Random thoughts on whatever JRPG you're currently playing?

[HydrakeLogistix]

Anyone pick up the Langrisser I + II remakes?

If so, is the "original art" option only for character portraits, or does it swap the maps and battle animations too? I don't usually care that much about graphics, but this new style looks so trashy. The faces, the body movements, everything about it is bad.

The original music (on genesis) sounds so much better, too. The arranged tracks aren't bad, but...

Spoiler

I wish i could play it. The game apparently doesn't recognize my laptop keyboard and i don't have a gamepad

 

[Kaivokz]

So you're mad because he doesn't have 70lb pauldrons and magic spiral hair? The newer version is certainly a lazier/cruder work in terms of technique, but the design is way better without the retarded overdone armor and a size 0 waist.

The remake has bland and soulless battle and unit art that look like 90% of gacha mobile games.

This is parallel to lance's new portrait looking like generic anime boy #95. Shrink the size of the pauldrons on his old portrait and he still has ten times more character than the new portrait.

You can't really tell me you think

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is incline over

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or

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The latter was obviously made 30 years ago, but instead of remaking it in a similar style, it's like they were trying to make it look as generic and bland as possible.

 

[Kaivokz]

I'm all for cheesy aesthetics, but there's such a thing as trying to hard. I think Brigandine really nails character design:

Well we can both be happy that the The Legend of Runersia is much closer to the original art style than the Langrisser remakes are. Thinking about generic animu design for Brigandine is painful.

 

[mediocrepoet]

This sucks, I used to love Warsong on the Genesis and was looking forward to this.

 

[Grauken]

Anyone pick up the Langrisser I + II remakes?

If so, is the "original art" option only for character portraits, or does it swap the maps and battle animations too? I don't usually care that much about graphics, but this new style looks so trashy. The faces, the body movements, everything about it is bad.

The original music (on genesis) sounds so much better, too. The arranged tracks aren't bad, but...

Spoiler

I wish i could play it. The game apparently doesn't recognize my laptop keyboard and i don't have a gamepad

Just play the SNES/Gen versions, they are better anyway

 

[InD_ImaginE]

So you're mad because he doesn't have 70lb pauldrons and magic spiral hair? The newer version is certainly a lazier/cruder work in terms of technique, but the design is way better without the retarded overdone armor and a size 0 waist.

The remake has bland and soulless battle and unit art that look like 90% of gacha mobile games.

This is parallel to lance's new portrait looking like generic anime boy #95. Shrink the size of the pauldrons on his old portrait and he still has ten times more character than the new portrait.

You can't really tell me you think

Spoiler

is incline over

Spoiler

or

Spoiler

The latter was obviously made 30 years ago, but instead of remaking it in a similar style, it's like they were trying to make it look as generic and bland as possible.

I mean really, the 2D sprite is also as generic as it can get. Every SNES era JRPG looks like that.

Its just it has a "classic" feeling to it and nostalgia is hell of a drug.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I think you're cherry picking.

Those are pretty generic looking soldier sprites to me, and a pretty generic anime commander. Simple bobblehead sprites IS the original style, and you're comparing grizzled old men with the pretty boy hero. It was a dumb style to ape though. They could have had way cooler sprites with modern hardware. Would be awesome to see something like 10 on 10 fights with sprites from old arcade beat em ups like KotR and Golden Axe.

 

[Kaivokz]

It isn’t just nostalgia; the new style of sprites is objectively mobile trash tier.

Damned Registrations, that is from the psx/saturn remake, isn’t it? I was comparing to original sega genesis/snes/pc-engine art, which looks way grittier and more “realistic” (though obviously constrained by the technology). I would have grabbed a picture of the same battle, but I couldn’t find one online of the original art.

The problem isn’t that the soldiers look generic (they are generic soldier), it’s that the art style itself is generic. You can draw a generic soldier in an interesting way
e.g.

Spoiler

... or you can draw them like mobile trash with no discernible character or uniqueness. It would have been great if the remake had unit sprites that looked like golden axe; that is what they should have done. You seem to have decent taste in art, so I’m not sure why you’re defending the new art and saying it just comes down to “magic spiral hair and big pauldrons.”

 

[Damned Registrations]

So you think skulls bigger than torsos were gritty and realistic?

I'm not saying the new sprites look good, I'm saying the old ones also looked shit, it just wasn't as easy to notice back then, and the problem with the new ones is that they DID stay faithful to the originals. The idea that going from the old graphics to arcade brawler sprites would be a faithful transition is absurd.

Advance Wars and War Groove and all those other games look the same because they're ALL aping Langrisser. Saying it's too generic is like saying Tolkein was too generic when he wrote about elves.

 

[Kaivokz]

You’re the one cherry picking... I said two things: 1) the old art is better than the new art, 2) they /should/ have made the sprites bigger, more detailed, and less trash.

That doesn’t mean I think they should have replicated 1:1 everything about the originals including proportions of units created specifically to be displayed in large groups on 30 year old hardware.

If you can’t see the stylistic difference between original langrisser and new langrisser—the color palette, the characters portraits, the unit sprites—we’re just going to disagree.

I’ll take the old sprites over the new any day, and I’ll take high quality arcade-like sprites over both. The new sprites evoke none of the feeling of the original games, even if some of them have the same skull-body size ratio.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

1) the old art is better than the new art

well as he pointed out, it really isn't

Langrisser sprite was really - really generic and looks like pretty much all generic SNES/GBA JRPGS with 2D sprites

Yes the remake can be better, but so does the original game. It's just a matter of preference.

The arcade beat em up you showed is good, yes, but it is moving your goalpost which praises the old sprite vs the remake.

If you can’t see the stylistic difference between original langrisser and new langrisser—the color palette, the characters portraits, the unit sprites—we’re just going to disagree.

That's the thing, the art is different... because pretty much all anime has evolved. I could argue that while I love the old style in drawing face, I find the armor/overall character design to be atrociously silly. I do prefer a more minimalist approach to wearables.

The new sprites evoke none of the feeling of the original games, even if some of them have the same skull-body size ratio.

They are not supposed to. Like most remake (not remaster mind you), it is aimed to give some older people to play while introducing the series to new potential audience.

 

[Kaivokz]

well as he pointed out, it really isn't

Actually, I think the SNES must have had different graphics from the genesis and pc engine versions, because this is what I remember and what I'm talking about:

No oversized heads, realistic, gritty looking.

edit- I think scaling this style up would have resulted in something with realistic proportions and a darker color palette, not at all what we got from the remake.

Like most remake (not remaster mind you), it is aimed to give some older people to play while introducing the series to new potential audience.

Yeah, it's aimed at the audience they got from the Langrisser mobile game who like shit art and repetitive gacha gameplay. I'd be surprised if 10% of the "new" audience actually finishes one of the games.

 

[Silentstorm]

Honestly, the sprites on the field and the battle animations really do remind me of a gacha game like Fire Emblem Heroes, it's not even the new character designs, i was expecting that kind of thing even if they still look bland and kinda bad, but damn, the game just looks like a F2P gacha game which is fine for mobiles, not for a game that costs more than 40 bucks, yes, i know it has more content and a better plot than a lot of more expensive games, but still, it sucks that Langrisser has such a cheap look

 

[Felix]

It isn’t just nostalgia; the new style of sprites is objectively mobile trash tier.

Damned Registrations, that is from the psx/saturn remake, isn’t it? I was comparing to original sega genesis/snes/pc-engine art, which looks way grittier and more “realistic” (though obviously constrained by the technology). I would have grabbed a picture of the same battle, but I couldn’t find one online of the original art.

The problem isn’t that the soldiers look generic (they are generic soldier), it’s that the art style itself is generic. You can draw a generic soldier in an interesting way
e.g.

Spoiler

... or you can draw them like mobile trash with no discernible character or uniqueness. It would have been great if the remake had unit sprites that looked like golden axe; that is what they should have done. You seem to have decent taste in art, so I’m not sure why you’re defending the new art and saying it just comes down to “magic spiral hair and big pauldrons.”

The sad thing is Langrisser mobile looks better than this remake.

the artworks are also better, Sad!

 

[Endemic]

The gameplay changes are a little baffling to say the least. Chris can't heal on map 2 The treatment command is gone and the AI seems more suicidal. Stat inflation isn't to my taste either.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Langrisser's art was by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Urushihara

He has a distinctive style so changing it seems pretty wrong IMO.

 

[Endemic]

It seems like people didn't notice this the first time it was brought up... you can just revert the art to classic (barring unit sprites on the map).

As I said, I'm more annoyed that nonsensical gameplay changes happened. Maybe this was also true for the 32-bit console remakes, I'll see if I can dig something up.

 

[AdamReith]

Had a holiday so had time to blast through Ar Tonelico on the ps2. A lot to love about the game and I really enjoyed the "diving" mechanic. It's all fairly light and cheery and the music was great.

Also I somehow didn't figure out how the battle system worked until the final five hours but it didn't really seem to make much of a difference.

 

[Ysaye]

Had a holiday so had time to blast through Ar Tonelico on the ps2. A lot to love about the game and I really enjoyed the "diving" mechanic. It's all fairly light and cheery and the music was great.

Also I somehow didn't figure out how the battle system worked until the final five hours but it didn't really seem to make much of a difference.

You should play Arc Nosurge - I was like "WTF is this?" and then I really got into it. I understand all the mechanics are the same but the dive moments went from silly to ultra dark.

 

[Puukko]

On a related note, I dived into Atelier Ryza. This is about the limit of how much kawaii I can handle, but eventually you give in and accept your new life as the cute girl adventuring with her friends. I must have played for some 11-12 hours today which not many games can claim to have achieved. The first 10 hours or so are relatively lax in terms of how much combat the game throws at you - you'll spend most of that time figuring out the alchemy system and running errands. The highest difficulty available on NG is Hard, but there's THREE more difficulty levels available on NG+.

The combat is essentially ATB with pauses for longer animations. It has a few systems going on, but I'd say it is moderately deep at best. You use regular attacks to build up AP, then dump that AP to either use skills or increase the tactics level which buffs skills further. Your AI controlled allies (can switch to them on the fly) give battle orders (use items, use magic) and if you do what they say, they do their big buster moves. Thing is, the orders seem very random - I may come across an enemy that's weak to magic but strong against ice and my ally may tell me to use ice magic specifically - sure, it'd still work okay, but at level 23 I don't even have any ice magic available to me. Ryza has a whole total of two spells and I couldn't tell you their elements based on memory - I think one is fire based on the animation, but I honestly forgot already. This, and following what happens in battle is a bit difficult beyond watching the enemy HP drop - you can pause at any time to check any debuffs and enemy stats, but in real time it all kind of muddles together. JRPGs really love hiding effects behind small buff icons.

The alchemy is where the depth (and the ensuing confusion) is. It's essentially the omnipotent crafting system you use to create consumables, weapons, gear and everything else you might think of. There's several different gathering tools to use in the world, and some resource nodes give different materials depending on the tool. Use the axe on the tree to get logs, or the scythe to get leaves or fruit. Materials have quality levels and traits that are passed on to the crafted item using some logic I haven't quite grasped yet, but for anything outside important gear you can let the game use either high or low quality materials to automate the crafting. The alchemy system is essentially a set of nodes where you put in required materials to gain access to adjacent nodes. Put any plant in this node to increase item quality and gain access to this node which requires an ingot to unlock more item traits. There's intricacies here which the game never explains and you have to figure out yourself, but it definitely feels like the kind of system that'll turn you into a killing machine if you master it.

Pacing wise I find it a bit odd that this many hours in, I haven't fought a single boss yet. I know there are some in the game, but they seem to be either optional or late game content - the game favors bigger versions of regular enemies in lieu of proper bosses. On that note, the enemy variety is pretty bad. I think it says a lot when one of the possible alchemy traits is "weasel slayer" - that is, specifically a damage boost against weasels, since you can expect to be fighting them for the whole game. This is an AA game through and through, but they were clever about working around those limitations. It reminds me of Code Vein in that regard. Thing is, the base game costs 60€ digital, with a 55€(!) season pass on top. Japanese publishers make western ones look like amateurs with their nickle and diming. At that price, it's hard to recommend a ~30 hour AA JRPG.

But I want to emphasize that I am being consciously critical here - I don't think I'm at the midpoint yet, and again, the game managed to captivate me after struggling to stick with anything for over a week.

 

[Puukko]

The game did indeed present a proper boss fight soon after and it was a decently tough one, and one that made me realize that in this game, offense is the best defense. The reason is that by far the most dangerous enemy skills are their big telegraphed buster moves that you have to prevent by stunning, so it's a similar system to Xenoblade's. The difference is, practically all of those busters seem to hit the entire party, so having 1 defender in there doesn't do much good. Hence, I decided to greatly increase my focus on offense after the boss, using the new item upgrade options and the game got quite a lot easier. I'm at that plateau of confidence and I hope the game knocks me off of it. So far, it seems content throwing lower level mobs at me...

 

[Endemic]

We have a thread for the Atelier games here: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/the-atelier-series.96519/

On a related note, I dived into Atelier Ryza.

The consensus among series regulars is that it's the most dumbed-down Atelier mainline title (combat used to be exclusively turn-based, crafting was more complex, time limits were the norm). Yeah, Koei's pricing for recent games sucks, although the console versions can be had cheaper.

 

[SecondAmendment]

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

I got this thinking I would be playing it through my isolation. I will be, but only a few hours a day as the game clock is identical to the real world clock. This is kind of neat but there is only so much you can do in any one day. For instance, early on you build a museum to hold all your bugs and fish you find. But, it takes until the next day to actually get built. It hates some more content, which also takes until the next day to pay off.

The game is quite and enjoyable, but it is definitely casual. Stardew Valley is far superior in emotional investment, setting, graphics, music, and gameplay. That is my assessment two days into ACNH. I hope it improves, but wcen if it doesn't I can see spending an hour or two a day for the next year on it, which is actually the perfect game for most people.

 

[ebPD8PePfC]

Persona 4 is so long. Why is it so long?

 

[Swigen]

Persona 4 is so long. Why is it so long?

What I think about Shin Megami Tensei 4 right now. I just can not wait to visit Camp Ichigaya 6 or 7 more tiems in my new motorcycle helmet!