Semi-Review/Thoughts/Comments on 7th Dragon III: Code: VFD

[Interdimensional Observer]

Hello everyone, I'm back once more! My ban (which I asked for to increase IRL productivity/slash procrastination) is over. Now IRL causes of asking for such a ban ended some time ago, but I intentionally pushed things beyond that just as a little extra lesson in restraint.

Getting to the topic title, 7th Dragon III: Code: VFD went on sale during my absence. Originally i was planning on getting Etrian Odyssey V on sale, but by the time I added the funds for it, the sale was over that day (I'll just wait for the next). Then I saw VFD was on sale and I decided to buy it instead, the $19.99 price point was exactly what I had been telling myself I'd buy it for. I wasn't willing to shell out full price given Atlus published the game and they love their eShop sales (I'm stupid for buying SMTIV: Apocalypse when it first came out and I still haven't gotten to it yet), and reviews placed it in the 7 range. I'm willing to buy 7s, but typically not unless discounted or cheap already. 

What I'm about to post isn't exactly a review, but you can in a way regard it as one. In summation for those who would like a review, I'd give it a 7 or 7.5. Which for me is "If you're into the genre, consider it" territory. A 6 is "If you're into the genre, consider it with caution/controlled expectations", and a 8 is "If you're into the genre, definitely play it". A 9 is "Even if you aren't into the genre, definitely consider it", and a 10 is "Unless you really do not care for the genre, you must play this game!".

Anyhow, now my topical breakdown:

Cause of interest: 

Spoiler

The game interested me with its class system and comparisons to Etrian Odyssey, which it really isn’t as others have pointed out, but hey, I like class systems in general- the Bravely games are fun and FFV is one of my favorite FFs. I enjoyed the demo over a year ago, and had it ready for transferring over to the main game (and it is worth doing- it's the prologue of the actual game, plus you get some Az (currency) and few very nice accessories for doing it).

Length:

Spoiler

The game took me about 10 days to complete I think, I clocked in at like 39 and a half hours after the final battle. All dragons were killed, postgame dungeon was not started, grinding was minimal on my part.

Music:

Spoiler

Music was nothing special- nothing grated on the ears, nothing left a lasting impression, enjoyable enough in the game itself, but nothing like EOIV’s masterful soundtrack (Yuzo Koshiro composed the 7th Dragon games and still makes the Etrian Odyssey soundtracks). Though I might be overrating EOIV’s music, being it was my first EO game, just as a bias (I still listen to it online from time to time).

Voice acting is Japanese only, I chose to turn voices off because of this. Not that I'm opposed to Japanese VAs, I just didn't care for voices I didn't understand on my created characters. If you do like Japanese VAs- created characters have over a dozen to choose from for each sex. I don't think NPCs use voiced dialogue at all, or rarely at best. A few dramatic boss battles and the end of the Prologue use compositions with Japanese vocals.

Visuals:

Spoiler

The graphics were clean, and the 3D character models were appreciated when Etrian Odyssey never actually shows you your characters in battle. Nothing extraordinary, but no issues.

Art direction was anime, but that being so nebulous a term, I'll say it wasn't exaggeratedly in your face about it the vast majority of the time. Character designs were fine outside of some females having back problems, and I generally really liked the class designs.

Difficulty (and dungeon design):

Spoiler

Difficulty, this I heard was the weak point of VFD in gameplay, well this and dungeon design. To get dungeon design out of the way, they tend to be linear, with no effort made at puzzles. A little exploration for treasure chests and rescuing cats and human/Lucier survivors (which are marked on the bottom screen's map even when you haven't revealed the area). The penultimate dungeon does try a little bit of warp puzzle, but it is so rudimentary it might as well not exist.  But, I bore with VFD's dungeons, which weren't tedious at least, once you finish one in the story and slay all the dragons therein, you'll never have to visit it again (with the exception of the 7th Encount Prologue dungeon).

Now turning to difficulty, let us work our way up the totem pole of enemies. Random generic enemies- these were indeed really really weak after Chapter 2, a single maxed Jab from my Godhand OHKOed things for far too long. Chapter 5 and 5.1 did begin putting a little meat on the enemies, and they actually reached a level about what would have been acceptable through much of the game in Chapter 7- the last story chapter (haven’t touched the postgame dungeon yet).

Now for the non-boss dragons. To compare these to EO’s FOEs, they’re very different in gameplay design. FOEs per floor/stratum generally number far far less than VFD dragons do (although like EO, you get about 4 different dragon/FOE species per dungeon). You’re expected to dodge FOEs in EO until you get to the end of a stratum, while in VFD, you’re expected to kill them right away or soon thereafter. Being so much more numerous, they’re also much weaker than FOEs. Unless you’re hyper-offensive in EO, you can’t kill them fast, while a dragon in VFD can typically be killed off in 3 turns. My first team had a Duelist, who far less than he should have got to unleash the true power of X-Burn, due to the build needing 3 turns (Search: Fire, X-Burn, Summon: Fire III or Field: Volcano) to start utterly destroying things. Now, the dragons themselves can pack the hurt, and in the beginning they caused quite a few game overs for me. I relied on sneaking up from behind for preemptive strikes to win in the beginning, but later I could manage fighting two dragons at once (not that I did it often), and depending on whether your team has a lot of buffs, it might be better to let a dragon hijack a random battle so you load up on your buffs without worries before it shows up. You can impair their offense with Paralyze, Burn, Atk/Matk debuffs, and lostpower.exe, but durability is the real issue for non-boss dragons. Maybe if they didn't have so many dragons, these could been better battles whilst still making the dragon plot menace felt in the game.

Boss difficulty

Spoiler

Bosses, the majority of which are dragons, are a fairer challenge. Boss dragons are actually durable for a change, and a couple even heal (one boss full heals at the end of every turn- thou must ORKO it or inflict Paralyze or Stop Action to give yourself multiple turns). Bosses pack a good offense too, and most of the time have some form of status ailments up their sleeves. Ailments in fact become the main menace of bosses, equipping anti-ailment accessories becomes essential, but if you luck out like me, you can eek through on your first try without them. Unfortunately, some bosses pack multiple nasty ailments, and while you have two accessory slots per character, buyable ones provide 50% resistance for only one ailment. So you either null one ailment by doubling up on protection against it, or halve your chances of getting hit by it and another. Accessories you can buy do offer partial protection against multiple ailments, and -Cut accessories do offer 100% mitigation. You will have to deal with being addled one way or another.

The boss of Chapter 4 was difficult, needed two tries here, but Chapter 5 and the first of Chapter 6 I managed to clear on my first shots, despite me thinking I might need multiple tries. The last boss of Chapter 6 was on the easier side, and I discovered the absurdity of Paralysis on Chapter 3’s, though at the end it did try bearing fangs against me. The final boss wasn’t too bad in the first phase, if I had equipped anti-Charm accessories, it would not have presented any major issues. Phase two I managed to manage by swapping to my SRF team, my most reliable of them, but it was a bit difficult. Phase 3 started real easy with me still using SRF team, I even managed to Paralyze it once. Then it Raged once, nearly killing me. Then it its legions of terrible ailments + damage weighed down on me, but I still managed to slash its HP to a quarter or less. Maybe it was bad luck, maybe it was some low HP desperation flag, but the boss used Rage multiple turns in a row and its other attacks with such frequent ferocity that I could have lost. I almost did when my Berserked Rune Knight was the only survivor of a Rage, fortunately, it lived through the next turn and revived my Fortuner on the one after that. I forget if the Fortuner was at all ailed on the next turn, but if it wasn’t I had a Yggdrasil’s Wind I could have used to try to get back in the game. I don’t remember, because my Rune Knight was killed that turn, and then activated its death counter, which finished the final boss off. Talk about close!

 

Skills usage and grinding:

Spoiler

Now it is worth mentioning I read on GFAQs about some of the more broken skills in the game, I also later on (once I got the final classes) saw the raw skills data (which is very useful- the skills could use more description in-game), so I knew what to invest in and what to avoid. I did abuse Paralyze from time to time, but I never touched the EX Skills (though I did learn a bunch of them when I had the spare SP), nor the most broken of normal skills when it comes to damage output (Earthquake and Brave Sword). These were the handicaps I put on myself, and with them the game kept some challenge later on.

I didn’t really intentionally grind much. I killed every dragon, did every quest, and roamed every floor of every dungeon in full, and that was about it, I had plenty of SP and EXP as the game went on, and was in the 74-76 range for the final boss, with a few characters have learned nearly every skill in their arsenal. Az (currency) I had to play things smart with, but I had plenty as I long as I didn’t buy every little armor and weapon upgrade, spacing them out a little made things better, and had I wanted to, grinding for more doesn’t appear it would have been tedious. I did when my teams split up in Chapters 5 & 7 dodge all nonessential dragons until my teams reunited, then I went back and killed them all so everyone and not just 1/3rd of my team got the delicious EXP and SP dragons give so much of. That was a bit quirky and required a little extra effort.

Killer's Attract (talk to people in Nodens for Field Skills from time to time, I think it was Chapter 4 or 5 when someone gave me this unlimited use Field Skill which automatically triggers a random battle) and the support teams  getting full EXP and SP after every battle (and so does anyone dead in the 1st team), makes getting new recruits up to par even without dragons to slay rather painless. More so the EXP part than the SP.

Plot and characters:

Spoiler

In terms of the plot- it was a bunch of typical JRPG themes (dragons, the emotive bonds of people, strength), the game’s brevity keeping most of them and the world itself restrained and limited. Not having played the prior 7D games might have made certain moments less impactful, but apparently VFD recycles some character tropes, plot points, locations, and loads of dragon designs from prior games, to the point it might have been its own advantage in some cases to have not played the JPN only earlier installments I think, since it’d show a weakness of repetitiveness. The directions things went in at a certain point was different though, and very interesting.

The NPCs were okay. While my vague memories of the demo/prologue had me disliking Julietta’s somewhat stereotypical and bizarre homosexuality, Nagamimi wasn’t exactly appealing either, they weren’t so bad in the actual game. Mio, she I never quite liked in the prologue or the rest despite being one of the more focused on NPCs, I guess it’s just because I’m not big on the special yet mysterious/fragile girls trope. I did like Eigor and Emel a fair bit, the former was a bit cool, the latter sympathetic and made me wanting to see her in the prior games (she was in no way fanservicey either- unlike Ulania’s outfit). I knew you could date the NPCs, but I never did, partly because I never saw how you date them despite me trying to figure out how from the Skylounge (and there is little point in having your PCs date). I also knew that a set of penultimate-ish weapons can be obtained via the final NPC dates, but the fact that most final dates end with implied sex (and they don’t care about the age or gender of your leader character- have Mio date the old male Godhand or a ten year old girl Duelist- she doesn’t care who, and she thinks they’re all the same person- a flaw of the writing- they should have stuck exclusively with referring to the PCs as the collective Unit 13) was a big turnoff for me, I likely wouldn’t have done it.

Classes:

Spoiler

Turning to the classes and my created characters. While only 3 characters per fight is a little restrictive and 8 classes might be slightly short of ideal (although the original EO had only 9 classes), I liked it all overall. Each class had a nice aesthetic and generally two directions you could take them with their skillset, plus a little extra not able to constitute a third skill branch. And since SP is unlimited unlike EO’s skill points, by the very end, you can invest in both branches all the way.

The first four classes blend fantastical modernity with medieval fantasy core classes in a very cool way. Instead of a knight, you have a Samurai, one shorn of any traditional Japanese armor or mannerisms, it is the Samurai of today. The Agent is a cunning, agile class like a Thief, but packing dual handguns instead of knives and hacks into enemies instead of stealing. The Godhand is a Monk with martial arts and some supportive techniques, but dressed as a maid/butler. The Duelist replaces the offensive spellcaster of old by being a tribute to Yugioh (complete with trap cards), Pokemon TCG, and all the stuff in the same kid-oriented “collect and battle” genre of entertainment. 

The four classes you unlock later in the game don't have the same blend of modernity and classic fantasy, instead they lean on the fantasy, but they all look good still and even better play quite well. The Rune Knight is really cool, using daggers it can magically turn into lightsabers when needed. It tanks well, it attacks fairly strongly with I think both Atk and Matk, and has a little support mixed in too, a good take on a spellblade class. The Fortuner blends ally support with ailment skills, sort of like EOIV’s Arcanist, though I relied much more on its support over its ailments. The Mage is real simple and traditional attack magic and (the best) healing magic, with no frills save the nifty Shieldcraft which makes Mages more durable than you’d think, and the Veils, which on a tanky team can probably rack up a lot of damage and inflict a lot of Burn/Freeze/Paralyze over so many attacks.

The Banisher is a medieval knight, but its huge lance doubles as a cannon filled with bombs, giving Eden a little technological sophistication despite being a regressive future. The Banisher is mostly damage on a tanky unit, but it has some fire skills for inflicting Burn (a good status ailment that debuffs enemy Atk, Def, Mdef by 10% and deals minor damage), and its Roar might last only two turns, but the Atk & Def debuff it smacks enemies with is palpable.

The classes generally work independently of each other, good when you only have three slots to play with, but some do have some synergy with the others.

I loved having the 2nd and 3rd teams, mostly because they get full SP and EXP to minimize grinding. Buddy skills (namely those of the Duelist and Fortuner were helpful), though most fights never lasted so long as to make Unison Attacks (when all three bars are filled on all support characters, everyone gets to use Mana cost free skill including the 1st team) available, and the few fights that did found ailments and mass deaths forcing me to delay or never pull them off because I needed the D/F’s supports. I liked the mere presence of the backup teams, made up for having only 3 on each and it made Unit 13 feel more like an actual military unit in size. The choice to let you use different teams for all the phases of the final battle was a good move.

Sure some skills and characters need tweaks- the Godhand needs to be a better healer, the Banisher needs its offensive picks rebalanced a bit, and Mage’s Consent/Solid Stance cost more than the most expensive attacks they can buff, but don’t increase attack by much more than double- making them both in damage and MN consumption inefficient outside of EX skills, but these are nitpicks. Another nitpick I have is with healing. But these are just nitpicks, nothing that truly detracts from the experience.

 

Lastly, this isn't review, just me recounting my team choices, personal tidbits:

Spoiler

My teams consisted of
D-A-G

S (one blade)-R-F

M-B-S (twin blades)

Pretty standard stuff, one of every class plus a second Samurai simply because Dual Blades vs. a single sword is made out to be two sort of separate classes (but in practice, they are hardly different as damage dealers). 

Each class has two male and two female designs. Those of the same sex share the same pose, just different heads mostly, and each design has three colors variants to choose from. You can also use any class's appearance for any class in gameplay. Meaning you can take visually Samurai of either sex, and have them 100% in gameplay a Godhand- the same stats and skill selection of one, appearance is not strictly tied to class.

As for the characters themselves:

My Duelist was the second male design with the orange-red hair coloring and was the leader of his group. The cheery shota ripped straight out of any kid-friendly collect & battle card game/anime/video game. Adorable, I favored him by always letting him get extra SP with the SP Upper I got from the demo transfer (and I thought Duelist would be more SP intensive than the other starting classes). I named him Tory. That sounds like a normal name, but it actually is in my usual custom character conventions, a double reference. The “ry” are from “ryu”, Japanese for dragon of course (this is only the second time I’ve used the word in a name). The “r” is shared with Tormod, yup, I referenced a Fire Emblem character as I am oft to do. I read that the most consistent form of damage for a Duelist is in X Burn, and Tormod is a fire-oriented shota mage with red hair. My little Fire Dragon never made me not smile, particularly when he triggered Lucky Roll.

My Agent was just the default male design with default coloring (the second male looks mean and the ladies are much too fanservicey), the only thing I changed from the demo one I got was the name. I went with Pulsar. A pulsar is a type of star, but the name is actually a bit stranger in origin. The Agent looks modern and hip, like he could be at a nightclub. Not being a person who has ever been to a nightclub, and would if they could not escape being inside one just cry in a corner, the only name I knew for one was the gay nightclub that was a victim of a terrible mass shooting- Pulse. My Agent was oriented towards the hacking and not the gunning half of its skills though, until I had enough SP at the end to go both. I didn’t mean to be insensitive or anything with the name choice. 

The Godhand, well the male options weren’t too appealing to me, so I chose the default female, but the green-haired version. I though she’d be my team’s healer, only for me to realize later  she is really bad at healing but great at punching things to death. Had I gone with the default red-pink hair, Felicia you’d think I’d reference. Instead with green hair, I named her Rosra. Rosa- the EOU guild house maid, and Flora, Felicia’s sister.

My Samurai was the default male with red/orange hair. Adding in the white clothes, and the glasses suggesting some intellectual talents, I named him Rhyner. Rhys of Tellius, and Steiner of Luminous Arc 2. The single sword style seemed more appropriate for him. The distinction between the heroic/professional modern warriors S males and the high school student S females was a bit weird- why not make the girls look just as professional (they do look sort of professional, but not enough)?

My Rune Knight was the second male with the green shirt, I felt the second male design was a bit more mature in appearance and liked that over the still good first male. I loved the Rune Knight class by the way. I named him Jarlan. Jake, the elf marriage rival from Rune Factory 2, and Orland, Jake’s son. 

My Fortuner was default female, grey hair. Seeing apathy/aloofness/nonattachment in her expression, I named her Sadin. Sadie from Luminous Arc 2, and Zelenin from SMT: Strange Journey. She was the leader of her team. The male Fortuners looked very distinct, but I found the cuteness of the females a little more appealing than these rockin’ reapers.

My Mage was default male blue hair variant; not sure what wasn’t as appealing at first instinct in the female designs. The second male design looked too snarky its artwork, though the 3D model of the first design appears to have a ‘tude in battle as well. I named him Vicuth. I saw in his face a socially awkward expression, so Luthier (but given the in battle look, maybe I should have chosen Arlen instead). The “Vic” comes from the fact I planned to focus on the Mage’s healing and support skills, so I named him after Victor, quite possibly my favorite asterisk bearer from Bravely Default.

My Banisher was the second female design with black hair. She was called Saviarde, a double Baten Kaitos name. Savyna + Milliarde. I originally planned to do something Mil- but it was too difficult to think of something to complete it that looked good. She was the leader of her team. I liked that Banisher and Mage had one human and one Lucier design each for the female takes on these classes, for Eden society is supposed to be both Lucier and human in racial composition, but why were male Luciers found only in the Atlantis classes? Speculating, I think it is because of those fox/cat ears, have to cater to straight men with a fetish for meows. Although I will say on a second look, there is something very warm and pretty about the Lucier Banisher, and she is absolutely devoid of any fanservice outside of maybe the ears.

My Dual Blades Samurai used the Rune Knight default female design and pink hair color scheme. Normally I’m against fanservicey designs, but I liked the general aesthetics of this one and the color scheme. It reminded me of the Carat robo in Custom Robo Arena, but that alone does not a name make. Carat has is the robo of a rich girl and it has a head that looks like diamond, so I wanted an opulent other name half. The first thing I could think of was the town that does auctions in FFVI and is near the opera house- Jidoor. Hence she was bestowed the name Jirat.

 

Well now that I've gotten this game out of my system, I can move on and begin working on my backlog. Hmm.... finish BotW, SMT:SJ, FFT, and start up SMT: DDS2 (I'm feeling it even without having transfer data) and XC2. Those will be my priorities.

[Armagon]

You're the second person i've known that has played this game. I've only done one playthrough and i do remember liking it.

 

52 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

and she thinks they’re all the same person- a flaw of the writing- they should have stuck exclusively with referring to the PCs as the collective Unit 13)

Yeah, this is probably my biggest gripe with the game. Whenever characters referred to your party members as a singular person, it just broke the immersion for me a few times.

The other big issue i had with the game is how limited your inventory is. You can only have 15 of each item, meaning you can run out of healing and support items real fast.

[DragonFlames]

Waaah, I got beaten to the punch on this one!
I was actually going to write my first ever review on this game, since I love it so much (it's actually my favourite JRPG on the 3DS), but now that you did, there is no need for me to do the same, is there?

I agree with you on most things, though. Even though I didn't really mind the dating stuff that much (I just "assigned" one member to each NPC to avoid any headcanon misunderstandings), I can see how they could be a turn-off for some people. I also really liked Mio, but hey, to each their own. 

As an interesting tidbit, you can one-shot most non-boss dragons with a maxed out Brave Sword from a Rune Knight. It's frankly ridiculous.

I find it interesting that the Chapter 4 boss was the one to give you trouble. I found him the easiest the first time through. I had to retry the Chapter 5 boss three times, though (admittedly, one of those times was on purpose because of the music. Oh my god, that battle theme!) and the final one also gave me a hard time when I first faced him (you can cheese him with EX skills, though, as I found out on my second playthrough. I didn't even unlock any EX-skills on my first, because I had no idea they even existed...).

[Interdimensional Observer]

10 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

I also really liked Mio, but hey, to each their own. 

I guess I'm just nowadays not having so much tolerance for the cliche of a girl who fragile, has special powers, mysterious, other things like that (so Ninian to name an FE character). It didn't help her that she is described as a "navigator" and I have this mostly revulsion with a hint of desire relationship to Persona, which has had a bunch of young females in this capacity. I should really get over this aversion.

And Mio in truth wasn't too bad, I wasn't expecting her to

Spoiler

die after the Yuma battle and en route to the Nodens battle. 

If they toned down her love for the player character, she'd been a bit better. Her being practically the only employee at Nodens with Dragon Sickness prior to the sudden turn of events in Chapter 6 humanized things a little. Although I do ponder the biology of these synth humans if Yorimoto(?) was able to make a baby with one.

I wouldn't have minded if they'd played up the fact Mio is Yorimoto's daughter and he treats Yuma like a son a little more. Contrast the one "sibling" with the other. But VFD is rather short and just didn't have the time for that.

As for the dating stuff, well it's personal and a bit complicated. But there is also me just not liking weird sexual inclusions in games, there were two scenes in Skies of Arcadia that really broke with the innocence of the game and I loathe them. I also skip every Breath of the Wild Great Fairy scene. Although in the case of Shin Megami Tensei, I can and have put up with things like Mara and Incubus (I even used one for a while in Nocturne), though it is still a little unnerving even when normalized and Diana is just too weird.

 

11 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

As an interesting tidbit, you can one-shot most non-boss dragons with a maxed out Brave Sword from a Rune Knight. It's frankly ridiculous.

To put the numbers in perspective, the hard data behind Brave Sword from GFAQs shows at max level it deals 750% (100% is the damage dealt by the attack command, so a maxed Brave Sword deals seven and a half times that). Brave Sword's damage is multiplied by (Life Sacrificed * 0.02), all damage boosts and debuffs in VFD are multipliers, which can make them really strong.

Now to use an example, assume a Rune Knight has 200 HP and that is their max, they use a full upgraded (level 5) Brave Sword. At level 5, Brave Sword sacrifices 70% of a the Rune Knight's health, 200 * .7 = 1.4. 1.4 * 0.02 = 2.8. 2.8 * 7.50 = 21, or 2100%.

2100% is massive damage. If you use your Exhaust Gauge on Brave Sword instead of the Rune Knight's Ex Skill- Odin's Rage, you'll deal more damage. 3150% vs. 2250% to be precise. 

By comparison, the Samurai's strongest skill Sixteen Hand Slash is 650%, which is a bit weaker than Brave Sword before the crazy life sacrifice multiplier. The strongest Ex Skill, the Godhand's Earth Breaker, deals 3300%. Although with a maxed Solid Stance used the turn beforehand, a Dual Swords Samurai can deal 3562% with its Ex.

The only normal skill to even compare with Brave Sword is the Banisher's Earthquake, 1750% with just 1 bomb at max level. With a full 9, it's 2800%. Well that and the Duelist's Judgement, which deals 5000% at max level, but summoning Exodius it takes a lot of luck and setup to pull off, whereas you can Brave Blade every or every other turn just about (a Fortuner's Ichor + a Mage's Cure can make the every turn thing work). X-Burn too I guess, but it too needs so much setup. And perhaps a Hide-Assassin's React- Rush Shot Agent with generous extra turn procs, but again, setup.

TL:DR, the life sacrifice multiplier for Brave Sword is waaaaaay too high. Fix that or get rid of it altogether in exchange for a higher normal multiplier to balance it.

[DragonFlames]

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I guess I'm just nowadays not having so much tolerance for the cliche of a girl who fragile, has special powers, mysterious, other things like that (so Ninian to name an FE character). It didn't help her that she is described as a "navigator" and I have this mostly revulsion with a hint of desire relationship to Persona, which has had a bunch of young females in this capacity. I should really get over this aversion.

And Mio in truth wasn't too bad, I wasn't expecting her to

  Reveal hidden contents

die after the Yuma battle and en route to the Nodens battle. 

If they toned down her love for the player character, she'd been a bit better. Her being practically the only employee at Nodens with Dragon Sickness prior to the sudden turn of events in Chapter 6 humanized things a little. Although I do ponder the biology of these synth humans if Yorimoto(?) was able to make a baby with one.

I wouldn't have minded if they'd played up the fact Mio is Yorimoto's daughter and he treats Yuma like a son a little more. Contrast the one "sibling" with the other. But VFD is rather short and just didn't have the time for that.

As for the dating stuff, well it's personal and a bit complicated. But there is also me just not liking weird sexual inclusions in games, there were two scenes in Skies of Arcadia that really broke with the innocence of the game and I loathe them. I also skip every Breath of the Wild Great Fairy scene. Although in the case of Shin Megami Tensei, I can and have put up with things like Mara and Incubus (I even used one for a while in Nocturne), though it is still a little unnerving even when normalized and Diana is just too weird.

Fair enough.

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

To put the numbers in perspective, the hard data behind Brave Sword from GFAQs shows at max level it deals 750% (100% is the damage dealt by the attack command, so a maxed Brave Sword deals seven and a half times that). Brave Sword's damage is multiplied by (Life Sacrificed * 0.02), all damage boosts and debuffs in VFD are multipliers, which can make them really strong.

Now to use an example, assume a Rune Knight has 200 HP and that is their max, they use a full upgraded (level 5) Brave Sword. At level 5, Brave Sword sacrifices 70% of a the Rune Knight's health, 200 * .7 = 1.4. 1.4 * 0.02 = 2.8. 2.8 * 7.50 = 21, or 2100%.

2100% is massive damage. If you use your Exhaust Gauge on Brave Sword instead of the Rune Knight's Ex Skill- Odin's Rage, you'll deal more damage. 3150% vs. 2250% to be precise. 

By comparison, the Samurai's strongest skill Sixteen Hand Slash is 650%, which is a bit weaker than Brave Sword before the crazy life sacrifice multiplier. The strongest Ex Skill, the Godhand's Earth Breaker, deals 3300%. Although with a maxed Solid Stance used the turn beforehand, a Dual Swords Samurai can deal 3562% with its Ex.

The only normal skill to even compare with Brave Sword is the Banisher's Earthquake, 1750% with just 1 bomb at max level. With a full 9, it's 2800%. Well that and the Duelist's Judgement, which deals 5000% at max level, but summoning Exodius it takes a lot of luck and setup to pull off, whereas you can Brave Blade every or every other turn just about (a Fortuner's Ichor + a Mage's Cure can make the every turn thing work). X-Burn too I guess, but it too needs so much setup. And perhaps a Hide-Assassin's React- Rush Shot Agent with generous extra turn procs, but again, setup.

TL:DR, the life sacrifice multiplier for Brave Sword is waaaaaay too high. Fix that or get rid of it altogether in exchange for a higher normal multiplier to balance it.

Interesting. I never really looked at the hard numbers. I knew the damage for Brave Sword was insane, but damn.
I never really used Brave Swords against bosses, though, precisely because of the LF sacrifice stuff. In most boss battles, my Rune Knights would be on healing / tanking duty, while I would spam Solid Stance -> Serpent Thrust with my Samurai and Mage's Consent -> Mana Bullet with my Mage. The one exception to this is one of the three bosses in Chapter 6, because a Rune Knight with a maxed out Brave Sword can one shot that one, too.

It makes sense, though. Throughout the game you have seen / heard that Yuma doesn't have the best endurance and that his body is just barely holding together from having all those True Dragon specimen within him. So him going down in just one solid hit is actually a good case of gameplay-story integration.

All in all, I really liked your review. Just thought I'd give my own two cents since I love this game so much.

One thing that kind of bugged me is

that you never get to fight the 1st True Dragon Iod and the 5th True Dragon Fomalhaut. The latter makes sense, because he's already dead by the time the game even starts, but the former appears throughout the game and even sort of guides you through the final dungeon. I would have loved to fight Iod and Fomalhaut as bosses in the final dungeon instead of Nyala and Haze, whom you have already beaten by this point.

[Interdimensional Observer]

20 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

One thing that kind of bugged me is

Well apparently

Spoiler

Fomalhaut was the final boss of 7th Dragon 2020-II, which the VFD ingame texts for one of the Allie Research Room sidequests forces you to learn. Perhaps they didn't want to use Fomalhaut in the next game because of this.

HOWEVER, Nyala was the final boss of 2020, and reappeared in the postgame dungeon of 2020-II for some reason. And somehow I get the sense they may have appeared in the original DS 7th Dragon as well, Haze did too I believe (although I believe OG 7th Dragon was set in Eden). Although Nyala appearing in Atlantis and Tokyo millennia later makes their VFD appearance possible, I don't know if Fomalhaut appeared in any time other than 2021.

 

Iod, I have absolutely no idea if they appeared in the DS game, I'm pretty sure they didn't appear in 2020 or 2020-II. I do agree it is really strange you don't get to fight them ever. I would've thought he'd fight you after the Haze and Nyala rematches, I don't think he even shows up after you take them down.

It is said in game that Iod brought the seed of life to Earth, so he is the creator of humanity and all other lifeforms, or its evolver from pre-Iodian life, something. In all those years, it doesn't seem he ever attacked humanity. So I speculate he is the "peaceful" creator and observer dragon. He wants the same thing as Nodens, Nyala, and Haze, but chooses to cultivate life without the chance of destroying it, the other three can provide the extreme struggle to survive that causes radical evolution.

 

Speaking of Nodens, I find the truth of the crisis in the Present bamboozling in retrospect. The catastrophe you're told is supposed to herald the coming of the 7th True Dragon, but the final dragon never makes itself shown. As it turns out, the 7th True Dragon didn't exist until you created it thinking you were solving the crisis (well you find out before that, but you know what I mean)! All the present day chaos was Noden's, it was the 2nd True Dragon's catastrophe, not the 7th's!

 

And finishing True Dragon talk, the numbering of the True Dragons is a little odd. Iod, Nodens, and Nyala make sense I guess (although Nodens might have shown up in DS). But Hypnos didn't exist until Haze spurred its creation, and Haze is the 6th True Dragon. And Fomalhaut is the 5th True Dragon, but came in 2021, thousands of years before Eden. Unless the DS game explains this by featuring Fomalhaut and Hypnos, it seems to go against chronological order.

...I wish that the DS game had a fan translation, just to see what the plot is and get that sorted out. It is a bit tedious in gameplay though I hear. 

A bit closer to Etrian Odyssey, with 1 point of SP earned per level up instead of farmable from enemies. Field Skills also require SP to learn, and you might want them since Dragonsbane flowers, like the blue ones in Chapters 4 and 5 of VFD, take a toll on your HP through the game. A fan patch was released to tone down the encounter rate and Dragonsbane damage- guess they were that annoying. 3D models don't exist in this game either being a DS game, and the art direction is a bit different. 

2020 has a fan translation, and The DanMan reviewed here on SF it, just in case you don't remember having posted about it. Both of these apparently play closer to VFD, just no support teams and fewer classes, and they share the same artstyle- the DLC class appearances were taken from these games. Both games are harder too, one random GFAQs poster put it DS>2020>2020-II>VFD, and called 2020-II the best balanced in terms of difficulty, but this is but one opinion.

And if you happen to like Hatsune Miku (@SoulWeaver?), I heard 2020-II has a Diva class. Sega owns the Vocaloids I think.

[SoulWeaver]

42 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

And if you happen to like Hatsune Miku (@SoulWeaver?), I heard 2020-II has a Diva class. Sega owns the Vocaloids I think.

No clue what we're talking about but someone invoked Miku-chan(good heavens I never thought I'd say that) and wants background info.

I think Crypton Future Media 'owns' the only six VOCALOIDs that ever appear in anything(Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Rin/Len, Megurine Luka, MEIKO, and KAITO) due to being the company that created and/or distributed them(they seem to own full rights to the first four and were the distributors for MEIKO and KAITO, who were created by YAMAHA). A quick check with the Sega page on the VOCALOID Wiki says that Sega owns the Project Diva and Project 575 series, meaning(I think) they only have full say in whether said VOCALOIDs appear in Project Diva/Mirai games, while Crypton has more of a say in whether they make any cameos in other media, such as, say, Brave Frontier. Obviously I'm not the major expert on this, so I may be wrong, but that's about what I understand of it.

[Interdimensional Observer]

2 minutes ago, SoulWeaver said:

No clue what we're talking about but someone invoked Miku-chan(good heavens I never thought I'd say that) and wants background info.

I think Crypton Future Media 'owns' the only six VOCALOIDs that ever appear in anything(Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Rin/Len, Megurine Luka, MEIKO, and KAITO) due to being the company that created and/or distributed them(they seem to own full rights to the first four and were the distributors for MEIKO and KAITO, who were created by YAMAHA). A quick check with the Sega page on the VOCALOID Wiki says that Sega owns the Project Diva and Project 575 series, meaning(I think) they only have full say in whether said VOCALOIDs appear in Project Diva/Mirai games, while Crypton has more of a say in whether they make any cameos in other media, such as, say, Brave Frontier. Obviously I'm not the major expert on this, so I may be wrong, but that's about what I understand of it.

Thanks for the information. So it was just good terms with the VOCALOID-"owning" company that enabled Sega to allow Imageepoch to directly reference them in the 7th Dragon 2020 games, or something like that. 

[SoulWeaver]

6 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Thanks for the information. So it was just good terms with the VOCALOID-"owning" company that enabled Sega to allow Imageepoch to directly reference them in the 7th Dragon 2020 games, or something like that. 

Probably, you should be able to check and see if it's a direct reference through Miku's page on the VOCALOID Wiki, there should be a section on appearances in other games/media somewhere on there. I'd pull it up myself but I'm currently trying to quick edit my Thread on Roy for Heroes to be less embarrassingly n00bish before I have to get to bed.

[DragonFlames]

3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Well apparently

  Reveal hidden contents

Fomalhaut was the final boss of 7th Dragon 2020-II, which the VFD ingame texts for one of the Allie Research Room sidequests forces you to learn. Perhaps they didn't want to use Fomalhaut in the next game because of this.

HOWEVER, Nyala was the final boss of 2020, and reappeared in the postgame dungeon of 2020-II for some reason. And somehow I get the sense they may have appeared in the original DS 7th Dragon as well, Haze did too I believe (although I believe OG 7th Dragon was set in Eden). Although Nyala appearing in Atlantis and Tokyo millennia later makes their VFD appearance possible, I don't know if Fomalhaut appeared in any time other than 2021.

 

Iod, I have absolutely no idea if they appeared in the DS game, I'm pretty sure they didn't appear in 2020 or 2020-II. I do agree it is really strange you don't get to fight them ever. I would've thought he'd fight you after the Haze and Nyala rematches, I don't think he even shows up after you take them down.

It is said in game that Iod brought the seed of life to Earth, so he is the creator of humanity and all other lifeforms, or its evolver from pre-Iodian life, something. In all those years, it doesn't seem he ever attacked humanity. So I speculate he is the "peaceful" creator and observer dragon. He wants the same thing as Nodens, Nyala, and Haze, but chooses to cultivate life without the chance of destroying it, the other three can provide the extreme struggle to survive that causes radical evolution.

 

Speaking of Nodens, I find the truth of the crisis in the Present bamboozling in retrospect. The catastrophe you're told is supposed to herald the coming of the 7th True Dragon, but the final dragon never makes itself shown. As it turns out, the 7th True Dragon didn't exist until you created it thinking you were solving the crisis (well you find out before that, but you know what I mean)! All the present day chaos was Noden's, it was the 2nd True Dragon's catastrophe, not the 7th's!

 

And finishing True Dragon talk, the numbering of the True Dragons is a little odd. Iod, Nodens, and Nyala make sense I guess (although Nodens might have shown up in DS). But Hypnos didn't exist until Haze spurred its creation, and Haze is the 6th True Dragon. And Fomalhaut is the 5th True Dragon, but came in 2021, thousands of years before Eden. Unless the DS game explains this by featuring Fomalhaut and Hypnos, it seems to go against chronological order.

...I wish that the DS game had a fan translation, just to see what the plot is and get that sorted out. It is a bit tedious in gameplay though I hear. 

A bit closer to Etrian Odyssey, with 1 point of SP earned per level up instead of farmable from enemies. Field Skills also require SP to learn, and you might want them since Dragonsbane flowers, like the blue ones in Chapters 4 and 5 of VFD, take a toll on your HP through the game. A fan patch was released to tone down the encounter rate and Dragonsbane damage- guess they were that annoying. 3D models don't exist in this game either being a DS game, and the art direction is a bit different. 

2020 has a fan translation, and The DanMan reviewed here on SF it, just in case you don't remember having posted about it. Both of these apparently play closer to VFD, just no support teams and fewer classes, and they share the same artstyle- the DLC class appearances were taken from these games. Both games are harder too, one random GFAQs poster put it DS>2020>2020-II>VFD, and called 2020-II the best balanced in terms of difficulty, but this is but one opinion.

I'd love to play the DS and PSP games, if only to see what they were like.

Yeah, the numbering of the True Dragons is a bit odd (although it does make for some good foreshadowing when Allie deems Hypnos the 4th True Dragon. How does she know Hypnos isn't the 2nd?). I was wondering about that myself just recently.

Maybe Hypnos being the 4th True Dragon has something to do with its parts - Emel and Aytel - being alive way before 2021 so technically, Hypnos existed before Fomalhaut did. That's just my take on things, though.
Allie being the 2nd True Dragon Nodens and VFD having technically never existed until all 6 True Dragon specimen were gathered is one of the best plot twists I've ever seen, honestly. I really did not see that one coming at all. And it made me love the game even more.

[Tamanoir]

@Interdimensional ObserverUnless you're referring to another game, the first 7th Dragon has a fan translation. I barely touched it, so I don't have much details though.

I barely remembr the plot to be honnest. It was fun, but not long lasting. The post game difficulty wsa quite ridiculous. It's not that it's hard, it's just stupid. (the first levels are powered up versions of the dragons as regular encounters...).