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Yeah, the action stuff was a shade or two above perfunctory in my opinion but I was thoroughly charmed by the cast and really enjoyed my time with it. I'm not sure I full-price liked it but I picked it up in a Christmas sale. edit: this is re: Tokyo Xanadu
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Feb 5, 2019 22:59
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Is Tokyo Xanadu different enough from Cold Steel to be its own thing?
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Feb 5, 2019 23:10
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Some Numbers posted:Is Tokyo Xanadu different enough from Cold Steel to be its own thing? There's like nothing similar at all. One is everything Cold Steel is with that universe, Xanadu is just ghost busters but with demons.
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Feb 5, 2019 23:12
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Some Numbers posted:Is Tokyo Xanadu different enough from Cold Steel to be its own thing? Yes, absolutely. It has no direct relationship to the Trails universe at all, just kinda similar art. It's not even that similar of a setting, it's a normal school where the party secretly goes through these portals to fight monsters at night. Setting-wise, it has more in common with Persona 3 than Cold Steel. E: I hope you like Bonding Points though, because they brought that stupid concept back!
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Feb 5, 2019 23:13
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Some Numbers posted:Is Tokyo Xanadu different enough from Cold Steel to be its own thing?
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Feb 5, 2019 23:16
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I didn't mean in plot, I meant in structure.
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Feb 5, 2019 23:18
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It does use bonding events but the plot is much more local and tighter than CS.
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Feb 5, 2019 23:19
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Some Numbers posted:I didn't mean in plot, I meant in structure. And the same engine and like, 95% of the same UI? But in terms of setting, story and gameplay, it's completely different.
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Feb 5, 2019 23:36
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There's also one character they share, I think. But other than that, the only thing they have in common is that they both have a school.
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Feb 6, 2019 00:19
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Oh yeah, Towa is the teacher or something?
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Feb 6, 2019 00:38
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I hope the Calvard Fantasy America arc takes a page out of real life and all members in the protag party are just analogues of Machias and Jusis e: is falcom down for doing a trails chapter where the calvard side of the nord highlands used to be native territory but the calvardians defeated them and chased them out west and then ridiculed them for losing too, in true American fashion How dark and ideological is Falcom willing to go for a JRPG anyways? Sidesaddle Cavalry fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Feb 6, 2019 |
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Feb 6, 2019 01:28
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Some Numbers posted:Oh yeah, Towa is the teacher or something? And the main character's cousin.
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Feb 6, 2019 01:40
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Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:I hope the Calvard Fantasy America arc takes a page out of real life and all members in the protag party are just analogues of Machias and Jusis It's not like it'd be like in Cold Steel. Sara may have been willing to let them duke it out themselves for over two months until everyone got sick and tired of it, but whether Kilika has the patience for that kind of poo poo is another story entirely. Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:e: is falcom down for doing a trails chapter where the calvard side of the nord highlands used to be native territory but the calvardians defeated them and chased them out west and then ridiculed them for losing too, in true American fashion If I recall correctly, Calvard is experiencing a wave of immigration due to some undetermined conflict/disaster/something else further east that's causing refugees to flood into the country and it's spawned anti-immigration extremism and even some terrorism because of it. I imagine if Trump is still around by the time the game's finished, people are gonna accuse Falcom of bringing politics into entertainment.
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Feb 6, 2019 07:59
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Erpy posted:It's not like it'd be like in Cold Steel. Sara may have been willing to let them duke it out themselves for over two months until everyone got sick and tired of it, but whether Kilika has the patience for that kind of poo poo is another story entirely. There's also (Trails in the Sky 3rd spoilers) the Red Constellation jaeger corps doing fuckery in Calvard, and Alan Richard heading over there to investigate as well.
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Feb 6, 2019 09:25
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I think I found the solution to my xanadu cravings: I'm playing Ys I & II for the first time, finally. Do I want a guide handy for these? Are they in that class of old rpg?
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Feb 6, 2019 11:17
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Amppelix posted:I think I found the solution to my xanadu cravings: I'm playing Ys I & II for the first time, finally. If you’re playing the PC versions (probably) then maybe download a map of the last few areas of Ys 2, they pretty clearly made everything a lot more winding than it had to be so people would get lost to extend the gameplay. Otherwise nah, you’ll have to grind a bunch to beat a bunch of the lovely Ys 1 bosses and plow through the actual fun ones because you grinded too hard, but yeah, nothing crazy.
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Feb 6, 2019 11:58
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Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:I hope the Calvard Fantasy America arc takes a page out of real life and all members in the protag party are just analogues of Machias and Jusis *looks at Sky 3rd's 15th star door* Pretty dark I imagine.
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Feb 6, 2019 12:18
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Last Celebration posted:If you’re playing the PC versions (probably) then maybe download a map of the last few areas of Ys 2, they pretty clearly made everything a lot more winding than it had to be so people would get lost to extend the gameplay. Otherwise nah, you’ll have to grind a bunch to beat a bunch of the lovely Ys 1 bosses and plow through the actual fun ones because you grinded too hard, but yeah, nothing crazy.
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Feb 6, 2019 12:41
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The max level in Ys1 is like 9 though and I hit that about halfway through the game. There a few 'missable' equipment items that are basically required to be able to hurt some bosses so if it seems like you're doing literally no damage or a pixel line check if you're missing anything.
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Feb 6, 2019 13:05
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Oh no, I got the mask of eyes Am I going to have to put this on in every screen of the game to make sure I'm not missing something, or is it one of those things where it actually only hides things in places where it seems like something should be hiding
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Feb 6, 2019 13:29
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Pretty much. It's something you're more liable to forget by the time it comes up again.
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Feb 6, 2019 13:51
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The lack of save points AND autosave is killing me. I need to be reminded that I haven't saved!
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Feb 6, 2019 14:20
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Haha yeah, I got that a bit with TitS too but at least that usually had one of the heal stations before bosses and stuff to remind me to save.
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Feb 6, 2019 14:26
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Well I beat 1. According to the timestamp on my post about starting it, it took a whole six hours. What a nice and breezily-paced game. Looking at the achievements list it seems like I missed almost every optional side thing in the game. I did talk to everyone at least once but guess that wasn't enough. Oh well, I'm not going back for that.
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Feb 6, 2019 17:11
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The Ys 1 & 2 remakes were released at the same time, right? Our were they originally separate and have just been collected for later releases? Because 2 has several small differences and tiny qol changes that i would've thought would just be backported into the 1 remake. Not like, the existence of magic spells since they obviously wanted to stay faithful, just some little things here and there that immediately stuck out when i started 2.
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Feb 6, 2019 22:25
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Amppelix posted:The Ys 1 & 2 remakes were released at the same time, right? Our were they originally separate and have just been collected for later releases? Because 2 has several small differences and tiny qol changes that i would've thought would just be backported into the 1 remake. Not like, the existence of magic spells since they obviously wanted to stay faithful, just some little things here and there that immediately stuck out when i started 2. Yep, the remakes of 1 & 2 have consistently been sold as a collection, going back to Ys Book 1 & 2 for the TurboGrafx-CD.
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Feb 6, 2019 22:30
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Iirc they were originally supposed to be a single game but Falcom ran out of time/money making the first half and had to release what they had.
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Feb 6, 2019 22:32
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I guess the remakes are then just so slavishly devoted to the originals that they even want to preserve the tiny feature and feel differences between the two. Well, i didn't exactly feel like 1 was a cumbersome game so it's not a terrible decision by any means, but it is really strange.
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Feb 6, 2019 22:41
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I decided to pick up Tokyo Xanadu ex+ since it was at a good sale price. I did have to skip a bunch of optional wandering so I could at least see what the combat was like before the two hours were up. Seriously, the only gameplay in the first 35 minutes I had was just walking down a straight line corridor with no enemies or interactables, and after talking to everyone in the school I was up to 58 minutes, and there were still two more areas to wander around in (I declined and just advanced the main plot. I can load my save later.) It seems okay. I did decently in the starter dungeon (A-Ranked) and the bonus side story dungeon (S-Ranked that one), but bosses are distinctly more challenging. I need to get better at learning their tells and dodging. I'll also apparently need to REALLY stock up on healing items, as the Chapter 1 Side Story boss was nasty and took me about 10 tries to beat (I refused to lower the difficulty, though. I need to learn.), and I still used up most of my 5+ Cure 1 and Cure 2 items. I might need to tweak my control setup, though. I've gotten the hang of attacking, dodging and jumping, but I should decide whether I want jump on Mouse 4 or Space, because I don't need it on both when I've got other attack keys on E and X. I also need to figure out were on the HUD I can see if my "X strike" attack is ready, but I didn't feel like spending my dwindling two hours limit reading the in-game tutorials. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 14:38 on Feb 7, 2019 |
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Feb 7, 2019 07:11
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it's easier once you have a 3rd character to triage damage with, i dunno what difficulty you're on but on normal you can kinda just carry a zillion healing items and trivialize it if you want to. edit: also yeah the combat mechanics are really confusingly named, there's "ex attack", "x-drive" and "x-strike" which are all different things that each have their own differently shaped meter on the HUD Tales of Woe fucked around with this message at 07:34 on Feb 7, 2019 |
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Feb 7, 2019 07:30
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I reloaded to see the first free time wandering I missed, and this time somehow managed to scrape out an S-Rank on the first TX dungeon. Thanks to some changed controls, I also avoided dying during the White Shadow side story (and White Shadow is totally not Mr. Gorou the English teacher. EDIT: That was my guess from just what the librarian mentioned in the Chapter 1 free day, even before he appeared on my map as one of my "free time events".), not even on the boss (although this time I did have a lot more HP healing items). The odd thing is that this time I got some cutscenes that I didn't see on my first time. I must have accidentally skipped them, right? There's no extra cutscenes for doing super-well and not dying? Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Feb 8, 2019 |
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Feb 8, 2019 04:07
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Ahahaha, the tech store in Tokyo Xanadu is selling Cold Steel 2 and has a demo for Cold Steel 3. 
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Feb 8, 2019 08:02
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Ys 1 was good about it but Ys 2 is proving to have exactly the kind of unintuitive nonsense I'd expect from an RPG this old. Already I've had to dig out a guide a few times when I didn't feel like checking every location again and using all items everywhere to find what interaction I missed. E: Uh oh, even the game is saying that the shrine of solomon is massive and labyrinthine. Now I'm scared. Amppelix fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Feb 8, 2019 |
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Feb 8, 2019 21:34
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Tokyo Xanadu Ex+ seems fairly lax in terms of getting an S-Rank on stages. Seems like just destroying all objects and killing most enemies with elemental weaknesses is enough, when combined with not taking much damage. That's good because I'm only moderately good at the game. The tutorials are a little frustrating because they describe all actions in terms of a controller, but they're somehow also intuitive enough that I understand what it wants me to do anyway. I had a few questions and the Steam forums answered some of them, in case there are others here also new to the game. Tokyo Xanadu Chapter 2, Day 2 - Hiiragi seems to think Chiaki is the cause of at least some of the eclipses, and that may be right... but I still can't help but note that all three of the previous Eclipses have happened right around where Kou was. Now, okay, I suppose that if any of them weren't around him, that means the plot wouldn't work, but it still seems like it might not just be coincidence. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Feb 9, 2019 |
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Feb 9, 2019 01:01
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Tokyo Xanadu Chapter 2, Day 2 - Hiiragi seems to think Chiaki is the cause of at least some of the eclipses, and that may be right... but I still can't help but note that all three of the previous Eclipses have happened right around where Kou was. Now, okay, I suppose that if any of them weren't around him, that means the plot wouldn't work, but it still seems like it might not just be coincidence. Also Day 2: So far, it looks like Kou being around has been sheer coincidence. Shiori caused the first one and Chiaki caused both the others There's probably more to it, but I think if Kou had anything to do it with creating them, Hiiragi would have figured that out. Unrelated, Sora is awesome.
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Feb 10, 2019 01:57
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I created a "Before I play" page for Tokyo Xanadu. Some Numbers posted:Also Day 2: So far, it looks like Kou being around has been sheer coincidence. Shiori caused the first one and Chiaki caused both the others Yeah, it now definitely seems like that was more "without that the story doesn't work" than foreshadowing. Sora is all right for a "Childhood Friend With A Crush" character. It really depends on the story whether I like them or not, but she's okay. It doesn't help though, that there's also a "Next-Door Neighbor Friend Taking Care of MC" character who also has short purple hair and a name starting with S! I do still like Hiiragi, especially now that she's decided that teasing Kou is good entertainment. EDIT 3:  That post-Chapter 3 Side Story... EDIT: TXex+, Chapter 3, Day 2: "I'm sorry, I can't divulge personal information about specific students. But would be so kind as to deliver this notice of truancy to Student X?" Ha! Well played. *** Also hooray, at the arcade (Tokyo Xanadu Ex+) I managed to land the 30,000 medal prize for catching the Arch Tyrant when my odds of catching it were 0.4%! Now I never have to do that fishing arcade game again. Maybe. Perhaps if I go mad I'll go back and try and get two more of the 20,000 medal "Immune to all status ailments" prizes. Tips for the fishing arcade game: - Before you start, go into the options menu and turn the voice volume down to 0. Trust me. - Stick to the beginner stream until you have 1000 medals, and stick to the intermediate stream until you have 10,000 medals. Also, save before starting, and stop and save after you get the boss fish. - If you, like me, are both stubborn and stupid and insist on trying to do this with mouse and keyboard, remap your controls to something convenient. I chose "Switch Partners" to Num8, "Navigation" to Num4, Menu-Confirm to Num 2, and Menu-Cancel to Num6, and that completely put an end to fumbling and hitting the wrong button. Don't forget to put those back (and the volume) after you're done with the minigame. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Feb 11, 2019 |
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Feb 10, 2019 02:17
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(Tokyo Xanadu) The story really starts picking up in Chapter 4. And there's some really great music too. Wow, it is sooooo refreshing to play a game similar to Cold Steel when literally everyone else does NOT revolve around the protagonist. In Chapter 4's side story, there's even a Generic Student without a name who has a crush on one of the party members and is annoyed at how much time she's spending with a different (non-main character!) party member.
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Feb 11, 2019 17:06
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Since ys8 was way cheaper on psn i got it there instead of Nintendo's eshop, but I wish I knew beforehand that the ps4 version lacks adol silver armor costume and pretty much every other costume dlc pack they released
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Feb 11, 2019 19:39
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On the other hand, you did get what's widely considered the most stable version of the game that's also not locked to 30 FPS.
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Feb 11, 2019 19:48
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But that classic Adol armor is really good looking  The game engine doesn't seem to be able to maintain those 60fps when many effects are on screen though Honest Thief fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Feb 11, 2019 |
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Feb 11, 2019 22:26
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