RPG Thread: SaGa Emeril Beyond

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The Colonel: Jun 8, 2013; I commute by bike!

that doesn't sound any worse than the original adventures of mana script, a game that alternates between a guy resurrecting a chocobo into a superpowered cyborg and every single female character you meet existing to say "i am the girlfriend of the boy in the village. i will travel with you *walks for five minutes* oh no i've been cursed and will now die goodbye"

# ? Nov 28, 2019 02:41

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# ? May 23, 2024 22:09

kirbysuperstar: Nov 11, 2012; Let the fools who stand before us be destroyed by the power you and I possess.

It's not really, but the extra fidelity makes it a bit more on the nose

# ? Nov 28, 2019 02:42

Erg: Oct 31, 2010

kirbysuperstar posted:

Sword of Mana has a bit where the characters sit and wonder if the guy named Dark Lord is really a bad guy or not

I have played tales of graces, something of this puny level cannot hurt me

# ? Nov 28, 2019 02:43

Hwurmp: May 20, 2005

kirbysuperstar posted:

Sword of Mana has a bit where the characters sit and wonder if the guy named Dark Lord is really a bad guy or not

well????

# ? Nov 28, 2019 02:48

Red Red Blue: Feb 11, 2007

Maybe he just prefers the night

# ? Nov 28, 2019 03:00

Samuringa: Mar 27, 2017; Best advice I was ever given?

"Ticker, you'll be a lot happier once you stop caring about the opinions of a culture that is beneath you."

I learned my worth, learned the places and people that matter.

Opened my eyes.

he makes the Doom Train run on time

# ? Nov 28, 2019 03:07

Phantasium: Dec 27, 2012

it's because the plot of sword of mana is exactly as complex as the original game except as wordy or worse than golden sun.

# ? Nov 28, 2019 05:31

Booky: Feb 21, 2013; Chill Bug

kirbysuperstar posted:

Sword of Mana has a bit where the characters sit and wonder if the guy named Dark Lord is really a bad guy or not

The Colonel posted:

that doesn't sound any worse than the original adventures of mana script, a game that alternates between a guy resurrecting a chocobo into a superpowered cyborg and every single female character you meet existing to say "i am the girlfriend of the boy in the village. i will travel with you *walks for five minutes* oh no i've been cursed and will now die goodbye"

lol i remember hearing that the og game was kind of a downer, but thinking about it yeah iirc like 90% of the char deaths in that are women?? :ohdear:

apparently there were two remakes of the original game, did the more recent one fix that issue?

# ? Nov 28, 2019 05:31

Phantasium: Dec 27, 2012

Booky posted:

lol i remember hearing that the og game was kind of a downer, but thinking about it yeah iirc like 90% of the char deaths in that are women?? apparently there were two remakes of the original game, did the more recent one fix that issue?

the more recent one changed less of the game actually and was incredibly faithful to the original, down to the map and some original bugs

# ? Nov 28, 2019 05:38

lets hang out: Jan 10, 2015

the party member AI in sword of mana was insanely bad, they got stuck on every single screen

# ? Nov 28, 2019 05:41

cheetah7071: Oct 20, 2010; honk honk; College Slice

Which of Atelier Iris 1, Ar Tonelico 1, and Mana Khemia 2 holds up best? I'm gonna continue my tour of Gust's PS2 library soon, I think

# ? Nov 28, 2019 05:41

ACES CURE PLANES: Oct 21, 2010

Speaking personally, I'd say Ar Tonelico 1. It's not as good as the sequel, but I'd say it's a bit better than MK2, but not quite up to MK1's standards.

# ? Nov 28, 2019 05:44

The Colonel: Jun 8, 2013; I commute by bike!

cheetah7071 posted:

Which of Atelier Iris 1, Ar Tonelico 1, and Mana Khemia 2 holds up best? I'm gonna continue my tour of Gust's PS2 library soon, I think

ar tonelico 1's gameplay is insanely dull and the first act is kinda mediocre, but act 2 is decent and act 3 is kind of genuinely cool

# ? Nov 28, 2019 05:45

Infinity Gaia: Feb 27, 2011; a storm is coming...

cheetah7071 posted:

Which of Atelier Iris 1, Ar Tonelico 1, and Mana Khemia 2 holds up best? I'm gonna continue my tour of Gust's PS2 library soon, I think

Personal opinion for me is MK2, but you have to be onboard with a game where the entire party is a bunch of assholes. The actual gameplay is my favorite of the PS2 Gust games, but the plot can be a bit rough to deal with sometimes because nearly every character is kind of a horrible person for some reason or another.

# ? Nov 28, 2019 06:00

wateyad: Nov 17, 2007; The power of the Outsider is

...dat ass

cheetah7071 posted:

Which of Atelier Iris 1, Ar Tonelico 1, and Mana Khemia 2 holds up best? I'm gonna continue my tour of Gust's PS2 library soon, I think

I think you might like MK2. The crafting is a lot more interesting than the first one. It's the same basic mechanics as the first one and they got rid of the athenor (so there basically aren't crafting chains at all) but they completely reworked support skills to be interesting and actually matter.

When you synthesise an item you pick a partner who comes with both passive and active skills. Active skills are consistently available (not seemingly random like in the first one) and can be used once each during that synthesis. Some of the passives are big and weird, Iike I remember one making ether level always start at 0 but rap around between 0 and 100. Characters acquire more of both as the game progresses but the mechanism for how is completely opaque.

Oh and the made every items's grow book entry have one extra node you only unlock by crafting the item at ether level 100.

# ? Nov 28, 2019 06:01

Looper: Mar 1, 2012

the story bits of sword of mana are fine, what i don't like are the class stuff and the stat stuff in general. if you don't look at a guide you're probably not going to get any of the classes and their bonuses. also my npc companion shits out 30-40 damage per sword swipe whereas my spells do like 10 damage to most things after I've pumped all my levels into magic stats, and your mp takes literal minutes to recharge

as a child i distinctly remember doing 1 damage to most late game bosses, until grinding enough weapon exp mid-fight to do 2 damage. i was hoping adult me could do better

Looper fucked around with this message at 06:20 on Nov 28, 2019

# ? Nov 28, 2019 06:18

The Colonel: Jun 8, 2013; I commute by bike!

surprisingly, mana games are really weirdly balanced

# ? Nov 28, 2019 06:24

cheetah7071: Oct 20, 2010; honk honk; College Slice

figures the one PS2 gust game I don't already own is $100

guess I'm emulating

e: oh it's a reasonable price at gamestop of all places

cheetah7071 fucked around with this message at 07:21 on Nov 28, 2019

# ? Nov 28, 2019 06:24

Elephant Parade: Jan 20, 2018

Looper posted:

as a child i distinctly remember doing 1 damage to most late game bosses, until grinding enough weapon exp mid-fight to do 2 damage. i was hoping adult me could do better

can confirm, that's the sword of mana experience

# ? Nov 28, 2019 06:30

Elephant Parade: Jan 20, 2018

the other half of the sword of mana experience is chowing down on candy bars to avoid the boss's undodgeable attacks

# ? Nov 28, 2019 06:31

Catgirl Al Capone: Dec 15, 2007

i played and enjoyed sword of mana but as a literal sick child who grinded a lot so I doubt it holds up very well. with all those spare levels i wouldve been buffered against a lot of the bullshit.

# ? Nov 28, 2019 13:32

Cephas: May 11, 2009; Humanity's real enemy is me!
Hya hya foowah!

What are some good RPGs on mobile? I know Dragon Quest's ports are good. I was super excited to see that Valkyrie Profile Lenneth is available too. And Chrono Trigger. Any other notable ports or original games?

# ? Nov 28, 2019 14:24

Tae: Oct 24, 2010; Hello? Can you hear me? ...Perhaps if I shout? AAAAAAAAAH!

Some random fire emblem rom hack turned into a turn based VN?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/studiodaimon/path-of-the-midnight-sun-a-dark-fantasy-jrpg-vn

Art is hidari-esque with the shading.

# ? Nov 28, 2019 14:32

Cynic Jester: Apr 11, 2009; Let's put a simile on that face
A dazzling simile
Twinkling like the night sky

Cephas posted:

What are some good RPGs on mobile? I know Dragon Quest's ports are good. I was super excited to see that Valkyrie Profile Lenneth is available too. And Chrono Trigger. Any other notable ports or original games?

FFT. Infinity Engine stuff.

# ? Nov 28, 2019 15:08

Wordnumber: Jan 13, 2015

Sword of Mana can be fun if you do know/have a guide explaining how the classes work and then just get the Master Class that lets you auto dodge everything.

People home in on the Sympathetic Fascist Dark Lord stuff but I don't think the script looses much if anything by making Katt, Medusa and Mindflayer actual characters who are trying to do things more then just sitting in the back of a cave waiting to die. It's all indulgent more then great but it's not like, torturous.

# ? Nov 28, 2019 15:24

Commander Keene: Dec 21, 2016; Faster than the others

Cephas posted:

What are some good RPGs on mobile? I know Dragon Quest's ports are good. I was super excited to see that Valkyrie Profile Lenneth is available too. And Chrono Trigger. Any other notable ports or original games?

I can only speak to the mobile ports of DQ1 and DQ5, but 1's software D-Pad makes the game unplayable, IMO, and from what I hear 2 and 3 use the same one, so I'm not buying them. I literally didn't even make it out of the first castle in DQ1 mobile before I refunded the game because the controls were such utter garbage. Seeing as 1-3 recently received Switch ports, I'd personally 1,000% recommend buying them over the mobile version if you own a Switch, and playing the SNES/GBC versions on emulator if you don't. 5 is OK, from what I played; I only got up to the end of the first "act" of the game where you get captured and enslaved by the monsters. I'd still recommend playing 5 on the DS if you can, but it's $55 currently on Amazon and while that's certainly not unreasonable for a full-length JRPG, it's hard to argue against the mobile version's $15 price-point.

Absolutely buy 4 on mobile, though. AFAIK it uses the same controls as DQ5 mobile, and they left out the party chat in the DS remake, but put it in the mobile version, and that's definitely worth a bit of control jank. I have it on DS and I'm considering buying it for mobile. The only thing really holding me back is hoping for a Switch port.

Cynic Jester posted:

FFT. Infinity Engine stuff.

I haven't played the mobile versions of BG/2/IWD/Torment, but they seem like they'd play well on mobile, given the control scheme. I'd be a little concerned about screen real estate on a phone, but if I didn't already have them on Steam, I'd consider buying them for play on my tablet.

# ? Nov 28, 2019 15:37

pmchem: Jan 22, 2010

I think I'm gonna buy Bard's Tale IV Director's Cut and Pathfinder: Kingmaker at this Steam sale. They're both at good prices.

Apparently BT4 has received really good post-launch support, including graphical upgrades. So happy when devs provide good support!

# ? Nov 28, 2019 16:40

Hwurmp: May 20, 2005

uhhh

# ? Nov 28, 2019 16:43

pmchem: Jan 22, 2010

Hwurmp posted:

uhhh

did you play it and disagree? I was hoping for RPG opinions on BT4 here

# ? Nov 28, 2019 16:49

Commander Keene: Dec 21, 2016; Faster than the others

pmchem posted:

I think I'm gonna buy Bard's Tale IV Director's Cut and Pathfinder: Kingmaker at this Steam sale. They're both at good prices.

Apparently BT4 has received really good post-launch support, including graphical upgrades. So happy when devs provide good support!

Barudak posted:

The saddest part of all this is Ive still got more problems to discuss but Im out of game to realistically discuss them*

As for the game itself for the first few hours it feels like a janky mess but combat is decently engaging and fun while the premise of bardic adventure still seems like it could happen. The puzzles are nice little changes of pace even if some teach you the game has some real design issues regarding the UI and leveling at low levels is fairly satisfying because each one can be a massive boost to your characters stats or how they play. The problem is the game is roughly 12 million years long and by the end you are sick and hate the change of pace things and more and more and more issues crop up as you go deeper in the game and every single system falls apart and the underlying design weaknesses for everything become unavoidable. Story and mechanic wise, despite being called the Bard's tale the story is more "clean up leftover villains and possibly be a bard since you know character creator whatever <shrugs> tale"

*Things I didnt talk about but are problems that exist:

1) the game has severe performance issues in battle, sometimes predictable and sometimes not. If you use a buff and apply it to your whole party expect to spend around 15-20 seconds waiting for that action to finish resolving. Conversely, sometimes and for no explicable reason after using an attack the game will hitch and act like its not doing anything even though it charges you for the action until a few seconds later it actually does the action often overlapping with what you queued up next. Sometimes at the end of fights it just sits there for a good bit before finally going "oh yeah, you won".

2) The game uses grid-based and turn based combat where it loads you into a separate combat plane when you enter a fight. Despite this it still regularly has enemies who visually are off the grid or sharing a grid space with each other and which one your attack will hit seems random.

3) There is a character super early on who says they buy and sell souls and nobody seems weirded out by this. You might think this is therefore a cool lore bit or something that will come up later or have a questline but no. The guy just says "yes, I buy souls" if you ask him if he buys souls and "yes I sell souls" if you ask him if he sells them. He then dissappears in the end game and has no bearing or purpose or anything

4) There is a sidequest that tells you to find someone. You might think that shes somewhere in the area the questgiver is and that since it is labeled sidequest you can do this now if you want to. Congrats on being wrong because shes about 15 hours or more further into the game and part of the main quest, hope you didnt waste time looking for her

5) Combat difficulty is entirely measured by who goes first. If its not you going first, until the very end hours of the game, this is gonna be very detrimental to your survival. There is a boss that teleports in unnanounced and will very likely wreck you because they can go first unless you know theyre going to warp in, stare at where they pop into existence and slam the "initiate battle" button in the half a second before they start the fight with you

Barudak posted:

It is just so awful on every level I had to share it. I play lots of games and gently comment on them here or there in this thread but this whole thing is utter madness.

I have more I just remembered

6) The skip puzzle button does not work on all puzzles, only those that block a door. This means there is a puzzle in the final dungeon about manipulating blocks you must solve yourself or you cant fight the final boss.

7) Even better the "which direction will the blocks move" activation prompt when doing this puzzle, which theoretically dynamically changes to tell you before you pull the lever where it will go, doesnt work correctly and several times I pulled the lever and it went in the opposite direction the prompt said it would. Given this is a puzzle I cant unpull the lever to get them back to where they were most of them time. How does that even happen?

8) Oh the solution to the puzzle is something youve never done before and would, having played this janky poo poo for hours, probably assume wouldnt work. To make it even more fun, theres an additional button that teleports you across the room that since it exists might lead you to think you need to use it in the puzzle but noooooope.

9) When picking up items you cant compare if they're better than what the character currently has equipped which it does do in shops which use the exact same menu.

Barudak spent quite a few posts a little while ago complaining about how awful BT4 was and how bad the underlying design decisions were. This is just the post-mortem after they were entirely done, like an entire page of their posts are probably "they hosed X thing up in Y way". I haven't personally played it, but reading about the poo poo Barudak was going through was enough to put me off the game.

# ? Nov 28, 2019 16:50

pmchem: Jan 22, 2010

Commander Keene posted:

Barudak spent quite a few posts a little while ago complaining about how awful BT4 was and how bad the underlying design decisions were. This is just the post-mortem after they were entirely done, like an entire page of their posts are probably "they hosed X thing up in Y way". I haven't personally played it, but reading about the poo poo Barudak was going through was enough to put me off the game.

oh, thanks. Did he start off with a recent version of the director's cut? On steam, the initial release of the game got really poor reviews, but recently, things are really looking up in all the comments that I can find?

# ? Nov 28, 2019 16:55

Samuringa: Mar 27, 2017; Best advice I was ever given?

"Ticker, you'll be a lot happier once you stop caring about the opinions of a culture that is beneath you."

I learned my worth, learned the places and people that matter.

Opened my eyes.

I thought it was a joke post because both games were fairly badly received and Barudak spent a month in the hell dungeon that was Bard's Tale IV and reporting it live in the thread.

# ? Nov 28, 2019 16:57

Commander Keene: Dec 21, 2016; Faster than the others

pmchem posted:

oh, thanks. Did he start off with a recent version of the director's cut? On steam, the initial release of the game got really poor reviews, but recently, things are really looking up in all the comments that I can find?

I don't know. I don't think any post ever specifically mentions the Director's Cut. :shrug:

Paging Barudak to the RPG thread?

# ? Nov 28, 2019 17:07

Prism: Dec 22, 2007; yospos

Commander Keene posted:

I don't know. I don't think any post ever specifically mentions the Director's Cut. Paging Barudak to the RPG thread?

Barudak posted:

Oh boy does it sort of ever. Im playing the directors cut which apparently included according to the devs "thousands of bug fixes" in addition to gameplay changes which is terrifying because there is some severe ongoing jankiness as I play (like getting regularly stuck in scenery), an achievement Im currently struggling to get to fire, and three hardlocks over the course of the game so far.

The director's cut did not help. (I have also played it, but unlike Barudak I gave up well before finishing.)

# ? Nov 28, 2019 17:09

Tae: Oct 24, 2010; Hello? Can you hear me? ...Perhaps if I shout? AAAAAAAAAH!

I'm a smt noob, why does smt 4 apoc negotiation suck so much

# ? Nov 28, 2019 19:13

Looper: Mar 1, 2012

i thought negotiation was always kinda random in most games

# ? Nov 28, 2019 19:33

klapman: Aug 27, 2012; this char is good

Apoc seemed better about it imo, but I never actually learned the system in lieu of just internalizing it over the course of years

# ? Nov 28, 2019 21:55

Golden Battler: Sep 6, 2010; ~Perfect and Elegant~

Tae posted:

Some random fire emblem rom hack turned into a turn based VN?

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/studiodaimon/path-of-the-midnight-sun-a-dark-fantasy-jrpg-vn

Art is hidari-esque with the shading.

Wait, that's where Midnight Sun went? I played that like 3 years ago and just assumed it died, like so many other romhacks.

# ? Nov 28, 2019 23:09

Dick Wolf: Apr 5, 2009

I played bards tale 4, both versions. It was not to my liking either time and I think Barudak hit on a lot of it's problems, but the big one for me was the design of combat, which was maybe one of it's few positives. Because of limited turn count for each round of combat you could have characters standing around doing nothing and you tended to figure out winning strategies and falling into patterns, then again I didn't get terribly far due to a lack of interest. I also spent many hours playing wasteland 2 so I consider myself to be fairly tolerant with poor design sometimes. I kickstarted Bards tale and only regret 2 other games more Underworld Ascendant, a game that has very little similar to it's predecessors, and Unsung Story a tactics jrpg that fell into development hell, but may still come out. I guess I'm just saying I wasn't a fan, but yes, since the new version it has been getting good reviews on Steam.

# ? Nov 29, 2019 01:06

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# ? May 23, 2024 22:09

Overbite: Jan 24, 2004; I'm a vtuber expert

Star Ocean First Departure R is almost out. I haven�t played that one but 4 and 5 were terrible and 2 was good and 3 was bad but I like it. Maybe Star Ocean First Departure R is good?

# ? Nov 29, 2019 17:20

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