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Serious Frolicking posted:Sharla is innately nerfed in a way that no other character is. For every other character, abilities are limited by cooldown and sometimes buff/debuff states. They can't infinitely spam their best moves because of the cooldowns (at least until you get into crazy infinite chain territory). For Sharla though, her abilities fill her skill gauge. When it is completely full, she becomes unable to do anything but empty the gauge. Even though her abilities have giant cooldowns and draw loads of aggro, someone seemed to think that sharla was so powerful that she needed a limiter. Sharla doesn't suck because healing sucks in xenoblade, she sucks due to an inexplicable design choice. I can think of at least 5 different ways to fix this just off hand, but I am confident that the upcoming port will fix none of her problems. Instead of showing skin textures where her nipples would be, they'll show nipples? That'd be balancing. Sorry, I love Xenoblade, but, heheh. evilskillit fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Feb 15, 2015 |
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Feb 15, 2015 07:54
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evilskillit posted:Instead of showing skin textures where her nipples would be, they'll show nipples. That'b balancing. Sorry, I love Xenoblade, but, heheh. 
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Feb 15, 2015 08:00
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Glad we agree on Sharla. Really though, for a top RPG or 2012-2014 the costumes leave a bit to be desired, or don't, depending upon your outlook.
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Feb 15, 2015 08:04
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punk rebel ecks posted:No, the other person. Oh, they should be right outside, along one of the branches of the cliff road.
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Feb 15, 2015 08:05
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what
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Feb 15, 2015 08:18
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Take the time to go do the first tier of the Colony 6 collection sidequest before progressing further. Getting all four buildings to level 1 gets you a portable reactor. Take that to the Gem Furnace guy at Colony 9 and he'll give you a portable Gem Furnace. Terper posted:Oh, they should be right outside, along one of the branches of the cliff road. Thank you.
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Feb 15, 2015 16:52
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Sakurazuka posted:eBay prices are often based purely on rarity than the quality of the actual game. I'm aware that rarity plays a huge role, but presumably there are people that want to actually play the game and are willing to pay the price for it. Or perhaps the gameplay is taken into account in the price and that's why it's ~$100 and not much higher (looking at Panzer Dragoon Saga). I feel like the Saturn has acquired a legend around it over the years that makes people remember it as the ultimate runt of the 32bit era. You can't help but love a runt, but they're the runt for a reason. 15 years after its early death people, people are really quick to jump to the Saturn's defense by saying things like "It has some real hidden gems." While this is true, it glosses over the fact that it was a deeply flawed system. These flaws are all too apparent in Shining the Holy Ark, and detract from the game itself. Collectors may love Saturn games because of their rarity, but I think we sometimes confuse rarity with quality.
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Feb 15, 2015 19:12
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I've done everything to find the Dark Grape in Xenoblade. Anna doesn't have it to trade nor does Deisree. I searched all along Tephra Cave and still couldn't find it.
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Feb 15, 2015 19:35
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Oh crud, that's right, Anna only trades for Dark Grapes while she's in the Refugee Camp. Try Dorothy in Colony 9, right outside Dunban's house, though you might need more affinity with Colony 9 before she trades them. Otherwise, welp, they DO spawn in Tephra Cave!
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Feb 15, 2015 20:27
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I really like RPGs. But, I've beaten pretty much every Western RPG of note. Accordingly, I'm starting to explore non Western RPGs. Here's what I like about RPGs: Good writing. Not just a good story, but prose that's actually competent. So I suspect that a lot of bad translations will eliminate my interest in some RPGs. Character customization. Not like haircuts and facial features and the like-that's dumb and stupid and silly and I don't understand why so many people care about playing Barbie with their video game characters. But lots of different character builds and skills that you can develop. Bonus points for when character stats are incorporated into dialog or solving puzzles. Being able to customize my characters personality through dialog is also a major plus. Non-linearity. Being able to explore at my own direction, and having a story that's more than A-B-C-D. My RPGs of all time are Arcanum, Planescape: Torment, Fallout(1,2, New Vegas), Mask of the Betrayer. I've played and enjoyed Suikoden II, because I like politics and base building. Are there any other jRPGs I'd probably enjoy(I'm thinking the Persona series).
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Feb 16, 2015 00:26
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Wait a month, get pillars of eternity, pray.
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Feb 16, 2015 00:36
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I'm going to assume you've played Shadowrun Dragonfall and Alpha Protocol. When it comes to JRPGs, you're not going to find a lot in the way of customization and non-linearity, and JRPG writing tends to be inferior to story-focused WRPGs, but there's still some really good ones. I recommend Persona 4, Nier, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasies 5 and 6, Shadow Hearts Covenant, Mario and Luigi Super Star Saga 1, and Paper Mario 2.
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Feb 16, 2015 00:43
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You might wanna give Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre or the Front Missions a try; they're not traditional jRPGs due to their focus on (turn-based) strategic combat, but they attend to a few sensibilities that please the cRPG fan: as you have listed, good writing* (or rather, non ridiculously anime writing) and class customization. *This varies between the translations, mostly in FFT's case. The original one for the PSX version is horribly garbled, though it's amusing in its own way if you're into bizarre jap.-eng. manglings. The PSP version might be the one you're looking for - its translation is good and stable, though there's a patch that brings this translation to an .iso of the PSX FFT, which has its advantages (the PSP version suffers from slowdowns; you can fix it, however - give it a Google in any case). EDIT: I speak this as a fellow cRPG junkie. Strategic RPGs such as the ones above usually tickle the pleasure center in my brain in a fashion quite similar to the Fallouts of old and such. D.O.G.O.G.B.Y.N. fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Feb 16, 2015 |
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Feb 16, 2015 00:50
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Politics huh? Final Fantasy XII mayhaps. Or Xenogears. Granted, that's my default answer for any JRPG recommendation. You could ask me for a good GameCube JRPG and I'd say Xenogears.
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Feb 16, 2015 01:43
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Suikoden 3, Accordion Man posted:When it comes to JRPGs, you're not going to find a lot in the way of customization and non-linearity, and JRPG writing tends to be inferior to story-focused WRPGs, but there's still some really good ones.
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Feb 16, 2015 01:52
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Endorph posted:Suikoden 3, This is the most apt description of Bioware's writing I've read to date. Bioware is a bad RPG developer who's huge popularity manages to drag the entire genre down. But there's quite a lot of good writing in other developer's games(OBSIDIAN! BLACK ISLE! TROIKA! and also CDProjekt).
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Feb 16, 2015 02:01
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I think the major difference to me is that strong JRPG writing tends to have worldbuilding which is if not good at least unique or distinctive and creates an interesting place to adventure in. Strong WRPG writing even at its best tend to be "Tolkien with some poo poo filed off" or "popular move but as a game" but has extremely strong character writing. I don't think Obsidian excels at the worldsettings but I do think they excel at the characters for example, and I legitimately think The Witcher games use the novel setting more poorly than the novels do but make up for it with interesting interactions. This isn't universal, of course, just my general feeling.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:06
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ImpAtom posted:I think the major difference to me is that strong JRPG writing tends to have worldbuilding which is if not good at least unique or distinctive and creates an interesting place to adventure in. Strong WRPG writing even at its best tend to be "Tolkien with some poo poo filed off" or "popular move but as a game" but has extremely strong character writing. I don't think Obsidian excels at the worldsettings but I do think they excel at the characters for example, and I legitimately think The Witcher games use the novel setting more poorly than the novels do but make up for it with interesting interactions. To be fair, the only game that Obsidian's developed that wasn't someone else's license is Alpha Protocol, and that didn't really leave a lot of opportunity for worldbuilding. Fallout:New Vegas was kind of their baby, since some principals from Black Isle worked on Fallout: New Vegas and it had amazing worldbuilding, but its a game they were kind of old hat with. Bioware does potentially interesting things with their settings. Both Dragon Age and Mass Effect had potentially really interesting set ups for stories about different factions vying for power, upstart political powers upsetting established regimes, etc. But they decided to use these potentially interesting settings for stories about scary monsters invading and destroying things because they're scary monsters and that's what scary monsters do. prometheusbound2 fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Feb 16, 2015 |
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Feb 16, 2015 02:09
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prometheusbound2 posted:This is the most apt description of Bioware's writing I've read to date. Bioware is a bad RPG developer who's huge popularity manages to drag the entire genre down. Bioware isn't to blame for bringing down the genre, that is crazy talk.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:17
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ImpAtom posted:I think the major difference to me is that strong JRPG writing tends to have worldbuilding which is if not good at least unique or distinctive and creates an interesting place to adventure in. Strong WRPG writing even at its best tend to be "Tolkien with some poo poo filed off" or "popular move but as a game" but has extremely strong character writing. I don't think Obsidian excels at the worldsettings but I do think they excel at the characters for example, and I legitimately think The Witcher games use the novel setting more poorly than the novels do but make up for it with interesting interactions. Sure, most of it was basically cobbled together plot points from various bad martial arts movies, but at least that's different from '___ years ago, in the nation of ____, a great evil was unleashed. The ____, ___. He rampaged across the continent for ____ years, until an alliance of all the world's races - the humans, the elves, the dwarves, and the ___, put him to rest. But now... *great sigh as a b-list movie actor tries to make this compelling* he's back."
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Feb 16, 2015 02:21
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Rascyc posted:What was wrong with Mass Effect 2 and 3 and DAI to be called bad RPG developer? I mean all the games have their warts but I want Bioware to keep putting out RPGs, not to close their doors. Mass Effect 2 and DAI were great games but their settings were both very generic sci-fi / fantasy, I don't think you can really argue against that.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:24
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Rascyc posted:What was wrong with Mass Effect 2 and 3 and DAI to be called bad RPG developer? I mean all the games have their warts but I want Bioware to keep putting out RPGs, not to close their doors. I actually really liked Mass Effect 2 and its probably my favorite Bioware game. The roaming the galaxy solving problems for people concept was really cool. But the main story, such as it was, was completely nonsensical. Mass Effect 3's merits have been debated endlessly. My general problem, stated above in an edit, with Bioware is that they've developed interesting settings and use them to tell extremely cliched and uninteresting stories. Its extremely difficult to care about either the Reapers or the Darkspawn. Dragon Age: Inquisition had its virtues and some of Bioware's best character writing, but I found the MMORPG elements wildly tedious and hope it doesn't presage future Bioware tendencies. The worst thing Bioware does is put so much emphasis on being cinematic. I like to play games rather than watch them. Rather than trying to use the unique opportunities afforded by their chosen medium, they try to be knock offs of B-movies. That's a waste. And they don't even have the creativity or writing talent to make entertaining pseudo-movies. I really appreciate Obsidian and CDProjekt(and Harebrained Studios and inXile) because they're using the medium's strengths; i.e. interactivity and letting the player shape the story beyond killing monsters. The Baldur's Gate series was a deviation from saving the world from invading monsters, and I think that that served it well. Jade Empire also had a pretty cool story(and Bioware's best plot twist) so there's potential there. I just wish they'd stop trying to be movie makers, stop plagiarizing Joss Weadon, and figure out how to develop a setting and story with interesting stakes that doesn't involve a monster invasion. Also, the dialog wheel is one of the worst "innovations" to come to RPGs.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:27
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Sure but to say Bioware is bringing the genre down is crazy talk. I've given up on ever getting good writing or settings out of a western RPG until another generation of writers are upon us, but I'd like to keep playing RPGs if I can help it.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:28
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goldjas posted:Mass Effect 2 and DAI were great games but their settings were both very generic sci-fi / fantasy, I don't think you can really argue against that. I thought Mass Effect 2 was an awesome game but even if you don't think it's that great the idea that BW doesn't deserve its popularity,, or that this popularity is somehow hurting other WRPG developers, sounds incredibly pretty. And it's that accusation that Rascyc was responding to.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:28
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I think in general RPGs could really really benefit from deviating from the 'save the world" plots. It is one of the strengths of the genre in general that it can do things besides high-paced action.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:29
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I haven't really seen any rpg that was ripping off/emulating Bioware, except for maybe minor things like the dialogue timer.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:30
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Any excuse to bust this out Also Carth is in every game.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:32
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If you have access to a PS2, give Metal Saga a try if you can find a copy. It at least has the guise of being nonlinear, and it plays up the "small fish in a huge ocean" angle in a neat way. Plus you get to build cars and stuff. It's got issues, but I had a lot of fun with it over the summer.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:33
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ImpAtom posted:I think in general RPGs could really really benefit from deviating from the 'save the world" plots. It is one of the strengths of the genre in general that it can do things besides high-paced action. This is a big reason a lot of my friends like Final Fantasy XII. In the end it just boiled down to saving one little country from a bigger country. The pm;u way Ivalice was at all threatened was that Arcadia might conquer it.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:33
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NikkolasKing posted:This is a big reason a lot of my friends like Final Fantasy XII. In the end it just boiled down to saving one little country from a bigger country. The pm;u way Ivalice was at all threatened was that Arcadia might conquer it. Well "save the country/save the world/ect." There's a lot of JRPGs which are focused only on a city or whatever but I mean in the same general way. A plot which is more personal and low-key and focused on something besides a large bad.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:34
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It's fine to have a big bad as an element, but the actual focus of the story could easily be more personal, yeah. It's why I like Shadow Hearts: Covenant a lot. Yuri stops three 'destroy the world' plots, but he isn't really satisfied. His problems aren't fixed just by going and punching Rasputincifer in the face. He's lost the person he loves, he feels like he's going through the motions, even his ~new friends~ just don't have the same dynamic that his old ones did. The only person he has that he's close to anymore is Roger, and that's, uh, Roger. The focus is on that, even if, just writing the basic plot down, it's basically just a 'dude saves the world' type story. It helps that the game takes place during World War 1.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:43
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Rascyc posted:What was wrong with Mass Effect 2 and 3 and DAI to be called bad RPG developer? I mean all the games have their warts but I want Bioware to keep putting out RPGs, not to close their doors. The short of the Mass Effect 3 hilarity is the Head Writer let ego get in the way when writing the ending (and honestly the game's actually pretty good aside from the final ten minutes or so). iirc, he shut out the writing team and wrote it out himself before forcing it through. And when your studio's spent five years promising a pretty large fanbase that the ending wasn't going to end up like it finally did (dynamic ending, all your choices will affect it, etc), it's not going to be pretty. 
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Feb 16, 2015 02:49
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Neddy Seagoon posted:The short of the Mass Effect 3 hilarity is the Head Writer let ego get in the way when writing the ending (and honestly the game's actually pretty good aside from the final ten minutes or so). iirc, he shut out the writing team and wrote it out himself before forcing it through. And when your studio's spent five years promising a pretty large fanbase that the ending wasn't going to end up like it finally did (dynamic ending, all your choices will affect it, etc), it's not going to be pretty. That's why the Happy Ending Mod exist. Fans were so pissed at that ending, they hacked the game and rewrote the ending to make a hell lot more sense.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:52
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RadicalR posted:That's why the Better Ending Mod exist. Fans were so pissed at that ending, they hacked the game and rewrote the ending to make a hell lot more sense. Credit where it's due too, for what little they had to work with in terms of time and budget, the writers made a pretty good stab at cleaning that mess up into something reasonable with the Extended Ending Patch.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:54
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Credit where it's due too, for what little they had to work with in terms of time and budget, the writers made a pretty good stab at cleaning that mess up into something reasonable with the Extended Ending Patch. That's true. Did the Head Writer get fired for that mess by any chance?
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Feb 16, 2015 02:57
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Endorph posted:It's fine to have a big bad as an element, but the actual focus of the story could easily be more personal, yeah. It's why I like Shadow Hearts: Covenant a lot. Yuri stops three 'destroy the world' plots, but he isn't really satisfied. His problems aren't fixed just by going and punching Rasputincifer in the face. He's lost the person he loves, he feels like he's going through the motions, even his ~new friends~ just don't have the same dynamic that his old ones did. The only person he has that he's close to anymore is Roger, and that's, uh, Roger. The focus is on that, even if, just writing the basic plot down, it's basically just a 'dude saves the world' type story. I don't think there's anything wrong with having a Big Bad, period. The problem is when the Big Bad is a mindless monster who's motivation is to destroy because they're a monster. In Fallout, the Master was pretty clearly a bad guy. But he had a motivation beyond just destruction for the sake of destruction. Likewise, in Fallout: New Vegas, Caesar's Legion are pretty clearly the "bad" faction. But again, they're given a motivation beyond destruction. The biggest problems with Bioware's games are the Darkspawn and the Reapers. Dragon Age stepped away from the Darkspawn. Dragon Age 2 was...well Dragon Age 2. But Dragon Age Inquistion still had a villain who's main purpose seemed to be being a villain. It doesn't really have to be this way. Loghain was an interesting character and good villain, and a game about Fereldan's relationship with Orlais could have been potentially really interesting.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:57
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If you want a franchise that's about having a conflict be small-scale, the Suikoden franchise is your thing.
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Feb 16, 2015 02:58
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Hence my sRPG recommendations, plotwise - they feel more personal and smaller in scope, wars and evil demons nonetheless. Also, here's a very cool fact: the same guy who partly designed FFXII was the main responsible for Tactics Ogre and FFT's stories. Really wish he'd do another project along the lines of these. Right now he's designing a... smartphone game, though at least it's a strategy game with a medieval setting.
D.O.G.O.G.B.Y.N. fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Feb 16, 2015 |
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Feb 16, 2015 03:02
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prometheusbound2 posted:The biggest problems with Bioware's games are the Darkspawn and the Reapers. Dragon Age stepped away from the Darkspawn. Dragon Age 2 was...well Dragon Age 2. But Dragon Age Inquistion still had a villain who's main purpose seemed to be being a villain. It doesn't really have to be this way. Loghain was an interesting character and good villain, and a game about Fereldan's relationship with Orlais could have been potentially really interesting. The problem is that Bioware treats politics as merely an obstacle that you need to get around to fight the monsters. They literally only exist to get in your way when your hero is asking for support. I don't think they have it in them to treat them with any more respect than that, because it would interfere with the fantasy they're selling: that you're a lone hero who's always right and the goal of the game is to bend the setting to your will. Which honestly I think is a much more fundamental problem with their writing. They like to talk about all the (meaningless) choices they force you to make, but quite frankly there's almost no non-contrived reason for your character to ever be in a position to make those choices. It's almost like you're playing a god-game from a ground level perspective, and that makes it hard to tell a story.
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Feb 16, 2015 03:08
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prometheusbound2 posted:Here's what I like about RPGs: Dog Obgyn mentioned Tactics Ogre, and as weird of a suggestion as it might be, you might dig Ogre Battle. It's about leading a rebellion against a powerful empire occupying your country, but it's played very hands-off as far as the characters go. You learn about the history of the occupation and, while you meet a couple "major" named characters, their stories are pretty much all resolved by the end of each stage. It's more of a historical narrative than a character-driven story, but because you're controlling an entire army of three- to five-soldier units, the gameplay is equally disconnected from the characters. You have to keep track of a lot of stats not only to get a good ending, but also to even just promote your soldiers into classes you want them to become. Their stat gains outside of alignment aren't really under your control beyond stat-up items and if a character gets to be a high enough level he'll theoretically be able to change to any class, but alignment is seriously enough micromanagement to begin with. If you can get into it, it's really engaging. If not, you might find yourself thinking of it in your idle moments anyway, the game design is kinda addicting like that.
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