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I saw a discussion about FFVI a few pages ago, so I thought I'd share my "make the game more fun" playthrough. It's not a "challenge," to so speak (like a no-Esper challenge or something), just a different way of playing. I separated all the Espers into three tiers based on the power of the spells they teach. Tier 1 Espers are mostly WoB ones and can be assigned to three characters each. Tier 2 Espers are late WoB and early WoR Espers and can be assigned to two characters each. Tier 3 Espers can only be assigned to one character. My Esper tiers look like this (using the original translation names): Tier 1 (can be assigned to three characters) - Ramuh, Kirin, Siren, Stray, Ifrit, Shiva, Unicorn, Maduin, Shoat, Bismark, Carbuncle, Seraphim, Phantom, Golem Tier 2 (can be assigned to two characters) - Palidor, Tritoch, Terrato, Starlet, Fenrir, Phoenix Tier 3 (can be used by one character only) - Bahamut, Ragnarok, Odin, Raiden, Crusader, Alexander Basically, what makes this more fun to me is that it helps to preserve each character's uniqueness. You have to choose between assigning an Esper to someone because they need the stat boosts it offers or because they need the spells it teaches. And characters like Edgar, Sabin, and Gau, and to a lesser extent Cyan, can really get by without offensive magic thanks to their natural skills, so you'll find yourself relying more heavily on Blitz, Tools, and the like. That said, it doesn't really make the game any harder. The first time I did this I finished the WoR at around level 30-35 for everyone, just because they'd all been leveled so efficiently.
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Jul 2, 2013 23:11
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Final Fantasy 9 is super great, but since someone already said that I'll say Brave Fencer Musashi, which is worth it just for the awful food puns.
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Feb 19, 2015 22:09
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If Dragon Quest XI isn't released in the West I will literally post angrily about it on an internet forum much like this one. I don't even particularly care if it's the PS4 or 3DS version. I just want me some new Dragon Quest. Didn't they confirm that the 3DS versions of VII and VIII will be coming to the West at the Japan Expo?
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Jul 28, 2015 15:54
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Has there been discussion of Legend of Legacy? Somehow it flew under my radar, but I'm a huge SaGa fan and it seems kind of appealing. I found a video review that absolutely hated it, but every negative point they brought up just made me go, "Yep, sounds like a SaGa game." But is it a good SaGa game?
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Oct 21, 2015 16:28
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drat. I really wanted a good, new SaGa game to play. I guess I can just go replay Frontier or something.
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Oct 21, 2015 16:32
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I'm enjoying I Am Setsuna but it really isn't anything special. They took the battle system from Chrono Trigger and then transplanted the story from Final Fantasy X from "tropical islands" to "land of eternal winter" and that's about it. They didn't even take Auron out. It seems like a nice chill-out RPG so far but I wouldn't rush out to buy it if that isn't what you're looking for.
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Jul 20, 2016 04:16
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I'm liking I Am Setsuna a lot, but I'm really in it for the aesthetic and the overall tone of the experience. It's fun to play, too, but a lot of decent-to-good JRPGs can claim that. I think if I wanted a real meaty JRPG experience I'd look elsewhere, but I feel like I'm going to get my $40 worth out of this. It's one of those things where each individual element is nothing special but the overall package works pretty well. I have no doubt there are better JRPGs available on PC, and probably for cheaper, but I dunno, I'm liking this one at least. I think I'd categorize it as a really good "just chill out for a bit" game.
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Jul 20, 2016 16:16
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Tae posted:20 sounds like a decent deal for it, 40 is absurd for how little the game has outside of the main story. I mean, I've paid $60 for shorter games so that doesn't really bug me. Unless I Am Setsuna is secretly like 6 hours long and I'm already halfway through I don't feel like I'm going to feel ripped off. I went back recently and looked at my last do-all-sidequests Chrono Trigger save file and it was like 27 hours so  . Granted that's not me getting every optional ending in NG+.
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Jul 20, 2016 16:23
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al-azad posted:How would you compare Setsuna to something like Radiant Historia which is also channeling Chrono Trigger but focusing more on the story aspect? I played Radiant Historia a good while ago but I'll try to keep the comparison in mind the rest of the way through Setsuna. So far I feel like I'm probably going to prefer Setsuna's atmosphere/story (as predictable as I'm told it is) more than Radiant Historia's, but I adored Radiant Historia's combat and Setsuna's is really nothing new. Both of them have outright fantastic soundtracks, too.
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Jul 20, 2016 16:26
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Yeah, RH is really good and absolutely worth playing. I should probably play it again sometime, actually.
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Jul 20, 2016 16:31
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I can't even really comment on Neptunia games because I'm really turned off by just about everything about their presentation and tone so I've never even played one.
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Jul 20, 2016 16:36
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My real complaint about Setsuna is in its ability system. I feel like it steps right up to the line of doing something fun and cool and then backs away. You gather monster pieces and you can use them to make "spritnite," which are basically materia but with only one ability each. The problem is that, with the exception of support spritnite (which seem to fill the role you'd expect accessories to fill), each can only be used by one character. So I'm not really sure why I'm able to craft multiple copies of Cyclone or Cure when they can only ever be used by one character. Or why I'm crafting them at all instead of learning them some other way. I guess they want you to pick and choose which techs each character has available at any given time, but eh, it's sort of uninspiring. I wasn't necessarily expecting to make any character be able to be good at anything, I just thought there'd be some sort of ability to mix things up with spritnite that isn't there. I also think talismans, the game's equivalent of armor, are pretty boring, because the overwhelming majority of them don't give you any passive bonus at all, only differing in what random "flux" bonuses you can get when you use momentum in combat and what spritnite slots they have (though they don't differ much on that). I still like it more than most people in this thread seem to, though.
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Jul 20, 2016 16:44
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Phantasium posted:I like it but the constant pointless dialog choices are annoying me. Yeah, I'm not really sure what the point of those is. I don't necessarily expect my dialog choices to have any actual effects in a game like this. I wish they'd just made Endir a regular silent protagonist and been done with it. I definitely don't want him to have actual dialog--I'd be terrified he'd just be generically "cool" and "dark" for most of the game--but the dialog choices just, eh. They're unnecessary.
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Jul 20, 2016 16:52
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Speaking of JRPGs I've never really played: am I missing out on anything by not having played any of the Atelier games? I'm considering grabbing the Vita version of Escha/Logy once I finish Setsuna.
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Jul 20, 2016 17:17
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I'm on board with chill RPGs so that sounds pretty fun. I'll give Escha and Logy a shot, then.
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Jul 20, 2016 17:21
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Levantine posted:I'm still early on in Setsuna and totally digging it. The presentation alone is just absolutely gorgeous. Everything has this sort of animated, painted look to it and the piano soundtrack is really moody. The momentum variation on CT's ATB battles adds some depth, but not a ton. It amounts to "attack when you're ready or wait longer to attack for better effects". Even though I still enjoy playing Chrono Trigger, battles in Setsuna definitely feel like the weakest part of the game. That's not really a criticism but rather more of a relative thing. Game feels super polished. I Am Setsuna is a nice, heaping helping of video game comfort food and I'm perfectly fine with that. I think I can understand why some people don't like it or think it isn't worth the $40 price tag but I'm really enjoying it. It might've come at a good time for me, though, because I'm on a big "classic JRPG" kick right now and I Am Setsuna does a pretty good job of feeling like the games I'm itching to play while also being something I haven't actually played yet.
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Jul 21, 2016 15:43
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Inspector Gesicht posted:Just bought Hyper Light Drifter for later. Is the difficulty "Good-Hard" or "Bullshit-Hard"? Can I just play it like do every game and do all the side-content first and then steamroll the bosses? I heard the game has a 30FPS cap which is a bummer for an ARPG. I'd say it starts out feeling Bullshit Hard but gets closer to Good Hard once you start getting more abilities and get used to the dodge. Though, I've heard a recent patch added invincibility frames to the dodge (which weren't there when I played) so that might help alleviate some of the early "what the gently caress that's bullshit" deaths. It's not that much of an RPG, really, so don't expect your power to actually increase as you get upgrades. You just get more options. Your maximum health will never increase (unless you get a really hard-to-find costume, which gives you 1 more health square). Go into it thinking of it more as a twitchy action game with purchasable upgrades than an RPG. When you reach the town, you can go north, west, or east first, and it's tough to know which to recommend. Know that if you go north, the actual levels will be easier but the boss will be a nightmare. If you go east, it's the opposite--the levels are crazy hard, but the boss isn't too tough, and the gun you get for beating the boss makes the north boss much more manageable. Don't do west first.
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Jul 21, 2016 16:08
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Morpheus posted:Hah, poo poo, guess which way I finished first. Is West significantly harder than the others or something? I managed to stay alive until the boss killed me a few times. I found the West boss to be the hardest one in the game, myself, but that could just be me. Panic! at Nabisco posted:I did north first, and I didn't find the boss that terrible at all? I'm mostly going by how many people I've seen complaining about the North boss, then finding it a lot easier once you have the shotgun. Very little in the game is harder than the rear end in a top hat ninja frogs in the east though.
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Jul 21, 2016 21:34
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Like, I'm not really any good at these games, but I beat him on my second try once I knew his patterns. I had a much easier time with him than with the enemy rooms leading up to him (fuckin mages...)
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ImpAtom posted:The environment and dungeon design is bad. There are like four tile sets (Snowy forest, snowy mountain, snowy village, ruins) in the entire game and none of them are distinctly memorable This kind of echoes a complaint I had about Bravely Default, a game I otherwise loved. It had a better tileset variety than I Am Setuna, but god drat were the dungeons boring. Once I turned off random encounters during the loops, it got even more obvious just how bland each and every dungeon was. I don't know if I can even remember a dungeon that involved hitting switches or even the slightest amount of interaction--just hallways from start to finish. I might be forgetting one or two decent dungeons, but I really can't think of any. It's definitely more pronounced in Setsuna because of the limited tilesets. I'm still enjoying the game but the tileset limitations are getting really glaring. Did they have a budget of $200 or something?
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Jul 23, 2016 20:17
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ImpAtom posted:Bravely Default worked because it used the Final Fantasy references but didn't bathe itself in them. The plot didn't revolve around Nimbus Discord as he joins ROCKSLIDE to help battle the evil Shino Corporation who are trying to steal Mana from the Earth. Really, it's hard to compare the two, reference-wise, because Final Fantasy is a series where every main game takes place in a different world (with a couple recent exceptions) so really if they just changed Bravely Default's name to "Final Fantasy: Subtitle" nobody would've batted an eye. So of course all its spell names and item names come from Final Fantasy--it pretty much is a Final Fantasy, just without the moogles and chocobos. I wonder if the intention with Setsuna was to have a similar effect, like if the Chrono pseudo-series started branching out to different settings each time like Final Fantasy does. It'd keep all the spell names and some core mechanics but otherwise be a new world. Except Setsuna really does get pretty outright slavish with it, and the "hey, you guys liked Magus, right?" character is just the most blatant of it all.
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Jul 23, 2016 20:28
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I was gonna ask if Suikoden V is good but, uh, well, hm
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Jul 23, 2016 23:14
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I think I bought a copy of Suikoden V when it came out and dropped it during the slow start, so maybe I should try it again sometime. I do like me some Suikoden.
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Jul 23, 2016 23:19
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While poking around at PS1/2 JRPG videos I stumbled across Wild ARMs 3 and had a big urge to revisit that series. I remember absolutely loving how Wild ARMs 3 opened, with everyone colliding on the train, freeze-frame, then you play everyone's "how they got here" story.
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Jul 24, 2016 00:52
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Welp, all semblance of gameplay outside of the boss fights in Setsuna is now officially gone. I got the spritnite that gives you back MP for killing enemies and put one each on Nidr and Endir so now every single random battle just gets Blowbeat/Cross Slashed and I come out with full MP every time. ...maybe I should just go replay Chrono Trigger instead.
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Jul 24, 2016 17:11
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ImpAtom posted:A major thing is that either they have something outside of the combat to keep you going or while the combat is easy it is easy in some way that is engaging or interesting. (i.e: FF6's wide variety of characters with unique gimmicks or Tales being easy but having fighting game mechanics or whatnot.) Yeah, this is why I'm drawn back to Chrono Trigger. That game's easy, too, but it has personality. Even the random enemies often do, right down to the ways in which some of them ambush you by jumping down stairs and stuff. Its combat isn't any better than Setsuna's--though I'd actually argue the shorter list of techs/spells helps them all be a lot more distinct and useful than the ones in Setsuna--but there's a lot more going on to keep you interested.
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Jul 24, 2016 18:17
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ImpAtom posted:I think on paper Setsuna's wide variety of techs really helps things. Yeah, when I first saw the different techs and the way you can mix-and-match them, I got kind of excited. Like, using Provoke and Counter with Nidr, or building Julienne as an Etrian Odyssey-style chaser, or all that sort of thing, but in practice there's just very little reason to actually do it. And with talismans, it definitely feels like you just want to go for the ones with one flux bonus and as many spritnite slots as possible, rather than really juggling them around at all for any purposes. There's a lot of potential there but they just didn't execute it. The reason I don't use Kir is his voice is super annoying (and I keep forgetting I can just turn the voice volume all the way down).
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Jul 24, 2016 18:41
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I really loved Dragonfall. I burned out on Hong Kong halfway through because I played it immediately after Dragonfall--I should go back to it, it was definitely good.
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Jul 25, 2016 03:14
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I played a Mage in Hong Kong and holy poo poo are they overpowered. The dragon veins just turn you into a magic god. Pretty fun, though.
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Jul 25, 2016 03:22
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I'm getting real tempted to buy Bravely Second on the e-shop even though I'd prefer a physical copy just because it will be inconvenient to go to an actual store to buy it tonight instead of tomorrow. It turns out I'm an impatient little poo poo.
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Jul 26, 2016 01:11
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Decided to finally buy Bravely Second. Few questions (since I think the actual Bravely Second thread is kinda buried): 1. I know a bit about how the optional asterisk quests work and how they were changed for the English version, but I just want to clarify. Is it possible to get every asterisk in one playthrough without having to cause bad/conflicted outcomes in sidequests now? 2. Is there anything truly missable this time around? I don't remember much being missable from Bravely Default--I know some of the blue magics are a pain to get after Chapter 4 if you don't get them then, but still possible--but I'm usually paranoid about that kind of thing. 3. I'm guessing I should play on Hard if I did so in Bravely Default and found that to be still pretty easy by the end? Also Wizard seems like the coolest drat job ever and I'm excited to break the game with it.
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Jul 26, 2016 20:24
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ImpAtom posted:1: Correct. Terper posted:Yes, nah. Neat, thanks. I added another question to my other post, but: I'm guessing I should play on Hard if I did so in Bravely Default and found that to be a pretty decent balance (until the end when you can break everything in half)?
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Jul 26, 2016 20:26
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I'm assuming I'll have to manually swap the difficulty before boss fights to do that and this game isn't truly so magical as to have separate random battle/boss difficulty settings?
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Jul 26, 2016 20:38
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Hackan Slash posted:I would go even farther and say don't play random encounters, they're just unfun and tedious. That's pretty much how I played Chapters 5-8 of Bravely Default so that's probably what I'll do here eventually. I do love the ability to just turn off random encounters any time I want to. Just having the option is a goddamn revelation for JRPGs.
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Jul 26, 2016 20:55
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Phew, okay, random battles on Hard mode in Bravely Second are pretty tedious. This game might finally make me shake my habit of just picking a difficulty mode and sticking to it in games--I'm generally pretty reluctant to switch the difficulty mode back and forth while I play. But as much as I'm enjoying the tough bosses, the battles are just a pain in the rear end with their 50% more HP and sometimes having drat-near-one-shot attacks making me Default constantly.
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Jul 27, 2016 14:08
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Kanfy posted:2 not really, 3 is good and has the coolest Dragon mechanics but it also has a fairly painful encounter rate, 4 is worth playing for the story because dark JRPGs are fairly rare, Dragon Quarter is worth playing to see what you think about it. When I played Dragon Quarter, I didn't use the dragon transformation at all (except the one time the story forces you to when you first get it) until the final dungeon. It made some of the boss fights a little harrowing but it was never all that tough. I loved the hell out of that game, though. If anyone here does play Dragon Quarter, I recommend looking up how to do the "basically infinite save tokens" trick. It does sort of defeat one of the things the game is going for, with making you get yourself stuck and then start over much stronger and see new scenes, but I know few people are going to have the patience for that approach and "cheating" the game to give you as many permanent saves as you want basically lets you play it like a normal JRPG. Also seconding people's recommendations of Breath of Fire 3 and 4. I think 3 is probably more well-loved overall, but I personally like 4 more. It's visually gorgeous, has more enjoyable combat than 3, and has one of my favorite JRPG antagonists of all time. Oh, and a  soundtrack. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCSAqplG8Jg
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Jul 27, 2016 14:16
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Kanfy posted:BoF IV is more of an exception than the norm, they went at it pretty aggressively for some reason which is unusual for a PS1 game. The most messed up stuff is still in the game too, probably because a lot of it is so central to the plot. I think that's why I found the removed scenes in BoF4 so baffling. There's some hosed up poo poo in that game, but for some reason a dude's silhouette getting decapitated or a couple of goofy anime-style scenes is a bridge too far? Also apparently the English localization totally invented Nina having a crush on Cray, too, which is extra funny because it only comes up in a single scene, is just kind of confusing, and then never comes up again.
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Jul 27, 2016 20:22
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The soundtrack in Bravely Second so far is a huge step down from Bravely Default. Everything else seems like a step up--the dungeon design isn't amazing but they're using 3D space more and that's cool, for example--but man, I miss the BD soundtrack something fierce. Even the world map music in BD was incredible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egy4LnZvl7o
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Jul 27, 2016 22:56
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Neddy Seagoon posted:The stuff that is left in is likely just as shy of outright/explicit as they can carry it without getting dinged probably. Implied stuff was generally okay around the time of 90's localization, because the sweet innocent little children won't be able to figure it out themselves. You never see the actual sacrifice for the Carronade, just the brief moment before it and the girl's earring landing by Fou-Lu, for example, or what happens when they finally have to say goodbye to Nina's sister. Man, Breath of Fire 4 is dark as hell. The Carronade scene is legitimately horrifying, as is Elena's fate. Or the scene where a boar (I think) kills itself by ramming a boulder over and over again so Fou-Lu can pass, without Fou-Lu even telling it to, because that's the power a god has over mortals. For a PlayStation JRPG with cutesy graphics, it's a chilling game. Golden Goat posted:Yeah the music was sorta letdown in BS. It still has some really good tracks but a lot of it is meh. The Asterisk battle them is bad compared to the fantastic one in BD. I do like the random battle theme in BS a lot, but I really miss the BD overworld theme.
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Jul 28, 2016 12:20
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RIP Breath of Fire, too weird and wonderful for this world  If I could've had a game with the presentation and gameplay of Breath of Fire 4 and the dragon gene mechanic from Breath of Fire 3 it'd be a perfect game in the series.
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Jul 28, 2016 14:18
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Levantine posted:The only thing I really don't like about BoF4 is that large enemies aren't sprites, they are all that super ugly 3D from that era and haven't aged well. I say that in comparison to 3 that had solid sprite based bosses all the way through. Yeah, what makes that a bummer is that the sprite work in BoF4 is so good and it's jarring to see the blocky polygons for large bosses and the dragon "summons."
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Jul 28, 2016 14:36
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