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Coming very soon: Wiz-clones "Operation Abyss" and "Operation Babel".

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aweigh

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https://www.rpgwatch.com/#37118
Steam store link for the upcoming Abyss: http://store.steampowered.com/app/541450/
Steam store link for the upcoming Babel: http://store.steampowered.com/app/548810/

These are remakes of the Generation XTH: Code Hazard, Code Breaker and Code Realize games, of which only the first one (GXTH: CH) was fan-tranlated into English. These remakes were first released for the VITA, and this will be the first time non-VITA owners will be able to play them.

(And Generation XTH: Code Hazard is very good, and much, much better than the dev studio's more recent output, since when it was made Team Muramasa wasn't trying to sell, but to simply make a great turn-based crawler).

Now, I have only played the english-translated GXTH: CH on Windows PC (there is a thread of the game in this sub-forum), and have not played CB and CR as they are in japanese (and feature too much text to ever be translated by anyone as these games are niche as niche gets, when the scope of the game script is considered along with the work-load).

From what Courtier has told me Operation Abyss contains GXTH: CH and CB, and Babel contains GXTH: Code Realize. AFAIK no changes were made to the mazes themselves, which were great in GXTH: CH (and much better than the mazes in Team Muramasa's newer 'crawlers), however Courtier did tell me some changes were made to the classes which could be considered as dumbing down.

I leave it to the ones who have played Abyss/Babel, (paging Dorarnae as well), to better explain the depth of the changes, and the dumbing down (if any), that was done to the remakes.

These three Wiz-clones are still considered the best ones made by Team Muramasa, (and, yes, Dorarnae... I know you love Stranger of Sword City the most); so it's great news that non-VITA owners are getting a chance to play the 2nd and 3rd chapters.
 

Zetor

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I've played the Windows version as well as the Vita remake. There's a thread for impressions and stuff on OA here.

tldr: massive decline, I stopped playing about 2/3 of the way through. It's not unplayable by any measure, just a disappointment.
  • The class system is completely dumbed down: hybrids are neutered (no more spellcasting, you get more spammable abilities instead, yawn) and there's no real multiclassing functionality anymore. Can't have cool things like the Bard's Tale-esque "each caster levels up in multiple casting classes to build a hybrid spellbook" of the original.
  • Vancian spellcasting is in, but without the actual resource management pressure (you get like 10+ level-1 spellcasts relatively early) / actual choices on how to use your level X spells, this removes much of the fun and challenge of dungeon runs like Babel that rely on using certain non-combat spells, and your casters can keep casting all day long np. Why not just go for a MP system???
  • Crafting and drops now scale and are capped by tier / character level: no more upgrading your favorite weapon throughout the entire game, plus can't really make 'overpowered' weapons anymore. :balance:
  • The unlocked classes are useless unless you go full-out grind, as they start at level 1 and you may as well start a new character for them due to the way class-changing does (not) work.
  • Monster lethality is WAY down in my experience. Dungeoning in the original was really tense where you couldn't really let up even in random encounters... and even if you used the correct tactics, you'd often get murdered by bosses. In the remake, eh, most of the fights are basically autobattle until you win.
  • Related to the previous point: massive HP (and damage, to a lesser extent) inflation as you level, which further makes most fights meaningless as you either take lethal damage, chip damage, or no damage at all. I really liked the original's low HP levels, kept things interesting.
  • Positive things: they at least didn't manage to fuck up dungeon design, which is pretty inspired at times (I got a kick out of the graveyard map with ghostly Abrams tanks and evil Statues of Liberty). The Etrian Odyssey-esque FOEs (new addition) were okayish. Dungeon auto-move can be considered 'popamole', but is a good QoL choice nevertheless. Also, it's not like the game is terrible / unplayable / whatever. Just disappointing.
And yea, this soured me on the entire series, pretty much. Even though Operation Babel is supposed to include dual-classing, that by itself may not be enough to salvage the game...
 
Last edited:

Shackleton

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
https://www.rpgwatch.com/#37118
Steam store link for the upcoming Abyss: http://store.steampowered.com/app/541450/
Steam store link for the upcoming Babel: http://store.steampowered.com/app/548810/

These are remakes of the Generation XTH: Code Hazard, Code Breaker and Code Realize games, of which only the first one (GXTH: CH) was fan-tranlated into English. These remakes were first released for the VITA, and this will be the first time non-VITA owners will be able to play them.

(And Generation XTH: Code Hazard is very good, and much, much better than the dev studio's more recent output, since when it was made Team Muramasa wasn't trying to sell, but to simply make a great turn-based crawler).

Now, I have only played the english-translated GXTH: CH on Windows PC (there is a thread of the game in this sub-forum), and have not played CB and CR as they are in japanese (and feature too much text to ever be translated by anyone as these games are niche as niche gets, when the scope of the game script is considered along with the work-load).

From what Courtier has told me Operation Abyss contains GXTH: CH and CB, and Babel contains GXTH: Code Realize. AFAIK no changes were made to the mazes themselves, which were great in GXTH: CH (and much better than the mazes in Team Muramasa's newer 'crawlers), however Courtier did tell me some changes were made to the classes which could be considered as dumbing down.

I leave it to the ones who have played Abyss/Babel, (paging Dorarnae as well), to better explain the depth of the changes, and the dumbing down (if any), that was done to the remakes.

These three Wiz-clones are still considered the best ones made by Team Muramasa, (and, yes, Dorarnae... I know you love Stranger of Sword City the most); so it's great news that non-VITA owners are getting a chance to play the 2nd and 3rd chapters.

Yes, I noticed NIS America gave out some info recently on the games they're planning on bringing over and wondered if anyone else had spotted it. Might have guessed you'd beat me to the post aweigh!

There's an old codex thread on Operation abyss that doesn't sound too promising either, to go with what Zetor wrote above. However, I'll more than likely D1P both of these just to encourage more blobbers on Steam, if nothing else.
 

Dorarnae

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to me the games are quite similar, apparently you don't keep magic if you multi class... I don't see why it's a big deal, I never multiclassed with the original game on pc, and the game can be finished before the lvl cap (in particular the second game), for me it sounds like a waste of time to multiclass....(in particular because the third game you start with a new party)
as for the difficulty, the remake is a lil bit easier I guess but if you keep the meter maxed it's probably the same difficulty or a bit harder.

operation babel allows having a main and sub class, sub class takes more time to lvl up (it's pretty much like Labyrinth cross blood, the original Generation xth code realize you had to level the sub seperatly).
they removed the class Ilith,siz and another one...
third game has a better post game than the first two.
 

Dorarnae

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These three Wiz-clones are still considered the best ones made by Team Muramasa, (and, yes, Dorarnae... I know you love Stranger of Sword City the most); so it's great news that non-VITA owners are getting a chance to play the 2nd and 3rd chapters.

I like Stranger, but Labyrinth cross blood is up there too :)
 
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aweigh

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Not keeping the spells you learned from your previous class. YIKES.

That said, I also never multi-classed during my playthrough of GXTH: CH. I used a standard party of Fighter-equivalent/Ranger-equivalent/Paladin-equivalent/Ninja-equivalent/Cleric-equivalent and lastly a Mage-equivalent.

I did multi class the cleric into a mage near the ned just to have two nukers, but It definitely didn't feel "necessary".

I can deal with enemies being weaker as one of Team Muramasa's biggest weaknesses regarding enemy encounter design (and which segues into itemization) is that they always want to make enemies either:

- extremely easy to dispatch if you hit them with weapons that have properties versus their type
- extremely hard to dispatch if you don't

The lack of a middle-ground has always annoyed me.

The mazes are the same, though? And also, Dorarnae, could you talk a bit more about the loot-scaling/gating? Does this really affect the gameplay much? I found there was way too much crafting in GXTH: CH and I spent more time in the fucking lab sorting my items and shit than I would actually navigating the fucking dungeons.

(That said, Class of Heroes is even worse at this).

Oh well, either way I shall find out for myself in March.

EDIT: Also, Dora, how the FUCK did you play through a Team Muramasa game in japanese considering all the fucking items and crafting shit you have to do!? I assume Cross Blood Labyrinth features their patented crafting bullshit, right? With all those items in japanese... you're a braver man than me my friend.
 

Dorarnae

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Not keeping the spells you learned from your previous class. YIKES.

That said, I also never multi-classed during my playthrough of GXTH: CH. I used a standard party of Fighter-equivalent/Ranger-equivalent/Paladin-equivalent/Ninja-equivalent/Cleric-equivalent and lastly a Mage-equivalent.

I did multi class the cleric into a mage near the ned just to have two nukers, but It definitely didn't feel "necessary".

I can deal with enemies being weaker as one of Team Muramasa's biggest weaknesses regarding enemy encounter design (and which segues into itemization) is that they always want to make enemies either:

- extremely easy to dispatch if you hit them with weapons that have properties versus their type
- extremely hard to dispatch if you don't

The lack of a middle-ground has always annoyed me.

The mazes are the same, though? And also, Dorarnae, could you talk a bit more about the loot-scaling/gating? Does this really affect the gameplay much? I found there was way too much crafting in GXTH: CH and I spent more time in the fucking lab sorting my items and shit than I would actually navigating the fucking dungeons.

(That said, Class of Heroes is even worse at this).

Oh well, either way I shall find out for myself in March.

EDIT: Also, Dora, how the FUCK did you play through a Team Muramasa game in japanese considering all the fucking items and crafting shit you have to do!? I assume Cross Blood Labyrinth features their patented crafting bullshit, right? With all those items in japanese... you're a braver man than me my friend.

as for ennemies weakness it's pretty much only the ghost type. and yeah the original game on pc has a crafting like class of heroes and wizardry Xth1&2. it was hard at first but I managed to know how the crafting works (didn't have to buy the recipe...)
the way I did it with my basic jp, is I took a junk and tried some material (except if I knew it was a sword, then I knew I needed metal). thing is a lvl 1 to 10 require x lvl 1 of material. for exemple a lvl 6 sword would take 6 metal1 to craft(and also for upgrading)
a lvl 18 sword would be 8 metal2....and eventually in wizardry xth you had to use another item for higher lvl gear.

the remake operation abyss and babel makes crafting a lot easier, you don't need to go grab all your material and see if you can...
I don't remember exactly how cross blood was, I think doing crafting was easier than generation xth but eventually in the post game, all you get are uniques and it's pretty much impossible to upgrade them because it takes an insane amount of ressources, so you just farm til you find something good.(operation babel post game is kinda like that too, there's a horse load of uniques)
 
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aweigh

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Hmm, that actually raises my hopes for the remakes. My primary thing I would most want changed is the amount of time spent fiddling with the fucking crafting menus.
 
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aweigh

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My gawd so much fucking text... and wasted because the storylines are such insipid anime garbage...

It took YEARS for the team that did GXTH: CH to finish translating it due to insane amount of text and that was a team, a group of people. It is no wonder they immediately, after finishng CH, that they would never do the 2nd and 3rd chapters.

Ah well, in any case, the video looks good. Is there an option to utilize the original Artwork, though?

EDIT: Also, dat encounter rate... and Team Muramasa, so cheap even using the same sound FX, the same dungeon music, the same everything. Ugh, so lazy.

Starfish always adds enemies, items, even new music tracks and new dungeons when they do remakes.
 

Dorarnae

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My gawd so much fucking text... and wasted because the storylines are such insipid anime garbage...

It took YEARS for the team that did GXTH: CH to finish translating it due to insane amount of text and that was a team, a group of people. It is no wonder they immediately, after finishng CH, that they would never do the 2nd and 3rd chapters.

Ah well, in any case, the video looks good. Is there an option to utilize the original Artwork, though?

EDIT: Also, dat encounter rate :D

for character creation yeah. for other character in the game use the new artwork though.

oh also operation babel is a bit different than the original game I guess, the beginning part with Alice wasn't in the original game, and few other things. they did a better job with operation babel than abyss. abyss didn't change anything, they kept everything like the original...(I mean story/event wise).
 

Zetor

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iirc they removed part of the postgame from Operation Abyss (the quest/storyline where you revisit the temple and go through a chain of tough encounters without resting and your morale meter zeroing out each time), though honestly it wasn't THAT good.

e: one specific change to dungeons that I remember - the level in Babel where you used to need to cast teleport in combat and pray you end up at the right position doesn't have that mechanic anymore, it was a lot more straightforward. Also, the antimagic spinner level felt way, way easier in the remake.
 

Dorarnae

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My gawd so much fucking text... and wasted because the storylines are such insipid anime garbage...

It took YEARS for the team that did GXTH: CH to finish translating it due to insane amount of text and that was a team, a group of people. It is no wonder they immediately, after finishng CH, that they would never do the 2nd and 3rd chapters.

Ah well, in any case, the video looks good. Is there an option to utilize the original Artwork, though?

EDIT: Also, dat encounter rate... and Team Muramasa, so cheap even using the same sound FX, the same dungeon music, the same everything. Ugh, so lazy.

Starfish always adds enemies, items, even new music tracks and new dungeons when they do remakes.

but anime is <3 lol
at 19:00 is probably the part where I prefered the pc version, instead of hearing a few clash, there was a bunch of gun shot (felt more intense on pc)
 
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aweigh

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i have no problems with anime art. I was referring to the massive amount of storyline and event text dedicated to a terrible story and terrible characters.
 

Arthandas

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I like how OA shows its focus on the first screenshot:

ss_c631db61bcc8eb9206e004ef825d7fe5c8b89c82_1920.jpg
 

Shackleton

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
I like how OA shows its focus on the first screenshot:

ss_c631db61bcc8eb9206e004ef825d7fe5c8b89c82_1920.jpg

This is actually what I'm worried about the most. I don't play in a private environment these days and I'd hate my missus or kid to look at my screen and think I was playing some hentai game. Is the fanservice really bad or is it only the odd mob or two? Can you change the art style to something less... embarrassing?
 

Sigourn

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This is actually what I'm worried about the most. I don't play in a private environment these days and I'd hate my missus or kid to look at my screen and think I was playing some hentai game. Is the fanservice really bad or is it only the odd mob or two? Can you change the art style to something less... embarrassing?

I don't know what it is with Japs and ecchi/hentai obsession. I wish these could be turned off, it's really the only reason why I don't play some videogames like this one.

"Hey, we have a really cool idea for a videogame with good gameplay, you know what would make it even better? TITS!"
 

Sigourn

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:outrage: This formula proved a success for the Witcher series (arguably minus the good gameplay). :M

I knew there was a possibility someone would say that, and I was prepared in advance: it's part of The Witcher's charm. Or at the very least, of Geralt. I get it that there's a character like Rance determined to fuck every woman alive, but there are far too many games that rely on the good old anime titties (not that I dislike them) to get more customers. It's just annoying, and what's worse, there's no way to get rid of them.

I just want to play a good turn-based JRPG without having to be on the lookout for my parents. :negative:
 

Siveon

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
This is actually what I'm worried about the most. I don't play in a private environment these days and I'd hate my missus or kid to look at my screen and think I was playing some hentai game. Is the fanservice really bad or is it only the odd mob or two? Can you change the art style to something less... embarrassing?
Ha, you should the original. Fully drawn nipples, and nipple drones! Pretty sure most of the art is just your standard monster stuff, but I wouldn't be surprised by the occasional ta-tas, ass, etc.

I just want to play a good turn-based JRPG without having to be on the lookout for my parents
Grow up, buy a handheld + headphones + locked room, play when they're not around? Easy stuff here.

As for me, this shit would not be nearly as bearable sitting in front of a computer. On the sofa just lazing about? Heck yes.
 

Sigourn

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Grow up, buy a handheld + headphones + locked room, play when they're not around? Easy stuff here.

  1. I'm 24.
  2. I don't have money for a handheld.
  3. Headphones won't help in my case.
  4. My room is in between my parent's bedroom and our dining room, meaning they will always walk through it. And I'm always with my back against them, meaning they can always see whatever I'm doing on my computer.
do Lucas9 use laptop or desktop pc?

Desktop.
 

Sigourn

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move your desk so you'd face the door, just like i did

It would be incredibly uncomfortable in my situation, as plenty of things in the room would require rearrangement, not to mention the exposed cables and so on.
 

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