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Erpy posted:That's just the graphics. The gameplay's still pretty much the same. By eventually I guess I meant today. Just started cold steel and you weren't kidding about the gameplay. Looking forward to it. I wasn't actually expecting voice acting so that was surprising.
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May 1, 2018 09:10
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Eh I would say the mentality of cold steel is way more offensive and spammy of moves than sky.
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May 1, 2018 11:52
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The Cold Steel encourage the use of blitz tactics over a prolonged back-and-forth, but that's a different animal than the general gameplay which is still pretty much the same.
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May 1, 2018 12:04
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Finished Ys VIII (PS4), approx 65 hours which is way longer than I expected even knowing going in that it was a long rear end Ys game. I do feel it's the best party-based Ys game to this point, mostly because there's so much more more to do in the game surrounding it. You're exploring such a huge space with enough enemy variety that it pays to have a mix of different party members to counter them as you find them. Some of the base-centric elements such as the raids I'm not sure I would call great but I still got some enjoyment out of them. The really long ones at the end went on long enough that I had to take a break midway because it gets a little mindless. Not a whole lot to say about the game, otherwise. Plot-wise it's about on the same level as previous Ys party-based games which is fine by me though I know a lot of people have bees in their bonnets about them. In general I liked the supporting cast and while we're not talking Trails-levels of NPC development there was enough there to give them a bit more flavor. I liked some of the hints peppered throughout about an inevitable confrontation Adol will have with Romn in the near future. I liked that I went from hating Hummel as a way-too-try-hard to loving him as a huge dork who no one took that seriously. Dana was a good character as well but man her outfit was dumb/bad. Falcom seems to like doing Ys games in sets of three so I hope this is the end of the "party-based" Ys trilogy and they try something else next.
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May 1, 2018 12:55
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Finished Trails of Zero and it is a shame this is probably never going to get an official English release. Not only does it tie up the story in Sky about Renne, but Lechter shows up more often than he did in Cold Steel 1 (which is the extent I've played to), and seeing how the mechanics evolved from Sky to CS was surprisingly interesting. And it's a pretty decent story in its own right. Even with the fusion of magic and technology, this is the only one of the three that really felt contemporary, what with the police force, bank stuff, hacking, the mafioso, and the drug dealing. Looking forward to how Blue ties all this into the CS arc.
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May 1, 2018 16:11
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Erpy posted:The Cold Steel encourage the use of blitz tactics over a prolonged back-and-forth, but that's a different animal than the general gameplay which is still pretty much the same. Yeah, for some reason I had it in my head these used a completely different system. Like valkyria Chronicles or something. Which sounds silly now that I think about it but to be fair, I hadn't really thought about it or looked into it beyond looking at the game thumbnail and first screenshot before.
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May 2, 2018 01:11
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Speaking of combat in Cold Steel (2!) https://steamcommunity.com/app/748490/discussions/0/1696045708664951845/ Here's a mod that rebalances the game. The changelog looks promising, so I'm gonna check it out.
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May 2, 2018 18:08
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Decided to just play Ys 8 and hope it works. So far it's been fine, but I'm not expecting much. Game has been fun though it feels like a repurposed Tokyo Xanadu, not that I mind.
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May 4, 2018 03:30
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I finished Cold Steel 1 a month or two ago and thought it was a thoroughly okay 6/10 game that greatly benefited from a turbo mode. Am close to finishing CS2 and holy poo poo it just gets worse and worse the closer I'm to finishing it. The plot reveals and story is soooo bad, the second act feels completely tacked on like Falcom thought they needed too pad out an already long game, massive amount of asset re-use and if you cut out all the dialogue that included some variation on recapturing our idyllic school days and the power of friendship I think you'd cut the script in half. It's really too bad this is how it worked out. I quite enjoyed FC and the 3rd and now have basically zero intention of ever picking up any more CS games. I don't think I've ever played a game where you won a boss fight and then lost the following cut-scene to this degree, to the point I go into every boss fight wondering how the characters were going to bailed out this time. Who thought this was a good idea? Was this game considered well-liked? also think part of the problem is that I don't really like modern falcom games much in comparison to their output from the early-to-late 00's. basically what I'm saying is I want to play a non-party ys game that's around 8-10 hours long or something more like xandau next than tokyo xandadu. Sivek fucked around with this message at 02:42 on May 5, 2018 |
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May 5, 2018 02:37
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I thought Cold Steel 2 was rad as hell, I liked the cast a whole lot and they had probably their best interactions in the sequel. Building up the airship crew was a nice way to progress in a Suikoden-like way and I felt the combat had enough hooks, old and new, that it was probably the most "fun" a Trails game had been up to that point. Getting bailed out by better/stronger NPCs after battles got tiresome but there were still some plot developments in the lategame that I thought were legitimately a bit shocking in kind of a neat way.
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May 5, 2018 02:46
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Sivek posted:I finished Cold Steel 1 a month or two ago and thought it was a thoroughly okay 6/10 game that greatly benefited from a turbo mode. Am close to finishing CS2 and holy poo poo it just gets worse and worse the closer I'm to finishing it. The plot reveals and story is soooo bad, the second act feels completely tacked on like Falcom thought they needed too pad out an already long game, massive amount of asset re-use and if you cut out all the dialogue that included some variation on recapturing our idyllic school days and the power of friendship I think you'd cut the script in half. Cold Steel suffers heavily from a lack of focus and being a little to in love with a certain character that drag the game down heavily yeah. If you don’t like the gameplay there isn’t much point to CS.
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May 5, 2018 02:53
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Nate RFB posted:I thought Cold Steel 2 was rad as hell, I liked the cast a whole lot and they had probably their best interactions in the sequel. Building up the airship crew was a nice way to progress in a Suikoden-like way and I felt the combat had enough hooks, old and new, that it was probably the most "fun" a Trails game had been up to that point. Getting bailed out by better/stronger NPCs after battles got tiresome but there were still some plot developments in the lategame that I thought were legitimately a bit shocking in kind of a neat way. The suikoden aspect of it is the best part by far. Combat in the CS games is just mind-boggling easy even on hard, and that's without intentionally trying to game the system. Mobs are just random trash that I fight once to see what they look like. There's almost no threat of dying to them. They're just time sinks/money dispensers that require no thinking. Trial chests were interesting at the very beginning but then become super easy as the game progresses. Bosses are somewhat better but the only difficult they present is s-crafts OHKO the entire party, especially later bosses that seem to negate all barriers with their attacks. Like I had one boss near the end down to about 20% health and then he wiped me out with one attack that was unblockable that did more than my max hp. I retry the fight and then the same thing happened. It was lame as gently caress and I ended just spamming s-crafts which are basically a win button. Sivek fucked around with this message at 03:20 on May 5, 2018 |
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May 5, 2018 02:55
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Ryuga Death posted:Decided to just play Ys 8 and hope it works. So far it's been fine, but I'm not expecting much. Game has been fun though it feels like a repurposed Tokyo Xanadu, not that I mind. ...What? I played both of those games in pretty quick succession, and Ys feels much, much better than Tokyo Xanadu. They did good stuff with TX, but it definitely shows that it was built on the field attack system from Cold Steel rather than built from the ground up as an ARPG, like Ys games.
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May 5, 2018 02:56
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Yeah, I'm just stupid. Sorry.
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May 5, 2018 03:02
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Sivek posted:The suikoden aspect of it is the best part by far. Combat in the CS games is just mind-boggling easy even on hard, and that's without intentionally trying to game the system. Mobs are just random trash that I fight once to see what they look like. There's almost no threat of dying to them. They're just time sinks/money dispensers that require no thinking. Trial chests where interesting at the very beginning but then become super easy as the game progresses. Bosses are somewhat better but the only difficult they present is s-crafts OHKO the entire party, especially later bosses that seem to negate all barriers with their attacks. Like I had one boss near the end down to about 20% health and then he wiped me out with one attack that was unblockable that did more than my max hp. I retry the fight and then the same thing happened. It was lame as gently caress and I ended just spamming s-crafts which are basically a win button.
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May 5, 2018 03:02
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Though they should do better at balancing the game around those tools
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May 5, 2018 03:07
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I do like cold steel, but I feel like this is the proper response to Rean's speech at the end of CS1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfYJsQAhl0
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May 5, 2018 06:45
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Cold Steel is better then Sky.
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May 5, 2018 06:49
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Valid CS2 Criticism: getting real loving tired of winning fights and bosses going "nah you lose", and then the same thing happening in the Geofront Interim chapter (no spoilers) sure, I finished the game, but it was loving weak. It happened once in CS1 (against Laura's dad, and that makes sense because he's explicitly testing you) but then it happens against every other boss you fight in the game. RevolverDivider posted:Cold Steel is better then Sky. I will fight you, and I will win because my Quartz aren't poo poo. tithin fucked around with this message at 06:55 on May 5, 2018 |
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May 5, 2018 06:53
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Getting real tired of worse cliffhangers than Code Geass
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May 5, 2018 06:55
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RevolverDivider posted:Cold Steel is better then Sky. Objectively false.
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May 5, 2018 07:11
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RevolverDivider posted:Cold Steel is better then Sky. Combat wise sure, but story wise CS is a mess.
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May 5, 2018 07:15
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Cold Steel is absurdly bad about making your party feel strong and meaningful and to be honest I don't think it's justified. Your party's entire gimmick is that they're not that strong alone but they have magically enchanced teamwork. JRPG bosses being stronger alone than a complete party is already a thing. Your party being so far behind the curve that ever with magical help they're still fuckoff useless against random golems or whatever just feels crappy and honestly doesn't make much sense. Your party *should* be able to overcome enemies with combinations and teamwork but be weaker alone. That doesn't mean you have to win every single fight but you shouldn't be getting saved every other cutscene. It makes Class VII and the Arceus units feel pretty poo poo because even with overwhelming advantages they're still crappier than everyone not named Patrick.
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May 5, 2018 07:27
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ImpAtom posted:Cold Steel is absurdly bad about making your party feel strong and meaningful and to be honest I don't think it's justified. It also undermines the Civil War as you do end up accomplishing a lot despite there being like a 100 people who could end you easily. So the only way you accomplish anything is no one important actually tries.
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May 5, 2018 07:32
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The entire series is bad at the protagonists maintaining a consistent power level, so let's not pretend this is an issue exclusive to Cold Steel. With that said, the "you didn't really beat me" boss battles are admittedly far too prevalent in CS2 compared to the other games. Especially since a number of them could have easily been rewritten to not be so. Duvalie and Bleublanc being the two most obvious.
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May 5, 2018 07:34
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I’ve only played Sky but they didn’t really have that issue.
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May 5, 2018 07:39
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Sivek posted:I finished Cold Steel 1 a month or two ago and thought it was a thoroughly okay 6/10 game that greatly benefited from a turbo mode. Am close to finishing CS2 and holy poo poo it just gets worse and worse the closer I'm to finishing it. The plot reveals and story is soooo bad, the second act feels completely tacked on like Falcom thought they needed too pad out an already long game, massive amount of asset re-use and if you cut out all the dialogue that included some variation on recapturing our idyllic school days and the power of friendship I think you'd cut the script in half. TBH the blue balling is probably the end result of them deciding to make a super dense third game that would have you be ultra level 200 badasses that clowned McBurn while he was piloting the Liber Arc IIX or some poo poo but then the ending to CS3 happened and welp! Also, I really like the power of friendship bullshit because the legit payoff you can see coming a mile away where Crow dies, but then the other half no one expected specifically written to utterly break his spirit and bring the whole chosen one thing crashing down. CharlestheHammer posted:I’ve only played Sky but they didn’t really have that issue. Sky FC does it with Lawrence to be fair, and the Enforcers in SC chump you before you finally beat them, but you eventually do beat them before, you know, part 4.
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May 5, 2018 08:18
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The enforcers beat you early but then you beat them later to show how much you have grown. It had a narrative point!
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May 5, 2018 08:21
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Also you don't actually fight the enforcers, you just fight things that are enforcer adjacent that you actually beat
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May 5, 2018 08:31
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Sivek posted:I finished Cold Steel 1 a month or two ago and thought it was a thoroughly okay 6/10 game that greatly benefited from a turbo mode. Am close to finishing CS2 and holy poo poo it just gets worse and worse the closer I'm to finishing it. The plot reveals and story is soooo bad, the second act feels completely tacked on like Falcom thought they needed too pad out an already long game, massive amount of asset re-use and if you cut out all the dialogue that included some variation on recapturing our idyllic school days and the power of friendship I think you'd cut the script in half. I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt that way. I'm also glad I got to play the Sky trilogy first because I'd never had sat down to it after CS. Paper-thin characters, awful pacing, Persona-aping school setting that ultimately didn't work for the story at all, 3D graphics that looked and animated worse than the sprite/3D combo in Sky. I could go on but there's no point. It's just weird that this particular series gets 4 parts, Japan has no taste.
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May 5, 2018 12:24
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I can see the value of a patch that weakens some of the busted stuff like action delay and Domination S-Crafts, but I wish that some of the bosses were weakened rather than strengthened. Part of the frustrations I had with CS2 was that I had no options against McBurn or C&V except not let them have turns. That's why I don't like the idea that CS2 is too easy and that making it harder will make for a more enjoyable game. CS1 on hard felt like it was in a fine place. I didn't have to spam the same busted crafts to win, I could play around a bit and feel like I was being appropriately challenged. Also, Adamantine Shield/Crescent Mirror actually blocked S-Crafts. CS2 hard did not let me play around and that's all I really wanted.
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May 5, 2018 14:30
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I thought I beat the last boss(es) in CS2 but 5+ hours later it's still going... Not sure this was the best design decision. oh my god is this really a proc-gen final dungeon? Myriad Truths posted:I can see the value of a patch that weakens some of the busted stuff like action delay and Domination S-Crafts, but I wish that some of the bosses were weakened rather than strengthened. Part of the frustrations I had with CS2 was that I had no options against McBurn or C&V except not let them have turns. That's why I don't like the idea that CS2 is too easy and that making it harder will make for a more enjoyable game. Sivek fucked around with this message at 15:26 on May 5, 2018 |
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May 5, 2018 15:17
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The actual final dungeon, while extremely superfluous, is actually a good deal of fun if you buy the mirrors to let you play as some of the boss characters.
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May 5, 2018 15:29
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Sivek posted:yeah, this is the big problem. The difficulty balance is non-existent. You either blow through bosses like they're nothing or they can OHKO your entire party with an unblockable non-telegraphed attack. This is bad boss design. S-Crafts for player and enemy are way too good, especially on higher difficulties. Angel Quartz. The Lost Art that doubles your HP. Spreading out people (though I think it has a pretty decent radius). Just because abusing Arc Slash is an easy tactic doesn't mean you actually need it.
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May 5, 2018 15:47
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Myriad Truths posted:I can see the value of a patch that weakens some of the busted stuff like action delay and Domination S-Crafts, but I wish that some of the bosses were weakened rather than strengthened. Part of the frustrations I had with CS2 was that I had no options against McBurn or C&V except not let them have turns. That's why I don't like the idea that CS2 is too easy and that making it harder will make for a more enjoyable game. https://youtube.com/watch?v=vb5qMhnDnWE This is on Nightmare. Also, S-Craft damage IS reduced all across the board, so?? Terper fucked around with this message at 15:56 on May 5, 2018 |
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May 5, 2018 15:52
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Terminally Bored posted:I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt that way. I'm also glad I got to play the Sky trilogy first because I'd never had sat down to it after CS. Paper-thin characters, awful pacing, Persona-aping school setting that ultimately didn't work for the story at all, 3D graphics that looked and animated worse than the sprite/3D combo in Sky. I could go on but there's no point. It's just weird that this particular series gets 4 parts, Japan has no taste. They're all part of the same series dude, length entirely comes down to development limitations or just how much they want to happen in a given region. No need to get weird. Motto fucked around with this message at 16:05 on May 5, 2018 |
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May 5, 2018 15:58
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*goes through FF5 with 4 Berserkers, dies* Ugh wtf why won't the game let me play how I want to....
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May 5, 2018 16:03
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Terper posted:https://youtube.com/watch?v=vb5qMhnDnWE That is an interesting clip but not reflective of my experiences?? I don't know if there are some unusual circumstances reducing that damage in play. If S-Craft damage is reduced across bosses too that would be fine. The changelog only says 'Player S-Craft damage has been reduced' and doesn't mention it in the boss sections, so I didn't get that impression.
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May 5, 2018 16:46
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There are several bosses which all but force you to have a traditional drawn-out fight with them, with nobody oneshotting anybody, let's not pretend the whole of CS2 is Laura killing bosses in a single s-craft. But I did definitely feel like any time some enemies got a single turn it was only due to luck I didn't get annihilated and that's not a feeling I want.
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May 5, 2018 16:51
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Myriad Truths posted:That is an interesting clip but not reflective of my experiences?? I don't know if there are some unusual circumstances reducing that damage in play. Debuffs and defensive quartz and accessories. How many HP and Def quartz did you have equipped? The Iron MQ? If you spec yourself fully into boosting strength and speed then of course you'll feel that you *have* to Delay to survive.
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May 5, 2018 16:54
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