Suikoden 4 - I beat this. The content I'd not seen before (Snowe's recruitment) was extremely underwhelming. I don't have too much else to add from my previous post about the game. There are some decent ideas mixed in there and the start is reasonably promising but none of the story ideas come to any remotely decent fruition.
Also Ramada is killed by Graham Cray in a lategame cutscene, but then he reappears to save Eleanor and is promptly killed by Graham Cray again, but then the epilogue tells us he survived. Cool story kupo.
Indivisible - I beat this as well. It was about 17-18 hours.
Gameplay: The game is part Valkyrie Profile combat, part platformer. The combat definitely brings its own spin to things compared to VP: instead of rounds, it's a bit more of an ATB-style affair where time freezes if you attack or an enemy attacks, but otherwise characters' gauges fill up (how fast depends on the character and the attack(s) they used last), giving them access to 1 to 5 (depending on the point of the game) attacks, VP-style. When you attack it's of course more beneficial to assemble combos because your super gauge fills faster and you do more damage that way, also some enemies have guards you need to break or only take damage while launched, etc. Characters themselves often play quite differently, to a greater degree than VP, which is cool. The game also mixes in timed blocking as a major mechanic, you will learn how to do this or you will die in some fights.
What's less cool is that the battle design itself feels very haphazard and poorly balanced. You have the ability to heal/revive the entire party but it takes the entire super gauge, which is a much lower cost early in the game (where the gauge is short and fills up quickly) than later. It often felt like they were a bit afraid to pressure the party later on so most fights end up extremely non-threatening, with rare spiky exceptions. I dunno, it's not the easiest system to balance properly I guess (goodness knows no VP has been perfect at this).
The platforming is... largely there, but not bad. Like, it's obviously not good enough to play the game for alone, but it can hold its own, especially in the fake final dungeon (this is obvious enough I don't mind calling it this) and the real final dungeon. You get lots of platforming tools as the game goes on and you are expected to use them. This is a place the game exceeds VP, certainly.
Writing: By and large the game isn't very good at this. Oh, there's some promise here and there, particularly with your first ally being
someone who killed your father, but it pretty quickly descends into schlocky Saturday morning cartoon fare. You get setting that feels made up as the writers went along, goofy character interactions which are hit and miss on humour, and some of the weakest town NPCs I can recall in a game (which is a shame, because their artwork is great). I can't tell if they're a collection of in-jokes, or the results of discordant crowd-funding ideas, but either way that part of the game definitely fell flat.
Two points of praise here. One is Razmi, who shares a voice actor and more than a few character traits with Tharja, and is generally devilishly fun. The other is the final battle and the plot surrounding it, which is pretty much the best thing about the game, blending both some plot and gameplay notes, so let's talk about that.
To understand what makes this part of the game good, some background first. The main character, Ajna, is hot-headed and quick to employ violence as a solution to all problems, getting away with it because, well, she's extremely good at it. Eventually it comes to light that she is not actually a human but is a piece of the creator god, Kala, who created this world and now wishes to destroy it because it is an imperfect world (but, in usual RPG fashion was stopped and sealed by a previous generation of heroes). Though Ajna wants to protect the world, her violent and destructive ways cause problems and indeed contribute to Kala's unsealing. The last arc of the game involves Ajna trying to make amends for her behaviour and learn to be a better person.
The final battle is, of course, a showdown between Ajna and Kala. But it's not the big epic confrontation of plucky heroes versus evil god you're expecting. Instead, the game owns its message of what Ajna has learned, and the battle consists entirely of DEFENDING. Rather beautifully, the game puts its timed defence system to use, and your goal is to withstand Kala's attacks until she uses up all her energy. It's a tough, satisfying fight to win gameplaywise, and very neat and unique plotwise. Once it's over, you get a single "attack" option, and the "attack" is for Ajna to reach out her hand. Kala's desire for destruction is ultimately framed as a manifestation of her self-loathing (which was obliquely and cleverly hinted at before the end) that every world she created was one that was flawed due to people suffering, and in the ending, Ajna convinces her that perfection need not be the enemy of good and that this world, and life itself, is worth not giving up on.It's really cool and much better than anything the game had led me to expect it was capable of. It pretty much singlehandedly turns the game from something I might otherwise have largely forgotten to something I'll probably always recall with at least some fondness.
Character notes:
There are a lot of them. I didn't get everyone, and some people I got much later than they're available. Ah well. I rotated PCs a lot, no reason not to.
Ajna: Hot-headed shonen main. Her attacks are... okay, but not exceptional, a few have frustratingly small hitboxes. Her down attacks output pretty strong damage though, as do her supers.
Dhar: Authoritarian toady, everyone rightly hates him even when he often has decent points. Can store power to unleash solid AoE attacks, and is bulky.
Razmi: As mentioned I enjoyed her a lot as a character. As a PC, she is both slow and frail, and some enemies randomly just absorb magic damage which fucks her over further.
She can inflict slow at least.
Ginseng: Non-binary science nerd. They're a healer, which obviously has some use, though very frail. Bad early because you can heal just fine anyway then, but decent enough later.
Zebei: Doesn't trust the main character and is basically correct not to do so. Gameplaywise, he's an archer, he's aggressively okay, I used him some until I had lots of other more interesting options.
Kushi: Has a giant bird. Her big thing is riding the bird and doing ridiculous AoE damage (which also works well on aerial'd enemies to build gauge), which also sadly has huuge recoil time. Also she's very bulky. Used her quite a bit.
Qadira: At least in the main game her plot is dropped pretty hard? Didn't make much of an impression as a PC, beyond being durable, but I preferred Dhar.
Thorani: Hot mom. Has this complex mechanic where all her attacks create puddles and you can activate them to heal allies and do ITD damage to enemies (which is useful against a couple really tanky enemies). Ginseng is a better healer though Thorani isn't quite as frail at least. Also gets screwed over by magic absorption though.
Baozhai: Lesbian pirate. She has a big-damage AoE attack which also damages any allies in the AoE so have fun timing that? Ultimately I felt her AoEs weren't good enough to justify the trouble.
Nuna: Proud member of "team idiot". Her gameplay involves setting traps for the enemies and that's way too complicated/finnicky for me to bother with but I'm sure she's to some people's taste.
Yan: Much legs, no arms (or personality). I didn't use her too much.
Tungar: Some old warrior dude from some country or other which is barely mentioned. Puts in decent AoE work.
Phoebe: Giant amazon archer. Yes please. Basically never left my party once I got her, does big damage, spoils aerial and melee-immujne enemies, and is bulky.
Lanshi: Is a dog. This will probably fascinate some people. Didn't find very effective in my limited use.
Hunoch and Xiboch: Wakka, if Wakka had a twin brother who was a ghost and that ghost turned into a blitzball. ... yep, I sure did just write that. Anyway he can rack up huge damage with a full combo (think Jecht Shot, it's basically that), but you actually have to time hitting the ball back at enemies and the combo bonus will reset between ball hits if nobody attacks while you're doing it. Fun to time correctly and do big damage, but I switched him out so I could focus on other things.
Naga Rider: Is a campy superhero. His most notable thing is he does easy-peasy aerial combos solo, not much else to say about him.
Ren: Horny for everyone, Niles is that you? I didn't use him too much, nope not in the mood for a complicated traps-and-status PC gained this late.
Leilani: If she had a personality I missed it? I got her pretty late but she seems kinda OP in randoms, because one of her attacks pulls enemies together so literally everyone else can gang-beat all of them at once. Unremarkable against solos.
Kampan: Thief who
robs the rich to feed the poor is a diehard supporter of an autocratic tyrant. Sadly I did the area you get her in last so I only had her for her own area and the final dungeon, and her own area has lots of enemies who punish melee attackers, which she is. Oops.
6/10 sounds right.
