Refried Hero posted:

If you really want to know what the armors look like, you could always watch a stream. This - http://www.twitch.tv/risingfungaming - guy is playing and doing translations at the same time (he plays starting at 4 PM PST most days). Here are a couple of screen shots I pulled from his stream earlier today -

I said come in! posted:

Refried Hero posted:

Endorph posted:

here's some normal looking armor now stop posting

The Taint Reaper posted:

"where is my taint?"- Main hero guy on the right

NicelyNice posted:

- Environments are absolutely fantastic. Really feels like exploring an uncharted planet. I've been playing GTA5 on the PC so I'm a bit spoiled, but what they lack in fidelity, completely make up for in terms of environment and design. Your character moves at a nice clip, so running and jumping around is even more enjoyable than the first.

I said come in! posted:

NicelyNice posted:

Just picked this up today. I got on the Xenoblade bandwagon quite late - I played the first third, maybe first half of the game last fall before getting a bit burned out. Figured I'd just wait for this to come out, and here it is. I didn't read anything about the game (think I saw a trailer a couple months ago), just picked it up blind, I'm only about four hours in, but I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Couple random thoughts (minor spoilers, I guess?):

- Environments are absolutely fantastic. Really feels like exploring an uncharted planet. I've been playing GTA5 on the PC so I'm a bit spoiled, but what they lack in fidelity, completely make up for in terms of environment and design. Your character moves at a nice clip, so running and jumping around is even more enjoyable than the first. Character, weapon, and armor models are likewise great, only the faces are a bit lacking, though I guess I'm not a huge fan of the art style, either. Load times are quite short.
- I'm not a fan of level scaling and whatnot in open world games - love seeing powerful enemies and stuff I can't do yet. It's fantastic seeing powerful monsters and treasure chests I can't open yet.
- Getting rid of healing spells really smooths the tempo for battles. It's a lot more enjoyable to just hack, slash, and debuff away rather than worrying about carrying along a dedicated healer. Right now battles are a bit too easy - everything around my level gets destroyed, everything above my level likewise destroys me, so I don't know how the challenge will scale as the game progresses.
- The pacing of the story isn't great. There's a long section at the beginning where you lose control for nearly an hour as the game world is explained, and it's not very interesting - just talking heads. There's a couple points where you can choose your character's reaction, but they don't seem to do much. I'm not far into the game, but the characters aren't really doing it for me. The 13-year-old is particularly annoying in that "13-year-old in JRPGs" kinda way. I don't know how the story will progress, but the main complaints about the game on the Amazon reviews seem to be with people a bit disappointed by the less engaging story.
- The quality of life improvements just keep coming. Fast travel is fantastic, the map on the Wii gamepad is really fun, and there's a status text that will tell you where you are in relation to the enemy (back, front, side) that takes the guesswork out of that. One strange change is there's no "aggro" ring, so you have to look to see who the enemy is targeting, which isn't a big deal, since most of the enemies are big enough to tell where they're looking.
- The game really could use some more tutorials. It's quite complicated (OK, that's an understatement) and the only reference is the in-game manual, which takes a bit to load. If I didn't play the last game I would be completely lost. As is, I've had to reference the Wiki to get a handle on exactly what's going on. I'm sure in the long run the depth will be a good thing, but it's taken quite a bit of external reading to keep me updated.
- I don't like a lot of the music, especially the ones with lyrics or grunts or whatever. The vocals are uniformly pretty terrible. It's a bit too loud and in your face, would prefer more relaxing exploration music.
- The fonts are too small! This is a huuuge bummer for me as I wanted to play it on a Gamepad, but the menus are too fuzzy. Be careful if you have a small TV.

If you liked Xenoblade for the story, characters, or music, this may be hit or miss. If you liked it for everything else, particularly exploration, it's a huge improvement in almost every area and a lot of fun.

RareAcumen posted:

A lot of the armor in this game looks like it came outta Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep and I don't know if I'm okay with that.

Infinity Gaia posted:

I think there's a button or option somewhere you can use to turn on aggro indication. They replaced it with laser lines, apparently, I've seen it on streams sometimes. No clue how though.

ArmyOfMidgets posted:

I think, and could be very wrong, that somewhere in the settings there was an option to alter the font size. I remember there being a crazy amount of options for the display.

I'm in this for the everything else part, so now it's just all waiting 'till I can play this thing.

Fungah! posted:

thanks for the feedback dude. so outside of the weird pacing, what do you think about the story? any good?

Crabtree posted:

Are the rest of the nopon okay or are they all insufferable nerds like Not Riki? Also have the quicktimes changed much or the new affinity boosts just more of the same?

NicelyNice posted:

- Getting rid of healing spells really smooths the tempo for battles. It's a lot more enjoyable to just hack, slash, and debuff away rather than worrying about carrying along a dedicated healer. Right now battles are a bit too easy - everything around my level gets destroyed

Vanrushal posted:

Roughly how long does it take to get to this point? I recall a clip in one of the promo vids of the MC solo fighting like a level 3 pig with his gun and doing absolutely pitiful damage, like the healthbar was barely going down. Are gun auto-attacks just poo poo at doing good damage? Did it just look like a slog since he wasn't using Arts?

NicelyNice posted:

So far at least, it's a lot less JRPG and a bit more "serious." Seems alright, so far, though I'm also lot less critical of plot and writing in games I play in Japanese, since my reading comprehension is around high school level, which is right around the last time I actually thought a JRPG was well-written. So far the main story (which hasn't really kicked into gear) has taken a backseat to world building and character-based subplots. I think this'll end up being an individual thing - the nerds writing Amazon reviews seem to be pretty salty that their JRPGs are aping the plot structure of Western RPGs.

Inverness posted:

I'm not familiar enough with the JRPG formula to know what you mean by this. Could you elaborate a bit?

NicelyNice posted:

I'll spoiler tag this, just in case - details the structure of the plot, no actual plot details revealed:


The game is no longer a linear, one-way journey through areas - the game world opens up from the beginning. It's more akin to something in World of Warcraft where you pick up a quest chain from a central hub and then heading out into the world rather than a JRPG where you're guided along a path. The story missions aren't driven by events, but rather "missions" undertaken by your characters. Your protagonist is silent and passive, and there's only really two story characters in your party (one who is 13-years-old), so even in the main story missions, it never feels like much character development is happening.

The story missions are also gated by side-quests and exploration tasks which you have to undertake to progress the story, so you're kind of forced to take part in the more grindy, MMO aspects of the game to see the main game. As such, the main quest (I don't even know what that is yet, 10 hours into the game) takes a backseat quite often. In the first game, I enjoyed doing side-quests and exploration when I wanted to bring my level up for a boss. It's quite annoying to have them forced on you to progress the story in this game, especially given the repetitive nature of the exploration/collection/monster hunting tasks. The world is also huge and some of the quest hints for collection quests are vague, so you just kind of hope to run into the correct items.

NicelyNice posted:

I'll spoiler tag this, just in case - details the structure of the plot, no actual plot details revealed:


The game is no longer a linear, one-way journey through areas - the game world opens up from the beginning. It's more akin to something in World of Warcraft where you pick up a quest chain from a central hub and then heading out into the world rather than a JRPG where you're guided along a path. The story missions aren't driven by events, but rather "missions" undertaken by your characters. Your protagonist is silent and passive, and there's only really two story characters in your party (one who is 13-years-old), so even in the main story missions, it never feels like much character development is happening.

The story missions are also gated by side-quests and exploration tasks which you have to undertake to progress the story, so you're kind of forced to take part in the more grindy, MMO aspects of the game to see the main game. As such, the main quest (I don't even know what that is yet, 10 hours into the game) takes a backseat quite often. In the first game, I enjoyed doing side-quests and exploration when I wanted to bring my level up for a boss. It's quite annoying to have them forced on you to progress the story in this game, especially given the repetitive nature of the exploration/collection/monster hunting tasks. The world is also huge and some of the quest hints for collection quests are vague, so you just kind of hope to run into the correct items.

RC Cola posted:

I'm playing through xenoblade chronicles for the 3ds right now and am trying to avoid spoilers. So far it's an amazing game. I just made it to colony six reconstruction. I was wondering if I should do all of the quests as they open up and talk to everyone to build up affinity all the time. Do you have to play as all the characters as the main character to level up their affinity with each other?
Oh and this is the best RPG I've ever played. I love it so much.

Silver Falcon posted:

If you do every single sidequest as it becomes available, you'll quickly end up over levelled. If that doesn't bother you, sidequest away. Just be aware that there are a metric gently caress-ton of sidequests and you'll be in danger of burning yourself out if you don't pace yourself. However, walking around and building up affinity by talking to people has no draw-backs whatsoever and even unlocks new quests!

Characters build affinity by fighting together and being in the same party when you accept quests. If you want to build affinity with everyone then yes, you are going to have to switch your party around a lot.

RC Cola posted:

Do I find out what bionis and mechonis are?
Is it normal for some bosses to kick your rear end?

Silver Falcon posted:

Bionis and Mechonis are... giant robots that used to fight but stopped when they killed each other. Bionis is where the humans live; Mechonis is where the Mechon come from. Didn't you pay attention to the into cinematic?

And yes, though you might get your rear end kicked less if you switch up your party and employ different tactics.

RC Cola posted:

I thought there might be something else behind it. Like that it was all mythos or something. And I only have 4 party members so far. All I'm really seeing is switching Reyen and Dunbar out for each other as a tank. I'm also a few levels under leveled.

NicelyNice posted:

I'll spoiler tag this, just in case - details the structure of the plot, no actual plot details revealed:


The game is no longer a linear, one-way journey through areas - the game world opens up from the beginning. It's more akin to something in World of Warcraft where you pick up a quest chain from a central hub and then heading out into the world rather than a JRPG where you're guided along a path. The story missions aren't driven by events, but rather "missions" undertaken by your characters. Your protagonist is silent and passive, and there's only really two story characters in your party (one who is 13-years-old), so even in the main story missions, it never feels like much character development is happening.

The story missions are also gated by side-quests and exploration tasks which you have to undertake to progress the story, so you're kind of forced to take part in the more grindy, MMO aspects of the game to see the main game. As such, the main quest (I don't even know what that is yet, 10 hours into the game) takes a backseat quite often. In the first game, I enjoyed doing side-quests and exploration when I wanted to bring my level up for a boss. It's quite annoying to have them forced on you to progress the story in this game, especially given the repetitive nature of the exploration/collection/monster hunting tasks. The world is also huge and some of the quest hints for collection quests are vague, so you just kind of hope to run into the correct items.

Kirios posted:

Currently watching a stream of this via Kotaku East Live and this game looks FANTASTIC.

Edit: Oh man this game has hip hop style music with a JRPG rift in the middle of it what is this game!

RC Cola posted:

I thought there might be something else behind it. Like that it was all mythos or something. And I only have 4 party members so far. All I'm really seeing is switching Reyen and Dunbar out for each other as a tank. I'm also a few levels under leveled.

ThisIsACoolGuy posted:

You can also see Mechonis in the distance in most places.

NicelyNice posted:

I'll spoiler tag this, just in case - details the structure of the plot, no actual plot details revealed:


The game is no longer a linear, one-way journey through areas - the game world opens up from the beginning. It's more akin to something in World of Warcraft where you pick up a quest chain from a central hub and then heading out into the world rather than a JRPG where you're guided along a path. The story missions aren't driven by events, but rather "missions" undertaken by your characters. Your protagonist is silent and passive, and there's only really two story characters in your party (one who is 13-years-old), so even in the main story missions, it never feels like much character development is happening.

The story missions are also gated by side-quests and exploration tasks which you have to undertake to progress the story, so you're kind of forced to take part in the more grindy, MMO aspects of the game to see the main game. As such, the main quest (I don't even know what that is yet, 10 hours into the game) takes a backseat quite often. In the first game, I enjoyed doing side-quests and exploration when I wanted to bring my level up for a boss. It's quite annoying to have them forced on you to progress the story in this game, especially given the repetitive nature of the exploration/collection/monster hunting tasks. The world is also huge and some of the quest hints for collection quests are vague, so you just kind of hope to run into the correct items.

NicelyNice posted:

I'll spoiler tag this, just in case - details the structure of the plot, no actual plot details revealed:

NicelyNice posted:

I'll spoiler tag this, just in case - details the structure of the plot, no actual plot details revealed:


The game is no longer a linear, one-way journey through areas - the game world opens up from the beginning. It's more akin to something in World of Warcraft where you pick up a quest chain from a central hub and then heading out into the world rather than a JRPG where you're guided along a path. The story missions aren't driven by events, but rather "missions" undertaken by your characters. Your protagonist is silent and passive, and there's only really two story characters in your party (one who is 13-years-old), so even in the main story missions, it never feels like much character development is happening.

The story missions are also gated by side-quests and exploration tasks which you have to undertake to progress the story, so you're kind of forced to take part in the more grindy, MMO aspects of the game to see the main game. As such, the main quest (I don't even know what that is yet, 10 hours into the game) takes a backseat quite often. In the first game, I enjoyed doing side-quests and exploration when I wanted to bring my level up for a boss. It's quite annoying to have them forced on you to progress the story in this game, especially given the repetitive nature of the exploration/collection/monster hunting tasks. The world is also huge and some of the quest hints for collection quests are vague, so you just kind of hope to run into the correct items.