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 This Let's Play is mirrored on my personal website.   Music: Octopath Traveler: Main Theme The game uses old-school sprites reminiscent of early games, but blended in with modern-looking environments and weather effects, creating what the developers termed a "HD-2D" style. The result is a beautiful game that, combined with its utterly fantastic music, results in one of the most striking presentations of any game in this gaming gen. The gameplay takes some elements of Bravely Default but is really its own beast, focusing on finding and exploiting enemy weaknesses to "break" them, interrupting their turns and doing extra damage. There's a boost system to deal multiple attacks in a turn, increase damage of techs, extend de/buff durations, and more. And of course there's a job system on top of that, allowing you to choose which abilities you learn and throwing passive abilities to encourage diversifying your job pool. This means random encounters aren't simply "Mash A" to win, and emphasizes tactics over levels, allowing you to take on bosses far beyond your punching weight. Octopath Traveler focuses on the travels of eight different characters, each with their own distinct story. For better or worse, there's no real overarching story for this one, and character interaction is oddly limited to easily-missible skits within the later chapters and some post-game conversations. The stories aren't groundbreaking, but if you're fine with the game's structure they, and especially the characters, can be entertaining set pieces for the combat and visuals. On top of that, the Path Action system adds some life to the traditional town structure, letting you learn more about the NPCs, barter or steal from them, beat them up, or even temporarily recruit them for use in battle. And there's over a hundred side quests to go through, many with two different ways to solve them using your Path Actions. ----- This Let's Play will be as close to 100% as I can reasonably achieve. I will show off every character's story in full, every side quest, probably every side dungeon, everything I have the will to show off. This game is long (it took me ~80 hours to do this in my first playthrough), so my plan is to do a lot of smaller mini-updates for stuff like towns and side-quests, while character updates will generally take two updates per each of their four chapters. NO SPOILERS WHATSOEVER. NO TAGS, NO LINKS, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Twitter for Updates. ----- Youtube Playlist of all boss battles done in this Let's Play. All story battles exclude spoilers in the title and thumbnails, but of course watching the actual videos will spoil them, so be aware! They're all linked within their respective updates, of course. -----                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
Mega64 fucked around with this message at 14:31 on Feb 16, 2020 |
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Oct 31, 2018 23:18
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Fan Stuff FeyerbrandX shows off an alternate cover for Chapter 4. Mega64 fucked around with this message at 14:21 on Feb 16, 2020 |
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Oct 31, 2018 23:18
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Music: Octopath Traveler: Main Theme  Here I am, about to undertake an 80-hour RPG for a Let's Play. Truly I am insane. Video: Opening Video The above link has the video for this opening, which is simply all eight characters walking around. If nothing else, the game lives up to its name!   Settings are a bit sparse. You can make text appear instantly, and you can go between Japanese and English voices. Generally, a third or so of the scenes in each character chapter are voiced, with a lot of battle lines. Corner Shadows make the corners darker to make the middle pop out more, but it also means obscuring more of the viewing area, so despite the option saying otherwise they'll be disabled for this LP.  Starting a new game brings us to a map with the eight characters overlaid. Before we can begin, we have to choose one of these characters. This character will be our main, and will always be in our party until we complete their final chapter, after which we can finally rotate them out. That said, I'll probably save their Chapter 4 for last. Otherwise, it doesn't really matter since we can see all eight stories in one playthrough. Each character has a distinct job, a path action to use when dealing with townspeople (either Noble, which has restrictions but otherwise always works, or Rogue, which can always be used, but if you fail too much you'll be blocked from further Path Actions until you pay a bribe), and a talent that applies either to battle or in the overworld. I'll explain each as we run into them. Let's begin!   Music: Ophilia, the Cleric Name: Ophilia Clement Age: 20 Job: Cleric - Focused on healing, buffs, and dealing Light-elemental damage. Uses the staff. Path Action: Guide (Noble) - Recruit a NPC to follow you around. Most NPCs require a minimum level to be recruited. Talent: Summon - Summon a recruited NPC into battle to use special attacks. Ophilia is the first of the Octopath Travelers because, going clockwise from her, all the characters' first letters spell out "OCTOPATH". Ophilia's the healer of the group, but her light attacks can be potent, and she has one of the better buffs in the game. She does suffer offense-wise at first, but the NPCs she can Guide and the other PCs you meet later make up for that. She's also one of the tankier characters in the game, so between that and her healing, it'll be hard to defeat a party with Ophilia. Story-wise, Ophilia is pretty much what you expect from the Cleric type, studious, kind, and determined. That said, there's a bit more of a spark to her than what you'd usually see in this archetype, and she's pretty open-minded and eager to learn about the world she's exploring, even if she's somewhat ignorant about the world outside her home.   Music: Cyrus, the Scholar Name: Cyrus Albright Age: 30 Job: Scholar - Scans enemy weaknesses and deals Fire, Ice, and Lightning damage. Uses the staff. Path Action: Scrutinize (Rogue) - Deduce information about a NPC, potentially discovering item locations or information needed to resolve a quest. Has a chance to fail, which lowers with level. Talent: Study Foe - At the start of each battle, Cyrus uncovers a random weakness for each enemy type. Cyrus is the Black Mage of the group, with a focus on nuking enemies and breaking elemental weaknesses. His magic targets all and ends up being powerful, but he's a bit of a one-trick pony. It's a really good trick, though, and Cyrus is one of the better characters in terms of quality-of-life stuff, including a passive that reduces enemy encounters. Cyrus is probably the character who differs the most from the first impressions. He initially comes off as a self-absorbed bookworm, and he still is, but he's actually very supportive and positive with everyone he meets, so much so that he ends up being the de-facto cheerleader of the party. He's also completely oblivious to a lot of social cues, most notably how popular he is with women. With his passion of learning and deduction, the best way I can describe Cyrus is a less dickish Miles Edgeworth.   Music: Tressa, the Merchant Name: Tressa Colzione Age: 18 Job: Merchant - A hodge-podge of abilities, including collecting money from foes, self-buffs, and inflicting Wind damage. Uses the spear and bow. Path Action: Purchase (Noble) - Buy specific items from NPCs, with a chance of automatically haggling the price down. Talent: Eye for Money - Have a chance of randomly collecting money every time you travel into a new screen on the overworld. Tressa does a bit of everything. She has some offensive options with Wind magic and her weapons, she has some self-buffs to evade and recover from damage, and she can even spend money to summon mercenaries to attack for her. She even can take money from foes! She has some surprisingly strong tools in her skillset, which will carry her throughout the entire game. Tressa's probably the fan favorite of this bunch. She has the most upbeat story by far, and her enthusiasm and passion for her career as a merchant follows through in everything she does in the game. She also serves as comic relief, and is always fighting to assert herself as the youngest of the travelers. Her demeanor is infectious, and it's easy to see why everyone loves her so much.   Music: Olberic, the Warrior Name: Olberic Eisenberg Age: 35 Job: Warrior - Utilizes self-buffs and weapon techniques on enemies. Uses the sword and spear. Path Action: Challenge (Noble) - Able to challenge NPCs to one-on-one battles. Most NPCs require a minimum level to be Challenged. Talent: Bolster Defense - Able to spend BP to Boost the Defense command. Olberic is the physical powerhouse of the game, able to take and deal solid amounts of damage. Olberic's skills focus on boosting and spreading out the damage output from his swords and spears while also buffing Olberic up. Olberic is pretty straight-laced, as you may expect. He gets a bit melodramatic at times, but I feel his voice actor has the perfect amount of ham for the role. Plus there's just something about going into a new town and having Olberic beat up every NPC he meets in the name of having an honorable duel that somehow never gets old.   Music: Primrose, the Dancer Name: Primrose Azelhart Age: 23 Job: Dancer - Apply a variety of buffs, as well as utilize Dark magic attacks. Uses the dagger. Path Action: Allure (Rogue) - Recruit a NPC to follow you around. Has a chance to fail, which lowers with level. Talent: Summon - Summon a recruited NPC into battle to use special attacks. Primrose is a support character, with a large focus on buffing allies, though her Dark-elemental magic can carry her a bit as well. For some reason, Primrose and Ophilia are the only two characters to have the same exact talent, though it helps her out as much as it does Ophilia. Buffs are pretty solid in this game, and Primrose has some fun (and chaotic) abilities at her disposal, including one that can accidentally break the game in half. Primrose is single-minded in her goal, and despite the facade she puts on, she's a serious and determined individual that always carries an air of pride and confidence. Once the game gets to the point where the characters interact, though, Primrose is like a whole new person, more flirty and fun and lighthearted, which is nice considering how grim her story turns out. Fair warning, Primrose's story has some problematic material that I'm not really sure is handled in the best way.   Music: Alfyn, the Apothecary Name: Alfyn Greengrass Age: 21 Job: Apothecary - Heals and revives damaged and ailing characters while utilizing ice and axe techniques. Uses the axe. Path Action: Inquire (Noble) - Speak to a NPC to learn information about them, potentially discovering item locations or information needed to resolve a quest. Most NPCs require a minimum level to be Inquired. Talent: Concoct - Can mix two ingredients in battle to achieve a variety of beneficial or harmful effects. Alfyn's a decent-if-limited healer with his Apothecary abilities, lacking the full-party healing of Ophilia in exchange for being able to heal status effects. He also has a couple good axe attacks, can use an ice attack, and can even inflict poison. However, as it generally is in these games, Concoct's ability to mix two items together renders Alfyn one of the most useful characters in the game, as these concoctions can heal the party, recover SP for attacks, or break through the elemental shields of enemies with the chance of status effects or debuffs. It's surprisingly diverse and ends up being one of the best healing options in the game, if nothing else. If Tressa is a hardcore capitalist, then Alfyn is a hardcore socialist. He's a good ol' hick Southern boy who just wants to see the world and help everyone he can, even if it means less coin in his purse. He's also a raging alcoholic. The guy's always upbeat and ready to help out whoever he can, however he can.   Music: Therion, the Thief Name: Therion Age: 22 Job: Thief - Steals items and utilizes debuffs, dagger techniques, and Fire attacks. Uses the sword and dagger. Path Action: Steal (Rogue) - Can steal items from NPCs. Has a chance to fail, which lowers with level. Talent: Pick Lock - Can open all purple chests found in the overworld. That "Pick Lock" talent is particularly annoying, as some really good treasures can show up in them and only Therion can open them. Otherwise, Therion's dagger attacks are surprisingly strong, and his debuffs help out a lot against powerful foes. His main weakness is having no good area attacks, but against solitary foes he excels. Therion's the bad apple of the bunch, and there's some interesting conversations with the other characters involving him being a thief. He's sarcastic, a loner, and really an all-around dick, but he's also good at what he does, and has a good sense of pride in his work. Plus he can't be that bad a guy if he's traveling with the rest of these people.   Music: H’aanit, the Hunter Name: H'aanit Age: 26 Job: Hunter - Focus on bow and Lightning attacks, along with other various gimmicky stuff. Uses the axe and bow. Path Action: Provoke - Can use monsters to fight NPCs. No limitations on who can be Provoked, but town reputation takes a hit if H'aanit loses. Talent: Capture - Ability to capture and use up to six monsters in battle. In addition, H'aanit's animal companion Linde is always available to be summoned. H'aanit's unfortunately probably the weakest overall, since while Capture starts out great, it ends up being weak in end-game due to how terribly the capture rate scales, and Hunter itself has a few duds for abilities. That said, Hunter does have arguably the best debuff in the game and the ability to utterly shred the defenses of any enemy weak to bows, and H'aanit herself has some strength to her. Besides, all these weaknesses can be covered up in the late-game anyway. We can't discuss H'aanit without mentioning her speech, which is this odd mix of the usual half-assed Ye Olde English and a bizarre love of applying the suffix "-en" to every verb possible. It makes her conversations seem a bit awkward, but on the other hand, her battle lines are actually improved with her weird dialect. Otherwise, H'aanit is generally serious and matter-of-fact, and of course very skilled as a hunter, but also very aloof when dealing with people in general. ----- And that's all eight of our future companions! So you know what's coming next... VOTE FOR WHICH ONE WE SHOULD PLAY AS! VOTE AS MANY CHARACTERS AS YOU WANT TO SEE! I'll be getting all eight and showing off all their stories, so you're basically voting for which character you want to see permanently in our party and serve as the de-facto leader of this ragtag group of travelers. Don't worry about gameplay stuff, I can and will work around everything, just pick whoever seems coolest to you or whatever other dumb criteria you want. Happy travels! Mega64 fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Nov 11, 2018 |
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Oct 31, 2018 23:18
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For lurkers and anyone else interested, I am also tentatively hosting this Let's Play on my web site. This thread will get priority in updates, but if all goes well I should keep both updated equally. e: Also I'll probably leave the poll running a day or two, then try to get the first update up possibly this weekend. We'll see how that turns out. Mega64 fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Oct 31, 2018 |
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Oct 31, 2018 23:21
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Aw yiss... ground floor. ... I really need to get around to finishing this game one of these days.
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Oct 31, 2018 23:40
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I have a soft spot for Ophilia's story. And generally lean towards that kind of character anyways. Although Olberic has the best in-battle lines.
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Oct 31, 2018 23:43
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I stalled out at the very finish line, but this game is great.
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Oct 31, 2018 23:50
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I vote for the merchant. If we start with her, that means more money later. I think. I've never gotten past the opening chapters.
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Oct 31, 2018 23:53
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Nearly all of what I know about this game comes from an abortive collaboration with FFRK (one of several SE freemium games), so I'm interested to see what all the hoopla's about.
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Oct 31, 2018 23:57
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I may be biased in my choice of MC but goddammit she is straight up my favorite party member.
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Nov 1, 2018 00:04
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ChaosArgate posted:I may be biased in my choice of MC but goddammit she is straight up my favorite party member. Meanwhile I couldn't be assed enough to spell my favorite character's name correctly in the poll. 
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Nov 1, 2018 00:06
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I am sad at how few people have voted for Olberic. He's the best, and has the best battle lines.
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Nov 1, 2018 00:18
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Tressa is by far my favorite character, but I personally feel that Therion makes more narrative sense as a starting character.Mega64 posted:Meanwhile I couldn't be assed enough to spell my favorite character's name correctly in the poll. Yeah, that's the princess from Trails of Cold Steel.
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Nov 1, 2018 00:27
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Octopath rules and H'aanit is cool, and also my friend. I really, really dislike Therion. His battle lines irritate me to no end and his emo tortured loner schtick gets old fast. Like I'm sure that he'd unironically say that Sasuke is his favorite Naruto character. He's the kind of guy that would wear a T-Shirt that says, "Childhood is when you look up to Batman, adulthood is when you realize the Joker makes more sense." Therion would 100% take a "are you Light Side or Dark Side" Star Wars online quiz and intentionally flub the answers so he would get Dark Side.
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Nov 1, 2018 00:27
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Mega64 posted:Meanwhile I couldn't be assed enough to spell my favorite character's name correctly in the poll.
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Nov 1, 2018 02:07
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Definitely going Therion start, just for the "don't need to backtrack for a stupid chest" Also yes Olberic is a nicely cured ham.
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Nov 1, 2018 02:42
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Gotta get in on the ground floor of this LP. I love Cyrus. His passive is amazing for figuring out everything an enemy is weak to if you use a little deduction, and he is great at obliterating random encounters.
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Nov 1, 2018 02:47
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I started with Primrose, and "Is Fast" and "Has a good magic stat" made her REALLY GOOD. Alfyn is probably the best character in the end, though.
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Nov 1, 2018 03:07
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I know nothing about Bravely Octopus: End of the Traveling Brage, so I'm looking forward to this.
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Nov 1, 2018 03:08
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I know nothing about this game and therefore won't be voting, but I'll definitely be following this. The music is top-notch so that's enough incentive to see where this goes.
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Nov 1, 2018 03:11
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Olberic is the best.
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Nov 1, 2018 03:11
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I haven't touched this game, but I did read some stuff critical of Primrose's story and it did kinda skeeve me out. The reported SaGa structure also doesn't exactly suit me, but then again, after looking at some of the coverage from TCRF, I'm starting to think my whole problem with SaGa games has been that most of them are incomplete as poo poo as opposed to Akitoshi Kawazu being a bad director, and in a nonlinear game with lots of freedom, that leads to a whole lot of problems. All that said though, I have to say the game looks loving incredible if nothing else. This takes the 2D mixed with 3D graphical style on the 32-bit systems to a whole new level. It's like this era's version of the SNES generating pseudo-3D graphics with the DKC games and Super Mario RPG despite being a 16-bit system. And my vote is for the cleric.
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Nov 1, 2018 03:12
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FYI for everyone reading the thread: CLICK EVERY SINGLE MUSIC LINK it's so fuckin' good also Tressa is 100% best girl and people voting for other characters are incorrect
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Nov 1, 2018 03:27
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Yeah, the music in this game is incredibly good.
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Nov 1, 2018 04:23
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I will be watching this thread. You always put out quality content.
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Nov 1, 2018 05:35
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I'm looking forward to this. I've been on the fence about getting it, so maybe this'll help push me one way or the other
Rabbi Raccoon fucked around with this message at 05:50 on Nov 1, 2018 |
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Nov 1, 2018 05:46
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theshim posted:FYI for everyone reading the thread: As someone that doesn't usually do this since I read a lot of LPs on mobile: do this.
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Nov 1, 2018 07:14
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theshim posted:FYI for everyone reading the thread: Also yes. Voting Primrose for self-buffing one-woman rampage.
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Nov 1, 2018 09:40
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That's a surprisingly balanced poll so far, looking forward to finding out what this game's all about.
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Nov 1, 2018 11:37
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I was gifted this game around July and haven't played it at all. The fact that the stories don't really intersect or have an overarching plot really turned me off to investing 80-100 hours. But I've been hoping we'd see a Let's Play for this pop up here so I'm really excited to see how the game shines. My vote is for Cyrus cause I love a good nerd.
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Nov 1, 2018 13:20
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Octopath is my favourite game of this year by far and easily the one i put the most time into. It's setting and music are gorgeous. I love Cyrus and his ability to break everything in the early game but for this lp I'll suggest starting with Therion since I spent most of my first game swearing at all the purple chests I walked by without him in the party. His debuffs are actually really good too and stealing entire towns is always fun.
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Nov 1, 2018 13:32
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cyrus is by far my favourite lad, but i voted therion in the poll so that you can at least get a headstart in opening those chests. plus i like the theme of the "worst" of the bunch coming round to his fellow traveler's stories before he embarks on his own quest finished main game with some loose ends to finish, can't wait
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Nov 1, 2018 13:39
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Don't own a switch so I can't play this. Looking forward to it!
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Nov 1, 2018 13:47
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I voted for Good Boy I've only seen bits and pieces of this game, so I'm looking forward to the LP.
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Nov 1, 2018 13:58
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Tressa is too good. I love her story more than any of the other's I've experienced, and has the most "adventurous" feeling arc. That said, I also voted for Cyrus.
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Nov 1, 2018 14:26
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theshim posted:FYI for everyone reading the thread: Yes, but Ophilia is best cleric and Alfin the best Erebonian imperial princess etc etc etc Everyone is the best and there's no incorrect choice. And if thou (general thou not thee thou) darest criticizen H'annit's dialect then thou hast no taste.
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Nov 1, 2018 18:11
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I literally got a Switch just last week JUST for this game, and I've been enjoying the hell out of it. I started out with Tressa for my playthrough, and... While her skillset is pretty handy once you get later into the game, and the passive money gain is always a nice bonus, I'd still recommend Therion just to save time with backtracking. ...And agreed that Primrose's introduction clashes a lot with the the rest of the narrative's overall upbeat demeanor. I could absolutely see how starting with hers could turn people off hard on the rest of the game due to how dark it is compared to just about everything else I've seen so far (up through every character's Chapter 2 storylines).
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Nov 1, 2018 19:13
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So is this like Seiken Densetsu 3 where everyone has the same overarching story and everyone has their own thing they want to accomplish at the same time, a couple join, and they interact minimally? Or more like Romancing Saga 3 where everyone's story is completely different and character crossover is usually limited to a cameo?
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Nov 1, 2018 20:13
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It's more that the characters' stories don't cross at all, but you can have all eight of them active at one time, and continue them at your own pace. People that aren't voting for Olberic obviously have bent blades.
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Nov 1, 2018 20:28
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Haven’t played RS3 yet, but it’s more that. Eight distinct stories, other characters only chime in during optional skits, otherwise only the character whose story it is shows up. It’ll be clearer when I do chapters beyond our pick’s first. The structure, lack of a central plot line, and the characters pretty much being on their own islands is a flaw for most people, but personally I liked it. It made the game feel breezy and lighthearted most of the time (barring some of Primrose’s stuff), and others say the structure makes it work well for a pick-up-and-play game due to chapters generally only needing 60-120 minutes and being so self-contained. That’s a good discussion for a but later. I’ll pick the winning character tomorrow, approximately 5am EST when I wake up, and may have the first update this weekend. All chapters have the same structure, so we’ll be doing an update purely of story before I do a supplemental update on battles, character advancement, and general menu/stats stuff.
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Nov 1, 2018 20:29
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