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Random thoughts on whatever JRPG you're currently playing?

Cromwell

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2013
Messages
5,443
especially if it gets harder.

it does, alot. You also get new encounters that arent in the NG run, the hardest battle is only in NG+ where you have to do a variation of the second to last NG battle only this time with 10 enemies instead of 3. Enemies use new skills they did not use in NG meaning you get debuffed far more often, they use attacks which buff them afterwards and of course they do more damage have a lot more hp. There are also some new enemies you wont see in NG (goblin variations with different equip and skills) Loot gets better but you will need it and theres no way around grinding to upgrade the equipment and get better spells. The first time I fought a dragon I was happy since it was alone and in general groups are harder because of the damage they spread and you not being able to heal against it for to long, then it raped me hard with new spells the other dragon didnt have.

I only have to do the second to last encounter the boss itself and a new encounter before to finish it but cant get past the mirror match which is the hardest in NG (the boss itself is comparably easy) and probably the second hardest in NG+. Theres also the fact that the final boss is the only creature of its kind in the game so if you, like me, have the wrong weapon equipped on one of your characters you wont do damage, It took me 20 minutes or so to finish it because only giauque was able to damage it, at least it has no heals as far as I remember.

I only found one guide online where people wrote up items that get dropped by encounters and it is partly wrong and or incomplete, which means if you want to grind you have to try it out yourself. In general mobs drop what they have but you only notice what that is (aside from generic bow/sword/shield) if they use it or use a skill associated with it. It also doesnt help you when looking for specific spellbooks, I was lucky enough to get ehal 3 randomly but still dont know where to get speed for the whole team or if it even exists.
 

Nutmeg

Arcane
Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 12, 2013
Messages
19,794
Location
Mahou Kingdom
Just completed Labyrinth of Touhou 2

Here's a pic of the winning team:

G15yeXe.png


The game goes at vsync and assumes 60 HZ so on my 120 HZ monitor it plays especially brisk but also that's why it thinks I took 80 hours to complete. It's not actually that long a game.

I recently started coming up with a criteria for if a game gets the fundamentals right, here's how it fairs:
  • Players graded? No. 0
  • Absence of load to re-roll? Yes. 1
  • >10 minute progress risk? Long boss fights only. 0.5
  • Constant risk? No. 0
  • Risk is a resource? Yes (e.g. Gambler class). 1
  • Brisk movement or interaction? Yes. 1
  • Absent, negligible or skippable input interruption? Yes. 1
  • Decision dense? Yes, but random encounters stop being interesting once you get Patchouli and Aya. 0.5
  • Basic movement can dodge? Yes, if you count formation switching and avoiding FOEs. 1
  • Spacing matters? Yes, if you count formation. 1
  • Patterned, composed environment? Yes. 1
  • Navigational puzzles? Yes. 1
So, it scores pretty well 9/12 or 75% which is p. good for an RPG of any kind.

The game dungeon is completely non-threatening. Characters never permanently die, they don't even die at all (requiring resurrection). They simply go back to town on their own accord under certain conditions and you can find them there again when you go back.

More specifically, the game decoupled HP and MP from dungeon delving attrition by introducing TP. So after every battle, your HP will be completely restored, but not your MP. Also, TP will be decremented for every character who participated in battle. You can elect to rest at any time in the dungeon to convert TP to MP. If TP is 0 on battle conclusion, that character will go back to town but will be automatically added back to your party when you retire from the dungeon. Retiring from the dungeon is just a matter of opening the menu outside of battle and selecting "leave dungeon".

Running out of steam does mean you lose a little progress, specifically from the last teleport point to wherever it is you were in the dungeon, but it's never more than 2 to 3 minutes of play.

So the dungeon just becomes navigational puzzle solving and memory tests with short combat encounter puzzles in between.

Before you get some varied all enemy damage output from e.g. Patchoulli Knowldege, you might have to devise short 4-12 character turn strategies for some random encounters, but by the time you do get varied all enemy damage output, they become trivial. Luckily by then you'll have enough spare skill points on Rumia or some similar character to invest in their encounter rate dropping skill.

The game is pretty aware of this, and you're given a button to make your next step a random encounter for when you actually want an encounter.

In short, the game drops the whole survival aspect of dungeons, which is fine. To be honest, I haven't played any traditional dungeon crawlers with super meaningful survival play (roguelikes have, historically, done a much better job) e.g. Wizardry is a slot machine where a high level party can die to low level enemies and vice versa and you can load to re-roll any encounter, and while something like Shining in the Darkness gets it structurally correct, it's stupidly simple (just "do I keep pressing further now?"), which is why I'm not so upset this aspect of the genre has been ditched entirely.

The navigational puzzles vary from mundane (first 8 floors) to pretty good (13F, 14F and 15F in particular, where you have to navigate using holes between floors and flip what amount to combinatorial switches to open different sets of gates).

The meat of the game is in the bosses. The boss fights are all great, and all require probing their defensive weaknesses and their offensive strengths before returning to them with a party at least partially made to counter them and then doing just that. Even then, the fights easily go on for over 5 minutes (keep in mind there's no long attack animations or anything, it's pretty much speed of thought).

One thing I absolutely love about this game is there is no (non-humilating) escape hatch on hard mode. Bosses have a challenge level and you can't fight them if anyone in your party is over that level. You're also capped on your stats for money bonuses and other things.

If this sounds like you can lock yourself out of certain boss fights, you can't. Whatever your party's total XP is, that decides the max level for each character. You can choose a character level for each and every character between 1 and that maximum freely at the city. You get to keep the level bonuses from your max, and also any library stats you bought (cap is 1.2 * max level), so going above the boss challenge level still confers some advantage, but much less than without this system.

Even with the challenge level, by the time you reach a boss, you're unlikely to be over it. You can grind levels to meet the level, but it feels very humiliating, as it should. It's also a sign that you should git gud, as with the proper party composition you should be able to beat most bosses well under their cap. I felt horrible getting everyone to level 100 for the last boss, and here the game actually expected you to do it because the enemies in that part of the floor were all super high level single enemies which gave huge XP rewards and rare items.

Now in terms of party reconfiguration, it's obvious the game went through a few iterations of this (as the UI is all over the place). The devs eventually settled for free reconfiguration, except for stats for money bonuses and stat raising items. These can only be refunded for rare, limited number, tomes of reincarnation. It strikes an interesting balance and adds a little bit of whole game strategy and resource management, but the game wouldn't have lost much if characters were fully reconfigurable.

There's a barely noticeable crafting system, and items in general are just something you pick up along the way to your next boss and only notice when you have to reconfigure your party to meet the challenge.

In many ways, if you were to ignore some of the better dungeon floor puzzles, I'd say the game could have been a boss rush with rewards after each boss to use for your next choice of fight, and it would have been much the same game with less dead time.

So, overall, the game is a definite recommend if you like optimizing and reoptimizing your party for specific encounters, some nice dungeon navigation, and decision dense combat that can get pretty exciting and tense cause it goes on for a while.
 
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AdamReith

Magister
Patron
Joined
Oct 21, 2019
Messages
2,109
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is.
Blasted through Suikoden over the weekend. Short and sweet, was going to try and get the good ending with my final save but it turns out I had locked myself out of it, oh well. Really great fastastic fun, total classic. I'll be playing it again some day.

Going to give Star Ocean on the PSP a whack. My only exposure to this sort of game was Tales of Symphonia which didn't really hook me but I'll see how it goes.
 

Palomides

Augur
Joined
Dec 29, 2011
Messages
419
Blasted through Suikoden over the weekend. Short and sweet, was going to try and get the good ending with my final save but it turns out I had locked myself out of it, oh well. Really great fastastic fun, total classic. I'll be playing it again some day.

Going to give Star Ocean on the PSP a whack. My only exposure to this sort of game was Tales of Symphonia which didn't really hook me but I'll see how it goes.
Will you be playing the other Suikoden games?
 

AdamReith

Magister
Patron
Joined
Oct 21, 2019
Messages
2,109
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is.
Blasted through Suikoden over the weekend. Short and sweet, was going to try and get the good ending with my final save but it turns out I had locked myself out of it, oh well. Really great fastastic fun, total classic. I'll be playing it again some day.

Going to give Star Ocean on the PSP a whack. My only exposure to this sort of game was Tales of Symphonia which didn't really hook me but I'll see how it goes.
Will you be playing the other Suikoden games?

I was planning to go to Suikoden 2 very soon but isn't the plot very similar to the one in 1?

I played 2 back when it came out anyway so thinking about going straight to 3.

In my haze of indecision I decided to play Tales of Star Trek instead.

Loving the pre-rendered backgrounds of the remake, just wish it was turn based. Half the battles I forget and the battle is over before I realise what's going on. :P
 
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cosmicray

Savant
Joined
Jan 20, 2019
Messages
436
Final Fantasy VII Remake. It's okay, I guess. Obviously the first disk was also on the rails, but here it feels way too much. Also... slow walking must die.
 

AdamReith

Magister
Patron
Joined
Oct 21, 2019
Messages
2,109
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is.
Finished up with Star Ocean: First Departure.

Really a nice simple game, liked the star trek influences and the characters were really well done. Skill system was daunting at first but it's completely optional (other than the skills that give you stat boosts, they are useful). Main story was very simple which was a bit disappointing but the quality of the companions made up for it.

Didn't hate the real time combat as much as I thought I would, once I had a win button to spam at least; will need try out more action JRPGs in the future.
 

jungl

Augur
Joined
Mar 30, 2016
Messages
1,420
Got bored and quit playing tear ring saga. Later half of the game there is a huge decline in map quality. map 37 one I quit the game on for example there a key I need from summoners to finish the map to get the key I need to spend over 30+ turns killing all the trash mobs they summon. The load times in-between turns in the game is very annoying. The games not hard especially if you grind which I did not because grinding is mind numbing boring in this game. The problem is the game expects you to grind and have close to max level units or you will encounter bullshit later in the game where you only have like 1 or 3 units that can fight bosses. The game is overrated and this persons review sums up my opinion on it https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/476124-tearring-saga-yutona-eiyuu-senki/reviews/167990

Games like ogre battle 64 blow tear ring saga out of the water.
 

AdamReith

Magister
Patron
Joined
Oct 21, 2019
Messages
2,109
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is.
Got bored and quit playing tear ring saga. Later half of the game there is a huge decline in map quality. map 37 one I quit the game on for example there a key I need from summoners to finish the map to get the key I need to spend over 30+ turns killing all the trash mobs they summon. The load times in-between turns in the game is very annoying. The games not hard especially if you grind which I did not because grinding is mind numbing boring in this game. The problem is the game expects you to grind and have close to max level units or you will encounter bullshit later in the game where you only have like 1 or 3 units that can fight bosses. The game is overrated and this persons review sums up my opinion on it https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/476124-tearring-saga-yutona-eiyuu-senki/reviews/167990

Games like ogre battle 64 blow tear ring saga out of the water.

Reminds me a little of my experience with Banner of the Maid, all the elements are there but the recipe isn't quite right; killing the fun a bit.
 

spekkio

Arcane
Joined
Sep 16, 2009
Messages
8,278
Speaking of japtacticals, I'm currently playing Fell Seal and liking it very much. Basically a FFT clone with some modifications. Even art and writing grew on me, and I had problems with these initially. UI could've been better, tho.

Tried God Wars before that, and despite the game being another FFT clone, decided to drop it after a couple of hours due to total boredom (billion useless skills, meh art, heavy bloom, meh writing).

*Edit:

PMS Brigade ready to kick some misogynist ass:

qlBeGqp.jpg


Only 3 regular jobs to unlock:

jFubpF5.jpg
 
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AdamReith

Magister
Patron
Joined
Oct 21, 2019
Messages
2,109
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is.
Work holiday this week so having a bit of a JRPG festival, out of pure curiosity I decided to give Koudelka a go. It seemed like a really interesting mix of Survival Horror and JRPG.

Actually ended up really enjoying it and finished it, the characters are the stars of the show with really good english voice acting. The game itself is pretty basic but well worth a go given how unique it is, imagine resident evil style puzzles but whenever a zombie turns up it goes turn based.

Loved it so much I am proceeding directly to Shadow Hearts, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.
 

AdamReith

Magister
Patron
Joined
Oct 21, 2019
Messages
2,109
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is.
One of the stats in Koudelka makes it easier for heals to miss you. 5/5 game design.

I honestly used the heal spell maybe a single time in the whole game. Magic can really wreck you without high piety so that was a no-brainer.

Weapons breaking also scared the shit out of me when it first happened but I ended up using only ranged weapons and Koudelka's ridiculously OP magic so it never ever effected me.

The combat system is full of so many half baked ideas that it's broken in many wonderful ways. At first it seems very intimidating but it quickly becomes just a fun game of popamole to break up the puzzle solving where you one shot everything.
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
Patron
Joined
Apr 30, 2020
Messages
3,292
Location
Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
I just finished Romancing Saga 2.
The experience was overall amazing. I had a few small gripes with the game, like unlocking the most important QOL feature of the entire game (Hall of Heroes) 35 hours into a 45 hour game, making it mostly a NG+ only feature and Spark Types being inconsistent with the classes, making a guide (or at least a spark table) almost mandatory for maximum enjoyment of the game. Also I am not sure why the game is so adamant on not showing you the exact stats of your armor.
Overall however the gameplay was deep, difficult, interesting and constantly threw new things at me to challenge me. Discovering that you can summon a wind blade with a spell for example, which is an actual weapon, that can spark unique wind strikes which you can then use on each and every weapon is amazing. The game constantly delivered new experiences like this all through its runtime.
I am still not sure I entirely grasp all of the mechanics of the game, as an example I think that for all techs which do not spark off a specific skill sparking them over the normal attack is the best course of action, but I am not sure about that.
Apart from being one of the few excellent gameplay > story JRPGs something else really surprised me:
The lore is not half bad!
The heroes being from a race of body shifters from a different dimension was nice
And the ending hit much harder than it had any right to do in such a gameplay heavy game.
The credit roll is a display of your emperor using most of the flashy skills in the game, and seeing a few attacks in there I never sparked myself almost made me want to delve in the NG+, despite of my natural aversion against NG+. Also the developers are men of my taste, as the final attack that is displayed is imo the most beautifull attack in the game against the most beautifull enemy sprite in the game. that on the final note of the soundtrack already sold me on the game.
But it does not end here, next follows a nice retelling of your adventures on the map screen, showing you which emperor did accomplish which feats, which let me reminisce the whole journey.
Last the game really amps up the feels, your emperor drinks alone in a tavern after the kid that has just heard his song does not recognise him. He says that he is forgotten now, the Bard tells him he shouldn't be so sure about that. He reminisces about all his friends, and all units you recruited and all NPCs, all now long dead as the game plays over 500 years, appear behind him. Lastly the four heroes of his generation enter the room, presumably now all unaging like him, and together they leave the tavern. An absurdly strong ending for such a gameplay heavy game, made me feel things


Overall? 10/10 you can fuck a mermaid.
 

AdamReith

Magister
Patron
Joined
Oct 21, 2019
Messages
2,109
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is.
I just finished Romancing Saga 2.
The experience was overall amazing. I had a few small gripes with the game, like unlocking the most important QOL feature of the entire game (Hall of Heroes) 35 hours into a 45 hour game, making it mostly a NG+ only feature and Spark Types being inconsistent with the classes, making a guide (or at least a spark table) almost mandatory for maximum enjoyment of the game. Also I am not sure why the game is so adamant on not showing you the exact stats of your armor.
Overall however the gameplay was deep, difficult, interesting and constantly threw new things at me to challenge me. Discovering that you can summon a wind blade with a spell for example, which is an actual weapon, that can spark unique wind strikes which you can then use on each and every weapon is amazing. The game constantly delivered new experiences like this all through its runtime.
I am still not sure I entirely grasp all of the mechanics of the game, as an example I think that for all techs which do not spark off a specific skill sparking them over the normal attack is the best course of action, but I am not sure about that.
Apart from being one of the few excellent gameplay > story JRPGs something else really surprised me:
The lore is not half bad!
The heroes being from a race of body shifters from a different dimension was nice
And the ending hit much harder than it had any right to do in such a gameplay heavy game.
The credit roll is a display of your emperor using most of the flashy skills in the game, and seeing a few attacks in there I never sparked myself almost made me want to delve in the NG+, despite of my natural aversion against NG+. Also the developers are men of my taste, as the final attack that is displayed is imo the most beautifull attack in the game against the most beautifull enemy sprite in the game. that on the final note of the soundtrack already sold me on the game.
But it does not end here, next follows a nice retelling of your adventures on the map screen, showing you which emperor did accomplish which feats, which let me reminisce the whole journey.
Last the game really amps up the feels, your emperor drinks alone in a tavern after the kid that has just heard his song does not recognise him. He says that he is forgotten now, the Bard tells him he shouldn't be so sure about that. He reminisces about all his friends, and all units you recruited and all NPCs, all now long dead as the game plays over 500 years, appear behind him. Lastly the four heroes of his generation enter the room, presumably now all unaging like him, and together they leave the tavern. An absurdly strong ending for such a gameplay heavy game, made me feel things


Overall? 10/10 you can fuck a mermaid.


Did you follow a guide? These games are incredibly intriqueing to me but I abhor the idea of needing a guide to play a game.

There are also a good number of fan translated saga-likes that I'm also wary of getting screwed by.
 

boot

Prophet
Joined
Dec 20, 2015
Messages
1,016
Location
Bartow, FL
I played BLACK SOULS.

Saw these huge threads on 4chin and thought there must be something about it. There isn't. Do not recommend.
 

Grampy_Bone

Arcane
Joined
Jan 25, 2016
Messages
3,640
Location
Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
Koudelka is a game where I think the bad ending is actually better.

the idea of needing a guide to play a game.

I wouldn't say you need a guide to play SaGa games, as long as you're fine with missing things on your playthroughs. In fact the mystery of the mechanics is part of the fun for a lot of people, so reading a guide kinda spoils it.

I recommend trying out SaGa Frontier if you're on the fence. Since each character has their own separate story and it's meant to be replayed, you can get through them each in 8-12 hours.
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
Patron
Joined
Apr 30, 2020
Messages
3,292
Location
Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
Did you follow a guide? These games are incredibly intriqueing to me but I abhor the idea of needing a guide to play a game.

There are also a good number of fan translated saga-likes that I'm also wary of getting screwed by.

A bit. Like with most games that use unclear progression triggers I bookmark the guide and check once a few hours if I really want a specific scenario to trigger (I wanted all four elemental allies in Mole, Salamander, Harpye and Mermaid and I think Harpy and Mermaid are close to impossible without a guide)
If that doesn't bother you however you can play without a guide. SaGa games are the JRPGs most dependant on a guide, but Kawazu makes his games specifically for the feeling of discovering new stuff on your own, and a guide obviously lowers that. I'd still use this however:
https://saga.fandom.com/wiki/Tech_Spark_Types
Basically whenever you recruit an ally ctrl+f their name here. Then look at their spark type number. As you see usually the weapon they are good at sparking is the one fit for their class (most amazons spark bows, all Molemans spark short sword, etc) But some characters for some fucking reason spark only weapons they don't tell you.
Only use the weapon that corresponds to the spark type on a character, and the game becomes much more fun as you spark more frequently, and sparking abilities is like crack.

With only the tech spark table, which you only consult on new recruitment (happens about 30-40 times in the game, but usually a full party of 5 recruits at once) you should be able to play them fine.
You will miss some stuff, but Romancing SaGa 2 is the most sandboxy game even of the SaGa games. It is literally impossible to 100% it on the first run, that is what the NG+ is for.

Other SaGa games need even less online guide use, but overall Kawazu's games are bad for guidephobics.
 

Amurada

Educated
Joined
Jul 26, 2020
Messages
73
Did you follow a guide? These games are incredibly intriqueing to me but I abhor the idea of needing a guide to play a game.

There are also a good number of fan translated saga-likes that I'm also wary of getting screwed by.

In earnest, about the only thing I needed a guide on in Romancing SaGa was unlocking formations. Other than that, the discovery factor the game provides, and the general breadth of experimentation that the game rewards the curious player with makes it all worthwhile. For instance, I never encountered the mechanics relating to the Wind Blade Thac0 mentioned in the entirety of my complete playthrough, but I don't feel as though I've missed anything. Hell, Romancing SaGa 2 requires multiple playthroughs if you wanna see everything as decisions actually matter to some extent; superficial as they may be, they matter more than most WRPG dreck that is touted about. Hell, I'd say the tech spark table is unnecessary as well. I discovered plenty in my playthrough. Hell, given the particulars of the spark system, I discovered many powerful skills by attacking a boss way above my paygrade, and would run away before I would suffer a complete party wipe.

Overall however the gameplay was deep, difficult, interesting and constantly threw new things at me to challenge me.
I would agree that the enjoyment that comes from the combat system stems from how engaging it could be due to how interesting it is (to some extent). Wouldn't say the combat system is particularly deep or difficult, but that could be forgiven given the ambitious scope of the game. Unlimited SaGa and SaGa: Scarlet Grace would go on to remedy this issue, if not forget some things that made games such as Romancing SaGa 2 and SaGa Frontier so captivating.
 

AdamReith

Magister
Patron
Joined
Oct 21, 2019
Messages
2,109
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is.
Did you follow a guide? These games are incredibly intriqueing to me but I abhor the idea of needing a guide to play a game.

There are also a good number of fan translated saga-likes that I'm also wary of getting screwed by.

In earnest, about the only thing I needed a guide on in Romancing SaGa was unlocking formations. Other than that, the discovery factor the game provides, and the general breadth of experimentation that the game rewards the curious player with makes it all worthwhile. For instance, I never encountered the mechanics relating to the Wind Blade Thac0 mentioned in the entirety of my complete playthrough, but I don't feel as though I've missed anything. Hell, Romancing SaGa 2 requires multiple playthroughs if you wanna see everything as decisions actually matter to some extent; superficial as they may be, they matter more than most WRPG dreck that is touted about. Hell, I'd say the tech spark table is unnecessary as well. I discovered plenty in my playthrough. Hell, given the particulars of the spark system, I discovered many powerful skills by attacking a boss way above my paygrade, and would run away before I would suffer a complete party wipe.

I love the idea of the decisions and exploring the systems but I got the impression you would need a guide to even progress.

I actually like the idea of missing most stuff, adds a bit of mystery.

Will deffo take the splash at home point, I might give Saga Frontier a go after Shadow Hearts.
 
Unwanted
Dumbfuck
Joined
Dec 14, 2020
Messages
803
Some days ago i decided to finally play Monster Hunter World because i remembered buying the game, but never played it. I turned on my ps4 after a long time and checked my trophies, turns out i was like 3 trophies away from getting the platinum of Persona 5 Royal, my completionist autism kicked in and i started a NG+ game. I put the game on merciless and decided to not use any persona of the compendium, items, or money from my last playthrough. Turns out merciless is even easier than on Very Hard, why you ask? Enemies do 2.5x damage to you BUT you do the same to your enemies, so you end up one shotting every shadow, which is everything outside bosses. In my first playthrough i managed to max every stat and finish every confidant with a couple of days left (i did it without a guide), which i enjoyed a lot, min maxing your time to me is the most fun thing about this game because combat is fucked with how many bonuses your confidants give you, making it very inferior to mainline games. Overall i would say that doing a ng+ game of Persona 5 is not worth it, taking into account how half the game is a VN and the other half baby tier combat.
 

Amurada

Educated
Joined
Jul 26, 2020
Messages
73
Just started Bravely Default II. Played the original on release, and promptly dropped it as I could not stand the story. Regret doing that, given all the great stuff I heard about it, and after having played the demo for BDII, I can't go back to the originals as their battle interfaces feel much more plodding and sticky compared to how much more tactile and swift the new command menu does. Maybe I'll get back to them eventually (altho it'd be great if BD1/BS were remastered for switch).

Anyways, Bravely Default II is pretty great. Unfortunate that the character designs/class designs have taken a bit of a hit. There are certainly still great job designs, but the originals trump what I've seen so far from both demos of BDII. Character models have also taken a hit, but everyone is aware of that thankfully, and the hopes that this is remedied in a potential sequel is all the greater for the collective bitching that is the internet -- glad that could work out for good some of the time. BDII on the highest difficulty can pretty great, having played both demos and the release, I'm glad, and hope that the game continues to carry on my current experience. I enjoy Blue Dragon's enemy roundup system, as carrying over Brave points (or the lack thereof) from one battle to the next is great, but the groupings ought to be as streamlined as it is in Blue Dragon; at this point in time, half the challenge is in getting enemies grouped together to begin with, and I enjoy battling enemies in groups while they are still strong enough to run away from me, not just as a means of grinding JP.

Just got myself to Sarasaland Kingdom (where the demos start you from) and been having a great time. Hope that the game is able to keep up with the moderate difficulty its been offering thus far. Story seems boilerplate, but not as animuu garbage obnoxious as the previous two games were, so there's some hope there as well. Gotta say, I don't know why all of the game environments don't conform to the way villages look. Visually speaking, those are the best looking areas in the entire game, and I don't have some weird fetish for controlling the camera at all times.

I gotta say, the Bravely Default team is one dev that I can see making a classic someday. Don't know how long it'll take, but I'm definitely looking forward to future games from this dev. All they need to do is hire a halfway decent writer (which there are plenty of from the old jrpg dev days to pick from), and just have the art be just slightly more consistent. Not sure how these games have been selling, but I'm hoping for the best.
 

Nifft Batuff

Prophet
Joined
Nov 14, 2018
Messages
3,169
Just started Bravely Default II. Played the original on release, and promptly dropped it as I could not stand the story. Regret doing that, given all the great stuff I heard about it, and after having played the demo for BDII, I can't go back to the originals as their battle interfaces feel much more plodding and sticky compared to how much more tactile and swift the new command menu does. Maybe I'll get back to them eventually (altho it'd be great if BD1/BS were remastered for switch).

Anyways, Bravely Default II is pretty great. Unfortunate that the character designs/class designs have taken a bit of a hit. There are certainly still great job designs, but the originals trump what I've seen so far from both demos of BDII. Character models have also taken a hit, but everyone is aware of that thankfully, and the hopes that this is remedied in a potential sequel is all the greater for the collective bitching that is the internet -- glad that could work out for good some of the time. BDII on the highest difficulty can pretty great, having played both demos and the release, I'm glad, and hope that the game continues to carry on my current experience. I enjoy Blue Dragon's enemy roundup system, as carrying over Brave points (or the lack thereof) from one battle to the next is great, but the groupings ought to be as streamlined as it is in Blue Dragon; at this point in time, half the challenge is in getting enemies grouped together to begin with, and I enjoy battling enemies in groups while they are still strong enough to run away from me, not just as a means of grinding JP.

Just got myself to Sarasaland Kingdom (where the demos start you from) and been having a great time. Hope that the game is able to keep up with the moderate difficulty its been offering thus far. Story seems boilerplate, but not as animuu garbage obnoxious as the previous two games were, so there's some hope there as well. Gotta say, I don't know why all of the game environments don't conform to the way villages look. Visually speaking, those are the best looking areas in the entire game, and I don't have some weird fetish for controlling the camera at all times.

I gotta say, the Bravely Default team is one dev that I can see making a classic someday. Don't know how long it'll take, but I'm definitely looking forward to future games from this dev. All they need to do is hire a halfway decent writer (which there are plenty of from the old jrpg dev days to pick from), and just have the art be just slightly more consistent. Not sure how these games have been selling, but I'm hoping for the best.
Is "Bravely Default 2" different from "Bravely the Second"? And in that case which is better to play?
 

Amurada

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Jul 26, 2020
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Is "Bravely Default 2" different from "Bravely the Second"? And in that case which is better to play?
Final Fantasy X = Bravely Default
Final Fantasy X-2 = Bravely the Second

Bravely Default II is a new entry that is unrelated to the other games, akin to Final Fantasy XII having nothing to do with Final Fantasy X.
 

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