The Last To Post Wins!

[DodgeDusk]

@DragonFlames How Musse doesn't get Rean fired I'll never know. Woman's insane.

[Armagon]

So last night in Atelier E&L, as i was completing the main assignment for the current set of four months, i run into a boss at the end of a dungeon. I had already been exploring so i was a bit unprepared but i said "fuck it, i'll see how far i can go". I got it's HP to about half and the boss did it's "power up" which is a common boss trope. It starts doing "lol double attack" which i hate but whatever. But when i get to my turn, i find that.......the boss's HP is completely restored.

This game is lucky that the boss is optional. Boss had a cool theme though but i can't show it to you guys because i can't find it on YouTube. I know it's there but the full OST playlist for the game is in Japanese (kanji and everything) so i don't know which one it is. I have to manually check each one. Searching up the English name of the song doesn't bring up the song itself.

But i was able to find the area theme i was in

 

4 hours ago, DodgeDusk said:

What noticeable things does Elie do in Ao's story?

What noticable things does Noel do in Zero's story?

See, i too can play at that game.

2 hours ago, Shrimperor said:

huh. I thought it didn't work that way. I should take note of that then...

It's more noticable online because of the input delay and whatnot.

You get used to it.

42 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

When you find out that the new Three Houses DLC classes' designs are directly taken from Awakening and not new designs like you hoped they'd be:

At least the Ashen Wolves have unique visual variants of those classes. To the point where i didn't even know Yuri was a Trickster until after the info came out.

I'm holding off until i see a full review.

 

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

48 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

She's also been Ms. Not-Appearing-In-This-Game for two games now, despite apparently being the "main heroine" of the Crossbell games. CSII had Rixia accompany Lloyd, not her, CSIII has Randolph in a major role as one of Rean's colleagues at Thor's Branch Campus and Tio as the "returnee from the old games" for the Crossbell chapter.
Though I won't make any judgement on her actual character, seeing how I've never even seen this Elie person before.

Seeing Rixia in CSII gave me wrong hopes about Crossbell since she is not playable in the first Crossbell game at all.

As for Elie's characters I can't say much yet, since I'm playing it in a language I don't understand, and I only hardly use the translation script.

[Armagon]

2 minutes ago, Falcom Knight said:

Seeing Rixia in CSII gave me wrong hopes about Crossbell since she is not playable in the first Crossbell game at all.

There wasn't really any room for Rixia to be playable in Zero tbf.

2 minutes ago, Falcom Knight said:

As for Elie's characters I can't say much yet, since I'm playing it in a language I don't understand, and I only hardly use the translation script.

There.......there's a full English translation patch though?

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

No translation patch, it's a spreadsheet I'm using.

 

Still I think the translation has been finished recently iirc.

 

Still Crossbell games will be re-released on PS4 which I will get naturally.

[Armagon]

The worst part about the Wave 4 classes isn't that they are just the Awakening designs but that two of them are gender-locked. Two out of four are gender-locked. Not good.

32 minutes ago, Falcom Knight said:

No translation patch, it's a spreadsheet I'm using.

 

Still I think the translation has been finished recently iirc.

 

Still Crossbell games will be re-released on PS4 which I will get naturally.

Translation's been out for like two years.

I can't imagine playing a game with a spreadsheet, that sounds painful. Like being forced to sit front row at a movie theater.

[Acacia Sgt]

Well, if the plan was to bring Awakening classes, can't say those four were my first choices.

Well, maybe one or two of them would be.

[Armagon]

Holy shit, they are making Texas 2.

 

[Acacia Sgt]

Finally getting that 51st star, huh...

[Karimlan]

Any Switch owners getting Trails III next month? Pre-ordered the Extracurricular Edition a week ago.

[Interdimensional Observer]

"If previous Atlus games (games which can be played on other hardware, without adding additional elements) were ported to the Nintendo Switch, would you want to play them? Select all of the titles below that you would like to play on the Nintendo Switch.

Port of “Revelations: Persona”
Port of “Persona 2: Innocent Sin / Eternal Punishment”
Port of “Persona 3,” “Persona 3 FES,” and “Persona 3 Portable”
Port of “Persona 4” and “Persona 4 Golden”
Port of “Persona 5” and “Persona 5 Royal”
Port of “Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne”
Port of “Shin Megami Tensei IV”
Port of “Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse”
Port of “Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner” series
Port of “Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers”
Port of “Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha” series
Port of “Etrian Odyssey” series
Port of “13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim”
Port of “Persona Q”
Port of “Catherine: Full Body”
Port of “Odin Sphere Leifthrasir”
Port of “Dragon’s Crown Pro""

I'd use auto-translate and fill out this Japan-only Atlus survey. But this is question number 47, wayyyyyy too long.

Also, "without adding additional elements"? Welp, there goes a bunch of the titles here.

• I've played both Persona 1 and Innocent Sin, Sin has a nice plot, but its gameplay has aged like milk you left on the counter of your hot and humid home before going on a week-long vacation. Persona 1's plot isn't even good enough either, and its portraits are best left in the dustbin.
• Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers is too old-school too, and Raidou 1 is extremely clunky in its Tales-esque gameplay. Again, neither has a good enough plot.
• And, I love Digital Devil Saga, but I'd want an enhanced version to fix some of DDS2's little faults, I love it too much for them to not get addressed.

Etrian would be great, but EO without the touchscreen for the drawable map? -Actually, where is this spiritual successor to EO you've promised us on other systems Atlus?!

I'm surprised to see Atlus placed their Vanillaware titles here. But I do enjoy Odin Sphere a whole lot, that deserves more love.

And, SMTIII-IV: Apo would be sweet. But Nocturne deserves a remake, and I pray Atlus has the gumption to demand a Dante from Devil May Cry license from Capcom again. Preferably with Pierce added to Son's Oath effects to fix him for the final battle.

[DragonFlames]

3 hours ago, DodgeDusk said:

@DragonFlames How Musse doesn't get Rean fired I'll never know. Woman's insane.

Well, nobody seems to really mind that she does that. Aside from Rean, who tries to be friendly as possible, only Juna (and Elise that one time) ever voices any objections to her behavior, everyone else just takes it in stride.

3 hours ago, Falcom Knight said:

Seeing Rixia in CSII gave me wrong hopes about Crossbell since she is not playable in the first Crossbell game at all.

That's a shame.

3 hours ago, Armagon said:

So last night in Atelier E&L, as i was completing the main assignment for the current set of four months, i run into a boss at the end of a dungeon. I had already been exploring so i was a bit unprepared but i said "fuck it, i'll see how far i can go". I got it's HP to about half and the boss did it's "power up" which is a common boss trope. It starts doing "lol double attack" which i hate but whatever. But when i get to my turn, i find that.......the boss's HP is completely restored.

Bosses that can fully heal themselves out of nowhere are very high up on my list of things I hate in a boss fight. VERY high up.
The other things are:
- Bosses that can attack twice or more during a turn (when the game clearly is NOT balanced around this) in turn-based RPGs
- Bosses that have insta-kill moves you can't block
- Bosses that spam multiple status effects that you can't do anything against (yet I love the Hypnos fight in 7th Dragon III. Weird.)
- Bosses that are just giant pools of HP
- Bosses that can employ cheap tactics that can completely throw you for a loop if you don't know they can do that
- Bosses that employ a bullshit gimmick to make the fight stupidly unfair more than anything else

Sad thing is, the Final Fantasy games I've played have MULTIPLE of these in a single boss fight. Final Fantasy X and XII are especially terrible with this.

3 hours ago, Armagon said:

But i was able to find the area theme i was in

 

This is beautiful.

3 hours ago, Armagon said:

At least the Ashen Wolves have unique visual variants of those classes. To the point where i didn't even know Yuri was a Trickster until after the info came out.

I'm holding off until i see a full review.

So far, nothing about the Ashen Wolves DLC has me convinced to buy it. The classes were literally the last thing that could have roped me in, but now that's done, too. 

While I am fine with the classes themselves (hello, flying Mage!), if I disliked one thing about Awakening, it's the aesthetic for most of the classes, which - to me - ranges from boring to absolutely stupid-looking (for the mounted classes, this complaint refers to the armor they wear while in the class. The animals themselves look fine).

2 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Well, if the plan was to bring Awakening classes, can't say those four were my first choices.

Well, maybe one or two of them would be.

Gryphon Rider would have been really cool to bring back if they gave the armor on the characters riding the gryphon an overhaul.
Also, a female Dark Mage class would have been neat (but PLEASE not the Awakening design for it).

[Acacia Sgt]

5 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Gryphon Rider would have been really cool to bring back if they gave the armor on the characters riding the gryphon an overhaul.
Also, a female Dark Mage class would have been neat (but PLEASE not the Awakening design for it).

As someone who wouldn't mind seeing more variety in fliers in the series in general, I'd agree on Gryphon Riders. Since their introduction, always thought they could make a flier triangle, as pegasus knights always had lances and nowadays dragon/wyvern riders are associated with axes. Give them swords unpromoted and we're good.

Not an Awakening class but if wanting a female "dark mage" class, I would've said to bring back Witch. Would make a good balance with... Warlock, was it?

Edited February 7, 2020 by Acacia Sgt

[DragonFlames]

1 minute ago, Acacia Sgt said:

As someone who wouldn't mind seeing more variety in fliers in the series in general, I'd agree on Gryphon Riders. Since their introduction, always thought they could make a flier triangle, as pegasus knights always had lances and nowadays dragon/wyvern riders are associated with axes. Give them swords unpromoted and we're good.

A Sword/Axe/Lance trio in fliers sounds like a great idea, actually. On promotion, Gryphon Riders could get bows or something to have them be spiritual successors to Kinshi-Knights, only with swords instead of lances.

1 minute ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Not an Awakening class but if wanting a female "dark mage" class, I would've said to bring back Witch. Would make a good balance with... Warlock, was it?

Yup, it's Warlock. And I agree 100%. Witch was a pretty cool class to use in Fates.

[Acacia Sgt]

Meanwhile, on the more goofy/silly side I would say to bring back the Bride class... XD

[DragonFlames]

11 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Meanwhile, on the more goofy/silly side I would say to bring back the Bride class... XD

Absolutely!

[Armagon]

1 hour ago, Karimlan said:

Any Switch owners getting Trails III next month? Pre-ordered the Extracurricular Edition a week ago.

Me probably. Or maybe i'll get it on PC to save my Switch's micro SD card (i haven't upgraded it in a while).

16 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Bosses that can attack twice or more during a turn (when the game clearly is NOT balanced around this) in turn-based RPGs

This is at it's worse when the boss has AoE and/or multi-hit attacks (or AoE multi-hits). Coincidentally, the boss in E&L that i fought also had this.

17 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Bosses that spam multiple status effects that you can't do anything against (yet I love the Hypnos fight in 7th Dragon III. Weird.)

It's the music. I didn't like the fight itself but the music was very good. Sometimes a good song is all it takes to take away the pain. It's like in The Phantom Menace. The Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon vs Darth Maul duel actually has no emotional core to it but Duel of the Fates is just....perfection. 

20 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Bosses that are just giant pools of HP

The final boss of Trails in the Sky SC is literally this. On Normal, it's got like a million HP but actually (or at the very least, it had a stupid amount of HP even for final boss standards).

However, i will say that there's a difference between a turn-based RPG boss having a million HP and an action RPG boss having a million HP. Because in action RPGs, dealing damage in the several thousands range is usually considered normal.

31 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

As someone who wouldn't mind seeing more variety in fliers in the series in general, I'd agree on Gryphon Riders. Since their introduction, always thought they could make a flier triangle, as pegasus knights always had lances and nowadays dragon/wyvern riders are associated with axes. Give them swords unpromoted and we're good.

This is genius and now i'm sad that Gryphon Riders keep getting the shaft. Especially since there was no canon Gryphon Rider to begin with.

[DragonFlames]

26 minutes ago, Armagon said:

This is at it's worse when the boss has AoE and/or multi-hit attacks (or AoE multi-hits). Coincidentally, the boss in E&L that i fought also had this.

Oh yes, definitely. Dragon Star Varnir is sadly guilty of this for many of its bosses (and even normal enemies), too.

26 minutes ago, Armagon said:

It's the music. I didn't like the fight itself but the music was very good. Sometimes a good song is all it takes to take away the pain. It's like in The Phantom Menace. The Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon vs Darth Maul duel actually has no emotional core to it but Duel of the Fates is just....perfection.

That battle theme is and always will be one of my absolute favorites in any video game ever. I love the somber feel it has at the same time as the fast-paced "you are fighting" vibe.
I like the story that surrounds the boss, as well. It almost makes you feel bad fighting it (as do the lyrics of the song, which fit perfectly).
And yes, Duel of the Fates was epic. Best part about Phantom Menace for sure.

Though you can very easily cheese Hypnos, if you so desire. All you need is a Rune Knight's Brave Blade and a Banisher's Dragon Buster/Earthquake to kill her before she can use her nastiest attacks. Granted, this cheese tactic works on every boss besides the final one.

26 minutes ago, Armagon said:

The final boss of Trails in the Sky SC is literally this. On Normal, it's got like a million HP but actually (or at the very least, it had a stupid amount of HP even for final boss standards).

That's a big oof right there.

My worst experience when it comes to this is the superboss of Final Fantasy X. I think I talked about this before, but that thing has 12 million HP in a game where the maximum amount of damage you can do is 99,999. And he has two arms with 300,000 HP each, which you have to destroy or else you get obliterated once its his turn. The battle itself is piss-easy, however. You just repeat the same damn thing over and over and over and over and over and over: attack one arm until near death, then the other arm until near death, then kill arm #1, then kill arm #2, attack the main body until one arm comes back, rinse and repeat until he dies. It's not rewarding in the slightest. The hardest part of that fight is keeping up the pattern and not falling asleep. By the end of it all, you'll even get tired of the formerly awesome music.

26 minutes ago, Armagon said:

However, i will say that there's a difference between a turn-based RPG boss having a million HP and an action RPG boss having a million HP. Because in action RPGs, dealing damage in the several thousands range is usually considered normal.

True.
Though damage sponge bosses in action RPGs can get pretty annoying, too, if they have too much health, especially if you have their attack patterns figured out. It's like "come on, just die already, please?"

Edited February 7, 2020 by DragonFlames

[Armagon]

8 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Though you can very easily cheese Hypnos, if you so desire. All you need is a Rune Knight's Brave Blade and a Banisher's Dragon Buster/Earthquake to kill her before she can use her nastiest attacks. Granted, this cheese tactic works on every boss besides the final one.

I didn't know any cheese tactics for 7th Dragon III so i was just playing the game like normal. Which meant dealing with Hypnos' status effects. Which is kinda tough given how restrictive you are in doing that.

9 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

True.
Though damage sponge bosses in action RPGs can get pretty annoying, too, if they have too much health, especially if you have their attack patterns figured out. It's like "come on, just die already, please?"

Literally every boss in Ys 7. I haven't beaten the game yet but every boss fight so far has been consistantly a slog. 

[Acacia Sgt]

On the subject of bosses and gimmicks... this brings me back when I was playing SRW Alpha and Alpha Gaiden and the Seishin Spam some of them would do.

Anyone remembering my playthroughs when I was writing them down in the HHH thread would know how polarizing it was to me, hahaha. Both enjoyed it and frustrated at it.

[Karimlan]

1 hour ago, DragonFlames said:

- Bosses that employ a bullshit gimmick to make the fight stupidly unfair more than anything else

I guess FF6's Kefka counts here (and other FF final--excuse the pun--bosses that reduce everyone's HP to 1).

Edited February 7, 2020 by Karimlan

[Acacia Sgt]

Maybe it's just me who likes to use the Wait setting... but attacks like that aren't much of a problem to me. The moment I see one I quickly go into the Item menu, where I can just take my time choosing a Megaelixir or something.

[Armagon]

3 minutes ago, Karimlan said:

I guess FF6's Kefka counts here (and other FF final--excuse the pun--bosses that reduce everyone's HP to 1).

Attacks that reduce everyone's HP to 1 are so fucking stupid. Like, it might as well have just insta-killed. Yeah, you do get a chance to recover HP but that's only if the turn order is in your favor and the like.

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 hour ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Meanwhile, on the more goofy/silly side I would say to bring back the Bride class... XD

I cannot forget the sway they put into its idle animation.

 

1 hour ago, DragonFlames said:

Bosses that can fully heal themselves out of nowhere are very high up on my list of things I hate in a boss fight. VERY high up.
The other things are:
- Bosses that can attack twice or more during a turn (when the game clearly is NOT balanced around this) in turn-based RPGs
- Bosses that have insta-kill moves you can't block
- Bosses that spam multiple status effects that you can't do anything against (yet I love the Hypnos fight in 7th Dragon III. Weird.)
- Bosses that are just giant pools of HP
- Bosses that can employ cheap tactics that can completely throw you for a loop if you don't know they can do that
- Bosses that employ a bullshit gimmick to make the fight stupidly unfair more than anything else

Reminds me that I read they made the EON superboss read your command inputs, an evil strat. Not that I've fought it, oddly, I just haven't gone far in Nexus. I've only made it to the old EOIV Berserker boss. And I had to turn things down to Normal for the first boss. The Hero-Highlander-Harbinger-Ninja-Zodiac team wasn't cutting it for bosses. In fact, while I've played EOIV, U, U2, and V on the highest difficulty, I think just have to accept it's okay to turn it down if I'm not having fun.

 

56 minutes ago, Armagon said:

This is genius and now i'm sad that Gryphon Riders keep getting the shaft. Especially since there was no canon Gryphon Rider to begin with.

Nor canon acknowledge they exist or have any lore/biology around them.

 

1 minute ago, Karimlan said:

I guess FF6's Kefka counts here (and other FF final--excuse the pun--bosses that reduce everyone's HP to 1).

I recall they do that only once, when the final phase first begins. So it's manageable, particularly because, nobody ever thinks VI's final battle is hard I believe. Nor Queen Zeal in Chrono Trigger, Halation never killed me.

 

33 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Best part about Phantom Menace for sure.

Best part would be it likely inspired this:

[Armagon]

2 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Best part would be it likely inspired this:

I can't believe Kirby is a Jedi Temple Guard.

If you don't know, all Jedi Temple Guards canonically have yellow staffsabers.