RPG Thread: SaGa Emeril Beyond

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Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

No, wait, guys, it gets better! There's another ending!

The second ending reveals the "true" Alex, which is literally just the Developer himself who fuses all the Alex's into himself and leaves into the true universe, he then writes up a whole speech ripping off Wallace's statements about Postmodernism dying out to become New Sincerity, basically telling you the whole game's about REJECTING postmodernism, and you escape into the soul space in an elevator with Sammy before reality can be destroyed rather than chasing after the android. Helpfully, Alex tells you that you're not Alex because he's Alex.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2019 03:37

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 14:45

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

Barudak posted:

If that second ending is real I mother loving called it

If anyone wants to verify, the steps are to go outside your house when the world breaks down and Sammy will be hiding behind the tree in your yard. Go back inside, log onto the computer, and read the developer message. Then exit through the door in your house that normally leads to the radio tower mountain and drive to the east part of the map "KNN"

Space Cadet Omoly posted:

I wish Live A Live had gotten a sequel. It's such a cool idea, I'd love to see it done a again.

It's a game I always thought could have been tightened up a fair amount through experience, but I still loved the disparate vignettes and even getting crushed in the wrestling chapter was fast paced enough to brute force some winning plays.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2019 20:51

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

corn in the bible posted:

oh yeah, would it be better to play original sin 1 first?

Besides a few references and the identity of an antagonist, there's no major connections between the titles. D:OS 2 is set over a millennium after D:OS 1. Not sure how much QoL difference might make it feel hard going back after, but it's not a necessity that you play in order.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2019 22:20

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

As far as revisiting titles goes, I love how the Starforce enhanced crossover for BN1 doesn't take the opportunity to put in any quality of life enhancements or anything, but just kind of awkwardly hacks in some new events and calls it a game.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2019 08:53

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w56ika8zy7A
Suppose they didn't want that work put into the PSP port languishing.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2019 01:41

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

WrightOfWay posted:

People who want to play 8 foot tall rabbit people are pedos? How does that even track?

A popular fan idea for male viera (who have yet to be canonically defined, appearance-wise) is that they'd be sexually dimorphic in the opposite direction from Au Ra, along the lines of this concept art.

That is not the only popular idea, but it's the only one that would support the claim. (This is the other extant concept art for comparison's sake.)

# ¿ Sep 20, 2019 00:48

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

Barudak posted:

Fire up a copy of Hybrid Heaven and enjoy some jank weirdness you didnt know somebody would think of as commercially viable on the N64

Sometimes you just really want to put a mutant in a Boston Crab.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2019 08:49

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

Getting VP1's best ending sounds more intimidating than it really ends up being, the chief gotcha part is that you only have limited opportunities to lower Lenneth's Seal Value, and sending heroes to Valhalla RAISES it, so it's possible to lock yourself out by wasting the events that reduce it before you're ready to freefall. The only other major guide moment is needing to send a single specific character up in either the chapter you get them or the next one, but they don't make it a secret that the character's... SIGNIFICANT.

(The trick, then, is being able to raise a minimum number of characters to cover evaluation each chapter - and the earlier the better, so you have more time to drop that Seal Value without interruptions.)

# ¿ Oct 14, 2019 22:18

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

There's only four Easy/Normal exclusive dungeons in VP1 as opposed to eight Hard exclusive dungeons, and only Hard has a character that can't be obtained on other difficulties (Easy is missing seven characters).
The Easy/Normal dungeons exclusives tend to be on the, well, easier side (though they still ramp up in complexity; Black Dream Tower's layout has a whole lotta map crisscrossing), but they all have unique music tracks!

# ¿ Oct 22, 2019 12:55

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

There aren't all that many weapons that can break in VP1 and I believe none of the artifact weapons you can send to Odin can.
I can't even remember offhand if it's all that much effort to just make a new one from MP. Did you have to be on the world map for that or could you just do it from a save point or something?

# ¿ Oct 26, 2019 00:26

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

YggiDee posted:

Opera and Ashton? I don't think I've ever played another RPG that has more recruitable characters than you can fit like that. There's like thirteen dudes and you can only pick eight.

It was... eight total slots, two are guaranteed to be filled by Rena and Claude, Dias/Leon only permanently available for Rena/Claude story respectively, Opera/Ashton mutually exclusive (and Ernest is dependent on Opera being in the group), Precis/Bowman mutually exclusive, and Celine, Noel, and Chisato are all completely neutral to party composition excepting the hard roster limit.
Welch was added for the PSP version, right? I haven't gotten around to that yet.

Hogama fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Nov 8, 2019

# ¿ Nov 8, 2019 03:15

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

I blame it all on The Spirits Within whether it's true or not anyway.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2019 18:00

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

Max Wilco posted:

The boss fight against the Guard Scorpion is where I had the most trouble. The fight itself wasn't hard, but I felt like I was supposed to have done it faster. The game says to hit it with lightning magic and hit the thing on the back to destroy the shield, but the lightning magic didn't seem to work sometimes, and getting behind it to hit the shielding device felt awkward. The fight was where I burned through most of my potions (mostly for Cloud). My strategy was to try to get into close range and beat the boss in Punisher Mode, but I get the feeling you're supposed to spend more time blocking and dodging. I think my issue is that I was trying to rush it because of the timer, but obviously the timer doesn't start until after you beat the boss.

I probably missed this during the tutorial message, but I realized when fighting the slashing guys during the escape, blocking at the last moment will counter attack.

I wish that you could switch from Operator to Punisher during a combo, because the ideal method of attack seems to be to close the distance with Operator, than immediately switch to Punisher to deal damage fast. One annoyance I have is that ATB won't let you use potions unless you have a bar, but I suppose the original game is like that. I guess maybe in the remake demo, it came across like you just need ATB to do the special moves.

I don't know if this is just me being dense or what, but in the cutscene where Heidegger and President Shinra have the bots start shooting up the plant after the bomb goes off, I wasn't sure if that was implied that the bomb failed and they were making it look like it had worked, or if they were causing additional damage to try and kill AVALANCHE by bringing the plant down faster.

[*] It's immune to lightning magic while the shield's up. The roll can help you circle the boss, but if you're getting locked-on, that character is going to be the target of a follow-up attacks for a while, so at that point it might be better to swap to the other character for some uninterrrupted hits. (It's not immune to Fire while the shield's up, though, so Cloud can break the shield generator in a few quick casts once he's behind.)
[*] Any melee-coded attack that you block while in Punisher is counter-attacked, you don't have to time it perfectly - however, if you hit the button to SWAP to Punisher from Operator as you're about to be hit, you'll automatically parry during your transition.
[*] It's a flow. You can at least easily break from Punisher to Operator with the dodge roll.
[*] The scene is meaning to show the bomb's damage was not anywhere near news-worthy even if it didn't fail. Going just from the original story, Shinra is perfectly down with turning AVALANCHE into scapegoats, but that tactic's much more effective if your terrorists are responsible for massive destruction than if they simply force some annoying minor repairs that wouldn't make front page news.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3U8jfJnkfw
You can see some of that in this quick kill video, Cloud counter-attacks the Electrostomp starting from Operator mode.

As for the ticket booth, you can see the train line map and it's just one station on the loop. The actual reactor is through an off-limits area that AVALANCHE has to hack through but presumably there's Midgar working stiffs who might use the station itself for normal reasons.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2020 22:18

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

Might have used some thicker lines/outlines but the spirit of the sprites seems intact.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2020 20:07

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

I enjoyed it more than BoF1 on my last playthough, which was when the GBA titles came out.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2020 04:38

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

lets hang out posted:

SF really looking like they AI upscaled it. wonder if they'll do the same thing for Legend of Mana

https://twitter.com/Dreamboum/status/1333249708823891968
Pretty sure they have.

That and having Kazuko Shibuya redraw the characters, probably based on the prerendered sprites.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2020 07:12

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

Nothing new per se announced during the SaGa 30th Anniversary Finale Live Stream, though they did have 11 minutes of gameplay from Frontier Remastered.
Some tidbits, though: Fuse has multiple story arcs, and they're pretty much finishing up development, so a release before summer 2021 is possible.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2020 18:58

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

Neddy Seagoon posted:

Just out of curiosity, what's the "intended" tone/take on the character rather than "baby talk"?

Charlotte was always intended to sound childish, Japanese just tends to have different norms and forms to express that - she speaks with simplified script (no kanji), she refers to herself in the third person (often seen as a little kid thing), and she tends to end sentences with -dechi instead of -desu. As far back as 1995, she was meant to sound a bit... unique.

quote:

�Speaking of Charlotte, where did you come up with that unique way of speaking she has, where she ends everything with �dechi�.
(Designer Koichi) Ishii: There�s already so many characters that say �dechuu�, so we went with �dechi� instead. Of course if you heard a real kid talk like that, you�d probably think there was something wrong in the head with them.

Not that any of this necessarily means they had to go so heavy on the r=w replacement, but that's just the localization choice from the company that brought us Tama's the-speech.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2021 13:58

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

Argath/Algus's PSP lines sound pretty cool spoken in FFXIV, though they're just sound-bites and not the whole speeches.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2021 08:42

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

Little bit more on Saga Frontier, there's a confirmed physical Switch/PS4 release on Play-Asia.
It's going to be $40 and released at the same time as the digital release.
Screenshots show that you can now have more than 15 characters in your party.
Fuse can apparently recruit all 7 of the other main characters, as well as Ren.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2021 20:19

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

Charles Get-Out posted:

I played the Japanese version of DQXI on release so had the orchestral soundtrack. A lot of the soundtrack just lingers on repetitive elements or has these strange repeating warble sections.

There are some tracks I like, but it's probably my least favorite DQ soundtrack overall.

The original Japanese DQXI releases have the MIDI soundtrack though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrWS20z0ykk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY9fcvGSGAU
They didn't officially add the Orchestral version of the soundtrack to the game until S. (This is not to say anything about the compositional quality of the soundtrack, just the audio quality.)

Unless you're talking about the separate soundtrack that came with the game for the International release.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2021 18:22

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

More explicit details on SaGa Frontier Remastered (now on preorder)

quote:

New Story Developments � Introducing Fuse as the Eighth Protagonist!
The scenario has been written by Akitoshi Kawazu (SaGa Series General Director) and Benny Matsuyama (game writer and fiction author). Fuse will follow the journey of the seven protagonists while the story unfolds in a manner that makes players get to the bottom of a case; they will find scenes that make them chuckle, as well as new developments that touch their hearts.
The ending to the seven character stories have evolved further from the original version and will surely make players want to follow everyone�s journey alongside Fuse. (Players can play this content by completing any of the other seven protagonists� scenarios.)
Fuse�s storyline is further enlivened with new music from composer Kenji Ito
About the Fuse Storyline
- Unlock Conditions
Completing any of the other protagonists� storylines unlocks the episode corresponding to that protagonist, enabling players to enjoy seven different scenario routes in total, one for each of the seven other protagonists.
Due to the feature that enables players to carry-over their status after completion, players can also enjoy this content with their stats already powered-up, providing replayability.
- Structure
Allows players to enjoy the �IF� scenario: �What if Fuse had intervened in the other protagonists� episodes?� and enables players to form parties that are only possible in the Fuse storyline.
There are also routes that branch into multiple endings as a result of the actions taken within the story.
- Team-up with IRPO members
Other members of the IRPO can also join a party in Fuse�s storyline. Emilia�s fianc� �Ren� finally joins the party in the remastered version.
- All Protagonists Join the Party
All protagonists can potentially join a party if certain conditions are met in the Fuse storyline. In the original game, certain characters did not join a party depending on the protagonist, but one of the compelling aspects of the remastered version is that it enables players to recruit all other protagonists to a party in the Fuse storyline.
- All Final Boss Battles Possible
Players can potentially battle the other protagonists� final bosses if certain conditions are met in the Fuse storyline. (A system that enables players to once again challenge the �final boss� of a protagonist that has joined a party in the Fuse storyline.)
Players can challenge up to 6; the more players defeated, the stronger the final boss becomes in the route, unfolding into a battle that poses an even greater challenge. The final boss battle BGM from the Fuse storyline has been newly composed by Kenji Ito.

# ¿ Mar 12, 2021 01:01

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

embrace multiple mario canons
all mario backstories are true
crisis of infinite marios

# ¿ Mar 15, 2021 18:24

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

SaGa Frontier 1 has some of the most distinct routes in a SaGa game, though the amount of story each character gets sort of varies by who it is. Lute's deliberately the character with the least amount of connective narrative tissue; it *exists* but he's more or less the free-form scenario. The Remaster will be adding Fuse who's looking to have a bunch of "what if" scenarios for the other characters after you've already completed their stories, which would be kind of in keeping with what's in the Ultimania.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2021 01:10

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

Zereth posted:

Can't you go straight from getting control with Lute to the final boss?

You'll loving die, but like, the entire Lute thing is doing side stuff to get more party members and beef up so you can actually win.

Sure can. All I really meant was "Lute has a reason to fight his final boss but that's pretty much it" as opposed to the rest of the cast having some story reasons to visit the worlds besides side-questing.

Inspector Gesicht posted:

I was going to play a Romancing game on Steam once but reading about the sheer level of complexity made my brain leak out of my ears. I've beaten loads of JRPGs and CRPGs but hearing about the multiple origins, mutually-exclusive characters, FF2 leveling, invisible event-flags, and vague critical path makes my head spin.

The conceit of SaGa is generally more about learning new systems through experience rather than having an intuitive grasp from the start. You're meant to experiment and either play multiple times and try new things or at least just have a single playthrough that's "unique." Getting a "perfect" playthrough on your first go-around isn't really the idea (and may be impossible anyway, depending on the game).

Kawazu loves tabletop games and had to translate a lot of the ones he played from English, and he's listed his favorite video game as Ultima IV.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2021 16:19

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

Last Celebration posted:

I�m bummed the LP isn�t in the archives from what I can tell, what�s the endgame�s gimmick? Something about the boss and/or dungeon punishing you super badly for sleeping on a mechanic that isn�t well explained?

The final boss is a hefty step above the rest of the game and once you're in the last dungeon you can't really grind yourself up if you find yourself unprepared, but the only way out is loading an older save or... starting the game over, if you were unwise with saves.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2021 16:59

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

Chaotic Flame posted:

Is Minstrel Song worth playing still? I've only played the Frontiers and some of Scarlet Grace but love all the Saga trappings.

If you can get used to the artstyle (I love the colors and effects even if the proportions are a little goofy) it's a pretty entertaining package with a great ost.
It's got a pretty decent power curve for the normal game - don't fret hotswapping characters too much, it's not a heavy investment to make anybody competent (on-level fights will catch new additions up pretty swiftly), and you can always re-recruit the other main characters at minimum (there's nameless mercenaries who will disappear from recruitment after a certain point but you'd only keep them to endgame for a personal challenge run anyway). There are some hard fights including the final boss but you generally can't get stuck without a way to get stronger and you have to go out of your way to make the final boss harder.
Jobs and spellcasting are a bit weird but it's fine to go with the flow.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2021 18:10

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

Electric Phantasm posted:

Can an emulator get the DLC somehow? I never thought of how emulators and DLC interact.

AFAIK updates and DLCs are all separate package files that you install after the main game's installation. I think you need to do updates in order (i.e. not skipping to the latest) but DLC isn't as picky for installation timing.
Mind you I haven't actually messed with PS3 emulation, just searched for info.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2021 17:54

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

On the other hand, you could play the SEGA AGES version (with a complete save file from 1 as well) and get literally every unique conversation on a new game+ to resurrect the Character What Dies.
I always appreciated the sheer playground rumour energy of the actual thing added to that version of the game, too bad it never got brought overseas.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2021 00:54

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

https://twitter.com/RPGSite/status/1375163331682709509

# ¿ Mar 25, 2021 20:44

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

It's actually the second Metal Slug Tactics, but the first one was more Advance Wars than Tactics Ogre.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2021 21:12

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2021/07/eight-years-later-arx-libertatis-12-is-out-now-with-support-for-high-resolutions
pretty neat

# ¿ Jul 14, 2021 18:55

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

Morpheus posted:

The joke is never just 'woman not cook???' it's that she cooks so terribly that it's like poison and also she's too foolish to realize how terrible her cooking is what a riot

As far as I usually see it it's more that the terrible cook absolutely refuses to taste their own cooking, and if they finally do they'll make a face and say something like "I thought I put more sugar in this..." (Relatedly, they will never be able to recognize what's salt or sugar, and will never taste test.)

# ¿ Jul 26, 2021 04:56

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

Ace Transmuter posted:

So here's the question: is the FF3 pixel remaster... actually good? Are there any QOL upgrades, like saving anywhere, or run speed, or saving anywhere, or saving anywhere?

It is in fact a common feature to all the titles (so far but there's little reason to believe it won't carry over) that you have a run button by default and a Quick Save slot in addition to regular saves.

Quick Save works anywhere outside of battle, and is not deleted upon loading, so it's legit just a portable save point limited solely by there only being one slot for it.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2021 01:55

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

I played D:OS2 through a multi-month co-op as a nearly pure buff-mage Lohse (got some direct damage near the end) with Sebille companion as a thief and my friend played a warrior Red Prince with Fane as a summoner/mage and we didn't really have too much issue with combat and getting through either armor type - our biggest hang-up was basically trying to see all the dialogue each of us was getting (you can change focus to see most of your partner's windows). The endings were especially weird because we had to compare notes to figure out what happened to us.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2021 19:44

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

It always seems so crazy to me, because people talk like it's only been recent that games changed. But like, the most mainline RPG is final fantasy and literally only final fantasy 1 on the NES really had the concept of grinding as central to the game, by FF2 on the snes, literally 30 years ago, the series had pretty much fully transitioned to the idea each boss had a specific strategy to fight you were supposed to puzzle out and very very few 'level check' bosses.

It feels so hard to think of any mainstream game in decades that is based around just leveling to beat things (except maybe superbosses), but constantly in any rpg discussion you always are reading people that seem to just not know the games actually have gameplay. Like you will read about people playing all the way through FF13 never understanding the stagger system is important and just talking about having 15 minute battles with random encounters.

I would not call it practical or how the game was designed, but it is fully possible to beat (NES/Famicom) Final Fantasy 1 at level 9, which is the lowest possible level after experience from required fights.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2021 05:26

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

HGH posted:

Year ago some people told me that there's cut dialogue in English about Li Grim slowly draining the souls of Mewt and the others, is that true at all or just someone's fabrication?

I've looked through the JP text dump in the past and as far as I saw, there was nothing of the sort, that whole soul-draining talk seemed to just be schoolyard rumors to give more justification to Marche. There's slightly more of a tone of "perhaps the former world will come back if you go around breaking stuff" in the text after beating Famfrit, I guess (the localization talks about a new world being born and Marche takes that as a clue that it will be the old world).

Hogama fucked around with this message at 22:04 on Jan 6, 2022

# ¿ Jan 6, 2022 21:55

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

drat, and tactics was already mall court food...

# ¿ Jan 7, 2022 01:48

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

I would prefer if Gaius Marius's benchwarmers were all stronger than the core team, but then I realize that not every game can be the English 7th Saga.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2022 02:05

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 14:45

Hogama: Sep 3, 2011

Live A Live is a day one buy for me.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2022 23:25

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