Kaivokz
Arcane
- Joined
- Feb 10, 2015
- Messages
- 1,504
Finished the game around release, but went back and fought some of the superbosses last night. Figured I'd post a quick rundown:
Story is average.
A lot of elements are biblical allusions, like in other xeno games.
Main character is average shonen, but it wasn't so bad I couldn't ignore it.
I enjoyed the world, but I'm a sucker for anything that starts as fantasy and turns into scifi, like bane of the cosmic forge or M&M.
Character design seems much better in Torna (prequel), but I didn't mind Pyra/Mythra/(spoilers)
World design is good for the most part. Lots of interesting flora and fauna. A good deal of secret areas and hidden bosses to find. Some of the later islands are filler crap without content, though.
Music is great. esp. the drumming on a lot of the tracks (Sukhāvatī). See 4:25 here. The Torna DLC has some awesome Jazzy arrangements of the songs, too, and the new battle theme is phenomenal.
If you don't like the gameplay, you probably won't like the game.
That said, I found the gameplay to be really fun. It's a pretty intricate system with a couple different moving parts that require some skill to slot together. There are four primary combat mechanics: Driver Combos, Blade Combos, Attack Cancelling and Chain Attacks.
Each character (driver) has a different set of arts for each weapon. Driver arts can have one of four effects associated with them (break, topple, launch, smash) which can be combo'd together, in that order, to stun (starting from topple) and do lots of damage (mostly from smash). The AI is really good about prioritizing abilities; if companion 1 has a move with break, companion 2 with launch, and you have topple, companion 1 will break very quickly, companion 2 gives you a decent window to topple in, and they will follow up with launch pretty quickly if you do topple. Those are Driver Combos. Driver arts charge every time you hit with a basic attack.
Blade Combos result from chaining blade specials. Each blade has one of eight elements that determine the elemental type of their special. Blade specials also have levels (1 to 4) that correspond to how long you charge them up (level 4 can only be used at max affinity, which goes up as you fight). Blade specials charge each time a driver art is used. A Blade Combo is a chain of three blade specials, of the proper elements, where the first special can be any level, the second special must be at least level 2, and the third special must be at least level 3. For example, if you do water->earth->wind, you perform the blade combo "Final Disaster." Dark->light->electric you do "Heaven's Bolt." There are 25 such combinations, but the UI will display each path you can take once you've played the first step. There is a limited time window to perform each subsequent special, but driver combos can extend the duration (e.g. breaking an enemy who is in the middle of a blade combo).
Attack Cancelling comes in two main varieties: You can cancel basic attacks and you can cancel arts. Contrary to what the name might imply, cancelling does not negatively impact the original art in any way (it does not get "cancelled"), instead you cancel the animation frames after the final hit and go directly into the move you cancelled with. To cancel, you use an art or special directly at the end of an attack animation. A successful cancel increases the damage and charge rate of the attack or art. The attack animations are different for each weapon for each character and for each art (e.g. some weapons go 1 hit -> 2 quick hits -> 1 hit, with each -> representing a possible cancellation; some arts are single hit, some are multi-hit, but arts are always cancelled at the end of the animation). If you are bad there are accessories that increase the cancel window.
Each driver can also use 3 blades, which can be switched out in combat. Some things to note: You can cancel with a blade switch and, while I am not entirely sure, I think chaining cancels continues to increase the damage (and cancelling on the third phase of basic attacks also does more damage than the second phase, which does more than the first). Blades switch in with all their corresponding driver arts fully charged. This means you can do something like this, with each -> representing a cancel: B1A1 (Blade 1 driver Art 1) -> B1A2 -> B1A3 -> blade switch -> B2A1 -> B2A2 -> ... and if your blade recharge is low enough, you can do this indefinitely, but that is not generally the optimal damage strategy, as specials and blade combos do way more damage than basic arts. There is an item that increases damage per blade switch, and if cancelling scales indefinitely (I don't know if it does) and you go through 5-6 cycles of your blades without missing a single cancel, the damage might start to compare.
The final mechanic is Chain Attacks. Every time you complete a blade combo, an elemental orb corresponding to the final element used is placed onto the enemy. Limit one per element (max 8 elemental orbs). Once your party gauge is maxed (just from doing damage), you can initiate a chain attack. Chain attack pauses the game and cycles through your drivers in rounds. Each round you can pick a blade to do a blade special. Round one is level 1 specials, round 2 level 2, and so on. Each elemental orb has 3 health. Each special does 1 damage to one of the elemental orbs at random. Each special of the opposed element (e.g. light and dark) does 2 damage to the opposed orb. If you break an orb, you go into the next round. If you fail to break an orb, the chain attack ends. If you fill the chain attack gauge (usually by breaking 5 orbs, but you get a story blade that makes it 4), you do a full burst. The character who initiated the full burst gets to do their level 4 special with a massive damage multiplier (based on how many unbroken orbs were left). So it's typically best to plan for your damage dealer to break the final orb.
Here is an example of an 8 orb full burst against one of the superbosses that I did last night (minor spoilers):
Beyond the base mechanics:
Each (rare) blade has unique specials (animations/number of hits/ailments) with varying effects (e.g. the level 3 special of one blade might heal 50% of damage dealt to the whole party, while another does increased crit damage).
Each blade has a 3 abilities that they use on their driver (e.g. a damage shield, increased recharge from arts, increased attack speed, etc.).
Each blade also has 3 passive abilities (e.g. increase damage by x% for each enemy killed, increased crit chance, etc.).
All of the above things can be leveled up by accomplishing various tasks with the blade equipped (e.g. using the ability a certain number of times, killing a certain enemy, etc.).
Each blade can equip aux cores (1-3 depending on the blade) that have various effects (e.g. reflecting certain elemental damage on blocked attack, increasing damage at max affinity, etc.).
Each blade can be transformed with weapon chips which affect crit chance, block chance, base damage, and sometimes add special effects (e.g. 25% chance to attack again immediately after hitting with a basic attack or 50% extra damage against beasts).
There's an EXP storing mechanic. When you kill things some EXP goes into a "store" which you an access while resting. You can choose to use that EXP to go up as many levels as you want, which gives you some control over difficulty. If the game is too hard, you can rest and level up a few times. If it's too easy, no need to use that EXP.
Oh, the Japanese announcer is hilarious and I turned him up to max so I could hear him yell things like "FRAMMUUU BREAAKKKK" during combos.
The main complaint I had with the game was the gacha blade system. (You open core crystals and get a random blade.) I do not understand Japan's fascination with gacha games and pachinko. Anyway, here it does not work. Blades are either healers, DPS, or tanks. Your drivers are largely designed to be one of the three. But the blades you open are random, so if you get an awesome tank blade on your DPS... that sucks. There are items (override protocols) which let you switch blades between drivers, but for most of the game they are very uncommon. The main character's blade is one of the best/the best in the game, though, and both tanks start with good tanking blades that stay viable the entire game. So the gacha is mostly annoying, not game-ending.
TL;DR If you do not enjoy learning complex systems or only want a compelling story, avoid. If you don't mind some biblical Japanese apocalyptic scifi, can focus on titties rather than shounen, and enjoy complex battle systems, I would recommend it.
Story is average.
A lot of elements are biblical allusions, like in other xeno games.
Main character is average shonen, but it wasn't so bad I couldn't ignore it.
I enjoyed the world, but I'm a sucker for anything that starts as fantasy and turns into scifi, like bane of the cosmic forge or M&M.
Character design seems much better in Torna (prequel), but I didn't mind Pyra/Mythra/(spoilers)
/pneuma
Music is great. esp. the drumming on a lot of the tracks (Sukhāvatī). See 4:25 here. The Torna DLC has some awesome Jazzy arrangements of the songs, too, and the new battle theme is phenomenal.
If you don't like the gameplay, you probably won't like the game.
That said, I found the gameplay to be really fun. It's a pretty intricate system with a couple different moving parts that require some skill to slot together. There are four primary combat mechanics: Driver Combos, Blade Combos, Attack Cancelling and Chain Attacks.
Each character (driver) has a different set of arts for each weapon. Driver arts can have one of four effects associated with them (break, topple, launch, smash) which can be combo'd together, in that order, to stun (starting from topple) and do lots of damage (mostly from smash). The AI is really good about prioritizing abilities; if companion 1 has a move with break, companion 2 with launch, and you have topple, companion 1 will break very quickly, companion 2 gives you a decent window to topple in, and they will follow up with launch pretty quickly if you do topple. Those are Driver Combos. Driver arts charge every time you hit with a basic attack.
Blade Combos result from chaining blade specials. Each blade has one of eight elements that determine the elemental type of their special. Blade specials also have levels (1 to 4) that correspond to how long you charge them up (level 4 can only be used at max affinity, which goes up as you fight). Blade specials charge each time a driver art is used. A Blade Combo is a chain of three blade specials, of the proper elements, where the first special can be any level, the second special must be at least level 2, and the third special must be at least level 3. For example, if you do water->earth->wind, you perform the blade combo "Final Disaster." Dark->light->electric you do "Heaven's Bolt." There are 25 such combinations, but the UI will display each path you can take once you've played the first step. There is a limited time window to perform each subsequent special, but driver combos can extend the duration (e.g. breaking an enemy who is in the middle of a blade combo).
Attack Cancelling comes in two main varieties: You can cancel basic attacks and you can cancel arts. Contrary to what the name might imply, cancelling does not negatively impact the original art in any way (it does not get "cancelled"), instead you cancel the animation frames after the final hit and go directly into the move you cancelled with. To cancel, you use an art or special directly at the end of an attack animation. A successful cancel increases the damage and charge rate of the attack or art. The attack animations are different for each weapon for each character and for each art (e.g. some weapons go 1 hit -> 2 quick hits -> 1 hit, with each -> representing a possible cancellation; some arts are single hit, some are multi-hit, but arts are always cancelled at the end of the animation). If you are bad there are accessories that increase the cancel window.
Each driver can also use 3 blades, which can be switched out in combat. Some things to note: You can cancel with a blade switch and, while I am not entirely sure, I think chaining cancels continues to increase the damage (and cancelling on the third phase of basic attacks also does more damage than the second phase, which does more than the first). Blades switch in with all their corresponding driver arts fully charged. This means you can do something like this, with each -> representing a cancel: B1A1 (Blade 1 driver Art 1) -> B1A2 -> B1A3 -> blade switch -> B2A1 -> B2A2 -> ... and if your blade recharge is low enough, you can do this indefinitely, but that is not generally the optimal damage strategy, as specials and blade combos do way more damage than basic arts. There is an item that increases damage per blade switch, and if cancelling scales indefinitely (I don't know if it does) and you go through 5-6 cycles of your blades without missing a single cancel, the damage might start to compare.
The final mechanic is Chain Attacks. Every time you complete a blade combo, an elemental orb corresponding to the final element used is placed onto the enemy. Limit one per element (max 8 elemental orbs). Once your party gauge is maxed (just from doing damage), you can initiate a chain attack. Chain attack pauses the game and cycles through your drivers in rounds. Each round you can pick a blade to do a blade special. Round one is level 1 specials, round 2 level 2, and so on. Each elemental orb has 3 health. Each special does 1 damage to one of the elemental orbs at random. Each special of the opposed element (e.g. light and dark) does 2 damage to the opposed orb. If you break an orb, you go into the next round. If you fail to break an orb, the chain attack ends. If you fill the chain attack gauge (usually by breaking 5 orbs, but you get a story blade that makes it 4), you do a full burst. The character who initiated the full burst gets to do their level 4 special with a massive damage multiplier (based on how many unbroken orbs were left). So it's typically best to plan for your damage dealer to break the final orb.
Here is an example of an 8 orb full burst against one of the superbosses that I did last night (minor spoilers):
Each (rare) blade has unique specials (animations/number of hits/ailments) with varying effects (e.g. the level 3 special of one blade might heal 50% of damage dealt to the whole party, while another does increased crit damage).
Each blade has a 3 abilities that they use on their driver (e.g. a damage shield, increased recharge from arts, increased attack speed, etc.).
Each blade also has 3 passive abilities (e.g. increase damage by x% for each enemy killed, increased crit chance, etc.).
All of the above things can be leveled up by accomplishing various tasks with the blade equipped (e.g. using the ability a certain number of times, killing a certain enemy, etc.).
Each blade can equip aux cores (1-3 depending on the blade) that have various effects (e.g. reflecting certain elemental damage on blocked attack, increasing damage at max affinity, etc.).
Each blade can be transformed with weapon chips which affect crit chance, block chance, base damage, and sometimes add special effects (e.g. 25% chance to attack again immediately after hitting with a basic attack or 50% extra damage against beasts).
There's an EXP storing mechanic. When you kill things some EXP goes into a "store" which you an access while resting. You can choose to use that EXP to go up as many levels as you want, which gives you some control over difficulty. If the game is too hard, you can rest and level up a few times. If it's too easy, no need to use that EXP.
Oh, the Japanese announcer is hilarious and I turned him up to max so I could hear him yell things like "FRAMMUUU BREAAKKKK" during combos.
The main complaint I had with the game was the gacha blade system. (You open core crystals and get a random blade.) I do not understand Japan's fascination with gacha games and pachinko. Anyway, here it does not work. Blades are either healers, DPS, or tanks. Your drivers are largely designed to be one of the three. But the blades you open are random, so if you get an awesome tank blade on your DPS... that sucks. There are items (override protocols) which let you switch blades between drivers, but for most of the game they are very uncommon. The main character's blade is one of the best/the best in the game, though, and both tanks start with good tanking blades that stay viable the entire game. So the gacha is mostly annoying, not game-ending.
TL;DR If you do not enjoy learning complex systems or only want a compelling story, avoid. If you don't mind some biblical Japanese apocalyptic scifi, can focus on titties rather than shounen, and enjoy complex battle systems, I would recommend it.
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