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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2012 22:17:54 GMT -5
kotaku.com/5939779/the-next-final-fantasyMeh. Beat Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time. That game gets so awesome to play near the end. Crevanille and Frayne's third limits are ridiculous. Crevanille's is a physical attack to every enemy on the map when he gets enough Active Role Points, which are just points for doing stuff in battle. You can manipulate things to where this will activate almost instantly. Frayne's causes her to cast the AoE version of whatever magic she is chanting to every enemy on the map. If you have decent stats and buff up attack, these two skills will decimate everything damn near. Add in the awesome spellstones you can get through the arena and even just finding/buying normally, which turn your party into unstoppable killing machines, and all the frustration due to difficulty early on is rewarded with total ass kicking. Started up Suikoden Tactics, but on New Game+ so I could use Lalacle. Forgot how much better in every possible way Tactics is compared to IV. Breezing through the game so far because of the endgame armor that gets carried over to NG+.
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Post by Chronos on Sept 3, 2012 8:21:22 GMT -5
Whew, I'm back. I concede on P4A too, sorry for letting that die. It's pretty silly to discuss a fighting game's story at length anyway, no matter how strong of a foundation the game builds from. Going back to games I haven't played in awhile, I've been bitten by the Disgaea bug again. What's more, I finally made breakthroughs on the damn games, as I went all the way through even Prinny Baal on the first game and finally unlocked the Land of Carnage on the second. Now, how in the hell to handle the Land of Carnage, haha. D2's been significantly less kind in terms of high-end legendary equipment, and I haven't been helping myself by apparently missing some of the extra fights. Time to rack up some felonies and hit new game+ again, I guess. I also went to HPB and Disc Replay yesterday, and finally got Jeanne d'Arc and Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, as well as Luminous Arc 2 for DS. Not too bad, and they were all very affordable. I need to quit dragging my feet and get over to GameStop so I can hopefully get Gungnir, Growlanser, and The Last Story before they totally dry up as well. I'm so behind. It's even more hilarious that Suikoden Tactics fleshes out that particular part of the timeline so much better than IV when you know that the original Japanese game has no connections whatsoever to the series. It was originally released as "Rhapsodia" in Japan with no ties to the Suikoden games. Sigh. I read that development just started last month! And they want it out next year? That's a mess in the making even if it was part of a good subseries. Edit: Valkyrie Profile doesn't want to work on my PSP. Furthest it's made it is freezing on the opening cutscene. Man...hopefully I can get it running, or find another copy close by if not. Thankfully Jeanne d'Arc's alright, I played through the first two battles.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 3, 2012 9:09:08 GMT -5
I did download the prologue of Final Fantasy Dimensions, for iOS. It's actually a lot of fun, as it's basically Final Fantasy I with a better story. Granted, the remaining chapters are pretty expensive so I don't know if I'll get to those anytime soon.
What I like in Suikoden Tactics is seeing some of the scenes you only read about in SIV, during the Rune of Punishment events, like Brandeau & Edgar early on. Minor characters from SIV like Sigurd and Hervey also get a bit more development, though I still can't stand Dario.
I hope you enjoy Jeanne D'Arc, I sure did. It gets a lot of fun when you get better skill stones, which work almost exactly like Growlanser's, except you don't learn skills in Jeanne D'Arc; you can only use what you have equipped. Sweep! is incredible for your spear users, particularly against multi-square bosses. Same with Cyclone II on your magic users.
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Fundertaker
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Hideo Kojima should direct every ending ever!
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Post by Fundertaker on Sept 3, 2012 9:42:49 GMT -5
Just because it has a different name, it doesn't mean it doesn't have anything to do with the series. When Konami released the first trailer for the game (in Japanese and already named Rhapsodia) you could CLEARLY see a big part of SIV's cast in it. Hell, it clearly makes reference to it as you can see:
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Post by Chronos on Sept 3, 2012 9:52:22 GMT -5
I stand corrected. Thanks for sharing this, I was always under the impression that they changed the setting/characters during localization for some reason. Looks like sometimes I should do a bit more research before opening my big mouth, haha.
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Fundertaker
Vegeta
Hideo Kojima should direct every ending ever!
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Post by Fundertaker on Sept 3, 2012 9:59:57 GMT -5
I stand corrected. Thanks for sharing this, I was always under the impression that they changed the setting/characters during localization for some reason. Looks like sometimes I should do a bit more research before opening my big mouth, haha. Well, truth being told, the game looks nothing like other Suikoden games so it could've started as a completely different IP, but it was rather quickly changed into a Suikoden game (I remember reading somewhere that the development cycle was really short, like a year or less).
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Post by Chronos on Sept 8, 2012 22:46:56 GMT -5
Sorry I've barely been around lately. Been trying to right myself (relatively speaking), it's been a series of bad days. Enough about that, though, here's a little bit of good news.
I replaced my faulty Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth with a working copy and have been playing it and reading various things the last few days. tri-Ace really nailed it here: even the storytelling, usually their games' biggest weakness, is very solid. Moreover, the game's mechanics and design is still fresh today, without going overboard like VP2 started to (and their later games I guess did). It's great so far. The Tower of Lezard Valeth is like running into a brick wall difficulty-wise, though.
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Post by Chronos on Sept 15, 2012 18:00:21 GMT -5
I'm a little better now, if anyone cared. I beat Valkyrie Profile and its post-game Seraphic Gate as well, including a harrowing battle with the Iseria Queen when I walked into her room totally unprepared. tri-Ace's best game for sure. Later comes the best ending playthrough, as I guess I missed it.
For now, I'll go back to sucking at Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles. Talk about an ego killer, and I call myself a Castlevania fan. So out of practice. Got to actually start a Jeanne d'Arc playthrough whenever also, I need more than just the first two battles.
It hasn't been so much playing as reading and listening that have helped the last few days. Last night was music night. I read Keith Richards' book again and listened to Exile about four times straight and Beggars Banquet twice, along with American Beauty by the Dead and Gear Blues by a Japanese band called Thee Michelle Gun Elephant. It was pure bliss. The day before was rasslin, I spent pretty much the day watching Bret Hart and HBK's (Heartbreak and Triumph) DVD sets and rereading Foley's first book. Talking helped too: I had a great and long conversation with my mom, who's having more trouble than usual with her health, and I think (hope) it helped us both out.
In other news, why the f*** is it so hard to find a copy of The Last Story around here? Should've preordered for sure.
late edit: And now Jeanne d'Arc refuses to read on my PSP. And I can't return it because the two-week time limit for returns just expired yesterday. I want to kill something.
late edit 2: It worked again. I still want to kill something for the fury this is inducing in me. The game needs to make up its mind, this is something it can't waffle on.
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Post by Chronos on Sept 17, 2012 2:13:08 GMT -5
Sorry to spam the thread, but I guess Ace Attorney 5 got confirmed for a western (NA and Europe) release by a Capcom rep right after they re-unveiled the game a couple of weeks ago. I realize it's old news (I think I even remember a thread about it here) and the downside of this is an AAI2 release possibility being shot completely dead, but it's at least good that they haven't abandoned the franchise overseas. Screenshots I've seen look solid as well. Good job this time, CAPCPOM.
SMTIV, possibly Soul Hackers, AA5, PW vs. Layton (probably), Layton 5, Etrian Odyssey IV, Paper Mario, Virtue's Last Reward, maybe Bravely Default if it turns out good and makes it o'er...not to mention the stuff that's out already like Kid Icarus and Starfox 3D. I'm gonna need a 3DS. (and the money to buy it)
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Post by Deleted on Sept 17, 2012 8:08:26 GMT -5
Glad you're doing better.
I've only played the DS Valkyrie Profile, Covenant of the Plume. I'm not sure how the other ones work but in this one you have the ability to superpower your teammates, which makes them invincible killing machines pretty much, but then at the end of the battle they die and you get a special ability to use. This makes things very easy if you get the best ones in a first playthrough, as they carry over and you can then keep your team alive while still having access to some really good skills. The first time I played it I didn't realize that you could only do this a certain number of times per chapter before you piss the Valkyrie off and she kills you horribly.
Great news about AA5 since it makes the news about SMT IV better for me by giving me another reason to get a 3DS. For me it'd be SMTIV, AA5, Miracle Mask, Zero Escape, Fire Emblem: Awakening, and Devil Survivor Overclocked. Plus Soul Hackers and Phoenix Wright vs. Professor Layton if they get released here.
Bummer about AAI2 though. I really enjoyed the first one and how it retained the style of AA while incorporating new gameplay elements.
I've been meaning to pick up Dracula X Chronicles mainly so I could have a portable Symphony of the Night.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 19, 2012 20:54:24 GMT -5
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Post by Chronos on Sept 22, 2012 14:30:55 GMT -5
What's the deal with meteors? Been away this time because I've been playing the vidya gaems, and right now in particular I'm still trying to calm myself down after an encounter with an ear-splittingly loud malfunctioning smoke detector that filled me with anxiety and worry out of a lack of how to handle it (the damned thing had no battery!). One of my more egregious and embarrassing character flaws made light here. I was also a naughty timegod. Spent drachma I don't have on The Last Story (really cool box design), and while I was there I also got Pokémon Conquest and Growlanser: Wayfarer of Time. Two of those are definite "while they're still around"-ers, The Last Story's not available anywhere around here and I got lucky finding it at a GameStop in Speedway. Of these, the only one I've played in-depth thus far is Pokémon Conquest and it's wonderful. So much fun, it's a blast. It seems a bit on the simplistic side for an SRPG, but like the main series it's deceptively deep. Right now I'm in post-game, playing as Kotarou Fuuma and his sweet-ass Zoroark. A little disappointed by Braviary's relatively mediocre showing in the game, since it really takes no prisoners in B/W and is definitely one of my favorites. About Dracula X Chronicles: Get it for Rondo of Blood, and get the PSX Classics version of SotN off of PSN if such a thing exists. Rondo's excellent, even if I still halfway suck at it. I'm not far into the DXC version of Symphony, but it's bordered and the default screen size is real small. There is a "full screen" option, but it isn't actually full-screen and it stretches the display a bit too much. I've also read that there's a game-freezing glitch relating to familiars and the Succubus battle, but I'm not close to being that far in. About Valkyrie Profile: Get on it! Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth for PSP, at the very least. Basic premise is that you're a Valkyrie (the same one the main character of Covenant of the Plume hates), chauffeuring dead souls to Valhalla so they can fight in the war against the Vanir, of course culminating in the end of the world at Ragnarök. Each of your "Einherjar" gets a (generally very well-crafted) death scene and there are also hints that there's more than meets the eye to our Battle-Maiden's travels through Midgard. It's all very elegantly told, really tri-Ace's finest hour for storytelling and characters. That may be unintentionally backhanded since this is the company that gave us EDGE MAVERICK, but still. As for the gameplay, it really has to be played rather than fully described. It takes a lot of JRPG conventions and builds on them, innovating without going overboard like its sequel does in places (skill learning in VP2 is a painful thing). The game does seem daunting at first, but it's pretty easy to get the hang of. The first dungeon in this and its sequel are great for easing you into the mechanics. The world map is 3D and your usual PlayStation RPG overworld (sans random encounters), but general town/dungeon exploration is side-scrolling, with a big dose of platforming and puzzles for dungeons. Combat is turn-based, but each of your four party members are mapped to one of the face buttons, and coordinating attacks to form big combos is key. Enemy positioning is also important for maintaining good attack chains, as character attacks/magic can knock enemies down, launch, etc. There's a "heat meter" as well, that rises as your characters land blows. Get it to 100 and you can perform a character's "Purify Weird Soul" attack, a.k.a. their super move. These raise heat as well, and can be linked together if you do them in the right order. To celebrate the AA5 news I finally got off my lazy ass and played Ghost Trick, basically in one sitting. Masterful work as always from Shu Takumi, and the art style and animation in the game is sublime. The gameplay mechanics are original and fun, as well. Manipulating objects with your ghost tricks is a brilliant form of puzzle-solving. Like any good mystery, there are the twists. Oh man are there the twists, toward the end it was one huge holy what in the best possible way. I thoroughly loved it. Especially the Panic Dance.
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Fundertaker
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Hideo Kojima should direct every ending ever!
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Post by Fundertaker on Sept 22, 2012 15:45:25 GMT -5
BTW, Digimon Adventure (yeah, the first series) RPG anyone?
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Post by El Cokehead del Knife Fight on Sept 22, 2012 20:21:08 GMT -5
Bought Persona 2 last week on PSP. Yet to try it out but has anyone else played it?
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Post by Chronos on Sept 23, 2012 12:41:24 GMT -5
Huh? What's that you say? You want trailers for Ace Attorney 5 and Shin Megami Tensei IV? Well, I think I've got what you need. Also, no Kaneko (infinite sadfaces) or Meguro for SMTIV. Character design duty is being handled by Masayuki Doi, and the main character is a dead ringer for a Soejima Persona lead save for his clothes and ponytail. The demons are being designed this time by a group of guys who previously did Kamen Rider and other tokusatsu monster designs, apparently. And they're certainly...uhm, different. Music's by Ryota Kozuka, of Trauma series fame. No Shu Takumi for AA5, too, as he's busy with Layton vs. AA. Saw the SMTIV news and AA5 trailer on GAF and BΞDash respectively, and found the SMTIV trailer via googling. BTW, Digimon Adventure (yeah, the first series) RPG anyone? I was always a huge Pokémon guy (still am, really) so I never really got into Digimon. Also never had any friends that got into it. Still haven't, for whatever reason. Bought Persona 2 last week on PSP. Yet to try it out but has anyone else played it? You made a good choice. Being that the game originally came out in 1999 its gameplay is pretty rough and clunky by more modern JRPG standards, including its successors P3 and 4. Summoning Personae in particular can be a chore because you have to stockpile tarot cards via negotiation with enemies. Also, the game is absolutely piss easy even on Hard, probably the easiest-ever Megaten game. But the story, writing and characters are some of the best that RPGs have to offer, and the soundtrack is fantastic to match. And it's only half of the Persona 2 story, as it and Eternal Punishment form a Digital Devil Saga-style duology. Still hoping that Eternal Punishment's PSP port gets translated, it's been a few months now since it released in Japan.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 23, 2012 14:14:26 GMT -5
Bought Persona 2 last week on PSP. Yet to try it out but has anyone else played it? I have it but haven't beaten it yet. I think I'm about halfway through it. The characters are a lot of fun and the story is enjoyable, but the lack of challenge got pretty boring after a while. Even the bosses provide little if any challenge. I should get around to finishing it up, if I can figure out where I was.
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Post by Chronos on Oct 5, 2012 20:38:35 GMT -5
Been a while. Been unmotivated to post. Not depression again or anything, just felt more like lurking than posting.
On my second playthrough of The Last Story. It's sad that the game's gotten so much (generally negative) comparison to Xenoblade because it's totally different, and yet also great in its own way. Short but sweet (my first playthrough was 35 hours and I spent a lot of time messing around), pours on the FF nostalgia without using it as a crutch, gives you a lot of ways to customize character appearance with armor/color setups, GREAT battle system despite being on the easy side, and has one of the overall best casts of characters of any recent JRPG. Zael and Calista make a fantastic couple (very reminiscent of Zidane and Dagger too), Syrenne and Lowell are never short of wisecracks and hilarious bitching at each other, Mirania seems cold but is a kook, Yurick is initially a twerp but comes around eventually, and Dagran is a good foil to Zael while also being something of a fatherly leader for your ragtag band of mercs.
The game is rough around the edges technically, with framerate jitters and a Twilight Princess-style overuse of bloom lighting, and the locations could generally use some more color. Too many variations of brown and gray about. There's a couple of sections where you have to chase someone all over town as well and the game has trouble keeping up with loading in the town sections. Despite these issues, though, the game looks pretty great. I'm a sucker for good-looking water in games, and TLS has beautiful water. I would've liked more of a presence with the music as well, as most of the time Uematsu's music is used more like a film score than what you'd normally expect from him. The music still supports the game well enough, no doubt, but it's a far cry from the immediate brilliance of his FF soundtracks.
Despite the relative lack of color Lazulis City is thoroughly alive and vibrant, there are people everywhere and there are lots of accompanying little details to boot. Grabbing feathers from a windy alley, trying to find the traveling merchant when he's got what you want, bonking your head on tavern signs, shooting prank bananas to make the aforementioned people everywhere fall on their asses, using your targeting system to listen in on people's conversations in addition to finding things like a kid looking for someone on the rooftops...little things like this really come together and add lots to the city's charm and personality.
If I HAD to compare to Xenoblade I'd say The Last Story isn't quite as good, but considering that Xenoblade will likely be seen as an enduring classic that's hardly an insult. It's a satisfying, charming, and most importantly, incredibly fun game to play. I'll probably play through it at least once more after my current NG+, that's how much fun I'm having with it.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2012 21:02:07 GMT -5
So I finally get a job, and thus enough money to pre-order Ni No Kuni's special edition, and it turns out Namco put a September deadline on that edition.
I'm glad to see Operation Rainfall having success. Hopefully that type of initiative will convince more companies to release stuff overseas.
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Post by Chronos on Oct 5, 2012 21:35:57 GMT -5
Fat lot of crap on the Ni no Kuni deadline, sorry you missed it. That's a really great special edition too.
I actually read a thread on GAF earlier today talking about the sales of Xenoblade and The Last Story. More specifically, Reggie and XSEED talking about them. According to him, Xenoblade sold "quite well" given NoA's expectations, so that's great news. The XSEED rep said that TLS is doing great as well, I guess NPD numbers on GAF have it at <40,000 for August (hilariously still more than the PS Vita). Hopefully this, along with the great critical response the games have gotten, will inspire NoA to be more open-minded in the future. I guess all we can do is wait and see though.
SUPER EDIT: SMTIV trailer, uncut.
I take back my misgivings. This is gonna be good.
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Post by Chronos on Oct 9, 2012 20:03:30 GMT -5
Beat The Last Story again, still so good. The later bosses get really nasty on NG+, they hit like trucks and their resilience can turn the fights into mini-marathons. Decided to check up on my Wii a bit (TLS really sounded like it was abusing the poor thing at times) and popped in Xenoblade for 20 or so minutes afterward to make sure everything was still alright while loading and such, and achieved max satisfaction by taking down Despotic Arsene despite being totally unprepared for him.
Gonna try and step back from JRPGs outside of B/W 2 (which I'll hopefully get pretty soon) for a bit. Resident Evil 4 and either Sunshine or Galaxy sound real good.
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