Random thoughts on whatever JRPG you're currently playing?

[Machocruz]

Any opinions on the Shining Force arpgs? Kind of interested. Going back to PS2 games I missed.

 

[d1r]

I've been playing a lot of Bravely Default II lately. I can't quite decide how I feel about it. When I played the original game I eventually got bored and quit somewhere near the final boss. I think I might make it to the end of this one so I guess it's an improvement over the first game.

I don't remember how challenging the first game was but I've noticed this game is certainly harder than the older Final Fantasy titles that this game is basically a love letter to. There have been a few bosses that I either needed a certain strategy to defeat or had to grind a bit to get strong enough to beat.

Grinding can be a bit addictive if you find a good enough spot to do it. I like the chaining system where you can a big JP bonus for herding monsters together before engaging. I found a spot right outside the first city where you can easily herd 8 monsters together and as near as I can tell that's the best grinding spot in the entire game unless you use very specific strategies in a couple of other spots. Not really worth the trouble when this spot works so well. I'm in chapter 2 and have mastered about 7 jobs on each character so far.

That's both a good and a bad thing as I've basically made the game way too easy for myself but herding all those monsters and doing chain battles is fun enough that I guess I don't really care.

Is the chaining system comparable to that of FF12's chaining system (monsters dropping rare items)? God, I loved to farm in that game.

 

[Carpincho Pampeano]

That period between games is the worst, i just finished three houses yet again with 500hs clocked on it, that was probably my last run so i married Lysithea after so many runs so she can finally be cured of crest aids. Yesterday i played 3 different games and none of them captured my soul to keep playing them.

Oreshika: Tainted Bloodlines
Presentation seems amazing but the time mechanic turns me off a lot, that's something that it's just not compatible with a jrpg.

Stranger of the sword city revisited
Experience Inc attemp to make a heavily Wizardry inspired game, it's art presentation even looks like a western one. Only played two hours but in those two hours it was almost the same as every other game from that company.

Demon Gaze
You only start with one party member and seems like it will be a grindfest, i can't even put basic skills.

Maybe i'm a little burn out of dungeon crawlers/ jrpg but nothing managed to grab me. Maybe i'll play something other genre until SMT V comes out.

 

[GhostCow]

Is the chaining system comparable to that of FF12's chaining system (monsters dropping rare items)? God, I loved to farm in that game.

Chaining only gives you bonus job points

 

[AdamReith]

Giving Zanki Zero a rest after the third chapter. Great game but managing all the aging characters and items makes it heavy going sometimes. I haven't even braved the skill point stuff seriously yet.

Decided to give Ys 8 a shot since it's spoken of pretty highly here and I have to say it's pretty fantastic. I usually hate this style of game but Ys 8's smooth gameplay and fun exploration does feel pretty amazing, especially once I turned it up to hard. It's got that Suikoden style castle building as well which is always interesting.

 

[Thac0]

Final Fantasy V (SFC)
I reached the third "world." I normally don't mind a bare-bones story just there to get you from one place to another, but geez the world, characters, and story are all dull as dishwater. The job system is fun, but it just seems like the game has this great system in place, but it means nothing for 99% of the game (the random encounters) and then requires specific abilities when you get to bosses. In that respect, it really does remind me of FFIII, though it does provide a lot more leeway than that game.

It's also strange how it feels like a bit of a step back in visuals and audio from FFIV. Enemy sprites are generally more detailed than in FFIV, but tiles/combat backgrounds seem really simplified. The soundtrack is pretty dull overall, and is a far cry from the amazing soundtrack of FFIV.

I definitely don't dislike this game, but it doesn't really excite me either. I feel like Final Fantasy Tactics took the job system and put it into a game that actually takes advantage of it.

I expect I still have a long way to go, so it will be interesting to see if my opinion changes. So far, it's definitely above mediocre stuff like Estpolis Denki and Breath of Fire, but my least favorite of the SFC FF trilogy.

There is a reason FFV was considered the black sheep of the SNES series for a long time, before it now got a kind of second wind over the wonderfull job system, which has become somewhat status quo for SRPGs through Final Fantasy Tactics.
I started vibing with FFV later as soon as you get the ridiculous abilities and master classes, Dual Wield + !shot from ranger for 8 attacks per round is as always hilarious. Red Mage/Time Mages can doublecast quick to cast 4 spells in a single turn. Burns through mp like a bitch, but you can burst entire phases from bosses in a single turn with 4x9999.
The story really is a trendemous letdown.

Spoiler

FFV was the first Final Fantasy in a while to actually kill characters again - for realz this time, no takebacksies like in FFIV. And yet they completely fuck it up by letting the daughter of that one dude inherit all his abilities. This lets the death have zero gameplay consequences, and as such the emotional weight gets cut in half.

Also as nice as the final boss is to meme, he really was the least memorable and threatening of the FF endbosses. Not only does he crumble like wet paper if you use the tools the game gives you, since his major threatening moment is rendered obsolete aswell like described in the spoiler part I never cared for him at all.

Also one secret tip that is a bit heretical:
Play Final Fantasy Dimensions 1 on mobile.
It is a classical SNES FF with FFVs job system, but featuring two adventure parties, one of light and one of shadows. Those get some unique classes each, and kitting out 8 characters with FFVs systems is fun as heck.
It also has a surprising amount of emotional punch, hitting as hard as FFVI on a good day.
As a word of warning, it has a slow start. It was sold in parts at first, and the initial 2 chapters feel very formulaic. At some point it gets off the ground and soars ever higher however, becoming a game that pretty much combines the best parts of the SNES cour.
It has the ugly as sin FFV/FFVI mobile remaster graphic tho.

 

[newtmonkey]

Any opinions on the Shining Force arpgs? Kind of interested. Going back to PS2 games I missed.

Shining Force Neo and EXA are decent. They were made by the same team that did Lodoss War on Dreamcast, which is an EXCELLENT Diablo style game. The Shining Force games aren't nearly as good as Lodoss, but can be fun.

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

Finished Breath of Fire 1 GBA...

Fuck this game ! what a fucking slog this game is, holy shit, it started good but only got worse after that. why this game sucks:

Too much backtracking nonsense and cryptic shit, i was in the final dungeon and i had to leave and backtrack 3 times to talk to some random NPCs i've met 10 hours ago to proceed in the game, 3 TIMES!, its obvious that this game wanted to sell nintendo strategy guides. And seriously, who the fuck wants to backtrack in this game with this insane encounter rate ?!

Bosses have too much HP!, the Bosses in this game later on takes foverer to die, i barely do damage to them, even after grinding. With fast foward it took 20 minutes to kill the final boss

The encounter rate, even playing at 2x speed this game still feels like a slog, i had to spam smoke bombs to get through this game, and it's not like it worth fighting anyway, because enemies later on barely gives any XP.

The enemies XP is inconsistent, it feels like the stronger the enemies are the less XP they give, i had to leave the final dungeon and find a place where enemies actually give decent XP to grind. And even then leveling up barely makes any difference in this game, i still doing negative damage against bosses, after 1 hour of grinding.

We don't have a offensive mage until later on, meaning 2/3 of the game you're spamming attacks only. And even then Deis is not that good to begin with, at least not in this version i played.

The Magic system in this game sucks too, in a decent game like Final Fantasy you would expect enemies to have different weakness to elemental spells like Fire, Cold and Thunder. But in this game nah, magic always does the same damage, just spam your strongest offensive spell. And this also means that the Cold and Fire dragon transformations of Ryu are useless, they do less damage than Thunder Dragon, so there's no reason to ever use them.


Maybe some of these issues are introduced by the "Breath of Fire Improved" hack, i don't know and i don't care, this is the worst RPG i've ever beaten, you can't pay me to play this shit on the original SNES. Do not play this game, it's a boring slog !

Still, there's some good stuff here and there:

the soundtrack is excellent:



the sprite graphics are great, better than BOF2 in some ways, though Nina in BOF1 looks like shit.

i like how each party member does something different: karn opens locks, OX punches trees to find hidden stuff, Ryu fishing, Nina can fly, Mogu can dig.

The underwater section is pretty cool.

I also like non-human characters, refreshing.

I would praise the Fusion system, but i could not find how to Fuse. Turns out you had to talk to some hidden random NPCs with Karn as the party leader, the game never gave any clue of that and Karn sucks so why i would ever put him as the party leader ? this reeks of cryptic shit to sell strategy guides. But it's not required to beat the game so at least it's not a negative thing.

 

[deuxhero]

Playing Dragon Quest 4 with the party chat implementation. Just got to chapter 4.
The prologues thing, where you play as a new character for 2-4 hours with their own story, is interesting in theory, but they all start by forcing you to do the boring initial grind from level 1 with no equipment. You don't even get unique low level monsters either. Only one of the four has unique mechanics (Torneko's quest for money, which is interesting if totally exploitable and tedious). I think Wild Arms 3 did it best where each of the characters focused on demonstrating one of the game's core mechanics (magic, puzzles, etc.) and you could do them in any order.
The accents thing is cancer though. The first chapter is totally incomprehensible fake scottish accent, the second is broken slav speak that's readable but just looks poorly translated instead of a distinct speaking style. The third is actually toned down far enough it kinda works (most alternate forms are common enough you might even find them in a dictionary) and I haven't played enough of the fourth to get an opinion on it. Can't really give an opinion on party chat so far since its barely been in so far, though the bits in chapter 2 are amusing.

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

Playing Dragon Quest 4 with the party chat implementation.

Which version you're playing ?

I'm mixed on DQ4, i played this game until chapter 5 and got bored and burned out, i really hate that i can't control my party members in chapter 5, ruined the gameplay for me. Also, no class customization, no exploration, nothing ! it's a inferior game to DQ3 imo. The story in DQ4 is supposed to be good to make up for the dumbed down gameplay, maybe in the 90s the chapter system was revolutionary but i really don't see anything special about the story in DQ4, it's really generic, with all the chosen one BS. I honestly think DQ3 has a better story than DQ4 and much better gameplay.

I like the merchant chapter though, very original, more interesting narrative than the main story.

 

[lametta]

Finished FF12 TZA. It has great side content. Started Anachronox very old but i used to like it in my childhood. Modded it a bit to make the gfx a little more bearable.

 

[deuxhero]

Playing Dragon Quest 4 with the party chat implementation.

Which version you're playing ?

DS, but with the "patch" that restores the party chat function the ENglish release cut because lazy translators.

 

[Sentinel]

Playing Dragon Quest 4 with the party chat implementation.

Which version you're playing ?

DS, but with the "patch" that restores the party chat function the ENglish release cut because lazy translators.

The party chat was cut because of Square

"With the party chat we really wanted to put it in there--that's why we fought really hard for it in V, but it was just a budgetary thing. They (square enix) weren't sure how well IV would sell on the DS in America, they wanted to cut costs somehow...it's two-thirds of the game's script. The cartridges didn't allow much profit...it's not like the PS2 levels of profitability, so just to be careful they cut costs where they could. We (the localization team) fought very hard for the feature to remain because that's where a lot of the fun and humor comes from."[1]

 

[NerevarineKing]

I recently beat Persona 4 Golden on Hard. I played the PS2 version several years ago and wanted a bit of a challenge. Some of the new cutscenes were kinda dumb, but there's so much more to do now that I can't criticize it too much. The dungeon added in Golden was actually kinda interesting and forces you to play differently, so it was a nice change of pace. Also, the PC port worked flawlessly for me.

 

[newtmonkey]

Final Fantasy V (SFC)
I think I must be getting close to the end because the world has sort of opened up akin to the World of Ruin in FF6, and I am tasked with collecting doodads and thingamabobs located all over the world.

This game has finally clicked into place for me. It's a blast going around exploring, checking out optional caves and dungeons to find hidden summon spells, slowly obtaining the ultimate equipment three weapons at a time. Combat is a ton of fun now, finally, 25 hours later. Enemies seem to be almost always susceptible to debuffs, and most random encounters at this point seem to require use of buff/debuff spells unless you want to spend all your MP on resurrection/healing spells. Maybe if you gamed the job system, you wouldn't need to. Anyway, I am having fun now.

Shame about the previous 25 hours, though!

 

[d1r]

Finished FF12 TZA. It has great side content. Started Anachronox very old but i used to like it in my childhood. Modded it a bit to make the gfx a little more bearable.

FF12 was the comfiest JRPG ever. Loved every second of it.

 

[Paper]

FF12 owns but I guess the usual codex Baldur's Gate addicts have PTSD from Dragon Age or something and take that out on FF12 (which is a hundred times the game DAO is). I'm playing Xenoblade atm and I keep wishing it had the gambits from FF12, my AI party members are idiots. Actually i wish every game had gambits, they were so much fun.

 

[Rahdulan]

FF12 owns but I guess the usual codex Baldur's Gate addicts have PTSD from Dragon Age or something and take that out on FF12 (which is a hundred times the game DAO is). I'm playing Xenoblade atm and I keep wishing it had the gambits from FF12, my AI party members are idiots. Actually i wish every game had gambits, they were so much fun.

Something I've noticed is people tend to regard Gambits as if you just turn them on and FF12 then plays itself. Which can be true if you set them up that way meaning you're doing it willingly and game works just fine with manual control if you choose not to (I mean, system is just ATB + movement at the of the day). I think this is somewhat amplified by the fact both IZJS and TZA versions of the game let you buy all Gambits as soon as the game starts vs vanilla FF12 which spaced them out between major events effectively making you learn how to use them as a support system.

 

[Sentinel]

FF12 owns but I guess the usual codex Baldur's Gate addicts have PTSD from Dragon Age or something and take that out on FF12 (which is a hundred times the game DAO is). I'm playing Xenoblade atm and I keep wishing it had the gambits from FF12, my AI party members are idiots. Actually i wish every game had gambits, they were so much fun.

Something I've noticed is people tend to regard Gambits as if you just turn them on and FF12 then plays itself. Which can be true if you set them up that way meaning you're doing it willingly and game works just fine with manual control if you choose not to (I mean, system is just ATB + movement at the of the day). I think this is somewhat amplified by the fact both IZJS and TZA versions of the game let you buy all Gambits as soon as the game starts vs vanilla FF12 which spaced them out between major events effectively making you learn how to use them as a support system.

The game isn't any more engaging with gambits off, it's just more busywork. That other guy brought up DAO as a worse game but it implemented AI way better than FF12 and even if you configured it it still required your input because DAO, unlike FF12, has things like friendly fire that require positioning. This doesn't exist in FF12, every encounter boils down to you facetanking the enemy with no regard for battlefield positioning. It's a perfect example of how the battle mechanics of a 2D game don't translate to 3D that well.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Final Fantasy XII is already an exercise in tedium, even watching your characters play themselves according to the gambits you've established. The designers could have drastically reduced the number of battles while simultaneously replacing the gambit system with something similar to the traditional turn-based or ATB approach. However, as FFXII actually exists, the game is designed around the gambit system resulting in briefer combats, as the player just watches the characters act with few if any interruptions, and the number of battles was increased accordingly (really beyond what it should have been, even with the gambit system). A player attempting to use the option of pausing and issuing commands as the default in combat will increase the duration of combats excessively making the game functionally unplayable.

 

[spekkio]

So, I've heard some BAD SHIT about Fire Emblem - Radiant Dawn, and initially was like, "nah, you people exaggerate". I mean, sure, the idea of heaving 3 separate teams is stupid (you have to waste some EXP on fags you won't be using in the final part), the possibility to choose only 10 units for the final part is retarded, 'cuz the game forces on you some mostly useless units (Sothe, two dragons). But I was still kinda surprised with the amount of flak this game gets. Until I got to the three final battles...

1) First, you face over 9000 dragons, because why not?

Why should the devs use some interesting units' setups (Sword / Lance / Axe / Mage), when they can just spam infinitely two types of units, both of which can kill any of your units in two hits? Plus their breath attack is ranged, so any tactics involving stronger first row protecting weaker second row (basic since Snes era) are useless.

OFC killing all of these fucks isn't a problem, it's just a chore which require 0 tactics except unit positioning (stay out of enemies' range). But wait! There's more - the boss!

This is where the "skills" system, introduced in PoR, falls flat on it's face. Because if you introduce 3rd game system responsible for damage (on top of units' stats and equipment), you have to kinda take it into consideration when designing bosses. And genius devs sure did:

First, you can only hurt him with your "magically blessed weapons". Which sounds not that bad in theory ("let's just gang up on this guy! "). But there's still more! This guy has "Nihil" skill inbuilt, so all your precious skills are useless. And since he has this:

You have to attack him ONLY with units equipped with "Nihil" themselves, or he will murder them with this skill.
OFC your units have similar skill themselves, because devs thought, that introducing and using them was AWESOME. But now it's THE endgame, so let's throw all this stuff in the shitter, okay?

But don't worry, even if he can't use this skill due to your unit's "Nihil", he can still one-shot your any unit with either regular attack or a critical.

Tactics suggested online vary from using your heron to "refresh" four units at once, to using an archer with a special bow to kill him outside of his range. So it looks like it is no longer a tactical game, but a puzzle game, where you figure out one of 2-3 ways of killing a "superunit". Fantastic.

I've decided to speed things up a little and simply reduce his HP to 1 using cheats, and kill him in one shot.

Alright, let's continue...

2) Next you face bro Sephiran, who as it turns out, is clinically insane. Same schtick as before, he has "hidden" Nihil, can be hit only with "special" weapons:

And has magical teleporting faeries instead of regular units. Or dragons:

But don't worry, there are another layers of shit plastered over this mission. First, the floor is lava "special": all panels increase either DEF or RES, so you have to maneuver cleverly, and kill the teleporting faeries (who will rape your weaker units if you don't move using the "roman turtle" formation OFC) using either ATK or MAG.

OFC I've decided to simply reduce Seph's HP to 1 and one-shot him... Only to realize, it's impossible - faeries surrounding him will automatically redirect your attacks onto themselves, so you have to kill 4 of them first. Ain't that just a splendid game development?

Thank god I got lucky here - it turns out the faeries will sacrifice their HP to heal the boss (he can auto-heal by himself too, because the more auto-healing, the better), and since I've left the memory cell with Seph's HP frozen, during enemy turn all enemies killed themselves trying to heal him. And he got one-shot in next turn...

At this point I was liek: "sheeeet, what's next???".

3) The final battle against the evil crazy goddess, OFC! You should know well what to expect: only magical weapons work, she nullifies all your skills, same routine... But wait, as it turns out, there's more!

Since she's protected by 8 "auroras", I foolishly I reduced her HP to zero ("let's make it quick"):

Hit "end turn", and thought: "that's it!":

But it's not! You have to kill her with Ike's sword, because of reasons (special FMV will launch, where Ike kills her with his sword - so IT HAS TO BE IKE, mang!!1!!):

At this point I was close to deleting the game without seeing the ending. But I decided to stand up to the challenge! First I've reduced HP of 7 auroras to zero (so they will die in enemy round), and left Ashera and one remaining thingie with 1 HP:

It was super effective! All other faeries on the map committed suicide, trying to heal Ashera. The only thing left was to kill the remaining aurora:

Oh yeah, it's the special "Ike kills the evil goddess with his sword FMV", people!.

And that's how I finished Radiant Down!

Which turned out to be bad idea, since the ending succeeds at being both stupid and boring at the same time (weak plot, lame ending slides). But it looks like the devs were self-aware about the shittyness of their "lawful bad goddess vs. chaotic good goddess" shtick:

Amen sister. Anyway:

You bet, bro Sothe:

And the funniest thing is, you're supposed to complete the game multiple times to "save" some units. So the devs were expecting the players to waste over 70 hours on this turd not once, but multiple times...

I'm sorry, but I would rather re-play any Snes or GBA FE, since all of them are 100 times better than this shit.

and a epic from Path of Radiance.



Thanks for reading people, and stay tuned for my reviews of FE11 & 12 (NDS ones) and then... Awakening.

[/drunken rant]

 

[deuxhero]

Radiant Dawn was clearly rushed to be an early Wii release. It has the very best and very worst of FE in it, and the extras for the non-Japanese release just make the rush job very clear and endgame being retarded is just one of many signs about that. 9 and 10 really just need a bit of tweaking to be great. Up the speed (slow enemy move+slow battles is bad) and update the character models in 9, then add a few gaiden chapters to fix the broken level curve of the Dawn Brigade and Crimean Knights, some special supports with actual dialog, and redone end-game to 10

Spent some quality time this weekend making progress in a couple of games:

Final Fantasy V (SFC)
I reached the third "world." I normally don't mind a bare-bones story just there to get you from one place to another, but geez the world, characters, and story are all dull as dishwater. The job system is fun, but it just seems like the game has this great system in place, but it means nothing for 99% of the game (the random encounters) and then requires specific abilities when you get to bosses. In that respect, it really does remind me of FFIII, though it does provide a lot more leeway than that game.

A big part of this is the fan translation being very flat for character limits and some things that can't be conveyed in English, especially without voice acting (reverse trap pirate talks in highly masculine way. Gurren Lagann's Kamina is prob the best known example of this speech style in the west off the top of my head.). The GBA translation is a bit too memy, but its over the top nature preserves a lot of what got lost in the two prior translations.

 

[newtmonkey]

A big part of this is the fan translation being very flat for character limits and some things that can't be conveyed in English, especially without voice acting (reverse trap pirate talks in highly masculine way. Gurren Lagann's Kamina is prob the best known example of this speech style in the west off the top of my head.). The GBA translation is a bit too memy, but its over the top nature preserves a lot of what got lost in the two prior translations.

I really have no idea about any of the translations as I am playing this in Japanese. It's just bland.

 

[Endemic]

So, I've heard some BAD SHIT about Fire Emblem - Radiant Dawn, and initially was like, "nah, you people exaggerate". I mean, sure, the idea of heaving 3 separate teams is stupid (you have to waste some EXP on fags you won't be using in the final part), the possibility to choose only 10 units for the final part is retarded, 'cuz the game forces on you some mostly useless units (Sothe, two dragons). But I was still kinda surprised with the amount of flak this game gets. Until I got to the three final battles...

Yeah, you won't find anyone defending part 4 of RD. As for Denghinsea, this is the quick way to deal with him:



I would say the other big gameplay issue with Tellius is it's too easy to juggernaut with a few powerful units (particularly your dracoknights, who basically have no weaknesses).

 

[Derringer]

Any opinions on the Shining Force arpgs? Kind of interested. Going back to PS2 games I missed.

EXA is alright, brainless but if you want a brainless Diablo 2 melee clone there you go. Lodoss is definitely better than Neo.