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Mana Khemia 1 had a problem where it couldn't decide if most of the characters were supposed to be sympathetic characters or overblown gimmicky caricatures (except for the main character, who was mostly just a characterless doormat). I was not especially fond of Mana Khemia 1. Mana Khemia 2 just said gently caress it and intentionally handed you two full parties of completely unsympathetic arseholes and idiots. You aren't really supposed to cheer for any of them, you're supposed to sit back and laugh at jerks being jerks to other jerks. I had a lot of fun with Mana Khemia 2. (It didn't hurt that it was also the better GAME of the two by a significant margin.)
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Apr 10, 2014 03:17
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Forest Thief Pud posted:From what I remember, Jude runs off into the woods and becomes a hermit/ranger and communes with animals because he's an awful person. Yulie ends up teaching children in this one forest town while she's waiting for her dead brother to come back to her, because Jude left her brother's music box on a fence before he ran off. Huh. I don't remember any of that. I still find him more tolerable than Dean though, every single word out of Dean's mouth was agonizing and he was the most obnoxious kind of JRPG naive protagonist who thinks everything will be okay because he said so.
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Apr 10, 2014 05:00
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wateyad posted:Mana Khemia 1 had a problem where it couldn't decide if most of the characters were supposed to be sympathetic characters or overblown gimmicky caricatures (except for the main character, who was mostly just a characterless doormat). I was not especially fond of Mana Khemia 1. This is more or less how I feel, though I still really liked MK1. Every single character in MK2 is a Terrible Person, but this is a good thing because the entire game is am arms race to see who can out-rear end in a top hat all the other assholes and the result is amazing. It also helps that the game doesn't take itself even remotely seriously. Disregarding the story and characters though, MK2 is a much better game anyway.
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Apr 10, 2014 07:44
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Super Jay Mann posted:Disregarding the story and characters though, MK2 is a much better game anyway. I can't disagree with this any more strongly. MK2 basically stretches one game's worth of content over two games. It forces you to redo entire segments of the game with slightly different perspectives and doesn't actually do anything to improve on MK1. I can't think of a single thing it did better except not having a lovely PSP port. It isn't the worst game ever but it doesn't have enough content to justify the poo poo they try to do with it and it shows. MK1 has some recycling problems but MK2 quadruples that. MK2 suffers too much from trying to do the two protagonist thing but not actually having the content to back it up, as I said above. It really is a bad idea and other Atelier games have given you a protagonist choice without being quite so tedious about it. It also was released in the same time frame as Ar Tonelico 2 and so the NISA translation is a pile of butts and they even threw in a game-breaking glitch for good measure, but that isn't really the original game's fault. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Apr 10, 2014 |
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Apr 10, 2014 08:04
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O__O posted:Speaking of PS2, which is considered the best PS2 Atelier game? As said, in English, Mana Khemia 1. Atelier Violet/Viorate was also very good (though its inventory system could get cumbersome), but it's only available in Japanese and never even got anything approaching a fan patch, and NISA passed it over for import when it got the PSP re-release. It's really too bad, because I know a good number of Japanese fans considered it the best implementation of Atelier crafting on the PS2 (and, until the later Arland and Dusk games rolled along, it was considred the best "pure" Atelier game alongside Elie for ages and the best of the PS2 games overall, which is why I bring it up at all), it has a generally likeable cast who you want to root for, the plot is fairly sensible and doesn't engage in the excesses some of the later installments have gotten famous for, and it's also gorgeous - it uses a sprite engine sort of similar to the Iris games, but instead of the larger scrolling areas it went for more "static" single screens with little scrolling - but this meant that each room/house/town section was packed with detail and avoided that weird pixelated "fuzziness" Iris, MK and ArTon sprites so often suffered from. I always found it weird that Violet, a 2003 title, was a much more handsome game than many of its successors half a decade later. But yeah, that digression aside, if you can't read Japanese then Mana Khemia 1 wins that race by quite a bit. I also personally like Iris 1 just for that game's moxie and for the Veola side content - Iris 1 has a certain spirit that the other two, and even the Khemia games to a lesser extent, lack. You really can't help but notice a fair bit of staff fatigue in Gust's output between Iris 2 (2005) up through I'd say at least Rorona (2009) - and I think it was later still that they really got their energy back.
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Apr 10, 2014 10:19
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ImpAtom posted:I can't think of a single thing it did better except not having a lovely PSP port. Oh, the PSP MK's just a port of the first one? I figured it was a separate game. Now I'm curious; what about it got horribly botched?
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Apr 10, 2014 16:15
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Dragonatrix posted:Oh, the PSP MK's just a port of the first one? I figured it was a separate game. Now I'm curious; what about it got horribly botched? The PSP port had a slew of things wrong, but mainly the framerate. In the fields, the action was slow, juttery, and was pretty much just poo poo from top to bottom. Battles fared slightly better, but in big dramatic attacks or anything that had a lot of particle effects, things started to chug pretty badly. Similarly, battle voices were just not in the game until you installed it, which was merely annoying on the PSP, but on the Vita, you have no way to install the game at all. The best you can do is save editing to make the game think it's installed to enable the voices, which is kinda silly. Other than that, there were just bugs and general problems all over the place. It's very much not a good port. Mana Khemia 2 did have a PSP port in Japan that apparently suffered from the same issues, but you got to fight Flay as a secret boss, so I think I can let it off the hook for that. I kinda wish they'd do another port of it, or maybe of the two good Ar Tonelico games. Anything but the Nosurge stuff they've been doing lately. 
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Apr 10, 2014 16:21
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What, is Nosurge worse than ATQoga? Is that even possible? I know basically nothing about it aside from most of the hymmnos singers returning for it.
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Apr 10, 2014 16:27
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S-Alpha posted:Anything but the Nosurge stuff they've been doing lately. Speaking of which, does anyone know anything about the recent Ar Nosurge? Because from the few videos I've seen it seems like a step in the right direction after Ciel.
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Apr 10, 2014 16:32
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Admiral H. Curtiss posted:Speaking of which, does anyone know anything about the recent Ar Nosurge? Because from the few videos I've seen it seems like a step in the right direction after Ciel. From what I've seen, they're basically trying to do something similar to AT2's system, but with waves upon waves of enemies for every normal encounter. Your vanguard units will basically just attack whatever's on screen at a given time, but the Reyvateil can attack the whole group, even offscreen. The thing is, the combat system seems really slow, and something about it seems off. Hopefully it isn't as bad as it looks, but after Ciel or AT3, they'd have to work hard to make it worse.
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Apr 10, 2014 16:51
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ImpAtom posted:I can't disagree with this any more strongly. MK2 basically stretches one game's worth of content over two games. It forces you to redo entire segments of the game with slightly different perspectives and doesn't actually do anything to improve on MK1. I can't think of a single thing it did better except not having a lovely PSP port. It isn't the worst game ever but it doesn't have enough content to justify the poo poo they try to do with it and it shows. MK1 has some recycling problems but MK2 quadruples that. MK2 suffers too much from trying to do the two protagonist thing but not actually having the content to back it up, as I said above. It really is a bad idea and other Atelier games have given you a protagonist choice without being quite so tedious about it. Stuff that is better about MK2 than MK1:
Playing through one side of Mana Khemia 2 is absolutely a game's worth of game and not in any way I can recall any more repetitive than the first game. If you're enjoying the game enough to want more right now when you see the end credits for the first time then you can carry over your whole inventory and blast through the repeat content with minimal hassle to see the character quests and get to the (much more fun and less bullshit than the one in the first game) post game dungeon. If you don't then keep your save file around and treat that stuff as replay value should you ever feel like coming back to it. The localisation MAKES Mana Khemia 2, the Japanese voices are nowhere near hammy enough and I don't recall any particularly noticeable signs of bad translation.
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Apr 10, 2014 19:03
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Mana Khemia 2 is better because it has Pepperoni and Goto.
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Apr 11, 2014 07:48
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wateyad posted:List of improvements We played a very, very, very different version of MK2 if you didn't find battles completely braindead from the very start. They did improve some of the basic mechanics (not having to walk back and forth to create equipment for one) but not enough that I'd overlook the problems in favor of the improvements. wateyad posted:Playing through one side of Mana Khemia 2 is absolutely a game's worth of game and not in any way I can recall any more repetitive than the first game. If you're enjoying the game enough to want more right now when you see the end credits for the first time then you can carry over your whole inventory and blast through the repeat content with minimal hassle to see the character quests and get to the (much more fun and less bullshit than the one in the first game) post game dungeon. If you don't then keep your save file around and treat that stuff as replay value should you ever feel like coming back to it. The Extra Arc is the final dungeon and is only accessible after you finish both stories. The fact that you can 'blast thorough' the repeat content just makes it all the more boring. Getting through the game the first time isn't hard. wateyad posted:The localisation MAKES Mana Khemia 2, the Japanese voices are nowhere near hammy enough and I don't recall any particularly noticeable signs of bad translation. The game is absolutely full of typos, incorrect translations, poorly written dialogue, dialogue that goes out of the boxes/offscreen, and as I said, they added a game-breaking glitch into the mix. It is an extremely bad translation and one of the last ones NISA put out of that quality before they revamped their localization processes to make sure it didn't happen again. Mana Khemia 1 isn't exactly top-notch in that department either but NISA basically got worse and worse for a while. S-Alpha posted:The PSP port had a slew of things wrong, but mainly the framerate. In the fields, the action was slow, juttery, and was pretty much just poo poo from top to bottom. Battles fared slightly better, but in big dramatic attacks or anything that had a lot of particle effects, things started to chug pretty badly. Similarly, battle voices were just not in the game until you installed it, which was merely annoying on the PSP, but on the Vita, you have no way to install the game at all. The best you can do is save editing to make the game think it's installed to enable the voices, which is kinda silly. All this is correct. The stuttery framerate also makes doing things like the fishing minigame or alchemy minigame a lot more annoying. If the minigames were no so easy to begin with it would be basically unplayable. People say it plays better on the Vita but any improvements are minimal in my experience. Weirdly, I tried it on the Vita and had battle voices so I don't know what is up with that. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 08:20 on Apr 11, 2014 |
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Apr 11, 2014 08:05
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The framerate, load times and all the sprites/background pieces looking like someone tried to take the background out of a GIF killed the PSP port for me. Shame, because it's a really good game that I enjoyed and the PSP version was the only way to play it here.
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Apr 11, 2014 08:28
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Is anyone else surprised they didn't milk .Hack this entire last generation? I'd actually really like a new .Hack style game, I thought they were fun random dungeon explorers, and there's not much that can scratch that itch.
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Apr 11, 2014 18:13
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hubris.height posted:Is anyone else surprised they didn't milk .Hack this entire last generation? I'd actually really like a new .Hack style game, I thought they were fun random dungeon explorers, and there's not much that can scratch that itch. There's always the PS3 fighting game.  Besides, Sword Art Online is essentially .Hack 2.0 in terms of setting and actually has games being made based on it.
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Apr 11, 2014 18:36
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Sword Art Online also is full of creepy incest and other garbage. .hack, in all of its dullness was infinitely more palatable.
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Apr 11, 2014 18:50
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iastudent posted:There's always the PS3 fighting game. They made a .Hack fighting game? Sounds awful, what's it called? I heard about SAO but did not hear about the incest, so gonna go ahead and just wait and see what that business is about. I need my random dungeon fix.
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Apr 11, 2014 18:58
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I think people just got tired of it. Doesn't help that the last real series of it was Link, which had all the poo poo that people complain about in anime and which stopped caring enough about the setting to flat out say the kid got sucked into his PSP instead of anything interesting (or maybe that was just the manga, not sad that Tokyopop wasn't able to finish that mess). The fighting game is/was a bonus in a JP only movie they did a few years ago. Since it's CyberConnect it just plays like one of the Ultimate Ninja Storm Naruto games and isn't really worth the money considering exchange rates.
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Apr 11, 2014 19:02
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ImpAtom posted:We played a very, very, very different version of MK2 if you didn't find battles completely braindead from the very start. They did improve some of the basic mechanics (not having to walk back and forth to create equipment for one) but not enough that I'd overlook the problems in favor of the improvements. You were playing on hard right? I wouldn't exactly call Mana Khemia 2 a difficult game but enemies that were supposed to be able to put up a fight felt enough like they were capable of doing so to be satisfying, all the way through the game. Compare to MK1 where the first chapter was absolute bullshit thanks to them seemingly forgetting to account for you not having a back row when balancing it and then the game dives off a cliff into the mother of all reverse difficulty curves. quote:The Extra Arc is the final dungeon and is only accessible after you finish both stories. Both initial stories have perfectly acceptable final dungeons / bosses and endings. The Extra Arc is actively and self consciously presented to the player as being tacked on, the week when it's supposed to take place does not exist in the timeline of the game's events as depicted by either story and nothing is ultimately achieved in it besides the characters' personal satisfaction.
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Apr 11, 2014 19:29
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.hack on PS2 was pretty good I wish there was a bigger selection of equipment though.
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Apr 12, 2014 02:16
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I have the first three of the original quadrilogy, only played through the first one so far. The fourth game in that set goes for the first three combined on eBay, and each of the G.U. games are about the same price-wise. 
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Apr 12, 2014 02:21
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I'm a very weird person that has played the original quadrilogy through three times, yet couldn't get through G.U. vol 2. I mean, the gameplay is better in G.U., but.. there's no charm at all and the story is loving stupid. I mean, IMOQ's story was dumb, but it was fun goofy dumb.
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Apr 12, 2014 03:02
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It doesnt help that at least the first two volumes of GU all had dumb tournament poo poo to move the plot along. It was fine for one game but why on earth did they use that same gimmick again?
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Apr 12, 2014 03:34
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I liked the main character in the first GU game because he was a prick to the stupid anime love interest "it's just textures on polygons not an actual field of flowers you loving nerd" then he swiftly becomes incredibly boring for no reason
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Apr 12, 2014 03:45
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GulagDolls posted:I liked the main character in the first GU game because he was a prick to the stupid anime love interest Well he got so mad at dying in video game he swore to kill everyone who kills noobs. So I think he's the real nerd.
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Apr 12, 2014 04:08
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kirbysuperstar posted:I'm a very weird person that has played the original quadrilogy through three times, yet couldn't get through G.U. vol 2. Ah man, but the ending of two has such a great payoff if you watched Roots at all.
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Apr 12, 2014 07:23
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Ibram Gaunt posted:It doesnt help that at least the first two volumes of GU all had dumb tournament poo poo to move the plot along. It was fine for one game but why on earth did they use that same gimmick again? Because GU is an incredibly lazy series. Or it's a way to introduce the the arena to people who are jumping on in the middle of the story for whatever stupid reason. Take your pick. They have another tournament arc in the third game, and they way they rope you into that one is pretty infuriating. In fact, most of Redemption is pretty infuriating and makes you wish you invested time in almost any other trilogy out there.
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Apr 12, 2014 07:38
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Kild posted:Well he got so mad at dying in video game he swore to kill everyone who kills noobs. So I think he's the real nerd. This is the goofiest motivation too. He gets trolled the first time he goes into the game and becomes a GRIM AVENGER because of it and the game takes that entirely too seriously. I was cracking up until I realized the game wasn't laughing at him too. wateyad posted:You were playing on hard right? I wouldn't exactly call Mana Khemia 2 a difficult game but enemies that were supposed to be able to put up a fight felt enough like they were capable of doing so to be satisfying, all the way through the game. Compare to MK1 where the first chapter was absolute bullshit thanks to them seemingly forgetting to account for you not having a back row when balancing it and then the game dives off a cliff into the mother of all reverse difficulty curves. Yes, MK2 was absolutely braindead. They throw so much stuff at you that you have to actively not use some of it not to wreck enemies without effort. MK1 wasn't hard by any means but still. wateyad posted:Both initial stories have perfectly acceptable final dungeons / bosses and endings. The Extra Arc is actively and self consciously presented to the player as being tacked on, the week when it's supposed to take place does not exist in the timeline of the game's events as depicted by either story and nothing is ultimately achieved in it besides the characters' personal satisfaction. There are several plot elements which are not addressed until the Extra Arc. It's very clearly the "true end" as opposed to a wacky gimmick thing.
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Apr 12, 2014 07:51
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ImpAtom posted:There are several plot elements which are not addressed until the Extra Arc. It's very clearly the "true end" as opposed to a wacky gimmick thing. Are there? It's been a while but as I remember it, everything resolved in the main plots and the the extra was just Flay being all "Hey, wanna' go beat up the Light Mana for shits and giggles?" everyone being all "Yeah, let's do it, gently caress that guy!" and then they do, nothing else really to it.
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Apr 13, 2014 02:31
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ImpAtom posted:This is the goofiest motivation too. He gets trolled the first time he goes into the game and becomes a GRIM AVENGER because of it and the game takes that entirely too seriously. I was cracking up until I realized the game wasn't laughing at him too. This is not what happens at all! It's revealed very early on in the series that he's trying to find out who put his friend in a coma and how to help her.
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Apr 13, 2014 02:33
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GulagDolls posted:This is not what happens at all! It's revealed very early on in the series that he's trying to find out who put his friend in a coma and how to help her. The problem is the game sets up that gank at the beginning by PKs, and then the entirety of the Roots anime series takes place but the game just cuts to Haseo getting ganked by Tri-Edge. I don't blame people for not obsessively following all the separate series.
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Apr 13, 2014 04:25
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GulagDolls posted:This is not what happens at all! It's revealed very early on in the series that he's trying to find out who put his friend in a coma and how to help her. Haseo is literally called the Player Killer-Killer. That is exactly what happens. He gets ganked and then starts killing PKers in response. An anime or something may say otherwise but within the confines of the game itself it's just "Haseo logs on" "Haseo gets trolled" *timeskip* "Haseo the PKKer!"
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Apr 13, 2014 04:39
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Phantasium posted:The problem is the game sets up that gank at the beginning by PKs, and then the entirety of the Roots anime series takes place but the game just cuts to Haseo getting ganked by Tri-Edge. I don't blame people for not obsessively following all the separate series. Well that'd clear that up though you really shouldn't need to know outside stuff like that.
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Apr 13, 2014 04:41
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you don't. he mentions it several times in the first game. i guess there is no half hour anime cutscene that says it 100x times in succession in favor of half hour anime cutscenes where you tell a dogman how to run a shop, or any codex entries, so perhaps that's the problem
GulagDolls fucked around with this message at 05:03 on Apr 13, 2014 |
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Apr 13, 2014 05:00
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Any good FF Tactics style srpgs on the PC?
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Apr 13, 2014 05:09
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Atlas Hugged posted:Any good FF Tactics style srpgs on the PC? X-Com: Enemy Unknown is about as close as you'll get. And it is a really solid SRPG, especially with the new expansion. Banner Saga also might fit, though it has a heavy dose of Oregon Trail in the mix too. And only the first part is currently out. Age Of Wonders 3, though stretching the definition a lot, has also been scratching that itch for me recently. Its a 4X, but there's emphasis on character building with your heroes and there's some really cool turn based combat. Other than those, which really aren't the same thing at all, SRPGs don't tend to really come out on the PC. The 3DS or Vita have way more extensive libraries.
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Apr 13, 2014 05:17
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Shining Force is on steam.
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Apr 13, 2014 05:18
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Atlas Hugged posted:Any good FF Tactics style srpgs on the PC? Eador is pretty awesome. Quite complex and challenging though.
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Apr 13, 2014 05:20
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The actual tactics part of Banner Saga is dumb and counterintuitive.
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Apr 13, 2014 05:22
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