item. It's fun and quick to play (Average playthrough with the hardest flags is 4 hours, with the casual flags it's more like an hour).
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FE: Shadows of Valentia -
Been playing this too on the subway ride to work. This is a very weird game. It's FE but it is weird. Probably because there are so many conventions of FE that we are used to from the various games and this one just does so many of them differently. Notable differences:
- There are dungeons, and you get to explore them. You choose a party of 10 before exploration and then you go off. Yes, dungeon exploration in a FE - it's a new concept.
- Growth rates are back down to OG FE6/FE7 ones, possibly lower. Not Neo-FE in FE10 onward, so it is kind of weird to see level ups with nothing but +1 Skill or +1 HP. I had to make sure I wasn't getting juked by a Jeigan. Apparently growth rates in this game sans a few characters are bad.
- Promotions are done by visiting a statue in a Temple. Yes, no promotion items! Is this good or bad? I'd say more towards the bad (it slows the game down a bit, but that's a player choice), but again, new convenation.
- Inventory - you no longer carry multiple items. You only carry one. This is actually somewhat of a positive IMO because it forces you to choose a select item carefully. Most of the time, it's easy. But there are a couple of occasions where the decisions get interesting.
- Level scaling - EXP scales really badly. To the point that getting someone 10+ is a massive grind.
- Attack Speed - see Snowfire's stat topic, but you only need ONE more speed to double! What. This makes Speed in a somewhat weird place. It feels more of an absolute switch and those that are in the Middle are often super shaky
- Accuracy - Terrain is super powerful. It is like the norm to see hit rates that are 70s or lower. Also spells have fixed accuracy and ignore terrain.
- Skills - you learn these from equipped weapons and are only compatible with that weapon. In recent FEs, you learn a skill and it becomes part of your repetoire.
All this makes for a very bizarre experience. The core of the game is still FE, but it's substantially different. It's still a solid title though, so if you haven't given it a shot because of the things you've heard, I'd see if I can grab a copy and run through it. Some character thoughts so far; mostly Celica route because I've yet to do Alm Pt 2. For the most part, Celica feels like she got the better end of the deal here. More on that later.
Alm: He's solid for what he is. One of the few chars with decent enough growths and solid enough bases. Unlike Celica, he's not as overshadowed by his other allies initially since he's one of the few dudes on his team that has speed/defense/offense mixed together. His closest competitor is Gray, but Alm's growths feels like he takes the win here overtime. We will see come Pt 2.
Gray: I went with recommended classes. Anyway, game tells to you to go Merc, so I did and he's pretty solid. Helps that Alm route has the Lightning Blade and the only other contender for it other than Gray is Alm himself. Merc is a great class but I'm not sure if his performance is mainly due to the class itself because Gray's growths have just been atrocious. Luckily, class changing in this game instantly bumps you up to the class minimum, so I suspect he won't really get bad until towards the end.
Tobin: So this is the guy that made me think was a Jeigan because his level ups have all been like +1 Skill. Aw yeah. Well, I did go Archer with him, so it's not as bad as it sounds. He starts with 6 Speed, which is p.good, but Bows weigh a ton so bleh. Archers are pretty good because holy cow, they can attack at 1 range now. What. Also, they hit hard and can further extend their range to like 5. This is as crazy as it sounds in FE, which is made up here by bad accuracy. So the +1 Skill isn't as ridiculous as in modern FEs, but he'd probably be like Gray and start sucking eventually.
Kliff: He has like an awful start, but no other Mages in sight for a while means he gets a unique niche. He hits hard and has decent enough HP to survive a hit. But he hasn't really wow'd me yet.
Faye: Cleric Faye gains Psychic at like Level 8. This is crazy good and she's bailed me out more than once because of that. I'd rank her higher but the offense/defense mix is awful.
Lukas: Lukas suffers from one problem, which is awful move. Other than that, being a solid tank along with Alm has made him shine thus far. I suspect the Move issue will screw him over, especially as there are more magic enemies, but for now, he's great at what he does.
Silque: Oh wait, I said Faye had bad durability/offense? Silque is worse. Still second healer means she can only get so bad.
Clair: Only flyer thus far. This has ups and down in SoV. First, no rescue means that you can't ferry so it isn't as significant as in modern FEs. You also terrain bonus. However, having that much move gives you a unique positioning advantage, which is cool. Clair has no offensive power but mobile means she can pick things off when the others failed.
Clive: Is like Mr. Average. Will wait to see as I use more of him, but for now? Eh
Forsycthe: He's Lukas except behind on levels, which is a notable disadvantage in this game and none of the early game performance. In short, I suspect he will remain underwhelming with all of Lukas' issues and none of his shining moments.
Python: Good god, those bases suck. I'm hoping he's like the Est of this route because he's almost unusable. Thankfully he's an archer so he can snipe things and get some kills that way but ew.
Celica: Is actually really good, but not the MVP of her own route. She can hit both defenses and she has solid growths across the both. Unfortunately, she's saddled with 4 Move and a lateish promotion, so it makes sense her growths will be higher to compensate. The main thing that makes Celica good is being able to use Magic when necessary and as a secondary healer when Genny has something else to do. I haven't used her on offense for a while. Just got her promotion though so she'd probably start making more combat contributions.
Mae: The glass cannon. Hits really hard, often at the lower defense stat and is fast enough to support her spells. Low skill, but doesn't care thanks to spells ignoring terrain and having fixed accuracy. She's super frail though so that's been a bit of an issue, but excellent at what she does.
Boey: Him on the other hand, I'm not sure. He's like the tank mage. Awful speed and doesn't hit for a lot. But hey, he has more def so he can take more hits or something?
Genny: So SoV gives mages and clerics different spell lists. Genny's been kind of amazing because initially, she's the healer when Celica hasn't levelled up as much yet. Later on though, she has Invoke, which allows you to summon fodder and after promotion, gains like Expel which lets is basically AoE ID on undead targets. Given how many of those there are on Celica's route, this is kind of good. Her offense gets decent too with Seraphim. Almost as good as Celica, if not better.
Saber: Cast MVP so far. Merc gives him good Skill and Speed bases, and then Saber has like growths catered towards HP/Def. So he hits hard and can take a few hits. But wait, it gets better. After promo to Dread Fighter, now he has +5 Res, halves magic damage and 7 move. Jesus. Doubles nearly everything and demolishes like anything he hits. Just amazing.
Leon: Gets an honourable mention, but that's mainly due to Archer's unique stuff in SoV. 5 Range and then after 2nd promo, gets 8 move. He's basically a highly mobile turret that can occasionally double for big damage. Curved Shot gives him a guaranteed killing shot option. Has been my secret weapon against a couple of bosses because they can't get into range and he just out snipes them.
Kamui: Less impressive Saber, but is still very solid. He has weaker Defense, but better balance across his stats. Still very good overall.
Valbar: Oh boy. So armor - this means he has the issues I mentioned on Lukas. But Valbar makes those issues worse because he's like inept on offense. He gets doubled by everything and mediocre accuracy. He does one job really well, which is eating physical hits. He also gets blown up by teleporting Witches and SoV makes it such that it auto-deploys everyone for you. Playing on Casual so I don't really mind, but I can't imagine him not being a liability in Classic from this. Needless to say, he also has no Res so against magic, he's toast.
The Peg Sisters: They all have similar class strengths to Clair, but different roles. Palla has weaker speed and is better starting but is now at the point where her younger sisters outclass her. Catria is balanced and has been a solid performer throughout. Est sucks really hard at first, but the auto-deploy everyone means you should probably give her some EXP due to scaling and then she gets caught up and becomes good. The class also gets access to banish on promo to Falco Knight so they are like amazing at killing undead things, something I'm not sure if Alm will encounter as much.
Jesse: A late joiner but is basically a more offensively focused Merc versus Saber and Kamui. He also supports other Mercs, because why not, so I'm sure he's going to be pretty great as long as his growths aren't awful. They don't appear to be thus far.
Deen: Uh...he's okay. I've only used him once or twice so far and he hits pretty hard. He's a merc, so he can only get so bad. But so far, nothing else remarkable compared to the Saber, Kamui or Jesse. Probably should've gone with Sonja because going through her map was pain. Celica route does have enough swords to
Atlas: Unlike Est, has bigger issues getting XP cause he doesn't have her move and is locked to a 1 range weapon for a long time. See Deen
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Octopath - okay, how badly they handle the plot is getting infuriating. Having each character's story as a stand alone is the absolute crime here.
Especially H'aanit ch.4, I really really feel like breaking something.
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Zelda: Wink Waker - approaching first real dungeon
Pictograph guy mentioned meeting someone on Outset Island long ago. I suspect this "lass" is Link's grandma though of course there's no conclusive evidence. Anyways, story progression at last and the game's musical gimmick is introduced. I end up trying to time it like a rhythym game and fail badly enough for the boat to snark at me. Um, OK. Disembark and the first stop is the conspicuous island in the back which I deduce are song directions. So first song learned about a minute after getting the item.
Story stuff. I laugh at the "green clothes and silly hat" part. It must be Ayesha. See, he/she also wants to save a sister. Find the plot item I need to progress but the character isn't just going to hand it over of course. I make Medli dizzy about 30 times because I'm dense and didn't try to find an elevated position. Then I wander around for another 20 minutes trying to figure out what to do next and talking to everyone with no success until I stumble into using the empty bottle on some water. OK, then. Work out what to do after that and it's on to a dungeon. Of course. I'd like more than three hearts but so it goes.
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Octopath Traveller:
I am loving the secondary Job system! Holy crap there are FF5-style unique sprites for every single character/job combination! Olberic the buff warrior makes a mighty fine exotic dancer. The potential skill combinations are pretty impressive without being too convoluted. It's not quite as open as FF5's job mixing and matching, but the JP limitations aren't quite as strict, so it feels like I can try even more combinations, especially earlygame. The balance and polish in this game in fantastic.
Re: Story
While I agree that it would have been nice if the characters interacted with eachother's stories, I think ultimately I like how they're handling it. There are optional scenes where the PCs have conversations with eachother (almost like FE support convos from what I've seen so far), but apart from that, each character's path is a standalone story. The game has done an excellent job being 8 separate games that somehow intertwine. I could really see each of the PCs as if they were the main character of their own JRPG, which is pretty unique, even among games that try this 'multiple protagonist' angle, like SaGa Frontier or Mana Khemia 2, where there always feels like there's one "real" main character, and several 'alternate' ones. In 8PT, I think only Tressa comes off as kind of an 'alternate lead', since she's a merchant. (Though you could make the argument that she's just representing a slightly different genre of JRPG, like an Atelier-style protagonist.) All the other PCs have that distinct feeling of being the star of the game, with just enough tropes from their chosen genre of fiction to help sell the illusion of playing 8 games at once. It's fascinating.
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Octopath Traveller
Started this up. Playing as Tressa, since the Kotaku review indicated she had the best plot anyway, and sure Capitalism Ho works. Looks like this will be one of those casts with backloaded damage in the DL though, as they want to wait for turn 3 to really go nuts.
The art is very nice.
Night in the Woods
I actually started this up about 45 minutes before Sir Alex started his stream of it, since I've been meaning to get to it. Played 3 hours or so (and grabbed another hour since), on Day 2 of Chapter 2 after visiting the dying suburban mall with Bea. I think I was a tad better at it than Alex's report, though, since I only died once I got to the Blood Moat. Leafy Graveyard however can screw right off. (For those that don't know, there's a reverse-Zelda effect where to make the game challenging, you LOSE max health every level. By stage 8, you die to a stiff breeze, and have to deal with teleporting dagger ghosts.) Also the band makes fun of my bad bass playing every time. Come on folks, I'm not THAT bad.
Also, per Sierra, this is definitely a CmdrKing simulator at times. Maybe not some of Mae's decision making, but the general "burn it down, burn it all down, but in a nice way" kind of attitude.
Cosmic Star Heroine
Pretty fun. On Chapter 7. Some thoughts in disconnected bullet point form:
* I have to say, for a 2-man project, I am amazed at all the sprite work they did. This is not a game where they made 15 enemy types and then got out their palette swap tool; there's an amazing diversity in enemy designs, with plenty of enemies that appear for just one or two fights. And even the popular mooks will only be in one dungeon, so maybe ~6-8 fights at most. A lot of love in the backgrounds.
* Battle system is good, as is usual for Zeboyd. They clearly thought long & hard about making a system where your best option was not either "use your best damage" or "heal" every turn. That said, the result is a somewhat stressful system at times? The main innovations are that some turns are just The Right Time To Act and are Hyper turns, which I like, similar to the random effect on turns that Xenosaga or Trails has. And also you can't just spam your best ability, abilities all go on cooldown after you use them and you need to use a Defend ability to recharge 'em. Finally, the Vulnerable status exists, which doubles damage, as well as various buffs that are short-lasting. The result is that normal attacks are just a gentle rain, and it's all about setting up deadly Hyper turns - double damage from Hyper, double damage from Vulnerable, and some +X% buff means you're dealing like 5-6x your normal damage if you set it up right, and renders anything else tiny in comparison. Screw it up and forget to Vulnerable, or even worse be forced to do something like Heal on a Hyper turn, and you give up a lot of damage - and enemies gain Style too, so their damage tends to rise as the battle goes on, similar to Zeboyd's other games. Anyway, I found the battles in C1-C2 pretty darn intense on Heroine (=Hard). C3-C6 or so was easier and I sometimes amp'd the difficulty up to Super-Spy (=Lunatic), but that honestly makes randoms a bit too much of a slog, so the game might be more fun on Heroine anyway, plus the bosses are nightmares on Super-Spy where you usually need at least some targeting RNG to go your way. So back to Heroine it is, for all that the Desperation bonus is a little too nice on this mode (I'd be fine with the same stats, but losing 100% style to activate it so you're a bit less immortal).
* A lot of the music is only okay, but the parts they got right were the most important ones: the regular battle theme and the boss theme, which you hear a LOT. Also, the overworld theme for Planet Araneu is great, blatant Blade Runner vibe ripoff, but that's what you want. ( https://hyperduck.bandcamp.com/track/araenu )
* Still not all the technical kinks worked out, I see. https://photos.app.goo.gl/T1yzB7eG4MPUvrr18 Picture of Alyssa trapped forever between her sofa & table. Had to do the Creature-X boss fight again, which I cranked down to Agent for a fast curbstomp rather than doing another tense Heroine fight. Other times the game has straight-up crashed. Luckily, this is a save-anywhere game, so it isn't actually that bad.
* Writing is... hit or miss. Which is better than miss or miss, which is what I was kinda expecting after Otter's reaction to C1. The early part of the game clearly has "TODO: add hacking minigame here" where Alyssa is supposed to let the players have some agency and win some hacking minigame, after she goes to do this herself at the end of C1, gets separated from the team for no reason and has to hack a terminal in C2, and there's a busted hacking game you can't play at the Millenium Fair Freedom Festival. Anyway, some of the meta jokes are pleasantly understated, while others are shoved uncomfortably in the player's face. Also the dialogue from townspeople generally doesn't zing, and the writer still thinks that having other people tell you how cool somebody is works rather than just showing how cool they are. That said, it has its moments when I appreciate what it's up to, especially other-game homages that the characters don't loudly comment on - the Chrono Trigger ripoff above (which was rather lovingly done, I liked it), or the Resident Evil 2 ripoff with a zombie-infested police station with a secret facility beneath it and dopey puzzles totally incongruous to a police station. I also don't mind when the townspeople properly react to the Obvious Plot Barrier with wry comments about how inconvenient it is for the train system to be out and the like. Zeboyd still has a lot they need to work on, and the jury's still out on the serious overplot, but I guess I'll take it.
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Played more of Echoes, so now I can comment more on Alm's cast. Also, a couple more characters on each route - although I just got them!
Alm: Okay, pre-promotion, I wasn't impressed that much. He was basically a more solid Gray but at the cost of not being able to promote for a while, so he has to hope his bases + growths carry enough. Post promotion along with the Royal Blade - oof. Double Lion is really good and turns Alm into a killer on Player Phase. This combined with his utility characters in his army, means he can go in and snipe annoying targets to death, then come back out as long as they don't get OHKO'd. What a huge jump though.
Gray: His growths are still trash. He's a tier 3 now, so no more room to jump up. So far though DF's bases +1/2 magic damage have been saving him from being useless since it gives him really strong Player phase and he's much more magically tanky than like everyone else in the army. I'm waiting for his falling off period, which might be soon? Looks like I'm nearing Rigel castle, which appears to be end game.
Tobin: He eventually got a couple of speed points, so he's pretty solid. Overall stats are still bad, but the class really makes him shine. Sniping targets from 5 range + 8 Move is killer, as noted with Leon.
Kliff: He eventually got Excalibur. This makes him really good on Player phase! Also, his 60% speed growth is a lie and I gave him a Speed Ring just to see what it would be like if he kept doubling things. Pretty damn glorious as a result.
Faye: Psychic was actually L6, so Faye's gotten better in my eyes. Even better as part of the "Send Alm off into the woods and let him murder things safely" strategy, she has Rescue. It takes a while, but once she gets it and Silque gets the other half in Warp, watch out. The caveat is that it costs a lot of HP and both clerics/saints might want to do healing instead. Still great though.
Lukas: More magic enemies in second half makes Lukas sad. It's interesting to note though. He's about 1 point or 2 off of Speed from Lukas but has like 3-4 more points in Defense. This makes for a very different take on the same class on roles. Lukas is notably better again physical enemies, but also notably worse against magic and some other faster ones.
Silque: Durability still sucks, but she has Warp which let's Alm's army do crazy movement BS. Tough part is, she takes forever to get it and she still can't take any hits at all.
Clair: Banish is neat since she's the only Peg in Alm route. Still kind of mediocre and dishing it out, but has her uses.
Clive: Okay, Clive is awful. It's a toss up on whether he is worse than Luthier, but Clive has been consistently bad since join. He was average at best initially and his growths don't really keep up. Worse yet, he has to compete with Mathilda and there are better offensive powerhouses on Alm's army. Also, has a mighty 1 res, which makes decidedly worse against mages most of the time than Lukas AND Forsyth. Gag.
Forsyth: Is bad, but not as bad as I thought. He has all of Lukas' problems as noted, but he's a little better at tanking magical hits since his slightly faster speed often stops doubles. And he has a notably higher base Res as well. It's a small difference, but it makes him and Lukas different enough that they do separate things.
Python: K, he's not Est. His stats suck, but archer in SoV means you can only be so bad. Massive range and poking things to death to the rescue! Makes for a fun deploy alongside Tobin and watching them snipe things are huge range. Tobin's still better due to tighter support rings and earlier appearance.
Mathilda: Great, and one of the stronger units on Alm route. Starts off with great bases, growths are good in the right bases and has an actual Res score to eat a magic hit if necessary. Yeah she's not as tanky as the Barons but she makes up for that by having notably better offense in movement + Attack speed. Been pretty impressed with her overall and reminds me of Miredy in FE6.
Luthier: Bad. He hits the right defensive stat most of the time, but the stats aren't good and if you have a mage already, he doesn't have a big reason to be used. He does start with Excalibur so for the first couple of levels after join, he pulls his weight, but then he gets notably outshone rather quick. Worse yet is the Mage promo being so late. He's pretty much deadweight now - I'm hoping to promo him soon so he can just hang back and heal.
Delthea: You would think would be bad but ends up really scary. She starts under levelled but bases are in the right places and like Mathilda, growths are in the right places too. Unlike Luthier, she pays off if you invest in her for a little. She's the Est of Alm route and has become my damage cannon. I transported a Mage Ring over so now she also has massive attack range which helps out quite a bit. She's a little fragile (like Mae), but is great on Player phase. Lacks Excalibur but also probably doesn't care?
Tatania: Erm...no clue yet. She's only been around for 2 levels and there hasn't been much happening in them. One of them was to get Zeke and the other was a battle with Necrodragons (that just scream magic bait). She's a staff bot at worse though and has Psychic which means she'll alleviate some pressure from Faye. This can only be so bad.
Zeke: Clive if he was actually good. Decent stats across the board, but like Tatania, I haven't used him much so it remains to be seen.
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Spoilers for a couple levels from now: Tatiana is really good.
I generally agree with most of your comments well enough, though I was lower on archers for sure - they have a neat niche but in some cases the stats just get so bad that they can't do much, and many hard-to-kill enemies you'd like to snipe with them camp on terrain which sends their hit into the negatives.
Luthier's a bit better than you give him credit for since he gets Excalibur and can work the Speed Ring to wreck most things on player phase while having enough bulk to take a hit or two on the enemy phase. I still didn't bring him on my final dungeon team but he's nowhere near LVP material just because of the usual "mages are great" reasons.
For myself I'm playing Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle and it's pretty damn great. Nearing the end, I'll have a big post when I'm done.
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Octopath Traveller - I decided to do Ophilia’s path and enjoyed the Prologue and the first chapter. They did a decent job of developing those three characters. The game has beautiful art and nice music, so it’s been quite nice to play. The first boss was very hard and I did have a reset! After doing her first chapter, I tackled Cyrus’s. That guy is a bit of a self-satisfied douchebag, classic academic. The headmaster is ALSO a douchebag and also a classic academic in that he wants to keep knowledge under lock and key (or paid subscriptions to journals) and gets pissed off if you imply otherwise. The second dungeon with Cyrus and Ophilia was quite a bit easier than just Ophilia’s, but the boss definitely still put up a fight. Don’t wanna imagine that fight alone without two people.
Fun times.
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The fights clearly get scaled based on level and character count, as far as I can understand. I picked Cyrus as my main and his boss was pretty manageable. This said, the game doesn't hold your hand and isn't afraid to wipe your ass, so stay on your toes!
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Wind Waker: My First Dungeon
Maybe it's some quirk of my attention span but I don't look forward to Zelda game dungeons. 3d Zelda dungeons come of quite formulaic to me. Solve some puzzles, get dungeon item, solve more puzzles that require use of item, use item in some way to beat boss. Mixing in some outdoor areas help keep the location more interesting and the warp pots are a nice addition to the formula which one can use to break up the dungeon crawling into shorter sessions. Got the Zelda equivalent of the Grapple Beam (or Bionic Arm if one prefers) which raised the enjoyment factor. Got stumped and ran around in circles for a while trying to find my way to the lower level of one of the rooms without getting 3rd degree lava burns. Soon after, there was another obstacle that I thought I had to bring a lit torch from the previous room to burn some rope forgetting about another sharp object I could use. Made my way to the boss key but couldn't figure out how to backtrack so did a save and quit warp.
Died once at boss because I didn't figure out the gimmick. Once I did, well this is more creative than I expected. Heart Container acquired, plot progression item acquired. With a full wallet and no shop on the island to spend my Rupees on, there's no incentive to hang around so it's off to the next place the game tells me to go.
More tutorial stuff on the way out and soon after... giant Blooper! Ahhh, what do I do? Unable to escape and I don't have anything to use on it... oh, it tossed me next to some flaming wreckage with a small health loss. That's better than the doom I was preparing myself for. Nothing else of note on the way to the next plot destination.
On the climb, I get smacked around by soccer ball spitting monsters while I attempt to close in to whack them directly. Duh, try reflecting the soccer balls, that works better. OK, this will be quick, well crap I got to go through another dungeon. Would have liked another heart on my life meter for this. I have lots of trouble working out how to hit the updraft to reach the dungeon. Between the numerous drownings and the laval burns from the last dungeon, I do feel a little bad about renaming the protagonist Ayesha. Saved and quit in frustration to find out I needed to climb all the way back to that point to try again. Get it at last and breathe a sigh of relief upon saving in the first room of the dungeon. Do not want to deal with that updraft again.
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Bravely Second: Beat Kaiser Oblivion and Diamat.
Got Meteor.
In Bravely Second, "Spellcraft" lets you enhance a spell with a bonus in exchange for one turn/BP. So "Firaga" can become "Firaga Dart", a spell that does 1.5x damage and gets initiative. To compensate for the spellcraft being Single-target, natural MT spells get their power doubled when Spellcraft (some exceptions).
The "Rain" spellcraft turns a spell into a meteor-clone that hits 4 times, each hit at 0.6x base damage (2.4x damage total). Unfortunately this is a bit broken and applies an "MT penalty" when facing multiple foes, scaling down each individual hit if there are multiple foes on the field. But it DOES ignore this and double the base power if the spell "Rain" is applied to is natural MT.
So "Rain" turns Meteor into a 4.8x monstrosity unto god. Better than 4.8x in practice because "Rain" functions as actual 4 attacks, so a damage cap of 40,000 instead of 9999 But it still takes a turn to set up?
No, because "Ventriloquism" is a passive skill that allows someone with it to apply the Spellcraft they've selected to EVERY PC spell cast that turn. So if a PC with Spellcraft uses "Rain", every spell cast that turn by PCs becomes "Rain". So two mages with Meteor, one with Ventriloquism can pull this nonsense turn 1:
PC 1: Meteor, Rain, Meteor, Meteor
PC 2: Meteor, Meteor, Meteor, Meteor.
Through the magic of Ventriloquism this becomes 7 Meteor Rains.
This translates into 7*4 = 28 Meteors, each with the power of 1.2x the base (gamebest) Meteor. So call it ~250,000 damage, just from 2 PCs. Egads.
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Cosmic Star Heroine, Chapter 8
Meh. I'm all about subverting expectations, but not when it's done so incompetently that it's not even clear if it was intentional or not.
Spoiler warning. Okay so we're in a Phantasy Star meets Mass Effect plotline where rather than good honest human villains, suddenly we're worried about nebulous evil dark forces that twist the mind and have evil ghosts and the like, a la Dark Force or the Reapers. There's a big tower that's been invaded by nebulous evil that normally has the antenna & networking to keep the cyber-insects in tune to their hivemind. Also as you reach the top you start not feeling so well and enter a nightmarish hellscape of the mind, or, uh, some blue backgrounds, same diff. Music is also very tense. Okay fine.
Expectation: The alien insects sabotaged their own network to prevent it from being used for evil (vaguely a la SC2: Legacy of the Void). A key bad guy, possibly possessed by the REAL villains (vaguely a la Reaper Programming), is trying to reboot the tower to use it to impose evil mind control on, well, at least the insects, and maybe everybody. This tower should be long, like the longest and toughest dungeon yet, and there is going to be a big dramatic boss fight at the top, and there will be some Dramatic Event - a heroic sacrifice, a villainous betrayal, a shocking revelation. Think Nei vs. Neifirst in PS2, or Rudy losing his arm and showing he's a sorta-robot in WA1, or any of the 30 games where a villain pretends to be a party member for awhile only to stab you in the back at a key time. Also, the heroes should probably lose here, because we need to have them on the run and an excuse for a Geth-esque antagonist group, so let the bad guys take over the tower.
Actual: Uh nothing happens? The good guy resistance fighter compliments you on beating the evil up (but didn't summon it himself) and joins your party and you're told to go do a fetch quest in a haunted mine to get a power crystal. There is no actual bad guy or real source of the problems at this tower. You leave. wut.
Fake-out big midgame dungeons where the shoe doesn't actually drop yet are fine, but this just comes across as lame after all the build-up. This should be the Ocean Palace or something.
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I admire your ability to have more expectations for the game's writing at that point than I did, because that whole sequence just rolled over me with no effect.
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I want Snowfire to play a jRPG about housekeeping after all this, that's an amazing tendency to pre-write plots before they happen.
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It's a giant mind control tower attacked by evil. SOMETHING melodramatic should happen, damnit.
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I'm almost at the end I believe. Rigel Castle is the only map that stands before me. I will probably backtrack to do a last series of weapon upgrades before proceeding. Thinking maybe upgrading the Royal Blade some more even though that hurts the rest of the party. The Steel Bow might also be worthwhile to make its Hit better. I'll take a look once I can get the party back to town.
The last couple of Alm maps I will say were uh...cute, but not exactly one his team will have a problem with. In fact, I had more problems with Rigel Falls than either of the forced map encounters. Last Bastion in particular...whoo boy. Warp tears that level a new hole. I had Alm just snipe out the Archers and Arcanist, which they made luring the other enemies to their death really easy. It's interesting in that Alm's late chapters seem to feel easier (because Royal Sword/Warp/Rescue) versus Celica who had an easier early game. Notably, the fortress map on Celica's side was much tougher (had 2 deaths there versus Alm's late game where the only death has been Forsyth getting a crit off 8% in the Falls). Probably because no one gets Warp/Rescue and they have to deal with a crap load of Cantors.
Also, I don't complain about FIRE EMBLEM PLOT a lot because I think the DL knows that it's usually generic (RD probably being the exception). However, I must make an exception here because Echoes plot is crazy. And I don't mean that in a good way. SPOILER ALERT here, so stop reading if you want to preserve that genuine FE storytelling.
The main characters sans Alm are all bat-shit insane with their motivations. Particularly, Celica, girl, what the actual fuck? Why are you listening to the crazy Duma priest who wants to eat your soul? Like, here's the thing for me. If Jedah sweet talked Celica into coming with him or if there was more insight into why Celica might do something so drastic, I can maybe, MAYBE buy into the decision to go with him. But everytime you meet Jedah, his speech is all like, "Mwahaha, come with me Celica and let me sacrifice your soul to our god so I can totally revive him and destroy the world" or "Mwahaha, Celica, that boy Alm will die and so will your friends for trespassing in this sacred temple". Exactly what motivation is there for Celica to trust him? The only explanation that might make sense is desperation, but again, the game doesn't earn this. Celica is steadfast in their mission to go to the tower to rescue Mila. It's not until towards the end of Act 4 that her party finds out that Mila basically committed suicide. And EVEN then Jedah is all, "Mwahaha, YOUR GOD ABANDONED YOU. JOIN ME, I WILL SAVE U". Surprisingly, I think having the Mila offing herself scene at the time of Mila's temple and then writing Jedah to be a bit less baby-eating would have gone LONG ways into making this all a bit easier to swallow. I'll second I think what most people have already mentioned, but to bring a comparison, if Eirika was high by giving Leon the stone, then Celica is flat out smashed on 20 different kinds of alcohol and high because this entire pilgrimage makes no sense. Watching this entire thing play out makes me so much more appreciative of villains like Palpatine, who despite the audience knows is evil, they spend great lengths to show how he is playing both sides and how he earns Anakin's trust.
Even some of the setting pieces make no sense. I think Snowfire's mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. The entire thing surrounding the Sluice is just ridiculous. If the gate only opens from a command coming from the royal family and all members of the royal family are dead, you mean to tell me that the Sluice Gate never opens? What. I imagine people from both sides of the continent will start a riot off something that dumb. Even better is that it's an old man guarding it. And the whole reason for this entire shtick is to subtly hint to Alm of Celica's lineage. The writing is just so so clunky. I'm not sure it can get much worse, but I get the feeling that it will.
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The fights clearly get scaled based on level and character count, as far as I can understand. I picked Cyrus as my main and his boss was pretty manageable. This said, the game doesn't hold your hand and isn't afraid to wipe your ass, so stay on your toes!
There is an internal difficulty counter that increases as you beat more chapters. The game then scale up with the counter value.
Later the chapter, bigger the increase.
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Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment
So this is great, but the forums just ate my 3-page review of it, so fuck it. Just go play it. It's literally a brand new game and Yacht Club Games needs to market it better because I basically skipped it because Plague Knight's campaign was a little too same-y when compared to vanilla Shovel Knight.
Specter of Torment has a tragic story that resonated with me and was a good prequel to a simple game/narrative like Shovel Knight.
Specter Knight himself also has one of the best mobility designs, basically ripping off Shanoa from CV Order of Ecclesia. That alone is worth the time/money investment to play around with it. It only takes like a day to complete.
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Octopath Traveller
Finished up all the Chapter 1s, thanks to delays & plane rides. Thoughts:
* Encounter rate is a little alarmingly high, even if you'd generally want to fight it out some anyway just to catch your new L1 character up... oh wait I see, this is the side-effect from doing Cyrus last, he's got the encounter reduction skill. (Did Tressa and rotated clockwise, so Tressa->Olberic->Primrose->Alfin->Therion->Ha'anit->Ophilia->Cyrus.)
* On that note, I actually kinda like that this game doesn't have an easy catch-up leveling curve, oddly enough. This is usually a mistake in games that let you usually pick your party because it encourages you to hard lock into the characters you're using and makes it hard to switch out, but knowing that every character is going to have to conquer 4 chapters means that you have a nice strong incentive to use everyone, darnit. (Only problem is that it makes catching a Cait, the metal slime equivalent, and getting super XP with party members you like = whoops I guess I'm not using these guys for awhile?).
* Djinn / Niu, didst thee playen Octopath Traveller or オクトパストラベラー? If ye playen the JP version, how dost the residents in H'aanit's village speaken? I sup that it is Heian era Japanese out of yon Tale of Genji for an equivalent olden tongue, but I knoweth not.
* This is one of Those Games where for a lot of these dungeons - anything with human enemies, basically - you're just supposed to assume that random encounters don't really happen. The flavor is definitely NOT Tressa shivving a bunch of defenseless sleeping pirates, or H'aanit talking about respecting the cycle of life of the forest after dropping like 30 wolves & boars for fun, or the Ravuses offering a job to the criminal gang that hast just laid out a trail of mangled corpses, both human and canine, all over the floor of the mansion. No, Tressa was sneaking to take back to the treasure on her brave solo mission, Therion sneaked in via the window and didn't become a mass murderer, and H'aanit doesn't hate the forest she protects.
* I respect that the writers probably wanted to separate out Alfin & H'aanit some by giving them different first dungeon quests, buuut. I'd just like to point out that unless Alfin is a homeopathic alchemist, you do not in general need a sample of a venom to cure the venom, especially if you're already familiar with what type of venom it was. There would still be a *perfectly valid* "monster hunter" excuse that this snake is super-dangerous and attacking kids, we need to take it out, but I guess they thought that was too close to H'aanit's thing? Then make it so he needs the obligatory rare flower or something, I dunno.
* While we're nitpicking, Therion's plot setup is a little odd, at least if it gets played totally straight in its later chapters. Is a humiliating tattoo THAT bad? If Heathcote can also remove it, then can't other people potentially remove it too? I can maybe buy a "please raid Fort Knox then give me the gold" quest if the threat is, say, death, or death of loved ones. But telling a thief to go steal back some incredible treasures that are super-valueable, and oh by the way give them to us afterward... I have a better idea, steal the treasures, move far away, sell them for a fortune, and retire to a place that doesn't care about your weird tattoo, only that you're fabulously rich.
* The difficulty caps out and stops scaling after a certain point, which I suppose is a "nice" thing they do so that people who are really bad can grind effectively, but also means the later chapter 1s fall off pretty hard. All L11 suggested (=quests stop scaling after you're +10 levels over?), when the main Traveller should easily be L20+ by the time you do the last two or three and just eradicate everything.
* I respect that you need a few "straight" type PC characters who have perfectly normal happy lives so that the person with half-demon blood and an evil twin brother and a mystic amulet stands out as properly weird, but I'm a little worried that Alfin & Ophilia don't appear to have anything too potentially bad / dramatic in their lives? Alfin is a wandering do-gooder with a supportive village & close friends, and Ophilia is apparently still on excellent terms with her loving and supportive sister & father despite a rather bold play. We'll see.
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H'aanit and her folks speak normal modern Japanese. So I am pretty surprised when I discovered she speaks in old English in the localized version.
As for Therion? It is more about pride.
Heathcote does not want just any thieves, but those who takes pride in their bandithood.
In such a case, even the theif may betray them, he'll not betrays his profession and ultimately get the job done.
The real flaw in his starting chapter is well... Therion is all about "I don't need any companion!" yet he let you help him out so easily...
But you are terribly wrong about the level grind.
It is just too easy thanks to the Dancer job, especially so if you make everyone into one.
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Lately I've beaten Dragon Quest 3 (SNES Remake) and The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (FC)
I have a lot to say about DW3 but now is not the time.
Now is the time for Trails.
So, before I get into any nitty gritty, Trails in the Sky is a very good JRPG. I've been burnt out on JRPGs for years on end, and for some reason got into, of all things, Dragon Quest/warrior, but when I beat 3, I decided to finally play this game that a friend gave me for Christmas something like four years ago.
This is a charming game, and I would definitely rate it above average, but of all the things it throws at me, there's really only two stand-out parts that I enjoy. Thankfully they're pretty big parts. Those would be "Story and Characterization" and "Battle System".
Battle system takes quite a bit of dings from god-awful design decisions, but keep in mind I played on Hard, so YMMV.
Let's talk about stories and things this game does absolutely right.
1)Holy shit you're not saving the world.
I can't overemphasize this. You get a full game... a long game, at that, and the driving focus for the entire game is in no means "You're destined heroes to blah blah blah" that is a cheap cop-out of not just JRPGs but Fantasy settings in general. It's very, very refreshing to have your goal be something like "Stop a political coup" and also "Find your dad". This is good.
2)It makes people seem like people. ...and not just your party.
I adore how many random NPCs I actually remember in this game when they turn up, and not just "people who have faces". I love that everyone in the first town knows you and have new things to say every time you talk to them between story beats. More than just about any RPG I've ever played, Trails in the Sky feels like you're actually playing in a living world, and that people outside of the party might have lives of their own. At one point, toward the end of the game, Joshua points this out, and while it could feel kind of like the developers bragging, I think it actually read a lot more like them making a plea for making more games like theirs. Take a bow, Falcom. You did good here.
Let's talk characters.
Estelle:
Estelle supplants.... ........................................................Virginia? As my favorite female JRPG protagonist? And probably enters the list fairly high in general as far as protagonists go. Estelle is a fantastic character. I gotta admit, during the opening sequence in the game, where we briefly had child Estelle, I was terrified that she was going to be god-awful and I would hate every minute of this game, but it quickly gives you a much more competent, well-rounded character, who is just... fantastically believable. Very well balanced between brimming confidence and believable insecurities when they do come up. I like her "God damn it." face whenever it comes up. I like how the game has little details in the "descriptive" text, like her presenting her papers with a flourish (to which Joshua rolls his eyes) and so on.
In combat, Estelle is... ok. I mean, a lot of this game is how you construct your own characters and she has no orbment restrictions, so I suppose there's nothing saying you can't figure out how to turn her into a supreme shit-kicker. I just didn't. The big thing I got use of from her for the entire game was Hurricane. I gave her an on-hit-petrify effect, and just using her to multi-target several enemies and maybe take one out of the fight immediately pretty much never got old. Otherwise, she's got nothing really special combat-wise that I could tell. She wields a staff correctly.
Joshua:
Joshua is also a fantastic character. There's a lot of ways they could have gone with this guy, and there's quite a few pitfalls where they could have made him just bland and moody and mysterious or whatever, and the game deftly says "fuck that noise" and just makes him highly competent, and gives him a really dry sense of humor and an easy-going personality. God damn, the writing in this game is good. I like that it gives him honest-to-goodness chemistry with Estelle. These two feel like a unit, and since that's one of the main thrusts of the game, I'd say that's another roaring success on the writing team.
In combat, Joshua is either the best or second-best character in the game, depending on what you actually value. He's forced into Shadow orbments, but those are the best ones, so the game almost forces you to make him good. Beyond that, he's got two AT-Reduction skills, and those are the most valuable Crafts in the game, by far. His second S Craft also his the whole field, because why not. I gave him a mix of Shadow and Water, because fuck it, why not go full JRPG protagonist.
Scherazard:
I hate the way you spell your name. Schera is fine. It's weird thinking of her as a cougar when I'm pretty sure I'm 10 years older than she is. Fucking JRPGs, man. But yeah, naughty older woman/sexy teacher character. I don't have much to say about her character-wise. They could have made her deeply annoying, but didn't, so that's good!
She is, however, easily the worst character in the game. I'm not sure if there's anything she actually does that isn't done better by at least one other character. Poor Schera.
Olivier:
Another character that easily could have been made deeply annoying, but was saved at the last minute by competent writing staff. Olivier is actually very likable, and his antics are generally timed/executed in the right way to make him genuinely funny. He fits a trope I like of "Seems like an indolent moron but is actually basically James Bond." I think he also benefits by his voice acting. Giving him a legitimately smooth voice lends a certain level of "he's not a joke" that characters like this need.
Olivier is quite good in a fight. All of his Crafts are useful in different situations, it's nice that he starts with an S-craft that hits multiple targets. He was in my final party, albeit, was the clear LVP of my final party.
Agate:
I like Agate a bunch, too. It'd be easy to just make him an unlikable dick, but, pretty much every time Agate complains and your cast gets mad at him.... uh.... he's right. Letting the stick-in-the-mud actually be correct is another way of staying out of the pitfall of making this character unlikeable. So far this cast is 5 for 5 on characters that were very nearly bad, but turned out to be good. That's some slick work.
In combat, Agate is... I almost said "there", but that's hardly true, now, is it. You almost never get to use Agate. When you finally get to freely use him in the last chapter, you also have Zin who is literally better in every way. Agate's still not BAD, though, he's just... not Zin. I'm sure he'd be more useful than Schera.
Kloe:
Why does she have a magic bird? Why are magic birds a thing? I have little to say about Kloe in general. For someone with the party for so long, she seems like she'd have a more memorable character, but... eh. She's just a normal girl. Only not. I guess that's the point?
In combat, she ought to be really good. She's given all the healing and also her S Craft is a full party heal with a boost if you somehow let your CP get to 200 and who the hell actually does that? She also has like, pretty much the only debuff in a game that honestly feels like the entire battle system/encounters were based around the idea of having debuffs, and then the developers forgot to actually include any. So she's pretty much always useful. I didn't use her myself, mind, but that's because I (as it turns out mistakenly!) thought I needed some more firepower instead of healing for the last few bosses.
Tita:
........................well, we had to stop the run somewhere. Tita.... Tita is not a good character. I'm sorry. I know it's basically a JRPG thing to make little children characters, and it should stop, and for a game that in a lot of other places makes the characters feel really realistic, Tita just repeatedly undermines that. In a way, she makes Agate a better character by virtue of what I said earlier about "Every time Agate voices a complaint or objection, he's actually 100% right". Tita has no business adventuring, or in your party. I am irrationally furious that she has an Orbal Cannon as a weapon, when earlier in the same fucking game, it's a big deal that Don is able to use one as a personal weapon, and Don is bigger and stronger than everyone other than Zin. But you would have me believe that a twelve year old girl can do it? Fuck off.
This game would be better if she were an NPC like Dorothy or Nial.
In actual combat, though, she has a multi-target physical, so you can do something like stick Deathblow 1 on her and she'll make encounters quite a bit easier more-or-less by accident. She'd arguably be one of the better characters in the game if she didn't have the defense and HP of a 12 year old girl.
Zin:
The other side of the "Obfuscates stupidity" trope. I like it here, too. Zin seems like a big, easy going friendly huggable guy. I like that they pair him with Olivier, so we get to see both sides of this tradition at once. I also like that he originally decides "Fuck it, I'll fight solo in this tournament" and probably could have placed almost as well even if you didn't join him.
In combat, Zin is the other character who might well be the best character in the game. His stats are nonsense. Aside from HP (which matters a lot!) he's only a little better than everyone in everything else, it's just that he's... better than everyone. In everything else.
In short:
Characterization ranks:
Estelle > Joshua >> Olivier > Agate > Zin >> Schera > Kloe >>>>>>> Tita
Combat Ranks:
Zin >= Joshua > Kloe >> Olivier = Estelle >>> Agate > Tita >> Schera
Excellent game. Fuck its boss design. Fuck the final dungeon for taking me away from the parts of the game I liked for way too long. Fuck Tita.
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I finished Octopath this week. If I have to say one thing about it, it's extremely disappointing. It squanders great potential in order to play a by-the-books most basic RPG storyline and gameplay ever. It suffers the same way the most recent Mario Odyssey does; it's not really meant for experienced RPG fans but rather trying to hook in new players by showing off cool retro style graphics that gamers played 25 years ago....except it doesn't with a unbalanced learning curve.
Secluded storylines of each character does nothing for the whole game package. It felt like I was playing 32 sidequests, building up to something bigger that never happens. Each chapter plays out exactly the same way: cutscene, use your path action, another cutscene, small 10 minute dungeon with side paths for treasure, boss fight, ending cutscene. If not for the large amount of grinding the game requires, it's about a 15 hour game. Octopath Traveler should take about 60 hours to complete. Sidequests (aside from postgame) are mostly there to tack on more hours since the payoff is just money (which is not an issue if you abuse Tressa and Therion). Path actions are extremely unbalanced. If you avoid using Therion, you're playing hardmode. Once leveled up, he just steals so much free shit you never have to touch a shop ever. Tressa generates an insane amount of money for doing nothing but walk around, so go around steal/buy all the strong equipment then you're good to go. In contrast, there's not much reason to Challenge/Provoke aside from getting a dude from blocking a door to someone where you can steal/buy more shit. I heard you can get endgame equipment as a 1% drop from some of the strongest NPCs, but it's already too much grinding as is.
The plot is the most safe and boring I have ever experienced since something like Dragon Quest Four. You have three standard revenge plots, a "journey was the real treasure" garbage, a guy with trust issues, an inexperienced chemist trying to prove himself, and Cyrus. I'd admit, Cyrus had me intrigued because he's a giant nerd caught up in some serious shit just because he's trying to find a book. I skipped probably 40% of the cutscenes just by how droll they were. Just watch videogamedunkey's take on the game to summarize Olpiela's quest. At least her final boss had some excellent voice acting and battle sprite.
I liked the gameplay and music, although if you're gonna advertise having a job system try having a few more intermediate jobs. You get the 8 basic jobs and four super jobs, with nothing filling out the rather large midgame. The extra jobs are clearly meant to be postgame. The Sorcerer job alone makes everything except the final boss a complete joke. Runemaster lets you pump out 50k-100k damage without having to use a single boost. Nothing besides the super job bosses and post game has more than 150k HP. There's also not much reason to try out funny comps since job points are universal so if you want to learn all cleric skills with Olberic without him ever using the class in a single battle, you can.
A sequel that fleshes out the story and expands on the job system would make the game near perfect. But as is, it's sad that it was suppose to be one of the Switch's biggest titles and hooks when the system was announced.
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Bravely Second: Completed.
I liked the gameplay but for a few reasons not as much as Bravely Default. I didn't enjoy the story and thought that the game would have been better served with an entirely new roster of characters. Overall I can't deny that it polished some edges off of Bravely Default but I still think it was an inferior experience. This ends up being a failure of the game because by reusing so much from the first game (characters, locales, themes, jobs, etc) it invites comparison with the first game at every turn.
The combat system is typical Brave/Default goodness. The inherient tactical nature of figuring out how to overcome enemies by balancing Default/Brave and mutli-actions is still there and in many respects (such as the ease of multiplying an action) improved. The limited "Oh crap" Bravely Second system makes a return as well. The problem I had was in how the game actually implemented it. Bosses in Bravely Second are mostly underwhelming compared to the prequel, and randoms are somehow even MORE balanced to be one-rounded by a brave-chain. Indeed the game's battle-chain system rewards you enormously for setting up your team to splatter randoms without ever seeing what they can do. This also exacerbates the game's difficulty curve because getting stronger means more easily going through battle chains which means yet more power. This no doubt inflates the difference between Hard and Normal, and makes me really wish I had played on Hard instead.
The game had a fun magic system (Spellcraft!) and loads and loads of abilities just like it's predecessor. They did cut some of the pointless fluff abilities but then added a bunch more. I think re-using the original jobs was a mistake in that they could have created an entirely new experience but ended up just kind of rehashing the job system from Bravely Default. An unfavorable comparison in the combat system with Bravely Default is that Default tended ot emphasize boss fights more than I thought Second did, and the Brave/Default combat system really shines in tough boss fights. Flip-side, the obelisk bosses in Second were so, so much better than Default.
Storywise I didn't like them re-using assets without really adding depth to them. There are 4 new towns (Gathelieo, Al Khamis, Yunohana, and Sagiita) but these feel like they were added as an after-thought to the original story (because they were). The character work is acceptable, but re-using Tiz, Edea, and Agnes felt like a mistake because they didn't fee like natural continuations of their stories (because they weren't!). The Glanz empire was more open about what they were doing than Eternia in the first game (good!) but what they were doing was much stupider (bad!). There were also some problematic issues with characterization of the villains from the earlygame compared to the midgame. (and WTF is an empire without any actual terriotory?). Yew and Magnolia were enjoyable enough but neither felt very well explored. Also "Coup de Gravy!" and "Ba'al Buster" are so stupid they make me want to bang my head against a wall. Maybe a fine one-off joke but to run it into the ground is frustrating. Finally the game makes a play for an evil fairy just like the original but trying the exact same trick the second time just doesn't have the same impact.
Good sumnation for the game. "Trying the exact same trick a second time just doens't have the same impact." I'll go with that.
(oh and Chainspell/Echo, Magic Twinked Meteor Rains were completely and hilariously insane beyond all reason).
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Ephraim, you forget about the biggest offense on this game's plot.
They dump a whole bunch of very important points in a wall of text just right before the real final boss.
I am like, WTF? Who let the writer did this and who thought this is a good idea?
Especially the piece about H'aanit ch.4; I cannot control my urge to banish the writer to the furtherest reach of hell the moment I read it.
And it is disgusting to see the protagonists has no reaction after we done the reading.
How can they tolerate this sloppy way of plot writing? Absolutely unforgivable.
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In honor of our arrival in Melbourne, we picked up a copy of Gloomhaven and started playing it. We’ve done about 10 scenarios so far, and it is quite good. It’s basically DnD for people who are too lazy to DM.
Some notes:
Cool things:
-combat is scaled for 2, 3, or 4 players in an elegant way. Each map has a key for which enemies should show up on each number of players. Some enemies are ‘elite’ and some are not, and that also varies based on the number of players.
-level is very similar to other games, and the enemies scale based on your level. There is also a difficulty toggle based on how much bite you want in the encounters. We played the first scenario on Easy (Level -1 enemies), but after that we’ve played on Normal, which seems like a nice place where the player usually wins but is pretty hard. The difficulty of individual maps definitely varies, though. Although some of the variation might be due to…
-There are six starting classes in the game that the players can choose from, and each have strengths and weaknesses. Our team is very ranged and AoE based, so we like maps with obstacles and terrain to prevent the enemies from moving. You can open like ten more classes, but we haven’t opened any of them yet. I’m playing as a tank/jack of all trades, Elfboy is an AoE focused mage, and Grefter is the healer/status whore. The classes don’t really feel like they have direct analogs in DnD.
-Each card has two actions; a top action (often attacking but sometimes healing) and an bottom action (often moving but sometimes healing or looting). and you can control your initiative using the cards. It’s quite a clever little system and gives you some flexibility on when you go in the turn order without affecting how fast you go next turn.
-It’s less random than DnD because you hit 19/20 of the time, but sometimes hit for less or more than you ‘should’. There is one crit card, one miss card, one -2 damage card, five -1 hit cards, six +0 (normal damage) cards, five +1 damage cards, and one +2 damage card. And even if you miss, it still inflicts any stats on your attacks, which is awesome.
-the maps are based on the scenario you play, and there are cutouts of the monsters and the maps. The monsters’ art is quite nice, and the maps add some variety to the game. It is a hex-based system.
-each scenario takes 1.5-2.5 hours, which isn’t an excessive length of time.
Some complaints:
-the plot is pretty bare bones. it feels a little bit like an old-school DnD RPG from the 90’s, with everyone playing as silent mains and being talked at. There are city and road events that are supposed to build up the setting, but it doesn’t really do a lot for me.
-I feel like the plot also sometimes doesn’t connect the dots very well. Especially at first, it was very confusing! We got used to its strange structure eventually.
-it seems to have a few too many rules governing things like changing higher level cards outside battle and the number of enhancements you get. We’ve just ignored the rules on both of those things and it doesn’t seem to break the game at all!
-There are a few too many enemies with really high Shield stats, which kind of breaks the durability curve of monsters a bit and really overcentralizes the item that pierces Shield (Piercing Bow).
Still, it’s been a really fun game that has generated a lot of discussion and fun. I might pick it up back in Vancouver.
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good post
Interesting that you thought BD did much better on boss fights. Bravely Default certainly had its share of underwhelming bosses too - very few asterisk bosses past chapter 2 are worth much of anything since they're faithful to the PC class and it turns out you can't make a solo boss locked to ST worthwhile in BD's system. Were BD's bosses overall better? Mm, probably - BD's toughest required bosses had some real teeth. But as someone who played both on Hard I don't recall feeling the challenge of boss fights was that different past a few standouts. Bravely Second had tougher randoms by a notable margin because some of them are faster so it's harder to assemble teams which paste them all before they get a turn. That ruins dungeon during the weird "we'll talk about SP as aan in-universe thing" arc stands out as tougher than any BD dungeon to me.
I agree with most of the other criticisms and do ultimately feel that BS is a worse game than BD despite some welcome polish improvements and rebalancing. (Also, as you noted, Spellcraft is great.) I think the new plot has potential at points for sure - I was interested in things like the Geneolgia family backstory, the plague. Janne is a much better character than I first assumed he would be (granted, I assumed he'd be shit). But it largely bungles this potential with terrible pacing (seriously, how is it we go like 15 hours before we learn about Denys?) and awful setting work, plus misusing the returning characters and none of the new ones being THAT great, y'know? (Although at least BS has the better protagonist.) Also far too much talking about food.
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In terms of required boss fights, I do think BD boss fights were a bit more varied in terms of ST damage (magic, physical, ITD). I seem to remember most BS plot bosses as just having physical damage (albeit quite strong physical damage). I played BD on hard and BS on normal though, so I can't really make a comparison there. I did personally like BS's battle system better and already hated BD's main cast to start (found them much more bearable in game 2), so it all kind of evened out to me.
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It isn't so much that Bravely Default had better bosses, they were just more of a focus. BD randoms were trash and the game didn't really try to hide that after a point. It replaced them with copious optional boss fights and mixed them up towards the end. The focus became more on fights against foes with boss level HP. Even teams of them. And the blitzing aspect was only for grinding randoms. By contrast BS focused endgame combat on battle chains moreso than bosses. Boss fights are where the battle system shines.
Bravely Second on Normal is a lot easier than default on Normal. I think in part because on Normal you can go through more chains and get more bonuses. So in addition to lower enemy stats you get more exp/jp. I suppose you could avoid battle chains but the game is geared towards them it feels like (and you are driven to want JP to getl the sweet reward of job ablilities)
Bravely Second wins hands down for obelisk fights. The Sins were so much better than the stupid dragons. So much better.
Bravely Second had some good randoms in Old Sagita ruins, yeah. Best dungeon by far because of it, even on Normal.
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BD also did have some really cool side fights like the Command Tower(?), for all that the mage fight there really was the epitome of depending on complete luck. I did like BS randoms more if only because you had to consider to to allocate BP over multiple fights (as such, I didn't mind randoms being worse).
Are you thinking of stat topicing BS Pyro?
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Glancing at it, for all that bosses have an issue with later bosses being exposed to easy-to-set gratuitous overkill.
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I suppose most later bosses at least have earlier forms.
Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle - Beat this.
This was a lot of fun! It's a strategy RPG but in true Mario fashion puts its own spin on the genre (this time without timed hits!). I'm pretty confident it's the best of the Mario RPGs pretty easily. Like most strategy games it doesn't really have many of those RPG "explore a town" etc. elements so if you actually still play the genre for those then too bad I guess. It does have "walk around an environment and solve puzzles to either advance or access treasure" which from my point of view mostly serves to break up the gameplay a bit (not the worst thing I suppose, but not why I'm playing the game) but maybe this might be a selling point to some.
So let's talk about gameplay. Compared to most strategy games, two things about Rabbids jump out quickly.
1. Movement in this game is crazy. You can, as part of your move, dash through one enemy (or more, it depends on the enemy). You can, as part of your move, jump off one of your allies and end your move within X tiles (one PC can jump off two enemies). You can go through pipes which cost no move and give you a fixed amount of move (character- and build-dependent) when you end. Mario can end jumps by stomping off of enemies, of course, doing a bunch of movement and boosting further. And that's just some of it.
2. You only have three PCs. (I'm struggling to think of another SRPG that had a final party size below 5.) However, this is for a damn good reason, since it feels like any more would be overwhelming. Every PC can do three things in one turn: move (which, as per above, is extremely complex and can involve dealing damage in various ways, as well as enabling move of other PCs), attack, and use a special ability. Of these nine actions, you can do them in any order you wish. How you use these actions gives you loads of choice with how to approach things.
The game has some teeth and thus rewards sound tactical play. It also has 8 different PCs who each manage to feel unique (although Yoshi joins too late to really have much impact, and sadly Mario is forced which limits party composition options).
The game has pretty great enemy design too. The best of the bunch is almost certainly the Smasher, an enemy which, if attacked, charges 4 squares towards its attacker and, if in range, gets a free attack off. They hit like trucks, both in this way and on their own turn. Baiting and controlling them is great fun. No one other enemy design is this clever but they're a pretty good varied bunch anyway, with different attacks (some cover-subject, some not) and styles (some capable of dash damage, some who use reaction shots a la XCOM, some who are immune to attacks from the front, etc.). There are boss fights and they're usually pretty fun too.
The game grades you on speed and survival which provides some incentive for good play besides just winning. You get extra money for doing well which could create a bit of a snowball effect but extra money is mostly just good for keeping your entire squad upgraded so you could always compensate by neglecting a PC I suppose.
PC notes:
Mario - Is forced. Mario can stomp on enemies which is great because it extends his ability to do damage with his move action. He can both dash and stomp on two different enemies, but upgrading both is expensive so I focused on stomp. Otherwise he's pretty average at attacking and HP with low move. He has solid special abilities, though - full-party damage buff and overwatch are both good.
Rabbid Peach - Might kill you to take a selfie with you as you die. Also a really good PC. She can dash into lots of enemies (2-4) so she can pile up damage if she starts in range of a lot of them, is the party healer (which is pretty great even if it has a cooldown of a few turns), and perhaps most importantly has sentries, which both give her a good way to damage enemies far away and/or behind cover, and draw enemy fire - especially overwatch shots.
Rabbid Luigi - He is somewhat situational but freaking amazing when he's on his game. His dash deals the most damage and can target two enemies, so his ability to do damage with moving is phenomenal. His low weapon damage offsets that, though it comes with super-high odds of added status - petrify from some optional fights, but otherwise even push is surprisingly solid since it gets enemies out of cover and can trigger overwatch. Also, his dash inflicts Vampire status, which rules - not only does he drain enemy health with the attack, but any allies who target Vampire'd enemies ALSO drain, so it can be quite good healing if used properly.
Luigi - Sniper, which means he has huge range - often overkill though, since it doesn't ignore cover. He also has horrid HP. His overwatch starts out bad but becomes solid once upgraded. Otherwise, the two biggest things in his favour are that he's the second Sentry user, and that he has a full-party movement buff which is invaluable for some mission types where you need to reach an objective.
Rabbid Mario - Interesting certainly. Rabbid Mario hits hard and hits lots of enemies... but only if they're close to him. Everything about him plays into this - he uses a shotgun (short-range AoE), his dash can be used multiple times and hits a blast radius (not IFF, so watch out!), his special weapon is a hammer which lets him hit a nearby AoE even harder. He also has good move, thank goodness. His biggest weakness is a lack of good options when enemies are out of range. He does have a special which draws enemies towards him but its own range isn't quite good enough to compensate, though has applications anyway.
Peach - The party defender. She shares Rabbid Mario's penchant for doing huge damage with a shotgun, though isn't as good at dashing. Her big advantages over Rabbid Mario are her huge HP pool, the fact that she AoE heals every time she uses jump (i.e. every turn if you're playing her properly), and the fact that she actually has a long range option with grenades. Her big disadvantage is that she has 2 less move, a big deal on a character who is short-range focused. She has an overwatch but it's... weird (in a bad way), because of her bad range. Great at murdering Smashers though!
Rabbid Yoshi - Dashes into fifty million enemies which is funny but honestly nothing Rabbid Peach can't do too (though he does have +1 move on her). His damage is extremely random and his status rate is low, so I guess I'm saying he's not that great! I got a lot of milage out of his shield in certain fights though - all the rabbid PCs have a shield which they can use every 2-3 turns (Rabbid Mario's kinda sucks though) but Yoshi's is the best because instead of generically reducing damage it blocks ALL (or close to it) of 1-2 hits, which is great in boss fights!
Yoshi - Joins super-late and objectively not worth it because you have to buy weapons for him (you don't have to, but you do if you want added status on his weapons, and spoilers you do). He has the same kinda problematic weapon as Rabbid Yoshi and doesn't have the dash... though instead he has an AoE stomp kinda like Mario's (better I guess?). His special is to raise the party's status odds to 100% for one turn, which is neat for sure but I don't think it justifies the rest of the package.
Game was a good time. Writing's not worth playing the game for but it's a Mario RPG so it's got some goofy scenes if that's what you're in the mood for (mostly Bowser Jr. rather than Bowser this time, who has lines like "I've got things to do and daddy issues to repress!") plus rabbids being insane. But that gameplay, man. Great to see. Probably around an 8.5/10 to me, might be the best game of the last couple years for me.
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Trails in the Sky SC:
Beat this. I'm honestly astonished that I've played another game in this year that has left such a great impression on me. After XBC2 surprised the hell out of me, and FE15 blew the rest of the series out of the water in terms of writing, and then Tales of Berseria inspired me to write a small novel of its praises, I didn't think the video game industry had anymore hits for me this year.
But Trails SC is a solid contender for a "Suikoden replacement". It's the kind of game that entwines lore and theme and worldbuilding in such a solid way that immediately after finishing one entry in the series, I immediately wanted to buy the next one. The characters are so well-written and avoid so many annoying tropes and pitfalls that so many other games stumble on... It just gets me invested.
The gameplay has more to it than I expected, but overall it just pales compared to the narrative aspects of the game (and doesn't have nearly the ludonarrative harmony that Berseria did to really prop it up). But honestly, competent if somewhat standard gameplay is more like a bonus on top of a great interactive narrative experience when it comes to Trails.
Music hype also goes here.
So yeah, a potential 8.5- or 9/10 for me. Excels at everything I really wanted from it and makes it that much harder for me to pick a "Best Game I played this Year" title. JRPG narratives are finally catching up to where Suikoden was years ago. Yay, progress~
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Cold Steel 2- Just need to beat the final boss in the Epilogue. Probably ended up an 8 just thanks to the fantastic penultimate dungeon. I do wish the world felt more cohesive technologically, because it feels like a complete distracting mish-mash (orbal revolution was 50 years ago? Seriously? Landlines are super rare, but all of a sudden they have pseudo cell phones (walkie-talkies? completely unsure as to the range, but I'm sure the writers are as well) and video chat? A single plane is a big deal in a world with weapons of mass destruction? Also, literally everything about Soldats, which are way, way, way too mobile to not feel out of place).
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Zelda: Wind Waker - It's too soon for another dungeon
Actually, this one ended up straightforward by Zelda dungeon standards. I did get stumped in the very first room long enough to trigger the charm but was able to work out how to progress after that. There was one chest I couldn't figure out how to reach and in the end, decided to skip it. Even the boss is more direct about using the item from the dungeon to expose the vulnerable part and delivering stabby death. I goof up afterwards is scooping up some Forest Water into my bottle and then saving. Trying to get rid of it to make space for a potion, it was a shock to find I couldn't and I didn't want to wait it out.
Do some backtracking before going on to the next objective. I find my first Treasure Chart treasure. 200 Rupees, yay; my wallet it maxed out so it goes to waste. I end up finding a total of 350 Rupees before it sinks in that I'd be better off waiting until I a bigger capacity before really putting effort into treasure hunting. Add to the sea chart a bit on the path to more plot progression. Reach a stuck point where I look through the manual on how to change directions when swinging on ropes. Bombs as cannonballs is one of the most fun ideas I've seen from the series, limited exposure as it is. Do more plot stuff, get third plot coupon without a dungeon which is a relief as I still haven't found 4 heart pieces yet. Get two wallet upgrades in rather quick succession, travel time aside. Try to fill out the sea chart some more while on the path to the next objective. Link Ayesha gets catapaulted into a wall yet again. I end up sailing around some more and getting a bomb upgrade before tacking the next dungeon. Still haven't formed a new heart container yet so doing it with minimal life. Game's been really forgiving so far though.
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Fire Emblem Echoes: Done. Had to take two shots against the final battle even though I was on casual. I made a blitzkreig in the first attempt which didn't work. After mulling it over a little, I changed my line up a little. Mycen over Zeke, Silque over Est and Python over Palla.
Final battle war story/spoilers. Don't read if you are planning to play but haven't yet!
SPOILERS
So the final fight is interesting. Not just because the game lets you use a massive amount of characters, but also because it moves in 3 very distinct phases. Looking over the map, the final is tucked away in the back corner, surrounded by 2 conjurers (both summon Witches) and a really nasty Arcanist. They are flanked by 2 Bow Knights that will rush out to your position very early. Alm's army starts on the mid left, while Celica's army starts on the bottom right. Jedah is somewhere within the center and effective works as a roadblock to get to the final. Oh yeah, he also summons and has a couple of nasty passives to boot. On the plus side, he doesn't have the Dragon Shield so actually killing him isn't too terrible (unlike last time). By Alm's side are three competent physical enemies. 2 Dread Fighters with 23 Speed and a decent Gold Knight. 23 Speed I should note is really high. The number of people in the party that can effectively double this are limited down to just: Alm, Celica, person with Speed Ring, Saber and Catria. The latter two I had to feed Pegasus Cheese to in order to bump them up to 24/25. For the other enemies, 23 Speed is the magic number. It effectively doubles the eyeballs (which hover at 22 speed) and will stop the Dread Fighters from doubling. I had more units within this range (Gray, Jesse and Delthea if using Fire, Mathilda) but I couldn't group everyone there with Alm cause Celica's position gets run over by around turn 3.
As noted, this fight moves in 3 phases. In the first phase, the Bow knights + the physical units by Alm will charge forward. Some eyeballs will converge on Celica's position. This first rush lasts only about 2-3 turns, but getting rid of all of the first wave is paramount because the conjurers + final + Jedah will just keep spamming eyeball/witch reinforcements. So if you don't work quickly, you'll be swarmed. The second phase is to deal with Jedah since he sits comfortably in the center and any attempts to pass him are difficult due to terrain + sheer number of enemies. He also has 3 range and some new passives, which let him counter regardless of range. This is trouble because using a melee or mid-range character means they have to be upfront where all the other summoned enemies will start moving to. So for this, I purposely brought my 3 Bow Knights. Tobin was the best since he had the most HP and the support ring of Alm's childhood buddies, which reduces Jedah's crit to 0. So he was always a safe bet to poke with. Once you attack 3 times, one of Alm or Celica can deal a massive damaging attack and hopefully one shot with a crit. This isn't as hard as it sounds because surrounding Alm/Celica with the support rings brings their crit rate to something like 50-60. Once Jedah is dead, then its time to go to phase 3, which is killing the final boss.
The main issue with the final boss is getting to actually attack him. Since there are so many summoned units, it's hard to actually get into range and hit him for some damage. He also has a huge HP pool, decent defenses and good support. Taking him down quickly is harder than it sounds. A second problem is his Upheaval ability which lets him do MT damage every 3 rounds or so. This has appeared before at Dolth Keep, and it would be tougher to deal with here - but you have Tatiana, who, with Fortify, pretty much makes that a non-issue as long as you keep her safe. It does however mean, you have to be careful when moving in since Upheaval + 2-3 enemies ganging up one person means they are probably dead. Oh yeah, he also moves. I had a feeling that was the case due to some blue squares when selecting him, but having him move is a big wrench because so many units can't handle the damage he dishes out. These things make approaching him much tougher. I had maybe only 2-3 units who had enough speed+defense to take a hit (Alm, Celica, Mathilda, Saber and Catria). Everyone else would just die. And unfortunately the first time, he came in and crushed a couple of units that were too important so I restarted. 2nd time, I decided to take the opposite and just turtle. Although he moves, he won't until you actually get in range. So my strategy here was more Warp/Rescue BS. This was why I needed to bring in Silque. Since Tatania was locked into casting Fortify pretty much every turn, I needed a second person who could do this without taking her away from group healing. Building a wall with my high durability units (Mycen/Saber/Mathilda + a couple of others) and having them backed up by saints made it such that they had a ton of Endurance to eat some hits while Alm teleports away, gets a hit or two in, then gets called back to safety. Doing this for about 5-6 rounds, I bring the final down to within a killing stroke and just watched as the Falchion landed a crit and killed him.
END SPOILER
Ending thoughts:
Overall, this is a very different FE. It's different both from Neo-FE (FEs after RD) and GBA FEs. I'm not sure what to call it really, but it's worth a playthrough IMO as there are a lot of new ideas and its a breath of fresh air to the concept. Is it distinctly better than the others? Eh, I don't think so. I agree with NEB that the dungeon portions of the game are just a big no-no. They'd actually probably be the biggest reason why I wouldn't replay this. They just take away from the game and slow it down. On the other hand, I like the town roaming and quests. Those feel genuinely neat additions and I think add a bit more to the setting. You usually don't get to see towns all that much otherwise in FEs. As for the gameplay it's pretty solid: No ninja reinforcements! No weapon charges! Promotions are worth doing early and don't have to deal with GBA FE's convoluted item promos! Maps are mostly challenging (final + Dolth Fortress are tough) although there are a couple of snoozers in there (Last Bastion). So yeah, good stuff on the whole. I'd probably rank it above FE6 and maybe FE8. But I see it as worse than FE7/FE9, so it probably sits at like a low 7 for me.
Oh, one last thing: Plot is a garbage fire. Pretty much the entirety of the end of Act 4 + Act 5 is a mixture of bad writing, motivations and plot. Rudolf's plan is nonsense and feels like a Xantanos Roulette. The closest thing I saw was that it had shades of Lambda's crazy, but Lambda had clairvoyance and was proven right several times across the game. Even if they don't illustrate that well, the game is at least doing something to show that he can see far into the future and plan around it. Rudolf doesn't have this crazy super power and his plan is to...cause a war so people will be strong enough to over throw two crazy gods? Um...okay. And that one of those people will be his son? Um...okay. How you manage to come to this conclusion and having it work out exactly is beyond me. Berkut is also a dumpster fire of bad. Dude, the woman that you are engaged to has told you she doesn't care about rank and status. I don't know how else to get it in your head that she doesn't care, but his entire lust and need for superiority over Alm is just poorly written. Then the fact he SACRIFICES her and later she's totally okay with this is just *psyduck*. It's like the worst parts of Kresnik + MOMO put together. It says something when the best characters are the baby eating evil priest and the stupid farm boy destined for greatness. tldr - plot sucks.
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Enjoyed the war story, Tide. It's a neat fight.
FE15 blew the rest of the series out of the water in terms of bad writing
Hey, I agree that it's shit, but blew the series out of the water? Pretty sure I consider the DS remakes to be worse still, although the flaws are different.
Final Fantasy 5
Four Job Fiesta time! Forbidden Mode sounds dumb so I'm skipping that, instead did No 750 to raise my chance of getting Beastmaster, the only job I've never gotten on Fiesta (spoilers, I didn't get it). I'm playing the Steam version, which is pretty faithful aside from having much nicer PC and enemy sprites, but has a bunch of small mechanical changes.
Steam version mechanics notes:
-By far the biggest change is that filling up your ATB gauge does not stop the game's clock. In FF5 SNES/PSX/GBA, the game's clock stops every time one of your PCs gets a turn (how long varies based on game speed). This allows you time to react and choose a menu command, and in turn makes FF5 turn order pretty much "as advertised" - it's the closest ATB game to FFX-style CTB because of it. In the mobile/Steam version, this doesn't happen, which means even if you move quickly, there's time lost, which the enemies can take advantage of. It can be quite difficult to beat the first enemy to the punch even with the fastest jobs (spoilers, I got the fastest jobs). The flipside of this is that there's an Auto Mode which automatically enters a PC's previous command and target, and takes no time at all, so if you're happy with the commands lined up, it's quite a time-saver mechanically.
-For the first time since SNES, there's no run unless you have Thief. Base movement speed seems higher than I remember from SNES, but I could be wrong. There's also 8-directional move which speeds things up some.
-The MT MHP/4 spells (Blaze, etc.) are now subject to status evade. (Maybe I should be happy I didn't get Beastmaster, since this nerfs them as they're the only PCs which can access them.)
-Confuse no longer resets ATB when applied, so it's MUCH more dangerous as sometimes a quick reaction isn't good enough to remove it.
-Physicals which apply sleep now no longer remove sleep, so sleep spellblade spam is a perfect lock.
-Sandworm is now in the front row if he's in the front hole, instead of always in the back. This helps physical jobs a bit here. Liquid Flame is now in the back row unless he's in hand form, which reduces his human form's physical but otherwise makes physical jobs unhappy. Metamorph is in the back row until he transforms, which makes him take even longer.
-Dragon Pod and Exdeath now have Auto-Regen as they're supposed to (it's not that potent). From memory, Tyrannosaur now counters magic with Zombie Breath (in original, he was probably supposed to counter magic, but actually only did against those of certain rarely-used elements). Exdeath no longer appears to counter physicsls with Dispel, or my luck is ludicrous.
-Vampire only heals half of missing HP, a nerf to the bosses who use it and Blue Mage. (It's probably still good.)
-Enemies now change colour if statused. Only an aesthetic change, but a mechanically helpful one if you're wondering if a status has worn off.
Anyway, play log:
Wind Crystal: Thief. Sad day.
Karlabos not much of a threat, still drains potions and that's it. I get lucky in the Ship Graveyard and enemies drop two Daggers. Siren's not a problem as I can toss Potions on her. North Mountain's easy enough.
Magissa (1 reset) is another matter. Thieves don't like this fight. She summons Forza and together they wreck me. One quick trip to the BMG later to remind myself she only summons him below 300 HP, and I do the fight again, slowly chipping her down to just above 300, wait until she takes a turn, then unleash Auto Mode and two rounds of thief physicals (they doubleturn her) takes her out before I see the summon. Hooray!
I grab the Elven Mantle taking advantage of Flee. In Walse Tower I can steal Mythril Knives. I only grab one but that's all I need with how the next fight works. I stuff three thieves in the back row and once Garula starts going counter-crazy I do my best to only attack with one thief and do a mix of defending and using items with everyone else. A rough experience with the new ATB mechanics and I'm pretty sure I waste a couple Phoenix Downs but I win first try.
Water Crystal: Mystic Knight. It's not berserker yesssss.
Suddenly I'm in need of money but s'okay. Fire Ship has a bunch of nice loot for thieves, as well as a common steal Hi-Potion from Poltergeists, which are sure to be very helpful as I fail it up against bosses I can't elementally shred. Liquid Flame I do a mix of Blizzara Spellblade to deal with the two ice-weak forms (sadly it only does around 200 now) and Moonring Blade tosses from a thief to deal with the hand form. I get OHKOed by Fira 3 times and need to bust out Hi-Potions/one Elixir to keep up with the offence but I win.
Karnak Escape is hairy because I have no good put-away option for Gigases and get ground down by Aero/Aera. I even need to retreat to the heal point a couple times. I miss a number of items (four Elixirs?) but I get the important ones, namely the Elven Mantle and Main Gaunche, and I avoid Iron Claw by being nice to 33.3% of dogs.
Fire Crystal: Ninja.
Luckilly for me I killed Liquid Flame in the form where he drops a Flame Scroll, though it turns out I don't need it. Onto the library! I'm low enough level to not fear L5 Death, and between Fira Spellblade and Ninja's high base offence I'm able to take out randoms without much trouble. Ifrit burns a Hi-Potion and Phoenix Down or two but otherwise he does his usual thing of being a worse version of the boss before him. Byblos gives me a scare as he uses Wind Slash early and casts Protect on the first chance, but he never uses Wind Slash again and as soon as he uses Drain once I toss a Fire Scroll and kill him. Ship randoms feature an alternation of enemies who drop Lightning Scrolls and formations who die horribly to Lightning Scrolls. Then I get a black chocobo and can go buy more scrolls, and I obviously do so because those rule.
Sandworm (2 resets) - Hardest boss of the playthrough?!? Probably not but he does cause the most trouble. With the new ATB (+ me being incompetent and impatient) I screw up and target holes a lot. I also for some reason misremember him as not countering scrolls; he does and very quickly I'm in Quicksand death range. Second time I try to play it super-conservative with items but get caught into too much healing and overwhelmed eventually. Third time I'm a bit more careful and counter his HP until I've done around 2000 damage (around when I'm about to be overwhelmed unless I spam Hi-Potion), toss two Water Scrolls and finish him off.
Desert is easy. Cray Claw is a joke, Thundara Spellblade. Adamantoise has bad luck landing hits through my Elven Mantles, shields, and Main Gauche and dies to Blizzara Spellblade.
In the Ronka approach, the game's new mechanics slap me around in a bad way. First, I die to Rocket Launchers as their Rocket Punch confuses people at bad times and holy crap ninjas do a lot of damage to each other. Then, Soul Cannon (1 reset) has the Launchers get a turn before me because I'm too slow to enter turns and two of my damage-dealers get hit by Old. I assume Thundara Spellblade will still let me win before the beam fires twice but am incorrect (could have won if I'd thrown more lightning scrolls, I'm cheap). Second try I manage the quickdraw, no old gets applied, and the fight is a joke.
Ronka Ruins themselves hate thrown scrolls. I set up to steal Hi-Potions from Ronkan Knights but otherwise not much to say. Archeoaevis I use scrolls against the first two, high-def forms, then switch to just physicals. I burn a couple Phoenix Downs on the last form as his confuse is, as noted above, now more dangerous, but still win first try.
Earth Crystal: Dragoon.
I go steal a Javelin! With Sleep Spellblade I can put a Sand Bear to sleep and auto a mix of defend and steal until the 1/32 rare steal chance (1/64 without the Thief Gloves) kicks in. Not too bad. Manticore's offence gives me quite a scare but I win first try, and steal his Dragon Fang.
Titan (1 reset) does in fact kill me as he OHKOs Ninja (and Thief who I don't use). Second try I use Dragoon to dodge the Earth Shakers. Purobulos hate Throw. I even screw up and attack one by mistake so they die at different times, but Silence Spellblade fixes that error.
I die to solo Abductor. Gilgamesh 1 is a joke. Gilgamesh 2, I use the Ancient Sword to land Old on. His Jump still hurts but stolen Hi-Potions do good work.
Gloceanea randoms give me some headaches at first as I misremember some elemental defences but then I settle in, Break Spellblade > Kuza Beasts and scrolls in general > Moogle River. Tyrannosaur dies to the second Phoenix Down. Abductor 2 is a joke.
I decide to try stealing Twin Lances. They're a rare steal guarded by a common in Bal basement, so I set up a macro of the thief stealing and everyone else tossing Gold Hairpins. This nets me a good amount of money and ABP, which is nice (hardly any Exp). What is not nice is the horrid 1/32 rare steal rate. This takes forever. I get one, but after 45 minutes and still only having one, I decide to call it quits. This is over 10% of my play time at this point. Don't have the patience for this shit. One Twin Lance is a nice push; I end up giving it to Ninja so that they can use spellblade with their second weapon.
In Drakenvale, the Zombie Dragon in the Save Golem encounter now appears to use Strong Fight which wrecks Golem bad, but oh well, not my problem this file. Dancing Dagger keeps backfiring on undead, but I never really pay for it. Dragon Pod hates thrown scrolls more than perhaps anything else in the game and that's saying something.
Against Gilgamesh 3 I toss scrolls to blitz Enkiduh and steal the Genji Gloves. Barrier Tower is uneventful scroll-bait. Atomos is vulnerable to sleep spellblade which is a more complete lockdown than it used to be. In Ghido's Cave, Metamorph is now in the back row so Air Knife spam can no longer blitz him before he transforms, but all this does is waste my time. Don't like this dungeon, why does it have no treasure. Moore Forest I run low on Fire Scrolls and Galajellies roll way to well on their 50% evade (they immune scrolls) but isn't much of a problem.
Seal Guardians are the first boss to really challenge me in a while; I set everyone up with Drain Spellblade and spam physicals at them, counting HP so I can reduce their time in limit phase by blitzing at the right moment. Each crystal gets off its spell only once. Firaga OHKOs the two squishier PCs but two Phoenix Downs take care of that.
Castle Exdeath I don't have two much trouble because scrolls are great. Hairiest parts are the lava lowering me to poor HP; encounters then are potentially deadly as I can get wrecked before I have time to select Flee (which I set for any such areas). No resets though. Gilgamesh 4 has a showing worthy of his DL hype as status wrecks me everywhere; I actually get kinda worried about losing in the middle but I'm able to recover. Due to my thief getting olded I only have time for 2 shots at the Genji Helmet, and the first one fails, but fortunately the second 80% roll goes my way.
I finish Exdeath Castle at Level 26 which feels really low considering I didn't run much. I kinda wonder if the encounter rate is different in this version? One level to low for Level 3 Flare, which is good because I end up seeing it...
Exdeath gives me a good scare. I set up for Drain Spellblade against (except on my thief who I just put in the back row, foolishly with a Moonring Blade instead of Main Gauche) and do a mix of attacks and tossing items. I definitely have some hairy moments with his general level of offence, in both forms - the worst is when Zombie Breath comes at a bad time when one PC is already dead and a second gets zombified but I'm able to recover well. I throw the Fuma, Excalipoor, and Kotetsu from this dungeon. I win first try but it's a hairy affair with no Phoenix Downs and two PCs left, fortunately Twin Lance Ninja offence pulls through in the end, no resets.
I'm actually done most of World 3 now thanks to plane trip but I'll post about that later.
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Oh yeah, final unit thoughts! I didn't take the number of kills each person had but Alm had some ridiculous number (like 120) and was like 20+ more on kills than everyone else. I wonder why? (SPOILERS: I don't. Warp/Rescue Sniping + Assassinations). Like NEB's post a year back, * means used in final fight.
*Alm - MVP of like most of the late game sans maybe the final fight, but even then, he's still near the top. Alm is like most FE lords, with the caveat that early on, he's still pretty good (instead of being non special early). He has to compete with his other buddies over the Lightning Sword, but his good bases and strong growths means he keeps up pretty well. His only down point is mid-game, which has been touched upon. Late game, Alm is ridiculous. Double Lion does horrible things to people (+6 MT and actual brave effect is ridic) and he just wrecks most physical enemies. Mine was 16/18 by the final and had something like 29 Speed/27 Defense, which made him ridiculous on the front line.
*Gray - Went Merc and is really saved by DF being an amazing class. 7 Move + magic halving and good speed + phys offense is great. His growths are pretty awful though so he has periods where he sucks (right before promoting usually). The Lightning Sword was like designed for him since Alm can carry his own weight with an Iron early. Due to Alm route not having an abundance of mercs, whoever goes that line is usually in a good spot because of all the magic enemies. Halving magic in this game is huge since Res is a luxury commodity.
*Tobin - Went Archer. Saved mainly by his really high base speed of 6. His growths are utter garbage, mostly resulting in +1 Skill or +1 HP for a large portion and unlike DF, Archer doesn't have as good bases. What it does have is huge range. This is hugely valuable at various parts in the game (see War story before for an example) I should also note that Alm's buddies have an added perk in that they all have passive support boosts with each other. This makes them all a bit better. With Tobin, Gray gives him +15 Crit. This saves his offense some and his speed can keep up for awhile until the growths really start showing. A good candidate for your speed fountains/pegasus cheese if you care.
*Kliff - Went Mage and is pretty damn good. He starts off bad because of 1 AS due to being weighted down and no boost in the class. But early, mage is a unique niche since it can hit the weaker stats and he has good enough HP to soak a hit if necessary. Around mid-game, he gets Excalibur and becomes a frightening force since his speed starts catching up. Late game, you have access to special rings and that can turn Kliff into a powerhouse. His main problem is really late promotion and being stuck in a 4 Move class. I gave him the Speed ring, which helped get him around faster. Mine also had 15 Defense for some reason so he can take face axes if necessary.
*Faye - Went Cleric and is really good early/mid/late. Psychic is just amazing and once Faye picks up Rescue, you now have access to some fun movement BS. She's also okay on defense/speed but I wouldn't have her do Nos tanking. Just that she can survive a hit and not get wrecked. Oh, and her support with Alm is really good. Like +20 Hit or something, so their support circle gives Faye notable accuracy on Nos - this is important if she gets attacked for some reason.
*Silque - Gains access to Warp, but other than I don't have too many good things to say about her. She's super fragile and her offense is really bad. Doesn't even get the support ring like Faye. But being a healer in this game is really good and W.Magic has a lot of utility. Just that she doesn't get to play around a lot with that until late since its just so unlikely for her to gain EXP outside of heals. At least Faye can be makeshift offense unit if absolutely necessary or you feel cheeky for XP.
Lukas - Knights are not good in this game. They have their moments, but they are fragile to magic and honestly, their Defense isn't THAT amazing. I guess it is good at the time of promoting, but eh. 7 Speed/19 Defense late game isn't anything great and has poor offense. Still, has a couple of spots where he is a decent choice.
*Clair - The only flyer on Alm route and keeps up with the Whitewings decently. She's basically Catria, trading in some offense for even more speed. Sorta losing trade at the end, but because she's the only flyer on her end, gets some rather unique niche situations. Pretty good throughout.
Clive - Him on the other hand...in the running for LVP. His stats are so middling and he's just so unimpressive on all fronts. I guess he moves fast so yay?
Forsyth - Lukas trading in a few points in Defense for a touch more speed and Res. As noted, this lets him do some things that Lukas can't. On the whole though, still not impressive and doesn't have Lukas' good moments early. Hard to say which one is worse.
*Python - Of the OG Deliverance crew, has the roughest start but probably the best ending outcome? He turns out best of the Bow Knights by virtue of having some speed and they grow similarly in other places. His downfall is his Skill is bad and this matters for the class. But massive range to the rescue. The early game though is just awful and definitely makes him worse of the three overall. Seriously, 3 base speed?
*Mathilda - Part of the reason why the knights don't matter. She doesn't start off with great durability, but she gains it over time. Mine at the end has like 18 Defense. And actual offense. And actual Res. And Move. Yeah. She just outclasses all of them. The best pally probably. Just really solid outside of mounted penalties.
Luthier - Is a mage, but I wasn't impressed. He's good for 2 levels, then gets outclassed by his sis and pretty much everything after. But at least after he promotes, he could just be a healer, which is miles more valuable than...whatever Clive does. And those 2 levels where he is good, he's really good. Starting with Excalibur will do that.
*Delthea - Super magic cannon. Has bases in the right areas and hits really hard. Is the Est of Alm route basically. She starts off frail, but late, doesn't matter too much. Is like the prime candidate for either your speed Ring (for the extra move) or Mage ring (for the extra range).
*Tatiana - MVP of the last map with Alm. Upheaval's MT is basically neutered by Fortify and she has so many of the good White utility specials (Invoke/Warp). A touch fragile, but this usually doesn't matter since she doesn't have to be anywhere near close to do her job. Having someone be Tatiana's pocket medic was actually someone's full-time position for me.
Zeke - He's basically Clive if Clive was good but with significantly less screentime and having to compete with Mycen later. They have similar builds and it's just a question of do you want the dude who can pay off a little more with growths or the dude who will remain static the entire way? It's actually kind of interesting because the final dungeon is so big, but this is also a good case where bases vs. growths comes out and bases win.
*Mycen - Giving him the Renning award is underselling IMO. Mycen is a little better because you can just use him for the final and he will do his job, possibly better than Zeke and more likely better than Clive. This is due to the fact that his bases are perfect for the final levels. He's already really slow, so he'll get doubled by the DFs and the Gold Knight, so does almost everyone else. However, his defense is really good (18), which means he reduces the eyeballs to just 1 damage, so who cares. Also, even with the Gradivus, he still has 6 AS, which is just enough to avoid doubles from summoned Witches. In short, you can use him as a wall and he does that perfectly. Also the Alm group of supports effects him too (Kliff/Tobin/Gray/Faye) so he'll be a little better than Zeke in practice, all things being equal.
*Celica - Amazing. Held back mainly by 4 move. Also a good candidate for mage ring. I got the Beloved Sofia but didn't get much use out of it. Great spell list. Is only outshone by a later promotion and lowish Def but still serviceable.
*Mae - Less amazing but still really good until the final level. But then she got the role of "Pocket Medic for Tatiana" and had a touch of offense when needed, so yeah, solid.
Boey - Went to the Edward school of tanking face axes. Significantly less speed really hurts. I agree with random that learning other spells so slowly really hurt him. Never even promoted in my game.
* Genny - Is really really good. Has early Psychic and Invoke and the only healer for a while since Celica doesn't promote until End of Act 3 and Mae takes a long while to get to promotion.
* Saber - He starts with only 4 Def and is in a weird spot since he's Defense focused, which means his offense doesn't pick up initially. Mid game to late game though, is a terror. DF's amazing class + Saber's naturally good defense made him a tanky, mobile and good on offense unit. Was my go-to for physicals in Celica route.
* Kamui - The balanced DF. So he had better offense than Saber, but worse defenses. Still really solid though, I feel like he's the worst of the three primary DFs you get on Celica route.
*Leon - Only Archer sans Atlas if you go that route gives him a unique niche. Very very useful and was MVP in a couple of spots. Held back by really awful growths (as most Bow Knights do) - possibly the worst of the 3?
Valbar - Failure. Don't get me wrong though - he has his moments since there are some spots where Valbar's high DEF is very handy. But the desert maps, complete lack of speed, bad accuracy and atrocious Res made him barely usable outside of niche cases. Like Boey, didn't even Promote. Was that underwhelming
Palla - Starts off well, but drops off in Act 4 when the growths start catching up. Had a use then for Triangle set ups to avoid counters, but yeah, ended up the worst of the 3.
*Catria - Consistent across the board. Starts off good and can keep up to pace pretty well. Was the only I used in the final fight due to the well balanced stats from being decently levelled.
Est - Pays off, but didn't fully catch up for me? She starts off bad, but then gets good. Late though, she couldn't stop Mogals from doubling and has 4 less points of Def than Catria. This made her much more fragile so I didn't end up taking her in the end.
Atlas - LVP of Celica route. Even if you promote him to something, he still doesn't perform well. I've heard Archer is probably his best choice. Inclined to almost agree if not for how his growths will shape him. I went Merc and he was unimpressive.
*Jesse - More offensively focused Merc with better Attack and speed then the other two at the cost of some defenses. This made him useful in certain cases since he didn't need to crit fish like Kamui and Saber.
Deen - Sonja's probably better. Deen is "Just another DF" if you recruit him, and the three that you get cover the areas that you need. Deen is basically another Jesse but starts with some better bases. Mage versatility + not having to deal with Teleporting Witch death just seems so much more.
Nomah - Is Renault. Can do some healing but is otherwise, meh. Wouldn't put him on offense. He's replacement Boey essentially.
Conrad - Is actually solid but very few maps for him to do anything. His defense is kind of weakish compared to the other pallies, but makes up for this with much higher Res. Overall, he's good for what he does, but he joins way too late and the stats aren't in the right place for the final.
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FE15 blew the rest of the series out of the water in terms of bad writing
Hey, I agree that it's shit, but blew the series out of the water? Pretty sure I consider the DS remakes to be worse still, although the flaws are different.
Obviously I disagree. I have a lot to say about FE15, so I'll come back to this. I probably need a replay of it anyway.
Not that I disagree with most of Tide's assessment of FE15's plot, I just think that none of his complaints matter compared to what FE15's writing did correctly.
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I don't really like to have to take the "this sucks" position in a debate but Echoes writing really does suck. Will be interested to have that conversation whenever you feel like crystallizing what it did well for you, because there's a lot of bad there and I don't think it should be brushed off.
Speaking of games with bad writing that I like anyway, I finished FF5. That didn't take long. Fiesta party is Thief/Mystic Knight/Ninja/Dragoon, as a reminder.
More Steam version updates:
-"HP damage" enemy counter triggers now counter no-damage and missed attacks. Enemies with both evade and counters are now pretty obnoxious.
-A cool bug I found, which might exist in earlier versions of the game too: if you use the Thief Knife in your first weapon slot and have Dual-Wield, then instead of stealing an item 50% of the time, the Thief Knife will call a random extra attack (which mugs) 50% of the time, using the second weapon, giving a 50% chance at 3 attaks instead of two. Thief Knife + Sasuke Katana is thus quite potent, especially with Spellblade. (Wouldn't work with Rapidfire, which disables randocasts.)
-Tree Exdeath is in the back row, which softens his physicals but buffs his durability. Neo Exdeath parts behave as normal.
Anyway, World 3. Antlion is a joke. Gargoyles are a joke, pyramid I run from. Melusine gives me some frustration due to some misplays involving using spellblade on people who don't have blades (giving her enough time to start her barrier shift nonsnse) but I eventually I assemble the sleep + appropriate weakness spellblade setup and beat her down. Get Lenna, buy Hermes Sandals, get the three legendary weapons my team can use (Assassin's Dagger, Sasuke Katana, Holy Lance) do the pyramid for real, raid the final dungeon for the Enhancer, grab the Mirage Vest and Magic Lamp, do the Island Shrine (Wendigo gets owned by sleep as usual), get three more legendary weapons to throw.
Fork Tower deserves mention; I use two PCs with Image to beat Minotaur, and two PCs with Silence Spellblade to beat Omniscient. I get a big scare as I realise I'd forgot to set Spellblade for the Omniscient fight so I have to quickly do it in the menu before the tower blows up. I have no idea what the time limit is on this (10 seconds? 20?) but whatever I get it done fast enough.
In the final dungeon, I'm still using thrown scrolls sometimes! Less often but they do good work in the forest section in particular. Landcrawlers are a problematic random for me, since they immune MK's status tricks, have OHKO damage to the front row (where I am) and huge HP, but aside from burning Phoenix Downs I'm able to plow through the one I fight well enough.
Calofisteri I'll mention even though I usually don't. She has very high def but I figure two people with Flare Spellblade will be good enough and don't look up anything else about her (so I forget her vulnerabilities to silence and poison, and misremember her as being weak to the Poison element). She olds one of my damage-dealers right away which actually makes the fight pretty long due to her Drain counters. The hilarious part of the fight though is that I use Bio Spellblade on her (due to thinking her weak to poison) and she ends up dying from HP Leak. :)
Past this point I mostly use Break Spellblade to defeat randoms, since they have high MEvade but little petrify resistance. Death Claws immune it but fall to damage. Ninjas (the enemy) are a pain for my party since they can now counter misses by using Image. Including attacks which are guaranteed to miss due to image. fff. I end up just running from them. Everything else dies.
Apanda puts up a bit of a fight despite Firaga Spellblade as he hits pretty hard against my low-level squishy front-row PCs, actually OHKOing on occasion. Protect/Drain slow things down, but I'm in no risk of losing. One interesting thing is that I see Toad counters in addition to Drain and Protect, which I thought were only against magic. Something unique to this version? Spellblade related? I dunno. Might have only happened on misses, I don't remember.
Azulmagia I correctly remember as being weak to Bio Spellblade and he dies horribly.
Catastrophe (1 reset) is my first since World 1. I'm Level 32-33 and Earth Shaker OHKOs the two light armoured PCs, I try to dig in with Drain Spellblade but misses overwhelm me eventually. Second try I unironically switch my light armour PCs to Protect Rings instead of the Sandals and they avoid the OHKO and things go better. To be honest I should have just thrown legendary weapons at him, he's the biggest threat to my team in the final dungeon at my levels.
Halicarnassus is a joke.
Twintania (1 reset) I foolishly decide to guess when he transforms. There's no good reason to do this. I'm not healed and I die to a counter. Second time I'm not an idiot and wait for the actual "charge for Giga Flare" message since Break Spellblade is 100% at that point.
Break Spellblade is generally great from here on. Against Necrophobe it kills all the barriers before they can move, then switch to elementals. I get both final Genji equips, though I don't end up using the shield.
Final setup involves two Dual-Wield Spellblade 6 users, a Thief who does nothing but set Break Spellblade and toss items, and a Dragoon with Throw. Tree Exdeath Dooms someone but poses no problems otherwise, I avoid Meteor. I also set Break during this phase. Against Neo Exdeath I Magic Lamp away the back part and Break the Almagest part, and from there it's just chipping the other two down. I see several Grand Crosses but the worst thing it does is Berserk and that's really not that bad when it hits one of my Spellblade users. I'm squishy so I get OHKOed by the front part a bunch but it hardly matters as I have plenty of Phoenix Downs and Elixirs, as well as stuff to throw. The end. Final level is 33, very low for a not-much-running playthrough.
Job notes, nothing really new but:
-Thief has a bunch of QOL stuff but is a pretty bad job otherwise. Twin Lance stealing is ugh. Still they do enable W1 Hi-Potions which is nice since W1 was the hardest for my team. And the early Javelin was... kinda useful?
-Mystic Knight is mostly a late-bloomer as Break Spellblade is amazing then and they finally get a damage option not contingent on weakness hits, but they're situationally good the rest of the way.
-Ninja... well Throw is overpowered pretty much up to the midpoint of the final dungeon honestly. Dual-Wield is nice too. They have some other cool tricks too. Wish they had more HP/mdur but you can't have everything, the best job overall.
-Dragoon is a bulky, non-slow carrier for Throw/Spellblade, you can do worse. It's embarrassing how much I had them use daggers over lances.
Steam version would be generally superior (although the new ATB makes quick reactions far more important, YMMV on whether that's a good thing) but I hate that it doesn't have a speedup option. FF5 has too much plot and despite the GBA script's best efforts to salvage parts of it, it is not good. And often cutscenes just go slower than they have to, and there are like 8 instances where the game just wants you to wait around before a cutscene advances (sometimes it's appropriate, like Galuf's death, but it's overplayed). So a version I can't frameskip at these points does hurt replayability some. It'll probably still be my vehicle for playing the game next year though.
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I don't really like to have to take the "this sucks" position in a debate but Echoes writing really does suck. Will be interested to have that conversation whenever you feel like crystallizing what it did well for you, because there's a lot of bad there and I don't think it should be brushed off.
I thought we had like an hour long conversation about it in chat already? I'll get around to writing my full thesis on why it's The Best FE Ever(TM) just because I like it so much. Eventually. I played FE2 and FE15 back-to-back but didn't have the time to do a full writeup when it was fresh (probably because I typed most of it into chat....>.>;; ) So I'll need a replay to do it justice.
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Re FE15:
Both Djinn & Tide are right. FE15 simultaneously has some terrible writing and some great writing, garnished with great-ideas-executed-poorly and a few poor-ideas-executed-well. I prefer to focus on the positive & the potential that is there, so I'm pretty positive toward FE15, but that doesn't stop some of its ideas from being really, really, REALLY stupid.
Anyway, Berkut is interesting; the fact that Tide hates him so much is "good", I like that he does evil acts that are more shocking and different from "blargh I will get ultimate power via allying with an evil dragon" or just plain "blargh I am evil". The "problem" is the narrative slant... like, you know how Darth Vader kills like a zillion people but does one good deed and then everyone's cool with him? Berkut is kinda like that, except without really the repentance angle, but gets a bit "let off the hook" anyway. I'm not even annoyed that Rinea's ghost isn't chewing him out - she loved him, after all - and Alm just regained then promptly lost like his entire family, so I get that he can't either - but SOMEBODY needs to chew him out, or smack talk him, if he isn't going to be particularly sorry. Mycen or Clive perhaps.
Cosmic Star Heroine
Plot continues to roll downhill. Now that my expectations have been properly lowered, I wasn't shocked when the cast is just like "uh sure let's go to the third planet now that we've heard weird rumors about, I bet something shady is going on there." Because who needs a good plot excuse or anything.
Octopath Traveller
Ophilia's Chapter 2 has a totally broken Aesop, to use TVTropes-ese. While I kind of like that Nefarious Monsters aren't trying to stop the pilgrimage and Ophilia just plain lights the flame at the very start, and the do-gooder quest is set up okay... spoilers?
This quest was about valuing friendship and recovering from loss, and was NOT about getting a shiny trinket back. Wouldn't it be MORE powerful to have them make up despite kid 1 losing the memento? Have him buy/construct a replacement or some such? As is, the lesson we learned is that endagering your life for a shiny thing is a-okay and will work out. Also, WTF? A dog with a shiny thing in its mouth like an hour after the incident did indeed run through the woods, drop it, then disappear right before a direwolf appeared? Yeah right.
Also, the game has gotten easy again after I bothered to explore around a bit and grab subjobs. I first attempted to take on Therion Ch. 2 with like a L12 and L16 party member, which needless to say didn't go well. Post exploring the next "layer" of towns and areas, all the plot chapters have been pretty easy. Doing 'em mostly in suggested level order, so Therion/Therion/Tressa/Ophilia/Cyrus so far.
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Shadows of Valentia is backwards-looking and misogynist and it exacerbates the pre-existing problems with Gaiden.
1. Every woman in Alm's path has to be rescued from captors (except Faye, who they added). What they also added was this weird scene where Mathilda, the supposedly super-cool knight who does basically nothing in the plot at all besides be the object of affection for multiple men, is posing in this titillated but also damselly way. Gross gross gross.
2. Faye herself is a joke character whose only personality trait is how much she loves Alm as a borderline stalker? It is a funny joke, I guess, but it is also a little weird.
3. Ultimately, the game is narratively framed around how the emotional/crazy girl main character is more or less superceded by the Very Cool and Awesome male lead. Alm is allowed to be cool throughout the game, whereas Celica is initially cool but ultimately is just allowed to be wrong and then also rescued. Great. Even the ending really downplays Celica's role in the story as this 'secondary' ruler who seems to accept being superceded by her husband, who is of course awesome and great.
4. Rinea is a character who literally exists to have a tragic death. What are her motives? Why does she like Berkut? Who knows, because the game doesn't bother giving her any personality at all and her death is just used to amp up a plot point. And of course, she stands by her man, even if he murdered her in cold blood. Great. This was ADDED to the game, as if it needed more retrograde misogyny.
I am aware that these are not problems that people really give a shit about, since of course narratives do indeed exist to objectively measure the coolness of men, but for me, this game has too much anti-women stuff to really give it a pass writing-wise. I'm not saying that the game is without positive points in its writing (Mae and Boey are both pretty fab, and I actually like Alm even if the plot surrounding him ultimately turns the direction that Tide outlines), but it is overshadowed by the cloud of decisions, both present and past, that perpetuate this shit.
(On a side note, I think it is so hilarious to see people who criticize Awakening and Fates for having women who show their breasts, as if they've never seen a set of breasts in their life, but don't care about things that actually piss on women.)
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Yeah, I feel like there are moments where the writing in Echoes shines (most of the early game stuff! Character dialogues pre-C3 in general) but the end parts of the game, where it should be the strongest is just a complete trainwreck. And not the Tide approved kind. Consider things they could've changed:
1) Instead of having Jedah be a baby eating villain, they could've made him actually been like a true religious zealot. Why can't he just be a true believer of Duma or maybe even cite parts of Valentia history that they needed gods? Why does he always interject his speeches with "Mwahaha, I'll take your soul now"? As mentioned, with Celica, they could've made her been truly desperate. Sell us on this idea if you're going to make her react in a completely nonsensical way. If there is a good reason for the audience to believe the character motivations, then it's a little bit easier to swallow when they do something completely crazy. Maybe if she had other prophetic visions that came true or if there is some revelation where she sees that sacrificing herself is really the only way. Like say, what if she asks Halcyon and they expand the lore a bit more and confirms a person of a Brand is needed? As is, Celica comes off as basically emotionally fragile. She's really doing this *just* to protect Alm because she doesn't have faith in his ability to succeed. It's just...sloppy.
2) All the bad writing stuff occurs in part 4/5. And part 4 and part 5 has all the major character revelations and twists revealed. In short, it is all crammed in, within a very tight and small amount of time. The best analogy that comes to mind is Chrono Cross. Sure, the plot isn't as convoluted, but CC gets reamed around here for writing too because so much of it's crazy plot is revealed last minute. There's some of it rubbing off here because there's not enough time to digest the crazy. Like Snowfire alluded to, Alm basically killed all his living relatives within a short period - the writing surrounding his reaction is fine, but extremely brief. It comes off as horribly rushed like they didn't want to write about it or didn't know how to write about it. If there was more build up, I think it will be a little more acceptable. I don't think there's a way you can really save Rudolf though. Lambda has super powers and impatience and even then, people consider him crazy.
3) I didn't even get to the misogyny that Ciato has already touched upon, but did they really need to have like every other female character being held hostage? You could accomplish similar "rescue PC" type levels WITHOUT needing to make the person actually held hostage. Why not have the map with Mathilda have her, and a small pocket of obviously outmatched forces fending off some enemies or trying to assault the fortress? You get the same dynamic of needing to get to her position before she gets killed. Why have Clair being held up within Outpost? Why can't she just fly back in from a scouting mission or something after the level is done? Yeah, maybe the story wasn't written in modern times, but that seems to be a weak excuse to justify it. If you're going to remake the entire thing, maybe revamping the dialogue is something that they should be looking at too.
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Octopath Traveller - Finished all of the Chapter 1’s and collected all of the jobs. I enjoyed all of the little mini-stories well enough. The game is very SaGa Frontier-esque in its storytelling style, except you do all of the paths instead of just one at a time. The storytelling feels a little more disjointed because of that, but on the other hand, the game is actually competently written. I’d say my initial feelings on the paths so far are Primrose > H’aanit > Alfyn > Cyrus > Ophilia > Therion > Tressa > Olberic ? We’ll see how that changes with time. I actually really like Tressa the character but I thought her chapter 1 was a little boring and silly. As for gameplay, I’m really loving having Ophilia forced because she is really really good, especially now that I class changed her to Scholar, which makes her magic damage really dumb. Otherwise I am rotating in between the other seven to make sure they are all caught up.
Everything about the game is pleasantly enjoyable, but nothing is amazing. Art, music, gameplay, writing, characters, all are ‘pretty good’ but not great.
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Final Fantasy 12: Finished. Good game, maybe 8/10?
Final levels were anywhere from 42-54. I leveled everyone evenly for the most part but towards the end I was just using Vaan (stealing) / Balthier (hitting things) / Penelo (healer). So me being dumb and not reading the jobs through carefully, I put both White Mage and Red Mage on Penelo. That means for 90% of the game all my healing was locked to one character. So she was pretty much required for boss fights. Other characters were:
Vaan: Mechanist/Time Mage. Stole things, shot things with gun or crossbow.
Balthier: Dagger class and Katana class. Hit things with daggers.
Basch: Monk/Uhlan. Hit some things, not as well as Balthier.
Ashe: Knight/Foebreaker. Was tanky, but needed some kind of agro skill to really tank.
Fran: Archer/Black Mage. Did magic damage, was great in about 25% of fights and weak in the others. Flare was good against endgame bosses though.
Story was decent, graphics were okay but you could tell it was a remake. Gameplay was just generic FF ATB with a guise of autobattling thrown in. Gambits were a good idea but really needed more qualifiers. For example, I don't want to keep stealing from an enemy once I've gotten their item. I eventually settled on enemy hp>90% = steal, enemy hp<90% = attack, but that wasn't perfect for all situations.
I loved that you could sequence break and wander all over the world and get in trouble. If the enemies were too tough you could just run through an area and steal treasure.
Hunts were kind of fun but unfortunately almost all of them (and many regular bosses as well) fall into the same routine. Okay this fight is tough but manageable, then the enemy gets below 80% hp and goes fricking nuts. Gets a massive speed and damage boost and kills your party before you can revive. This "trick" gets used so often it just becomes predictable. I did about 3/4 of the hunts, then decided to just finish the game.
Other dumb things were random treasure chests and traps. Oh so here's these traps and you can only see them with Libra. Oh but Libra lasts an indeterminate amount of time and you can't refresh it until it disappears. So it goes off and you don't notice and then you hit a trap. Also going around a trap doesn't work very well because Penelo's fat ass triggers them.
Also while I'm complaining, what is the deal with Bazaar items? You go through a dungeon, sell the monster drops, and get a reward that's like from two dungeons prior? I'm sure there's faq-bait ways to abuse the Bazaar but just going through the game normally it's pretty useless.
So yeah good game, I'll play it again with a faq so I can see how many game systems I totally didn't use correctly.
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Sub 5 time achieved in Wild ARMS 4, clocking in at 4:55:40. What a grind.
So immediate thoughts - this run was good. Like really good throughout. There were a couple of places where I had bad luck, but there was often some good luck that happened immediately after to make up for the difference. Overall, I pretty much didn't lose any time towards the end and most of the action bits were flawless except 1 jump in Forbidden Valley. This saved time of course but the major time saves all came from bosses:
- Around 90 seconds on Belial 2. In my previous PB, I got the 4D Pocket glitch and she removed Arnaud of all people. So this was a really awful fight in my PB
- Around 90 seconds again on Krakken. This isn't my best Krakken fight, but it was still great due to 2 Smart bombs hitting him immediately for 10k damage. Raquel was able to clean house pretty much so Jude/Yulie could poke it to death
- Around 50 seconds on Hauser. I got perfect Hauser 3 as opposed to a bad Hauser 3 fight.
Also, this run was virtually void of encounters for most of it. The parts where I did get into encounters, I pretty much expected that there would be one and I didn't get cheated by any phantom encounters. So this was good on that front too.
If we're just talking about time saves still, there's a few immediate ones, now that I've had some sleep:
- Earthbound Dead - Arnaud died in this fight so in a better one, he would be alive it.
- Jeremy 1 - both Jude and Yulie died really early. Raquel pretty much carried (like always for this fight). The time on this fight was decent due to Jeremy attacking Arnaud/Yulie, which meant lots of extra FP for Raquel to work with. But the two deaths here cost me natural FP Advantage and Joint Struggle, which means...
- Miscreation - Could be faster if I had Joint Struggle
- Jeremy 2 - Faster if I didn't have to Card Yulie (but this is minimal)
- Scythe - Still had 2 dodges. But he didn't do his bullshit where he dodges 4 hits in a row or the last Raquel hit that would've killed him.
- Grabboid - I ate like 5 counters or something this run. That's probably an extra +16 seconds just from the counters and then 4 more needed to Revive Jude for a total of 20 seconds
- Guardian Chimera - He was smart and decided to go for the MT 2HKO right off the bat, so I had just Yulie and Raquel for the initial few turns. This slowed things down since I needed to Res and lost Jude's offense for a bit. On the plus side, I don't think I was that behind on FP since he hit everyone with the summons.
- SUPER SOLIDER - lol Arnaud's Magic Blocker went off so I had to improvise the fight. I lost 20 seconds from this.
- Prototype Gear - No Crit from Raquel
- Farmel - Would've gained time if she went into Barrier immediately. But she instead did 2 Darkness, 1 Fortress beforehand.
- Reclaimer - His first move put EVERYONE but Yulie to sleep. Shit. But Arnaud woke up quickly and was able to Slow him. He got a second Slumber Fog that thankfully missed. Then attacked Raquel and ate a OHKO damage counter to the face. Overall 10 second loss from this BS. Could've been much worse!
- Erytheon - Double phys on Yulie (very rare) meant that I couldn't do the standard strategy and had to manually haul Raquel's ass to the the Water HEX. Probably another 10 second loss.
Won't be coming back to this for awhile, but yeah, pretty happy with this run! I may link it soon once its processed and uploaded.
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Wow, congrats!
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Celeste- played through the main path. Mine is a pie of sadness.
Well gee this in no way reflects feelings i’ve Had about life this month.
More when not phone probably.
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Octopath Traveller - Finished all of the Chapter 2’s except for H’aanit’s, who I’ve already watched twice somehow, with both Grefter and Snowfire.
Thoughts on the different paths: Some mild spoilers!
Primrose - Obviously the best. Several of the characters explore around a central theme - Primrose’s is the value and legitimacy of spending your life obsessed with revenge. She is a broken individual who has trouble focusing on anything outside of her goal, and you see this reflected in her two chapters, particular her interactions with Arianna in C2. I think these chapters have some troubling and visceral images and ask the player to engage with their themes by showing them a snippet of the dark side of life. I like that the game takes a different take on prostitution than the traditional RPG, which mostly treats it as a joke. Thumbs up in general.
Cyrus - In some ways, Cyrus’s chapters come off as the opposite of Primrose’s. Instead, Cyrus’s chapters take on a “The Misadventures of Cyrus” feel and the game often mocks him. I think the game likes and respects Cyrus, but it also spends a lot of its time poking fun at his eccentricity and skewering academia. I really liked the massive intellectual gatekeeping that is mocked in Chapter 1, and I thought Odette was quite a refreshing character in Chapter 2 for Cyrus to bounce off. I found myself pretty satisfied with both of his chapters. They are obviously going for a bit of an annoying Sherlock Holmes thing with this character, and I think it works pretty well.
Alfyn - The wholesome journey of the boy learning what it means to be a healer. If Primrose’s chapters are dark as fuck and Cyrus’s chapters are lighthearted as fuck, Alfyn’s lie somewhere in the middle. He is just legit a huge sweetheart and softie and ihe’s the kind of boy you’d bring home to your parents. His Chapter 1 is very necessary and palette cleansing between Primrose and Therion; I think if you started with those two back to back you’d think the game was dark as fuck, which it really isn’t. His Chapter 1 is fairly generic but I liked it; the Chapter 2 is about beating up Martin Shkreli which is pretty enjoyable. This game definitely seems to have some anti-capitalist threads running through it, which I’m sure helps Grefter enjoy it.
Therion - Therion is probably the closest to the game’s whipping boy. He is very talented at what he does - theft and in general crime - but the game doesn’t really respect him. He is stunted and bratty and it comes off in most of his interactions with other characters. i think his setup seemed quite lame since I had no idea how this guy’s going to be a party member in this group of do-gooders, but the setup at the end of Chapter 1 gives him a good reason to join the party and takes him down a peg to boot. I thought his Chapter 2 was also pleasantly enjoyable. Also, why does Therion's backstory best friend look so much like Dan from Xenogears?
Olberic - To steal words from Elfboy, he is the hero of a classic hero story where everyone is honorable and partakes in manly duels. The twist on the classic story, I guess, is that he is looking for a reason to life again, which I think is a pretty poignant theme for anyone who has had to pick thing up and start over (hello me circa 2014-2015). I don’t find that his chapters are that compelling, but I find Olberic himself likeable and you really want to root for him.
H’aanit - I enjoyed her Chapter 1 quite a bit; I liked the relationship building between her and her master, even if it has the very video game-y thing of portraying the characters as so much better than everyone else at their chosen profession that other people would just be in the way. Chapter 2 is a little less compelling and I’m not sure I am in love with the direction of the chapters.
Ophilia - Some similarities with H’aanit. I enjoyed her Chapter 1, but I thought her Chapter 2 was much less interesting. Someone in this thread (can’t remember who) pointed out that her story has some similarities with Primrose, but is kind of a light-side, wholesome version of it where she has a happy family instead of this massive revenge plot. Her C2 has some sweet moments and is obviously supposed to show you her love for kids, but it’s all a little corny.
Tressa - I love Tressa, but I don’t really like her chapters so far! She is great and energetic and enthused about life, but the weird anime tropes (the mysterious merchant in C1, her dorky anime rival in C2) made me roll my eyes. I still <3 her though.
I’m loving the introduction of the class system and I’ve been playing around with the different combinations and rotating between characters. I think Dancer / Cleric is an interesting combination, and getting more Merchant in my life for more money is really great.
The gameplay is… quite enjoyable, but the game does tend to be a little too easy on average so far. The bosses aren’t very damaging; I think they could have used to give them a little bit more bite, and most of the randoms are jokes. I have been playing through in a fairly normal way, I feel, without grinding for steals or anything like that. The system is quite fun and easily engaging, though. (It’s funny, because while I was searching for a Hard Mode online, that people were complaining about it being too hard. So I guess maybe I am wrong on this?)
Still really enjoying the art and music of the game and generally having a good time. I’m a little concerned with the repetition in the game, as well as the overall length, but I’m enjoying the ride so far.
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8-Way Journey:
Just finished all the Chapter 2s myself.
Cyrus's was the biggest surprise for me. "The quest to keep academia in the hands of the people" making a sudden turn into "Also there is a demonic cult!" kinda came out of nowhere. Primrose continues to be the best. Alfyn's storyline was kinda lame to me, but both of his chapters skate by on pure raw adorableness. The same cannot be said for Tressa or Ophilia, sadly. Not bad, but not great. H'aanit seems like she'd be good, but I don't really like either of her chapters. (I DO like all of her party chats so far, though! Highly recommended to bring her along to everyone's quests!)
Olberic's ended up being a lot of fun for me. It really did feel like a big dumb wrestlemania event in the middle of this honorable manly quest for finding oneself.
Therion is the only one I'm kinda undecided on. His seems to be the one that most relies on whatever the actual plot events are leading up to. So I'm not sure whether his story and character will work until I see the payoff for whatever this quest of his leads up to. I picked Therion as my main character (I just liked his name), so he's always around, reminding me that I don't know how to feel about him yet.
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Well, Cyrus's Chapter 1 ends with, "Well, I wonder what inconsiderate individual decided to take From the Far Reaches of Hell out of the library and not return it?" It could be Cyrus's quest to collect their library fine, but it seemed more likely that he was biting off more than he could chew with this plotline.
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SaGa 3 DS: So a friend of mine here was playing this and recently beat it. I watched them play a bit of it and it got me to finally pick up this remake of one of the more unique games in my favorite 'pet' series. It's not particularly long, either, so that works out for me.
SaGa 3 DS is largely the same as FFL3, only like... good. It was so strange, playing a SaGa game that wasn't inherently broken. Sparking and weird race/class distinctions and opaque damage formulas are still around, so it feels like an honest-to-god SaGa game... But it also has this weird thing called "polish". The characters all talk and banter with eachother, have distinct personalities and more than 20 lines total in the entire game. It's so strange not having to go to an obscure website to decipher the weird lore and backstory and hell, the basic plot in some cases.
I won't say that the polish -ruins- it, but it certainly makes for a different experience. It felt more like I was playing Bravely Default than SaGa Frontier. I mean that in a good way.
Anyway, one awesome thing that they did that certainly needs to be recycled (apart from the cool job/race system, which has been reused in multiple SaGa games) is the Time Travel integration with the actual battle system.
I've played roughly 10 games in the last 2 years which had Time Travel as a major component of the game, but not a single one of them actually involved any kind of time travel effects in the actual combat system. SaGa 3 DS ties a couple of Limit Break-type party-wide abilities that involve turn order effects to its monster-catching and sidequest system in a pretty unique way.
Throughout battle, the party builds up "Time Points" (for lack of a better term) akin to a Limit gauge system. They can store up to 5 points. These points can be spent at any time during battle to instantly enact a couple of different effects (similar to Trails' S-Craft system breaking the usual turn-based flow). More powerful effects take more points, and eventually the party can even even spending Time Points they don't have, resulting in negative time points (feeling the Bravely influence?). However, these Time Points are also spent during sidequests - different choices the party can make during (the huuuuge number of) sidequests require different amounts of Time Points, to travel further backwards or forwards in time to fix whatever problems. Some options even require you to have Negative Time Points! Furthermore, the Time Points can also be used for a couple of Field Action abilities, like stopping time so that monster icons can't catch you, or that you can reach treasures hidden behind torrential waterfalls and such. If you stop monsters using time points, it also makes them incredibly susceptible to being caught and added to your menagerie on your Time Ship (which you can summon in battle and gets more powerful with more monsters piloting it! SaGa is weird, okay?)
Just a super interesting implementation of something that seems like it should have been in at least one of the many other time travel games I've played before. Radiant Historia's the only other one that has anything like it, really...
Worth the quick detour from 8PT and Zestiria! Recommended for anyone who likes Time Travel and SaGa weirdness, but also thinks "polish" and "SaGa" could coexistence.
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Wow that doesn't sound remotely like the original game.
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Wow that doesn't sound remotely like the original game.
Kawazu: Most games I made can be considered as incomplete beta.
He is not kidding and everything he made desperately need remakes.
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Zelda: Wind Waker - Kingdom beneath the sea
Some time before entering the dungeon at the center of the sea. I had gone back to Forest Haven for some blue potion for my bottle. With only the bare minimum of 5 hearts, it's not going to add to my staying power much. However, in this dungeon, it starts to sink in how forgiving the game is. Items in pots respawn whenever the room resets. This is far different from older outings where it took leaving the dungeon for pots to refill. This dungeon sticks out for rising water puzzles (which involve quite a bit of waiting) and for having more than one upgrade. Gasp, there's new equipment and a new song.
I get killed a few times trying to clear it. Once at the midboss: ooh giant sword carrying enemy. Try out Iron Knuckle tactics from Oot but mess up too often. Was low on life after a few flubs and considered downing the potion after getting hit again but the next hit knocked me down to zero. Next time, I try using the parry attack from the very beginning which I had been ignoring and it goes much more favorably. Next death was at the boss. Is that you Bongo Bongo? I fell onto the electric floor and didn't work out how to get off before getting zapped to death.
There was one chest I didn't figure out how to obtain; it's the one with the symbol on the ground. I suspected that using something while standing there was the trick but didn't work out what and assumed I would need to come back with something else. Anyways, descent below the waves to ... somewhere apparently frozen in time. Figure out what I need to do to unlock the next door though it takes a while to actually do. Weapon upgrage, yay. Everything ablove woke up; I'll just leave without fighting anything, bzzzt. Aw, come on. Grudgingly beat down all the enemies and head on out. Before heading to the next plot progression location. I do a bit of exploring, getting the next bomb upgrade, filling out more of the sea chart, and finally finding another heart piece to make a new heart container. Finally.
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Celeste- Alrighty, let's actually talk about this.
The basic structure is nice. Stage gimmicks are generally a good plan, Madeline herself handles well, it's fairly generous, and as noted the game being open about some stuff being there to show off and there being no shame in death is a nice touch. Mind, in the specifics I really don't like Stage 3 very much, and both it and its segment of Summit were annoying but eh, always gonna find one.
But everything cool about this game is in the rest.
So on paper Celeste is about D E T E R M I N A T I O N, finding yourself, and depression. And in that sense the way it handles death and continues is pretty amazing. Not merely that, but the layout of each room is actually quite amazing at showing the player how to progress through it, because... you can do this! Just try again! It's hardly perfect at it, but it's done so well and so often it really stands out.
But y'know, mostly it's a platformer with plot and stuff. And a main villain with an actual relationship with the heroine. And it's weird. Badeline is framed as a manifestation of Madeline's depression... to start. Certainly she talks like that. But once the rest of the cast gets word of her it's quickly suggested that's not really the case. Sure, she's cynicism incarnate and is determined to get Madeline to give up the climb... but always phrased as concern. And ultimately the solution is to embrace her, literally because video games.
(PS it was kinda too long but jesus fuck the 'boss fight' with Badeline is fantastic)
So an aspect of yourself that believes the worst, tries to get you to play it safe, and the key to defeating it is to acknowledge and embrace it... as a depression narrative it doesn't quite click I don't think? I mean, one of the things I always found is that depression instead makes you prone to what I've recently seen termed Masochistic Epistemology- whatever hurts is true. and one of the things they teach you to get past it is just the opposite- depression lies. I mean you can make the argument if you want, but it doesn't seem like a clean analogy to me.
Now, an aspect of yourself that you run far from, that you're utterly convinced is just holding you back but actually is core to your being, something you'll never be able to grow and better yourself without embracing, and said embrace giving you goddamned superpowers? Well shit, that IS a narrative I've seen before isn't it.
Although that one would also be a cleaner fit if you swapped Madeline and Badeline's personalities, a bitter cynic joylessly plugging away at life and being taunted by an optimist with a deep drive to help others refusing to give up on them. Or that's me.
The other fun thing is how the game acknowledges and plays with Madeline's motivation. Going along with previous, it's obvious that everything she's tried in life she's kinda fizzled out on, and nothing seems to fit. So, for no actual reason, she tackles a deadly mountain climb. Because either she'll figure it out, and have something real to hold onto... or it'll be done. And aside from being a cute nod to the sorta games Madeline's gameplay draws from, seeing more games ask the question "so... what sort of person would actually do this thing" and letting the story flow from that is also something I can't not love.
I'm not entirely sure how to rate this exactly, maybe I'll figure it out come end of year. But yeah, it's nice.
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(PS it was kinda too long but jesus fuck the 'boss fight' with Badeline is fantastic)
Yes.
Regarding the depression narrative, depression is hardly monolithic, and Celeste presents one way of looking at it. If it's not the right way, it's because there aren't enough narratives tackling depression, small sample size, etc. It'll be the right way for someone.
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With that sort of ending, I interpret it as embracing one's dark side as a means of acknowledging that it's there. We don't always control our thoughts and feelings but we do have a choice in how to respond to them. I'm at the point where when dark thoughts pop up, my response is dismissive: "oh, it's you again." Most of the time anyways.
Another way of phrasing things: the enemy you know is better than the one you don't. Kind of grim but maybe more relatable way of looking at things for some.
Moving on, games stuff.
Metroid Prime
Well, the Gamecube was already plugged in because of Wind Waker and I got the urge to storm through this again to play with rapid fire missiles. I replayed the game because of a glitch, how about that? Not too many surprises since i'm already familiar with the game and this was a casual romp. Did learn that the game's hint system directs the player to the first few energy tanks if one delays picking them up. I was crazy and fought the incinerator drone with no tanks and Flaghra with one. Somehow have gotten better since I won both first try despite having not touched the game in years. Omega Pirate went south due to a Wave trooper that clung to the wall and I would have lost if I hadn't finished it off in two cycles (charged plasma is quite damaging). Got more of a handle of the Meta Ridley mechanics, only was down 5 energy tanks.
It's still a well crafted environment to move around in. Got about 95% items, did look up a FAQ to find the rest.
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Octopath Traveller - Finished all of the Chapter 3s! Overall, I am satisfied with the increase in complexity and difficulty with the bosses and am continuing to enjoy the gameplay and the job class finagling. Core gameplay continues to be solid, enjoyable, and has hooked me in more as I have played.
For classes… I feel like Dancer and Cleric are the best classes overall; multitarget healing is great and the Cleric final ability is really dumb (doublecast everything for three turns? yes please). Dancer just has the godly buffing game which amp your damage up so much, especially combined with said doublecast game. My feeling is that Warrior/Olberic is a little bit on the weak side on the other hand; only two types of damage and nothing spectacular to make the skillset interesting like H’aanit’s Leghold Trap. Shackle/Lower Armor is great, Leghold Trap is great, Alfyn’s general package is decent, but Olberic feels a little bit like the fighter caught in the middle.
On top of everything, Olberic’s unique in-dungeon ability is SUPER DEFEND, which is just a stupid niche. Summon is the best, as if Primrose and Ophilia needed the help, and obviously being able to steal in-dungeon means you don’t have to trek through dungeons again to get Therion’s special treasures (or you will just ignore them, like I do). I have been rotating between party members religiously, trying to always use the three lowest levelled people at the time for each of the quests.
I haven’t been doing any stealing in town that requires resetting or anything dumb like that, which keeps the general abusiveness under control. As time as gone on, money generation has become easier, lessening the need to fret about steals. I still do it, mind, but only if it’s easy.
On a job system note, I REALLY like the sprites that they made for each of the different jobs for each of the characters. Each of them has the flair of the original character mixed with the flavor of the job, which I love so much. I really want to go through and listen to the different battle quotes for the different characters using different abilities. Maybe if I had infinite time…
The plots continue to roll and generate interesting scenarios. Spoilers abound...
I did the paths in order of the level recommended, so I started with Alfyn’s. Alfyn’s path is a bit unusual in that it doesn’t have one coherent narrative but feels like a series of vignettes covering different parts of the complexity of be8ng a healer. This chapter focuses its aim on “What does it mean to be a healer? Are there some lives not worth saving?” Given our society’s resources and belief in the value of life, I think our own society has determined that all lives are worth saving, as evidenced by people in prison getting some degree of medical care. (Although the quality of life is obviously lower in prisons). In this setting, we have more medieval sensibilities and less capacity to incarcirate criminals, so the choice to treat or not treat a dangerous criminal is an open question. Ultimately, Alfyn decides that he might have made a mistake in saving a criminal’s life, but it is left an open question to whether he is correct or not. Chapter 4 awaits, I suppose. I guess that is what ties the chapters together rather than the plot itself: the exploration of a central theme about medicine. My biggest complaint about Alfyn’s chapters are more from a scientific perspective, where I wonder how the hell his medicines seem to work in minutes. If only that were true in real life…
Olberic’s Chapter 3 is also interesting in that it really leaves you with the question of who is right in this situation? On one hand, Erdhardt betrayed his country and killed his king, but he has a decent reason for it and seems to be an honorable enough fellow otherwise. So if this man is contributing to the overall good in the world, should he be killed for one action that was morally wrong? I think the game wants you to sympathize with him while also acknowledging that he might have made a mistake. This chapter really hammers home the theme that resonates in all of Olberic’s chapters about finding your place in the world after it was lost. It is an interesting theme, but sometimes I find some of Olberic’s stuff a little hamfisted.
Tressa’s path continues to disappoint with its cheesy Wild Arms-esque noble pirate characters (both Leon and Baltazar are rather dumb and hamfisted), and the whole plot of that story is how Leon learned to not love money so much. As was pointed out to me, the reason piracy is bad is not because of obsession with material goods (which is obviously not the greatest thing), but because it hurts people and makes their lives miserable. Leon is definitely one character I will 100% pass on. I think it’s interesting that they chose Tressa’s path to be their vehicle for a critique of capitalism, considering that Tressa is a merchant and the route paints this in a noble and overall positive light. It then proceeds to skewer the fuck out of venture capitalists and mocks your sleazy anime rival in Chapter 2, and then serves us up this condescending bullshit about not loving treasure and ‘What is your greatest treasure?” in Chapter 3. It is a shame that they squandered such a throughly enjoyable and adorable character on developing this stupid anime bishie and her dumb anime rival. Oh well. I still like her at least.
Therion is another path that holds some intrigue going into Chapter 4. He runs into his old friend, Darius, who turns out to be a huge fucking asshole. He is a lovely mixture of XG Dan (for whom he vaguely resembles) and Graham from LoD (aren’t you over me betraying you? it was so long ago!). He seems to be a bit of a scenery chewing villain who captivates your attention while on screen, but doesn’t have a well of character depth. He really jabs at Therion’s insecurity and self-hatred with his incisive comments about Therion. You get the impression that Darius was kind of like an older brother to Therion, whereas Darius just saw him as another person to take advantage of and dump. Fuck him.
Ophilia’s path is relatively quaint and dull until it decides to pull out the biggest plot twist of the game so far, which is that your sister Lianna has decided to work with a man called the Savior to revive her dad from the dead and drugged Ophilia in order to get what she wanted? Definitely puts a little twist in an otherwise pretty paint-by-numbers path, which it really needed. I legitimately did not see this coming, unlike some of the other plot twists in this chapter. Also, girl, haven’t you ever played Shadow Hearts? Reviving dead loved ones never ends well.
H’aanit’s quest is a little on the dull side, as always, with the honorable hunter looking for her lost master. Chapter 3’s a little bit better than 2 thanks to the bluntness that is Susanna, but this quest is definitely less engaging and has less clear conflict than the others.
Cyrus’s quest continues to be humorous but also creepy, with the return of our favorite foreshadowed villain, but a cute girl (who happened to report him for having an affair with one of his students) comes to save the day. The true Cyrus life. Cyrus continues to be hilariously clueless and generally an enjoyable character without much character depth.
Primrose’s path is the one I did last for recommended level reasons, but of course it was the one I was the most excited about because Primrose is generally amazing. Chapter 3 brings out back to her hometown, where you meet a gardener in her dad’s court and a former knight. Following the game’s general trajectory, one of them is evil and one of them is not, leaving you with this feeling that the game might just have a few too many plot twists in its Chapter 3s. But… I think the setup for Chapter 4 is interesting because the villain is very weird and unsettling in a way that none of the other villains are. I always have enjoyed myself a good villain who is creepily obsessed with one of the main characters, as it is a subject that deserves exploration, especially with a sexualized female protagonist. I am definitely excited about unravelling the mysteries of her path.
So as I sit here writing this post, I ask myself “Couldn’t each of these been a separate path, like SaGa Frontier, rather than getting bite-sized versions as you go along?”. I feel like the party building mechanics that they wanted were for a game that was pretty long, and I really like those, so I like the choice from a gameplay perspective, especially since they chose to have the eight as the only playable PCs in the game. I think narratively it might have worked better to make each path continuous, but that’s the style that they chose to go for, and I am willing to roll with it. It’s kind of fun for me to bounce around from person to person. Could they have just done, say, four people instead and developed them each a little more? Perhaps, but again, it’s not as if any of the two characters feel very similar, so I’m not sure I understand why I’d bother with such a thing. The game does its own thing and that’s cool.
One of the game’s accomplishments to me is that I actually like every single PC to some extent, which is impressive because I don’t consider myself to be someone who is innately generous in my assessment of characters, but the game manages to make them all endearing in different ways. Even Therion, who I had some initial doubts about, has managed to hook me in.
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Shadow Hearts 3 - Near the end. I'm digging this enough that I'm mucking around with optional content. I actually tried Ricardo's sidequest as soon as the final dungeon opened and woof, that was tough! I hadn't noticed before but the full-party sidequest bosses actually have better stats than Malice Killer/Gilbert, which suggests the game wants you to fight them then leave the final dungeon to do optional stuff. Which given what a challenge Lady can be to new players, maybe isn't too surprising.
Super Mario Odyssey - I dunno, it's kinda underwhelming? It feels like a big 3D treasure hunt for shinies (hope you like rotating the camera a lot), rather than emphasising any of Mario's usual penchant for stage design. I feel like it's trying to appeal to people who love open-world or Zelda-type games and I don't really care for that, although I'm sure it ensures high critic reviews.
The game is recognisably similar to other 3D Mario, for sure. I think it's fair to say that Galaxy is one possible evolution of Super Mario 64, and this is another. This just isn't the direction I would have chosen at all. Not a bad game but yeah, disappointing so far.
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Octopath - Just beat Chapter 4 with Ophilia, who was my starting Traveller. A very interesting conclusion to her story. As someone whose father passed away relatively recently, I found Lianna’s internal conflict to hit home pretty hard. I joked in my previous post that Lianna should play some Shadow Hearts to learn why you shouldn’t revive people from the dead, but I get why she does what she does. She is grieving, she is taken advantage of, and she does something irrational. If you are interested in falling into a dark place…
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2017/03/06/as-feared-houston-cancer-quack-stanislaw-burzynski-mostly-slithers-away-from-justice-again/
https://theotherburzynskipatientgroup.wordpress.com/
This is an example of a real-world human being who does almost the same shit that is outlined in this chapter. He exploits vulnerable people, extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars from families who are desperate to save the lives of their loves ones. In desperation, these people make decisions that are not ‘rational’ (in the sense that they don’t work) but are presented as their loved ones’ only chance for survival. I’d argue that reviving your loved ones from the dead is the magic version of bullshit cancer therapy. In the context of both these testimonials of exploitation and my own father’s recent passing, I really thought this chapter did a good job with this theme. The cultist guy in this chapter has very good voice acting, but otherwise is somewhat paint-by-numbers for a cultist.
Boss fight was… interesting. It seemed pretty easy until about 75% in, where he uses an ability that blocks all multitarget attack magic and multitarget healing, which was most of my skillset. I relied pretty heavily on the MT healing throughout the game so having it ripped away from you made the fight really tough. However, I used a pretty silly strategy to win. Dancer’s final ability is an ability that makes all singletarget magic multitarget. I ended up casting it on Ophilia, and then casting her Reflect Magic ability and boosting it twice. So every single person in my party could reflect 3 spells. The boss uses a multitarget spell on the party and every single shot hits him for 2000 damage, followed by another singletarget spell. So the boss did 10k damage to himself in one turn, and I just used one more spell to finish him off.) I genuinely had a good laugh from that.
Ophilia’s ending was… very sweet. And now I can take her out of my party! Although I’m not sure if I want to because she is like 10 levels higher than everyone else and I am afraid of my inevitable death. Haha.
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Trails in the Sky SC:
OK, I'm gonna cover the negatives first, mostly because there aren't very many, and I want to make sure I remember them before I go all glurgy and weird over this game. My two biggest beefs with the game are that the Society, in general, are stupid villains. Their whole concept is bonkers, under-explained, and generally not great. A lot of what goes on in this game feels almost like it's completely no-selling the story and drama of the first game, and there's way too much "Nuh-UH" crap going on with these idiots just popping in, getting their butts whooped, saying they didn't really get their butts whooped, and then running off.
You have too many characters and not enough options to use them. This is kind of a mild complaint, given that part of why you WANT to use them is the characters tend to be cool and good. Especially in the last chapter where you have so many options, and can't really make proper use of them all. And then Zin goes and says "Naw, it'd be dumb to split up". Screw you, Zin. Give me my multi-parties.
Third drawback is the last 3-4 chapters feel completely different, on like, a conceptual level than the rest of the two games.
As for the good: uh.... everything else? Goddamn these games get you emotionally invested in seeing it out, and they're just overwhelmingly positive and full of good vibes and my heart grew three sizes that day and so on. This game went a giant step forward in rebalancing the characters, to the point where no one feels really bad, nor does any one person like Zin/Joshua in the first game stick out as obviously better than everyone else.
Estelle:
Let's remove any qualifiers that were left over after game one. Estelle Bright is the best JRPG lead of all time. Fuck you. Fight me. From the little details making her a bit more realistic than most depictions of characters her age, to the memetic Estelle Stare (....which she is aware of...) to a level of self-honesty that just is lacking in most protagonists in any media. Estelle Bright is a fantastic fucking character. The society wants to recruit her? Yeah, I buy that. This is a character that believably balances a huge, personal goal with her ongoing responsibilities. She very rightly evaluates her skills as "not enough" until you get to the end of the game and then rightly evaluates herself as "definitely more than enough". She has an unshakable, exceptional world-view, and the iron goddamn will to imprint that belief onto others. If the game, for some reason, let me, I would never remove Estelle from my party.
In battle, I again assume she sets the average, and assume she's supposed to be average, but given that she's the forced character, I gave her all the best stuff, so I think I'm probably skewing battle-power a bit high. That said, True Hurricane is objectively the correct way to start 90% of all fights in this game.
Analace:
Sure is a temp. Or is she? .....yeah, she's a temp.
Joshua:
Well, Joshua's characterization takes a firm nose-dive here, because that pitfall they avoided with him in game 1 is... uh... roughly the entire plot of the first half of game 2. So for most of the game (thankfully he's not in your party), Joshua is just a big, mopey doofus that god damn, I'm glad Estelle slapped sense into a few times. Once he uh... stops this... he's largely back to Joshua of game 1, only... not quite as good, because there's no time for a more light-hearted Joshua. Sorry, buddy. You were the ritual sacrifice to make everything/one else in this game really good. No hard feelings.
In combat, Joshua is more or less exactly the same as he was in the first game, only with better-than-average stats across the board. You'd think that this would keep him as game best, but... uh... everything got re-balanced, which is another giant positive for this game.
Agate:
Agate, in general, continues to be the goddamn man. At a couple of points in this game, he was even wrong about things, and also almost died from it at one point, which ought to be a big character negative, but once again, Trails' excellent writing comes to the rescue, and he just comes off fairly believably, and also, you can see for pretty much all of the early game where Estelle (...and yes, Tita)'s influence just generally makes him a better, more well-adjusted person. He's a lot more laid-back in this game, and is perfectly fine with giving Estelle a little bit of the reigns, and honestly, that's the mark of a decent teacher. Also, also? Agate's end-portrait states he's training the other Ravens to be Bracers. Good for them.
In combat, Agate takes a big jump from "Like Zin, only worse", to his own man. He's just, like, really strong, guys, and his one ability where he gives himself a full CP bar in exchange for his health is straight busted. I didn't abuse this nearly as much as I could have, but holy hell, Agate can basically just S-break any time he wants, and that's insanely good. I also got quite a bit of use out of Draguna edge being a long distance attack. (Same with Estelle's ...True Comet...? I just forgot to mention)
Scherazade:
Story wise, Schera seems even less interesting than she did in game one, which seems like it ought to be impossible. I'm not going to hold that too much against her, because I chose Agate as my partner for the first half of the game, and a lot of the little beats I liked for Agate were in those parts he was optional, so it seems pretty reasonable to assume Schera's characterization during those parts might be about as good. She also got the least interesting of the Society goons to be paired with, and honestly, EH to their whole story. In Schera's favor, however, when she was split with Analace, and Campenella blows up the dolls, her keeping cool while Analace melts down is an excellent story moment for both. Little details like this make me more confident that she's probably just fine, if you actually take her instead of Agate.
In combat, now, holy shit Schera took an upgrade in this game. Rather than being slightly below average at everything, she's suddenly slightly above average at everything, and also really above average at arts, which combine to make her really damn good. As far as crafts go, her one craft basically makes the rest of the team act immediately, and that is stupidly good. Schera has gone from bottom tier to someone I gave more than a moment's consideration as possibly the best in the game (and eventually placed as third, which is still pretty great in a cast this size).
Olivier:
Continues to be endlessly amusing, and just competent enough to not be campy on top of it. I liked the reveal and every distinct party member's reaction to it (particularly Agate's during, and Zin's after). I was miffed when he vanished before the first four fights with the enforcers, and that... that hurt me, man.
In combat..... Olivier is really weird. Early on, he's just as great as he was in the first game, but after he comes back, he's sort of nose-dived, and simply re-leveling him doesn't make up for it. By the time Olivier comes back, enemy defense has been re-balanced to where some of what made him exceptional in the first game and the first half of this game is negated. Sure, he can hit everything all the time, but can he actually damage it? Not really. Between being excellent at arts and early-game crafts though, he's just top of the heap while you have him, and then, ....god help me, I think he might be the worst character in the game (yes, I am counting Josette and Tita) when he comes back. That also hurts. Why do you hurt me, Olivier?
Tita:
I'll stick by what I said in the first game, in that Tita would be fine if she were a non-combat NPC like Dorothy. Despite disliking Tita on principle, like, her individual story beats are pretty good. I enjoyed everything with her and Agate. I enjoy her childish crush on Agate (so long as this is never reciprocated. Agate's what? 24 right now? Even if Tita is in her 20s in a later game, that'd be seriously fuckin' weird). I liked her being willing to stand in front of Loewe for Agate. It takes some balls to protect someone with nothing more than your body and your life and your hope that the guy isn't cold-blooded enough to cut a twelve year old in half to cut down someone else who is no longer a threat. It's still ridiculous and stupid that she has an Orbal Cannon.
In combat, Tita is quite a bit better in game one, just because her upgraded Vital Cannon is quite a lot of healing that runs off of renewable energy. It's nice to see the tech girl so environmentally friendly. It's still perfectly viable to give her a Death Orbment and use her multitarget physical to potentially deathblow chaff enemies. Some of her equips give her good defense, but her HP is still hot garbage.
Zin:
Zin... man. I'm irrationally mad at Zin being the guy that told me I wouldn't be able to split my party. Beyond that.... He's pretty much the same guy. Solid. Friendly. Kind of a goody-goody. Drinking buddies with Olivier. There's less "eye for the ladies" in this game than the first one, which, depending on point of view is either a positive (since this type can grate), or a negative (for taking away characterization). His interactions with Walter, while OK, mostly made me wish Kilika was a playable character. Maybe I like Chakram, OK?
Weirdly, while Zin is a much better duelist in this game (True Distend is stupidly good), he's probably gone down in use considerably given how much better various members of the cast have gotten (and the introduction of at least one newbie. Hi, Kevin). True Composure is a great skill that I got a lot of mileage out of, since most status-curing things cure a trivial amount of HP. True Distend, as said, is stupidly good, making his attacks do... ...not quite the damage you'd think, but more-or-less completely nullifying enemy physical damage. I'm vaguely curious how much Loewe could hit him for after using it. Loewe was smacking Agate and Joshua around for like, 4.5k damage a pop. I also wonder how much better I'd think Zin was if I'd given him an Action orbment. Like, a lot of my problem with him arises from being so goddamn slow, but as near as I can tell, speed is almost entirely determined by orbments and shoes (and one-or-two rare armors).
Kloe:
Still doesn't have much of a personality, really. Maybe even less of one than in the first game, which, again, is kind of impressive for the wrong reasons. Her interactions with Dunan were OK. It's nice to see her try to light a fire under her butt, but... man. It feels like they could have made her... Iunno. DO things. But any section I took her on, she was just sort of there. 90% of what she has to contribute to any conversation is a mild "Oh my!" ....................about partway thru the game, I decided that every time she said this, she was obviously and inappropriately turned on. Sexual Deviant Princess Kloe is much more interesting than what we got.
In battle, Kloe still shines, her S-craft remains insanely good (actually, it's way better, since it's like 15,000 healing and also a revive and it doesn't say on the tin, but it heals status, too.) Bird is still really good, but got nerfed, since it no longer does damage, too. Her arts are high, albeit sort of limited thanks to all the forced water (which largely doesn't benefit from a high stat). Nonetheless, she's one of the best characters in the game strictly because of her really amazing S craft. (....thinking on it, though, her having all the forced water kind of makes this whole thing redundant. She's already a great healer without it. She's basically forced into a box for her role. Imagine how good she'd be if she had more flexibility in her attack magic)
Kevin Graham:
Despite plot hints that he's a big deal, and despite knowing he's the protagonist of game 3, I still didn't see his last scene coming. Was badass as hell. Everything else Kevin does is pretty good. I could definitely see fans of the first game coming into this one and thinking of Kevin kind of as a Scrappy Doo character, and I can see being annoyed by his drawl. I like Kevin, though. I like that he seems to actually like Estelle, like, as a person. He starts out hitting on her, decides she's a lost cause because of how obviously in love she is with Joshua, decides to help, and makes a mental note to whoop Joshua's ass if he continues to be dumb. Kevin is a good friend. Kevin's VA is bad.
Kevin is probably the best character in the game. It was easy to manipulate what I thought was really bad STR into "quite decent" without making his oddly high defense suffer too badly. His ATS is really good. His actual crafts are disgustingly good. Kevin basically gives you a choice with his crafts, of either completely shutting down an enemy's offense, if you aim for his S-craft, or, if there's a lot of multi-target enemies or whatever, he can just give his CP to everyone else, and it's a trade that nets CP, assuming you hit at least two party members. This is somehow more broken than it sounds. I didn't use Kevin very much, but he completely locked down every major fight he was in.
Julia Schwarz:
JOIN ME EARLIER GOD DAMN YOU. I like Julia. She's fine. She had a random fight scene with Cassius for no reason. Her Temp abilities are not anywhere the same as her actual abilities when she joins. She looks like an anime version of a girl I have a crush on.
In battle..... Julia's disappointing. Her STR is a lot lower than it seems like it ought to be. Her crafts don't seem to be particularly useful, and.... well, that's kind of it, really. For as much as the first game hyped her, she needed to be something really special, and just wasn't.
Vander Mueller (....Mueller Vander? I swear it says both at one point):
Has a few fun moments, because he pairs with Olivier. Has a surprisingly intense fight with Joshua, which probably makes Joshua look better more than it makes him. I like that Olivier teases him about his immediate and obvious crush on Julia Schwarz, because of course this happened.
For super characters that join late, Vander actually feels more like what you'd expect. Nonetheless, he's... merely OK. His STR is notably higher than Schwarz's, but his individual crafts seem not so shit-hot. His Impede ability does zero damage and costs 40 CP, holy shit. I took all my swordsmen to fight Loewe, and didn't realize that was a point of no return, so Mueller was in my final party! He was just good enough to not lag behind the obviously better characters in battle. He was sadly kind of bland in regards to his interactions with Weissman and Loewe.
Josette Capua:
Join me earlier god damn you. Josette is fine. I like and feel bad for her. Her crush on Joshua is super-doomed from the start, and she and her brothers can't really hang with the rest of the cast and seemingly know it. She seems to exist to be heartbroken at every turn during the brief period you have her. Maybe she'll get some love in Game 3.
In battle, Josette made me furious by not having an S-craft, and then said S-craft not being very good once it's actually unlocked. (It needed to do a lot more damage. Or.... ...literally anything other than straight damage) Josette would be really valuable if you got her earlier, because Stampede is actually a good skill, albeit not as good as Bird. Her Anchor ability is a 100% faint on things that can be fainted, and holy shit, she'd be busted if you got access to her before essentially everything was immune to faint. God damn it.
Characterization ranks:
Estelle > (literally every JRPG Protagonist, fucking fight me)
Estelle >> Agate > Olivier >= Kevin > Josette >> Mueller > Tita >> Zin > Schera >> Joshua >> Kloe >= Julia
Battle ranks:
Kevin > Kloe > Schera > Agate >>> Olivier (early) > Joshua > Estelle > Zin > Mueller > Josette > Tita > Julia > Olivier (late)
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Shadow Hearts 3 - I hadn't noticed before but the full-party sidequest bosses actually have better stats than Malice Killer/Gilbert, which suggests the game wants you to fight them then leave the final dungeon to do optional stuff. Which given what a challenge Lady can be to new players, maybe isn't too surprising.
Yep. It might not have been designed intentionally to let you kill Lady when you first get to the gate, but I love that aspect, similar to CT/FF5 as one of the best design choices. You can go and beat the Final if you really know what you're doing but it's really tough. Or you can do these sidequests that we recommend you to do and have more of a chance. A nice little bit of non-linearity to give you an idea of how badly outmatched you are (especially in a Speedrun where the party average for Lady is 35. Natural 4/3 on Johnny is p.great).
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Brown Dust - Korean tactical SRPG where battles are automated but decided entirely by how you place your units in a grid and their attack order. Heavily strategic in terms of team-building. Incredibly basic and generic plot, surprisingly fun characterization that would otherwise make for unremarkable storytelling. As I only have time for mobile games nowadays, this is a phone release. English language available but only open in Asia/Japan servers. Korean language is a separate client. One of the more "recent" mobile games (2017 in KR, 2018 in the rest of the world) where the player character is a Plot-Important NPC which I will give some props for. Decent music, lack of voice lines might turn people off (though the Korean client had voice lines in an update a couple of weeks ago), most importantly, game balance is playable and in a good state at the moment. Low rarity characters (henceforth referred to by their in-game term 'mercenaries' as the main character is a mercenary captain) are definitely usable, especially considering most of the story characters are of the lowest premium rarity (3*). Will be going through the plot important characters first.
Carlson (3*) - Knight-errant who tossed aside his dream of becoming a knight to join the side of his bro, the main character. Generic tank type, creates a barrier for himself which directly cuts incoming damage by a percentage after attacking. Upon awakening, he also gains a temporary immunity to DoT damage along with the barrier. Probably the worst of the plot-important PCs because his kit is so boring.
Rigenette (3*) - Ditzy, cute young girl who is skilled with a bow. Attacks the unit who is behind the front-most unit in her row. Inflicts Stun and a 2nd bonus hit of damage based off her own ATK. Upon awakening, adds mHP based poison damage which is tripled when afflicted on other Warriors. Incredibly useful budget Skip attacker; she can surprisingly hit hard with Assault runes due to her average ATK. Unfortunately she's limited by her below average HP and her lack of AoE.
Beatrice (3*) - Stubborn, out-spoken barbarian girl from the tribal nation. Wields a pole-axe and is designed to smash apart Defenders/tanks by dealing bonus damage to them with Iron Wall Strike. Dismantles tanks by herself but is otherwise unremarkable. However, she is the source of most of the fun banter in the story.
Maria (3*) - Snarky magician who also is the in-game Rune NPC. Makes a lot of funny comments and one-liners at the expense of others, MC included. One of the strongest magicians in the entire game despite being 3* due to her absurd AoE and her kit. As a magician, she requires 1 round of charge time before attacking. At +9 skill, her AoE extends from 1x3 to 1x4. Naturally dispels all buffs on the enemy and adds a bonus damage hit which scales based off her own ATK. Upon awakening, she adds a 20% stat debuff curse to enemies who are still alive after being nuked by a magic laser to the face. In an arena meta where people often front-load their attackers in a single line, Maria can destroy them easily.
Arines (3*) - Witty supporter who has an unknown god's blessing. One of the premier 3* supporters in the game and continues to be very popular up until today due to her 3x3 AoE and her incredibly potent buffs. Increases allies' ATK and Crit Rate, while also giving them a moderate barrier. Upon awakening she will also cleanse stat debuffs. It is absolutely worth to +9 her.
Eunice (3*) - Alchemist in the empire's marketplace, well-known for her concoctions. She has some connections with the black market. Provides decent healing and applies a regeneration effect to 3x3 AoE at +9, while buffing ATK.
Refithea (5*, requires 1500 Ancient Coins to buy) - Fairy princess and last surviving member of her family. One of the Six Devils who worked with the main character's father to rebel against his empire's ruler because he had made a pact with an evil god. She only agreed to work with him because the main character's dad had betrothed her to him. The main character is clearly uncomfortable with the idea of being made to marry a 200 year old loli and deliberately puts it off. Hard to use supporter but when used correctly can heavily buff your attackers.
Nartas (5*, requires 1500 Ancient Coins to buy) - A magician who is cursed with eternal youth due to an experiment with dark magic gone wrong. One of the Six Devils who worked with the main character's father. Is also probably over a hundred years old. Is wise and seems to know what he is doing. His magic attack will hit an entire row unless it is blocked by Cecilia, who absorbs AoE effects. Cleanses buffs on still-living targets and prevents them from temporarily receiving new ones. Afterwards, he gains high defense to protect himself temporarily. Upon awakening he gains permanent debuff immunity!
Celia (5*, can only be made through mercenary fusion) - Outcast who was said to be the descendant of a cursed witch, so she hid herself away. The main character's dad convinced her to join him to 'save the world' and became one of the Six Devils. Currently possesses the largest AoE spell in the game, a whopping 5x5 square, allowing her to cover a large area of the enemy side. Unfortunately marred by requiring players to bleed a lot in order to fuse her, she is not a viable option for F2P players. Otherwise, when used correctly, she can be a devastating force.
Astrid (5*, can only be made through mercenary fusion) - The guardian knight of the current ruler of the Karian Empire, Iserna, who rose to the throne after her brother Adel died and her father Altair II, the emperor who the main character's own dad rebelled against, also was killed. Clearly tsundere. One of the most potent tanks in the game, and is definitely worth making. Upon awakening she gets DoT immunity allowing her to tank more effectively, since Bleed deals triple damage to defenders. Her taunt is potent and at +3 she begins to counter enemy damage based off the attacker's ATK.
Elija (5*) - Crown princess of the Allan Alliance, the tribal nation where Beatrice comes from. Despite her righteous bearing and good personality, she actually isn't very good in the game. Her concentrated fire is too awkward and is only useful against one World Boss.
Vermont (5*) - President of the Mercenary Contest Committee which hosts friendly combats between mercenary companies. During the rule of Altair II, he and the main character's father were two of the most loyal and best knights in the entire Karian Empire. Originally sentenced to death for failing to stop the dad from succeeding in rebellion, he was instead exiled due to public pleas to reduce the sentence. His goal in establishing the committee is to use mercenaries as a deterrent towards new rebellions and other chaotic activities. Currently weaksauce and unusable in Asia/Japan, but gets an incredible buff in Korea that makes him pretty powerful when used correctly, since he requires to be hit for gain power. His grand-daughter is a 4* unit named Alche.
Foxy (5*) - President of the Guild Association. She used to run a mercenary company of her own before the day the MC's dad killed Altair II, but after the fact, she became more famous. She established the Guild Association under the same logic as worker's unions. Currently mediocre in Asia/Japan, but gets solid buffs in Korea that makes her quite scary to face in PvP.
Lorang (5*, only available through mercenary fusion) - A rival mercenary captain to the MC who looks suspiciously like Kirito from SAO. He has a raging crush on Maria since studying magic with her before and wants to marry her, even though it is clear the feelings aren't reciprocated. He believes he's a talented genius even though all of his accomplishments are from his hard work rather than raw talent. He came from a rich family and didn't have to work if he didn't want to, but chose to do so in order to make a name for himself. He's not that good in-game though. He has a good AoE but only hits the front-most unit, furthermore he needs charge time to inflict his ailments.
Yuria (4*) - The princess of her country, the Republic of Sbern, due to being the daughter of its head. She carries herself like a secretary and indeed works as one at its Command Center, she shares her father's beliefs of equality and the non-existence of social classes. She has a very unique kit, stunning and dispelling buffs from enemies hiding in the backline. As a Defender, she has reasonably good defensive stats, but is often used more as a stunner and a bruiser. Incredibly solid at higher skill levels. She gains DoT immunity after attack on awakening, increasing her resiliency as Bleed is one of her bigger weaknesses
Alche (4*) - Grand-daughter of Vermont who was born with superhuman strength. Vermont taught her basic skills in swordsmanship as a way for her to control her strength, but Alche fell in love with knightly tales of honor and chivalry and looked to become a young lady of the justice. Though timid and childish before her grandfather, she becomes ruthless towards anyone else. With her massive steel hammer, Alche will rip apart defenders with her insane Iron Wall Strike, also destroying their barriers and counter-attack effects. In a Defender oriented pvp meta, Alche is one of the PvP rulers.
Lucrezia (4*) - A succubus who wants to resurrect a demon king who shares the same name as the MC's dad, Fabian. No one knows if Demon King Fabian is at all related to the MC's dad, only that It Is A Bad Thing. Not at all memorable in game aside from being used as merc fusion fodder.
Non-plot important characters I've been using -
Cordelia (3*) - An aspirant knight who, through sheer force of will and lots of training, won a competition and obtained the Flame Lotus Sword. She seeks to temper herself through combat and become a powerful fighter. One of the premier 3* attackers due to her 1x3 attack AoE and ability to inflict bonus damage and Burn on the enemy. Upon awakening she will also place a weak barrier on herself to make up for her lack of defense.
Mercedes (3*) - No backstory. Mercedes is unique for being one of only low-rarity taunt tanks in the game. Her taunt allows her to attract damage to herself so she can counter with ferocious 85% enemy ATK counters. Unfortunately her taunt, which is only obtained through awakening and thus can't be boosted, has a shorter duration than one would like. When used well, Mercedes is a terrifying force especially when you lack taunters like Astrid and Glacia.
Julie (3*) - No backstory. Incredibly useful Supporter who cleanses attack interference effects on allies while healing them. Attack interference effects include debuffs such as Charm, Silence, Stun and the like, making her a very good niche pick in PvP.
Edan (3*) - No backstory. Useful supporter who cleanses DoT effects on allies while granting them immunity to DoTs. He also provides massive healing. His only weakness is that his target AoE is in an X, making targets vulnerable to ferocious attacks like Octavia, Alche, Verona, and others.
Deka (4*) - No backstory. Warrior who deals solid damage while stunning them. Upon awakening, he gains an ability that lets him deal even more damage when low on health. Even better, he skips the front-most enemy and attacks in a + AoE.
Rafina (5*) - A mechanic girl who had fantasies of integrating ancient tech with herself, so she made a mecha suit. She attacks in the same AoE as Deka, but has the benefit of having tanky stats while also dealing insane damage with her Power Armor ability. Also, she breaks barriers. She is, quite frankly, one of the most broken units right now. She is set to receive nerfs in Korea.
Hell (4*) - A sultry looking magician who works in the underworld. Has PERM Masochism upon awakening, allowing her to heal 18% of her max HP every time she gets hit. After casting a spell, she uses herself as bait to force enemies to attack her so she can counter with her ridiculous base ATK and at the same time receive minimal damage due to her high barrier. Build her as a tank and you can't go wrong.
Zenon (4*) - A vampire count who wanted to court a succubus (Elize) who is deeply in love with the main character. Like Hell, he has PERM Masochism except it heals 24% of his max HP. He is a warrior too, who will bloodsuck enemies as life steal. At +3, he gains Weakening Counter which debuffs enemies who hit him by a bit. Currently a popular pick in arena due to the players lack of ways to DPS him, but will fall off as the Asia server life goes on. Still a very solid PvE merc.
Elize (5*) - A succubus who is deeply in love with the main character after reading too many romance novels about succubi finding true love. She has never seduced a man before. Her spell will charm enemies in a 3x3 radius, making her rather annoying to face, but is otherwise unremarkable.
Ventana (5*) - A former knight who quit her post due to wanting to avoid politics and intrigue. By chance, she acquired a holy sword and has been using it for herself. She is wanted by the group who actually owns the sword. Destroys focused enemies and enemies who uses taunts. Upon awakening, she increases her defense by an absurd amount before attacking, allowing her to heavily mitigate counter attack damage. One of the strongest physical attackers currently in the game.
Dalvi (5*) - A nine-tailed fox who doesn't like people seeing her true form. Her transformation is a gimmick in the battle - when she is in fox form, she becomes immune to debuffs, and when she attacks, she does a bonus attack which is totally ITD, making her ideal for killing tanks. When she is in human form, she heals a portion of her HP every turn tick. Though tricky to use, she can be strategically utilized to immediately take out annoying tanks.
Glacia (5*) - A noble of Sbern, she was bored and found a demigod's relic by serendipity, a magic ice shield, which called out to her. She now uses it to protect her territory and loved ones. A very powerful CC tank, she freezes anyone who hits her. Her Ice Barrier had been buffed as of late and added a plethora of defensive bonuses to her. Upon awakening she gains immunity to attack interference effects meaning she can't be frozen herself. At +3 she gains taunt, forcing enemies to freeze themselves. Her above average ATK and 25% crit rate make her physical damage deceptively scary.
Viola (4*) - A purveyor of justice who became a vigilante, but due to her cruel methods and circumstances of her birth, she was also ostracized and seen as a monster. She retreated to the underworld due to this treatment where she continues to be a fighter for good despite her edgy and black-cloaked appearance. At +9, Viola will hit the entire back column no matter where she stands. She applies Decomposition on her attack, which is a fierce mHP-based poison that can also crit. At the same time, she can also silence and curse enemies while preventing them from enjoying buffs. One of the best debuffers in the game.
Eunrang (4*) - A ninja-like assassin who got her name due to the dagger she uses. Ferociously attacks enemies in the back with crits, silencing them after awakening. At +3, her AGI stat will factor into her final crit rate, making her one of the strongest back attackers in the game.
Wiggle (3*) - A skeleton who doesn't know anything about itself or its past, only that it gotta blow up! A suicide bomber who deals massive damage at the cost of its own life. Has game-best ATK out of everyone in the entire game.
Octavia (4*) - A banshee who just wishes to be loved and cherished due to heavy neglect. She rides a heart-filled bomb that blows up and charms enemies who happen to still be alive after the blast.
Chalkle (4*) - A skeleton who doesn't know anything about its past, and often laments this fact. However, it hates the lull before the storm of it raining fire and brimstone towards its targets. Is a magician and counters enemies who attack it before it attacks by blowing up in the attacker's face. If it manages to explode on the next turn, it inflicts a powerful burning DoT on them. Additionally, at +3, it gains a lasting crit rate boosting effect which allows it to build up high crit rate before blowing up.
...too many mercs to write about. will stop it here for now and see if people are interested in more ramblings
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Boss fight was… interesting. It seemed pretty easy until about 75% in, where he uses an ability that blocks all multitarget attack magic and multitarget healing, which was most of my skillset. I relied pretty heavily on the MT healing throughout the game so having it ripped away from you made the fight really tough. However, I used a pretty silly strategy to win. Dancer’s final ability is an ability that makes all singletarget magic multitarget. I ended up casting it on Ophilia, and then casting her Reflect Magic ability and boosting it twice. So every single person in my party could reflect 3 spells. The boss uses a multitarget spell on the party and every single shot hits him for 2000 damage, followed by another singletarget spell. So the boss did 10k damage to himself in one turn, and I just used one more spell to finish him off.) I genuinely had a good laugh from that.
Congratulation! You have discovered the way to exploit a good number of bosses in this game. Including the Archmagus and the Star Seer, if you want the optional job early.
Trails in the Sky SC:
OK, I'm gonna cover the negatives first, mostly because there aren't very many, and I want to make sure I remember them before I go all glurgy and weird over this game. My two biggest beefs with the game are that the Society, in general, are stupid villains. Their whole concept is bonkers, under-explained, and generally not great. A lot of what goes on in this game feels almost like it's completely no-selling the story and drama of the first game, and there's way too much "Nuh-UH" crap going on with these idiots just popping in, getting their butts whooped, saying they didn't really get their butts whooped, and then running off.
Congratulation! You have found out what is going to go wrong with Trails series plot eventually!
Because out side the Oroburous, you get another bad guy that's just like it! So it is twice the pain! With the good parts slowly fade away as the writing gets increasingly light novel like!
Oh and you won't get any explanation on what they are doing for the next 5 games, but force to clean up their mess in every game without knowing why everything is happening! (With the goods guys twho knows about their plans too busy being "I am so mysterious and will not tell you anything" and just sit and let the bad guys do whatever they want.)
Grand Master, can you finally bless me with the truth of Project Phantasmal Flame next month in Cold Steel 4? Or will Falcom explains nothing to us again!?
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Octopath - Chapter 4s complete. Hooray, hooray!
I already said my peace about Ophilia’s so I will just tackle the rest in the order I did them.
Olberic - I feel like several of the Chapter 4 opponents are thematic opponents of their respective characters, starting with Olberic. His villain is Werner, a mercenary who has become the despot of an isolated village. Whoever made this game is definitely riffing on Stalin, even more strongly than Cid from Type-0 who just likes his Soviet cities. Werner has a pyre in which he burns four people per month on. He starts with the villains and evil-doers, but as time goes on, his wrath is turned to petty criminals, followed by people who think/circulate bad thoughts about the Dear Leader. Olberic, of course, stands in opposition to him as a lover of freedom and a man who has dedicated his life to justice and honor, and he joins viva la revolution and helps overthrow this asshole. Werner has a lot of stage presence and brings up points that make sense in the head of a sociopath. He has one line about how he “puts different value on nations and men” than Olberic. Boss fight is pretty good but I win on the first try. He has a move called OPPRESSION which is amusing. Erhardt shows up in this chapter again to be a good guy, which is interesting. I think him being a genuinely nice guy who is actually pretty refreshing.
Alfyn - As a huge contrast to the last two paths, Alfyn’s quest is decidedly unepic. Alfyn encounters Ogen, who is kind of his own thematic opponent, but isn’t really an opponent in the same way. They just have philosophical differences on the nature of being a medic and if you should decide who lives or dies or not. Ultimately you save his life, he decides to stop being emo (at least somewhat), and all is good. Alfyn’s quest is very sweet and wholesome and doesn’t involve any Satan worshippers. The worst person is Martin Shkreli in the game’s typical skewering of capitalism. Final boss is a bird and it’s pretty challenging but not too bad.
Therion - Therion’s quest is mostly a continuation of the previous two chapters. Therion learns to love people again, and his opponent is his former friend who is a misanthrope who wants to be on the very top, stabbing everyone in the back. Therion reluctantly learns to trust people again as he goes along his journey and it’s kind of cute. Not too much to say about this path, Darius is beaten and Therion leaves him alive, but he is ganged up on his followers who he didn’t treat very well and ultimately stab him in the back, serving classic thematic justice. Cordelia and Heathcote see him off, and he starts to actually trust them. D’aw.
Cyrus - Cyrus’s path is pretty plot light but has the closest tie to what is presumably the endgame plot. Cyrus’s thematic rival is this woman who wants to have all of the knowledge in the world, but has no interest in sharing it because other people are too simple/stupid to make use of it. Cyrus, being a teacher, thinks that students and people of the world such all be lifelong learners and all that other stuff they teach us in teacher school ;). They have a long conversations because it’s between two nerds, and then they face off! After the battle is over, his goes through her library of stolen books and ends up finding stuff hinting at the true final dungeon. I definitely get the sense that the person who wrote Cyrus’s path spent too much time in the academy.
Primrose - Primrose’s path certainly knows how to pick dark as fuck and horrible human being villains, that’s for sure. Simeon is the most fucked up ejaculating to people’s pain creepy motherfucker on earth, wow. He puts on a play about Primrose’s tragic life as she visits him to murder him, and the play goes on during the pre-boss fight sequence. He tells her that he is only truly happy when he sees the dark hate seething in her eyes, while in the play the character who plays Primrose hugs the character who plays Simeon and they fall in love. It actually reminds me of some sick fantasy of some MRA/incel that you might read on We Hunted the Mammoth (I read a story which is a less extreme version of that on that site, about a guy who got a boner because a girl was scared of him at the park). We get some interesting parallels with Erdhardt in this chapter, with Primrose not feeling particularly fulfilled with all of the slaughtering she did to finish off these assholes. Unlike the other paths, this one is not as directly thematic, but I felt like Simeon encapsulates a type of man that exists in this world and of course Primrose’s path is about crushing different types of horrible, exploitative men.
Tressa - Sadly her path continues to be the one that is saddled with the strangest storylines. This time we go to the Merchant’s Fair and reunite with Ali, who is trying to sell people stuff of questionable value for a lot of money. The game ultimately tries to make him sympathetic by saying he ‘sells people things that make them happy’, but I think we all know that many salespeople sell you things that you think will make you happy but won’t, so I find this angle a little strange. Anyway, you meet a sheltered noble girl named Noa who can’t adventure but thinks Tressa is cool. That’s cute, but then you have the totally bizarre sequence where someone steals your diary, Ali distracts one of the people by talking about watches to them (????) and the other one is tracked down and she tries to kill you for some unexplained, bizarre reason. Her ending has this very corny bit with Noa where Tressa tells her about all of the fun she had on her adventure and gives Noa the diary. I think Ali’s in it too but I already forgot.
H’aanit - Straightforward and to the point. H’aanit herself is a badass who can sometimes be a source of amusement. I like her relationship with Z’aanta once he comes. They have this very sweet and complex master/student relationship, rather than just a one-sided one like many of them in games. I like that he has flaws and they are kind of played for laughs. It makes that character much more refreshing. Also, Primrose is clearly crushing on her hard, if the ‘Travel Banter’ is any indication. Also, Redeye definitely earns his rep as scary plot monster. He whooped my ass a couple of times before I came in with a better strategy. And that’s having fought him after all of the other bosses.
I also unlocked the final dungeon. That has to be the weirdest, most wtf-worthy way to access a final dungeon since.. okay, most Castlevania final unlocks. it is a couple of seemingly unrelated side quests that you need to do in order to access the endgame content? I guess most people who are completionist will have done them, but good grief is that one of the silliest things I’ve ever seen. Anyway, now I plan to pick up the last four jobs and play around with those a bit before adventuring into the great unknown.
I think the game has definitely picked up since Chapter 2, which is a relative weak point. I feel like a lot of the Chapter 2s are dedicated to showing the characters at work before they add in some more complex scenarios in 3/4. The bosses are also more diverse and interesting as you move through the game. Probably my biggest complaint about the game (besides its final dungeon unlock lolol) is that there aren’t that many outstanding characters for it to hang its hat on. I really like Primrose, of course, but I feel like most of the rest of the cast tops out at pretty decent. I probably like Cyrus the best of the remaining PCs because he is such a loveable dork. Its gameplay definitely takes a bit to get rolling, but I feel like I’ve hit a relative groove now. The travel banter is sometimes interesting but not often wonderful, but some of them have stuck with me pretty well.
Some class analysis/notes if anyone is interested (not including the endgame ones):
Cleric - Holy shit their Divine Skill is amazing. It is the ability to use any ability that you use twice instead of once. Double damage/buffs are both really niiice. Otherwise, Heal More/Luminescence are both very solid moves that make that class an excellent choice for any party. Reflect can be abusive combined with Dancer’s divine skill, as I witnessed against Ophilia’s final. Heal HP above max… I should try that skill out at some point. Cleric is the only one with Holy magic.
Warrior - Fairly underwhelming. Level Slash is cool for hitting Sword weakness but only hits each enemy once, which is only okay. Thousand Spears with its min 3 hits can be nice for Lance weakness vs. bosses, but I wouldn’t use it vs. randoms. Abide is useful especially in duels. His divine skill is interesting. It hits really hard and put his ‘breaking the damage cap’ ability to good use. Only hitting two weaknesses is a bit of a bummer.
Hunter - Arrowstorm is MT 3+ hit bow damage is excellent for clearing bow-weak randoms and is invaluable against many bosses. Leghold Trap moves the enemies next two turns to the end and is therefore amazing (although doesn’t work on post-break, which would just be too abusive). The rest of Hunter’s skillset I could take or leave, but those two abilities make it really good. The divine skill seems a little underwhelming, although it is okay. I just got used to Thief’s which is way better. The extra lightning weakness hitting can be periodically useful in the earlygame. Second Serving (use attack action again 50% of the time) and Patience (25% chance of getting an extra turn at the end of the round) are both sweet.
Merchant - Mostly has Collect to make you rich, the divine skill to make you richer, and donate BP to make your friends kill things better. Merchant is also the only class that hits wind weakness, which can be useful. Hits three weaknesses. Abilities mostly exist to accumulate more funds. (Funds are definitely an issue for a while soooo)
Scholar - Damage output with the various buffing games is pretty great. They are all MT damage all of the time. Hits four weaknesses, which is a good place to be. Divine skill is quite underwhelming compared to just blasting things with Scholar, to be honest.
Apothecary - Axe-focused class that has both strong ST and MT axe damage, but only hits ice weakness otherwise. The class’s healing/revival/status healing and protection skills are nice but ST, although using the status protection move boosted while MT because of Dancer’s final is very very dumb and makes status whoring bosses a joke. Apoc’s divine skill makes items MT for three turns, which is… pretty good but not fabulous?
Thief - Lots of good stuff in this toolkit. Stealing is decent in this game (you can see the odds, woo hoo!), the Thief physical abilities are actually good and hit twice, the physical damage and defenses debuffs are awesome, and the divine skill move is pretty much MT 9999 damage if you have some Speed twinking (at least against broken enemies). Thief is really good! It’s cool!
Dancer - Buffing class. Magic Attack up, physical attack up, defense up are all useful and good. Dancer is also the only class with dark magic. Dancer’s divine skill makes buffs and other moves that are ST MT. Make it MT, give it to Bowser, etc. Like the status protection, reflect, and of course MAtt/Physical attack/defense buffs. Great class, don’t leave home without one.
In-dungeon/combat actions are interesting. I think they add some particularly cool stuff to Primrose/Ophilia’s arsenals with the Summon command, but Concoct also good. I’m not sure how I feel about the treasure that you can only get with Therion in your party, and the others are situational/not great. Tressa’s can be useful early when you are poor as fuck, which to be fair you spend a while being. I haven’t been abusing Steal or anything like that because I don’t think resetting and stuff is very fun.
55 hours in and still having fun. :D
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Octopath Traveller- Now that I have finished the chapters and the credits have rolled, time to tackle the ‘aftergame’. I fought the four bosses to get the aftergame jobs, starting with Runelord. Runelord’s pretty tough, I had one reset before coming back and adjusting my strategy and all that. Multi-target(MT) Rehabilitate FTW. Archmage wasn’t too bad, especially with reflect cheese. Warmaster was a hilarious fight, I used the cheesy cheesy physical blocking with Tressa and was all like ::smugface:: and then the boss used MT six hit, 2HKO damage (which you could break her out of, but she had 12 shield). I laughed my ass off as I gawked in horror at my two people with 4 block died, but thankfully had 2 people with 8 shots of blocking, so I didn’t die horribly. Starseer wasn’t too bad.
Okay, so what do we have to do now to utilize these nifty new jobs? Apparently there are four sidequests required to open up some secret final conflict with the true villain, so I do those and open up the sidequest called “A Journey’s End”, which is a quest that explains how the eight stories fit together and you end up fighting the great evil.
I think the point seems to be that the eight Chapter 4s are supposed to be a satisfying conclusion to each story (or an attempt at one, as Tressa’s path shows. That Kotaku review that Snowfire mentioned in his first post is bonkers, man.), but if you really want to fight a big bad boss, this sequence is here. I don’t think anyone should feel like this is required to have really beaten the game. (It even gives you rewards like a regular ol’ sidequest; a 0 encounters accessory and 100k gold.) So there’s a boss rush of bosses from each path (not necessarily the final boss, but some important boss in the person’s quest). It’s a nice way to get to know your new skillsets and is not too challenging, closer to a victory lap than a true challenge. Each of these bosses opens up the a diary entry from someone that shows the role each character’s quest played into the metaplot of the game. Plots below.
Lyblac is a woman who has been, for hundreds of years, orchestrating the revival of the dark god Galdera. She is basically doing harm behind the scenes throughout the whole game and way beyond.
-She convinces Mattias that he should become the Savior, representing Galdera, after he has a crisis of faith. This happened at least 100 years ago according to his diary entries.
-Graham Crossford, who is mentioned in both Tressa and Alfin’s path, is part of the family with the dark god’s blood inside of him. Graham, with some shades of Yuri Hyuga/Lianna, decides to listen to Lyblac and try to revive his wife from the dead. He is turned into Redeye and roams the land, causing destruction in his wake. There are three of the entries about this.
-We learn that Werner and Simeon are allies who plotted the downfall of Hornburg together, at Lyblac’s behest. Werner expresses deep regret for allowing himself to be caught in her schemes and allowing her to perform the great evil that she has done. It sounds like Simeon is also older than he lets on, maybe around the same age as Mattias. It is implied that Werner and the Obsidians were the ones who destroyed Erhardt’s city.
-Primrose’s dad was investigating into what Lyblac was doing and knew too much about the Gate of Finis, which is why he was assassinated by the Obsidians.
-Cordelia’s parents were assassinated by some group involved with Lyblac as well, because they were the protectors of the Dragonstones had something to do with containing the power of Galdera.
Anyway, after finding out all of that plot (which was quite enjoyable), I take on Galdera! I am around level 54-55 with all of my characters. And you have to use all of the characters to win because there is two phases of the fight that fight half of your team! OH MY GOD WHAT JUST HAPPENED? I just get totally plastered by Galdera, even with all of the cheesy bullshit and shenanigans from the new classes. He is clearly much closer to a superboss than he is to a regular boss, so I get decked out to beat him again. Unfortunately, you have to fight the eight bosses again to fight him again, but I set up my team to shred them in under five minutes each, so it wasn’t too bad.
Anyway, I decide to do the following things:
-get the best equipment for each type of weapon
-pick up some swag armor
-pick up Warmaster’s divine skill, MT physical damage of each different physical type, which is amazing vs. the first form
-carefully and meticulously do team setup to be able to deal with all of Galdera’s total bullshit
Gameplay spoilers for the superboss motherfucker follow in slightly small text:
Each of the teams needs a dedicated damage dealer, which in this game tends to be the elemental mages, so Cyrus will obviously play that role. Each team needs a healer with Aelferic’s Auspices, which obviously Ophilia is already set up for. The other two characters fulfill supporting roles.
First team setup ended up as follows:
Primrose: Dancer/Sorcerer, with her support skills dedicated to bringing unholy death to all who stood before her.
Olberic: Warrior/Cleric, mostly a healer/reflect buffer who sometimes throws Aelferic’s Auspice at Primrose and sometimes Brand’s Thunder when there’s nothing else more urgent (which there usually is). He had physical buffing, Patience, and break damage limit.
H’aanit: Hunter/Warmaster, who did a lot of Leghold Traps and Warmaster limits (which does 6 hits of 5000-6000 damage of every single physical element), with some item use thrown in and anything weak to bows gets instantly wrecked of course. Her support abilities emphasized physical damage, as well as Patience which is an amazing skill that gives you an extra turn at the end of the round 25% of the time.
Alfyn: Apothacary/Starseer, who mostly used Concoct to heal status/SP/BP/HP, but sometimes used the Starseer BP gain boost if Primrose gave him the MT version.
Everyone but H’aanit had Saving Grace, which is a very interesting skill. It allows you to go over your max HP, but only with one stroke of healing, so if you healed for damage and went 20 over max, then too bad, you can’t gain more. But since Alfyn has 9999 healing on Concoct… you can get 9999 HP. Which, to be honest, doesn’t last as long as you might think in this fight…
That team fought the first boss, who emphasizes killing several enemies at the same time and blasting the boss before he can revive those enemies (who protect him from damage grumble grumble). As you can tell, I am set up for MT blasting and support. Dispel is a huge bitch and I’m not sure if it is triggered by having too many buffs or it is just rare and random, but I only saw it twice out of 50-60 turns. Dispel is a nightmare because it removes reflect, Aelferic’s Auspice, BP boost, defense/evade/speed/elemental defense buff from Starseer and you pretty much have to start over on your buffing game. His third set of enemies that he summons are all weak to one element, but every time you hit them, it cycles through which one it hits. So line them up and watch them burn. He has 500,000 HP himself but you really have to do about double of that in damage to actually kill him. This fight is monstrous and I was on the edge of my seat even with extra levels and equipment. After the fight, I drank some tea, went for a walk, and relaxed before taking on form 2 (which I had not seen yet but was given one or two hints for to make it a little less painful).
Second team setup ended up as follows:
Cyrus: Scholar/Hunter, with his supporting skills dedicated to bringing unholy death to all who stood before him. The fight ended up suiting Cyrus better than the other one would have, because 3/4 enemies were weak to the elements he has, and the fourth was weak to arrows. Being an enemy weak to arrows against a party Hunter is a bad time in Octopath.
Ophilia: Cleric/Dancer, see Olberic with even more buffing. Some physical damage because of Runelord’s bullshit (Runelord’s abilities revolve around using a physical and having an added magic damage effect on it, so in practice, the mages using physicals are actually the best at it, rather than the physical characters. Ophilia was doing 9999 damage with the added damage quite frequently.).
Tressa: Merchant/Runelord. So Merchant/Runelord has quite an abusive setup. Runelord has an ability that makes anything that is self-targetting MT instead, which is amazing for Sidestep, which allows you to take one physical hit. So I tried to keep up 4-6 physical blocking hits at any given time because one of the parts spams horrific MT physical damage, and the others sometimes use physicals too. Runelord also has the ability to use that move to buff their allies’ physicals to inflict whatever element of magic damage you want. I ended up using Light primarily because one of the parts is weak to light. This ended up generating a ton of extra damage, especially when the party was silenced and the mages didn’t have much else to do besides physicals that do like 10 damage (that also inflict 9999 light damage lololol). I gave her the support skill that makes her buffs last longer, as well as the elemental attack/def buffing one that Runelord itself has.
Therion: Thief/Apothecary. Mostly set up to do physical damage, but in practice mostly was the item bot and got extra turns due to Patience. Sometimes he threw in a Aeber’s Reckoning or a Shackle Foe when I was dispelled, but overall he played a very supporting itembot role. Interesting, because Thief is quite good for the rest of the game, but didn’t seem as suited for this boss.
Saving Grace once again was on everyone but Tressa, who ended up getting crit and one-hit killed by the boss the turn after it got rid of my buffs.
The second boss was the opposite; instead of rewarding killing all of the parts at once, it instead wanted you to kill one at a time, while of course flinging death in a bottle at you because Galdera is evil. Reflect/Sidestep were amazing tools in my cheaty strat, dispel and MT high 2HKO damage were the tools of his choice. One of the parts was weak to bows, so Cyrus shot him with arrows for like 21 damage but took 3 shield from him. (I love that my mage spent half the fight flinging arrows for 21 damage and that is a legit strat!) One of the support-role parts spent a lot of its time healing the other parts’ shields, which was amazing because that meant she wasn’t buffing the hell out of her allies. The other two parts… one did massive MT magic and one did massive MT physical damage. Once you gun down one of the parts, the rest isn’t so bad, even if the damage scale keeps rising. I never saw what the physical part did when he was alone, but I’m sure it would have been horrifying. Sidestep is godlike. After the three parts die, you can finally beat on the core of Galdera, which is a victory lap compared to the rest of the fight. At least, if the victory lap was only as hard as the hardest boss in the average RPG. ;_;
The four advanced jobs were, unsurprisingly, fairly helpful here, especially Sorcerer (who just spammed MT magic) and Runelord (who generated mad offense and breaking via the magic added to physicals). Warmaster is pretty much exclusively useful for their Divine Skill and their Physical Att/def passive and nothing else; their skillset sucks. Starseer is the weirdest class, with a couple of interesting buffs that are quite good after the MT buff (BP gain doubling, as well as a physical/elemental defense buff that also buffs speed and evasion). I would say that Starseer was the least useful of the four, as you might have noticed in my writeup. I used all of the other skillsets, but not Starseer’s as much. I will say that Sorcerer’s Divine Skill is hilariously bad. It is actually just straight up worse than their passives. WTF.
</gameplay spoilers>
So overall, I think the game really improves as it goes, often rounding on nice stories about its characters with some attempt at themes and ideas. I liked that the game didn’t have a generic RPG main character as one of its protagonists. Alfyn is the closest but he really feels different than a normal RPG main with a cute girl and a sword and all that. Primrose is my favorite main; she feels a bit like an Asellus variant, but even darker. The rest of them vary from better than expected (Therion) to generically likeable (Olberic, H’aanit), to adorable (Ophilia, Tressa), to hilarious and campy (Cyrus). I actually managed to find something positive in each of the eight main characters, which I can’t say for all games of this type (Hi Lute). More importantly, though, I think the game hits its gameplay stride later in the game, especially if you stay within the recommended levels. Evasive Maneuvers is a must for dungeon and overworld travelling and using that skill improved my experience, I think.
I’m not sure how I feel about the overarching boss being an optional superboss. In some ways I wish that the ties between the plots had been a part of the maingame itself more explicitly, but on the other hand, I think that a brutally hard boss as the final boss would have been quite rude, and it’s nice to have the big bad actually be a badass instead of a pansy (ala BD, FFT, many other things). The job system is interesting. You have characters who are ‘stuck’ in a base job but are allowed to change into one other job. So Ophilia, who is a Cleric, can be one of the other seven jobs. I made her a Dancer because buffing and healing are a good complement to each other. However, you cannot have another Dancer besides the one person who starts with it (Primrose) and the one extra person (Ophilia, in my case). The advanced jobs are the same, meaning you can only have one character in each of them. This means that the final boss setup is a little trickier than it would be otherwise. I definitely would have doubled on on Sorcerer at the very least. I really like how having one base job fixed makes the characters feels unique rather than identical to each other like FF5/BD/etc.
Otherwise, I like the art, the music, and the general feel of the world. The setting work is not perfect but it’s alright. Better than SaGa Frontier on that front, which the game clearly draws from pretty heavily. It’s kind of a SaGa/BD/XS2 (more the former two than the latter, there’s just some gameplay similarities between XS2 and it). At the end of Chapter 2 I was relatively less enamored with the game, but I think it hits its stride late (although yes, becoming overlevelled and grabbing the advanced jobs before Chapter 4 makes the game a lot easier. The Advanced jobs have a higher level requirement than the Chapter 4s, though, which is what I used as my own barometer for what to do in the game.
I remember telling people at the beginning that I thought the game did nothing that was exceptional but was good at everything. I think the game grows into its themes plotwise and its gameplay/boss design both generally improve with time, which makes me re-evaluate that initial kneejerk. I’m not sure exactly on a score for the game, but I think it sits somewhere in that high 8 range. Appropriate, for Octopath. Final clock was 66 hours.
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Just played Donkey Kong Land 3 on a whim, beat everything except for the time attacks in 3 days here. I did a blind run of every stage first, then went back with a map to hunt down secrets I missed. Dumping some scattered thoughts on it here:
* On balance, the game's level design is pretty solid, which is its biggest overall strength as a game. I think the Gameboy's low tech actually worked out well here, in that it kept Rare from getting too gimmicky, especially compared to DKC3. For example, Ellie the Elephant no longer runs in a panic when she sees the generic rat enemy, which means there's no entire stage designed around a frightened Ellie charging through at high speed. There's also no direction-changing water, no rocket stage, etc. Aside from the two bodsled stages (which are pretty awfull, for reasons to be discussed later), stage gimmicks are fairly mild and are pretty integrated with the core platforming.
* Conversely, the game really suffers from sprites being too big relative to the Gameboy's tiny screen, which means massive visibility issues all game long. Running is not safe unless you're backtracking or have memorized a stage beforehand, which is a real bummer for a platformer. Getting lost is really easy in some of the really big stages (especially underwater ones), the camera not panning properly is your biggest danger in several boss fights, and any situation where you have to go downwards is a bit scary if you don't have a map open nearby. Oh, and the two aforementioned bobsled stages (this game's minekart equivalent) are by far the worst in the game due to how little visibility you have on what's coming ahead. On balance, these camera/visibility issues keep the game from being truly good, I'd say it's just okay on balance.
* On the upside, at least they fixed the issue from DKL1 where sometimes the camera won't scroll down properly so the game thinks you fell down a bottomless pit even though there's plenty of solid ground beneath the camera. That is the single biggest piece of bullshit that I have ever experienced in any commercially released platformer, which is saying alot considering I've gone through Yoshi's Island DS.
* On average, I found about 1/2 bonus stages and most of the DK coins when going through blind. Most of the bonus stages are located in reasonable locations provided you are patient enough to deal with the game's limited, but there were a couple of invisible barrels that I would never find in a million years without a guide or map.
* The game's controls felt a bit slippery to me, though I got used to them pretty quickly. Rare seemingly compensated for this by being unusually generous with hitboxes for the player. It felt like the game would let me bounce off any enemy as long as I wasn't coming from right below it, and the game was super lenient with registering barrel hits when you're holding one. This was most obvious in the second K. Rool fight, where Kiddy Kong can hold a barrel right in front of him and it will hit K Rool as he flies above you, even though he won't damage you during that phase. At least Dixie holds barrels up over her head, so that makes sense.
* Squaks was consistently the easiest animal buddy to use, in large part because they never put him in any hard stages (like all bramble or something). Squitter was the hardest, I had to remap the Select button on the emulator to create a web platforms faster.
Lastly, I actually played the Japan-only GBC version with a fan translation patch. The coloring is kinda lazy and uglyish looking, but the overall visibility improvements are definately worth it. It also had a certain novelty value that helped convince me to give this game a shot.
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Wind Waker:
Link Ayesha does whatever it takes to rescue sister
Back at the forsaken fortress again. The idea is to use the bomb cannon to bust in though in this case a stray shot from the enemies broke down the barrier first. Boss fight at the start. It's been so long since I've touched a commercial Zelda game that I didn't catch on to the gimmick until the game nudges me. Not totally necessary here as the boss sometimes teleports at ground level but does make things faster. I knock out the searchlights out of habit. Rising water sequence feels tense but it forgiving in practice since the water is polite enough to wait for me to look for grapple points.
It is satisfying to knock off the demon bird that kidnapped all the girls. Huge plot dump follows. I was aware of a big spoiler already but the game still has good enough presentation about it. The game stops hand-holding at this point and it takes more work to seek out clues to further progression. Filling out the Sea Chart is something I'd do anyways so I'm able to piece together where I need to go from Fishman hints.
So there are two thingies that will let reach the temples. To get them requires another set of items. I have the location but not the means to reach them. This could become frustrating but not very long after, I pick a fight that gains me the needed mode of transport. Volcano takes a few tries due to not figuring out how to kill a key enemy. I had been to ice island earlier and got turned into a popsicle after taking two steps (was a hilarious sight) but now that I'm back with fire arrows, got through with much less trouble. I do some exploring with new toys in hand. Got a surprise game over from a giant pig. Which was named after the lead character which makes it even more silly. Accidentally hit it when trying to shake off spiky balls sticking to me and didn't pay attention to how much damage it was doing.
Enter both temples. Game makes it appear like I could take them in either order (postscript, you can't) but the Earth temple instrument is the one I remember seeing earlier in my travels so go there first. Filled up another heart container giving a whole 9 hearts for the next dungeon. I still have only one bottle too.
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To Ciato: I noticed what you did wrong the last boss form too. You didn't use blind. If you do, you only need to up keep the magic reflect, which can save you a lot of turns. The second thing you did wrong is you should try to break as many parts as possible before focusing on taking down the parts. Spam your BP drug as much as you like, this is the end anyway. The spam Warbringer's divine skill and have H'aanit toss out her super wolf pet back to back. The parts should all be stunned by turn three. Then just kill them one by one by Runelord's elemental damage. 15000+ per hit is totally doable if you tweaked your elemental offense.
Oh BTW, Simeon and Werner are not allies. Simeon and Mattias are. They both received ageless body from Lyblac and established the Obisidian together. There also couple of side quests that explores Simeon's past.
Also, the Crossford Family is the descendant of the sorcerer who sealed the Gate of Finis in the past. That's how they have Galdera's essense in them.
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Fire Emblem Fates Conquest - Doing a Sword Only challenge. Playing on Hard Classic because Lunatic does not need any sort of challenge layered on top of it.
Rules are simple, I can't use any weapons except swords. Staves don't count as weapons for this; I can still use those (although sadly there's no sword-and-staff class except Hoshido Noble which isn't available in Conquest).
Nohr (C1): Corrin is +mag -lck (For Levin Sword), Swordmaster talent. Anyway this is sword!Corrin vs Xander, proceeds as normal.
Gift of Ganglari (C2): Stall point. Corrin solo isn't reasonable here when you're quickly surrounded and outnumbered, so I play it normally.
Journey Begins (C3): On the other hand I do manage to do this one with only Corrin doing combat, with Jakob to provide staves and Gentilhomme while Gunter provides a pairup with his great passive boost. The boss is a pain but not too eventful otherwise. At one point Jakob is attacked and counters (you can't actually unequip weapons this early!) but it wasn't relevant to the progress of the battle (Corrin could have survived the same hit and countered for more).
Hoshido (C4): Another mostly-Corrin solo, though the guests do work naturally, can't really prevent that. Generally I use a Kaze pairup since it allows doubles against the slower faceless, I do switch to RInkah for the faster ones who need to be taken carefully because of Seal Defence.
Mother (C5): Well you literally get no sword-users here. I treat it as a dragonbreath solo. Not too different from normal tbh, Kaze/Rinkah don't add much here.
Embrace the Dark (C6): This actually took a few tries! Hinoka/Takumi have a pairup which can one-round Jakob and Elise and two-round Corrin (even if paired up with Jakob). Bait Takumi turn 1, hope he misses, hit him while keeping everyone else out of range, which leaves the choice of Hinoka eating a counter or Takumi being 2HKOed next turn. I see the former sadly but with both one hit from death I'm able to retreat, get healed, and look for an opportunity to finish one of them later. Meanwhile Xander evades Ryoma and murders both Sakura and Yukimura like the champion of justice he is.
A Dragon's Decree (C7): In this chapter, we recruit Silas, our second sword-user. Yay! Corrin and Jakob pairup takes out the west, Silas with Elise takes out the south, Effie later pairs up with Silas. Not much to say, retreating to deal with the north lest Arthur/Effie be attacked is a little hairy but not too bad.
At this point we can class change someone to get another sword-user. My initial thought is Jakob since Paladin Jakob is great but I realise I don't want to lose a staff-user. So instead the choices are Arthur or Odin. I decide to go with Odin because of his superior speed and not being crit-bait.
Cold Reception (C8): Probably the hardest chapter so far? Only three attackers and I can't counter the mages at all, and both they and the axe-users can hit really hard (WTA be damned in the case of the axes). To make matters worse you have to beeline to the west to save at least three villages and I really want that 10k gold. I mix in some attack stance here so Silas and Corrin can OHKO mages without being countered, though also use some pairups of course too. Silas has the job of running from out of Flora's freeze range to melee her and survive so that she doesn't mess me up.
Another Trial (C9): Still the same three attackers but it's an easy enough map to take out on my own terms. Azura activates the dragon vein, Silas with Effie pairup can endure lots of punishment and Corrin can ORKO spearmen so they don't get to proc Seal Defence. The boss being a spearman on a throne is a pain but whatever, he doesn't move.
Unhappy Reunion (C10): Our lord and saviour Camilla joins, immediately takes the Heart Seal from the previous map and transforms into a dark knight, proceeds to ruin everyone who isn't a boss with a bronze sword. Selena also joins; we're up to five attackers! Otherwise uh yeah this fight is hard! Jakob and Corrin take the west house, with Corrin killing some oni savages as they retreat. Odin (+Arthur) takes the east; with a forged bronze sword and Arthur pairup, Odin has enough oomph to ORKO the archers until the pairup shows up late in the battle. Everyone else takes the south, Selena (+Beruka) and Silas (+Effie) doing the main work with support from Azura's dances and Elise's healing. Niles shoots the ballista a couple times before his position becomes too dangerous and then pairs up with Camilla, while Nyx mans the fire orb for quite a while (I decide these don't count as weapons, fight me). Once the water goes away things get hairy but I'm able to control the key targets (pegasus knights are the worst) and retreat some. Final turn includes some gems like Hinata being one square away from reaching the defend zone and everyone else needing to run from the Oboro death zone which includes an oni pairup and an archer pairup among more (though I do kill Oboro before this). I miss the southeast house with its dracoshield but oh well.
Rainbow Sage (C11): So there's a room with four archers with Counter. I can't counter them and they wreck me. Fortunately we can skip that! Rinkah's room is easy (Selena ORKOs all the oni), Azama's room is fine aside from Azama (bait the mages with Niles/Elise, then sweep in and KO them all, not actually hard). Azama himself deals 1.5x damage back against melee attackers, ouch! Have to be careful, I use Silas who can't double doing 14 damage (21 to his own 24 HP). Fortunately his hex misses. The myrm room actually isn't too bad, I have several people who can tank and hit back hard. Kaze's room I can tank through by taking the back entrance, grabbing the treasure. Hinoka's a pain with her backup healer but the square in front of her is pretty safe, and dual guards buy me some free hits to overwhelm her.
Shadow Hearts 3 - Beat Purgatory and Envious Jealousy. Purgatory's a fun dungeon and I wish you didn't have to jump through infinity+1 hoops to unlock it, by the end the randoms obviously hit super hard but it's SH3 and you should one-round most of 'em before this becomes an issue. Bosses aren't too notable until the final. Envious Jealousy itself is... honestly just a less fun version of Lady, dangerous and requires you to be on top of your game but Lost Progress does limit some strategy possibilities and the fight is mostly just "don't let the boss get a stock gauge". Spirit Ward (banish one PC) for the last stretch of the fight is a fun if dickish trick though.
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Shadow Hearts 3 - Beat Purgatory and Envious Jealousy. Purgatory's a fun dungeon and I wish you didn't have to jump through infinity+1 hoops to unlock it, by the end the randoms obviously hit super hard but it's SH3 and you should one-round most of 'em before this becomes an issue. Bosses aren't too notable until the final. Envious Jealousy itself is... honestly just a less fun version of Lady, dangerous and requires you to be on top of your game but Lost Progress does limit some strategy possibilities and the fight is mostly just "don't let the boss get a stock gauge". Spirit Ward (banish one PC) for the last stretch of the fight is a fun if dickish trick though.
He's actually less impressive than Lady because he can be killed before it does anything. This isn't possible against Lady because in that fight, the one counters with Lost Progress (Lady herself) is invulnerable. For Envious Jealously, you can do a 3 person combo by hitting it first, then comboing to an Entrance user, then popping off a Magic Mind's Eye Spell from Slim Mask Hilda to do about 6600 damage. With Stellar Graph boosts + Warlock + Weakness, it might do more, but either way, it's a 2HKO. I was actually disappointed that the super boss of the game is worse than the final boss. But I think that's more of a testament to how cool the Lady fight is.
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Octopath Traveller
Finished up all the C3s. The early C3s, when rushed, were actually a bit dangerous, especially if you didn't realize how busted Thief's Atk debuff was (as Elf & Ciato can attest, it takes Alfyn's C3 boss from "nearly MT OHKO" to halve its damage, which makes it way easier to keep up with). The later C3 bosses tended to get curbstomped, especially Cyrus & Primrose's. Cyrus's boss, having a single action and wasting it to mildly buff his too-low shield count? Yeah, you aren't really seeing turns, are you.
Cosmic Star Heroine
Pretty close to the end, I assume. Finished the main plot on Nuluup. Boss in the facility was kinda disappointing and bad for how plotty he is, and didn't really line up with how he was hyped as a fighter either. Time for some more sidequesting I guess.
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Story time! Okay this arguably might be better for the bloggier Good Morning thread, but whatever, it's games related, and I get to make fun of myself. So I was in Japan recently on vacation, and there was a Yoshitaka Amano / Final Fantasy exhibit running in Ikebukuro around the time I was in Tokyo, so why not visit? ( http://amano-exhibition.jp/ ). Anyway, it was pretty cool. I suspect y'all have seen the "official"er parts of Amano's artwork, but the exhibit included some of the more obscure stuff, like his paintings of various monsters & summons, as well as some character work that he basically did for fun for games he wasn't involved with - e.g. FF7, FF8 (blonde Squall dancing with blonde Rinoa is weird).
Here are some of the Amano exhibit pictures:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/LcMgYnQcEu4cwbzd6
Also, there were also J-pop idol singers at the attached mall where the exhibit happened, and we all know from recent anime & video games they idol singers are weirdly influential in saving the world from monsters & shit. In America I'd think a band playing the mall circuit was slummin' it up, but since this was clearly a well-attended healthy mall, I guess it was fine? They certainly had hordes of people lined up watching 'em. Also a completely insane no-photos policy, which was being obviously ignored by all present; who makes these policies? Clearly they should get fired and replaced with the reverse party, you MUST take photos and post them on social media or some such.
Anyway, after leaving the Sunshine City mall, there's a store right across the street with a huge Trails of Cold Steel IV banner / sign. Cool, I think, more geeky stores, let's have a look. (I'd already grabbed earlier the Falcom free fan magazines 4 & 5, complete with a free tote bag... I have no idea how they're gonna make that many characters work, though.) First store: huh, that's weird, all the people in here are women. And... cosplay materials? A cafe? Is this a BUTLER cafe or something? Okay, next store. This store has... huh, everybody here is a girl, too. And that is quite the collection of Yaoi soundtracks and manga and otome games and... okay I see what's going on here. Next store! Okay, the third store in the line also clearly had a certain audience in mind (Tales of Vesperia Yuri body pillow?), but also had lots of other interesting collectibles, so worth grabbing some stuff, even if it's largely cheap buttons & keyrings & the like. The main oddity was that the prices were really blatantly trying to squeeze fans of character XYZ. It wasn't like they printed more copies of the more popular characters so all the prices were about the same; no, it was more like 40 bucks if you want Chrom, 20 bucks if you want (Male) Robin, and 4 bucks if you want Miriel. (Proof: https://photos.app.goo.gl/JZiWPYLufLKuUho68 ) Well, SnowFire smells a market opprotuntity here. Who needs your stupid 20 dollar Miles Edgeworths when Larry Butz is literally like a 1.20. I can fuse together like 15 Larrys into some hideous combined monstrosity that's way stronger than 1 lousy Edgeworth and still be ahead on price. Much more efficient that way. (Oddly enough, P5 Makoto was cheaper than expected too... like 4 dollars or so? Joker was the big ticket item in the P5 section.)
I check up online afterward, and sure enough, I was apparently investigating "Otome Road." ( https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e3038.html ) Well then, that was educational.
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Unfortunately, CSH bosses tend to be underwhelming. Needed more HP to deal with the damage bursts.
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Said boss -Director Steele - had okay HP I thought, just he also had uninspiring damage and no good tricks. He summons Shadows, but you can just flat ignore them because they don't really inflict damage until they style up, which takes a nice long time wherein you can pummel him in his face. Also, shouldn't he be some evil spin on Chahn if he's a Gunmancer?
I'm half-tempted to reload my save and try the fight on Super-Spy now, it seems like an unusually doable fight without having to worry about RNG too much. Just make sure you nail him with Vulnerable at the right times I guess.
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I've written about it before, but I'm of the opinion that CSH's battle system, while cool, results in a paradigm where what the enemy does barely matters. Your strategy is all about a race to do damage needed to win the fight as quickly as possible, and enemies do very little to disrupt you or make you adjust your strategy. Even KOing someone (which doesn't happen that often given the relatively low scale of enemy damage to compensate for the fact that your healing is weak) has very little effect, since unless it happens before you hit 50 style, you even get a one turn warning before you actually die!
I basically can't remember what any bosses in the game could do at this point.
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I agree with that. The offensive side of the game is very fun, but the defensive side needed a lot of work. I do seem to remember that it did matter a few times around midgame, but got irrelevant once you had enough offensive tools.
Giving bosses more HP would just really allow them to get style up more to make them dangerous at the end. I felt like endgame boss HP wasn't high enough to worry about busting out the most nasty offensive tricks based on having max style+Burst+buffs.
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Also, for all that this is supposed to be based off of like Phantasy Star, it sure seems that Zeboyd accidentally made Mass Effect 1 instead with where they're taking the villain. Super badass galactic agent gets infected by mind-control offscreen evil forces, runs around doing Bad Stuff, new up-and-comer agent in the same organization has to take him out?
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Super Mario Odyssey - Beat this. On the whole I stand by my initial assessment, which is to say that it doesn't really do the things well that I want to do Mario well. If you want to explore an environment and discover treasure behind every second corner, and periodically actually have to demonstrate some platforming skill to get it, I guess it's your game, but personally, I would really have prefered they just focused on the platforming. The lategame improves a bit; I liked the Luncheon World reasonably well (especially the platforming in its athletics sideroom) and final Bowser is a pretty cool fight, but overall not enough to budge my overall feelings on the game.
So in the ending there's this scene where Peach seems to express some disgust with the way Bowser and Mario fight over her. That's kinda cute, athough it doesn't make up for how she's even more directly damselfied/objectified than normal (you are trying to save her from a forced marraige to Bowser) and the fact that your hat is now motivated by saving his own explicitly female, also captured hat. Great.
5/10
Shadow Hearts 3 - Beat!
So despite being Level 55-60 and coming off my win over the supposed superboss, I actually lost to Lady. I didn't realize that you can't knock the Malice Umbral down, banked on a Gale Crest -> Rock Crest combo connecting, watched it miss and break my combo, then promptly got comboed in my face and died. Wow.
It's obviously a much easier fight with all the sidequests done (like, you can just tank the Entrance Calamity Gaze if you're at full health) but still retains a lot of the teeth and good design it always has. Certainly one of the best final bosses in an RPG anyway.
Replay was fun, just a generally solid gameplay game. Watched all the scenes again. Not a great story game overall but it certainly has moments. Johnny is endearing, Shania is an interesting concept (though nowhere near as good as she should be in execution, sadly), most scenes about the villains and/or Johnny's backstory are pretty attention-grabbing.
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I've written about it before, but I'm of the opinion that CSH's battle system, while cool, results in a paradigm where what the enemy does barely matters.
I'll be interested to hear tour thoughts on Berseria down the road
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Octopath Traveller- Tons of great stuff
You know, I'll echo the sentiments from your posts. I'm fairly close to wrapping up the C3s on all characters and I feel the pacing and stride of the game really hit a sweet spot on the third chapters in general. I also mostly agree with your character assessments, in particular towards Primrose and Cyrus, who are my favorite Travelers in the cast. Primrose is just a REALLY compelling, coherent main and her tale is a joy to follow through, even though it's very grim. Cyrus just spews gold in his absurd campy dorkiness and the writers seem to enjoy writing his Snagglepuss-like antics so much. I'm also kinda sad about Tressa's tale, since it's just a vehicle to tell essentially a bunch of anti-capitalist shonen vignettes and doesn't spend enough time on Tressa being the most wholesome girl in the continent. This said, she really feels like she steals every scene she's in with her presence. She's just so adorable I actually manage to forgive the bizarre way her tale was written.
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Just played Tressa’s C3, which has nothing to do with Tressa and was the bored I’ve been playing a video game in years. The random plotless Tiger boss that appears out of nowhere was the best part because it meant I got to play a battle and that the chapter was almost over. Tressa herself is adorable though.
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It's a shame because I enjoyed the other C3s. But Tressa's is just weird and bad. Leon is such an ineffective character.
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Alright, rant post about Xenogears. I've been looking to play some old PS1 RPGs on my free time that I missed since I haven't played many, and started here.
There are going to be some spoilers here, so it's in smaller text. And a bit of this is just rambling whatever thoughts come to my mind, so I'm sure I missed some important things or harped on some things that don't really matter. That being said, I'm sure most people here have played this already. Me and a friend played thorugh most of this game over the past month and a half or so. (We are right outside the final dungeon, I believe)
I knew very little going into this game. Actually, I think all I knew was "Chu Chu died for your sins", which I think I actually picked up here, like, ten years ago.
COMBAT SYSTEM
- It's not great. I mean, what PS1 RPG has great combat, I guess. Basic hit 'n heal stuff. Most of the techs don't seem worth using. We decided not to use Billy/Citan as much as possible as they seemed kinda ridiculous, and we felt like spamming Billy AOE heal would trivialize every fight. Not sure if it would, but felt that way, so we ended up running Elly/Rico for quite a while, before swapping to Bart/Emerelda, eventually. Of those, Elly's magic always dissapointed. Always. Rico was... okay. But again, he just seemed kind of mediocre (and did not have anywhere near as much health as he should). Bart is okay. Wild Smile is good. Emerelda is a solid character and felt like Elly with a physical, which is a nice upgrade.
I will say that the character animations and attacks in battle are very pretty. I always liked learning new moves just to see what they would look like. I feel super bad for whoever made adult Emeralda's sprites because they are super cool and almost completely wasted since there is no way to see them without going out of your way. I guess that makes it kind of cool in its own way.
Mech battles, on the other hand, initially seemed more interesting - the fuel mechanic seemed like it could be interesting in deciding what attacks to use when. It wasn't. The only time it was relevant was in the lategame fight where Miang ambushed you after you beat Ramsus' gear, and since we had blown all our fuel on the Ramsus fight it was either A: Reset the game or B: Defend for 30 minutes to get the fuel back.
Actually, I liked that fight. It was kind of an interesting fight with the counter field gimmick. The game did need more interesting battles.
As a side comment, that 3D Platforming in the tower thats name I forget? That was... Something, that's for sure.
CHARACTERS
- Fei is an odd guy. We were always trying to get a handle on his personality and couldn't really get it down - that might actually be the point? I did like that scene in Disc 1 where him and Elly are on the boat stranded. The atmosphere was nice. Id is kind of interesting, and I like how Fei actually was the one doing things at various points in the game.
- I didn't really have strong opinions on Elly. I suppose she represents the other point of view for a while, and I kind of like how she had a few cronies. For getting a lot of screentime, I never had a particularly strong opinion on her. I'm not a big fan of the fated lovers thing. It probably hit for some people but, I dunno... fall in love on your own terms, not because a past you did. (Though I guess they did anyway, but...)
- Citan is hilarious. I mean, what a jerk. Obviously meant to be super suspicious, and it just felt like he puppeted Fei along for the longest time "Oh you'll enter the tournament won't you Fei" "Yes Citan", for a while that was actually our running theory that Fei was like Citan's creation or some crap programmed to listen to him haha. His biggest jerk move was in the factory where he just lets them eat the people meat, what a master.
- Bart has a lot of screentime and feels like the most realized of the not main characters. Although I won't say he has a super strong personality he is generally likable. Though I remember us constantly making jokes about why you would need two characters with eyepatches (I know they worked it into the plot a bit, but still thought it was funny)
- I like Rico for the 3 hours he is relevant. He then falls off a cliff, never to be seen again in the plot. A shame. Also, his face picture and sprite give off completely different impressions.
- Billy is weird. My friend hated him. I was kind of indifferent? He didn't like how he showed up and basically made the plot about him for a while. I, again, had no strong opinion on him. He is okay.
- Maria is basically the same thing? It was at this point that I realized the game was doing a sort of vignette thing for a while, when I was honestly more interested in trying to put together the games main plot. Anyway, she was really good in mech combat for quite a while, though I think thats just because her mech comes upgraded with some really strong equipment.
- Chu chu is a joke character, so not much of an opinion. The whole scene seemed a bit oddly timed but I guess it was fine.
PLOT
- Man, what an interesting plot. It starts off okay, but picks up before too long. There's a lot of terms going around, and a lot of cutbacks to the mysterious organization that can be a little confusing at times. I'm not sure if its a game that would benefit from a replay? It probably would.
SO anyway, the plot is promising but nothing super amazing. There are good points and there are bad points. The second half of the first disc, again, felt like it fell into more of a "Here is the plot section about the prison" "Here is the plot section about Billy" "here is the plot section about Maria" which isn't too bad but wasn't really advancing the main plot they felt they had set up earlier.
And then disc two happened, and man did they ever advance that main plot. There was enough plot in there to fill three games, it felt like.
And honestly, that was some of the most interesting plot! Like, I actually liked quite a few of the scenes that they just kind of slideshowed over or were like, here play this highlight with 9999 HP (so you might as well be playing a lets play), it was absolutely the time the plot was the most interesting. I don't even think any of it was bad, though my eyes totally glazed over at the end when Fei was revealed to be Grahf who was revealed to be his father who was revealed to be Citan who was just tricking everyone into thinking he was evil who were aliens. (Or something like that.)
But if I had played this game as a teenager, I think I would have fell in love with it. Stuff like Grahf's speeches about Power instead of chuckling at I would have thought were super cool. I would have looked up tons of supplemental material about the game and got incredibly in to it.
As it is, I still think it was an interesting, likable game. But I feel bad because it could have been so much more.
As an aside, I think a game done purely in the style of Xenogears Disc 2 - A visual novel with battles inbetween - could actually be interesting if the battles were more interesting. It's not a bad idea - it just felt like a shame in this game and kind of made me feel like getting equipment and such was a waste of time.
Other things I liked? I liked renaming the mechs. Coming up with silly names was a highlight.
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Pretty much. Xenogears is decidedly an artifact of the time, especially things like Grahf and the entire unfinishedness of the game screaming late 90s RPG.
I'm not a fan of the game, but I can look back and mark it as part of my cultural teenage years. It really stands out like that. Saga Frontier, Xenogears and so forth really show where Square was at in late 90s.
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That was a good read, thanks for posting. Always fun to see what people think about a game like that arriving years later. I like XG quite a lot, but it's far from perfect, and you definitely pointed at some of the reasons why. I think my biggest difference is that I liked both Fei and Elly more (though I'm with you on the fated lovers thing. I even think Fei and Elly have an organic relationship and fall in love naturally! Don't cheapen that).
Gameplaywise, yeah attack magic on foot is bad (it's good for killing a few low-HP physically immune enemies, but not general use). Elly's a much better PC once you realise she's actually just a fighter (she actually has one of the highest attack stats after she gets that rod in Solaris)... still nothing special, but better than Rico certainly. And yes Billy's MT healing and Citan in general are totally gamebreaking, so good on you for trying to go without 'em.
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Dead Cells: Beaten. For a given value of beaten. I smashed up the current last boss a couple times and that feels complete enough for me. Repeating Crossbow (plus the You're Already Dead bow) for the winning run. That thing is sooooo satisfying to use. I generally preferred maining Tactics builds, it's just too much fun stacking all the traps at once and just watching everything onscreen chain explode from contagious status effects.
Dead Cells is highly recommended. Combat is fast, smooth, and fluid, and the game is built well for short runs (a successful run for me is an hour, maybe a little bit more?) You have plenty of pathing and equipment choices and the game is just overall a joy to play. Very worth picking up next time you need a platforming fix.
Also at some point this happened: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSFGySnko8M
Hadokens >>> Dio Brando.
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Death's Gambit: Hey guys did you hear about this game called DARK SOULS
It isn't always a bad thing to wear your influences on your sleeve. I liked Salt + Sanctuary in spite of its copycat nature because it had a fantastic Metroidvania map, but if S+S was too blatant a clone for you then wow stay miles away from Death's Gambit. The 2D Souls imitation is even more slavish and the design intricacy is nowhere near as deep. There's a even a giant eldritch horror boss named after a part of the brain! DG is decidedly not great. Some of the spritework is decent, and you do have a nice number of pathing choices early on, but that's about as complimentary as I can be. Combat controls often feel a bit sticky. Maybe it suffered a bit in comparison to me playing Dead Cells right before it, but why did anyone think hold L1 to climb ladder was a good idea? Game is also glitchy. Past a certain point in the game, your attack stats drop every time you die. This is not some hardcore plot synergy gameplay feature, because your stats will revert to the correct values when you quit and reload your save. Somebody just fucked up the coding of a boss gimmick and its gimmick became permanent after the fight. Also, of all the things to crib from The Ringed City, why would you take the unkillable snipers? Last boss is also among the easiest in the game. First try win, and it's a four-stage fight.
The incongruous ancient-future tech zone was genuinely creepy, and one or two boss fights were pretty cool (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-Eehx0gz1c), but otherwise you're safe staying away from this.
I'll probably hit the 2D Bloodstained before Hollow Knight PS4 and another Metroidvania game I Kickstartered come out next week. 'tis the season for platformers.
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I decided to write a lot more about Celeste, this felt like the appropriate place- https://cmdrking.blogspot.com/2018/09/celeste-trans-narrative.html
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Portrait of Ruin: Started this up a few weeks back. Mainly been spamming the hell out of the shuriken subweapon after I grinded it out to mastery, the damage output is pretty crazy if they focus on a single target.
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Octopath Traveller
Finished all the C4s, onto the postgame. Also check out the stat topic I posted!
http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php?topic=6997.0
Surprisingly enough, the last C4 I did was the only one which had a boss that wiped me. H'aanit's C4 boss has powerful attack that deals like 2HKO damage and inflicts unconsciousness to everybody. And he starts triple acting below half health. Wasn't so bad on the refight where I just kept my offense rolling and never really let him get turns, but if you get on your back foot, playing defensively is suicide (well, without the right status immunity accessories, at least). Gotta go fast.
Played some of the postgame, and yikes. Boss of the Forest of No Return wiped me fast, and boss of the Shrine of the Archmagus also beat me, although I nearly killed him. Guess I need to grind or something? Maybe, I'm still beneath the recommended level, although not by THAT much. But no, there's gonna be some sneaky way to win. Wish I'd brought Alfyn, he could work down the late-fight 10 shields pretty fast with those Ruinous Seed mixes of his.
Cast thoughts:
Tressa: Main, went with Scholar secondary. Should every non-Cyrus main go Scholar secondary? Maybe. Less encounters, obviously, but being able to blow up the world with magic was just great - Scholar's elemental stuff for randos, Bifelgan's Bounty for bosses or really tanky randos, and all the $$$$$, which was sorely needed. Nice to always have Analyze around, too. Eph & Grefter are cowards for using Therion, stealing is wrong, just let Tressa buy everything. (okay, you have permission to steal Soulstones & Purifying Dusts and stuff like that. that doesn't really count as property.)
Olberic: Cleric secondary. Pretty solid. Had this debate with Elf & Ciato who found Olby underwhelming, but Olberic is solid enough because the Incite damage buff is really really good, since buffs are powerful-but-short-lived, and it's all about being buffed up while bosses are staggered and spending your 3 BP for massive damage. Buff'd Cross Strike is really good in C2 and early C3, and Brand's Thunder wrecks stuff onward. Olberic can be the difference between needing 4 breaks to kill the boss and 5 breaks, so speeding up that clock is definitely appreciated. Meanwhile, having a tanky backup MT healer was fine, and after I got Forbidden Spear, his holy magic when that was a weakness was surprisingly okay.
Primrose: Merchant secondary. See above about buffs being good. She wasn't a huge damage-dealer herself, but being able to drop damage buffs on everybody and hit tons of weaknesses (Dark, Wind, Bow/Spear/Dagger, Sword & a buff if you're willing to use the cheapest Hired Help) was useful. Lategame, she too got Bifelgan's Bounty for some damage if she had BP piling up to spare. Her counter-attack was actually pretty decent too, since while it doesn't do damage, it does help break enemies if you set her default weapon up right. Allure wasn't THAT big on damage for my playstyle, but I guess every bit can help sometimes.
Alfyn: Thief secondary. Functional but uninspiring. His base kit is solid enough, use Dusts for some reasonably cheap MT healing. He didn't particularly use most of the Thief kit well, except for one part, but it was the most important Thief skill - vs. bosses, at least physical bosses, stacking infinite turns of Shackle Foe to debuff their physical damage was generally a powerful strategy. POIZN is also shockingly great against bosses - 2 turns of poison for an action/BP, well, 2% of a boss's life is actually pretty significant, often.
Therion: Hunter secondary. Bit of a rocky start in C1-C2, but at least Shackle Foe is great as per above. He doesn't really do much damage at start, although double-hitting dagger weakness and also having swords is something, and Hunter gave him the ability to hit bow weakness hard and also chip at axe weakness. Then he gets Aeber's Reckoning, and... wow, all those randoms are dead, and the boss took 9999. Armor Corrosive is also solid if he's in a team with other physical types, especially Olberic since he can Abide/Armor Corrosive/Brand's Thunder and not "waste" the extra damage over 9999.
H'aanit: Warrior secondary. Like Therion, an "I hit all the physical weaknesses mwahaha" type, with the ability to really prey on Bow/Spear weakness, Abide buff herself, and then Cross Strike bosses hard. This was functional but also ended up feeling like a frailer Olberic variant. Wasn't really a fan of playing Monster Hunter too much, though.
Ophilia: Dancer secondary. Pure support bot, plus I always like the light+dark builds. Still, you need support sometimes. Once she unlocks Saving Grace, her max HP becomes more like a suggestion; the ability to "buffer" a heal was super-handy vs. bosses.
Cyrus: Apothecary secondary. Well Scholar completely rules and is the best class in the game, so of course Cyrus is gonna be good. Smashes randoms, also smashes bosses by working down their shields fast, a frequent recipient of Peacock Strut along with Tressa. Apothecary gave some backup healing when needed, backup status fixing, more HP (you get a 20% boost off setting it as your subjob, throw in a big +Max HP accessory too), and more POIZNing bosses hype.
I guess I'll hold off on plot thoughts until I see what threads the postgame decides to tie up! Cyrus's end of C4 was pretty funny and foreboding at the same time, at least.
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Re others:
Portaint of Ruin: Really all of the subweapons are very good in Portrait of Ruin. Definitely one of the games where using regular weapons felt like more of a challenge; even once you know which weapons are blunt / piercing / slashing / etc. and which enemies are weak to what, subweapons & magic just smashes safely from a distance.
Xenogears: I didn't use 'em either, but there are various twinky setups that do make attack magic good. I guess the developers found them and balanced around you getting them or something, because yeah, it's rarely worthwhile if you're not doing Ether Doubler nonsense. I'm not sure I even got any, I forget where they are but they're hidden basically.
Anyway, the main thing that I personally think stands out about Xenogears is having an interesting NPC & villain cast that seems to actually have their own individual motives and who interact in interesting ways. It isn't "Lord Bane and his loyal servants" and it isn't "we all fight each other because we're wild cards and the plot says we do." Nah, they all pursue their own objectives, which means sometimes fighting Our Heroes, sometimes fighting other villains, sometimes working with other villains, and sometimes helping out Our Heroes. There's a FEW just straight-up baby-eaters (Bishop Stone), but that's okay in moderation. Meanwhile, Grahf / Ramsus / Miang are all classics, stuff like the Villain Goon Squad in Dominia & the Elements are solid, and even pathetic types like Hammer have their own pathos & solid plot arc. And sympathetic NPCs like Sigurd or Emperor Cain also do their own thing in a way that "makes sense" and shows that the writers did the ol' acting adage of playing every character like they're the main character in their own story.
(Of course, I am obligated to mention it isn't all roses... unfortunately, Krelian is... problematic. Granted, maybe the writers "needed" a character like him to make the plot of Xenogears run at all, somebody who's "read the script" and can make crazy far-fetched 500-year plans and predict how clashing volatile personalities will interact, but he's got issues. Some are explainable with some reading-between-lines or generous assumptions, but not all the quirks.)
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Also Octopathing, but much slower than others. Working my way through the C2s still, just finished Cyrus's. The randoms in the dungeon were more of a pain than the boss was! But so far my boss fighting strat has just been: chip to break, buff Alfyn's attack, unload max BP Amputate, repeat process. Its slow going but safe since I have a lot of healing on hand usually. Alfyn as my main does mean he has a level advantage to bring that pain with, of course.
Jade Empire - Streaming this on Wednesdays(though missing this week due to therapist appt), the game runs choppy as hell on PC, almost unberably so. Random helped me with some fixes that make it run betterish, but we'll see how far that goes in later fights where things get super hectic. I still love the setting and the character interactions, and the Open Palm vs Closed Fist philosophies is the most interesting Good/Evil dynamic I've seen in a bioware game...except for where they completely fuck up the ending of course and turn it into Open Palm = Doing The Actually Reasonable Thing and Closed Fist = Fuck Teh Entire Rest of the World I want Power!!!!!(nevermind that the way you get that power EXPRESSLY DEFIES THE ACTUAL TENNENTS OF CLOSED FIST!)
Evoland 2: A Slight Case of Space-Time Continuum Disorder - Look at that name. Just look at it. It's glorious.
Yakuza Kiwami 2 - Beat Style is gone. I can no longer beat a motherfucker with another motherfucker. Oh wait, yes I can, I can do that off my basic grab and just giantswing dudes into other dudes. Kiryu dot jay pee gee continues.
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Played some of the postgame, and yikes. Boss of the Forest of No Return wiped me fast, and boss of the Shrine of the Archmagus also beat me, although I nearly killed him. Guess I need to grind or something? Maybe, I'm still beneath the recommended level, although not by THAT much. But no, there's gonna be some sneaky way to win. Wish I'd brought Alfyn, he could work down the late-fight 10 shields pretty fast with those Ruinous Seed mixes of his.
Haha did I say that? Whoops. What I meant was "I put my Switch in sleep mode with 1 living party member at critical health and 2 boss turns coming up." However Dreisang was generous in his next two turns and let me recover, and the low-health party member was Ophilia with the ability to boost a Revive and ALSO having an Encore proc still left to use on Auto-Lifing through the next turn. Victory after all.
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Mario + Rabbids: Cool, the latest Mario RPG is pretty strategically deep and employs a fascinatingly western sense of humor by inserting the minion-ripoffs into it. Unlike the Minions, the Rabbids in this game manage to get a few chuckles, particularly Rabbid Peach.
The most important take away from M+R is that someone looked at the game, said 'this is an RPG, it NEEDS something to really codify that... I've GOT it, Bowser needs to get brainwashed by a big bad and grow some giant JRPG Final Boss Wings and get some glowing tattoos!' It is simultaneously the most JRPG thing ever AND the most... World of Warcraft aesthetic ever in a Mario game. I love his goofy edgelord wings.
Trails in the Sky The 3rd:
I wasn't really sold on the opening premise of 'let's explore a dungeon and get character flashback vignettes' until the big 'twist' at the end recontextualized it all to make it make sense instead of just being excuse game plot to show cool vignettes. Like... that framework took some balls. Bravo Trails, keep up those writing chops!
Trails of Zero:
Started this. A testament to how good the Trails series is doing so far, I played two of them back to back and I have immediately picked up another, this one doesn't even have an official English translation! Playing with a ~meh~ fan patch, but the strength of the original writing is strong enough to carry it thus far. The setup of being actual police detectives instead of weird outside-government fantasy mercenaries or military high school students is more innately interesting to me anyway.
Furthermore! My favorite members of the cast so far are the outwardly-milquetoast male protagonist and the 14-year-old girl prodigy... That's as much of a surprise to me as it is to all of you who know which types of characters I tend to hate!
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Mario + Rabbids: Cool, the latest Mario RPG is pretty strategically deep and employs a fascinatingly western sense of humor by inserting the minion-ripoffs into it. Unlike the Minions, the Rabbids in this game manage to get a few chuckles, particularly Rabbid Peach.
Despicable Me was released in 2010; Rayman: Raving Rabbids was released in 2006. So if anything, it's the minions that are rabbid-ripoffs. :) Glad you enjoyed the game regardless!
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Tales of Berseria
It's been... 11 years? But here we are, I'm finally giving Tales another shot again. So far this game is... pretty good! The game has a lot of writing and it's pretty compelling. Velvet is a delightful ball of revenge-fueled nastiness, with enough backstory and soft points to feel human and okay to cheer for (even as she does surprisingly terrible things for what is on the surface a reasonably light-hearted RPG). Part of me wishes they'd gone even more all-in on the squickiness of her literally eating people (they often seem to tiptoe around it except for making really dark jokes). but honestly it's still better than I'd have expected. Rest of the cast is decent enough; Magilou is a delightful troll, Rokurou can be surprisingly funny too, #2 (recently renamed in a totally healthy fashion by Velvet) is... we'll see where they go with him, but obviously has some potential as a serious character and certainly contrasts the rest of the party. Eizen is probably the weak link so far (his shtick about bad luck doesn't earn him points) but is perfectly workable and often serves to dish out setting details other PCs wouldn't reasonably know and/or share, and the setting is actually pretty good! The main antagonist definitely has a pretty unique role in the world; I don't think I've ever heard NPCs praise a main antagonist so much outside of D&D campaigns where the DM has a twisted sense of humour. (Actually ToB kinda feels like a twisted D&D campaign in general. I may formulate more thoughts on that later once I'm a bit further, but it fits pretty well so far!)
Anyway just got back from my assassination mission of the high priest. Eizen got in an anime duel with some other male and told Velvet to stay out of it so she responded by beating both of them up. Velvet is pretty great btw. ~13 hours in.
The gameplay is pretty underwhelming (Tales mashiness + most non-Velvet PCs seemingly not being very fun to control, sadly) but I don't actually mind too much, the game keeps the writing humming with the near-constant party banter which rarely gets old because of the personalities involved.
I don't think I ever expected to play a Mario and Tales back-to-back and enjoy the Tales game more, this is truly the strangest timeline.
Fire Emblem Conquest: All Swords update
Bitter Intrigue (C12): Laslow and Peri join on this map which brings me up to seven sword-users, so for the first time I really feel like a full team. Unfortunately I also drop to one staff user as Elise is not available. Anyway the ninjas in the middle o the map are a bit tricky due to having WTA on me but since Camilla is still OP it doesn't matter much, they fold eaisly enough. The rest of the map is mostly straightforward, I keep the pots around to limit the enemies and still get through in plenty of time, even grabbing both chests... and even more importantly, the Kodachi, my only source of physical ranged damage until Xander joins. I stack tonics and potion rewards on Camilla and she smashes Ryoma up with a forged bronze sword well enough.
Uprising (C13): One of the tougher fights for sure. The wyvern/knight pairups are reaally bulky and annoying to defend against. On the right, I eventually settle for Armourslayering the knights with a Selena/Camilla pairup and a Strength Tonic + forged iron lets Camilla barely ORKO Takumi. Meanwhile, the left side's mages get taken out by a mix of timely pairup Kodachi counters and attack stance to carve through them fast. I bait Orochi into coming forward as dual strike support then KO her with a dual strike of my own (which is important because she hits really hard). Then there's Reina's group; Reina herself merely has good stats, but complicating matters are the two Beastslayers here, since several of my sword users are mounted. The cavaliers also hit really hard generally, 2-3HKOing, so they're a bit tricky to take out. Finally there's Scarlet, the hardest boss so far. She starts with a Steel Lance equipped, so has WTA on me, and also has enough speed to be hard to double, huge physical stats, and gains a bit crit boost on her own phase (or at lxwow HP). Lure her forward with a dual strike, +Spd Camilla takes off a bunch of her health without fear of crit, then finish with someone else. Making matters hairy is six reinforcements show up on the turn she is lured forward, but nothing that can't be handled.
Voice of Paradise (C14): Leo joins! D rank swords, reasonably durable (especially res) and mobile but poor offence. Ah well. More importantly I get my first Levin Sword, which gives my +mag Corrin a big shot of 1-2 offence. Anyway it's mostly a straightforwrad map, with two trouble points. First of all, there are a couple staff users near the centre right of the map, with Enfeeble/Freeze. And as you approach them there are two pegasus knights that descend, one of whom has a Swordcatcher (hit weakness on sword-users!). She's also fast of course. Combined with Enfeeble she can wreck almost anyone. On the second run I make a quick run to her and kill her while staying just out of swordcatcher's range, and instead bait the swordcatcher with Camilla who comes in from the top area. Then there are two paired up kinshi + pegasus knights who are difficult to bait and a pain to kill due to their speed, dual guard, and the fact that, of course, you have to kill them twice. But being ready for them the second time they're not so bad.
The Black Pillar (C15): Corrin/Azura/Gunter map, largely proceeds as normal. Not easy exactly (especially lacking WTA against the ninjas) but I still win in normal enough fashion, wiping out all the enemies on the copy side so I get all the items.
Invasion (C16): Xander get! Anyway Xander goes right to the mercenary/outlaw side where he's basically invincible, other PCs just exist to get some exp. Left side is a bit tougher with lots of mages and axedudes so I send both my 1-2 units left (Corrin and Peri/Laslow with the Kodachi, mainly used by Peri due to res + enough speed to not be doubled). It's slow going, the map is designed so you can bait out enemies piecemeal more easily than is normal for Conquest but of course you lose a bit of money for taking more time. Whatever, I lose out on ~1500 gold due to taking 9 turns instead of, say, 4, I think I can deal. (I actually have lots of money, only maintaining one weapon type helps.)
Shura joins. I make him a Hero and he's actually pretty good? His overall stats are plenty solid. Obviously only E rank swords for now and he's support-starved but he still plays a good utility role. Also nice to have someone with Locktouch who can fight.
At this point I pick up Sophie since the unit count expands in the next chapter, and Sophie seems reasonably solid. She's actually been available since before C13 but I was always impatiently chasing main story recruits. Sophie's paralogue is pretty easy aside from the race to keep the villagers from suiciding, but with Xander and Levin Corrin on the job there, everything's fine.
Den of Betrayal (C17): Pretty tough, but I win first try anyway, yay. Anyway there's a big chokepoint in the middle of the map where the staff user is (She has Silence), Xander can block that! He's still basically invincible. I initially have other units there but eventually I just keep Elise there within 2 for Demoiselle and move everyone else up north to deal with the reinforcements there. Silver Shuriken Master Ninjas are scary man, 24 speed and solid attack and poison strike. And of course weapon triangle is a thing. Saizo is solid, helping out in various ways (disarming traps, since Shura can't be everywhere); I keep him healed. He actually reaches the boss and... helps out there too? Boss is a bit of a nightmare due to 27 speed, super evade, hitting both deences, and WTA, but with Camilla's Heartseeker to control him a bit, a timely hit from Saizo (who immunes his Grizzly Wound, even), I'm able to bring him down. 20 turns, so excessively long, but hey, I'll take it.
Most of my PCs are promoted now (Corrin in C15, the rest in Sophie's paralogue and C17). I don't anticipate too much trouble for the next few maps, but we'll see.
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Magilou is a delightful troll.
I just want to emphasize how generally insane and horrifying Magilou is. She's the 'joke' character but is a terrible human who likes to inflict pain on all who stand in her path. She reminds me of Lily Valendorf but a little more of a joke character. She fits into this evil DnD party just fine.
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Magilou is, mostly, really great. Her English voice acting is perfect. I wish they'd chosen a different VA or different voice direction for Rokurou - in Japanese his voicing is more lighthearted and animated and he draws a better contrast to Eizen. Speaking of Eizen, unlike most of the cast where context doesn't matter a ton, his storyline is directly tied to ToZ where he's become a dragon, and is put out of his misery by the PCs in that game, who include his sister. Other than that, you don't really need to know much about ToZ until the very end of the game. I will be interested to hear what you think of #2 as the game progresses. Re: PCs gameplay, it's a weakness of the game that most aren't that much fun to control and can't hold a candle to Velvet, but take heart: there's another fun PC to control that you get later.
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After ToZ it does my heart good to hear praise from elves of all people.
Will await more feedback on that. I am hoping it isn't as overboard with cruelty-to-children such that it becomes a joke like in ToZ.
Still monkeying around with Bravely Second for stat topic reasons. Normal in that game is kind of a joke and it really should be played on Hard.
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Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon
Game started. Game finished! Not a lot to say that hasn't already been said. It's a good, short platforming fix. Difficulty was probably on the right side for me, which is to say that I died a bunch in the later levels but most bosses were first-try wins. I did bring all the meatshields with me, though. Not in a hurry to try a solo Zangetsu run! (Miriam did most of the work on the last boss, with everyone else tanking hits and farming weapon energy.)
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Thanks for Xenogears discussion. I absolutely liked it in some ways, even if it has problems - I at least liked it enough to be disappointed in how rush Disc 2's plot was, even if it was a product of its time.
Anyway, I've also been playing Dragon Quest XI. In early Act Two, I guess you would say.
...I'm liking the game, but I'm actually really sad that Dragon Quest got rid of random battles. I felt like that was the thing it always did really well - had simple combat systems, but dungeons that really strained your resources, you make it to the boss - maybe you beat them, maybe you don't - but the generous respawn means you'll keep your EXP and most of your money and know how to tackle it next time.
This game doesn't have that. You skip every enemy, except maybe the one that touches you - because why wouldn't you? True, I am playing on Normal (with no EXP from weaker enemies) because I wasn't sure of the difficulty, and hearing what I know about it, I don't think I'd want harder monsters either - because I feel like it would likely make me just grind more - Not in the dungeons or anything, mind you. Just outside, near a free heal, on autobattle. Maybe I'm wrong and the hard difficulty is perfect, but I dunno... The stuff I like about Dragon Quest combat isn't really there.
But they have all sorts of skills that have existed in older games that would be useful in those games - recover MP after battle, Max MP up, Holy Protection. Why would I bother with any of that when you can conserve MP just by running past everything?
I dunno, most people seem to like being able to battle when they choose, but I feel like Dragon Quest really misses something without it.
Game difficulty might get harder, but is currently quite easy. Main is Lv. 31 and my party members are six levels above me due to them joining higher, which makes me wonder how hard they think this game is? Again, I suppose I can't complain too much, not playing on the harder difficulty. Just my experience with Dragon Quest was that Normal was usually quite satisfying (DQ4, DQ5, DQ8)
Oh, and this isn't a problem unique to this game, but every dungeon is boring as sin. Especially with no random enemies to speak of. It's dodge enemies in a straight line. Or maybe dodge enemies in a curvy line. No puzzles to speak of, and with no randoms, nothing to give the dungeons character either - in older games you might be in a dungeon with annoying mummy randoms that poison you a lot, or enemies that cast Beat that you have to focus down first. In this game, I auto whenever I run into a random enemy. Reminds me of Tales of Berseria, another game I liked quite a bit with dungeons that were "Walk forward, press A", which is a little dissapointing. I don't need crazy Lufia 2 puzzles, but something to make the areas memorable and less automated.
That being said, I am enjoying just about everything else about the game. Graphics are nice. Areas are nice. It's fun to see old monsters again. Dialogue is generally quite good, and I like the characters. Story is fun enough. And I am enjoying it, playing it just about every day. Just feels like a bit of a shame, since I actually like Dragon Quest oldschool dungeon crawling.
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Dragon Quest XI: Finished. Took about 85 hours but who knows how much was just idling. Maybe 3-5 hours? Spoiler free discusion. Anyways, this game is what happens when you give Dragon Quest a real budget, not just books of text. Generally if you enjoyed Dragon Quest VIII you will like XI. I think I liked VIII more due to a more concise story and better feeling of adventure. A real downside is the repetivie soundtrack and used of MIDIs. Seriously I think I could count the number of tracks with two hands. At one point I turned off the music due to the goddawful general field theme.
There's special restrictions you can set up at the start of the game. No armor, no buying from shops, a silly permanent status effect that sometimes eats a turn for your hero. The biggest one is stronger monsters. It's no joke, monsters are generally twice or even three times as strong. The game is auto battle easy otherwise. Party members function like they did in VIII: specialty roles with a skill tree for some customization. Since you can reset skill points at any time, you can try out many builds until you find one you like....if half of the skill trees weren't useless. Why spears on a healer? Weapon skills on your pure support character is a waste of time. 2-handed swords do more damage than 1-handed swords for 90% of the game, and shields aren't powerful enough on their own. Not to mention 2 handed weapons have better block than shields anyways. Boomerangs are useless due to their poor accuracy, meaning you have to dive into the skill tree for accuracy+ passives.
There's not much in the way of dungeon crawling. You can avoid almost every encounter, metal enemies are common and can be summoned at will with a special ability, and thanks for forging you don't really need money. I agree with MC50 that's there's an appeal of slogging though a whole dungeon, focused on conserving MP so you have enough resources to fight the boss. This was the better part of Persona 3/4/5's pacing and kind of sad to see it go in the series that started it.
The game divides itself into three parts. The first part of the game, the longest one too, is great. It has those little side stories that complement the main quest very well. There's a linear path the game wants you to take but you can do somethings out of order if you like. The second part has a strong beginning but kind of goes into a boss rush mode while you gather your party again. There's one part that was a total buzzkill because it's random as hell. The third part is mostly sidequest content to power you up for the final boss which I swear looks like a horrible amalgamation of every Dragon Ball Z villain. I'm sorry I can't take you seriously when you look so fucking stupid.
Good game but not amazing. Apparently it's missing content that the 3DS version has. I didn't even know there was a 3DS version until after I beat the game. I wouldn't bother with it anyways, not really into 2d sprite shit after the dung heap Octopath Traveler.
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Dragon Quest 11: parked outside the true final boss but I'm not sure when I'll feel the desire to grind out a few levels and wrap things up so imma review now: this game has boatloads of polish but is frankly a disappointment because the plot takes every opportunity to give the characters even a bit of depth or agency and squanders it all.
Let's talk about not-the-plot to get it out of the way: the ps4 version has orchestral music, and it's nice but frankly wasted on a soundtrack that is mostly rather dull. There are a few melodic standouts - Nautilus and Hotto town music - but the rest is forgettable at best until the postgame when the world map music mercifully changes (and they also feature one of the better pieces of music from DQ8). The game's map is huge and the environments are really stellar, particularly the towns which are delightfully three-dimensional, so if searching the corners of a world map or navigating towns where you're going through a house to get to the ladder that takes you to the roof to walk across the wire to another roof and jump into a garden is your bag, the game's got you covered. You can avoid random encounters, usually without much trouble, so that makes dungeons less of a slog than they could be. The dungeons themselves are rather dull, though. Skills are a real standout feature of the game, as they're on a big grid and, most importantly, are totally respeccable. In the latter half of the game, you can end up respeccing a lot as your equipment shifts around and as you hit benchmarks that enable you to have certain combos of skills unlocked simultaneously. It's a lot of fun. Random encounters, playing on normal, are entirely forgettable - I set the game on auto-battle and did not regret it. Bosses are good - the average boss experience was fairly threatening and required careful thought about balancing healing, status/buffing, and offense. Ok, now for the plot. Morderate spoilers ahead, followed by major spoilers.
The plot is surprising only in that every time you think there will be a plot twist, the twist is that the plot is not twisting. Every element you think will be interesting later on turns out to be the least interesting version of itself. Perhaps the only exception to this is Sylvando's plot, but the game is so filled with effete gay stereotypes that it's hard to give it any credit on that score. He himself is ok, despite looking and acting like he just walked off the set of The Bird Cage, he's heroic and bold. It works! But in the latter half of the game he gets a troupe of followers and it is just so cringey. A collection of the most exaggeratedly feminine and wimpy men you could imagine calling everyone darling and honey. Multiple of them have lisps and one even give an exaggerated wrist flop. It's 2018 for god's sake.
Ok very specific spoilers now: there's one really cool thing the game does and it is the postgame plot. But it's also the best example of how infuriating the plot can be. So. Halfway through the game the party, on the cusp of getting the sword of light, gets rekt by the bad guy's minion, and the bad guy, who had been possessing a king, and who promptly takes over the world and everything goes to shit. In the end, you heroically depose him, saving the world, but things still suck. In the aftergame, you get the ability to go back in time to right before you got punk'd and do things differently. Only the main character can go, and he takes his place in the party from the past (so he's like lvl 50 and they're all in their 30s). This is cool and fun, you think! You beat the bad guy's minion and it's very satisfying, and then the bad guy possessing the king shows up and pretends like he's not the bad guy and you...you just go along with it. See, in this game, the concept of "silent main" doesn't mean some character that you, the player, can pretend to step into the shoes of. It means a mute person with no agency and no ability or perhaps inclination to communicate important details like "hey the king is possessed by the final boss" to the other members of the party. So the game squanders the opportunity to punk the final boss, and does it in the dumbest way possible. This isn't the only time in the game this happens either. See, there are these little blue alien dudes everywhere, and they're incorporeal and just kinda walk around not interacting with anything. Over the course of the plot it becomes apparent that the main character can see them and no one else can. And it becomes apparent to the main character that this is in fact the case. And? The main character just never communicates that information to anyone, ever.
I wanted to like DQ11 more than I did, but the plot just never has the payoffs it teases, and almost invariably executes the various plot elements in the least interesting way possible, so that even things that should be cool are just dull.
Also also: the main character's hair is awful. What were they thinking?
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When I was about a third of the way through DQ11, my plan in reviewing the game was to say that the silent main doesn't work because of a kind of uncanny valley effect, where everyone else is voiced and the world is fleshed out, and the player is not using their imagination to fill in the details of anything, because there are no details to fill in. It made it impossible to imagine that the main character was anything other than the mute fellow he appeared to be. I thought, basically, that the director had made a mistake in sticking to the silent main bit but that the director was at least intending for the players to be able to imagine the main character as a bold hero. But it's really worse than that because the game goes out of its way to remove any sense of agency from the main character whatsoever. You're not playing as a doer of things and superimposing your own personality onto the way things get done. You're playing as a person who is, explicitly, mute and passive. And that just sucks.
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I decided to replay SaGa Frontier after playing Octopath Traveller. It's still great. I did Asellus's path in about six hours. Gen managed to get DSC at around hour 2 and most of the rest of the game crumbled. Orlouge was actually pretty tough still because of his crazy MT and multiacting at the end of the battle. Thank god for Mesarthim, even though she only had 450 HP. LifeRain is so dumb.
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Dragon Quest XI:
Well, I'm nowhere near done, but I'm definitely having the exact opposite reaction to the game as previous posters (what else is new?). The surprising part is that it's a Dragon Quest game that I actually -really- like. Getting rid of the boring slog of pure random encounters means I can tailor the difficulty of a dungeon to what I want. Grind for an easier boss, or not-grind for less tedium. Absolutely this alone makes it better than every other DQ game in my perspective.
Re: Sylvando and gay representation in video games oh god I hope no one crucifies me for this:
There are definitely two ways to look at this. I totally get NotMiki's initial impression of 'Not all gay people are *this*'. And that's true! It's unfortunate that there are stereotypes of all gay people acting flamboyantly.
It's also unfortunate that this stereotype is overwhelmingly portrayed in a negative light. Even in this game, I can see the seams where the localizers very craftily papered over a pretty offensive portrayal from the original Japanese game. Little animations and musical cues and gameplay functions that couldn't be changed with simple text show that the Japanese version of Sylvando and other okama-type characters was, at least sometimes, okay with making a joke where the punchline was 'lol look at him he gay'. Thankfully, the localizers went above and beyond to never do this, but you can't change the fact that when a female character blows a kiss as an attack, it causes swooning and charm, but when Sylvando does it, it causes poison. Thanks Japan. I know DQ has a history of overexaggerating stereotypes/archetypes in its characters for humour, but you've gotta be careful with what is the root of the humour.
Again, credit to the localization team for overall doing a great job not portraying Sylvando this way. He's a pretty nuanced character for a DQ game, certainly, despite sprinkling in the words 'honey' and 'darlings' liberally.
And in light of this, I have to look at DQ11 from the other perspective. While certainly 'Not all gays act like *this*', I think it's REALLY important that flamboyant dudes get the positive representation from a respectable character like Sylvando. Masculine, conforming, 'straight-acting' gay men already in general do not face nearly as much stigmatization that more feminine gay men do. As someone who gets to enjoy this privilege, I can say that 'erasure' is indeed a problem, but a much less scary one than consistently being portrayed negatively.
I haven't finished the game yet, but at the very least, Dave certainly seems to be covering the 'masculine gay' stereotype and isn't considered a big joke either? So I'm not even sure that there's a lack of representation with regard to variety of gay characters either...
Re: Main Character
So... like... I dunno about you guys, but I've never once really connected with 'Silent Main' as 'me'. In fact, the more a character talks and I understand them, the more I tend to identify with them. So the most successful Silent Mains to me are the ones that clearly have some kind of actual personality, like Suikoden 5's Prince or Persona 4/5's mains.
So I find it kind of hilarious that DQ11's Main is apparently not just a Silent Main mechanically, but that's actually his personality. He's passive and exploited, just like I'd expect to happen to someone who functionally never speaks or makes decisions. I think this kind of portrayal actually strengthens DQ11's writing (for where I'm at so far) rather than makes it 'no fun'. I was never going to identify with him, so it's nice to see him getting reacted to somewhat realistically.
Re: Toriyama
So it's no secret I loathe Akira Toriyama's terrible people art and have for a very long time. Perhaps it's me getting used to being forced to stare at his art for so many years, but I actually... don't hate the art in DQ11. Like, actual hand-drawn stuff still looks pretty terrible, but the 3D rendering is really good and smoothes over the terrible angles and glued-on-eyeballs that Toriyama is famous for. I appreciate that there is a wide range of faces for the NPCs, too. It takes the best bits of Toriyama's style and basically applies a filter that lets the jankiness read as human. (However, the Bulma-faced twins still need some work fixing that glued-on-eyeball-look.)
Also, the Main Character's hair is fine. It's just Trunks' hair, but less bulbous, which is only an improvement. (It IS weird how it's rendered to be blowing in the wind in every cutscene, regardless of environment... it just makes it look like the tips of his hair are constantly jiggling unnaturally... Oh well, it's Toriyama, SOMETHING was bound to go wrong.)
Monster designs continue to be delightful, of course. I wish people would stop letting humans be drawn in Toriyama's style.
Re: Things I agree on:
Music is awful. Skill Trees are the best in the series. Pep Up/Tension + Dual/Triple/Quad Techs as a callback to Chrono Trigger are an interesting addition to the franchise.
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Pink Dasher Copen (aka Azure Striker Gunvolt 2)
Finished Copen's path. If I stopped here it'd be a pretty short game, although I suppose I've really only played a little less than half, since I'm clearly expected to do Gunvolt's path as well and then presumably unlock some final confrontation mission. But it'll presumably be with a lot of identical stages. (Also, a shame that Copen's hax gun in GV1 got stolen at the end of it. It'd sure make GV2 more of a faceroll if he had it!)
Compared to Gunvolt 1, GV2 seems easier? That or I actually know the system now and it's the exact same difficulty but I'm better. I never died (except twice to bottomless pits I didn't realize was a pit) although I got sub-par J-Pop activated twice, which in GV1 would mean you were about to die, but I didn't think I was *that* close to dying here... not sure if I really was going to die, or if they have more liberal activation criteria. Anyway, I definitely never died to any boss - GV1 bosses weren't THAT bad, but if you facetanked their ultimate supermove you were generally dead, and some of those special attacks were non-trivial to learn how to avoid. Avoiding GV2 bosses' ultimates felt easier, and only one of them had an ult that really hurt if you ate it. Also, GV2 has the option to turn on a less-stupid scoring system than GV1 had. Sure, you get to see "Gutless" as your score style, but I got consistent A's and S's on my mission rankings as a result.
Also, for the PLOT. Copen hates all Adepts and wants to hunt them down! (Considering the plot of GV1 & GV2, this is less stupid than it sounds, as both of them involve adepts potentially enslaving the world or some such, working with evil cyberpunk megacorps, etc.). Meanwhile, Magneto wants to gather all mutants to form some new Eden - er, all adepts - and keeps trying to kidnap Copen's sister for some inexplicable reason, almost like they want her in their group. I will give you three guesses as to what is going on here. (I guess maybe it'd be too dark if Copen was proved "right" that all Adepts need to die immediately.)
As a side comment considering the FE Echoes thoughts before, I suspect that Elf & Ciato might have some salty comments about how the females in this series definitely seem to trend to the demure / servile / kidnappable side, which is fine in moderation but worrying if it applies to too much of the cast. Luckily there is at least one female boss who is by-the-books time to kill you now, but still, a few too many obsequious "anything for youuuu, main character!" types that Japanese shut-ins like to imagine having help them.
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When I was about a third of the way through DQ11, my plan in reviewing the game was to say that the silent main doesn't work because of a kind of uncanny valley effect, where everyone else is voiced and the world is fleshed out, and the player is not using their imagination to fill in the details of anything, because there are no details to fill in. It made it impossible to imagine that the main character was anything other than the mute fellow he appeared to be. I thought, basically, that the director had made a mistake in sticking to the silent main bit but that the director was at least intending for the players to be able to imagine the main character as a bold hero. But it's really worse than that because the game goes out of its way to remove any sense of agency from the main character whatsoever. You're not playing as a doer of things and superimposing your own personality onto the way things get done. You're playing as a person who is, explicitly, mute and passive. And that just sucks.
Haven't played 11 yet, but this was how 7's character was handled. People around him (including party members) just assume he's the village idiot and treat him as such.
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Marvel’s Spider-Man - so this is getting a lot of sugar talked around the place, so pulled the trigger on it after all. The cops buying surveillance software off Oscorp is sketch for reasons it got a lot of talk about, but the rest of the game is all thumbs up so far. About a third of the way through in one long sick day binge between feeling garbage. I am playing it wrong because I go donlike all the side stuff as soon as I can, but it means I get to swing around a ton and that feels good. Had one point of real friction during the intro to Kingpin bases where 6 waves of dudes felt really long but also simultaneously unable to meet the “get 10 finisher kills” bonus without nearly perfect play. Then after I gave up on it I leveled up and got a second focus bar which is enormous (builds up as you get more hits without enemies hitting you, which fills up after the higher that combo meter is. You use Focus to OHKO dudes or to heal). That really opens up the combat system, then just generally more skill points helps.
The game feels fantastic in your hands. It is great in motion and moment to moment is astoundingly fun. It falls down a bit when you need to slow down in the free roaming bits thst aren’t setpiecws for you to do stealth stuff. I had a mission that needed me to shoot air vents and I went about it wrong by climbing the building instead of swinging by doing strafe runs, but I was kinda committed at that point. It worked it just was not the way the game is setup to handle. In those set pieces it is spot on though.
The characters are all spot on so far, Peter is faithful but there is a thing I want to get back to.Mary Jane is straight up great so far, her as a journalist at the Bugle is straight fire. JJJ as a reactionary shock jock after retiring from the Bugle is also quality and I love his rants that come through on his podcast feed.
Twitter analogue is pretty fun as well.
It is super polished and is a master work from the enormous team of people it took.
The timeline it takes place on is a bit weird, it isn’t bad, just weird. It is set after Spidey has been around a while (side collection stuff references a 6 year old gym shirt, so 22-24ish). Peter has fought most of the rogue’s gallery at this point, but they are clearly setting up Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus origin stories. That doesn’t really mesh right with the rest of it all. But I am also super happy it isn’t another Spider-Man origin story and Peter having two fathering figures around that will both turn nasty is solid. Norman Osborn is kind of projecting a more sedate Willem Dafoe feeling Osborn, just in that he is a smiley slimey fuck. Otto is great. His VA is really doing a bang up job. It isn’t like mind blowing but it all feels genuine. The animation work on him is also a bit stand out. His acting feels really good and someone got damn good use out of the massive prescription glasses they gave his model, it super focuses the eyes.
Anyway, I am glad we have the Peter/MJ relationship because it is one I really like in general, but also one with a strongly characterized Mary Jane goes far. That said, what we do have repeating is the story of the breaking up, which repeats consistently in every retelling. I am hoping that they can take this one further into discussing the complexity there rather than it being MJ needing him to be around more or Peter leaving so MJ is safer, but time will tell. They seem to be thrusting towards MJ wanting to be able to help people in general and do it openly instead of behind a mask with her as an investigative journalist and with her talking about Peter’s work with Otto on prosthesis might help more than as Spidey. They might go there, they might not.
With that said though, they broke up 6 months ago and apparently haven’t even spoken since and Peter is still carrying the torch. MJ seems to be as well (like she is pushing him into committing to asking her out isbtes did Just Friendsing), but it comes off way red flaggy than it is probably meant to. Also it is incredibly frustrating how much the relationship completely shuts down because Peter doesn’t communicate, but that is clearly intentional.
Regardless MJ is fucking rad in this.
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Azur Lane: I married a battleship.
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Azur Lane: I married a battleship.
Why, CK why are you playing moe trash.
Another Eden is apologizing to the world and giving out 100 pulls, you can play that instead.
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Why, CK why are you playing moe trash.
We had a lovely honeymoon in Cozumel.
(https://i.imgur.com/Tnub8E8.png)
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What do you think is the most common cause for back pain among anime girls?
The huge jugs or the incredibly uncomfortable posing?
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You mean torsos don't rotate 90 degrees in real life?
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Only after a fracture
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I keep trying to post my thoughts on CS1 and CS2, but ATT and forums combine to repeatedly delete my fucking post, I don't give enough of a shit to do it in Word or whatever and C/P. It should be fucking stable enough to either not crash, or it shouldn't auto-refresh the fucking box in 2018 AD. I had like, 5 giant paragraphs talking about the game itself instead of the characters, and it's all gone. All gone forever.
Trails of Cold Steel 1 and Cold Steel 2 are both good games. CS1 is a 60 hour prologue and CS2 is the first game of a new series, and it is extremely good and fun. The villains' motivations make no goddamn sense. The last few fights of CS2 are horrible bullshit that undermine 50 hours of a very enjoyable battle system.
Rean is a good protagonist despite how easy he could be to make bad. He's not Estelle Bright, but that's asking a little much for anyone to follow.
Elliot fucking sucks and is a wanker. His two personality traits are that he's a pussy and he likes music. He is the only Trails character I actively dislike to date. (For all I gave Tita shit in TitS, my main objection was "she's a combat character! and she uses an orbal cannon she can't logically lift") Elliot is like having a Fire Emblem character in a Trails Game. In combat, right up until the last third or so of CS2 he's like, the best in-battle character in the game.
Gaius is also kind of Fire Emblem-y and one note. However, his one note makes him merely "boring" instead of "intolerable." Actually, Gauis' big flaw isn't even a flaw. He's just... too well-adjusted and self-actualized to be particularly interesting. The way to have made Gaius work better would have been to have him forced, like, just about everywhere. He's this solid rock you can lean on. Because of how CS' orbments are the opposite of logic and reason, he's got the best orbment despite being the worst mage.
Jusis is a dickhead, but he has some decent lines, and, honestly, he has some pretty good excuses for being a dickhead. He's the most generic in combat character there is, and is never either a good or a bad idea to take on your team, unless you somehow were to know in advance if enemies could be frozen, in which case he's very, very good.
Machias is an unlikeable shit for most of the first game, and his default Quartz in the first game is god-awful. Both of these are flipped entirely in game two, where he's probably the most consistently funny character (though he has a lot of competition for that), and Iron is suddenly ridiculously good. Machias is the only reason I managed to beat the main story. You can't actually damage Machias short of quadruple turning him. Granted, several of the late-game enemies actually can do this, since he's not very fast at all. FUN FACT: Every fight I had against Duvalie was won by Machias hitting her with his S-Craft. She's too focused on the wrong party member.
Laura is kind of boring in the first game, and also mean for no reason to one of the better/more likable characters. She gets over both of these things. Laura's actually cool and good. Sort of the opposite of Elliot in that her big flaw is not showing enough vulnerability, but then she actually starts to, and every time she does, it's endearing. You don't have to try so hard, Laura. We all know you're kind of a badass, so if like, the Golden Rakshasa and whatever the other guy's ostentatious title is are in the same room menacing you, just... go ahead and faint. You're allowed. In combat, Laura's... OK. She's not bad at any one thing, aside from speed (which is a really big thing, mind). Her Quartz is a terrible fit for her in the second half of the first game and the entirety of the second game. In game 1 I gave her Tauros and she just packed a huge whallop, and in game 2 I gave her Wing, and she was the multi-tool character that I used Jusis for in game 1. (....where I gave him Wing, which is just a really good Quartz)
Alisa is very nearly the second Trails character I don't really like, since she's kind of a spoiled rich girl, but she has this one facial expression (Rean also has it) where she just looks totally fucking bewildered and I cannot help but laugh every single time it pops up. Also a lot of what I don't like about Alisa is she seems forced on you as a Romantic interest, but you actually get to pick your romantic interest, and pretty much every option available (and notably one that isn't) is both a better fit and a more interesting character. In battle, she's very handy. She's a battery character like Machias, but a slightly better mage, and a significantly worse tank. She's a much better Battery though, since she gives CP instead of EP, and she gives a lot of it.
Emma is probably the least developed character in the cast, and that's honestly impressive given the cast includes Gaius and Elliot. She's kept a mystery for almost all of game 1 and then, as near as I can tell, in Game 2 they decided that making Celine a character with a ton of lines also made Emma more of a character, but it doesn't work that way. She gets upstaged by her own (annoying!) familiar, and suffers for it. Still, what exists isn't actually bad. I liked the way she sort of was hiding things in the first game, and I like what little character moments exist for her in the second, I just wish she was more her own thing instead of playing second fiddle to a non-entity. In battle, like Elliot, she's ridiculously good until she's very very suddenly not. Even then, her arts are just insane. In CS2 I gave Elliot Criminal and kept Emma with her default setup, and would use an Emma/Elliot overdrive against bosses, spamming Claimoh Solarion and Altair Cannon for six turns in a row for just massive damage. She's got a command revive that restores an absolute ton of HP and also gives a ton of CP, which is great.
Fie is my favorite member of the cast, and I feel that's probably true for the writers as well. She gets what feels like more characterization than most, She's up there with Machias and Millium for having the best lines, and her "climbing through ducts" song is adorable. We appear to share a neurological condition. In combat, she's the speed freak and also evade tank, and is the logical partner for Rean on the "make the enemies get zero turns forever" squad. She's great for most of the game, right up until she isn't, which is essentially the very end and "coincidentally" the same point Emma and Elliot become useless and Machias overtakes everyone but Rean for the mantle of "the best". (It's because her HP sucks)
Millium is Scrappy Doo in the first game, but in the second game, she's extremely likeable, legitimately very funny, and generally just a blast to have around. I'll say this here, since it comes up most with Millium, but you know what's ABSOLUTE bullshit? Reflect in CS2 is just rigged against you and it's not even trying to hide it. Millium reflects things at enemies, and it deals maybe, maybe a tenth of the damage the ability would have, sometimes considerably less than that. An enemy reflects YOUR skill? You're taking full fucking damage, maybe half if it's an S-craft (which will still murder you). That's a goddamn sin of game design. I get that she'd be way too good if Reflect were better, but either make reflect equally good (and not give it to Millium so freely!) or make it equally bad (because seriously, this is bull shit.) Game 1 did it about right, in that it made a huge difference, but it ended up being a huge difference in exactly one fight.
Instructor Sara feels almost like she was meant to be Schera from TitS and then they chose to go another direction, and we ended up with a damned good character (with much better VA). Like TitS2 version of Schera, Sara is somewhat above average at literally everything (and quite a bit above average at one or two things), and is therefor one of the best characters in the game for every portion of the game. I wanted to make a joke about her being the love child of Flik and someone, but shockingly, there's no immediate "red lightning" character that comes to mind.
Instructor Thomas rules, I accidentally read the NG+ spoilers about him, and he just rules even fucking harder.
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Cold Steel 2 disappointed me because it played way more idealistically than it had any right to given the circumstances of the game.
Dragon Quest 8: Playing the DS version. The few thoughts I have point to this game not being as good as I remembered it being. The plot and characters are more developed than usual for a Dragon Quest game, but it's still centralized around a silent main more than it should have been. For example Guv/Yangus' relationship is dull instead of interesting. I don't recall the game's conversation system, but it isn't as comprehensive as DQ7's (where party members had comments on almost every NPC that varied as the plot progressed). Jessica in particular strikes me as having less character than I recalled, although I can't quite put my finger on why (the different VA maybe, or the conversation system giving her less interesting lines than her more sparse plot-based stuff).
Gameplaywise I've been playing without expending skill points. This hasn't been that much of an issue as the game is easy enough and the level-based skills are more than sufficient. The DS version lets you see what skills you learn at what skill point investments, but doesn't say what the skills do. It also doesn't let you re-spec. The other major gameplay changes are the alchemy pot being instant (yay!) and Red/Morrie joining (Red right after Cap'n Crow, Morrie whenever you beat the rank S monstrous pit). A few other things like Twin Dragon Lash being nerfed, which I guess makes sense since they gave it to Red too and that could have been kinda ridiculous.
Dhoulmagus 2 gave me a gameover after a particularly unlucky string of actions/turn order. I mis-remembered how very durable he was.
Jessica being behind in levels makes her look way worse than the stat topic implies for most of the game and meshes with my recollection. I notice that the stat topic doesn't give her any kind of level penalty either for her slower level-curve or her losing ~15K exp being out of the party and missing her own boss fight.
Empyrea was a really good fight. Her defense (~308?) means she outright nulls any attack stat below 154, which you won't even beat out by that much. The Fuddle status was a good screw-over to boot. She was slow for my team and perhaps I'd argue in general (since Agility rings are a duh and the Mercury Bandana and Rapier are also a duh and there is even 1 Meteorite Bracelet by this point). Good fight.
One thing about playing this after DQ7 is I keep trying to say "Time to use the Sands of Time" if I get caught in a bind and forgetting I don't have that.
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https://acain882.wixsite.com/magic/blog/tales-of-berseria-s-gender-politics-and-how-they-shape-the-game-part-1
I decided to write a thing about Berseria. The URL says it all.
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Huh...good read. Berseria might be worth picking up just to see all that for myself.
I've been playing a whole mess of Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires still(and streaming it a lot too!) since I'm trying to unlock everything on the PC version. Also playing some Throne of Lies courtesy of Alex-chan, and even won my first game as Prince(...mostly due to an Alch siding BD at the last second. But I was NICE to that Alch, so I'll take that as a win!)
On console, still plugging away at Yakuza Kiwami 2. Think I'm closing in on the ending stretch, but also that will be time for Sidequest Hell. After that, prolly either DQ11 or WARRIORS OROCHI 4 which I had no idea was even coming out until like last month! And it's out...next week!!!!
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Bravely Second- fin.
I'm finding it hard to have thoughts about this that I haven't already talked about? It's mostly an inexplicably clumsy game at every level writing wise. Having a sudden 'empire' which is actually a flying warship and tens of thousands (TENS OF THOUSANDS APPRENTLY) of disgruntled soldiers out of nowhere pretty much irreparably breaks the core setting from the outset, although that was unavoidable just by BD not... being a sequel-friendly game if we're honest? Granted this is a series which made an updated rerelease, then made the added features and story bits in that sequel an IN UNIVERSE RETCON from the ending of Second so like there's no rules and no consistency. And removing Ringabell and mostly removing Anges completely breaks the party's dynamic, because Tiz was always the most boring of the four and Edea has no rapport with him to speak of. Yew and Magnolia have a cute thing (more on that in a second), but neither Edea or Tiz have a terribly interesting relationship with either.
The returning Eternians were probably the most interesting part, but usually interesting as a window into the way the writers had no idea what even. The concept is fine, and they managed to come up with something for each split, but about half of them are over trivial nonsense and the other half are moral dilemmas with... the most clearcut right sides I've seen? Like I feel like you could present this as a psych eval and everyone who picks DeRossa or Khamer is verified as a terrible person best excommunicated from society.
While the empire should always be referred to with airquotes, the actual Asterisk holders are kinda interesting in C5 when you revisit them. Like, you can see exactly what they wanted to do here, and why they did the returning jobs the way they did. "The courage to try again" is less about learning from failure and more about redemption! Second CHANCES, y'see. So a set of people who were evil, but also wronged, having those wrongs acknowledged and given a chance to do things right this time. Or two lovers, torn apart once they acknowledged their love, given a chance to reunite at last. So on.
Like so many things in this game, they weakened their point by spelling it out in the finale I think, but on the other hand I AM a sucker for Persona-esque "rally the heroes so they can defeat a god" scenes. Although again... BD trounced it in that department by incorporating your DS friend list.
It makes this game being so obviously worse than BD kinda tragic. 'We can do even better on the second game!' But... well, didn't work out. Did good enough for a third try though.
But actually I did legitimately enjoy the relationship writing? I'm a sap I know, but fuck if my favorite seen isn't Ringabel, incognito, swooping in to save Edea in Florem. I joked about French Moon Waifus the moment i started the game, but actually once everything's out in the open they develop the actual relationship in a fairly sweet, understated way. and... yeaaaah okay the core plot of the game being what it was is pretty awesome.
Gameplay is an interesting spin on BD, like all your core setups from BD are pretty adaptable to BS but you'll also accident your way into even more fun stuff with the new jobs, and unlike BD I feel like you can get some good use out of just about anything rather than there being half a dozen jobs that you just punt off a cliff. Well, I guess Valkyrie kinda lost something, possibly just by being later? BUt yeah.
Thought about dropping it a bit lower, but looking at my rankings 7/10 feels right. Could change if I get in there and shuffle things more broadly though.
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Bastion- Fin
Not playing this in the days it was fresh is certainly a missed opportunity. A lot of the indie scene has been mining Bastion for inspiration both direct and indirect, which is a good policy but also makes it easier to focus on it as a game rather than a complete experience and... it does lose something that way.
Like structurally Bastion is super, super basic and you don't even see a boss until the latter half of the game, then after THAT they all get recycled at one point or another. Considering the way they use narration that absolutely feels like a missed opportunity. Like just the random lore dumps about the swamp gator were great, pity they don't really do that again!
It also just gets rude as hell, and while the narration gives you that cue of "uh yeah it's supposed to be, this is a dramatic moment" I'm not gonna lie, glad they had infinite continues mode here. Even with the proving grounds getting good at Bastion would be kinda tedious I think, it's just entirely too easy to get swarmed an overwhelmed even with otherwise skilled play.
This is a rare case where I think the game does lose something if you know exactly how Zolf plays out. Like knowing the bones of it is fine, but the presentation shifts they do is their biggest gambit to sell you on the overall themes and... yeah it loses something knowing the details before hand. Been a long while since I felt that was true of a story really.
I've seen some videos summarizing Bastion as being about moving on, which is true, but there's an interesting layer under that. Bastion is a game that gives you mechanical rewards for collecting mementos of the ruined city or building monuments to fallen organizations from the old world. You the decision to reset everything is framed as just failing the same way over and over, but neither are you meant to just press on. You're only at your strongest while fully understanding the past, and acknowledging the sins of your forefathers. You'll never be able to foster the cooperation needed to truly move on until you understand how others have been hurt, and how to make amends.
At some point this probably would have nabbed an 8, but looking through my lists I can't say it hangs with most of the games I have on that tier, so 7/10 it is.
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I really don't like the ending of either Bravely game. Not only are Ouroburos and Providence two of the most generic Big Bad Evil Gods I can recall (and with so little connection to the party that I have no issues spoiling their names despite the fact that neither is mentioned until lategame), but the fourth wall breaking both do falls extremely flat. Congratulations, by trying to threaten me, the player (or my friend list and save file I guess lol), all you do is remind me that you're just a powerless fictional character, which is a good way to make your evil god seem pathetic but that didn't seem to be what the narrative was going for. It's like someone played Undertale and liked certain lategame scenes there but had no idea what made them work.
I also strongly disagree on anything Ringabel-related in BS being good, and that's speaking as someone who liked him in BD. It mostly comes across as bad fanfiction of one type or another (i.e. it either seriously breaks the immersion of the setting or it's trying to set up a relationship without acknowledging how problematic that relationship would be even though BD already did!).
(Not to be too negative, though, I did like some of the game's other plot ideas. You covered it nicely in your comments about the Empire's asterisk-holders I think. But yeah, overall I definitely felt there was more bad than good, sadly.)
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I'm mixed on that aspect of the setting. The impression I got in BD was Ouroboros was hopelessly out of his league, but in denial about the whole affair. He could perceive you but nothing he could do would let him DO anything about it. Providence, recognizing this, instead tries to mess with you by guilting you into giving up.
... really they're probably playing around with the dimensionality of God basically. So the game characters are 4th dimensional, Altair and the like are 5th dimensional (they can transcend time), the evil gods are 6d beings that transcend parallel universes, but above them are yet higher beings, who can manipulate all the lower dimensions for amusement. That sorta thing. Whether they get explicit with it in Bravely Sword who knows.
Like as a quick gimmick it's an idea, but like everything else htey don't really know how to make it work. Honestly the other bits of connectivity are a lot more interesting! The scenes in BD where your friends list starts sending energy are pretty cool! But they went a further layer up than they knew how to write.
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Yeah, the friend list thing fell really flat to me. My friends aren't actually doing anything, and if they were I'd hope they would support me in better ways than "helping me" against a final boss that I'm finding narratively ineffective.
Like I can kinda get behind "power of teamwork" sequences against final bosses (though they can certainly be overwrought) in-universe since they make sense and there's that warm fuzzy feeling of people banding together to overcome the impossible. I don't think the out-of-universe equivalent works.
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I think Bravely tries to square that circle by having those elements be simultaneously in and out of universe. Like, the conceit is already that Ouroboros is eating dimensions to power himself and you just happen to let him get the last one he needs, so they try a sleight of hand and say "oh, these other parties are just dimensions he didn't get to!" but curiously they're named after your friend's list. I dunno that it works, but eh, there's room there to not completely break the immersion.
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Both Bravely Default and Bravely Second's 'true' endgame gimmicks were so ridiculous that I developed extreme apathy to the actual plot. To be quite frank it felt so obviously a terrible plot step that I felt embarrassed to be watching it.
On the other end of the spectrum, Bravely Default's 'false' ending really pulled me in and honestly excited me. The game has you doing something it's been telling you the whole game NOT to do, with tension building in real time as to what is going to happen to the crystal and what Airy will do in response. The realization of that building expectation was fantastic, both because Airy felt like a truly frightening threat and because it was the turning point of everything in the plot that had happened to that point. Ouroboros doesn't have that kind of narrative weight, and the game's attempt to give him some flopped and made the whole thing seem ridiculous. I think a good comparison for the fourth wall breaking is introducing magic into some long-running TV series that had never presented it as a feature. It totally breaks the immersion.
Bravely Second incorporating the 4th wall breaking for it's midgame stunt was unfortunate, and the final boss' instance was comically ineffective. The other concern I had with the game was Kaiser's character being zig-zagged as hyper-villainous / sympathetic. In the beginning of the game he unflinchingly executes his brother, and yet they paint the relationship as a close bond later? In another instance he unfeelingly threatens his loyal servants with death for failing to win a battle. And yet after beating him everything is a-ok and the game paints him heroically caring for his underlings, even being overly friendly. The inevitable comparison between the roles of Anne and Airy is very unkind to the second game's writing.
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Portrait of Ruin: Holy shit the 5th level of Nest of Evil was a ridiculous difficulty spike, even moreso than the 4th. The double Creature room was insane, I had to resort to the stall for one minute and then run strategy so that I only used up half my potions instead of all of them. Next room followed that up with some enemies that OHKO'd me when I tried to fight it blind. I learned my lesson and closely followed a faq for every room from then onwards. Nothing wound up being all that bad, but I wasn't taking any chances. Abaddon died pretty quickly to Vampire Killer crit spam, but with the caveat that I'm pretty sure I'm overlevelled at this point (L62, which didn't stop the first two rooms from being hard as fuck).
I should get around to typing up general thoughts on the game later, but I wanted to get these thoughts written down while they were fresh, at least.
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Yeah, the friend list thing fell really flat to me. My friends aren't actually doing anything, and if they were I'd hope they would support me in better ways than "helping me" against a final boss that I'm finding narratively ineffective.
RIP there goes all I was bringing to the table.
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FFT retrospective: Chapter 3 part 1
Early Chapter 3 is where I put story progress on hod for a while. I do most of the available propositions. In the process. Ramza learns Damage Split (yay), and Agrias learns Lightning Stab (usually doesn't happen this early). Most of my generics are able to learn Concentrate which is my support of choice given the number of shields and mantles present in future fights. No early Ninja Knives from ghouls, eh whatever. Besides Ramza, none of my units have reactions other than Counter Tackle or Weapon Guard and no one has learned Move +2 yet. Got to Lv 21 on some people which is rather high for me at this point and invited a random human for a Judo Outfit along the way.
Goland is one of those fights that is actually easy if simply trying to win but I have a long list of equipment to steal. Much of this depends on Olan using Galaxy Stop a lot and hopefully no Cancers on the opposing team. The single Judo Outfit I had was enough to push my Aries female with Steal Weapon over the 192 HP threshold. This matters because she can survive two gunshots at full HP while she's trying to steal them. I had three different units with theft skills deployed. Between them (and cooperative Olan), I got every item that I wanted.
One proposition to do before the next story fight. I came prepared to invite in case I ran into a human with a Judo Outfit (want more) and sure enough, ran into a Time Mage at Lenalia with one. This was fun because I got to use Magic Break. Kill off other enemies, break target's MP to uselessness, and throw out Invitation until it hits. The time mage had worst compatibility with my inviter so it took longer than I would have liked. Lots of scrambling around a cliff trying to lure the time mage into a position where I could toss out an Invite without him being able to reach the inviter for a staff bop. Probably moved 4 or 5 times per invite attempt but it was safe like this. All the while, the rest of the team chilled on the opposite end of the map while the time mage kept chasing the ninja trying to recruit him. Got him eventually with that 12% chance.
Keeping Alma from stealing my crystals is the trickiest part of the Zalmo fight. In my winning attempt, he didn't have Raise 2. Wizard Ramza with Magic Attack Up nearly soloed the fight. Agrias was an Archer with Equip Sword and +3 PA from gear so she was a destructive force. Between the two, there wasn't much for my Chemist and Knight to do. Other than break Zalmo's stick to humiliate him anyways. Monk stayed active keeping Alma's MP up for MBarrier goodness. Easy to swipe Zalmo's White Robe from here.
Mana Khemia
Picked this up on random recommendation from Sopko. Like it and when I like something, I have lots to say about it. I enjoy the item crafting aspect and would do it even if stat growth wasn't tied to it so strongly. This post is here because I want to document the Synthesis 4 assignment since it's not really mentioned anywhere online that I know of. Given it only shows up if you fail to acquire enough units in the first two sessions of Chapter 7, it's understandable most won't encounter it. I wasn't aware of it except for a hint from another source so I intentionally tried for it while tearing through Clear Game. Assignment is to synthesize a Nectar. A Nectar with desirable Ether effects. Kind of tricky to do, getting both Effect+ and Aromatic at the same time.
Of course I reverted back to earlier save after trying this. I want those marathon rewards more.
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Tales of Berseria - Beaten.
Short version: Wow, that was good. Play this game. To emphasise this: I do not like Tales gameplay. Never have, still don't. I consider this game excellent anyway. It's absolutely one of the best-written, and more importantly most interestingly written RPGs ever made.
Quick notes on non-writing things: game took me 52 hours, I finished at around Level 55 (maybe underlevelled? I avoid lots of encounters). Gameplay mostly didn't get in the way and I did enjoy Velvet's therion powers at least (played as others sometimes, but the game feels like it's missing something). It's not actually very interesting though. The game has adjustable difficulty modes; I played on Moderate which made me stay awake but that was about it, which is fine because anything harder would probably up enemy HP more than I wanted. I died to duel Shigure due to being a Rokurou rookie, and also to the Teresa/Oscar chain boss battle, which I found easily the toughest in the game. On the other side of the difficulty spectrum there's the "real" Shigure fight in the volcano which was just a complete joke? Didn't even use a Life Bottle. Life Bottles are OP and you only lose when you run out, kinda weird balance. Music is generally kinda mediocre but I liked a few pieces (see also: my opinion on TotA's OST). Visuals I don't have much to say about. I appreciate the goofy fashion options. Voice acting/direction is really really great and this helps bring the writing to life in a huge way.
Okay, that out of the way, let's talk about writing. I'll guard the worst spoilers but I assume from here on out if you're reading this, you have some interest in hearing what makes the writing good, which naturally has to cover some plot and character points.
ToB is about quite a few things, but at its core it's about human behaviour, I think. Every character in ToB acts in a way which alligns with their interests, often selfish ones. This applies to both the party members and their antagonists. Many of the major characters go through character arcs of figuring out what it is they want to do, what it is they want from life. Velvet, Eleanor, Phi, and even (surprisingly) Magilou grapple with this in a big way, as do various NPCs (I hadn't thought about it until writing this, but it's a common theme even among some of the bit characters living in towns). Remarkably, this applies to the antagonists too. Every one of them is a thinking, breathing person with their own reasons for doing what they do, and when it doesn't allign with what their leadership does, they're very willing to do things their own way. And even more remarkably, every one of them has quite human reasons for what they do; there are no card-carrying scenery-chewing baddies here, nor anyone with stupidly blind loyalty to the leader of the Villain Totem Pole as is too common in RPGs.
The protagonists are unuaully "bad" for an RPG; the antagonists are unusually "good". You'll probably find yourself siding with the protagonists for a variety of reasons (not least of which is that you spend far, far more time watching them and growing to love 'em, but also it's hard not to hear Magilou's big speech to one of the villains late and go "right on"). Certainly that's how I felt. The game does want you to consider the moral ambiguity of what your PCs are doing, and understand where the antagonists are coming from, even as it invites you to choose a side. (And I can't fault the last part, since if you really wanted to side with the antagonists you'd probably find the game very narratively unsatisfying after all.)
Character notes:
Velvet is really great. Absolutely one of the all-time great RPG protagonists. The sense of loss and betrayal she goes through is palpable (the end of the prologue ripping everything away from her), setting the stage for her "roaring revengeathon" as Magilou puts it. She's often not very nice! But she is very humanized throughout, particular as various things make her remember the person she was before.
She gets all sorts of powerful scenes in the mid-to-lategame as she grapples with what she's become (e.g. her reaction to Teresa's accusations after she kills Oscar, her complete breakdown as Innominat torments her with memories of Arthur, Celica, and Laphi) and has to completely rethink why she is doing what she does and what her correct course of action should be. I can't think of many heroes who go into the final battle with such complicated feelings for the antagonists.
Like I'm sitting here legit wondering who I think is better as far as main characters go. I dunno that I have an answer.
Rokurou's much lighter on character development certainly! He wants to be a great fighter and that means beating a guy to prove it. In a way he's a bit of a mirror for Velvet; both are warrior daemons with loose morals and both really just want to kill a guy, but they're opposites in other ways: Velvet is a creature of blazing intensity, laser-focused on her revenge, whereas Rokurou has a cheerful demeanour and a lighthearted approach to most things. And where Velvet has a damn good reason for doing what she wants to do, Rokurou's seems to defy understanding to all but him and his target (a fact Eleanor comments on).
His actual plot isn't too intriguing but I like what he brings to the party. He has good interactions with Velvet, Phi, and Eizen in particular... even gets some with Eleanor late.
Magilou is fantastic. She's a consistently funny troll, and is very good at saying the things which are on-point and skewer other characters' behviour. Not to say the game isn't willing to poke fun at her too, because it certainly is; the other characters treat her exactly as you'd expect (we don't get hero worship of her for undeserved reasons like a certain previous Tales character).
Her irreverence of course is largely a mask to the fact that she doesn't give a shit. As the game goes on, she learns to give a shit again, to the point where her lategame verbal smackdown ("Those ideals are twisted! Can a flower hold beauty if it does not wilt?! Can a wolf be satisfied with eating grass?! The thought makes me retch! As do those who wish for it, and those content to live in shackles!") is a beautiful cathartic moment. It's rather fascinating to watch the mysteries surrounding her slowly unfold, they're strung along nicely and tie in with other major events in the main plot like the powerful sequence in Aball Village.
Phi is also pretty damn good. We've all seen the "learning to be human" trope and that's pretty much what Phi does. The relationship between him and Velvet is fascinating to watch. One of the major themes of ToB is that humans are fundamentally selfish but that this selfishness can still lead to good, and we certainly see that in how Velvet essentially "raises" Phi and encourages him to chart his own path through life. A big part of Velvet I didn't yet touch on is her big sister/motherly side (on full display in the prologue) and it's neat to see how that rubs off on Phi and makes him grow into a heroic person, ironically more heroic than both his adopted and biological parent. And damn but the scene where he pulls Velvet back from the brink, making her see that she is loved and that life is still worth living, pulling her back from despair is freaking great. There's other good stuff both before and after that but that scene really puts the exclamation point on the character. All you need is love.
Eizen is probably the weak link of the party overall. I will say that I love his role as party nerd. He kinda wants to be an aloof loner but that image goes out the window as soon as you get him talking about, say, the history of soap and its relationship with class in Midgand. One of his primary purposes is of course just exposition; when other characters don't know something and Magilou doesn't feel like telling, he's the only logical choice, and he'd old with a huge wealth of knowledge so it does make sense! But I really like how the game plays him; it's both funny and very true to how some people are in reality.
I have less good to say about some of his own plot. Zaveed is largely annoying (although I did like how the game drew a contast between his "no killing" philosophy and... well, the ToB party) and Aifread barely exists and most of Eizen's serious plot is wrapped up in those characters, or in his Reaper's Curse, which sadly is kinda terrible? "My luck is objectively, measurably bad" is a difficult plot point to do right (because it defies how the universe works in a way I find difficult to square) but when the outcomes of this "curse" tend to be "bad things happen, but never in a way that actually hurts anyone" it's just ineffective. I think if the writers wanted to run with this plot point, they should have owned it; give him a parade of dead friends and family.
Still has good interactions with the other PCs because ToB character interaction, it's really good.
Eleanor is a darling and a badly needed voice for good on the team. Her development mostly moves down a predictable path, and she lacks the strong connections to the antagonists that some of the others have (which is a shame, because she easily could have had a stronger one for obvious reasons!). Still, she nicely shows how a highly moral person could go from a member of the Abbey to a close friend of the Abbey's antichrist figure. She's another character who bounces off Velvet well, being at first strong rivals but you can definitely see the friendship blossom as the game does on, and the scene where Velvet asks her to take care of Phi after she dies is a poignant conclusion to this.
Bienfu is - maybe somewhat surprisingly - actually pretty funny! Felt like the game knew exactly how much to use him. He's a tremendous buttmonkey and kinda gets abused by Magi-"certifiably a bad person"-lou but he earns just enough of it by being a bad person himself that you don't feel too bad for him (plus he's a drama queen and exaggerates everything. Biieennnn!)
I enjoyed most of the antagonists too! Arthur is of course the star. Reason is everything... except ultimately even he is just as selfish as the rest, as his "reason" is just a mask for his despair, a convenient excuse for how he wants to remove the capacity to do evil from humans after humans were evil enough to let his wife die. i loved how the scenes in the Earthen Historia, and finally his own admission at the final battle, reframed what you thought about him and his motivations. Melchior has great stage presence; I always wanted to see what he would do next, and I liked how he was a "true believer", a good person in his own way who truly believed that humanity needed to be purged of sin. Teresa is a model exorcist praetor who chooses to sacrifice all of that for her brother, and her election to go with emotion over reason and her connection to her brother make her a compelling foil to Velvet. Shigure sadly is a bit disappointing; when the game teases that he wants to fight Artorius I had hoped there would be more there than "likes fighting strong foes" but so it goes, like brother like brother I guess. And Innominat... not much screentime but damn if he doesn't make an impact. The twist there is one hell of a gutpunch, such a good one that I, like Velvet, just didn't want to believe it.
There's a lot more I could talk about, and maybe I will at some point, but I think that'll do for now. The game grapples with so many themes effecitvely: emotion vs reason is the biggest, but selfishness, what makes life worth living, gender, family relationships, and more all dot so many scenes. On top of it all, quite apart from just being a well put together plot with outstanding character work, ToB is a game with things to say, and asks its player to reflect on those.
Probably an 8/10 for me since that's as high as games get my without liking the gameplay (see also: where I rate Suikoden V), but obviously I think very highly of it and would recommend it to anyone who likes writing in their JRPGs.
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Wow. A part of me wishes you had played Tales of Zestiria so you could appreciate the apparent contrast in writng quality.
But I wouldn't want you to suffer like that.
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There are benefits to avoiding this series until you hear good enough things about one to take a plunge on.
ToZ was not that one.
Nor am I sure when the next one will be. ToB still has some issues with being a bit longer than it needs to be and I just can't get into this series gameplay-wise (to be clear, Berseria has better gameplay than Abyss or Symphonia, but still such that if the writing had been bad I'd have dropped it a few hours in hours in) so I'd need good reason to believe the next Tales game is also a knockout on writing before I pick it up.
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https://acain882.wixsite.com/magic/blog/tales-of-berseria-part-2-let-the-lord-of-chaos-rule
I wrote a little bit about the parallels between ToB and Wheel of Time. This may or may not be Super-bait.
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Tales of Berseria - Beaten.
Some ToB thoughts. Ain't read WoT so I can't say anything about that.
For my money Phi's character arc is perhaps the best of its kind. It's the kind of gradual development that Tales is well-positioned to deliver but usually falls short on.
Magilou's English VA is amazing. I think I've said that before but I can't say it enough.
Zaveed subtracted from the game. Quite consistent with what little I saw of him in ToZ, he's just an infuriating character. His pacifism is directly at odds with his I'm-not-gonna-explain-anything-cuz-I'm-too-cool schtick. And he never really gets called on it. He could have been a good foil for the party, but he's too annoying to be an effective messenger for his philosophy.
Agreed re: Eizen.
Speaking of never getting called on it, I was disappointed that Magilou didn't verbally own Melchior harder. He preaches virtue but he's a fucking monster, you're allowed to call him on that! That also applies to Artorius and Laphicet - all three of them created Velvet to be a hateful existence on purpose, and all three of them scorn her for being that hateful person. The PCs failing to verbally own all three of them for their hypocracy was a disappointment.
I really liked what they did with the lady who becomes the surrogate mother of that girl (it's been a little while and the names of both are escaping me). It's a relationship that Velvet basically creates for entirely selfish and artificial reasons, but that overtakes her emotionally so that by the end she genuinely wants to protect mother and daughter. It's great, and feels really natural, and it feels like the backbone of a third act that grounds and humanizes Velvet and the party without ever feeling like a very special episode or a cop-out.
Anyway, good game verging on great in places. If you only took 55 hours, I assume you didn't do much sidequesting? I wouldn't say it adds a ton (especially Eizen's) but it sure adds a lot of time.
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ToB Sidequests: Rokurou's is pretty important for solidifying what his role in the game is (apart from giving you another male character, another daemon character, and another bossfight). Both NEB and Ciato keyed into his role as a mirror of Velvet, but his sidequest goes into just how much of his story mirrors Velvet's before Velvet ever meets him, and explains a bit of why his response is so different. Also, his comparative reaction to trauma can definitely be read as part of the gender commentary that ToB plays with.
Eleanor's is also just good for finally giving her some catharsis and tying up her subplots with Kamoana and Phi.
ToZ:
I am still playing this with my friend, and it is still pretty garbage, but constantly reading into ToZ's (bland, uninspired) message with the various lenses gleaned from ToB DOES help a bit. The presentation in ToZ is just shit, but there are some interesting things you can pick out about the nature of the setting and how the roles of Shephard and Lord of Calamity evolved (or more specifically, kind of DIDN'T) over time. I may be seeing a bit of Utena influence in this regard that isn't actually there, since the plot of ToZ is so overly dependent on archetypes it almost comes off as an analysis of how rigid and inhuman archetypal narratives are...
I can't decide if I am insulting it enough or not. Either way, don't subject yourself to this unless you just have too much free time on your hands and REALLY love ToB...
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I did some of the sidequests (Eleanor's and Magilou's for instance, and bits of others as I stumbled upon them) but not all. I assume the other reason for the lower time was that I avoided lots of battles generally.
Otherwise, good points, I generally agree!
The voice work of the major characters is generally superb, but yeah nobody more than Magilou. It really helps bring their interactions to life and sells both their day-to-day conversations and the biggest dramatic scenes.
I hadn't actually considered the depths of the hypocrisy of Artorius and co. there but you're spot on and it is kind of a shame we didn't get a scene like that. I kinda get why it didn't happen as the protagonists themselves have complex feelings for the antagonists there. In Magilou's case she consistently brushes off the terrible things Melchior does to her (e.g. for an obvious present-day example, we see how much she suffers holding him off at the dimensional rift but later just jokes about having to listen to his boring conversation) and her "you suck!" speech to him later instead focuses entirely on her problems with his ideology rather than his personal failings. I think the point might be that the petty personal failings of Arthur and Melchior aren't why the PCs are fighting them, but rather their grander plan, and this opposition would occur even if the villains were perfect moral paragons otherwise. But I still agree that I would have liked to see that verbal owning anyway!
Well-put on Zaveed. I don't have too much to add, except something related to him that I forgot to mention in my previous post: Siegfried. Can we NOT have "shooting yourself in the head" as a way of powering up, video games? Like ever again? Thanks.
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Have you heard of the Caligula Effect? It's the psychological desire to do crazy shit precisely because it's forbidden, or stupid, or unusual. It's also a PS Vita RPG that had a Steam version come out recently, done by some of the people from Persona 2 apparently, but eh, that's pretty low on the priority list, I'll probably never play it. Why do I bring it up? Well, what game should I play next? Go back to the critically acclaimed Nier Automata? Back to Tales of Berseria, which had Elf & Djinn's great writeup, and a personal endorsement from a good friend of mine? Maybe resume getting my ass kicked by evil dinosaurs in Ys 8? Do something offbeat and quirky with Golf Story or finishing up Night in the Woods?
No, I started Dragon Quest XI, despite NotMiki & Ephraim's less-than-enthusiastic reviews. May God have mercy on my soul.
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Octopath Traveler
Beat the postgame boss a few weeks ago. Fun times, glad they had at least 1 boss that wasn't going to play nice and do some brutal nasty I'mma kill you now moves. While I appreciate the game wanting to make the fight more tense with some "you will have to start all over again" stakes, just add a damn save point before it, game. The boss rush before the final was a bit of a waste of time, if you have any trouble with the old bosses you aren't beating the postgame final. I beat it the first try, but it'd have been frustrating had I lost, which I came damn close to.
Went with Sorc Tressa (Runelord Transfer Rune cheeze seemed unfun), Warmaster H'aanit (she needed a boost, since holy crap capture rates for endgame monsters suuuuuck and aren't very good even if you are patient), Runelord Ophilia (Dancer subclass, what I had on Ophilia before, goes from good to pathetic in the postgame after you get auto-buff skills & face lots of dispelling), and Starseer Primrose (she needed *something*, and was still kinda bad). Huh, ended up with all the ladies in the postgame classes, didn't notice until now…. although only in Tressa's case was it really favoritism. Also, sheesh, Scholar falls off hard in the postgame, what used to be great damage is now pathetic - Cyrus was basically on strictly support duty.
Also, after checking speedruns, I see I missed out on two OP mechanics: Turns out Tradewinds Spear & Primeval Bow of Storms STACK for some brutal Ventus Saltares. I only had one on Sorc Tressa, with the other going to Primrose. Also, BP Eater is way better a passive than I assumed, it's just a straight-up giant damage boost that I should have equipped. Oh well, made the fight extra exciting, and that's okay. Also, while I accidentally had my scrubbier team in the tougher fight, they were also the team that was more multi-target focused, which sorta worked out - checking the Internet after the fight, the 3 sub-parts really unload once you kill a single piece, so killing all three at around the same time worked out pretty good. I had Sorc Tressa / Cleric Olberic / Runelord Ophilia / Thief Alfyn for fight 1, which they wrecked, and Warmaster H'aanit / Apothecary Cyrus / Starseer Primrose / for fight 2.
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Azure Striker Gunvolt 2
Finished Gunvolt's path, then the final final confrontation for both paths. Pretty enjoyable, with a few major qualms getting in the way. Since I think only Meeple & NotMiki played the series, for what it's worth, the developer for this is Inti Creates, the same company that did Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, which I know various people around here liked. (For all that Gunvolt is a different kind of platformer... dying against Curse of the Moon randoms is perfectly understandable, Gunvolt randoms exist solely to get styled on and die horribly.)
* Difficulty: Game is too easy. Okay, Gunvolt's path was more difficult than Copen's, since his mechanics are somewhat balanced in having to choose between offense and defense, and at least one boss is reasonably dangerous and I wiped against (Jibril, evil tsundere). And the true final bosses you can credibly lose against, although they're still way easier than Gunvolt 1's final final boss. But yeah. For those who aren't familiar with the series, there's a mechanic called "prevasion" where basically you get auto-ninja dodges, energy permitting, and only start taking real damage if either you're out of juice or (as Gunvolt) are currently using your electric attack. The good news is that this truly does help make you feel like a badass. That bad news is that this makes it incredibly difficult for anything that isn't a bottomless pit to kill you if you play defensively and keep your energy high. There are a few boss attacks that can overwhelm you, but it isn't common, and even the fake final boss can't stop you from walling basically all of her stuff, with only the final-final bosses packing a bunch of stuff that straight up ignores prevasion. That said, the game is also too hard if you want it to be - you can just unequip the prevasion accessory / skill and congratulations, the game is now brutally hard with all the crap flying around everywhere you now need to actually dodge. And the special runner / competition modes have you at level 1 with horrible equipment and no prevasion, so good luck you will likely die etc. there. So I guess I shouldn't complain too much, but it's a violent difficulty shift - the equivalent of going from playing Super Metroid with 20 energy tanks and 4 reserve tanks to playing with 3 energy tanks.
* Style: I'm not that big of a shonen anime fan. And when, say, the LOH Trails series dips its toes in shonen tropes, I feel it usually more detracts from what the series does well then enhances it. That said, I actually liked Gunvolt 2 on this. Gunvolt, somehow, really commits to the shonen style and makes it work, something which is aided by it being an action game - when an RPG character does some cutscene super-duper-attack with explosions everywhere a la Trails S-Crafts, FF9 Trances, whatever, and then a big number pops up and you're done, it is inherently a little unimpressive. When a boss yells out their anime super move and you get to personally dodge giant water harpoons or blood blades or whatever, or you yell out your own super move and instantly knock off a third of the boss's health, the effect just works.
* Music: When George Lucas made Star Wars, the original, he requested a certain style of bombastic orchestral music but had no idea what he was getting. It was a pleasant surprise that he ended up with one of the best film scores ever from a then-unknown John Williams. I suspect the unhappy version of this story happened here: the developers knew they needed J-Pop on a budget, found some unknown musicians, and got… some mediocre-eh-whatever J-Pop. It's a shame because the story certainly puts its heart into selling you that this music is the greatest shit ever, complete with getting to sing into the DS microphone yourself (!), but it's just kinda there.
* The Female characters: I think Ciato had a comment about Fire Emblem Olivia: the term "waifu" is overused, but if it still means anything, Olivia probably qualifies as a waifu. Well… damn near all the females in this game, certainly all the friendly ones, are pretty much just waifus, moe blobs whose sole desire is to help and/or please one of the two protagonists. (And hell, even one of the villainous girls has a crush on Gunvolt.) If they have anything approaching character interaction with others, it is petty jealousy over who Gunvolt is paying more attention to. Basically, it isn't passing the Bechdel Test. (I'm actually willing to cut some slack to two of the four female supporty type characters for this actually making some sense - e.g. Lola is an AI solely designed to help boss Copen out - but the likes of Nori have no excuse.)
The ending to the game is also kinda freaky, although in fairness, the game seems to realize that it's pretty messed up and has Our Heros appropriately angsty about it, rather than brushing it off. (Imagine if FF7 Marlene randomly died, but then the spirit of Aeris possessed her and created a crazy, amnesiac merged person, causing both Cloud & Barret to wander the land as angsty loners distraught they couldn't save either one.)
So yeah. Fun times, nice & fast to playthrough while still having replayability if you decide you love it and want to beat it on ranking modes without prevasion, but a few chinks in the armor.
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Now that ToB is done, it's back to Fire Emblem! More Sword Conquest updates:
Black and White (C18): One of those maps where the trickiest thing is getting your foot in the door. The northwest entrance has an Enfeeble staff and some reasonably strong Heroes/Sorcerers, the southwest has some armour knights (Armourslayer to the rescue, first time we face armoured foes since C13), the southeast has a bunch of cavalry, including a Beastslayer (frustrating because so many of my units are mounted) Once I'm able to get in the door things aren't too bad, Levin Sword Corrin and Xander are both important here. The only other notable thing is Silas misses a 97 hit at one point and the counter leaves him one hit from dead, but it also leaves the surviving enemy (a general) in range of Azura, and he goes for a ~60 hit on her instead of the ~90 on Silas for some reason, and misses. Well, that helps. 1 reset here total.
Kitsune Lair (C19): In which we use almost exclusively bronze swords and their forged variants. Beastbane is common on this map, which puts a premium on units who aren't weak to it, like Corrin, Shura, Selena, and Laslow; other units do see some use. Otherwise I take this map pretty slowly, with lots of backpeddling when the foxes with pass do their "charge while being invincible" strategy to get behind my defences. The toughest group is the one right before the boss, which do overwhelm me once and the second time I'm able to tank through just enough of them with forest def pairup Def Tonic Laslow, and sweep in and finish. Jakob reaches Tomebreaker on this map so I switch him over to Strategist.
Bright Smile (Soleil paralogue): I decide to get her at this point. Quickly rush to various chokepoints. Corrin + Shura with Jakob/Azura support takes out the entire northwest (mix of Levin Sword and bronze) with its mages and berserkers. Xander, Camilla, and Selena are responsible for the east with its berserkers and bow knights. Silas and Sophie take some heros from the southeast. Laslow and Peri recruit Soleil whom I promptly promote to Bow Knight (L4); she with a Peri pairup is able to alternate chewing through some sorcerers and holding off some heroes, switching off with Laslow at one point. Elise supports both south groups. I get a big scare when the boss rushes in, I chokepoint him then too late realise he has Pass and will sneak through to kill Elise, but Freeze Staff to the rescue. Also in this fight, Jakob's Tomebreaker actually pays off as he has to hold off in a pinch the sorcerers who appear from the starting point. He also learns Inspiration.
Winds of Change (C20): The wind map is always a challenge and not having fliers makes it even worse. Oh yeah and there are two swordcatchers for me to worry about. The first is on a falcon knight who charges with a group of fliers; I usually end up baiting her with someone she won't double and who will hit back hard like Camilla, then finish with whatever. The second is with a large group of enemies in the east, on a spearmaster, whom Xander can avoid a double from with +Spd, and largely he tanks everything else. Sweep in and clean up. There are also quite a few mages on the map who are quite fast, but they're doublable by Swordmaster Corrin with +Spd and a killable on counters by the Levin Sword. I send Corrin west to deal with them. The ones from the middle of the map have Counter so are best chipped down with Siegfried or Kodachi (on either phase). Most of the challenge of the fight of course comes from the wind itself and navigating it. Fuga himself is a big pain because he has a lance and sits on a throne, and has Seal Str/Spd/Def (gross) to screw over anyone who wants to fight him. I actually die once to him because I don't realise he can gain 3 atk by switching to a sword instead, which makes the difference. Awful to lose at the very end of such a long map. Fortunately I win on my next try (probably the 5th or 6th).
Second storebought Levin Sword! This one goes to Camilla, who has easily the #2 magic since I've benched Leo.
Eternal Stairway (C21): Relatively easy, abuse dragon veins to keep control of the stoneborn and kill them with magic swords. The three faceless with Swordbreaker near the start pose their own painful problems in hitting them, but at least they're early then there are never any more. Otherwise the battle tends to be "decide whether to activate a DV or kite stoneborn ranges with squishy folks at the start of each phase, then execute a plan" and while it's never easy, it's easier than the surrounding maps for sure.
Sakura (C22): Hana is a monster. I fight her three times and she ends one run and the two I get past her I use rather different approaches. She has way too much evade (which affects my counter-avoiding attacks) and starts on a forest, but luring her off means she's hitting someone. She also has 37 speed so it takes considerable effort just to avoid her doubling someone, and a Rend Heaven which ensures each strike is a potential mid-high 2HKO even against solid durability. The usual WTA and Wary Fighter approaches are out. Anyway a lot of it involves getting in lucky shots at range 2 (with atk support) then finishing her (she is frail at least) with bronze. On another run I also bait her successfully with a +Spd Corrin though it's risky. Otherwise the fight is mostly a matter of breaking walls for each side and quickly eliminating each group with prejudice, and dealing with the fact that on some late turn there's a huge swarm of reinforcements (on the winning run I refine my strategy so that I'm finishing the fight there anyway). Yukimura is respectable but doesn't pose any Hana-level problems since his offence is more manageable (even with his one shot of Spendthrift). Sakura herself I'm able to take down on the final turn, not too problematic either.
Possessed (C23): Man this fight takes a while. Normally I flier-skip Hinata, no such luck here. Hinata's group seems imposing (Hinata, two pairups and two solos, all under Rally Str/Def and supported by Takumi's ballista) especialy since Hinata is a pain for me (he has Magic Counter for Levin Sword and also reflects damage done by swords/lances/axes below half health) but can be broken by lunging him off of his gate, then finishing him with whatever. I use Camilla for the lunge then a Xander/Peri/Sophie wall with durability pairups and Inspiration to withstand the other enemies, then mop 'em up. Oboro's group is even tougher, but I do win first try: Xander climbs the stairs to hit someone and tank enemies, lures Oboro over. Xander retreats down the stairs, Oboro retreats. Xander goes up again and softens some more, and this time I'm ready to rush everyone else in the eastern section and hold off Oboro's group at the two chokepoints (they have anti-chokepoint tactics like Lunge to watch for though). One Swordcatcher in this group which must be kited then eliminated with prejudice, plus FOUR more on some Master of Arms reinforcements which come from the back, but none of them start equipped and I kill them all on player phase. Takumi himself is easy-peasy, I have Xander set up to deal with him but I send Corrin in with a Bottle (+10 dodge weapon that can crit) and she just one-rounds Takumi anyway. On that note I picked up Swordfaire in this fight.
Hinoka (C24): Lots of mages, and the only way to one-round them is with Levin Swords. I make sure Camilla and Corrin have enough Spd (and in Camilla's case, Mag; Corrin having Swordfaire means that's no longer a concern) to one-round the mages on counters so they don't pile up. The same build also takes out the Onis, convenient! Beyond that, Rally Resistance from my Strategists and Inspiration/etc. lets my combat duo tank through most any combination of those two. Pegasus knights are a far greater danger; the Kinshi Knights aren't too tough with their WTD and lower stats but Falconknights aboslutely are; the Bolt Naginata ones almost ORKO Xander and the Silver ones are just a pain to kill and hit everyone reasonably hard (especially those they double). My dragon vein use does cut their move to 4 as long as I'm ready to use those right after Hinoka does, at least. Setsuna is very dangerous since she has Swordbreaker and Pass; I bait her with Camilla then have Camilla move into melee (activating her -20 evade Heartseeker) and finish her with Xander; dicy but luckily for me it works on all my later runs. Azama can hex people, not much to do about it other than try to make sure he doesn't hit key people, giving him other targets until it's all gone. After the third DV use I rush in and murder both him and take out Hinoka; Corrin and Camilla are both just fast enough to avoid being doubled, Draconic Hexand Heartseeker do their thing, and I'm able to take her down with healthy respect for Luna and healing ready to go. Like 3-4 resets total? More than most maps that aren't Wind, anyway.
Ryoma (C25): For the first time ever, I win the duel! I give Corrin three Speedwings, Tonics for all her relevant stats, and lucky for me she procs speed on the level she gains early in the fight, letting her reach 31+1(Yato)+8(Speedwings and Tonics)=40, Ryoma has 36 but Draconic Hex knocks him down -2 to 34 which recovers to 35 next turn. Woohoo doubling! With Duelist's Blow and my own silly swordmaster evade he only has ~18 hit on me, so I'm able to slug him down in around 8 turns or so. I miss out on some money but doing this map in a few minutes instead of an hour plus is worth it.
Endgame approaches. Camilla is L20 (asterisk on her level as always), Corrin L18, a few other heavilly used PCs have hit 15 (Xander, Soleil), most others around 10-12 with healers/Azura lagging that. I have a new unit slot now, not sure if I'll throw it to another healer, a pairup bot (Charlotte? Gunter?), or recruit another kid (Siegbert? Kana?) We'll see.
-
There's been way too much Saga talk lately and I haven't actually given the game a proper playthrough in, well, years. So why not, let's dive back into this lovable mess of the game. But not without hilariously impeding myself with self-imposed challenges of course.
I am playing under the following handicaps:
- Stat-Up Value for all enemies is set to 0. This effectively caps stat growth to a minimum (not technically a hard cap, but enough of one.) For reference, this is the Gameshark code to enable this:
d01a6806 03e0
d012c078 0001
3001eda3 0000
- Restricted from using more than 1 Mec, 1 Mystic, and 1 Monster (restriction applies separately, not together; I can run 1 of each) in the party. This pushes me to use Humans who are most impacted by the stat growth handicap.
- Not allowed to purchase equipment or items from shops. Period. This includes the Junk Shop in Scrap. This acts as a limitation on Mecs, mainly (don't worry I'm sure they'll still be broken as fuck). Also I can't spam MaxCures forever or whatever. Magic shops and Gozarus are fine.
- Mesarthim is banned. LifeRain is broken, and she outclasses every Mystic in the game by a not small amount because of it; she would always be the obvious recruit for the Mystic slot otherwise, which would limit variety.
- OverDrive cheese is banned, as is TimeLeap. This probably means I won't use TimeLord but oh well.
- I need to reach BR 9 before the final boss.
We'll see if I have the energy to go through every PC route (that'd be ideal) with this. I may also add or relax restrictions if I feel like they make a run more fun.
Lute
Because why not, I wanted to test quickly that the Stat-Up Value Gameshark code worked as intended.
Straight to Owmi, I recruit Hamilton and her broken TwoGun goodness and overpowered initial stats. Then it's off to Devin to start off Arcane/Rune quests, back to Koorong to talk to the skeleton to trigger Gen's recruitment, then Scrap to pick up the bar crew (Gen/T260/Mei-ling/Riki). I realize that I don't really remember what everyone's initial stats really look like so I go on a bit of a recruiting spree. Lute doesn't have access to any mystics other than TimeLord off the bat (and he/Mesarthim I've essentially struck off from being able to use) and screw it, I haven't actually used a proper monster in ages so I grab Thunder (plot relevant in Lute's quest!!!!!!)
This results in the current party after yanking equipment around and shuffling (I got in some random encounters with birds at Koorong but that's about it):
(https://i.imgur.com/vq8Q8nX.png)
Mecs are still very fair you guys
More when I actually try to remember this game and what I want to do first. Grab the DuelGun in Shingrow, grab Light magic... I'll probably let Lute grab Arcane (for Shield) and Rouge sticks with Rune. Stop by IRPO to try to kill the dragon (lel), Sei's Tomb for the shield and Magatama, maybe the Kusanagi.
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Lute continued
I go to Luminous to grab the Light gift first since that's a pretty safe bet, and the labyrinth gives some goodies anyway like a SanctuaryStone. For fun I decide to trigger the dark red light fight since I haven't done that in ages either and oh hey this looks like a +BR modded fight... two Rockbaboons that OHKO literally everyone in my party (because oh right mecs and monsters can't enter and I have two PCs that are naked, oops) and a PrimaDonna. Well. Then.
I thought StunShot had initiative but no of course it doesn't (that'd make it almost as good as SharpPain!) and Hamilton can't act faster than the baboons who proceed to kill Rouge before he can try Implosion off the bat and murder Lute for good measure. Mei-ling tries to revive Rouge for the longshot ID chance to recover but they do a good job of killing him every. single. time. And wipe 15 minutes in, yes, good, this is what I was looking for.
Okay I go in this time and don't trigger the damn encounter - oh wait dark blue was a trap too? FORTUNATELY this one is much easier and just pits me against a LivingGlove that dies to two attacks, okay great and wow I really don't remember some things. I eventually walk out with the Light gift, 400 credits, a MoonlightRobe, a SanctuaryStone, and grab FlashFire for Rouge.
Next I go to Shrike to raid Sei's Tomb for goodies, I think I can handle two DeadKnights (FlashFire OHKOs), and I finish looting the place. Because I like poor life decisions I go fight Sei immediately rather than hanging onto the goodies.
Insolent wretch! Now taste the sword of the ultimate knights! oh look Lute at 6/10 LP before the fight starts. BattleSong+DoubleSlash combo kills Rouge before FlashFire goes off, then nonstop ThunderThrusts just sort of own everyone else, Level 2 combo from the DeadKnights laugh at even Mecs, and Thunder's GaleAttack by itself doesn't cut it.
Second time in I swap out T260 for the lead position and she facetanks it like a pro (Kusanagi still hurts but she lives). Everyone but Rouge and Thunder defends, FlashFire takes out the adds and.... oh wait I remember this being a bad idea actually - YES IT IS A BAD IDEA MinionStrike MT OHKOs the party. Right. Hm. So I need to kill all but one off, FlashFire isn't a good idea here. Next attempt goes poorly as well, T260 and Lute both die before their actions, Rouge doesn't live next turn either and Hamilton... well...
(https://i.imgur.com/O1vJ8EG.png)
Subsequent next attempts go similarly poorly, I can off three of the DeadKnights but ultimately people fall like flies and beating Sei's regen is actually a serious issue, it basically isn't happening without combos (Hamilton's gun techs + GroundHit works, but Hamilton bites it as fast as anyone else). Backpack goes on T260, everyone else is just made too much out of paper to ever make use of it; I start blowing the starting MagicStone to whittle the knights down some without killing them like FlashFire does. I trade 3 PC deaths for 3 kills (T260, Lute, Hamilton go down), fortunately Thunder absorbed Heal and initiative healing is a godsend. Rouge picks Hamilton back up with StarlightHeal to begin the chain revival - Hamilton and Lute got stuffed with Cures in their inventory beforehand so they can at least stall some rather than be one time targets, but then Sei's shield becomes a MASSIVE ISSUE, blocking even SunRay and GroundHit (comboed to boot!) and giving the last DeadKnight breathing room to pick off people once again. And damage headway is difficult between his DeathSynthesis and HPDrain.
I rethink again and toss Hamilton the Backpack, giving T260 another sword for tankishness since her gun techs aren't doing anyone favors here beyond combo potential. Since T260 is really the only person who can take more than 1-2 hits it feels crucial to keep her up to draw fire. Hilariously the first turn goes great as T260 eats a Level 4 combo of DoubleSlash+ThunderThrust+ThunderThrust+ThunderThrust (over 1200 damage), getting massively overkilled only to be picked up by RepairKit at the end, and SunRay+GroundHit go off as planned to one knight, resulting in the first turn ever where I don't have any net casualties throughout this entire fight. Next turn goes similarly well as attacks bounce off T260 (HPDrain even misses, mecs op) and two more knights die to MagicStone, SunRay and GroundHit being distributed. Fight FINALLY under control, SharpShot starts getting incorporated into combos with SunRay or GroundHit to deal 1.4kish damage (whereas GroundHit alone only does 450, barely beating Sei's natural 295 hp regen). The shield still proves as obnoxious as ever (and WP is a concern, Thunder only has 40 at the moment) but fortunately not enough to eventually prevent the kill.
Lute of course has no sword skills learned so he can't even USE the Kusanagi yet (not without locking him out of being able to spark skills). Why did I do this again?
-
yessss
-Why are you usng Lute
-StunShot does get initiative once you get QuickDraw, was probably what you were thinking of. It isn't as accurate and misses flying enemies but otherwise is still pretty cheesy!
-Just FYI under the rules you set SILENCE is going to be one of the better characters since he's available early and is actually allowed to gain stats normally. Too late for this playthrough of course since you already did Luminous.
-No really why are you using Lute, you can take him out and one of his weaknesses is his base stats are lower than those of other humans, which is amplified here.
-Thunder should be a Trisaur for key fights early. Just keep BoltBreath near the top and absorb random stuff and you should get to it before long.
-Lute's Shield spell will be garbage since its effectiveness is based off the caster's stats, why are you using him
-Giving up SacredSong was indeed a poor life decision since with humans nerfsticked that was gonna be your best MT damage for a long, long time.
-On the other hand the Sei war story was great so better for us I suppose!
-
-Why are you usng Lute
To up the masochism level?
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Lute continued
Because I love to screw myself over and totally don't recall what abilities trend towards what forms on monsters I overwrote BoltBreath at some point in the name of trying to absorb new stuff and experiment. I'm good at this game.
To be clear setting Stat-Level Up to 0 on enemies does not appear to shut off growths completely; I still get them but with far less frequency than normal, and reading up on the BMG it looks like there's still always gonna be a chance to get stat growths but once stats reach a human's personal growth value they'll be severely diminished? So it's not "you only get your initial stats" by any means but yeah it's definitely LLGish, Lute's clawed his way up to around 169 HP while Hamilton has barely moved (267 from initial 250). HP/WP/JP also seem to tick up a bit more than other stats, I should prolly actually deep dive the BMG at some point.
Also I am using Lute because he is the HEROIC PROTAGONIST, geez NEB have some respect for immersion. No other RPG protagonist has such a compelling backstory of "mom kicked me outta home and then I found out my dad was a vigilante trying to take down the evil world setting dominating corporation and got murdered by the guy who gave me a free ride, gee I dunno if I wanna take revenge tho". Thanks for reminding me Shield actually uses caster stats. <_<
Shingrow is next. I run into Sonicbats which destroy my entire party except for T260, who solos them down with Kusanagi. This is unsurprising. Other randoms are a joke and I score myself the DuelGun for Hamilton and several juicy upgrades for T260 (JumpSuit, MemoryBoard). I duck into IRPO just to see how bad an idea that dragon fight really is and haha yes 600-700 damage from all attacks right now and RedDragon only dies at the cost of losing everyone not named T260 okay let's not do that. On reflection, EngineerCar is probably a better early Mec honestly since I don't have enough good pieces to justify T260's extra equipment slots over innate 3PB RepairKit and starting with some attack skills but screw it, I've made several suboptimal decisions already so we'll just keep rolling with it.
The wipe lands me back at my save point in Koorong before to IRPO and I decide to hit up the sewers for loot down there and buy that SecretBoard I recall being there. Why do these BlackX goons that hustle you for the troll toll explode after you beat them up? I notice the BR bumps up here as things finally start getting not OHKOed by literally anything. A MiniDragon absorb gets me BoltBlast which lets me to swap over to TrisaurJr again, yay? No I appear to be stuck in Axebeak... oh well, it suffices. I get a Real Bargain and T260 is now 815 HP, 99 Qui. I skip the HideRune cave for now because I haven't bought spells yet and don't want to quite lock myself in.
I head over to Devin fixing that, giving Lute Rune spells because FreedomRune is a spell and Lute believes in #FREEDOM like a proper Yorkland good boi. Rouge gets Arcane. At least I can be pretty carefree about my money since I don't have much to spend it on!
Speaking of FREEDOM I think it's time to go get that, I remember NEB's commentary about laser traps triggering BR+2 Mec encounters and think it's time to see if T260 can learn anything meaningful since I enjoy being hard carried, so let's just mosey on over there. Annie seems perfectly happy to take me to Despair despite having no Runes but I remember FAQs griping that she won't take you unless you've already made progress, so that's wrong I guess?
I honest to god have forgotten completely the layout of this place and immediately ditch Annie at the start to try to regain my bearings, and also because I might actually care about the random loot this time around! Heading into the locker room and stealing a LightBazooka I forgot that the place has an entire stealth element where you're not supposed to get detected by the cops oh right. There's a ShellShield around here which I do in fact care about! Also Lute has been getting 0 actions ever due to being the slowest party member; I start queueing up VictoryRune on him to build his JP some. Hamilton picks up TotalShot for some more MT goodness. I also fuck around with absorbs enough to actually get to TrisaurJr which friggin' owns right now as well. Did I mention that Saga attack animations are the best, watching a triceratops run off screen to fetch a massive boulder and chuck it at an enemy makes me irrationally happy
H-eee-y enemies that survive one round of combat! Thank you based laser traps, I fight Hermes and T260 collects CombatMastery after two fights :ok_hand: There's even a 4 Mec random that forces me to take it seriously and Lute does his FIRST USEFUL ACTION EVER which is learning Deflect, thank fuck! im so proud of mah boi ALSO DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN'T SAVE IN THIS ROOM???? lol
So Nidheg comes along, here's what party damage curves looks like right now
T260 (Kusanagi): 2226
Thunder (Axebird, GroundHit): 1151
Rouge (FlashFire): 660
Hamilton (TwoGun DuelGun physical): 505
Lute (Osc-Sword physical): uh huh
Oh he does spark WillowBranch and okay I guess that's like a move, that he can use and OH GOD SCREAM SAGA SONIC ATTACKS NOOOOO everyone is dead except T260
Fortunately this is FINE because game is Mec Frontier, although it's worth noting Nidheg did survive like 8 rounds so I'm not sure how the fuck I would've won this without the carry.
We taste FREEDOM! Lute shares his photo collection on his journey through despair #freedomisntfree
(https://i.imgur.com/YIAdQkm.png)
Did you know that you can open these boxes in Despair? I didn't! They don't have anything of course.
(https://i.imgur.com/2S9sbpK.png)
Everything about this room is amazing, I'm pretty sure you can't even get down there
DID YOU KNOW WE ALL HAVE A SPOOKY SCARY SKELETON INSIDE OF OURSELVES
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Dragon Quest 8 DS bonus boss rush.
Memoria is the DS bonus dungeon that is unlocked by picking it as a reward for beating one of the aftergame Dragovian Trials. (Unlocking it takes the place of making the alchemy pot instant, since in the DS version it is instant from the moment you get it). So in tackling it you get access to two Timbrels of Tension. The fights also let you have the caravan so you can switch PCs as a free action (including KO'd PCs if need be). You can leave and heal between fights if you want, and you can skip bosses you already defeated once.
I load out Guv with spears/Courage, Jess with Magic Burst/Staves with enough Life/magic/skill seeds to improve her survival and make Magic Burst hit its cap (5000) really easily. Angelo with Charisma/Staves/swords (he gets more SP in the 3ds version). I sub out Yangus for Red, who is hyperfast and as durable as Angelo with ST fullheal, a 2.8 mult sword attack, and Dance of Life (KaZing). Angelo and Red get the Timbrels of Tension.
Geyser: Double-acts, so suddenly the MT ~90% curse is just rude. Fortunately the offense is anemic (MT 8HKO and a physical with a 50% crit rate) so beating him isn't so much in question as how long it will take.
Still-Tormented Soul: A refight of a forgettable boss fight that is equally forgettable. Pitiful offense and gets blown up by Magic Burst + tap kills him.
Trap Master: doubleacts with a devastating OHKO crit and casts KaThwack. Nasty fight and I had to use Yangus' Kerplunk to recover after my front row wiped. Kerplunk revives the caravan backrow PCs too. A good string of dodges, sneaking in a tension'd Magic Burst, and sacrificing monster teams to it worked.
Don Mole: The 4 moles have significant damage (~170) and Don Mole doubleacts with either a solid 2HKO, MT 3hko, or full-field Confuse that isn't very accurate. He can re-summon the support but only one at a time. Magic Burst and Lightning Storm off the moles and Don falls soon thereafter.
Great Argon Lizard: Whoah. Triple acts and crits with an OHKO 1/4 to 1/2 the time on his physicals. Has MT 3HKO or so and, most annoyingly, Roars to knock down your Pcs. Which is just ridiculous with the other offense on a triple act. I lose this fight outright the first time. The second time I equip to optimize evasion (a good idea in general as magic/breaths hit a plateau and physicals become the biggest threat). Stacking defense and Agility buffs helps (agility buffs at max increase evasion significantly). His durability isn't that significant, so a little offense here and there (along with the sacrifice of 6 brave monsters) leads into a turn of blitzing to score a win.
Captain Crow: Thin Air Attack doesn't scale up so this isn't that hard! He goes down pretty easy. It helped that he seemed to waste most of his turns oggling Jessica.
Gemon (evil bird demon fought on top of Empyrea's nest): Only double-acts but comes with two boss caliber supports who also double-act. I kill them both with MT damage (Magic Burst!) but Gemon resummons them both with one action. Still manage to eke out a win. Again Jessica's curves eat the support's turns. Not going to argue! (L60)
Leopold: Decently fast, triple-acts with a high "You are dead" 650 damage crit. And has multi Target stun. The MT damage isn't high but there is just no way to mount any kind of offense. He gors first and kills both Yangus and Morrie when I lose the front row, before Yangus can Kerplunk.
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Dragon Quest XI: Damn these backgrounds are gorgeous. Which makes the Toriyama eyes stand out even more as an eye-sore. (I can make puns too, DQ)
I'm not even sure it's Toriyama's fault. Like this looks decent:
(https://cdn3.dualshockers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/DragonQuestXI-31.jpg)
But the NPCs have these colossal eyes that take up half their face.
I don't have the ugly old man yet but I am sure he is the best character.
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Dragon Quest XI
Captain K: Yeah, the art style is in general pretty good, but holy crap those anime eyes are large. Especially on the ladies. You can sorta see it in group shots where Luminary & Eric have vaguely normalish sized eyes, and Serena & Veronica's eyes are just blatantly bigger relative to their face.
For those who didn't play the game, a sample:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1550711262
Example close-in of eyes of doom:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1550711741
--
Anyway, I recently finished Gallopolis, and time for... well, not exactly a rant, but call it an extended musing about a certain oddity in the DQ11 game setting/themes. Let's call it:
The SnowFire Danger Scale for fiction
1. Looney Tunes. Nobody is in remote danger of dying. You can drop as many explosives on Wile E. Coyote or Bowser as you like, they can take it.
2. Amusement Park. Silver Age comic books (by reputation), "juvenile" fiction. Some extravagant villainous plans might theoretically involve tons of people dying (poison Gotham City's water supply, use a stolen superweapon to conquer and rule Alaska) but they never come close to completion, so sure let the villain out of prison to try again, why not.
3. Heroic saga. Operas, Zelda games, PG films, most Trails games, etc. Characters might die, but only for really plotty reasons: a heroic sacrifice, a villainous stab in the back by the Main Villain. This will be rare and any time it happens it's a Big Deal and even if it happens there might be some convenient back-to-life mechanism.
4. Heroic quest. Your standard Final Fantasy game, most epic fantasy novel series. Same as the above, except mooks can die. Named characters are almost as safe as #3, they won't die without a "reason", but now it's okay to have nameless soldiers be mowed down by the bad guys to show what a threat they are, or have the heroes shoot up the employees guarding the Bond villain lair rather than having the guards be monsters or robots.
5. Gritty. Your standard "low fantasy" novel series. Characters can die, and not necessarily in dramatic fated duels. Characters who make mistakes or do stupid things or cross the wrong person are at special risk. While named characters are still "special", they don't act like they have an aura of invincibility, and if they do, others look upon them as foolhardy and dangerous loose cannons even when they get away with it.
6. Merciless. A GBA Fire Emblem hardcore playthrough, Game of Thrones, D&D with a Gygaxian DM, etc. People can die for no reason other than bad luck on a roll of the dice, even seemingly "important" people. Sorry King Hayden of Frelia, your children died in combat with bandits after a lucky critical hit saw Tana's head chopped off by an axe and Innes was ironically sniped by an enemy ballista.
As an example, Dragon Quest 8 is solidly at setting #3, and a reasonably well-done one at that. No mook deaths on either side, just hordes of monsters, but everybody at Trodain Castle is cursed and there are the 7 sages whose lives are gonna suck, as well as Empyrea's kid, and the plot takes these parts appropriately seriously. Hell, Alistair's death is Jessica's whole motivation to join up - revenge. But even the other sages seem to have friends, relatives, etc. who are hurt by their loss. (If I had a complaint about DQ8 on this, it's the part where Our Heroes & the corrupt priest guy just kinda meekly submit to Marcello's goons locking them in prison. You guys are like superheroes now, I realize that these soldiers are individually innocent, but there's big stakes here, fight your way out even if it means killing humans.)
Okay, so I bring this up for DQ11 'cuz it's kinda indecisive about where it wants to be. Things can get weird if the PCs think we're in setting #2 (everybody is safe, enemies are just monsters, villain has an evil plot but it's a pipe dream), but the actual plot as written seems to be #5 (screw up and you're dead). (EARLY GAME MINOR SPOILER WARNING) There's a monster out there called the Slayer of the Sands, and it needs killin'. So the sultan/king sends his young son Prince Faris, who has just turned of age, out to kill it. Prince Faris is quite reluctant as this beast has already slain some of Gallopolis's "finest knights" in the past, but the sultan is insistent and blandly confident that this will be No Big Deal.
So how dangerous a mission are we talking?
* In the previous-previous dungeon, there are soldier corpses on the ground, attacked by minions of the Dark One or whatever. So.. you can definitely die in combat as a mook, we're at least at #4.
* In the previous town, people tell you about how the town's leader and her son went off to battle a dragon, and triumphed, but the son was mortally wounded and died. And they have names, the son is Ryo. So even "important" people can die (even if this is, granted, backstory).
* People in town, if you talk with them, are legit worried about the Prince's safety and seem to back up the idea that yes, "finest knights" have died in combat before with this monster, not just injured or scared off. Sylvando, heroic mysterious origin jester (clearly somebody decided to combine DQ4 Panon with Mara/Maya and give the dancer skillset to a dude for once, I approve) who you're supposed to think knows what's up, is also worried about the Prince's life.
So, I would propose that at least somebody in the writer's group wants there to be tension here. This monster is a mortal danger! And yes, we're willing to write sad stories about how a parent sent their only child off to die in combat only to rue their decision later! (And, from a real world perspective, parents who have no idea about their children's true skillset getting them in trouble with bad commands is something some of my friends have run into personally... not to mention that from a military perspective, this kind of terrible mission allocation is sadly common and deadly.)
Anyway, the Prince is incompetent at combat but at least has the sense to know this, so he's gonna recruit the traveling adventurers to help him out. And... oh man, the PCs are contemptuous as hell, calling him a pathetic prince and a coward. If you turn him down he's bawling on the ground for his life until you accept. If we are in Danger Setting #5, this is fucked up! We have basically a civilian bawling about being sent off on a suicide mission where he will 100% die, and Our Heroes are smack-talking him?! I don't blame him for being scared to death! You could have some crazed samurai bushido thing about dying pointlessly 'cuz it's your responsibility is awesome, but I dunno if even that actually applies to a 16 year old who just came of age.
Of course, I don't mean to be too critical here: the answer is obviously that we're more like danger level 2.5 or so, and we should treat the Prince's reluctance in the same way as a kid who doesn't want to do their chores or homework and wants to copy somebody else's work, not as a child about to literally die trying one last-ditch plan to save himself via some traveling adventurers. I actually rather like how Gallopolis's plot works out, ultimately! I just wanted to ramble about how the attempted tension really doesn't jibe with some of the other elements.
The Slayer was extremely, extremely badass too (well, on Stronger Enemies setting, which is basically Hard mode). He can OHKO Veronica or Serena with desperate attacks or massively wound Luminary/Eric, he has a solid 3HKO that's MT before you get multi target healing that can also apply a blind that won't wear off, he has a weaker 4HKO MT damage attack that still adds up, he has a somewhat inaccurate MT confuse ability that is still scary 'cuz storebought confusion healing doesn't exist yet, and he DOUBLE ACTS. Luckily he'll "waste" some turns casting Kasap or doing single-target ~2-3HKO attacks which are easier to keep up with, and Sylvando (your guest) will absorb the occasional attack and use confusion-healing to eventually break your characters out of that. I beat him with the Luminary at 10 HP and everyone else dead casting a desperation Zap with a loss surely following had the battle gone one round longer, and that was using ~1000G worth of Strong Medicines as well. (Turns out that Serena would have learned Midheal at L16 had I grinded an extra level, which would have made it a tad easier, at least.)
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It's kinda weird, actually. Gallopolis and the Mermaid Quest seem like the only parts of DQ11 that are part of that 'modular' scenario-writing that other DQs seem so fond of. Most of the rest of the game is pretty solidly connected to the main throughplot! So if Gallopolis and the Mermaid Quest seem at differing levels of Danger scale, it is almost certainly because they were clearly written by a completely different writer.
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DELTARUNE- https://medium.com/@cmdrking/deltarune-survey-impressions-speculation-etc-8a22fefa54fa
Not sure I have anything else to add for now!
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Mana Khemia:
I have a lot to say about this game, predominantly good, sometimes poking fun at it. Wanted to document a very lucky bonus boss win.
Beat the first bonus boss, what a relief. He has a gimmick where every 4th turn, he uses a move that heals himself for thousands of HP and boosts his offensive and defensive stats making it harder to undo his healing. So it is very much a damage race to win this fight. A key factor to victory is that all of his attacks are physical so Pamela can safely sit at low HP. It also just so happens that Bear and Let's Be Friends will damage Pamela such that she has exactly 1 HP after her first two attacks. No Bullying thus becomes one of my sources of doing lots of damage in a short amount of time. There's also a mechanic in that time card skills, if they go off in Burst Mode, actually increase the gauge a bit. My goal is to take advantage of this with Flay and Roxis to have the offensive boost last as long as possible. When I did this, I had all the offensive stat boosters filled out in the grow book but didn't bother trying to synthesize anything with Attack++ or Magic++ A number of my characters had Critical+ L but I hadn't gone out of the way to make sure everyone did.
With plan in place, it was still an extraordinary win. Start with Jess, Flay, and Pamela less out of conscious choice and more because they're at full power with Vanye, Anna, and Roxis in the support row to recover MP. First set of actions: Flay uses Raiden Charge, Jess tosses Pamela a Chessecake, Pamela uses Bear. Jess has another turn so she fires off a Grand Ray. Boss goes to attack Jess, blocked. Flay uses his regular attack to fill up the Burst gauge. Jess isn't needed to heal so she uses Grand Ray again and brings out Vayne. Pamela uses Friends and is now at 1 HP ready to deliver pain. Boss attacks Pamela, immune. Vayne uses an Unipuni pudding on himself for the Atk buff. Flay uses Buster Star; This also activates Burst. Pamela gets to use No Bullying for glorious 5 digit damage. Vayne casts Overrealm.
Next move of boss is a Twin Blade on Pamela, whiff on physical immunity again. Some Buster Stars plow into the boss. Realize I hadn't put a defense down yet. Flay goes before Vayne and uses Drill Twist and brings in Roxis. Vayne spends his Overrealm turns on Chaos Devotion x2 and Analyze chain into Anna Support. She uses Quick Slice once and then a Grand Ray (more knockback) bringing Flay back in. Roxis purifies the boss' timecards. Flay uses a buffed Finishing Burst for around 8000 or so damage. Pamela is next and uses another No Bullying for about 9000 more damage and the win.
A win's a win but one where the boss failed to land any damage is so lucky. Sometime later, I dive even deeper into the bonus dungeon. 3 trips later, I actually defeat the second bonus boss. She has the potential to be very dangerous if she uses her multiact move to launch 3 (or was it 4) attacks in a row. She does have a weakness which was key to me pulling out a victory on the first attempt. For now, I'm not going to disclose it. She doesn't heal herself but there's something else I'm referring to.
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Tales of Berseria: The intro to the game is wickedly powerful. Solid voice acting and a focus on themes of willingness to sacrifice others and the role of emotion in decision-making. This was hammered home in Laphi/Velvet dialogue (bear hunting for Laphi), as well as directly in Arthur's/Velvet's conversation. In the middle of that the game established Velvet's dependency on Laphi, her idollization of Arthur, and gave some genuinely great character interaction with the villagers.
I had a hard time walking through the blighted village and seeing the children's corpses, newborn baby and mother included. This is something I couldn't forgive Zestiria for because it threw children's lives around constantly as a kind of hamfisted way to add weight to the story. The deaths would happen and everyone would just kind of shrug and move on. In Berseria the villager's deaths were handled with suitable buildup and dramatic effect. You can tell the whole event contributed to Velvet's snapping. The writing quality is very different from its predecessor..
The combat is fun enough with positioning and attack area of effect playing an important role so far.
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SaGa Frontier - I decided to do a full replay of this game for whatever reason. I did the quests in order of Asellus -> Blue -> Emelia -> T260G -> Lute -> Riki -> Red. It’s probably been 10-15 years since I did a legit full run of the game, so it was interesting to re-familiarize myself with everything.
A few general notes:
-My memory for the dungeons that you can explore in all quests was amazingly good. Even my reflexes for dodging specific monsters in specific locations was still very good considering how long it’s been. I managed to find a few extra items in a couple of dungeons because of increased ‘RPG-fu’. Octopath Traveller in particular really motivates the player to look hard for treasure. Feels good to learn new stuff about the game.
-Knowing the method to get DSC makes getting it a lot easier than just brute force, which is what I did before. Knowing what moves lead to what other moves was such a value for my hunt for DSC. Fun fact: On my Asellus run, Gen got DSC before Emelia got a single gun move. It was very interesting to discover that Emelia is actually not a very good gunner because that’s the moveset she starts with when she joins in the Arcane quest.
-The game actually does a pretty good job of curving the random encounter difficulty with your level. I think the idea that all random encounters scale with your level is so brilliant because it means that no matter what order you do dungeons or how much stuff you do, you will always get to fight competent enemies. The game’s randoms are quite dull at first but are more interesting.
-The game is weirdly ahead of its time in a few ways. The game heals you after every fight, using instead the LP system to punish you for dying in battle. It’s so nice not to have to go through the laborious process of healing and status healing after fights. Quicksaving is also a godsend and a feature that you really appreciate after going back and playing other PS1 RPGs.
-I really like the concept of the four different races that play by different rules, even though mecs are overpowered and mystics/monsters are a bit underpowered. It could be really good with a little twinking. In particular, I think mystics need more abilities on their Sword/Boots/Gloves that are legit really good, and being able to tell the stats you will get before absorbing them would be nice. (And knowing what all of the stats do lol). Monsters needed higher end damage at the end of the game. To be honest, aside from Thunder and the special monsters, they need more damage for most of the game. Increased transparency in the way they transform would be nice too.
-There is some pretty annoying bullshit trying to navigate the quest-specific stuff. I played the game with a guide the first time and my memory for that stuff wasn’t nearly as good, so I struggled with some of the plot triggers. Some particularly irksome ones were the start of Asellus’s quest, the start of Red’s quest, and the T260G thing where Leonard only talks to her if she is in her original body. Also, I accidentally locked myself out of the Rune quest on Red’s path because I didn’t talk to Annie at the right time or something. Not even mentioning Lute’s amazing trip to the final dungeon because I knew better than to get thrown into that shit.
-There is some seriously lazy writing in this game. Emelia and Red both have a dungeon in the Shingrow Palace where they chase their respective anime rival. All of the dialogue is literally Find-Replace one villain’s name to another. The game’s writing is generally fairly poor, which I was already aware of but good to remind myself of. The translation is also not great. Both Emelia and Red have some outright incomplete parts of their quest where the scene abruptly ends for no good reason. Asellus’s quest has some glimmers of good plot (and every man in it is David Bowie so that’s something) but overall not good.
-Megawindblast is still OP as fuck and Shadow Magic is fucking terrible.
-Forget the Magma Slimes, what the fuck is wrong with that Tanzer fight in the beginning of Riki’s quest? Also, seriously, the first hour of Red’s quest is the freaking worst. That was why I did those two last.
-Liza is the queen and I won’t hear otherwise.
-There are ~so many colors~ in the game. It’s kinda wild.
Next in the 'play old shit' extravaganza - Breath of Fire III.
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If people are gonna 'play old shit' after SaGa Frontier, you really should check out Romancing SaGa 3. It is basically proto-SaGa Frontier and has a lot of the same charm with a new setting.
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I might try it out at some point.
Breath of Fire III - Tales from the Brood
Good grief it’s been a long time since I played this game. I initially considered making it a no-dragon run, but I decided because I wanted to experience the full game more throughly that I will use dragons after all. So there you go.
The child arc is a pretty well-constructed, low-stakes plot that brings some level of emotional weight (the mob potentially murdering your friends) and a lot of action. The child arc ends on quite a dark note, of course, with the Garr betrayal. Momo is quite an underdeveloped character (she mostly just talks about how great her dad is) and Nina is fine if not that exciting. I like that Nina is a bit spunkier and more in control of her own life than some princess characters.
The gameplay is very interesting thus far. Both the bosses and encounters have some teeth and are often well-designed. I really like that the randoms aren’t just something to button mash through, but using strategy to defeat them is the way to go. One that stands out is the Specter, who steals about 5-6 AP from your entire party if he gets a turn. But if you strip Momo and have her cast Heal on him, she will go first and kill him before he can do that. You can change equipment in battle, so you can set that up at will.
I’ll post more about the adult arc later. I remember there being a lot of time-wasting there. The game has held up better than I expected so far, but I remember the third quarter being quite weak.
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Ima need some opinions on the music sometime.
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It's fine. Not bad, not great, not as good as 4's.
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If people are gonna 'play old shit' after SaGa Frontier, you really should check out Romancing SaGa 3. It is basically proto-SaGa Frontier and has a lot of the same charm with a new setting.
Just chiming in to confirm Romancing SaGa 3 is a trip, dooo eeet.
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Lobster, Snowman, Dracula-only run, please. (Well, I guess you can use your forced main character too, if you're a coward.)
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Double-posting like a rebel.
Dragon Quest 11:
Finished! Again, sort of! Nonspoiler stuff: I liked the atmosphere and characters overall, most of the storybeats were good. There was one thing that kinda makes me hate it now.
SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hate minitext, so consider that warning enough.
So the one thing that kinda makes me hate it? Good Time Travel Setup, very VERY poor execution. They really drop the ball at the end if you go save Serenica by allowing her to... go back in time and undo all the hard work you went through to save the world? Or... not undo it because now she's in a new timeline... but that would mean that the Hero just decided to abandon the half-ruined original world just because Veronica died, and Original-Serena will never even get to meet the newly 'saved' Veronica in timeline 2 and instead the Hero just disappears out of everyone's life. Fucking Asshole move. Either on the part of the Hero, or the Game Itself for inexplicably changing how time travel works midgame. (Heh, maybe it's more like Chrono Trigger than I thought?)
The whole time travel portion of postgame in general was handled really clumsily compared to the overall seamless and well-polished earlier portions of the game. Specifically, the middle-third with its very obvious parallels to FF6's World of Ruin in both tone and structure was a real treat.
But the Time Travel aspect of postgame literally undoes all of the interesting character beats of Act 2. But then tries to sort of shoehorn in a bunch of happy endings covering similar plot beats without any of the emotional buildup or story tension that made the stories work the first time around. Kind of the worst bits of and Bravely Default all at once there.
Good Stuff:
Everything about Act 2. Lots of tension, good build up, difficult and interesting fights, each character gets some kind of story beat that ties into one of their in-combat abilities.
Hendrik: Surprisingly great. I kind of assumed that since he wasn't the typical shounen archetypal hero that he was actually going to be the main antagonist throughout the game. His turn and joining of the party was a joy to watch and played out very organically to me. His interactions with Sylvando were amusing too.
Sylvando: Great*! *with some caveats that homosexual representation in Japan still has a long way to go, but the localization deserves some kind of award for walking the line between "offensive stereotype" and "respectful representation of a generally-maligned minority personality" without ever falling over it, despite the source language's blatantly insensitive handling of a LGBT character...
Other named characters: Nice, charming Dragon Quest archetypes. Feels a lot like DQ8's cast (I mean this as a compliment) with even more screentime dedicated to their development during main plot sequences, rather than just party chatter options.
Hero: We've talked about him at length, but he's kinda awful and REALLY needed to talk. (Seriously, he never even tells the others about his time travelling, even when it literally is necessary to save their lives, and he just lucks out that no one dies on his second try...)
Villains:
King Carnellian: Okay, my initial impression wasn't so great, but he overall works great as a 'starter' villain by just throwing the Luminary in the dungeon. And later on, he gets a bunch of backstory flashbacks that flesh him out more than I would've expected and he's pretty nuanced. Of course, most of his villainous actions are the result of...
Mordegon: So yeah, Possessed King isn't exactly a novel trope by any means, but Mordegon sells it in the few scenes that matters. When I got to the first ending, I remembered thinking 'man, what a lame and motive-less villain THAT was, but oh well, Dragon Quest." But the one good thing that the Time Travel postgame did was that it retroactively expanded a bit on Mordegon's identity, which... yeah, admittedly kind of surprised me. It's especially amusing that they expand on it long after he stops mattering as a threat, but kind of ends up helping the heroes? The closest thing the game has to a twist, I guess? I think it was handled well and not overdramatized when the reveal happens.
Dark One Calasmos: Flush. Literally a Dark God who exists to snuff out Light. Not very interesting, but effective enough to drive the action forward. At least he's foreshadowed subtly enough? Using the cute little darklings as foreshadowing, the player really doesn't get a sense of WHAT exactly is being foreshadowed in the "obviously-something-important-is-being-signposted" scenes.
Jasper: I actually liked this guy as a villain. His character trajectory was obvious from basically the moment he and Hendrik had their first on-screen conversation which set up their dynamic, but I enjoyed watching how it all played out anyway. Him being the main antagonist you actually fight more than once and during the best segment of the game helps a lot.
Gameplay things I liked:
Character-building is great! Skilltrees are handled very well and allow for re-speccing at savehouses.
Pep Up/Tension is back from DQ8! And this time it allows Dual Techs a la Chrono Trigger! (And Triple and Quad Techs even!)
All Characters get at least one skill that directly relates to some story beat or character development arc they go through! Story/Gameplay Integration like this is one of my favorite parts of JRPGs!
You can defeat certain enemies to ride them around like a pony! You also get a flying whale as your Airship! It eventually gets Flying Whale ARMOR! (Pssh, Horse Armor is so 2010...)
Everything else is a little too 'bog-standard' safe JRPG gameplay to really get excited about...
THEMES:
BETRAYAL!!! - So there's an awful lot of betrayals in DQ11, and I kept thinking they were going to use this recurring theme to make a statement at some point... But the postgame kinda loses track of it because they made a Big Bad that didn't have any kind of motivation at all.
In the game's defense, if you consider the idea that the story 'actually' ends after Act 2, then your Final Boss is Mordegon, who we later find out is actually another Traitor who was once the Luminary's Ally and started the whole cycle of the Luminary's fight against Darkness in the first place. So it at least ties it all together. And the Postgame is where we finally learn this backstory on Mordegon, so it's not a complete narrative waste!
ANTI-THEMES:
Not sure quite how else to phrase this. It's not that this is something that DQ11 was trying to make a statement about... but more that DQ11 goes out of its way... twice!... to undermine a really common theme in most fantasy stories about learning to accept some pretty universally hard truths.
You can't bring someone back from the dead.
You can't go back in time and just play around and expect things to work out.
DQ11's message here seems to be: Nah, everything is great, don't worry about the permanence of Death or Your Choices, there will never actually be consequences to those For You, because you are The Hero and you never make mistakes.
Like... I can appreciate some wish-fulfillment, but DQ11 doesn't even attempt to address the idea that trying to do these things might be bad or have terrible repercussions. Or that not being able to accept Death or Your Choices is a serious character flaw that you should probably not indulge in...
END OF SPOILERS!!!!
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tl;dr: Game is charming and exceeds expectations, but since this is a Dragon Quest, you know what to expect and that's not very lofty in the first place. Great polish of a basic formula with better characters than I would have dreamed possible in a Dragon Quest game! Still probably the least-exciting JRPG I've played this year...
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Lobster, Snowman, Dracula-only run, please. (Well, I guess you can use your forced main character too, if you're a coward.)
Playing RS3 alone is cowardice.
Play RS1 or RS2 or U.SaGa and suffer if you have the courage.
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I've started Octopath Traveler, playing as Primrose, going counterclockwise and just got Ophilia. Fun, solid game. Rabbids is my Great Gameplay RPG of the year and Berseria is my Great Writing RPG, this one seems likely to slide neatly in between.
Also for something completely different, I've started 999 (thanks Snowfire!). Still early. Not much to say.
I did a couple runs of Super Metroid for old times' sake, got almost to 100% but got bored eventually. Second one was a pseudo-speedrun but I was way too rusty for it to be anything impressive, 1:04.
And finally, I finished my sword-only run of Conquest, here are the final updates:
Treason (C26): Three rooms to conquer, and as always each presents a unique threat. First, the heroes backed by a status-slinging Maid. After some experimenting I realize that Xander backed by Inspiration and a Camilla dual strike can barely take out the Maid, so I have her smash a Hero in the face then Xander kills the maid. Two other non-Corrin tanky units (Peri, Silas) complete a wall around my Inspiration-healer (Corrin can't be used because of all the Wyrmslayers) and tank the Heroes' assault, then I mop up next turn. The second room (I go right to face the Sorcerers), I don't have too much to say about, swarm around the door (the sorcerers won't attack until the door opens) then swarm through and take them out with a combination of high offence types and dual strikes. The room is a death trap if you try to tank it but this works every time. Finally the south, with all the generals and berserkers, is the toughest. Beastslayer Generals are pretty much the worst, especially the one with a Beastslayer and a Brave Lance who just does huge damage to everyone. I end up locking that one down with Freeze while Xander and Corrin tank and carve through some of the enemies. I'm then able to push forward a bit and take that general out, I also bait Hans' support (along with Hans) and kill Hans on the next turn. I screw up when dealing with the reinforcements when I underestimate my offence in my attempt to kill yet ANOTHER Beastkiller General and need to waste a Rescue Staff to fix this, but eh I get away with it. Iago's not a problem, just have to watch his range like a hawk. 2 resets total here, one against the Heroes and one in the south room.
The Empty King (C27): ugh hate Master Ninjas. I actually have 3 resets here, 2 of them from just losing a duel to that asshole. Eventually I learn to move a bunch of people towards him first turn so whoever gets Entrapped can get support. Usual strategy of lure Garon's guards away from him then sneak in the back door; Swordmaster Corrin with all her stat boosters from the Ryoma duel is almost unfair here, taking out Garon in two exchanges with little danger.
Night Breaks Through (Endgame): 1 reset here. As always it's a tight balance between charging down but not overextending oneself. Turn 1: bait the mages (I try to set up for a OHkO with Xander but my math is off and I just miss, so I need to devote some people to stick around and clean up) along with the Oni Savages, while staying out of the Maid's Freeze range. Turn 2, mop up and set a wall against the Heroes. Corrin charges down and KOs the Maid (Duelist's Blow helps me dodge the counter), then I rescue her back. Turn 3 I bait one Ninja and the most dangerous group of all for my team, two Maligknights and a Beastslayer Paladin, using a pair of Corrin Dual Guards and Levin Sword counters; she barely survives with Rally Res/Inspiration/Gentilhomme support. Also most people survive the hide from the Takumi death beam this turn. Turn 4, Xander baits the two generals and ninja, and otherwise I move as close as possible but stay outside the Hexing Rod's range. The four pairups at the bottom charge forward at this point but I ignore them. Finally, turn 5, I dance for Corrin so that she can reach Takumi, and use my final Rescue Staff to bring Xander/Peri down as well, their combined offence kills Takumi without much issue. 1 reset to get this strategy down, but on the winning run I lose nobody, which is cool.
KO counts:
Gunter 9
Leo 14
Shura (Hero) 26
Sophie (Paladin) 36
Laslow (Hero) 42
Soleil (Bow Knight) 42
Xander (Paladin) 51
Odin (Swordmaster) 62
Selena (Hero) 66
Peri (Great Knight) 76
Silas (Paladin) 79
Camilla (Dark Knight) 100
Corrin (Swordmaster) 199
Camilla/Corrin MVPs overall, Xander also very notable. Not really anything too new here. Levin Sword rules and its big evade penalty was the main thing which kept Corrin rampaging over lategame maps with it.
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Okay I changed my mind, I have things to say about 999 now. Mostly a thoughtdump here about the mysteries so far. Also why didn't anyone tell me that this is Number Theory: The Game?
Trying to play this game as blind as possible so please don't respond to anything (or if you do, use spoiler text and I'll come back and read it later~)
For the record, since I have inferred that this game has some plot branching, my own progress: I went through Door #4 with Santa/June/Lotus, reached the hospital with the 3-7-8 doors, and now Snake has gone missing. I talked with the various searchers, then saved and have had some time to gather my thoughts.
The game had an decent setup but it's reaching this point that things have really gotten interesting as it's become clear that there are AGENDAS lurking beneath the surface. Theory time!
I realized pretty quickly that the current team of 8 can, if we were to discover door #9 together, all escape. The digital root (i.e. modulo 9 sum) of the party's numbers is 9, so it's pretty easy to split them into two groups that each have modulo 9, and thus we can all escape. Simple example, 1+2+6=9, 3+4+5+7+8=27=9. This was true both before and after the apparent death of the 9th man. (I'm kinda surprised no character has spelled this out in-game.) Additionally, as long as we are provided with two doors which sum to 9, we can both proceed on, and this was the case out of the initial area; 4+5=9, so there were various ways we could partition the group such that one group goes through 4 and one goes through 5.
It wasn't until I had some time to reflect on this that doors 3/7/8, if those are our only way on, present a conundrum. There is no way for two groups of our party to pass through these doors (3+3=6, 3+7=1, no way to get to 9), so if they're are only way on, someone is screwed. I posit that Snake's disappearance is due to the fact that someone else realized this too. (Although, removing him still does not make it possible for all seven remaining people to pass through both doors, so it's hard to see him as the "best" candidate to dispose of, but since he's blind someone could be opportunistic...?)
I ran some numbers and am pretty sure that with Snake's disappearance, the maximum number of people who can make it through the two doors is six, and then at most five of them can get through door #9. Interestingly, though there are various ways to make this happen, the only ones who MUST be part of the maximum five exit group are Junpei himself, Seven, and Lotus. Are the latter two therefore more likely suspects...? I'm probably reading too much into this - not like there was THAT much time to formulate the perfect murder target - but you never know...!
Lotus's conversation during the search was also very interesting. She proposed to Junpei and June that the three of them and make a move through a door immediately, and also bring Seven with them (since he's the only fourth who would allow the three to move on). Junpei points out that they wouldn't be able to get through door #9, and she reacts to that kinda nonchalantly. Junpei (and I) think this behaviour is weird! You don't propose a plan to abandon half your team without thinking it through! Even weirder, though: they actually COULD get through door #9... 5+6+7=18=9. They just need to leave Lotus behind. Lotus shows every sign of being mathematically adept (knows about statistical significance, hexadecimal, and even what "nonary" means) so it's virtually impossible she didn't realize this, which makes me wonder if she is deliberately trying to make someone else escape rather than herself. Probably Seven since there seems to be some connection there, and Lotus didn't seem to give a damn when Junpei and June were in danger of freezing to death earlier. Regardless... Nine and Snake obviously received their own information from Zero and I suspect they're not alone. It's possible Zero made some sort of promise to Lotus, or she could just be acting on her own. She's certainly acting sketchy though. Also acting sketchy: Santa, he's said all sorts of kinda creepy things.
I've suspected from the start that Zero might be one of the contestants and nothing has really changed there, but it's hard to get definitive evidence on that front, aside from the fact that it's surely not Seven (and somewhat unlikely to be Ace either) just because Zero looked slight of build, and while it's possible to fake that under a cloak by stooping, there are limits.
Current party member trust level: Ace > Seven > Clover > Snake > June > Santa > Lotus. Snake's based on where I had him before his disappearance; he's kinda untierable otherwise until I know how/why he's gone!
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The main thing I found with 999 is the cast feels... flat? I dunno, I couldn't get super invested in the mystery because I didn't care all that much about the cast. Granted, the mechanical clunkiness isn't helping.
That trust list is *fascinating* because really it's about spot on if you swap Ace and Lotus
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Breath of Fire III - Tales from the Tableflip
As remembered, the adult arc is definitely been weaker than the child arc. I think the beginning is quite good, with Garr mulling on the moral consequences of his long-term actions, but once you get into the ‘regular’ part of the game again, the plot flaws seems quite apparent. I think Rei’s plotline in theory should be interesting and well done, but in practice, it feels like an arc that really should have just been done in the child arc instead, because after ten years it just feels weird that he’s been hunting for revenge against the mob for all of this time, especially because Balio and Sunder are dead. I think Rei is still fairly interesting because he is goes hard chaotic neutral in the adult arc. He basically wants to go rampage in McNeil village for them being dicks to him 10 years ago, which is kind of creepy. Dude’s messed up. I used Garr against Mikba and he wasn’t too bad. Nina is cool to watch in action during this arc because she does stuff and seems to actually be helping her dad instead of just being a princess or whatever. Props for that.
So we next have to investigate the Plant, where we find out about Momo’s dad’s intriguing backstory. Momo’s personality continues to be “I love daddy and machines”, which is kind of sad. We then get Nina’s parents being hardcore controlling and creepy (her mother said “remember, you belong to me” which is not sinister in the slightest) and despite her insistence that Ryu is a nice person, her parents continue to not believe her. OMFG HER PARENTS ARE DICKS. SO she runs away from home again. Congrats mom and dad for your assholery driving your daughter away.
So we then go to see Geist, who we have to punch in the face to unlock Deis. It’s pretty sweet because I know Deis will be a great master soon though. After that we have the (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ part of the game where we do a fucking minigame to pull a fish from the water, fight an easy boss, and then search for parts in a minigame that is literally just rotating the camera at the right time a lot. What a fucking fantastic minigame. SOMEHOW IT GETS WORSE. THE SHISU MINIGAME IS A DISASTER. THERE IS FISHING. THERE IS HEADBUTTING A TREE. THERE IS BACKTRACKING TO A PREVIOUS DUNGEON AND OMFG THAT VINEGAR MINIGAME WHY CAN’T I JUST BUY VINEGAR AT THE GROCERY STORE? ? ? ? ? I’m not sure how many of you remember this minigame, but it is awful awful awful. You have to count the exact number of times it takes pushing the triangle button to get to the bottom and then push the x button the same number of times. The visual cues lie and you have to go a certain speed but still count them. Truly a tableflip. And then to make it worse, you have to make the shisu at the right ratio or what the fuck ever and it is just so fucking bad.
Well, there’s two and a half fucking hours I’m never getting back. To end off this amazing arc is the black ship, which is very boring and has bad randoms. Fuck this entire part of the game with a rusty spork.
Bosses… HugeSlug and Shroom are both pretty damn easy for BOF3 bosses, which isn’t THAT easy still. Geist was kinda lol with Frost Warrior, Angler is a terrible boss, and the Ammonites were… ok. I died to the Zombie Dragon though!!!! Random design is definitely also weaker in this part of the game. Ah well.
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Breath of Fire III - Tales of the Brood
So now I am on the other side of the ocean, where the stupid minigames have ended and we mostly just have a shitton of gameplay left~
So we arrive at a creepy town with creepy, robotic like people and we decide to venture into the STEEL GRAVE! It’s a pretty normal overworld/map dungeon with no boss but some pretty solid random encounter design. I found Nina and Rei quite useful here due to the large amount of flying enemies in relatively large groups. Nina’s brutal HP has really started to rear its ugly head, though. After that, we go to Colony, where we work to turn on the teleporter. This dungeon is pretty similar to the last except with some extra complexity. Not too bad, but again, no boss! Grabbed the Radiance gene and got some new spells from Deis (before Nina gets them, hooray) and then went to Draginier. So a creepy old man wants to fight me and wants me to bring Garr and Nina. Okay, that’s great.
Sooooooooo the boss OHKOs Nina. Great. This character is semi-forced against this boss (you can leave but it’s extra work) and she is one-shotted by his physical. ARE YOU SERIOUS NINA? I fought the boss with two PCs. Oh well. He would have been harder if he didn’t have a bad back every three turns!
Then there’s Factory which is fine. Then… the desert of death. Okay, I actually really like this part. I think it’s really fucking cool to navigate via stars, even if from a gameplay perspective it is really not that great. Once you finish the trial, you have to fight a boss!!! who is hilariously easy. Oh well. I felt like the mages were generally more useful in this arc than the fighters because there’s a lot of randoms and few bosses, one of which was this joke boss in the Desert. The Elder was the place where Nina’s durability really hurt the most.
After wrapping up some loose ends with masters on the other continent, I head to the final dungeon. The game is pretty good about having a central location with a rest/save/switch point, so I feel pretty free to switch between party members at will. I tried to use everyone at least some of the time. As usual, Nina is pretty good against randoms and bad against bosses, which is fine but not great. Rei was pretty good, Speed and goes fast and can do MT damage is a nice niche, especially after putting him under Deis. Rei’s Weretiger also came in handy for wiping out some high-def randoms. Garr got the job done; tanky and hits hard. Momo had Might and Speed and healing. Overall, I was happier with Nina and Rei in randoms and Garr and Momo in boss fights. Not terrible character balance as far as those things go.
Chimera (Momo and Garr) was a joke; Arwan was a bigger one. Teepo (Rei and Momo) was not too bad but was definitely trickier, and Myria (Momo and Garr) was scary but I didn’t game over. Final dungeon has fun randoms and is reasonably cool in general. I really like its design as this ancient city with some remnants of that time.
The plot of the game hits its stride late, really delving into the lore and setting work of the whole series. I really like some of the character work in the lategame. In particular, I really like Garr, who regrets his involvement in genocide and is confused about the purpose of his life. As much as the journey is framed as Ryu’s quest to find himself, the quest really seems to be about Garr’s own journey to understand his own sins and the reason for his being. He even admits as much in the dream world, that dragging Ryu along was just his excuse to find himself. When you visit the dragon town, you can feel how lost and uneasy Garr feels as he has the eyes of the people who hate him upon him for his horrible sins.
I didn’t really remember Teepo very much from my old playthroughs, but he plays quite an interesting role as a foil to Ryu, as someone who has turned to despair/nihilism due to being shown ‘the way’ by Myria. As we later see with Myria herself, Teepo does not want to fight the party and is not interested in things that the average lategame antagonist wants. He genuinely believes in peace and he believes that the only way to truly have peace is to lock himself away forever. His sprites are quite interesting; he makes a lot of poses and has just… very arrogant posturing in general. I think it’s an interesting choice. I thought his small role was pretty impactful and I think it really enhances the stuff that comes in the conflict with Myria later.
(Incidentally, the dream sequences with Nina, Rei, and Garr are all interesting and give you insight into how those characters tick, so those were a good touch. (There’s no salvaging Momo from being hilariously boring. I think she talks about her dad… again.))
Once you learn about the backstory of the game, you begin to understand where Myria comes from. She is not truly a god in the sense that we think of our god; she did not create the world and does not have infinite power. And she is aware of this. But she is the most powerful creature on the planet, so she tries to save the people from disaster, both by separating the desertification from the part of the world with life. She also kills all of the dragons because she believes that their power is the greatest threat to the world, and to protect all of the other creatures that live in the world, she feels she needs to destroy them threw her guardians. When she encounters the party, you get the impression that she is fond of the party and really hopes to convince them that her way is correct. She isn’t totally crazy, but she does come off as an overbearing parent who doesn’t trust her children (kind of like Nina’s parents, funnily enough). The different PCs have different reactions to Myria, but Rei is definitely the PC who leans hardest on that chaos spectrum, so he really bristles against her, whereas Garr of course is more logical and rational about the whole thing.
Ultimately, Garr decides that he made the wrong decision in committing genocide (how surprising) and the party decides to go at her.
When she loses, you see her asking God to help her children, the people of the world, and Deis laments on the insanity of her sister and the world is released from its mommy’s control.
Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with the setting work and the lategame plot, for all that the game feels a little stretched even at 30 hours. The character work is decent if not exceptional. Silent main is a bummer. I would have enjoyed a legitimate sequel to the game, but I guess that ship has sailed. Instead we got a prequel and whatever-the-fuck-Dragon-Quarter is. Alas.
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Does Ciato hates onion? Peco got skipped entirely. Not saying the onion is worth mentioning.
But Myria really needs to shut up about her self justification that's nothing but a blatant lie.
My super high tech people destroyed themselves with their great powers! So great powers are bad, so I need to purge the brood who holds great powers too, she said.
The thing is, that high tech civilization came to existence post BoF2 after Myria escaped from her confinement, while she was already wanting the dragons dead in BoF1.
Just admit that you are doing this out of spite and hate.
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whatever-the-fuck-Dragon-Quarter is
Ciato you forgot how to spell "masterpiece."
Man, Niu, I haven't played BoF3, but Myria sounds fine as-is. People are really good at convincing themselves that they have valid, rational reasons for doing awful things that they simply want to do.
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Octopath Traveler - Finished all the chapter 1's and got all the sub-jobs, time to advance the plot again. Good times.
999 -
Got the "axe" ending. #4 with June/Lotus/Santa -> #8 with Lotus/Clover -> #1 with Ace/Clover -> dead. Started a new file, went through door #5 this time (with Snake and Seven, the two characters I never saw too much of before, so that's a plus).
I ended up accompanying Clover through both doors #8 and #1 so I got to see her descent into madness. Also, c'mon Junpei. Maybe tell the others Clover stole stuff from the Captain's Room? And then don't let Ace and Lotus abandon you (although that one might have been harder). Kinda some bad decisions leading to the end there but it's not like it was total idiot ball stuff, it's certainly plausible enough.
I had assumed the bracelets wouldn't open doors after their wearers were dead. Clover seemed to think otherwise (as, for that matter, did the Ninth Man), though I don't think she could have tested this yet? It certainly changes some things if they can. In particular, it overturns Clover's own theory that Santa and Seven must have murdered Snake.
Updated theory, which admittedly I only arrived at after being learning that bracelet #9 survived the detonation and can allegedly still be used: Ace took the 9th bracelet, and used it (1+2+9 = 3) to kill Snake via door #3. May have used a tranquilizer on him first, since we know he found those! After Clover and her victims went through door #2, he took Lotus to the exit (1+8+9 = 9). Problems with this... why kill Snake? The best explanation I can think of is that he wanted to test if bracelet #9 still worked, and killed his witness so nobody else would know he had it. But... yeesh, that's cold, and very risky for not much payoff. Also, why did he want to go through door #1 (and was satisfied after he did)? Don't think I have the whole picture here. It will be interesting to see if Snake is murdered on the path I'm on now, what with Ace not going through door #5. If Snake survives, it casts more guilt on 4-route Ace, though neither outcome is definitive evidence either way.
I think Clover is honest. An honest psycho to be sure, but honest; I don't think she's Zero. Get revenge, murder witnesses, hope to God this whole ordeal isn't caught on camera. It's kinda hard to continue to guess at who Zero is because well, what are his/her motivations? At this point I have no idea. Ace, Santa, and Lotus all have unexplained sketchy behaviour so it could be one of them.
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And some more. It's been three days, why are there no other posts here.
Did two more runs, bringing my total to 3, and getting me through every door except 9.
5 -> 3 -> 2 -> Submarine ending.
Room 2 plot developments were pretty great. It's been fun piecing together what the hell's going on here and that might have been the biggest info dump. Definiltely curious to see how the other characters tie in with nine years ago, since I'm assuming that all do. Seven officially off my suspicion list but still plenty of unanswered questions there. Lotus feels mostly exhonerated by this too but that behaviour in front of the casino is still so damn weird.
I bet the 9th Man was a scientist from the experiment nine years ago. He looks the part, and seemed -extremely- eager to escape from the ship ("I'm getting out of this nightmare!") which makes more sense if it's bringing back some bad and/or guilty memories from him.
Submarine ending itself is very unsatisfying since it doesn't really give you any hints of anything, just makes you feel like "the rules" have been broken by having a tenth person aboard, who's a bit of a Stu villain since s/he was able to sneak up and kill people who knew a murderer was around? It doesn't have to be a tenth, but it's even worse if it's Ace or someone who just faked being dead. Like, no, we checked for a pulse. Maybe later revelations will improve my opinion of this.
I had Junpei behave like a total assclown on this run. His insistence on going through both 5 and especially 3 are really bad! He was probably saved by Snake's murder rattling everyone, but man if I were the rest of the party I'd consider him a prime suspect from that point on.
4 -> 7 -> 6 -> knife ending.
Like submarine, it also doesn't answer who the killer is, but at least it provides hints! "Who benefits from having bracelet #8" is the big thing it drops, and the obvious answer is Ace, since Ace + 8 + 9 = exit. And the person with the knife probably has bracelet #9, as both were held by the 9th Man. Ace can kinda be implicated in everything bad now. He, along with the siblings, have received no sympathetic backstory.
What the hell happened to Bracelet #2 anyway? Kinda weird that it was never mentioned, even on the route that Junpei is the first one into that room. But no, even if someone had acquired 2, then getting 8 as well isn't useful to them, as 8+2=10 and the only way to get that to 9 is with a second 8.
Wait a second, does Ace have... that "can't recognise faces" condition? Room 6 seemed to imply it unless I misread it entirely, and it makes Ace's earlier confusion at "the siblings don't look alike" make sense too. Did Spirit of Justice steal its plot ideas from this game? But even if it did, I'm not sure how this would be relevant to the plot, unless there's someone here Ace SHOULD recognize but doesn't. The voices and distinct clothing of all the people on the ship, not to mention their bracelets, should make identifying others easy at most times. Obviously I'm still something missing about this. I mean there are three endings left, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised...
The plot makes a big deal about "hey there are two ninth doors" but why do the characters seem to think the ninth door can only be used once? What supports that? We literally used door #5 and door #3 twice already (although I guess you could say that "didn't count" since we didn't fully complete the process), and we were about to use door #3 a third time until Seven said "nah guys I propped the door open, it's cool". Right now that seems like a poorly-conveyed plot point.
Still no idea how "Alice" is going to be made relevant. It's an open question how supernatural the game is, at this point. I kinda expect not tooo much, but that might be projecting hope; the game being more about the human characters reacting to psychologically grilling situations is just more satisfying.
June's fever is another major unsolved mystery (unless it's FF4-style "is a love interest"-itis, which will be an instant -1/10 to this game). I have no idea what to make of that character in general. Probably one of the abducted kids...?
Anyway I don't really like the idea of blindling fumbling through room combinations to get the remaining endings (since I'd hit every room at this point), so I checked the spoiler-free walkthrough and discovered the hint of giving Clover the... clover. Which I would have seen if I hadn't turned it down on my second run through room 4 just to be different, oh well! Makes some sense but not the kind of thing I have the patience to do full runs of the game, even fast-forwarded ones, to try to find on my own.
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Well I've just been replaying Symphony of the Night because it's on PS4 PSN and why is there no inventory management of any kind in this game arrrrgh.
Seriously though, game is still a source of amazement just for its environments. It's stupidly easy, there's a million random pieces of junk equipment that you will never realistically have a use for, but wow is it ever a joy to explore.
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Still playing Berseria. I LOVE the cast writing dynamics. Every PC plays off of every other PC and it is used to shade their characters. The Velvet/Eleanor dynamic is a pair of foils playing off each other while Eleanor simultaneously changes the whole party dynamic by being an above average Tales character in a very not standard Tales game. I love it.
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Elf on 999: Interesting stuff, I was mostly in a similar place for thoughts at the place you're at. The only thing I'll confirm / deny…
* I was definitely 100% assuming Ace was the killer for knife ending at the time and also had access to the #9 bracelet. Axe ending, as you already noted, Ace walks off to talk with Lotus suggests that 1+8+9 = out; in the same way, Junpei seems a little too close to discovering things in Knife where Ace chose another method to get the #8 bracelet. I dunno, seems reasonable to me that the killer just plain gets the drop on him, Junpei's distracted with investigating Lotus's body at the time and presumably the death just happened 3 minutes ago or something such that the killer was still hanging around and hadn't left yet when they heard Junpei arrive, and wanted to off someone who might sound the alarm. I buy it.
Breath of Fire 3 talk: Amusingly enough, my friend who played the game and disliked it felt that the game erred *too far* on the side of making Myria sympathetic, to the point that it was a Wait We're The Villains. Things are peaceful and stable, Ryu is just, what, itching to start a fight again and prove Myria right that the dragons are dangerous?
Dragon Quest XI
So got to the Sniflheim Wastes course in quest of the Blue Orb, where people were very cold. We warm a few up with some microwaved hot cocoa despite the sneers that stovetop would be better, but - oh no, others are totally frozen into ice blocks! That seems bad. The Definitely Trustworthy person tells us that there are some snow bandits who live nearby, and I should just steal 900+ white orbs from their stockpile, because at least one of them is probably a special red orb. I head on over and play Pac-Man with the extremely nearsighted snow bandit guards, picking up the white dots in their hedge maze while evading them. I bring 'em back, and suspect I've been had; he just wants to sell the stockpile I brought him, but there is a red orb, a fire ball, in the set. Using the lightning equipment I acquired earlier, I spark fires around Sniflheim, dip the fire ball in them, then aim & launch the fire balls at frozen people / rocks / treasure / etc. to thaw 'em out. Tough love. I also find some icy stone crafting materials about and bring them to a different campfire for some crafting of new items, in a kinda dumb minigame with easy timing of lighning zaps to blow up the icy stones. Anyways, turns out the bad bandits have the item I want, but when I go visit them, it turns out they weren't really bad at all, just paranoid about people stealing their orbs! (Yeah.. about that.) There's also something about a special book that went missing. The trustworthy person who sent us on the orb-theft quest skedaddles (although hey, it did unfreeze the people), and it's time for a friendly boss battle with the seemingly nameless "bandit" leader to see if I can get the item I came for to begin with. It's pretty easy, honestly. Peace is restored, a new ruler for the course is installed, and I can continue my journey.
Oh wait wrong game involving a frozen-over location with people turned into cartoony giant ice blocks and a false friend and a nearby bandit/viking camp, sorry, I get confused, I just ran into that plot twice. Except one of them embraced the ludicrousness a bit better. Well, it's pretty fun anyway, just have the final challenges up next.
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Well I've just been replaying Symphony of the Night because it's on PS4 PSN and why is there no inventory management of any kind in this game arrrrgh.
Seriously though, game is still a source of amazement just for its environments. It's stupidly easy, there's a million random pieces of junk equipment that you will never realistically have a use for, but wow is it ever a joy to explore.
Alucard mode done. PS4 version has a trophy just for getting Crissaegrim, so I figured I'd try and pick one up. About ten minutes of farming schmoos for this, I think? I almost walked offscreen when the thing finally dropped, kill schmoo-->leave screen-->reenter being so ingrained by that point. It says a lot about the breadth and obscurity and relative junkiness of much SotN equipment that I didn't actually know this thing existed (outside of Harmony of Despair) before this run despite having played through Alucard mode 3-4 times before. Anyway, it's the most stupid broke weapon conceivably possible in an already easy game, you're just a walking blender. Shaft lived I think five seconds? This is common for a lot of inverted castle bosses anyway, even with normal weapons, since the difficulty in the game is so incredibly unbalanced, but still noteworthy in this case. Given that, Drac lived longer than I expected--he's got HP, I'll give him that. Still a complete clusterfuck of a fight.
Will probably run Richter & Maria modes too, since they're there, but doubt I'll have anything new to say about those.
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Breath of Fire 3 talk: Amusingly enough, my friend who played the game and disliked it felt that the game erred *too far* on the side of making Myria sympathetic, to the point that it was a Wait We're The Villains. Things are peaceful and stable, Ryu is just, what, itching to start a fight again and prove Myria right that the dragons are dangerous?
There's a case to be made for that, though I'll note the game does allow you to choose to not start said fight!
999:
I have no problem with Junpei's death in knife ending for the exact reasons you said. It's the submarine ending which currently scans as a bit of "what". We'll see!
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Dai Gyakuten Saiban: so I haven't been in the mood to play vidjagames much recently, so next best thing, started watching translated youtube videos of this Ace Attorney game that never made it out of Japan. Three cases in, I'm impressed by a lot of what it's doing, but have to give it a big ol' I for Incomplete, because each case points to some future resolution that has yet to occur. Feels like the AAI games in that regard. And whatever connection exists between the unresolved elements is not clear in the slightest, heading into case 4. I have high hopes.
Taiko no Tatsujin: is a drummin' rhythm game. It's fun!
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999 - Beat.
Non-spoiler version: thoroughly enjoyable murder mystery/adventure novel game. Compared to, say, Ghost Trick, it doesn't tie things up as nicely, but its writing is more enjoyable moment-to-moment; I found it engaging pretty much from the start and was basically always in the mood to see more. Probably rates at around a 9+9-99/9 (in base 10).
So first off, now that I've finished the game... yeah the sub ending is terrible. Ace knifes Santa and Clover, chases down June and knifes her (but not enough to kill even though he'd want her bracelet for room 1), goes back and lies in a pool of blood and trusts the others won't search his body or even check his pulse, then he somehow sneaks up on both Lotus and the TRAINED COP who both know a murderer is around. What. Whaaaat. Nothing about that made any sense! Worse still the submarine room turned out to be a total red herring. The other two bad ends were excellent at setting up some clues you needed to unravel the whole mystery, that one is just useless. Anyway.
Safe ending:
So 5->8 unlocks a bunch of dialog that 4->8 doesn't apparently! Near as I can tell it's because Junpei doesn't piss Lotus off if they take different routes. Sure I can accept that! Maybe the game is saying that when all the other characters make fun of Lotus for being OMG a woman over 40, they're wrong to do so? I doubt it, but I can hope.
Ace reveal, of course. The takedown scene of him was really cool, hello there Ace Attorney. The scene did highlight a big advantage Ace Attorney has over its competition, where figuring out the killer is directly tied to the gameplay. Here we just go through the "right" doors and Junpei spells everything out for us. Oh well. Still good.
Less good was the fact that somehow Snake gets shot five times and grabs onto Ace for several minutes until they both burn to death. I mean, I kinda like an ending where Ace burns to death especially in light of the True End, but they could have done it in a better way than "Snake gets magical anime powers".
This ending definitely left some weird stuff involving Santa and June, in particular their respective disappearances at the end. I finished the route concluding that Zero was one of them.
True ending:
In which we convince Clover not to be an axe-murderer.
This path does a good job of laying out various plot developments throughout. In particular we learn that everyone except Junpei has direct connections to the previous game except June and Junpei, which made me even more suspicious of what the hell was up with her. I figured she probably had a connection we hadn't seen yet, and that just left Junpei as a wildcard, whose only connection was specifically to her, so you knew she was going to be important. I figured she was going to be Zero then the game told me she wasn't and Santa was a strong #2 suspect so I shrugged and accepted it.
Library is the only time I opened a guide for this game aside from ending-hunting, I coulda sworn I hit every bookshelf but apparently I missed one. Not an easy place to investigate!
Actual ending... okay, that was pretty crazy. I'm torn between thinking it's really cool and really stupid. And by torn I mean I'm pretty sure I consider it both at the same time. The realization that the bottom screen and the top screen were telling different (if overlaid) stories, and that the narrator isn't who you thought it was, is freaking cool. The final puzzle is probably the most enjoyable gameplay sequence since you understand what it is you're doing. Oh yeah and I was pleasantly surprised: the explanation for June's fevers is great, she is literally burning to death 9 years ago as you make Bad Choices.
But like, so many details don't work or make no sense:
-Why did Cradle just abandon their Nevada base? It's evidence of one hell of a crime, it should have been destroyed if they weren't planning to use it again. Instead they *sold* it to Aoi and Akane? Oookay. That or they left it unguarded and the whole thing is some crazy unlawful trespass.
-I was under the impression the characters in the game were Japanese (certainly #1/3/5/6/8/9 all have Japanese names, as do the other two Cradle execs). So Akane and Aoi abducted all these people and somehow flew them on an *international* flight?
-Most implausible things about their plan within the game can probably be hand-waved by "they tried everything and this is the only timeline that led to Akane's survival" but there's a lot of crazy shit they do within the game that I wish had a more satisfying explanation.
-I'm not sure if somehow the people who remember Akane dying are remembering a different timeline or if they're in on the charade (I really hope it's not the latter, it becomes increasingly ridiculous if the plot is "and almost everyone in the game was there to manipulate Junpei"), neither explanation is really satisfying.
I kinda feel like the lategame robbed us of an unmasked Akane (and Aoi, for that matter, but Akane would have been more fun). How much of the June we saw was an act? Would have been nice to know. The game seems to overall like them but they're on some level kinda horrible. I guess excluding them from the ending allows the player to decide what to think of them.
To be clear I enjoyed the game for sure. It could have been *really great* but I enjoyed what we got quite well anyway.
Spoilers for Ace Attorney as well (AAI2 and SoJ):
To continue from the previous thought, Akane is strongly reminiscent of the Mastermind from AAI2. Doesn't dirty her own hands, but rather *directly* encourages the deaths of the Cradle execs. AAI2 definitely considers Simon a villain; this game doesn't seem so sure. One difference is that while Simon gets some real scumbags killed, he also gets some innocents, so it's hard to have sympathy for him, whereas Akane is targeting only people who are basically Pure Evil (and actually killed her on some timelines), and just kidnapping/traumatising innocents. Still cold as fuck though.
I'm amused that there are two visual novels that make use of prosopagnosia, hard to imagine SoJ wasn't inspired by this game. Overall I think SoJ made a more clever use of it, for all that I think Ace was the more effective character.
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Elf: Neat thoughts on 999.
* Canonically, the cast is a bunch of Japanese people who are hanging around in the US for whatever reason. Not Actually A Localization Thing a la Phoenix Wright vs. Naruhodo Ryunosoke, go figure. (Well. I half-suspect Clover & Snake are supposed to be actual Americans who happen to have Japanese names, but who knows.)
* Re paradoxical memories... yeah, bit of an issue, while ultimately understandable it makes a few plot elements not quite work. If you remember Junpei's line in the end where he's trying to figure out WTF with Seven not mentioning that Akane survived, that was the creator/writer finding a plot hole in his own plot and deciding the best thing to do would be to just say life is complicated and have Junpei go IT IS A MYSTERY. Clearly the timelines where Akane dies, he's setting up the info that one kid didn't make it, but in the timeline where she doesn't and this whole nonsense happens at all, he's, what, in on it? Memory manipulated so much that he might as well be a puppet? Oh well. I respect that it'd be very difficult to figure out a way to seal that plot piece back in while simultaneously having Seven inform you in such a way to set up that twist.
* I too wanted to solve the Safe puzzle myself! Was getting all set to take a shot at it, and Junpei just does the code himself. Ah well.
* If you give a certain answer to Santa in room 4, he'll mention how he got massively rich off the stock market. Basically Akane used what she saw of the future to help set 'em up, they invested massively on Ace's pharmaceutical company and got to be teenage zillionaires or something via cheaty future knowledge. I respect that the game at least realized that the kind of crazy scheme that is a Nonary Game basically requires a fortune to pull off. So yeah, they bought it off them - I can only presume that Ace's goons cleaned it up before selling it.
* On the AAI2 parallels, I do like that 999's ending does have Akane & Aoi skedaddling the hell away rather than everybody smiling and not calling the cops. You can argue it was a very, very bizarre form of self-defense that stretched over 9 years (look, I had to terrorize everybody because I needed somebody in my exact situation so I can pull off the bizarre "Wreck of the Titan" = Titanic cross-time mind chat...), but they are definitely grey hats at best.
* If you are curious for more about what the unmasked Akane is like, she is openly in the third game from the start, if you ever get around to it. You can probably guess a bit, though... (don't read on if you don't want the minor spoiler)... ... the later games change a bit of the stance on how the psychic powers work. My impression in 999 is that it was more about setting up the exact kind of stressful, life & death situation that lets people access the morphogenetic field - anybody could do it, but the situation needs to call for it. Virtue's Last Reward and Zero Time Dilemma go for a bit more of a "sure, anybody COULD do it, but certain people are really good at it," which includes Akane. I think the writer said that somebody who could see the future somewhat would have a different view of morality than normal humans, so she's a logical for-the-greater-good resolute type.
Golf Story
Finished. If not obvious, this was what I was rambling about above under Dragon Quest XI, what with the "white orbs" (aka golf balls) and all. Anyway, it was really fun! And I'm not even remotely a golf fan. Similar to the Homer Simpson quote, in the world of Golf Story, golf is the cause of, and solution to, all life's problems. It really is a Golf RPG, complete with gathering items (...new clubs and the like), leveling up, doing sidequests, learning the new gimmick mechanics of an area via helping people and then getting to apply it in a real boss battle, and so on. Won the final Pro Tour by a single stroke getting a -1 score, so I'll take it.
The main oddity the game has, and I realize it's an indie game developed by like 3 Aussies, is that nobody has names. The UI, where text bubbles just pop up live next to sprites, means there isn't a good place to stick titles or names, so I could understand somewhat fewer names, but come on, sheesh. Our Hero literally just comes up as "PLAYER" in the Open scoreboards, he gets to sarcastically ask if Greenskeeper is the Greenskeeper's actual name, and so on. It's weird! You can't even input names or select sprites in the half-baked 2-player mode. The other oddity is that the game kinda runs out of antagonists for the Final Showdown. You know how your Pokemon Rival always is inexplicably hanging out with the Elite Four at the very end? They kinda needed to do the same thing here, make it so you have to play against your rival at the end, at least if I was writing things. Oh well.
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Super Metroid- hey we done!
I can't help comparing this to Castlevania, because well Super Metroid surely influenced the game Symphony of the Night became, and I played a lot of iterations on SotN. So in some ways Super Metroid does suffer because I've played more recent games in its genre a bunch: like not getting full-heals on save points threw me for a while, and putting in rapid-spawn bug holes explicitly to grind out refills is an... well it's better than not having them but gosh it seems older because of that. And I think I lost like an hour at one point backtracking for items because there's not really any way to tell on the map where entrances and exits are, so it's like "oh hey I missed this entire room over here, let's go... okay and I can't remotely get there from this entrance. Bah."
If I'm honest the fact that some enemies are immune to a portion of your weapons is not something that clicks with me. It's a valid choice for a game that emphasizes platforming, which Metroid absolutely does much more heavily than Castlevania. But I find that trying to both manage my selected weapon or charging shots while also picking up movement patterns or trying to correctly execute platforming moves... yeah, it's a bit much. One of those things where familiarity with the series would completely erase the problem but I dunno, I think I'm old.
All of that said damned if it's not screamingly obvious why people make ripoffs if this (well, moreso SotN, but SotN would absolutely not exist without Super Metroid) in large quantities to this day. While I gather the NES Metroid games had fairly similar core gameplay, the techniques in Super Metroid rewarding replay and the game consciously cluing you into how well you did at the end would set it apart even if it wasn't almost certainly much, much better at them regardless.
Much as the core gameplay doesn't lend itself to too much atmosphere (Samus is too mobile and explodey for that) they put a handful of sequences in there that did a great job. The first dip into Brinstar not having any enemies, the entire sequence with enemies dusting to reintroduce the baby Metroid, the way they handle Crashed Ship? Brilliant stuff.
I suspect I'll probably have this lowest rated on my year end lists and stuff (it's kinda at the low end of 6/10 I'd say?) it does a lot more to sell itself to me as a complete experience than most other "well I may as well play it its this huge foundational genre-making game" experiments I do.
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Gave the Super Metroid x Link to the Past randomizer a try and have lots of thoughts about it. I have experience with both games' randomizers individually. Short version: it's one of those that I might try once or twice more and then abandon forever. I can admire it as a technical achievement. Playing it, didn't really offer anything new from playing with them separately.
It does exactly what it says on the tin. Combined that's 316 hiding spots to search which will keep a player hunting for a long time. To me, the combo felt like it was struggling under its own weight. With two worlds to search, the playing time feels to long for racing. Not a deal breaker since there are other ways to enjoy randomizers besides racing. And the extended play time will be welcomed by those looking for that sort of thing. Double the worlds also makes for twice as much mop-up for when the player has everything needed to finish and is just rushing to the ending. If you get stuck missing just one last progression item like I did and not knowing where to find it, things feel less fun. When I finally found the cane of somaria behind Crocomire, I felt more annoyed than pleased. Been hoping I could skip that area.
Granted, Super Metroid randomizer itself, let alone combined with another game, I would suggest being able to 100% the base game before diving in. Not a problem for me. I do disagree with the normal SM logic expecting infinite bomb jump. It isn't that hard to do but it's really slow and doesn't make sense why it is that way when several speedrunners were involved in the creation process. i still got enjoyment out of this (finding bow, hammer, and hookshot in the wrecked ship to take back to Hyrule was a high point), though also felt like I was going through the motions at various times too. Moreso in Zebes since it only takes a few key powerups to go nearly anywhere. In my game, Samus was geared up to finish long before Link could complete his quest so felt a bit disjointed. Theoretically possible to be the other way around (and part of why I'm willing to give this another try or two before retiring it) though believe probability favors being able to clear Mother Brain first. Overall, an interesting curiosity that I have plenty of reservations about and best done in short sessions if attempting it at all.
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CK types words about Super Metroid
Pretty much why it's solidly in the category of games I enjoyed to watch speedrun more than play myself. It's an amazing construction, but yeah.
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Dragon Quest XI: Main game beaten. Final time was 61.5 hours.
The first half of the game really failed to hook me. I found myself playing other things instead of this which is not normal for a DQ game. The second half is better, but this is still disappointing compared to previous DQ games. At the very least it's worse than 7, 9, and 8. Maybe the postgame will clear up some of the hanging plot threads.
Game was easy overall. I had main character on Follow Orders and rest of the party on Fight Wisely in DQ tradition. AI was fairly competent. Used the "Don't run from battles" Draconian quest since I never run anyway. I only had one gameover, to some Robo-robins in the desert. Which is understandable since they've always been among the most bullshit enemies in the series. Final boss was a pleasant challenge and I had a bit of luck beating him with Serena doublecasting Kazing multiple times.
Problems with the game: The world map is too small. The game is extremely linear. You don't hit your head on the ceiling when you cast Zoom inside a building.
I think the Sylvando controversy is a bit overblown. Yes he is flamboyant as fuck. But his sexuality is never discussed and nobody ever makes fun of him for his behavior. Apparently the Japanese version is worse, but this one is fine. He's just out to make the world smile.
Characters!
Luminary: Greatswords and Luminary skills. Greatswords were great damage in general. Unbridled Bash destroys single targets. He's a silent main, what else can you say about him?
Erik: Boomerangs and Guile. Boomerangs suck even more than normal DQ games. Don't use them. He was a decent character but the leadup to his secondhalf plot was dumb.
Sylvando: Knives and Litheness or whatever it's called. Pretty bad in combat overall. Basically a worse Serena in the earlygame. Has massive MP issues. I did end up using him against the final boss though. Hustle dance is good healing compared to Multiheal. Mardi Garb scene > all.
Veronica: Heavy Wands and Vim. Earlygame MVP. So much aoe damage. Characterwise she was rather annoying.
Serena: Harpistry and Light Wands. Pretty poor early on but really comes into her own later. Has the best scene in the game.
Rab: Heavy Wands and whatever his personal abilities are called. Much better Serena in the earlygame. Pretty useful throughout, but the AI spams Pearly Gates too damn much. Was an okay character but kind of all over the place. Is he a martial artist? A mage? Pick an archetype and stick with it.
Jade: Claws and that's about it. Pretty bad character. Maybe better if you don't go claws. Also boring.
Mystery PC It's Yangus: Axes and Shields. Mostly spammed Parallax, so good damage and durability.
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Dragon Quest XI
Got up to "part 2" of the game, did a bit of poking around, and I have my ship back.
Gameplay: Interesting, with the usual "it's Dragon Quest" provisos. Party balance is decent and interesting. (Okay, Serena is basically a backlines healing battery, but everybody else has some worth.)
Plot: The plot is... bad. The setting is charming enough, there's some good characters, some of the local vignettes are okay, and the localizers did a great job of salvaging the best they could from the situations, up to and including the wink & nod that this doesn't make much sense (which I genuinely appreciate!), but. A lot of sideplots are uninteresting, and a lot of the maingame plots feature Lazy Writing. Sometimes it's a weird NES homage, sometimes it's meant to evoke a fairytale-for-kids don't sweat the details vibe, but sometimes it's just hackwork. Like, there's a lot of things that happen in-game which are only remotely explainable as being Destiny With a Capital D, like the really intrusive read-the-script kind. Which might be okay if you're writing Tales of the Abyss or something, but here it's really just an excuse to have whatever the writer wants to happen happen.
Now that I think about it, you know those villains who always babble about how everything is going to plan despite the fact that the kidnapees have been freed, their base is in flames, and their generals defeated? DQ11 is the reverse of that, where all-seeing all-prophesizing good tree Yggdrasil totally has this under control, guys, everything is fine, please ignore the bad stuff happening, it's all going to plan. Basically this:
(https://www.rpgdl.com/wiki/images/3/30/Owned_corncob.png)
I'll add that the game has an eerie tendency to write plots that could be really really dark, yet seem utterly blind to the implications.
Also, spoilers for part II nitpick:
* Good god the writers can't remember their own plot within the span of a paragraph, or else don't care. When exactly was Carnelian possessed? The game bluntly tells us that it was right after the fall of Dundrasil, because Rab & Jade skedaddled after he was talking crazy about the Luminary then, and everybody shrugged that a newborn did this. Fine, although Carnelian's excellent reputation suggests that Mordegon too is an excellent leader, which I doubt was intended. But hey, it totally explains why he has Hendrik & Jasper & the knights under his thumb, he's been sculpting them for years to blindly trust his every command. And yet - despite Carnelian claiming he doesn't remember much of anything from when he was possessed - he knows all about Hendrik (well, grown-up Hendik), knows he's treated him like a replacement son, etc. He knows enough about the situation to not seemingly be 20 years out of date on everything. And, the clincher, Jasper's motivation seems to be that he thought he wasn't getting enough respect from Daddy Carnelian and the adoring masses. It would be very weird if Mordegon mistreated Jasper for years, and was rewarded with his loyalty! Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe you could argue that he pretended to be Carnelian and was intentionally formenting his grudge, then pretended to possess him later and offer him Ultimate Power, Revenge, etc., but that sounds too complex for something that isn't in the script at all. No, the simple answer is that the game is just inconsistent: for most plot points, Carnelian was possessed very recently. For the purposes of giving an excuse for Rab & Jade to wander the world, he was possessed ages ago.
*And while we're at it, as usual the DQ series has no introspection whatsoever on its own plot. The saga of Heliodor in retrospect should have been about not trusting orders just because they come from a wise and respected king; that if President Obama tells you to kill all Canadians, you need to stop and think even if you like the dude. Yet Carnelian is boldly telling Henrik in part 2 to quiet your doubts, just do as I say, I've got a plan, trust me. Henrik should have a big f'ing problem with this by now! At least have that discussion that you can't just insist and get your way anymore.
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To talk a bit more gameplay. NotMiki can attest that the boss of Phonm Nomh in the painting was, uh, quite exciting. Toughest boss so far, I ate ~4-5 resets on her. Came down to AI roulette a bit, although that isn't as bad as it sounds; in something like FFT, the RNG is whether the smart enemy's Steal Heart makes it's 47% chance to land and ruin your day. Here, it's on Steal Heart being used on the wrong target, or not at all. Anyways. Triple turns incoming, which can include:
* 100% Beguilement. Only resistance of any note is a Luminary-only accessory that offers a paltry 30% resist to it. Beguile causes you to attack your own party, doesn't fall off from magic, and is only healable by Sylvando's Sobering Slap. Even worse, since you count as an enemy, MT stuff now nails your own party member.
* 100% Ability Block. If this lands on Sylvando, or he's Beguiled, good luck un-beguiling your party, since his Slap is an ability, as is his MT healing Hustle Dance. This is hard to block and impossible to fix as well.
* Passable MT laser damage (3HKO or 4HKO or so?). It isn't magic nor a breath, so no, you can't resist it.
* A defense-ignoring critical attack that can nearly one-shot anybody and actually one-shot Veronica, and definitely combines with the fire breath for a kill on nearly anybody. It is not uncommon for her to do both!
* HP Draining attack. Not super-great on damage, and the healing wouldn't really scare a properly buffed up aggro party, but hahaha at being able to run that here, so she can lock you out of having a low-damage unit hustle out the last bit of damage as the rest of the party falls.
* Regular attacks. Pray she does these as often as possible, since they undo Beguile and are her worst damage.
* Did I mention the triple turns again? This also means that effects like Sap fall off three times as fast as they normally would.
End result is that you are desperately praying Sylvando stays active, that she doesn't use crit or uses it when she didn't breath. Usual party of Hero/Veronica/Sylvando/Rab was go here, Sylv & Rab have MT healing and Sylv has the status curing, and then pray that Hero doesn't get beguiled or ability blocked or killed and have him throw buff'd greatsword hits at the boss, throwing in Veronica magic if there's time. If Hero dies, he can be sorta replaced with Jade, and Veronica can sorta be replaced by Erik, but it's completely terrible if Sylv or Rab bite it, Serena doesn't have Multiheal here so she's really bad.
That boss was way tougher than the next boss (Sniflheim) even unscaled I bet, and you get a bunch of gear before the next boss. The next boss "merely" double turns, and wastes some of those turns on moves that just aren't that bad.
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Finished watching Dai Gyakuten Saiban. I'm going to save extensive thoughts for when I finish watching DGS2 but for now: it's good, and if you like Ace Attorney games, you'll like it.
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Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn - I am doing a run where if the characters dies, they are dead. I won’t call it a no reset run because Leonardo died in 1-3 and that causes a game over, and I had to reset. I did eliminate Leonardo from the team, though, so it was like he died.
Anyway, the Dawn Brigade, after 3-6, has just Leonardo in the dead column. I feel like I am very knowledgeable about the Dawn Brigade maps and do everything in my power to prevent character loss. Edward and Fiona have been abandoned, but everyone else has promoted to tier 2 aside from Laura. Jill in particular has gotten quite a few good levels.
The other maps have been a little less straightforward. I think part of it is rustiness and part of it is playing a little fast and loose with some of the maps / underestimating the difficulty of RD, but I have lost several characters in the Crimea/GM maps. First I lost Calill on 2-E (got crit by a Crossbow), then Haar (Bolting mage), then Titania (boss of 3-2), then Mia (Killing Edge crit), then Heather (random Halberdier). So things have been a little more interesting than normal. The defense map (believe it’s 3-5) was much more challenging than normal and I was frequently scrambling to prevent enemies from breaking my defensive formation. Even 3-7, which is usually an joke, was a little bit trickier because Haar wasn’t there to intercept the Wyverns (although the map was still a joke). It will be interesting to see how Part 4 goes without those core characters.
I promoted Soren once he hit capped magic/speed/res so he is my token tier 3 character. It’s usually Titania but lolwhatever.
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Elfboy points out that I forgot Rhys, and Boyd just bit the dust too.
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Elfboy points out that I forgot Rhys
doesn't everybody forget about rhys in fe10
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Got through the rocks map without anyone dying. Aran being doubled by some of the enemies was pretty sadface. 16 speed in Part 3 is pretty unacceptable.
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Transistor- I have done the Grefter thing.
On the whole I feel like the ending, in both the final battle and how the story wraps up after, don't quite stick the landing. Having a physical struggle with Royce for control of the world just doesn't really fit anything that's going on here, because ultimately it doesn't matter and they both know that. But by putting it there, Red taking time to fix one bridge before ultimately making a point of making sure the narrator knows she's not going to keep going is a lot more off-putting.
I dunno, feels like a writing problem where they knew they wanted a final boss that was a mirror match, and an ending featuring the character making probably the last choice the player would (since I mean that's the game's thrust, that superficial player choice is worth far less than a single story with actual emotional stakes), but ran out of dev time and just crammed them in there.
Otherwise it's pretty solid. I do find the gameplay a bit chunky (albeit that was probably me not thinking through my setup very well), but the way they handle environmental story telling is pretty nice. The narrator gives it a lot more emotional connection than this sort of thing normally can. Then in the third arc where they use terminals to suddenly communicate between Red and the Narrator... woof. That was a moment.
But yeah this feels fairly directly inspired by the *shock games, but I think it's an overall tighter experience with a more interesting cast and message. Just... yeah, doesn't quite all come together. Bit worse than Bastion, but still in the same 7/10 ballpark.
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Chrono Cross
Played through this with a friend, after finishing Xenogears. It was a little while ago now - I was wanting to play PS1 era RPGs I had missed. This didn't exactly come highly recommended from chat, but it was still a game I kind of wanted to play, so what the heck. This is another wall of text with me just typing whatever comes to mind, so fair warning.
Well... There's good, and there's bad. Plot stuff will be in small text.
THE GOOD
- The graphics are solid for the time.
- Some of the songs are excellent.
- The battle "system" is very interesting.
- The early game dialogue was surprisingly touching, and got my hopes quite high - just the NPCs in the starting village impressed me.
So, this is a good start. But now I'll refute most of those points.
Some of the songs are absolutely excellent. But you know what one isn't? The regular battle song. Heck, all of the boss songs that aren't just the field song continuously playing (which is what I kept hoping for, because those were the best songs) aren't great. And you hear these all the time! It's a shame, because Chrono Cross has some stellar tracks, but you spend most of the game listening to the songs that aren't the best.
The Battle system is really interesting. I was REALLY into it early on. I noticed you could pass turns, spending a bit of stamina on each character. I was thinking of ideas like, say, having one character go into negative stamina and passing turns between the other characters to make sure it doesn't go to waste.
And the customization is cool, too! Spells you can only use once? That's really interesting!
Unfortunately - And I suppose part of this comes with a JRPG being aimed at anyone completing it that doesn't really allow grinding - anything can work. And the reason anything can work is because AOE healing is plentiful, and you get way, WAY too many spell slots for your own good. When AOE healing is so common and strong, the only way the bosses can kill you is with OHKO damage, since healing is rare. And that's dissapointing?? "Stay at full health at all times" isn't really interesting?
Seriously. Why is AOE healing so strong and plentiful? Why does that make certain colours like Blue and White and Green stand head and shoulders above the others?
I dunno, I guess I overthought it, but I was really getting excited in the first few hours of the game. The field effects seemed interesting (they aren't, always make the field the opposite colour of your opponent), the spell limits seemed interesting - maybe you'll run out of healing? (you never will since you can equip 20), and the techs made the characters - which I haven't even mentioned yet - interesting, too. (They don't. Techs are useful early game, in particular AOE techs. But after the halfway point of the game, they became ridiculously weak in comparison despite having exciting animations. Maybe I missed something.)
And the characters, gameplay wise. There's like 40 characters, and I get the idea - have so many that it's exciting, the biggest roster ever, or whatnot. And that's cool. But if you're going to have so many characters in the game that aren't plot related... At least make them interesting gameplay wise? Like, every time we got a new character it was like "they seem bad", we had to force ourselves to change characters. For example, pretty early in the game you get Luccia, thought she might be an interesting character to use (she was absolutely useless), why give you a character that's just worse in every way, with no redeeming traits or "ooh, I want to try out this move" or no interesting statlines or no interesting dialogue. Why do they exist!? I guess you might like the character designs.
As for other things... The random battles. Okay, so Chrono Cross has on field random encounters - that's great! Random Battles in videogames tend to only be good if they are balanced really tightly. Chrono Cross also has no EXP after battles, though there seems to be a system in place where the first few battles after you fight a boss gives you minor stat boosts. That's also interesting, and not a bad system at all! No one really likes having to grind for a long time. Chrono Cross also has a third system that automatically heals you after battle depending on your remaining "MP" (I wonder if this is the sort of thing that people were abusing in playtesting so they made it automatic.) This is also a cool feature. That could really let you make interesting, difficult trash encounters (they don't)
So, none of these ideas are bad. But the combination of all of these ideas means that there's no reason to fight any random enemies, ever. All they do is waste time. You will dodge every enemy - and why not? They don't give EXP. They certainly can't kill you. They can drop some useless elements you can sell for 5 gold if you're really interested in that, or you can buy them at a shop for a pittance. If an enemy does happen to catch you, it does not matter. You will lose some real life time, killing this enemy that has no hope of doing serious damage to your party. And you will be healed at the end of it. So what this results in, is you kill every enemy that is in front of a treasure chest that you can't avoid (by the way almost every treasure chest is completely useless consumables, way to go), and dodge the rest because they will just waste your time (and boy will the game make you waste your time with the cavemen that you have to kill about 40 of to make the... Yellow? Dragon appear, which have a way, WAY too long animation and come in groups of, like, five.)
And those animations are impressive, and I realize this is a problem with a lot of games of this era, but if I have to watch this random shadow cat enemy fade into the ground and slowly do its attack animation that is sort of cool the first time and not cool at all the 20th time, then... I have no idea what I'll do, but I won't like it. (To be fair, the animations are nice. They're just too long.) I'll also excuse, though it annoyed me a bit, some of the guide selling parts of the game.
Anyway, party members that got serious usetime were Skelly, Razzly, Fargo, Marcy, and... The mermaid girl... Whose name I've forgotten. Looking at stats at endgame, though, I felt we should have been using Draggy. Really could have used his high accuracy, and his other stats seemed good.
Okay, so I've gotten this far and I haven't even mentioned the plot yet.
....Man, where do I start...? This is just going to be a ridiculous rant (I guess like the rest of this post).
OK, we'll start with the only characters that exist in this game, Kid and Lynx.
Kid is an okay character. I didn't use her because it felt like the game wanted me to use her, and she probably had a lot of dialogue (and she probably should have been forced, if that was the case, or at least showed up in cutscenes regardless of whether you had her in the party. Goodness knows the party needed a voice.). She is a likable enough character, though. No real strong opinions about her.
Except, for some reason, the silent protagonist loves her? Since when? My recollection is I told her off a couple times, begrudgingly accepted her help, and benched her? Huh?
But the most offensive part, is the credits. Where, at least as far as I could understand it, the game was trying to tell me something along the lines of, "Look, Kid is in the real world now, and she's looking for you, the player! Find Kid (Or your own Kid! Don't you love her?)". I mean, how else could I take that? Kid is walking around Japan looking at the camera in real life places - that's absolutely what they were going for and did not deserve because - why would I feel so strongly about Kid!? Because she's the only character in the game? Like I said, she's okay!
So, Lynx. Lynx starts off cool enough as a villain. And then you swap bodies with him in what is actually a really cool scene. Actually, as an aside, there are a few cool scenes in the game. That one, the burning house (If I didn't get lose looking for the Lucca Ice Gun and wander around for 20 minutes, I also "love" how they programmed in a "Dragon Power Doesn't Work Here" message if you try to use the water dragon blessing item to put out the fire like you did earlier in the game, basically telling me no do our pixel hunt please and ruining all tension the scene had.) And the part with Miguel is pretty cool too and the music works well there. Then the game goes on a 10 hour padding fetch quest, but that aside...
But yeah, you swap bodies with him! Wow, what interesting things will they do with you now that you're Lynx? (The answer is nothing. Every character goes OH DO NOT WORRY THIS IS NOT LYNX and there is basically no change at all. Woohoo.) You could have done really interesting stuff with that situation but they did not.
And Lynx himself, in your body... Also does nothing? By the way, I know Villains will always let you get away with it, but "I'll deal with you later" after he takes your body is the laziest thing I've ever seen. Why? He clearly still intends to kill you, at least going by that dialogue??? At least have someone save you, or him ham it up with an "Now watch as everyone in the world hates Serge" or whatever!
So anyway it turns out that Lynx was a robot that wanted to control the future but actually he was also your father but his schemes were foiled by Robo from Chrono Trigger and Harle from an alternate Dinosaur future.
(At least that's what I got out of it!)
Like.. I just don't understand. I complained about Xenogears plot moving too fast earlier, but at least it honestly had the core of a good plot. This has... A plot...? Where random things that aren't connected to each other happen? Oh, but it's all explained don't worry, everything has an explanation, just look at our text dump at the end of the game explaining every plot point (I did understand most of them, but that didn't make them good.)
Anyway, I'm sure I missed some stuff, but this is probably too long already. I don't regret playing it or anything, because I still enjoyed parts of the game despite these complaints, and heck, it made enough of an impression on me for me to want to write this much which is something I guess. Just dissapointed. Especially in the battle system, which I was super excited for.
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That's an excellent summary of the game. I like how you hit on the points that had real potential/promise; it helps me remember what drew me into the game at first, even though I ended up coming away with not-so-keen feelings on the game overall.
I've mostly been playing Metroid: Samus Returns. It's good! Just got the Screw Attack (earlier than normal for the series, it seems, though definitely in the back half from what I can tell). I've only played ~10% of Metroid 2 so I don't have many comparison comments there, but this game is basically its own beast anyway from what I can tell. The melee counter and aeon abilities put a nice little spin on things without changing the core formula that worked so well in Super/Fusion/Zero Mission, the controls are nice and smooth (pretty obvious playing it right after Super which was certainly clunkier), the gameplay is solid with reasonable teeth, a la Fusion. The boss design is an obvious place where it could be better, such is the lot of a game faithfully retreading Metroid 2's "well you fight variations of the same 3(?) bosses over and over". Except for that one time the first boss of Metroid Fusion showed up and kicked my ass repeatedly. Still, the fights themselves are fun the first few times. I miss the speed booster (unless it shows up very late) since that's definitely one of the most interesting Metroid powerups in terms of the platforming options and puzzles it opens up, but the aeon ability replacement for it is at least fun enough.
It'll be interesting to see what spin the game has on the fact you're basically exterminating a species and the moral implications of that. So far the game's pretty plotless, but hopefully the lategame has something to say on the subject.
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I actually played a game. I actually beat the first playthrough, too. nier:automata. Now, I'm all about radiating storylines but I'm finding it sort of hard to enjoy the gameplay of the second. It's slower. Battles that had an impressionable anxiety around them are sort of just mute, in a way. I imagine it becomes better. It has to. I haven't like a "female" lead this much in some time, so I hope I get to keep interfacing with her more and soon. nier is really dark, really dark.
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Chrono Cross
Really interesting write-up! It really demonstrated how CC could have been a good game (at least from a battle system perspective).
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Yeah, your Chrono Cross writeup sounds about right to me. There's a lot of good in it, and some good ideas, but so many head-scratchily bizarre-to-terrible ideas. (Also, "levelling" vs. randoms does help a little, in the alternate version of CC that is actually hard outside of, like, maybe Miguel / Garai / Dario.)
FWIW, the bit with Lynx is one of the things that most annoys me about the game as well. It's a cool idea, but way to drop the ball on actually executing with it. Also, while many games are bad at figuring out what villains and NPCs "should" be doing based on their own knowledge and objectives, CC Lynx is a particularly egregious offender because the game DOES give him a (totally batshit) motive, but he blatantly fails to even attempt said motive, and instead just harasses poor Serge until you beat him up. WTF. And if he is just gonna make Serge's life miserable, he misses out some obvious plotlines to do with this - ask Serge's friends for favors, ask to borrow stuff, etc.
For what it's worth, and Niu / CK can correct me on this, but re the robot stuff... so there's some weird war between FATE / Lavos / technology, who want humans to flourish so that Lavos can eat them or something, and Nature / Dragons / Reptites, who just want to wipe out humanity flat out. When Serge, Miguel, & Serge's dad washed up at the Chronopolis, for insane reasons tiny Serge was the first one into the Secret Chamber or whatever, so the door DNA-locked to him or something, because let's ramble about DNA for no reason, and also the dimensions split where one Serge died (maybe locked inside the room?), and another Serge somehow made it back to the village. And then in one of the dimensions, damned if I can remember which, FATE decides to mind-control Serge's dad and also turn him into a panther because this is obviously something a supercomputer can do. FATE then sends Lynx - who, while not a robot, is being mind-controlled by one - off to go body-swap with his son so that he can come back to the locked room with the Frozen Flame and unleash the power of Lavos within which will enable FATE to win the time-war with the Dragons or something and thus guarantee humanity survives to become delicious food. I would say to maybe try breaking the door down myself, but what do I know. Anyway Lynx blatantly doesn't even attempt this, so that's why Serge himself gets to go fight FATE and go to the room with the Frozen Flame later in the game on Disc 2. In terms of after-the-fact writer suggestions, if they'd toned down the craziness in Lynx plot a little bit and created someone who actually followed through on perhaps simpler motivations, it'd definitely have helped, since he's kinda the main villain for Disc 1!
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Broadly:
- FATE is the super computer running the future city from a Lavos-free 2300. They invented time travel, but also sent themselves back in time. Their primary motivation is making sure their future comes to past, which involves manipulating the surviving citizens to not affect the outside world with low-grade predestination gibberish. Also they had to make their own mini-continent to do it.
- The Dragons are a ruling intelligence form the future city of a Reptite-dominated 2300. The Planet pulled them back in time to prevent FATE from destroying the environment, because it realized the Frozen Flame was there and assumed they were teh lavos.
- But actually BOTH factions had become manipulated by the Frozen Flame and were taken over by the Time Devourer, which was half lavos(spawn?) and half Schala.
- Babby Serge was attacked by a panther, so his father and Miguel tried to sail to the mainland to find treatment. Instead they landed in Chronopolis. OOoookay so here's the ACTUAL wonkiness, so subsection
--A TIME STORM happens, and the baby Serge's cries of pain manage to be heard by Schala. Her attempts to help him:
--- disable the Frozen Flame's security, which is what allows him to be registered as the owner and locks out FATE
--- causes the creation of Kid, a clone/daughter/avatar for Schala to help him
--- allow Lavos to take control of their merged form, properly creating the Time Devourer.
-- Realizing it's locked out from its power source, FATE takes over Serge's father's mind, and turns him into a panther since that's now a phobia of Serge's.
-- FATE tried to correct the timeline later on by drowning Serge as a child, but because he was now the sole link between Schala and her humanity, which is the only reason time hadn't been devoured, killing him just split the timeline, creating the Home and Another worlds. FATE then locked Serge out of the Frozen Flame by turning Home world's Chronopolis into the Dead Sea, and set Miguel there to guard it.
- Seemingly, the only reason Lynx didn't do anything with Serge's body is that it didn't especially need the Frozen Flame? Until the Dragons remerged, there was nothing special it needed to do with it, but y'know, gotta be able to get your nuclear access codes when you need them. But oops, they were forced apart because they didn't have control of the Frozen Flame ANYWAY. MAD doesn't work kids.
- EXCEPT
- Actually all of the above was manipulated into happening by Balthazar, to give Serge a specific set of experiences so he'd be able to connect with the Planet and form the Chrono Cross, which would dissolve the link between Lavos and Schala and end the threat of the Time Devourer.
- The lesson being that anyone* can be the one that creates a new world!
* As long as that anyone is the chosen empathy vessel of a magical princess, forms a unique bond with the Planet itself, and a time traveling wizard arranges his entire adventure to enable the latter due to the former.
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Dragon Quest XI
Beat, got the "normal" ending (aka finished Part II).
It was pretty fun! I agree with Captain K that the second half is much better than the first half. Nice that the game finishes strong, at least. DQ11 has a lot of elements that are easy to rag on, so I suppose I should mention the good for why I kept at it:
* Gameplay is probably the best of any Dragon Quest, at least on Stronger Enemies Draconian? You have a lot of party formations, a lot of strategies can work, the spells & abilities tend to be "balanced"ish without just making everything the same. Bosses were all memorable-but-beatable, and the game let you nicely pick up from an autosave and skip the pre-boss cutscenes/chatter if you do lose.
* Enemy encounter control! Much like Bravely Default, the ability to avoid most enemies is great. You can grind as much or as little as you want. Makes exploration & backtracking much less sloggy than they could be. There's the occasional unavoidable enemy or trapped chest to keep you on your toes, but that's fine.
* Graphics are very nice. Spell effects are cool, lots of alternate costumes, lovingly detailed towns, and so on.
* Localization of the script was also pretty spot-on. Obviously it can't change the plot very much, which had more issues, but the translators did a good job of making everybody sound distinctive, and selling the plot points as best they could.
* Sylvando, Rab, Jade, & the 8th character were all pretty cool. Veronica / Serena took awhile, since they started off with just "hey we're twins swearing ourselves to the prophesized hero like in DQ4 but without really any setup", but eventually worked out. (Erik was boring, Luminary was Silent Main #348, but this is the good section, so we'll leave it at that.)
* The sheer size of the world was refreshing, and gives it some (undeserved?) depth. Modern AAA game budget makes it such that you can't just cheaply drop random sprite-based towns across the map anymore. The result can be weirdly smallish worlds… like, does the world of Bravely Default really only have 5 countries/cities in it? DQ11 has Big City England, rural-countryside-England, Japan, Turkey/Arabia, Venice, Spain, Holland, Texas, Scotland, Hawaii, Atlantis, France if it consisted entirely of an all-girl's academy, Cambodia, Norway, Greece, and Tibet. To be clear, DQ11 still isn't a remotely cohesive combined world, but it's CLOSER to feeling like a proper world map at least just from scale.
The plot ends up recovering to a mixed bag, which is better than it started. Way too much of the early part of the game had the Luminary's silence + idiotic subplots resulting in "throw controller against wall" frustration, but the later part of the game where the shit goes down tends to be better, and have its rando old-DQ plotline references be less out of place. It's still ultimately a sunny, optimistic shit goes down where anything REALLY bad happened already off-screen ("sorry bar owner dead, go somewhere else," etc.), and anything on-screen is likely fixable, but still, it helps. More to the point, a few of the plot points ended up surprisingly well-done, and I think that helps salve some of the dumber subplots earlier. (I'd pick the Last Bastion plotline, Sylvando's plotline surprisingly enough, the Erdwin's Lantern setup, and the final Arboria reveal for good stuff in Part II. Also, I mostly like the Part III setup, despite getting NotMiki's complaint - I dunno, I can write this stuff off as "we need to show the dark spirit is on your side", while the Luminary's silence in Part I just had no excuse too often.)
I will say - and this is only a mild criticism, because it's a respectable style, even if it isn't SnowFire's by default - this is very, very blatantly a case of a game where the writer's whim for the next plot point rules over the "setting." In other words, there are some pieces of fiction that start with some setting-specific facts of science/magic/politics, and try to figure out what happens from there; and there are other fiction that starts with what the writer wants to happen, and then writes a setting such that it does happen. Of course, it's usually a mix of both, and sometimes (especially in sequels!) what starts as a "because we need it" plot point can become an authentic setting prompt for later writers, e.g. Star Wars authors attempting to make sense of all the random stuff going on in the movies. (Example: We need some obstruction so that Cloud doesn't follow Sephiroth immediately, and has an excuse to stop by the Chocobo Ranch. Okay, sure, there's a swamp monster on the way to the Mithril Mines, and for bonus points, we'll show Sephiroth taking the awesome way through of killing one to prove what a threat he is. Nobody thinks that "swamp next to Kalm" was a core setting idea the game started with, they obviously wrote it in. But if some FF7 sequel had, I dunno, the PCs knowing about this and luring an invading army into the swamp in the hopes that the bad guys & Midgar Zoloms would fight each other, then we have some authentic setting-driven plot.) Getting back to DQ11 itself, the game just isn't that interested in being consistent or explaining itself. A character has amnesia! Why? Never explained. (And as usual is fixed by "here's a memento from your past".) Sometimes people get turned into monsters! Sometimes they forget everything about what they did as a monster, sometimes they remember a bit and can still access monster powers, sometimes they revert to human form then finish dying, and certainly nobody is going to freak out and wonder if any of all the other hordes of monsters we fought used to be human. Sometimes bad things happen by magic and people die, sometimes bad things happen by magic and everybody is fixed up. There's a character called the "Seer" whose entire purpose seems to be to fix the plot whenever it would go awry. Anyway, if you're okay with this, the second half's plotlines are mostly fine, and a few are authentically good. It's just definitely something that stands out here much more than some other games.
Also, uploaded my final battles for fun (spoilers, etc.):
https://youtu.be/xGBhwXtxAsY
( If you want to see a sample of some of the BS, check out 47:00 or so. Just the thing to keep you on your feet.)
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Broadly:
- FATE is the super computer running the future city from a Lavos-free 2300. They invented time travel, but also sent themselves back in time. Their primary motivation is making sure their future comes to past, which involves manipulating the surviving citizens to not affect the outside world with low-grade predestination gibberish. Also they had to make their own mini-continent to do it.
- The Dragons are a ruling intelligence form the future city of a Reptite-dominated 2300. The Planet pulled them back in time to prevent FATE from destroying the environment, because it realized the Frozen Flame was there and assumed they were teh lavos.
- But actually BOTH factions had become manipulated by the Frozen Flame and were taken over by the Time Devourer, which was half lavos(spawn?) and half Schala.
- Babby Serge was attacked by a panther, so his father and Miguel tried to sail to the mainland to find treatment. Instead they landed in Chronopolis. OOoookay so here's the ACTUAL wonkiness, so subsection
--A TIME STORM happens, and the baby Serge's cries of pain manage to be heard by Schala. Her attempts to help him:
--- disable the Frozen Flame's security, which is what allows him to be registered as the owner and locks out FATE
--- causes the creation of Kid, a clone/daughter/avatar for Schala to help him
--- allow Lavos to take control of their merged form, properly creating the Time Devourer.
-- Realizing it's locked out from its power source, FATE takes over Serge's father's mind, and turns him into a panther since that's now a phobia of Serge's.
-- FATE tried to correct the timeline later on by drowning Serge as a child, but because he was now the sole link between Schala and her humanity, which is the only reason time hadn't been devoured, killing him just split the timeline, creating the Home and Another worlds. FATE then locked Serge out of the Frozen Flame by turning Home world's Chronopolis into the Dead Sea, and set Miguel there to guard it.
- Seemingly, the only reason Lynx didn't do anything with Serge's body is that it didn't especially need the Frozen Flame? Until the Dragons remerged, there was nothing special it needed to do with it, but y'know, gotta be able to get your nuclear access codes when you need them. But oops, they were forced apart because they didn't have control of the Frozen Flame ANYWAY. MAD doesn't work kids.
- EXCEPT
- Actually all of the above was manipulated into happening by Balthazar, to give Serge a specific set of experiences so he'd be able to connect with the Planet and form the Chrono Cross, which would dissolve the link between Lavos and Schala and end the threat of the Time Devourer.
- The lesson being that anyone* can be the one that creates a new world!
* As long as that anyone is the chosen empathy vessel of a magical princess, forms a unique bond with the Planet itself, and a time traveling wizard arranges his entire adventure to enable the latter due to the former.
And let me address why this is so stupid:
Balthazar's top objective in Project Kid is to create the Chrono Cross. Thus he does it by intentionally causing the Time Crush which ultimately lead to the whole Chronopolis vs. Dianopolis.
I repeat, of all possible means to obtain Chrono Cross, Balthazar choose TIME CRUSH and make FATE and Dragon God go to war.
Serious, why choose the method that ends in massive destruction to both life and time line?
I mean Balthazar, if you prefer in destroying the time line so much, then why not just TIME CRUSH your way to the Under Sea Palace when Zeal is summing Lavos and blow everything away with the Paradox before it even happens?
It gets even dumber if consider the fact that Lucca did nothing. She's the one who found Kid after she was created from Schala, and she roughly calculated whatever is going to happen eventually from Kid's creation. Then Balthazar in distant future drafted his Project Kid base on Lucca's prediction of future. So Balthazar's Project Kid and Lucca discovering Kid has this loop like relationship where one leads to another. And, well, as we see in game, Lucca is perfectly aware what Balthazar was doing, is doing right now, is going to do eventually, and even place the blame on him.
So plot, are you telling me Lucca is completely fine with Balthazar crushing the time line which eventually turned her into a ghost? Or Lynx after her life, etc?
I am sorry, but I don't remember Lucca being this type of character back in CT.
Also, Dead Sea is a natural phenomenon, not FATE's doing. FATE is responsible for locking it in a specific state, though.
Time Devour assimilates being drawned in negative emotion to become one with itself. (This is also how the Dragon God was taken over by Time Devourer. Dragon God's hatred of humanity after getting beaten by FATE let Time Devoruer took control of him.)
And FATE didn't get taken over, and she has been trying to erase Lavos' influence the best as she can, including destroying Serge,
So... Frozen Flame=Lavos=Time Devourer, and Serge is the arbitrator under Frozen Flame's influence.
If Serge performs the arbitration in Lavos' favor, all existence will be assimilated by Time Devourer, ultimately leads to creature to devour the dreams of all time.
When the time line split due to Serge's death, Home World's future is undermined. Thus where the Chronopolis is becomes dead sea. The dead sea reflects possible futures that Serge can lead to, including possible future where the time line is destroyed if Serge acts in Lavos' favor.
This is also the core reason that FATE is locking the Dead Sea and so obsessed with eliminating Serge.
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It's pretty, um, amazing to hear all that laid out.
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DQXI postgame: Wow this is like an entirely new game. And fixes most of the problems I had with the earlier parts, namely that it is now completely nonlinear. They should have just made this the game and not done the first part.
Not quite finished with everything but I'm getting close to done with it.
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Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight- I got a couple Akihiko and the last Ken left for SLinks, but finishing Elizabeth's rolled the credits so it's more cleaning up at this point.
So what did I say about DAN's gameplay? *digs through the archives*
"Looking back at the game I definitely feel my initial impression was too positive: I have it lined up with the other games I played this year and it feels cleanly like the one I remember with least fondness, despite the next entry getting a lower score in my post-completion summary. I think in part playing more of the game sans story mode’s easiness made the inherent flaws more glaring, and partly just that it’s a very popcorn game that didn’t leave a lasting impression. The overall song selection also left me a bit cold in the end I think. Nothing especially wrong with the game overall, just… lots of small flaws without major successes to hang your hat on. "
Huh, I remembered being meaner. Okay so Moonlight/Starlight don't have full story modes, you have some vignettes in the vein of SLinks to unlock for all the PCs so that's neat, and they do place this definitively in the timeline! So like there's background and all, just not any real meat. And seeing as that was the part of DAN I liked...
Okay so I don't want to hate this game, but the gameplay does not hold together very well: the grid has a ton of visual noise due to the scratches, and I kinda hate them. It's tricky to really learn any songs since there's very little music preserved from the original games in favor of dance remixes, and while there's a couple winners a few are truly dreadful. I mean there's a mix of Burn My Dread that's clearly sub-Mass Destruction, why would you do this thing.
It's a nice enough looking game and the costumes and gimmicks are fun until you realize you have to do all of them to get your SLinks. Uh anyways less bitching.
There's a certain cowardice in how Atlus has approached these spinoffs, barring the first Arena. The conceit in this game is that Elizabeth and her sister from P5 whose name escapes me because I haven't played P5 are having their guests compete in a dance-off, inspired by DAN's events. Elizabeth makes some mention that the Velvet Room can transcend space and time... which you can piece together to mean that while the P3 cast are taken from January 2010, Elizabeth is clearly from sometime after 2015 when P5 takes place.
The game is aware of this. Elizabeth has a single SLink where she's clearly struggling with foreknowledge; she's from a time after Makoto's sacrifice, she's a few years into her quest to free him, and she's visibly wrestling with saying something.
And then she's back to wacky elizabeth dancing funtimes the entire rest of the link.
ANd like... okay, writers. I know you're making silly dancing game that makes no goddamned sense. I get it. But you know what you've done here and what the implications of it are, and someone on your staff really wanted to tackle it head on. And it would have been so much better if you did! The entire thematic thrust of the original Persona 3 was Makoto's impending mortality, you made an entire aftergame expansion to dig into the rest of the cast dealing with it... but in your fanservice dance pack you make one passing mention rather than really digging into it? Especially with Elizabeth, the one who didn't get that chance? Why hamstring yourself like that?
I found myself unduly digging Aigis in this game. Fuuka gets into it more via internet shenanigans and directly talking to Futaba, but Aigis is the one that gives it punch: if there's others out there like us, then what we do is part of a long line of those making the world better. I dunno, something about the way Aigis manifests optimism in this game strikes me right now.
I mean this is still 5/10 fare, it is not a very good rhythm game and... well, P3 is the weakest Persona game and part of that is the cast is mostly eh, but it got me a couple times and that's worth something.
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well, P3 is the weakest Persona game
No offense, but drink my blood.
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Dragon Quest XI
Finished Part III, got the True Ending. Knew from NotMiki / Internet reputation the final final boss was a badass, and he did indeed live up to his reputation. I won on the first attempt, but it was a near thing, and that was also only due to a somewhat cheaty strat. I might be up for a rematch one day without abusing that strategy ( using Elfin Elixirs from some lame-o casino grinding to restore all MP and refuel Magic Burst a lot), but I suspect would require some more levels to be remotely sane. Video if anyone is curious / bored:
https://youtu.be/tI-uWLIO_KU
The postgame was pretty good! While a lot of it is, for obvious budgetary reasons, "walk through this dungeon you went through already for reasons", it succeeds pretty darn well at being an excuse for some nasty & terrifying reskinned boss fights yet still generally being a happy victory lap. Also is mostly nonlinear per Captain K, which is cool. Incidentally, re Djinn's comment earlier, it's kinda tricky... on one hand, plot points with bitterweetness and sadness are good because they resonate, because they're true to life. That said, in-character, it makes perfect sense to want to stop/prevent them, and that's good too - it'd be crazy and cruel to not want to stop or prevent badness. DQ11 kinda has its cake & eats it too by offering both a bittersweet ending where characters were tempered by failure and trial, and a blandly happy one, take which one you like more.
(Incidentally, Djinn, you should check out Zero Time Dilemma, which is very interested in the "good ending people want" vs. "ending where bad things happen but people have to deal with it and fight through anyway" issue. As one random example, there's a scene where a character offers one of the viewpoint PCs if he wants to... well, basically be uploaded into a simulation computer. In it, the simulated him will perceive a reality indistinguishable from normal reality that is totally awesome. If you accept, there's a brief ending where !him is told that his disease is going into remission, ice cream for his birthday, his parents love him, etc. Pure saccharine music plays in the background. There's ANOTHER ending that follows from this decision, which is for the PC who is still sitting in a big empty quantum supercomputer room. He's still there, of course; the one who was left behind while another him lives in a simulated heaven. The lonely ending has a good twice the length of time put into it.)
Anyway, in the realm of whining, a few of the actual overplot developments in Part III still make no damn sense. But I've already accepted that you have to presume large amounts of DQ11's plot need to be interpreted assuming they're coming from a 13-year old Dungeons & Dragons dungeonmaster (dragonmaster?) - where making it so that Villain A was actually working for Villain B, and Random Guy X and Famous Guy Y were ACTUALLY THE SAME PERSON whoa zomg, and so on without spending a thought on the implications and so is no big deal, just lap in the awesomeness of my plot twist. And on that level, those plot points are okay, good even! Just, as said before, don't attempt to think too hard about what these villains were up to before the events of the game, or how mysterious helpers knew things they should damn well shouldn't know while other mysterious helpers weren't even asked about issues they should be a complete expert at.
The actual True Ending post-boss scenes also feature some truly nonsensical Dragon Quest series fanservice. It also makes no damn sense, but adds the bonus of going against the (weak) themes established, but I highly doubt they thought deeply enough about this to notice. (SPOILERZ: So in the first part of the game, there's a bit of a clash going on between people who say that the coming of the Luminary is something to be feared, because with the Light comes Darkness etc., vs. those who celebrate the Luminary as unconnected and humanity's champion. It doesn't really work because the character pushing this line the most is insincere, but whatever: the point is, it's the heroes who stand up for light-without-darkness, while it's the bad guys who spout some Manichean both-sides bring conflict deal. In the ending, we're told by the good dragon god... well, pretty much the happy version of the bad guy's line, that there's some eternally destined conflict and isn't it awesome that the light keeps rising to fight the darkness! Not even in a mournful or melancholy way, i.e. "sorry, but the final boss was right, the darkness will hang around and draw forth an endless cycle of conflict." Of course, this is because it's talking about other Dragon Quest games, which it considers totally awesome. Maybe true for the PLAYERS, sure, but in-character, the idea that sorry light & darkness are gonna have to clash 10 times more should come across as pretty depressing, not as awesome. Finally, the game claims that this was all a giant prequel to Dragon Quest III, but... no it wasn't? There's some cute costume fanservice where the original 4 legendary heroes were clearly, based on costumes, DQ3 Hero / DQ3 Female Sage / DQ3 Soldier / DQ3 Wizard, and there's an outfit that's also DQ3 female Monk/Fighter not that they were part of the legendary team. But, the alternate timeline created shouldn't be anything even remotely like DQ3's, and nothing comes close to justifying WTF. Different world map, different characters, different villains, different everything? It'd be like claiming Final Fantasy 15 was a prequel to FF1. Oh well, play triumphant music and expect us to be inspired, I guess.)
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Zero Time Dilemma sounds awesome.
Re: DQ11 and DQ3 - where was that hinted at now? Maybe I just don't remember DQ3 well enough, but... whut?
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Shadow Hearts Covenant RTA done in 5:58:36. Sub 6 finally with some route revisions. Finally. This run wasn't very good overall. Lots of stupid time losses across the entire run, but to name the most glaring ones:
1) Lost like 2 minutes to missing lottery rings (on Bathin, Mind's Eye and Warning Device)
2) Related to the above, 4 Safety saves across the run. Each one being about 15 seconds (so a minute overall)
3) 1 minute on retriggering a fight with Great Gama.
4) 90 seconds on getting lost in Immortal Mountain
5) Getting owned by Prison guards and layout. Probably about 90 seconds
6) Getting semi-lost on Battleship. Probably about 30 seconds.
7) Taking a really long route to get to Rasputin. About 2 mins. Maybe less.
Most of the major time losses occurred in Disc 2 because I haven't really practiced much for it. In short, if someone was to actually use my route revisions along with LCCs notes and really tried, you'll probably have a free 5:50. But for that to happen you'll actually need to grind Covenant even more, and bleh to that idea. Covenant isn't a really good speedgame.
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Games can include tabletop rpgs, right? Right.
So anyway, here's my report of a Maid game I played last night.
<VySaika> playing a Maid game with some peeps fomr a gamedev site I hang out on
<VySaika> our maids are: my runnaway nun, a soul reaper forced into being a maid by a magic slave collar, a BDSM chef princess with a bazooka, a heavy drinking elf loli, a sickly little girl serial murderer, and a tomboy in really lacksidaisical bridal training but mostly just there to spend the master's money
the session started out as "Die Hard, but with maids" and we had to stop weird anime terrorists from kidnapping the master. We safely got him out of the building, but then had to figure out how to save the rest of teh guests. My former nun went to go get on the intercom and preach at the terrorists to make them change thier ways, and I spent favor points to induce a random event at the same time
the random event rolled was "a giant monster erupts from the depths of the earth!" so I rolled with it as her accidentally animating a golem from the water sprayed out by the sprinkler system by reading from her stolen super bible in bad hebrew. The GM then rolled a bunch of dice and the water golem massacred the terrorists en masse before finally getting destroyed by the last mook
my nun meanwhile had NO IDEA she did that because she was not watching the security cameras, she was just reading from her bible to preach at the terrorists over the PA. The sickly child serial killer got the whole thing recorded on the security tapes and stole the tapes to show the others later. She opted not to tell my nun what actually happened because she felt it wouldn't go over well. I was, after all, the only character who did not try and fight the terrorists the entire game previous to that point, being a non-violent nun and all.
In other bits:
the tomboy bride wannabe was trying to make molotov cocktails to fight with, but the elf loli kept drinking all the booze we could find first
and our sickly child murderer did in fact manage to murder the terrorists' hacker(gaining us access to teh security room), the reaper helping hide the body before my nun got there, so I continued to have no idea in character that the little girl was a serial killer
she was just a sickly girl, so I was constantly being overprotective of her :V
my nun's backstory is that she was in training at a convent and was trying to read the Super Ancient Holy Book they had, got stressed out and ran away...with the book. Her Stress Explosion, an actual game mechanic, was Running Away so I worked that into her backstory. She's convinced that since she accidentally stole the book if they catch her they'll either put her in jail forever or send her straight to hell somehow, so she's hiding from her church by being a maid(Dark Past: Wanted, was one of her special qualities, and Book was her maid weapon. Gotta tie all that shit together ofc~)
All traits were randomly rolled, except for the tomboy bride being a pyromaniac, that was just the player.
There was other weird shit too, but this hits the highlights.