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Wait, mechs?
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Sep 5, 2023 16:05
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| # ? May 24, 2024 04:15 |
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Speaking of the mechs, I imagine I'm just about to get those. I'm on the airship where you get captured, which is DEFINITELY not an homage to the blackbird sequence in trigger (though in this case you get your items right away rather than having to stealth around to get equipment unless you brought Ayla). One of the objectives is to find a mech so I presume that's where the mechanic I've heard complaints about unlocks
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Sep 5, 2023 16:08
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The mech mechanics are fine at first, it's a different-but-similar set of battle toys to play around with. The main mech issues are that they barely evolve past that 20 hours later, as well as how it impacts world design (lots of puzzle areas designed where the "solution" is "come back when you have a mech")
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Sep 5, 2023 16:13
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I'm 10 hours into Sea of Stars and will probably see it through to the end, but it feels shallow after a couple hours and only gets worse as you go on. The game drags itself out in areas giving you puzzles that are not really puzzles, but chores to push/pull things from one area to another that are on tracks. Story is boring and generic, the side characters are one dimensional and quickly become annoyong to interact with. IDK, the first 2-3 hours of this game felt like a lot of promise despite some obvious flaws, and the further I get into it the more I wish I had tapped out at the 5 hour mark because even though the story is moving forward, my characters seem to be the same. edit: Combat, combat. They could have given us a few more skills to mix it up, but using the same 2 skills because they scale so much better than everything else... just awful.
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Sep 5, 2023 16:16
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faantastic posted:edit: Combat, combat. They could have given us a few more skills to mix it up, but using the same 2 skills because they scale so much better than everything else... just awful. And you can't even run away! You just have to fight things. No fast travel either so there's a few points where you're going back through really weak enemies. But the only variation in attacks is Combos that you have to FIND so I feel like I've got to keep doing this Also I hate having to press the keys. It loving sucks. Because if you miss it, your attack is almost wasted, regardless of how the game pitches it at you earlier as "not mattering"
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Sep 5, 2023 16:30
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Taear posted:And you can't even run away! You just have to fight things. Yeah the game claiming timed hits are just a nice bonus is an absolute boldface lie
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Sep 5, 2023 16:50
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ImpAtom posted:Yeah the game claiming timed hits are just a nice bonus is an absolute boldface lie It also tells you to always be using your MP related powers instead of hitting the enemies when you're at full mana Which is a good way to get proper hosed up since you kinda need that MP for avoiding hits and etc
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Sep 5, 2023 16:55
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The final act of the game feels a bit welded on, like the devs realized they weren’t tapping Chrono Trigger enoughImpAtom posted:Yeah the game claiming timed hits are just a nice bonus is an absolute boldface lie 
The 7th Guest fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Sep 5, 2023 |
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Sep 5, 2023 17:03
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One of the earlier parts of the game you're fighting skeletons that throw bombs on everyone in your party that do ~20 dmg if you hit the defensive timer properly. There is at least one fight with 3 of these skeletons and they get to attack all at once, so they hit you for 60-66 damage in the best case scenario and your party is between 58-70hp or so. IIRC I couldn't interupt any of them because they started at 1 for timer. The grapple hook is a great way to always get the jump on combat and gives you the no-mana-magic-attack stuff to start the fight with.
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Sep 5, 2023 17:03
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faantastic posted:One of the earlier parts of the game you're fighting skeletons that throw bombs on everyone in your party that do ~20 dmg if you hit the defensive timer properly. There is at least one fight with 3 of these skeletons and they get to attack all at once, so they hit you for 60-66 damage in the best case scenario and your party is between 58-70hp or so. IIRC I couldn't interupt any of them because they started at 1 for timer. There's a fight with 5 enemies all at once who start with two timers running and three of them have haste (so they ignore rounds). It's been the absolute hardest fight in the game because if I didn't hit every defence, I'd just wipe before I got to do more than one thing. Not a boss, nothing like that. Just a random fight with 5 enemies. And yea I always fight with the grapple. Although you can SOMETIMES just hit the enemies normally before the fight starts although honestly I can't work out how that works, it feels random.
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Sep 5, 2023 17:08
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I will cop to broad plot blandness but I am liking that Ra'shan and Aelphoru, despite being at odds with each other, still have some degree of fondness for each other. Professor X and Magneto vibes, in a good way.
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Sep 5, 2023 17:15
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Froghammer posted:Finally working my way through Chained Echoes and it's every bit as good as everyone's been telling me it is.
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Sep 5, 2023 17:40
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So Crimson Tactics came out of Early Access today: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1480810/Crimson_Tactics_The_Rise_of_The_White_Banner/ Has anyone messed with this and have any impressions? Steam reviews make it sound like maybe it needs to cook a bit longer.
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Sep 5, 2023 17:41
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one of the midgame twists for Sea of Stars aping a crucial yet ridiculous Golden Sun twist is almost too perfect considering they both have the same level of writing/inane plot construction/worthless NPCs/boring dungeons. I do not see the Chrono Trigger inspiration in this game at all, if anything it's def more "Golden Sun with Timed Hits" and if it was marketed like that from the start I wouldn't have tried it at all. To each their own but it seems nuts a lot of reviewers have this rated so high beside Octopath 2 / Baldurs Gate 3. I think a lot of RPGs this year have drawn out a particular issue with some games into the light for me i.e. that having good combat gets you only so far in an RPG if the story is dragging its feet. Watching my fiance play FF16 is certainly fun as gently caress with the combat and huge bosses but anytime it goes into cutscenes and washed-out grey towns with dishwater personalities, it seems like a struggle for us to keep interest.
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Sep 5, 2023 17:59
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DLC Inc posted:To each their own but it seems nuts a lot of reviewers have this rated so high beside Octopath 2 / Baldurs Gate 3. I'm glad SoS was free with PS+ Extra, because seeing it put on par with OT2 was one of the things that instantly got my attention.
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Sep 5, 2023 18:09
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idk i think ff16 has bits of more low key writing that are pretty good. it just suffers a lot from the generic aaa game sidequest cutscene camera direction, combined with how much it tends to pile on you at once and how absolutely all of it is fully voiced. ff14 lets you move through similar sorts of scenes a lot faster and has more entertaining cutscene direction for stuff like that and i think it makes it work a lot better there
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Sep 5, 2023 18:10
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I started with Triangle Strategy and am absolutely loving it. Really wish I hadn't been convinced to not play it back when it came out. I'm around chapter 9 or 10 right now. Hoping it continues to impress and sticks the landing Was worried that there would be too much tedium with dialogue dumps and story. While there is a lot, it's well done and I am really enjoying it
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Sep 5, 2023 18:10
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I'm a sucker for that kind of period-inspired politics/war stuff even if it's really dry, so I really did enjoy tristrat a ton
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Sep 5, 2023 18:14
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ff16 is kind of a hard game to quantify for me though cause i'm halfway on thinking parts of it are just executed in a really rough way but also, its setting is aesthetically and tonally not really in line with any of my favorite final fantasy stuff. didn't love it when they did a lot of that stuff in tactics either and it's closest to my overall least favorite parts of arr and heavensward as far as 14 is concerned
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Sep 5, 2023 18:21
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DLC Inc posted:I think a lot of RPGs this year have drawn out a particular issue with some games into the light for me i.e. that having good combat gets you only so far in an RPG if the story is dragging its feet. Watching my fiance play FF16 is certainly fun as gently caress with the combat and huge bosses but anytime it goes into cutscenes and washed-out grey towns with dishwater personalities, it seems like a struggle for us to keep interest. Stories might need to justify themselves a bit more these days, because there are a lot of games now that rely on fun gameplay loops with little-to-no story in genres where that wasn't always the case (like RPGs). People will put a million hours into Siralim and not care that there isn't a story, but if you put in a bad one that demands your attentions and acts like it's important, that's off-putting.
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Sep 5, 2023 18:22
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I started playing Fallout 1 and I'm surprised by how mediocre it seems. I've always heard great things about it's writing specifically - the dated visuals and control scheme doesn't bother me too much, and the combat is slow and relatively simplistic but I expected that. What I didn't expect was the writing to be so... utilitarian? Almost every conversation the NPCs seem like a robo-greeter or something 'Hi. My name is x. My job is x. You can go here to do x. Goodbye.' Does it get significantly better further in? I've already returned the water chip to the vault and I haven't had a single interaction that I would say has good writing, and the setting feels very flat as a result.
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Sep 5, 2023 18:22
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fallout 1 is the most restrained one and that does kinda make it the most consistent but it also means it's not nearly as weird or inventive as 2 or new vegas, yeah. most of what's neat about it are the setting and concepts it comes up with more than individual character writing, and if you've already seen the later games that means most of what you get to appreciate in 1 are that more consistent tone and how it comes up with all that stuff
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Sep 5, 2023 18:24
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Fitzy Fitz posted:Stories might need to justify themselves a bit more these days, because there are a lot of games now that rely on fun gameplay loops with little-to-no story in genres where that wasn't always the case (like RPGs). People will put a million hours into Siralim and not care that there isn't a story, but if you put in a bad one that demands your attentions and acts like it's important, that's off-putting. what is "justifying themselves" here, cause i dont feel anything has changed at large wrt people not giving a poo poo if a game has a bad story unless it is genuinely and undeniably repulsive
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Sep 5, 2023 18:33
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Item Getter posted:Anyway curious what games still have an old style world map. I think the old school way might be dead now. From the few games I can think of, all of the enemy encounters are visible now: Pokemon, Yakuza 7, Tales of, FF15 &16, etc. The only one doing it that way semi-recently was is DQ11 if you play it in 2D mode.
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Sep 5, 2023 18:55
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Ouroboros posted:I started playing Fallout 1 and I'm surprised by how mediocre it seems. I've always heard great things about it's writing specifically - the dated visuals and control scheme doesn't bother me too much, and the combat is slow and relatively simplistic but I expected that. What I didn't expect was the writing to be so... utilitarian? Almost every conversation the NPCs seem like a robo-greeter or something 'Hi. My name is x. My job is x. You can go here to do x. Goodbye.' Does it get significantly better further in? I've already returned the water chip to the vault and I haven't had a single interaction that I would say has good writing, and the setting feels very flat as a result. a lot of the interesting stuff in 1 is backloaded towards the end where a lot of the metaphorical puzzle pieces you've been getting over the course of the game come together and you have a clearer picture of what's going on
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Sep 5, 2023 19:02
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Yeah, Fallout 1 walked so Fallout 2 could run basically. FO1 still has some strong moments but FO2 is where they really got their feet under them with the entire concept. (Or if you believe the die-hard Fallout fans where the series was ruined forever even before Butthesda got their hands on it!!!1!)
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Sep 5, 2023 19:03
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the die-hard fallout fans were proven correct
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Sep 5, 2023 19:04
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Feels Villeneuve posted:the die-hard fallout fans were proven correct Nah, New Vegas is legit the best Fallout and that wouldn't exist without them.
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Sep 5, 2023 19:16
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The Colonel posted:what is "justifying themselves" here, cause i dont feel anything has changed at large wrt people not giving a poo poo if a game has a bad story unless it is genuinely and undeniably repulsive We have good examples now of how a game can be built around RPG features and gameplay loops without much of a story, so why make the story central to the game if it's not going to be good? I don't mind skipping the cutscenes in Disgaea games, for example (it doesn't matter), but something feels wrong about skipping the cutscenes in a mainline Final Fantasy, even if they aren't good.
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Sep 5, 2023 19:19
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I mean I think the problem in those cases is that the gameplay in a lot of RPGs is not deep/crunchy enough to be worth engaging for itself if you are totally uninvested in the story, not that it's impossible to ignore the story.
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Sep 5, 2023 19:21
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What I'm saying is, stop making bad games
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Sep 5, 2023 19:22
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Hire more lvl 20/20 writers
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Sep 5, 2023 19:26
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ImpAtom posted:Nah, New Vegas is legit the best Fallout and that wouldn't exist without them. those people really liked New Vegas
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Sep 5, 2023 19:31
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disgaea 1's story, is good. frankly the writing was the best part of a few of nis' ps2 era games and only really fell off after they got fixated on recreating disgaea 1
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Sep 5, 2023 19:33
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Fitzy Fitz posted:What I'm saying is, stop making bad games Done.
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Sep 5, 2023 19:37
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also i'm not sure what final fantasy games we're talking about here where you don't want to skip the story even though you think it isn't good but like. i would not want a final fantasy game that has zero story emphasis whatsoever. and don't give me ffv, ffv's story is legitimately ambitious for its era and very defining of the series' legacy. asking the question of why have the story be central if it's not going to be good is pointless, nobody knows how it's gonna turn out until it's done and nobody sets out to make a bad story, it's just one of many decisions with outcomes you can't really predict until all the work around it is done lol
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Sep 5, 2023 19:40
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The Colonel posted:also i'm not sure what final fantasy games we're talking about here where you don't want to skip the story even though you think it isn't good but like. i would not want a final fantasy game that has zero story emphasis whatsoever. and don't give me ffv, ffv's story is legitimately ambitious for its era and very defining of the series' legacy I'm not sure I'd call FFV's story ambitious for the era. It was released the same year as Dragon Quest V, Soul Blazer, Romancing SaGa, and Shin Megami Tensei, all of which I'd call more ambitious easily. FFV is absolutely ambitious in gameplay but in terms of story it is less ambitious than FFIV and even can come across as a recycle at times. (Exdeath being visually similar, especially in sprite form, to Golbez, Tellah and Galuf both dying, etc.) It doesn't make it bad but sandwiching it between IV and VI does make it feel like the 'simple' one.
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Sep 5, 2023 19:43
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I was super hyped for sea of stars off the demo and then felt really let down in the first 5 or so hours of the actual game, but I stuck with it and it pays off huge dividends imo if you see it through to the end There's a lot of cool stuff you can do once everything opens up, which, unfortunately is like 20 hours in But, I beat the whole thing 100% triple completion in 35 hours total and had fun along the way It has flaws for sure though, it needs a run-away command and it needs an "exit mouse" type mechanic to bail on a dungeon to the world map considering how much backtracking you need to do for 100% Great art though, drat
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Sep 5, 2023 19:44
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i mean it's not super complicated thematically or in terms of scale but compared to all of those besides maybe dqv it's one of the tighter rpg plots of its time, probably the first ff game to really have a cohesive close-knit party with well defined character arcs and dynamics. ffiv had big ideas but comparatively was, mostly a ton of random weird bullshit happening. ffv is a simpler fantasy story but a much more cleanly executed one. it's not ambitious in terms of scale but it stands out for how much better it functions than a lot of its contemporaries
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Sep 5, 2023 19:46
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Red Magnus is one of my favorite characters, so Nippon Ichi's still got it IMO
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Sep 5, 2023 19:48
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