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Forgot my SoPFFO report last night: Did FFVland (Ronka Ruins) and VIIland (Reactor). All the Fiends are cool... but maybe they are good guys??? We fixed the Crystals and now poo poo's all hosed. We're definitely in a time loop and the Lufenians are up to some poo poo since they gave us memory crystals. Jack, however, just wants to skip cutscene and fight boss, he doesn't care about the plot. He is very Zenos-ian in that way. Also did the Cornelia level and FFXIland (Delkfutt's Tower) which was a bitchin cool level. The end is in sight. Looks like XVland is next and then I dunno what but it's VI land and then I think Cornelia again and then FFI land again for the final fight.
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Dec 17, 2022 00:22
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Dec 17, 2022 00:35
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Mean Baby posted:The stuff about Ardyn at the end went completely over my head and still does. This is all the Ardyn poo poo, and since he's so central it's basically just the FFXV story: The gods (astrals) brought forth the crystal from the world, to bring it light and magic. The crystal is the source of all light, and when the world has some great disaster it picks a king to solve the problem and give it power. Ifrit, an astral, originally gave mankind his flame, which led to civilization. This pissed off the other gods, and he was defeated and forced to sleep presumably forever. Origins unknown, the Starscourge is a plague that just showed up one day, and it kills you and/or turns you into a demon. It also literally eats light. The astrals do not like this. The more starscourge, the more nighttime, the more daemons. Bahamut, an Astral, is a doer. He wants to destroy the starscourge forever. At first he wanted to destroy all life to defeat the Starscourge but was thwarted. His backup plan was to pick two bloodlines: the line of kings, and the line of oracles. The oracles could just heal the starscourge here and there, and as a consequence only keep it at bay. The crystal needed to pick the line of kings to defeat the starscourge forever. Ardyn was once a chill and cool dude. He and his brother were intended to rule together. The firstborn, he had a magical power to absorb others' maladies into himself. He went around the countryside taking the Starscourge plague into himself to heal others, rapidly loving himself up to benefit others which he kept a secret. His brother, an rear end in a top hat named Somnus, would simply burn the afflicted alive. Ardyn, betrothed to the oracle, was told that she'll always remember him, no matter what. Their relationship and his status made Somnus jealous. He painted Ardyn as a monster and didn't think Ardyn's approach would work. One day the oracle said the gods made a decision and told Ardyn he was the king. Somnus, instead, dueled him. In the duel, Somnus killed the oracle. Ardyn got pissed off as gently caress and his starscourge infection took over. The crystal, antithetical to the starscourge, however, rejected him and harmed him. Somnus, the first king, was thus empowered with the power of kings and killed Ardyn dead. Ardyn's soul, however, was trapped in the crystal and Ardyn was immortal. So instead they chained him up for two thousand years and was largely forgotten. The imperials did two things: first they found Ifrit's body and took it into custody. Second, they found Ardyn and freed him. While being freed, he learned he could turn people into daemons ("daemonify"), and in the process learn their memories. Ardyn didn't want to gently caress with the line of kings, the line of Lucis, who were at war with the imperials. However, the imperials showed Ardyn the sleeping astral, Ifrit. They asked him to daemonify him. He said no, but Ifrit started to wake up and Ardyn daemonified him in order to subdue him. In doing so, he learned all of his memories (how to speak their language, etc.,) and learned that his betrothed oracle had told Somnus that the gods picked Ardyn, which is why he dueled him. The duel (her death, specifically) made the starscourge take over, and ultimately that's why Ardyn was rejected. Seeking vengeance, he decided to submit to the Starscourge and end the line of Lucis. Ardyn goes to Insomnia and nearly kills Noctis's dad. During the fight, Somnus's ghost is summoned to fight Ardyn. Somnus apologizes for being jealous and displays regret. Ardyn doesn't care. Right before he's able to kill Noctis's dead, Ardyn is stopped by Bahamut. Bahamut shows Ardyn that there's a win-win scenario. He can finally find peace in his death and end the line of Lucis by covering the world in darkness and dying to Noctis. Did I mention gods are assholes? Ardyn proceeds to make a bunch of technology to empower the Imperials to defeat Lucis, like magitek troops. Events of FFXV begin. Ardyn meets Noctis, Ardyn steals the crystal, Ardyn kills Lunafreya (which plunges the world into darkness). He also unleashes all the magitek troops and demons into the empire and kills or daemonifies everyone. The empire is entirely destroyed. After Noctis takes a nap-nap for 10 years, Ardyn has taken over the capital and staffed it with daemons, and puts Ifrit out front to protect him. He's also taken over some of the kings' ancestors, such as Somnus. Noctis defeats the daemons, Ifrit, and the kingly ancestors. Somnus's ghost tells Noctis to free Ardyn. Final fight, Noctis defeats Ardyn and kills him. Ardyn says he'll see him in the "beyond". Noctis now needs to die, infused with the power of all the kingly ancestors, and kill Ardyn in the afterlife in order to truly defeat him. Noctis ascends the throne and asks to be infused with the power of kings and killed. Like Ardyn, Noctis has his soul trapped within the crystal too. There, he unleashes the power of kings and finally kills Ardyn forever, dying in the process. Fulfilling the prophesy, this somehow also ends the Starscourge and happily ever after. Noctis and Lunafreya are seen happily sitting together in the afterlife, but they're both dead-dead and this isn't real. The sun rises for the first time in a long time. Bonus alternate ending: Ardyn decides to kill both Noctis and the Astrals, because the Astrals loving suck. Bahamut decides to end all life and resurrects Lunafreya to aid him. Instead, she tries to cooperate with Ardyn to stop Bahamut. Ardyn instead summons Ifrit to stop her, and she takes in Ifrit's starscourge to free him, turning her into a daemon. Noctis arrives, defeats Ardyn, and spares him telling him his only salvation is to defeat Bahamut. Noctis gives Ardyn the ring and Ardyn ascends the throne instead of Noctis. Noctis defeats Bahamuts physical form, and then Ardyn destroys Bahamut's soul (the same way Noctis originally destroys Ardyn's soul). This somehow ends the Starscourge. Ardyn and Bahamut both disintegrate, but Ardyn is sad that he'll be forgotten. Instead, the spirit of his betrothed oracle appears to remind him she'll never forget him, and he asks her to always be with him. She agrees and they both fade away. Noctis and Lunafreya, alive, name Ardyn to be the true First King. FFXV is a loving mess and I wish they didn't present what is actually a pretty good story the way they did. About 10% of this is in the game, 50% of it is in a DLC, and it's all relatively inconsistent. In fact, I think it isn't even established if the gods made the crystal, if the crystal made the gods, or if the crystal is naturally occurring. The Starscourge also isn't shown to be defeatable. There is zero connection established between the Starscourge and Ardyn or the Starscourge and the Astrals (or Bahamut specifically) in a way where defeating Ardyn or Bahamut/Astrals would end the Starscourge jokes fucked around with this message at 01:22 on Dec 17, 2022 |
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Dec 17, 2022 01:11
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SoP reveals that the source of the Starscourge is the Lufenians dumping darkness into the dimension for their giant darkness harvesting scheme
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Dec 17, 2022 02:14
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I'm going through FFVII for the "first" time (I think I've only ever made it as far as Mount Corel, and that was probably over ten years ago) because it's one of the blindspots I've been wanting to fill in, and it's very funny that the shameful compromise Barret made that made him despise Shinra and turn to actual ecoterrorism is letting them build a mako reactor to replace... a coal mine. Part of me wants to believe the game is trying to draw a parallel there, but that detail is thrown out so offhandedly (and mako energy presented as so destructive in comparison to the former status quo) that I'm not sure I actually buy into that.
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Dec 17, 2022 02:49
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The coal mine detail in FF7 is pure black comedy.
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Dec 17, 2022 03:25
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There's also the fun followup in Advent Children when Barret becomes an oil baron.
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Dec 17, 2022 03:42
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Regarding Starscourge, isn't it very strongly implied that it's just some alien disease carried by the Meteor of the Six (by the name itself even, which is just "disease of the stars" in Japanese)? Or that something on the Meteor caused malaria to mutate into it (the explicit connection to malaria is kind of dumb, but I guess they just wanted to make it clear that it was actually a disease and not some pure magic thing). My understanding of how it's eliminated is basically "strong enough magic." The Astrals aren't strong enough to do it on their own, but Bahamut creates this scheme whereby power is gradually gathered through the Lucian line of kings, sort of like One for All in My Hero Academia or something. Noctis is basically the point where enough power has finally been gathered to wipe out all the Starscourge. So basically the answer to how the Starscourge is removed is "it's magic" but at least it's already pre-established that the Crystal is a source of huge magic (just not quite enough on its own I guess until it's been stockpiled for generations).
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Dec 17, 2022 03:44
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I finished Stranger of Paradise. It is truly one of the games of all time. I loving love it. Summary incoming. 
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Dec 17, 2022 03:59
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It sucks because the summaries above describe a really cool and legit good story, but my one and only play through of vanilla XV communicated almost none of that. Still like the game though.
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Dec 17, 2022 04:02
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the summaries above include the second round of dlc's, which ruined the game's original story in favor of one where god is evil and you kill him vanilla was better
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Dec 17, 2022 04:03
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Was removing all agency from Ifrit by just having Ardyn make it demon-diseased in the base game, in the first DLCs, the mostly-cancelled second DLCs, or some extra part of the universe? I always hate that kind of reveal. A character is always made less interesting with the reveal of 'actually they were being controlled by something else'.
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Dec 17, 2022 04:08
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Arist posted:I'm going through FFVII for the "first" time (I think I've only ever made it as far as Mount Corel, and that was probably over ten years ago) because it's one of the blindspots I've been wanting to fill in, and it's very funny that the shameful compromise Barret made that made him despise Shinra and turn to actual ecoterrorism is letting them build a mako reactor to replace... a coal mine. Part of me wants to believe the game is trying to draw a parallel there, but that detail is thrown out so offhandedly (and mako energy presented as so destructive in comparison to the former status quo) that I'm not sure I actually buy into that. My read on this has been for the last few years that it's all about tradition. Barret sold out his peoples' time-honored ways for promises of money and easy living. FFVII talks about many things and it's not always focused on environmentalism. Shinra's eradication of individual cultures is another one of its sins.
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Dec 17, 2022 04:15
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Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin: Holy poo poo, where to begin. It seems like it's not 100% clear if it's a remake or a prequel, but then it ends up being a prequel. The combat is fun once you get used to it, and the levels are gorgeous. I was especially fond of FFXI Tower level. The dialogue is corny and edgy and perfect. They did the amnesia angle pretty well and actually added quite a bit to the Lufenian's back story. A super advanced people on another plane, using Cornelia as a testbed for loving with Darkness and Light levels by resetting time over and over, but they didn't count on their field scientist getting sick of this bullshit and blowing it all up.... by becoming the embodiment of Chaos to encourage the growth of Light until they can tell the Lufenians to gently caress off and break the time loop, with his bros becoming the Four Fiends. I loving love it. I guess the only plot point I miss by not doing the DLC is the Warriors of Light who come to kill Jack all suck and die so he strikes a deal with Bahamut to make them stronger faster. loving amazing game. -Dragoon: It's a job available to Jack. Sophia can also become a Dragoon, so I declare either one the Official Dragoon. -Cid: None, though I guess there's a Tonberry Blacksmith in the Wanderer of the Rift named "Cid Tonberrini", so it counts. -Summons/Primals/Eikons: The Evoker can summon a little elemental spirit to provide support, but other than Bahamut being summonable by the Summoner job and central to the DLC, there's no Summons. Evoker gets some abilities based on Summon abilities, and the Breaker gets Odin's big gently caress off sword move. Tonberries: They're rare tough enemies you find from time to time. Nothing super special. -Chocobos: None -Moogles: None -Final Boss: Darkness Manifest, but he's just a much more elaborately modeled Chaos. He actually killed me a couple times despite playing on Story mode because I'm poo poo garbage. Biggs and Wedge: Not Present. (EDIT: I have been informed that if you go to Cornelia between missions, two of the guards you can talk to are named Biggs and Wedge. I didn't do this during my play through, so I'll do it next time) Time to beat: 12:45 in game, 13:25 according to the Epic Game Store Overall rating: Really good, I'll play it again to do the DLCs sometime. I rate it Frank Sinatra/10 Up next: Emotional Damage the game, I guess? Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, coming up. EDIT: SoPFFO is also noteworthy in that I do not believe there is a single airship. Actually I guess the FFIV Sky Fortress level is one so I take it back FrostyPox fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Dec 17, 2022 |
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Dec 17, 2022 04:19
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Angeal looks (and talks) sorta like Kiryu with different hair.
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Dec 17, 2022 05:36
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Biggs and Wedge are in SoP, by the way. They're the names of a pair of the Cornelian guards you can talk to between missions.
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Dec 17, 2022 05:41
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really enjoying the overhauled combat in Crisis Core Reunion. The bones of the PSP game are still there but it's way faster and more exciting. there's a fun new mechanic where you can do more damage with physical abilities if you change them together with your standard combo which is pretty satisfying to do. also, the short loading times alone make going through optional missions a million times more enjoyable than it was on the PSP edit: lol, they added a tutorial pop-up that tells you "you level up from gaining EXP, it's not random, the EXP bar is just hidden" Augus fucked around with this message at 06:54 on Dec 17, 2022 |
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Dec 17, 2022 06:28
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jokes posted:This is all the Ardyn poo poo, and since he's so central it's basically just the FFXV story:
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Dec 17, 2022 07:03
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I could have sworn the FFIV 2D Remake from PSP was also on Steam but it’s not. Did it get taken down when they put up the Pixel Remaster?
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Dec 17, 2022 07:10
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Hit or miss Clitoris posted:I thought I did everything in this game, how do you get this ending? You don't. The alternate ending was going to be worked towards by the second wave of DLCs, but then all but the first one got cancelled.
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Dec 17, 2022 07:19
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jokes posted:This is all the Ardyn poo poo, and since he's so central it's basically just the FFXV story: Some of this stuff is pretty neat, but I haven't played any of the DLC. It feels weird the movie didn't go into much of this either.
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Dec 17, 2022 07:53
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Detective No. 27 posted:I could have sworn the FFIV 2D Remake from PSP was also on Steam but it’s not. Did it get taken down when they put up the Pixel Remaster? That version was never on anything but PSP. You may be thinking of The After Years.
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Dec 17, 2022 07:55
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Cleretic posted:You don't. The alternate ending was going to be worked towards by the second wave of DLCs, but then all but the first one got cancelled. I think that stuff is in the novel? I bought it but haven't had the chance to read it yet. This one: https://www.amazon.com/Final-Fantasy-XV-Dawn-Future/dp/1646090004
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Dec 17, 2022 07:57
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Cleretic posted:You don't. The alternate ending was going to be worked towards by the second wave of DLCs, but then all but the first one got cancelled. Along with the full mod making kit too. That FF was the FF that turned me off of buying any further games from the series. The way they did the PC market was just dirty, if not outright illegal. Don't forget that the publisher made the dev team waste time putting in a crossover DLC for a game that never came out. And the character in it had better chemistry than the love interest in the base game according to most people. Seeing the two of them go "bye! I'll see you later!" as she's walking off to never be seen again was a bit of a "What the gently caress?" moment when you realize that this entire DLC expansion was for nothing. But hey, they can put the full game, which includes at least one missing continent and like 70% of all the game's content and cool poo poo we never get to see (including a proper party lineup where all the characters that were supposed to be recruitable can join without heavily abusing potentially game breaking bugs  ) in a novel.Sounds like the book got hosed over too in terms of content. Which is mildly amusing after everything that happened to the game. Edit: I forgot that Comrades clearly had a phase 1 version of the unreleased alternate path's final boss. So they even had parts of it ready to begin with. Man, what a poo poo show. Archonex fucked around with this message at 09:44 on Dec 17, 2022 |
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Dec 17, 2022 09:33
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There was crossover dlc? (Aside from Noctis being in Tekken)
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Dec 17, 2022 09:50
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SyntheticPolygon posted:There was crossover dlc? Yeah, with some card collecting game or something that was never released. I think to make it even more confusing they made you fight Garuda from FFXIV with the crossover character in the unreleased game or something like that. Or maybe that was an entirely different DLC update.
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Dec 17, 2022 10:40
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is noctis any good in Tekken?
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Dec 17, 2022 10:42
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No But that makes him hype
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Dec 17, 2022 10:44
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I know that Tekken players don't like him, so there's that.
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Dec 17, 2022 10:45
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I think he's sweet actually
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Dec 17, 2022 10:58
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Archonex posted:Yeah, with some card collecting game or something that was never released. I think to make it even more confusing they made you fight Garuda from FFXIV with the crossover character in the unreleased game or something like that. Or maybe that was an entirely different DLC update. Oh yeah, Terra Wars, which never came out, and Terra Battle 2 which came out like two years? after Terra Battle 1, flopped super hard, died in six months and then Terra Battle 1 died two years later because nobody liked it Man. Mistwalker.
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Dec 17, 2022 11:18
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Augus posted:really enjoying the overhauled combat in Crisis Core Reunion. The bones of the PSP game are still there but it's way faster and more exciting. there's a fun new mechanic where you can do more damage with physical abilities if you change them together with your standard combo which is pretty satisfying to do. I recently unlocked the Materia fusion stuff and I made a Barrier give +30% HP by fusing it with another Barrier (I always use Barrier even though I'm not sure exactly how much it's reducing damage). One kind of annoying thing is how you don't know an enemy's elemental weakness until you're in combat with it, at which point you can't change your equipment (or at least I don't think you can). There are some enemies where it's obvious (regular troops are usually weak against fire, machines against thunder, fire-y things against blizzard, etc) but for most it isn't. Also this has revealed to me that apparently Zack is "Zacks" in Japanese. Extremely disappointing and has basically ruined the entire FF7 franchise for me.
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Dec 17, 2022 11:22
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Crisis Core Reunion sounds like fun. As much as the PSP original had its annoyances I still liked it. The question is if to get it on PC or Switch, nice looking or portability.... By the way, did they nerf Costly Punch? I remember it being the best way to deal with the difficulty spike on some endgame missions.
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Dec 17, 2022 11:40
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kirbysuperstar posted:Oh yeah, Terra Wars, which never came out, and Terra Battle 2 which came out like two years? after Terra Battle 1, flopped super hard, died in six months and then Terra Battle 1 died two years later because nobody liked it Basically, FFXV is filled to the brim with wasted potential. Maybe we'll get a version that was actually completed and has all the features it was supposed to have in a decade or so when they release a best hits or something. Shame too, since the open world paired with the combat was fantastic. It just needed more work done on it and to not be so hamstrung by corporate. If they had gotten that level editing software out like they promised in advertisement (also kind of illegal depending on where you live to not fulfill their obligations) the game's community would probably still be alive given the Skryim amounts of potential it had in terms of modding. Instead we just got lovely model swaps.
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Dec 17, 2022 11:48
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kirbysuperstar posted:Oh yeah, Terra Wars, which never came out, and Terra Battle 2 which came out like two years? after Terra Battle 1, flopped super hard, died in six months and then Terra Battle 1 died two years later because nobody liked it They made three classic JRPGs that were well received and sold well enough to get a massive cult following, then decided to gently caress about with lovely mobile games for a full decade. Absolutely baffling - they could have been a household name in the JRPG space by now if they'd stuck with it. At least Fantasian's meant to be decent. I tried it briefly but I don't really gel with tablet gaming.
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Dec 17, 2022 12:17
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don't forget such hits like the two or three Blue Dragon DS games or ah.. away: shuffle dungeon?
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Dec 17, 2022 12:21
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Mistwalker made Lost Odyssey, which although good is just worse NieR Replicant. Blue Dragon is among the worst jrpgs I have ever played. Never tried Last Story but the fact that Xenoblade got a bajillion sequels and a full-on remake while Last Story is shoved into the gaming dustbin of history kind of tells me all I need to know about it. So from where I’m standing they’re 1 for 3 and that one is shaky as poo poo to be honest considering everything good it did NieR did better. Maybe it holds up in retrospect.
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Dec 17, 2022 13:09
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NieR Occomata posted:Mistwalker made Lost Odyssey, which although good is just worse NieR Replicant. 
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Dec 17, 2022 13:12
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NieR Occomata posted:Mistwalker made Lost Odyssey, which although good is just worse NieR Replicant. Because... there are parts you have to read?
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Dec 17, 2022 13:15
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The One Thousand Years of Dreams segments are super contextually similar to the weapon stories/text adventure segments of Nier/Automata, yes. And the main story is nothing to write home about at all, I barely loving remember it outside of it being vaguely similar to FF4’s. Like if Lost Odyssey didn’t have the thousand years of dreams we’d be all like “remember lost odyssey, that not very interesting ff4 clone starring immortals? Weird, right?” On the other hand it’s been literally a decade and a half since I last played LO so I’m willing to admit that I might be totally wrong, but the only thing I really remember are the thousand years of dreams portions which, again, Replicant did way way better a couple of years later. Hence the comparison NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 13:36 on Dec 17, 2022 |
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Dec 17, 2022 13:34
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