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Suikoden V is a lot of fun so far (and it helps having the guide Rascyc posted), but just a quick question about war battles and perma-death... Generally speaking, if a unit retreats, does everyone within it retreat as well? Could you be in a situation where say 1 character retreated and the other two in the same unit died? I just finished the battle of Lelcar and I had two units fall. When they did fall their dialogue seemed to indicate they had just retreated, and sure enough they seem to be back in their castle, but it still gave me quite a fright. Can I expect it to be blatantly obvious when a character perma-dies?
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Jun 16, 2014 21:32
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Nate RFB posted:Suikoden V is a lot of fun so far (and it helps having the guide Rascyc posted), but just a quick question about war battles and perma-death... Generally speaking, if a unit retreats, does everyone within it retreat as well? Could you be in a situation where say 1 character retreated and the other two in the same unit died? I just finished the battle of Lelcar and I had two units fall. When they did fall their dialogue seemed to indicate they had just retreated, and sure enough they seem to be back in their castle, but it still gave me quite a fright. Can I expect it to be blatantly obvious when a character perma-dies? If a character dies you will straight-up know it, don't worry.
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Jun 16, 2014 21:34
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triplexpac posted:Speaking of translation issues, I was listening to a podcast with one of the people who translated Policenauts. Apparently that game was coded completely differently depending on what section of the game you were in, so it was a huge headache to get that job done. It's ex-Let's Play mod slowbeef, and there's some more words about that scattered throughout his LP of the game, if you found that interesting.
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Jun 16, 2014 23:03
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BloodWulfe posted:Xenosaga. Don't get Star Ocean 3 if you like playing JRPG's for the story. The entire first disc is can be summed up as "the party gets sidetracked as far away as possible from the main plot". By stranding them on a medieval planet, twice in a row, while trying to constantly imply there's a sense of urgency about them getting to where they actually need to go. That said, the combat is really good, and it does have some fun scene chewing. Neddy Seagoon fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Jun 17, 2014 |
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Jun 17, 2014 05:26
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Neddy Seagoon posted:That said, the combat is really good, and it does have some fun scene chewing.  The numbers are utterly opaque, item crafting is annoying and stupidly expensive, and that bonus bar--the one that tantalizes you with the promise of 3x EXP and double gold? The game's mathematical progression is balanced around the assumption that you're always getting the bonus, which negates the purpose of a bonus and turns not getting 3x EXP into a penalty. There are no clever, cheaty workarounds that'll let you hit Level 100 in five minutes within a few hours of starting the game, and you only get paired endings with the main character, and that plays last so if you wanna see it, you get to have the pleasure of watching seven or eight other identical epilogues that you've already seen half a dozen times. And when I say postgame dungeon, I really mean it: unlike SO2, you actually have to beat the final boss to get the superequipment that would've helped you beat him. SO3 isn't just a bad game, it's also a bad Star Ocean game. Fur20 fucked around with this message at 08:40 on Jun 17, 2014 |
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Jun 17, 2014 08:38
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I remember SO3 being really easy and that the challenge was getting through the whole game. I'm trying to remember if it was The End of Time or 3 that you could just spam the sideways kick with the main character repeatedly to own every encounter; bosses included. I can't remember because in my mind the two blend together into a 'oh boy these are not great games' stew. Did Tri-Ace work on the Death Knells of the Star Ocean Franchise?
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Jun 17, 2014 13:36
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hubris.height posted:I'm trying to remember if it was The End of Time or 3 that you could just spam the sideways kick with the main character repeatedly to own every encounter; bosses included. SO3 is Till the End of Time. And they're all made by Tri-Ace, though SO4 is half them and half TOSE. But yes, Side Kick and Maria in general were the key to breaking SO3 over your knee. SO4 had the same thing with Meracle, once she learned Drill Spike and X-Claw you just used those and won everything.
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Jun 17, 2014 13:40
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kirbysuperstar posted:SO4 had the same thing with Meracle, once she learned Drill Spike and X-Claw you just used those and won everything. Alternatively, following the Maria logic, you used Reimi and just filled the entire battlefield with as many arrows as possible.
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Jun 17, 2014 13:44
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Ok this is a dumb question but what the hell In Final Fantasy 6, the Opera scene. You're on the rooftop as Celes, and you have to "dance" with the ghost. Is there any bonus to doing it right? I always tried to get my sprite to line up with his in a way that made sense but it was impossible.
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Jun 17, 2014 14:48
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If you do it wrong you'll fail and have to retry, but the game is super generous so whatever.
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Jun 17, 2014 15:15
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triplexpac posted:Ok this is a dumb question but what the hell
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Jun 17, 2014 15:41
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So what's the deal with the Wild Arms series? I beat XF recently, and I liked it enough to play another (although I know the rest aren't SRPGs like XF). I know 2 has an insane translation and plot, but I'm not too sure about the rest.
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Jun 17, 2014 20:39
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Cake Attack posted:So what's the deal with the Wild Arms series? I beat XF recently, and I liked it enough to play another (although I know the rest aren't SRPGs like XF). Wild Arms 1 is a fairly straightforward JRPG with a slight Wild West theme. Its biggest gimmick is that each character has their own unique ability (Rudy uses gums, Jack uses special sword techniques he learns from the environment, Cecilia uses magic) and that it has Zelda-like dungeons, complete with items you unlock. It's worth playing and has aged surprisingly well aside from the graphics. Wild Arms 2 is an extension of WA1 and is very similar but with more characters and a bugfuck insane plot. It has less of a Wild West theme. The translation is infamously bad and several important things are mistranslated. Not just story but puzzles as well. It also introduces the Search System which is the worst thing Wild Arms has ever had but refuses to go away. Wild Arms 3, in comparison, goes all-in on the Wild West theme. It has a ton of weird gimmicks and a huge emphasis on weird ideas like vehicle battles. It's pretty fun to play though, incredibly lengthy, and is basically the last of the traditional Wild Arms games. Its biggest problem is probably that it is overly-long. Instead of one ongoing plot it is divided into several 'arcs", complete with their own version of the animated opening, so you keep going and going and going well past the climax. WA4 completely changes the battle system and dungeon layout. It de-emphasizes the puzzle solved in favor of a more complex combat system involving hexes and positioning. The plot is completely loving awful. This is probably the one least worth playing. The combat system is actually pretty good but everything else is pretty meh and you have to deal with a really tedious plot which boils down to "ADULTS SURE DO SUCK, HUH?" WA5 is like WA4 in a lot of ways. It uses an improved version of the same combat system and still has fewer puzzles. It was the Anniversary game so it has a billion references to previous Wild Arms games. It also is basically a mecha show with a huge emphasis on the protagonist wanting his own giant robot and a lot of straight-up homages to mecha shows that were popular at the time. Wild Arms: Alter Code F is a remake of Wild Arms 1. It's actually kind of worse than the original game in a lot of ways (Search System, crappier dungeon design) but has improved visuals. I'd play WA1 before WA:ACF and then give ACF a try later if you really want. None of the games are connected by plots but they have reoccurring weapons/characters/items, Final Fantasy style. I'd give Wild Arms 1 a shot if you have a tolerance for PS1-era JRPGs or otherwise try Wild Arms 3. The other games are harder to recommend on their own merits and it depends on what you end up liking/disliking about the franchise. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 21:11 on Jun 17, 2014 |
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Jun 17, 2014 21:07
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gently caress you, I liked the Search System in 2 and 3. It was new and different and at least tried something new. Is there a Fixed Translation Edition of 2 out there somewhere? Never knew that the plot was hosed by a bad translation at all. It seriously has the best Load Game to Gameplay sequence in history if you are on Disc 2. It justifies the entire thing. So good.
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Jun 17, 2014 21:13
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The thing about the original Wild Arms is that the sprite based map graphics have aged pretty well. It's the inexplicable change to 3D battle graphics that look like warmed over doo doo. I think the map sprites still have a certain charm and are animated really well. Wild Arms 4 was a ton of fun despite the odd and almost uncomfortable message and WA5 is fun because the protagonist is basically a crazy person played straight. I know 3 is most peoples' favorite of the next gen titles but I was never able to really get into it enough to beat it. It's a pretty decent game though.
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Jun 17, 2014 21:14
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I feel like WA3 is where the series hit its stride with the Western sort of theme they have going on, and then it just sort of fell off there with 4. I haven't played 5, though, so it might have gotten good in that department again.
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Jun 17, 2014 21:19
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Wild Arms is great. I stalled out about half way through XF and never finished it, but I've played through all of the others. All of the games share a common theme and some gameplay elements: Wild West atmosphere, dungeon puzzles, tools to interact with the environment, Guardians, awesome music, and a bunch of other things. The dungeon puzzles aren't on par with Lufia 2 blocks or weed puzzles, but they're always a fun way to break things up. The first three are pretty traditional. The original had a remake for the PS2 that added a bunch of new playable characters, graphics overhaul, new dungeon layouts, and more. It got a lot of hate for reasons I can't remember, but it's pretty solid if you don't want to dive into the original. The second one hasn't aged very gracefully, and the translation ranges between genuinely terrible and wonderful (Liz and Ard are incredible), but it's more of the original, for good or bad. The third game is my favorite. Go play that one. Four and five are when the games start to veer away from traditional JRPGs and previous WA games. They have less puzzles, which sucks, but they do introduce a pretty fun hex-based battle system. You move characters around and apply status effects to hexes instead of characters. The story and characters are ridiculous in both, but they're fun nonetheless.
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Jun 17, 2014 21:21
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hubris.height posted:gently caress you, I liked the Search System in 2 and 3. It was new and different and at least tried something new. Mashing Square randomly occasionally mixed with having to talk to a random NPC to trigger the ability to actually find something by mashing square, is not good gameplay at all. It was different but different isn't the same as good. There's no fixed translation for WA2. It just doesn't have a big enough fanbase for someone to go through and retranslate a lengthy-rear end RPG.
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Jun 17, 2014 21:43
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Cool, thanks everyone. I'll try 3 first, and then potentially try 1 afterwards. I do have a somewhat hard time dealing with PS1 era RPGs, but I can manage if they're done well. I only played Suikoden II for the first time like two years ago and I thought it held up great, so maybe I'll feel the same about WA1.
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Jun 17, 2014 21:48
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I feel like you guys are slamming Wild ARMs 2 a little bit too much. Sure, the story and translation are goofy as hell, but not offensively so. It has good puzzles, a good diversity of characters with compelling unique mechanics and great music; it's certainly a game worth playing in my view. Just don't expect it to be as good as Wild ARMs 3. As for the other games, I've never played 4, and I couldn't stand 5 for more than one hour.
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Jun 17, 2014 22:11
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The translation is completely awful, but in a hilarious way.
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Jun 17, 2014 22:15
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Wild Arms 2 was the best and the translation is perfect as it is.
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Jun 17, 2014 22:20
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It's also literally the price of a sandwich on PSN, and it's definitely worth as much if not more than a sandwich.
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Jun 17, 2014 22:26
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Except for the one part where the translation is so bad that it makes one puzzle almost completely impossible outside of trial and error because the translators weren't sure which pantheon the puzzle was talking about so you got poo poo like Jupiter's Day (Thursday). I think the only parts of that puzzle that was translated correctly were Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday because Tiu, Frieda, and Saturn don't really have immediate equivalents outside their pantheons.
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Jun 17, 2014 22:28
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Wild Arms 5 may have an absolutely terrible plot, with various villains being forgiven for horrific crimes including loving GENOCIDE, but the gameplay and music are both pretty solid, and there are tons of bonus bosses to fight. It also allows you to fight bonus bosses in each dungeon AND on the world map, and the reward for winning is being able to flip off random encounters whenever you like. That alone makes it one of my favorite WA games.The White Dragon posted:Except for the one part where the translation is so bad that it makes one puzzle almost completely impossible outside of trial and error because the translators weren't sure which pantheon the puzzle was talking about so you got poo poo like Jupiter's Day (Thursday). I think the only parts of that puzzle that was translated correctly were Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday because Tiu, Freida, and Saturn don't really have equivalents outside their pantheons. Is that why I could never figure that one out? Huh.
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Jun 17, 2014 22:36
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Heavy neutrino posted:I feel like you guys are slamming Wild ARMs 2 a little bit too much. Sure, the story and translation are goofy as hell, but not offensively so. It has good puzzles, a good diversity of characters with compelling unique mechanics and great music; it's certainly a game worth playing in my view. Just don't expect it to be as good as Wild ARMs 3. Wild Arms 2's translation is indeed offensively bad, even for the time it came out. It is really ridiculous that anyone got paid money for that, it would be something mocked as a free fan-translation let alone a for-pay product. It isn't just that it impacts the already goofy as story, when puzzles are mistranslated that goes from "goofy" to "unacceptable."
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Jun 17, 2014 22:37
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Yeah, I'm not seeing a problem with Wild Arms 2.    
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Jun 17, 2014 22:40
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Direct translating Manzai, by accident or purpose, is an act of genius.
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Jun 17, 2014 22:43
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Jun 17, 2014 23:01
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Yeah, Wild Arms 2 is worth playing just for the nonstop thrill ride of absolute nonsense. It's like an entire game of reading the back of a chinese bootleg action figure's box.
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Jun 17, 2014 23:21
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Oh my gooooood I never realized just how terrible this translation was when I was 12 or whatever and enthralled by the game.
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Jun 18, 2014 00:03
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I actually just finished it a few weeks ago. It is much better than Wild Arms 1, that's for sure. It's game play and story definitely hold up even now, really. Although, the end-game just kind of shits itself plotwise. And Lilika's sister never gets any of her foreshadowed significance...
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Jun 18, 2014 00:04
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I feel like the story in WA2 is trying to do way too many things at once. Once you get past the first little bit it explodes out in like a dozen different directions and it's not written (or translated) well enough to do any of it well.
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Jun 18, 2014 00:09
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ImpAtom posted:Wild Arms 2 is an extension of WA1 and is very similar but with more characters and a bugfuck insane plot. It has less of a Wild West theme. Is this true? I haven't played WA2, but I know it at least had ponchos and saloons. If you skipped over WA1's intro, you might not even realize there was supposed to be a western element.
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Jun 18, 2014 00:53
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Yeah, saying Wild Arms 2 is less western is sort of odd. But WA3 is peak Western, despite the presence of Fish Christ.
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Jun 18, 2014 00:56
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Rinkles posted:Is this true? I haven't played WA2, but I know it at least had ponchos and saloons. If you skipped over WA1's intro, you might not even realize there was supposed to be a western element. That town is like the most western Wild Arms 2 gets. WA3 eclipses both of course.
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Jun 18, 2014 01:02
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Neither WA1 nor WA2 were actually very western, (despite the intro theme to 1), especially when compared to 3. I remember a lot of equipment being vaguely westernish with cowboy hats and sheriff stars and ponchos in 1, though. All I remember of 2 was it being insane as hell and looking worse outside battles than 1 did outside battles because it was in Early Playstation 3D instead of nice spritework. 3 meanwhile, was western as gently caress. Everybody's primary weapon is a gun of some sort now instead of one guy in 1 having them as his special move and otherwise using swords.
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Jun 18, 2014 01:22
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What's the name of those old PS1 or 2 mech turn based RPGs?
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Jun 19, 2014 01:00
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TipsyMcStagger posted:What's the name of those old PS1 or 2 mech turn based RPGs? I assume you mean Front Mission which had SNES, PS1 and PS2 games. Front Mission 1 got a DS re-release in English. Front Mission 2 never got an English release but I *think* got a translation patch Front Mission 3 is PS1 and available on the PSN now. Front Mission 4 was PS2 and is relatively easy to find in PS2 bargin bins Front Mission 5 was also PS2 but never got an English release. It has a full translation patch though. There are other ones but they're probably not what you're looking for. (Super Robot Wars, Vanguard Bandits.)
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Jun 19, 2014 01:13
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TipsyMcStagger posted:What's the name of those old PS1 or 2 mech turn based RPGs? Or do you mean Xenogears/Xenosaga?
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Jun 19, 2014 01:14
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