General JRPG Topic

[Modamy]

On 6/26/2018 at 10:41 PM, Interdimensional Observer said:

The Elize backstory is okay, nothing particularly amazing, but not bad. The Teepo stuff makes for a fair explanation for the puppet. I'm surprised that the Hunting Grounds-Hollows had no boss fight at all, not even a Chief Jiao rematch.

If there's one thing I can say about this revelation is that it forces her to grow and the same can be said for the trials and revelations that the other characters go through.

 

Gaius is one of my favorite characters from the Tales series and I hope you enjoy the character as well.

 

Anyways I've finally managed to finish Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions. My thoughts on the game? I was alright I guess. The story is pretty flawed with a lot of exposition that breaks the show don't tell rule and some missed opportunities that just makes some developments weak or or hard to understand. The gameplay is kind of a hot mess. Once I got past the camera and the isometric angle the game is on I just felt the game balance was all over the place with the game constantly fluctuating between being a cakewalk and obnoxious. It feels like the developers definitely didn't intend for people to play this without grinding a bit here or there, but that  kind of game balance just result in some maps not even lasting a minute. The kill boss chapters are the worst since you can just run up to the boss (or they can just run over to you) and you can immediately gang up on them and kill them. I also can't neglect to mention how many times it feels like the game misinforms you. Whether it's when they have you choose Ramza's deployment position only for the story to place him somewhere different (usually in the line of fire of most enemies on the map) or when the game tells you a mission is rout only for it to end after you critically wound a boss. What annoyed me more than anything else were guests. Why make the unique characters AI controlled for the first couple chapters you have them when you could force deploy them and make their deaths a lose condition and what tops it all off is how the JP they accumulate as guest is just randomly redistributed to whatever skills they can afford when they do become playable. I can't begin to imagine what was going through the head of whoever thought this was a good design choice.

[DragonFlames]

10 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Yep, Paradise Lost would be the book's name. I've read it, in an effort at pleasure and to read the great works. Although insofar as I interpreted it (with bias from what the preface writer of that particular edition said), Milton actually favors God over Lucifer in the book. Lucifer's fall given his greatness is tragic, but his loss to God is not, God is in the right. The actual war in Heaven in the book lasts three days, and Milton, a Christian for certain (and also a misogynist from his treatment of Eve- the guy lived in the 1600s, not exactly a time for women's liberation), clearly wrote it in God's favor. Of the three days:

1. Lucifer starts strong, his forces appear to be winning for about half the battle, but then Michael appears and shreds Lucifer apart with his sword, ending the day in utter ridicule for the Morning Star.
2. Lucifer orders the construction of siege weapons of war which give another edge, for only ten minutes or so this time, I think a Seraph is to partly to blame for Luci's defeat here.
3. After day two, Lucifer's forces are just in tatters and can't really fight back. The Holy Father tells the Son its time for him to bring the garbage out to the street and Jesus triumphantly kicks Lucifer and his legions to the infernal curb where they shall forever reside in suffering.

Now in fiction, because it is cooler, Lucifer tends to get emphasized heroically when Paradise Lost and his fall come up. (I might have heard that SMTII Lucifer stays true to PL by losing to Michael in certain circumstances though.) I believe the Victorian era (mid-late 1800s) also tended to sympathize with Lucifer when reading the book. But chances are, Milton really didn't, once Lucifer fell, only a sinner would think him in the right.

Paradise Found, a short sequel to Paradise Lost about Jesus being tempted in the wilderness by Lucifer, displays zilch in favor of Luci. He is just an ugly figure, all the sympathy clearly lay with Jesus here.

All I could think about when reading this was Lucifer's introduction quote from SMT:IV spoken by none other than Matthew Mercer himself: "I am the Radiant Morning Star that lights the way to the sons of man!"
Gives me the chills every time.

I personally find stories and mythologies very interesting, so I, too, have read Paradise Lost and of course the Divine Comedy, but I am among the people who don't have a religion. I wouldn't call myself an Atheist - more of a Buddhist, really, but even that is a stretch - but I'm not part of any of the "Big Three". In fact, my outlook on these "Big Three" is less than a positive one (I still find the stories interesting), so whenever they are presented as evil or wrong, it doesn't really bother me.

Edited June 28, 2018 by DragonFlames

[Slumber]

18 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

All I could think about when reading this was Lucifer's introduction quote from SMT:IV spoken by none other than Matthew Mercer himself: "I am the Radiant Morning Star that lights the way to the sons of man!"
Gives me the chills every time.

I personally find stories and mythologies very interesting, so I, too, have read Paradise Lost and of course the Divine Comedy, but I am among the people who don't have a religion. I wouldn't call myself an Atheist - more of a Buddhist, really, but even that is a stretch - but I'm not part of any of the "Big Three". In fact, my outlook on these "Big Three" is less than a positive one (I still find the stories interesting), so whenever they are presented as evil or wrong, it doesn't really bother me.

I'm pretty agnostic as well. I have a pretty firm "I don't know. Nobody knows." attitude towards religion. Could there be some higher spiritual force at work in the universe? I don't know. Nobody knows.

But I still try to see the good in religion. It gives a lot of people a sense of place, and it gives them hope. Some people use it for bad purposes, and like with business, plenty of sociopaths use it to gain power and abuse people. But I'd say the vast, vast, vaaaaast majority of people out there who are religious just go on, day by day, using religion as a guide.

That's something I like about Dragon Quest. It's one of the only JRPG franchises I can think of that consistently portrays religion in a positive light(It's actually the only one I can think of off the top of my head), even though the games aren't religious in the slightest and it only plays a major part in the plot in... two of the games? Maybe it's because Japan is a very secular nation, but it seems like any JRPG that focuses on religion ends with "It was evil the whole time." Most don't go to the borderline comedic lengths FFX does to show this, but it's still generally not all that nuanced, which I really think they should be when you're tackling a concept as heavy as religion.

Edited June 29, 2018 by Slumber

[henrymidfields]

In following up my previous post about Yaso-Inaba and Okina from Persona 4, I've had a look along the Joban Line, which goes from Ueno Station (It is traditionally Tokyo's terminus for all northern region intercity trains to/from Tokyo.) to Sendai via northern Chiba Pref and along the coast of Ibaragi, Fukushima, and Miyagi Prefectures. Surprisingly, Ibaragi/Fukushima only fit Inaba's basic geography slightly better than Yamanashi Prefecture, though I've added some headcanons to reconcile the details better. (For all intents and purposes, I will refer the P4's PC as Yu. Also, some spoilers and assumption of knowledge in Japanese geography.)

Spoiler

 

Firstly, the express train takes around an hour and a half between Ueno and Mito Stations (Mito City is the prefectural capital of Ibaragi), both according to Google Maps and the Japan Railway timetables. The two stations are somewhat closer than I anticipated, but it is well within Yu's travel distance, and Streetview shows Mito Station and surrounds as substantially urban, similar to the level of Okina Station. As for the climate, Mito City is slightly colder than Tokyo, but is not necessarily snowier during winter - according to the Japanese-language Wikipedia, Mito City only sees a monthly 1-to-2-inch precipitation between December and January - roughly the same amount as Tokyo (and the lack of snow there I can attest myself.

The other candidate is Iwaki City (which is one of the main cities in Fukushima) and Iwaki Station. The area around the main station feels somewhat more open in Google Streetview, but there are still many multi-storey buildings on the south side of the station. What is also interesting is that the fastest way between Ueno and Iwaki is still via the Joban Line, at two hours. As for the weather, I would have thought that the area would be snowier, but surprisingly not. According to the Japanese-language Wikipedia, Iwaki also only sees a monthly 1-to-2-inch precipitation between December and February - surprisingly not much different from Tokyo. This is due to the weather pattern inherent during wintertime, where the colder wetter air usually comes from the Sea of Japan - although until now I thought it was only Greater Tokyo that rarely sees snow.

However, the weather question can be bypassed by the La Nina effect with an unusually strong cold front, which just happened to bring more than the usual snow to Japan earlier this year, so this would probably have to be my headcanon for Persona 4's 2011-2012. The other assumption is that the real-life Tohoku Earthquake of 2011 did not happen either, which I assume was intended to be canon by the writers, considering that P4 was originally released in 2008.

For the ski resorts Yu and co visited in February 11-13, they are either on Nasu in Tochigi, or around Mt Bandai on the southwestern area of Fukushima, and therefore over an hour's drive away from Iwaki. As the Hollow Forest dungeon inside the ski resort TV takes place on a Monday (February 13) I'll just have to assume that class finished early on that day - which is highly likely considering the end-of-year exams finished just the week prior.

The two cities' locations are much closer to the coast, and thus resolves the distance question for Shichiri Beach as well.

Finally, the above hypotheses also helps another detail, where Yu rides what it looks like the Yamanote Line in downtown Tokyo on his way to Inaba during the opening cutscene. One of the station signage show that the train goes via Akihabara, which is another major station - and the second station before/after Ueno on the Yamanote Line. (This depends on which direction Yu is heading to Ueno from.) If, as mentioned in my previous post, Inaba was in Yamanashi, and Yu took the Chuo Main Line, he'll have to go via Shinjuku as the Chuo Line express trains usually terminates there, and considering the rail network of Tokyo, I don't think the most optimal routes to/from Shinjuku to other stations usually don't even head towards Akihabara, let alone pass through.

 

Of course, as Inaba and Okina are entirely fictional locations in a ultimately fictional timeline from ours. It is very much in the possibility that they have developed separately from, and in addition to, any of the real-life settlements. Next post, I'm going to discuss where Yu's house is in Tokyo.

Edited June 29, 2018 by henrymidfields

[DragonFlames]

12 hours ago, Slumber said:

I'm pretty agnostic as well. I have a pretty firm "I don't know. Nobody knows." attitude towards religion. Could there be some higher spiritual force at work in the universe? I don't know. Nobody knows.

I'm the same way, actually.

12 hours ago, Slumber said:

But I still try to see the good in religion. It gives a lot of people a sense of place, and it gives them hope. Some people use it for bad purposes, and like with business, plenty of sociopaths use it to gain power and abuse people. But I'd say the vast, vast, vaaaaast majority of people out there who are religious just go on, day by day, using religion as a guide.

Sure, there are some good points and the people you described are the ones I respect for not pushing their beliefs on others, by force if necessary. It's when things delve into the extreme that I start to have problems with it, be it religion or anything else.

Back on topic:
As I've mentioned before, I am currently replaying FFX and boy did I repress some memories. There are so many outright bizarre design decisions in this game that I really have to wonder how it is that I loved this game so much in the past. The story and gameplay are fine and dandy, sure. It was amazing for its time, yes, yes.
But holy hell if some of those random encounters aren't unfair as all get-out. I swear, I get ambushed every three encounters or so, mostly by enemies who can induce a billion status effects (I f***ing hate those Great Malboros), there are superbosses you can't beat unless you grind for 1 billion years and some of the "better" weapon abilities are so hard to get they are actually worthless: Break Damage Limit, Break HP Limit and Ribbon, to be exact - farming the materials for them is NOT fun. 99 Dark Matters for one Ribbon when you get 1-2 Dark Matters tops and they are even rare drops, so you only get them very, very rarely? Yeah, kindly f*** off, game.
Which brings me to my next point: Break Damage Limit is pointless on your weapons because guess what? You need the Celestial Weapons if you want to stand any chance against the superbosses, because they ignore Defence.

And getting the Celestial Weapons is... atrocious. Simply atrocious. Yuna's, Auron's and Rikku's are easy compared to everyone else's, but at least it's satisfying when you finally have theirs. Everyone else not named Rikku, Auron and Yuna: Screw you!
FFX is fun as long as you only play through the story and get all the Aeons. As soon as you want to do stuff on the side, all the fun quickly drains away into a black hole of frustration and despair fueled by the worst minigames this side of Gen 4 Pokémon Contests. From Blitzball to Lightning Dodging to the Chocobo Races (which made me utterly HATE the yellow f***ers) to the gosh-darned Macalania butterfly chase, every single one of these outright sucks. I don't think I've ever played a JRPG since then that did worse  while desperately trying to forget X-2 exists, which consists almost ENTIRELY of shitty minigames.
Changing things up a bit is nice, but... not this way, Square. Not. Freaking. This. Way.

This is why I love FFXII. It doesn't waste time on stupid crap like this.

[Modamy]

After finishing FFT I'm wondering what I should try out next. Tactics Ogre, which inspired FFT or Tactics Advance. I've played a little of both, but I'm torn on which to focus on. Any suggestions or advice for either game?

[eclipse]

On 6/28/2018 at 9:11 PM, Slumber said:

That's something I like about Dragon Quest. It's one of the only JRPG franchises I can think of that consistently portrays religion in a positive light(It's actually the only one I can think of off the top of my head), even though the games aren't religious in the slightest and it only plays a major part in the plot in... two of the games? Maybe it's because Japan is a very secular nation, but it seems like any JRPG that focuses on religion ends with "It was evil the whole time." Most don't go to the borderline comedic lengths FFX does to show this, but it's still generally not all that nuanced, which I really think they should be when you're tackling a concept as heavy as religion.

Weirdly enough, Tales of Zestiria's pretty positive on religion.  As for Tales of Berseria. . .

Spoiler

Yes, religion was shitty, but it served a purpose.  There's one particular lategame inn scene that makes for some amazing nightmare fuel. . .definitely not something I'd expect out of a game rated T.  It was a "holy shit they went there" moment.

My least-favorite game that incorporates religion is Final Fantasy Tactics.  It makes FFX look nuanced.

4 hours ago, Modamy said:

After finishing FFT I'm wondering what I should try out next. Tactics Ogre, which inspired FFT or Tactics Advance. I've played a little of both, but I'm torn on which to focus on. Any suggestions or advice for either game?

Tactics Ogre's graphics aren't particularly great, but it's a master of having a lot of unintuitive things (on top of choices that actually matter).  FFTA has better graphics, with some of the wonkiest stats I've ever seen.  I'm the very small minority that liked FFTA's story.

TO if you want your choices to matter, FFTA if you want to ask yourself what you're doing with your life.

[Re: The weirdo.]

jrpg's are just anime with a nervous system and maths.

for real though, one of my favorite jrpg's that im playing at the moment is an old 2013(? i think) 3ds real time rpg with a comedically generic title, "FANTASY LIFE" and yes, it is from japan despite not looking much like anime. what it lacks in title originality it more than makes up for with generally fantastically witty dialogue, permeating conversations of the whole game, a flexible class system that only has the real problem of being kinda hard to choose from at first, but then you realize that mercenary/ mage have the interesting combat gameplay , so you should pick one of those two.

the class system is flexible, mostly because you can just go to the guild office at any point via the also very helpful and forgiving quick travel options, and switch classes, once you have either done the tutorial for the class or, from the second class onwards, skip the tutorial but gain all of the rewards you would have gotten from doing the quest, including EXP.

the story is not especially complex, but the character writing is pretty good overall. the soundtrack is fairly good, the world is actually pretty fucking huge for a 3ds game and the combat of all classes that do combat generally focus on spacing for either range, or attack shape for the mage, or timing for the mercenary. hunter is boring because statuses arent actually that interesting or useful in this game

the dialogue is what makes this game for me, as there are just so many golden lines, such as "Do butterflies even have elbows?" and, flutter, the talking butterfly, who also tends to be the main voice of the game, with the silent protagonist being silent, responds, "i have 4 knees and 2 elbows, your highness."

so yeah thats a thing id like to say and see more people play, as its on the 3ds eshop.

also 3-man squads are a thing, meaning you can bring over friends over the internet to deal with bosses better.

 

[Slumber]

9 hours ago, eclipse said:

My least-favorite game that incorporates religion is Final Fantasy Tactics.  It makes FFX look nuanced.

Would you explain, if you don't mind me asking?

At the top, they're both not super fantastic. Corrupt churches that came about during major hardships in the world, with only a few at the tippy-top who know of the true purpose. But what Tactics does, and what X doesn't, is show a plethora of good-hearted people working within the church. The very first scene of FFT, is some of your main characters praying and getting help from the Church of Glabados before battle.

Throughout the game, characters like Ramza, Agrias, Alma(Despite basically being the vessel for Satan), and a handful of others remain committed to the religion throughout the game, and they acknowledge that even if the church is corrupt because of Folmarv abusing the Lucavi and political handwringing from Funebris, it's still better that the world have something to have faith in. Which is also why it's stated that Ajora having been targeted by the Lucavi was the one detail that stayed hidden when the Durai Papers were finally put out.

Even Delita, who waged a one-man war against the upper class of Ivalice, vowed to stop petty political nefariousness, and became a full-on atheist after Tietra died, decided to stay quiet on the whole deal, despite being just as in-the-know as Ramza. He could have easily said "Hey, you guys were actually worshipping the anti-Christ.", which probably wouldn't have been too much of a problem, since Delita was the one the world saw as the savior of Ivalice, not Ramza.

And to top it all off, while it's built on twisting the truth, there is a tangible basis for the religion as a whole. Ajora was a real person who performed Jesus-like miracles in front of many people and built the church himself. What was twisted was that most people didn't know that Ajora was Ultima, effectively Lucifer from Paradise Lost, if we're bringing back subjects already talked about.

The general message of FFT very much feels like "Glabados is bad, but religion and people having faith necessarily isn't".

I find that a lot more nuanced than what X did, which basically amounted to a summoner going "Hey, what if I used Pyreflies to make a giant monster so that I can conjure up a fake reality from the Fayth that none of you are ever going to see? And then you guys can do whatever from there. I'm a tick now byeeeeeee." And then we got other people building the Church of Yevon, and they used it to cheat death and become zombies. And the follow-up we get to what happened to the Church isn't a very flattering one in FFX-2. It doesn't feel like there's an overarching theme or message with Yevon other than just "Yevon, the one religion in this universe, is bad."

Edited June 30, 2018 by Slumber

[eclipse]

34 minutes ago, Slumber said:

The general message of FFT very much feels like "Glabados is bad, but religion and people having faith necessarily isn't".

I'm gonna respond to the whole thing, but I've cut down the quote to this, for the sake of brevity.

I don't think the characters had much choice when it comes to religion - I don't see Ramza et al. being some vein of religious as a sign that religion was good, just that the writers probably couldn't think of anything else.  Delita, at least, had a motive for staying quiet - in order to do what he wanted to, he had to appear to follow social norms and the like.  No doubt after seeing how Ramza was treated, he wisely kept his trap shut - being outed as an atheist would get him branded as a heretic, and that would be contrary to his goals.  After his ascension, I doubt everything was peaceful, so making the church an enemy would've been a stupid move.  Also, a "plethora of good-hearted people"?  Simon's arguably the most sympathetic, and even he admits to evil by inaction (which is probably the most realistic portrayal of the evil in the church).  Meanwhile, you get to know a lot of non-mustache-twirling church members in FFX (the templars, that guy that traveled with his brothers, and even Dona, whose bitchiness had nothing to do with her affiliation to the church).  Furthermore, the summoners provide a valuable service in Spira, which is shown to the player (the sending, and getting Sin to go away, even temporarily).  From the PoV of a random villager in Spira, I'd say the church does some good.  Meanwhile, I have no idea why anyone would want to worship the church in Ivalice willingly, since it's based on a "he said" basis and the punishment for not following is harsh.

One of the few things FFT does right is the emphasis on unreliable narration.  On one hand, it's a nifty story device. . .but on the other hand, when the audience is told of all the things that happened, with that theme hanging over their heads, it makes the church look even dodgier.  For the unreliable narration to work, the game would have to show things, instead of having everything trickle down via heresy.

[Slumber]

9 hours ago, eclipse said:

I'm gonna respond to the whole thing, but I've cut down the quote to this, for the sake of brevity.

I don't think the characters had much choice when it comes to religion - I don't see Ramza et al. being some vein of religious as a sign that religion was good, just that the writers probably couldn't think of anything else.  Delita, at least, had a motive for staying quiet - in order to do what he wanted to, he had to appear to follow social norms and the like.  No doubt after seeing how Ramza was treated, he wisely kept his trap shut - being outed as an atheist would get him branded as a heretic, and that would be contrary to his goals.  After his ascension, I doubt everything was peaceful, so making the church an enemy would've been a stupid move.  Also, a "plethora of good-hearted people"?  Simon's arguably the most sympathetic, and even he admits to evil by inaction (which is probably the most realistic portrayal of the evil in the church).  Meanwhile, you get to know a lot of non-mustache-twirling church members in FFX (the templars, that guy that traveled with his brothers, and even Dona, whose bitchiness had nothing to do with her affiliation to the church).  Furthermore, the summoners provide a valuable service in Spira, which is shown to the player (the sending, and getting Sin to go away, even temporarily).  From the PoV of a random villager in Spira, I'd say the church does some good.  Meanwhile, I have no idea why anyone would want to worship the church in Ivalice willingly, since it's based on a "he said" basis and the punishment for not following is harsh.

One of the few things FFT does right is the emphasis on unreliable narration.  On one hand, it's a nifty story device. . .but on the other hand, when the audience is told of all the things that happened, with that theme hanging over their heads, it makes the church look even dodgier.  For the unreliable narration to work, the game would have to show things, instead of having everything trickle down via heresy.

The Church is absolutely not a good entity in FFT, but it's kept around for a reason.

Beyond Simon, there's also Isilud and Meliadoul, both Templars, essentially the military wing of the church, and both are decent/good people(Beyond their taking questionable orders from higher up). Isilud hunts Ramza as a heretic, but he tries to do the right things, but is unaware of the Lucavi and dies because of it. He was straight up not morally corrupt enough for a Lucavi to take advantage of him. Meliadoul is very similar, but finds out about the Lucavi before she can meet the same fate as her brother. Actually getting her as a playable character means a lot here.

True, there are the Crusaders in Spira who are a bit more noble than the Templars, and their overall goal is to protect(The people of Spira) rather than serve(The Church) but we only really ever get a feel for Luzzu and Gatta, and both are fairly minor characters in the grand scheme of things. AND the Crusaders go on to form the Youth League, the group opposed to New Yevon. The Summoners... Aside from Isaaru, they all denounce Yevon when they find out about Yevon's true purpose. Isaaru pretty much remains the one sympathetic person actually involved in Yevon throughout the whole game.

Anywho...

I ordered the Switch version of Ys VIII. I've been looking forward to it for a while, as it felt like the Switch is the perfect platform for it.

Edited July 1, 2018 by Slumber

[Modamy]

1 hour ago, Slumber said:

I ordered the Switch version of Ys VIII. I've been looking forward to it for a while, as it felt like the Switch is the perfect platform for it.

I bought it a few days ago myself, it's pretty fun and nice to see the jump attacks back in the series. Although I don't know if platforming is since I haven't researched anything about it.

[Interdimensional Observer]

Interesting to see fellow agnostics here.

 

On 6/30/2018 at 5:11 AM, eclipse said:

I'm the very small minority that liked FFTA's story.

I think it has something to do with having FFT in the title and people lionizing FFT's plot. That and the irony of saying escapism is bad in a video game. But I wouldn't call the plot at all bad really, I enjoyed it enough, but mind you the last time I played this game was over a decade ago so I kinda forget a good bit of it, particularly from later on. Basically stuff from beyond say the Babus-Exodus battle is where my memory gets foggy. I only played past that point once when I was a kid, the postgame mini-arc with Cid I recall liking as well.

On 6/30/2018 at 5:11 AM, eclipse said:

FFTA has better graphics, with some of the wonkiest stats I've ever seen.

By which you mean?

 

It took me about an hour to finalize my EOV crew. As I said before, I already had the classes picked out. My issues were visually and nominally.

Spoiler

The problems began with the Pugilist, I thought I'd go with a young guy for it, but then I noticed the turban for the very first time as I messed with the hair colors and realized that just wasn't for working for me at all. So I swapped to the tan girl, gave her red-default brown hair, and changed the eyes to blue. For a name, Alena + Meena = Almena, both names from DQIV, Alena because she is a martial artist, Meena because she had a darker skin tone, and I liked her.

My Harbinger is the non-punk male with the stray red highlight, his hair recolored to dark green and blue- a bit like a globe actually. For his name Badh Kala. Badh being an old Irish war goddess, she often was depicted as a crow- catha, so Badh Catha. Kala is supposed to be Kalas, but the nine character limit including spaces left off the s, Kalas, the Baten Kaitos male protag, is Japanese for "raven", which is basically interchangeable with crow.

My Masurao is dark skin tone with a darker purple hair on the more decorated female form. Her name is Malika- Arabic for "queen". 

My Botanist is the alternate of the first female, with black hair. Took me a while to pick which appearance, since none of the Botanists were that appealing. Her name is Lantilm, Lavender, Mint, Camomile, Balm- all various herbs, which is what they use in battle.

My Necromancer is the long haired male. The mature female is too in your face with her necromelons, and I can't ignore how the lolimancer is naked save for that very open jacket so much so it might as well not be there. It's only a matter of viewing perspective which keeps you from seeing her nether nether region. The male actually had their skin tone changed from the very unique purple to a dull greyish one, and their hair to a shade of white with gold eyes. I realized I should probably make a character named based on DDS2. And for that I took Metempsychosis- the term that appears at the end of the game referring to how Solar Data goes from the sun, returns to the Sun, is recycle and sent again in an endless cycle. And I combined it with "moksha". Originally I was thinking "nirvana" Buddhist liberation from the endless cycle of reincarnation, but DDS is more Hindu than Buddhist although it uses some of it too, so I went with Hinduism's nirvana equivalent, which is what moksha- "liberation" is. The name "Meteksh" thus befits a Necromancer, for it is derived from life, death, reincarnation, and freedom from this cycle, the Necromancer is built around toying with life and death.

For my guild name, it's Manyarata. Etrian Odyssey, the word "odyssey" is derived from the Classical Greek story, which is an epic poem. The Epic of Manas + the Hindu epics of the Ramayana and Mahabhrata.

The first Strata was painful, EO always begins with your guys being nothing, and darned it was bad. Lots of deaths at the start due to the absence of a Dragoon to reduce damage. I didn't buy new equips until I got pretty much to the end of the Strata just before the boss, and once I did, things weren't perfect, but I was doing palpably better, a Kodachi+5 on my Masurao made a massive difference. Since the quests required I slay one of every FOE in this labyrinth, I did and it wasn't really hard at the end, if each encounter still completely exhausting. The Stratum boss (fought at lv 16) did burn all of my Botanist's TP, but the fight was in comparison to prior 1st Stratum bosses, rather weak, I just ignored the peons for I had no chance of destroying them all in time and they infinitely spawned (I did block the side reinforcements though), and I guarded every time it was about to Explode. 

As for the rest of my journey so far, up to the start of the 3rd Stratum:

Spoiler

Harbinger is definitely a starting weakling I've heard, Stifling and Wilting Miasmas were my primary investments for it, alongside that, Paralyzing Reap. Yet with so little TP and Scythes seemingly so weak, it's primary function is the two debuffs. The Pugilist, the binds aren't as certain as I'd like, but they're very useful. Damage-wise, it wasn't as good as I expected, but I remembered hearing Overexertion is a great buff, so I got it to 4 for the 1st, and then 9 in the 2nd Strata for a major buff to my Masurao. It was the Masurao, with Armor Pierce and Duel emphasized (and investment in High Ground, but it didn't seem to do much compared to Overexertion), who cut the deepest enemies by far. The Botanist healed with zero investments into the -smokes, did this mean plenty of empty turns? Yes, but the healing was a sine qua non for my team. The Necromancer focused on Poison Bomb to 4, and the some Gravedigger to 5 thinking the free Wraiths would come plentifully- it hadn't and I shifted by focus into Fierce Shield, an excellent defensive measure. 

The 2nd Strata, well it appears to have broken the theme I noticed in the other three EOs I've played. That theme being the 2nd Strata is a variant on a forest that isn't like the 1st Strata, EOV's 2nd is no forest variant at all. Visually I like this one just as much as any other though. While I was still limited by no second names, things got much better once I adjusted to the initial threats, and on 9 and 10F, I was quite comfortable. The Bind punches hit 5, Duel was maxed and Armor Pierce hit 5, the Botanist by the end began actually saving points for the 2nd name, rather than invest into any more Race skills or the smokes, Herb Mastery, or the two other passives. Only the Harbinger remained lacking, but the debuff Miasmas did their job, Wilting brought to 9, I also maxed Endless Shroud hearing it useful for Deathbringer. My MVP ended up being the Necromancer, because Poison Bomb is the bomb! At 5+, it kills every enemy in two turns, three at most, with a Luck Necklace and maxed kitty coffin and Wilting Miasma, it's almost impossible to miss with it.

The FOE puzzles were on the weaker side initially, particularly the 1st Stratum's compared to EOU's and EOU2's, and the Primordiphant I blindly got passed on my first try after running from it twice. It is certainly no Salamander, and maybe not the Wyvern's equivalent either. But later in the 2nd, things did pick up. And on the 10F's optional puzzle, I said "the scorpions are blue now on the map and I'm going to kill one of each Stratum FOE before fighting the boss" and thus I immobilized one of the two scorpions with a stone pillar and then slew the other to just bypass the puzzle and get one logged (I'll come back later for a petrified drop). The only of the three FOEs to present any challenge at all was the Tengu, only owing to its ally trickery, which just prolonged the battle a little, but not for long because Poison Bomb is so good.

The 2nd Stratum boss was certainly a step up compared to the 1st, befitting the final enemy between me and the legendary titles. I needed to hop to GFAQs (which is pretty good when it comes to EO) to figure out exactly what I should be doing. Since near party wipes and massive healing was ridiculous, by myself, I managed to get it to near death, but the Wing Shield heal and exhaustion on my part just brought me to an end. Even with a better idea of what to do, I won after several tries within a quarter inch of defeat. The boss had a sliver of health left, it Dive Kicked all but my Botanist and Harbinger dead, I used one more Volt Jar and a Paralyzing Reap, and that was just enough to kill it! As you would expect, I was overjoyed by the thrill of victory.

Then going back for the Legendary Titles, I like them, but sadly I soon realized they wouldn't sudden just melt the game. *Sigh* The first two floors of the 3rd Stratum have already proven rather nasty- mostly because of the skeleton archers (and yet again the game has broken from Stratum tradition). It'll take time it seems even after using the 5 free skill points on taking a Legendary Title before my chars start annihilating with them. My Deathbringer is going to prioritize building an offense after nabbing the minimal for Chaos Reap. My Spirit Evoker wants minimal access to Tombstone Vice, but after that, it's back to Gravedigger and Reincarnate and then Fierce Shield before Tombstone again. The Barrage Brawler will get that skill with followup when the target is bound/ailed, seems like it'll be a good damage source. The Merciful Healer has the bind and party heals, and can now learn whatever it wants, not sure what exactly that'll be. Only the Blade Master, focusing on Petal Scatter for damage, seems to have a cozy, easy to think through future ahead of them.

 

[Slumber]

On 7/1/2018 at 2:07 AM, Modamy said:

I bought it a few days ago myself, it's pretty fun and nice to see the jump attacks back in the series. Although I don't know if platforming is since I haven't researched anything about it.

I've got a few hours into it. Really like it so far.

[Tamanoir]

13 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Interesting to see fellow agnostics here.

 

I think it has something to do with having FFT in the title and people lionizing FFT's plot. That and the irony of saying escapism is bad in a video game. But I wouldn't call the plot at all bad really, I enjoyed it enough, but mind you the last time I played this game was over a decade ago so I kinda forget a good bit of it, particularly from later on. Basically stuff from beyond say the Babus-Exodus battle is where my memory gets foggy. I only played past that point once when I was a kid, the postgame mini-arc with Cid I recall liking as well.

By which you mean?

 

It took me about an hour to finalize my EOV crew. As I said before, I already had the classes picked out. My issues were visually and nominally.

  Hide contents

The problems began with the Pugilist, I thought I'd go with a young guy for it, but then I noticed the turban for the very first time as I messed with the hair colors and realized that just wasn't for working for me at all. So I swapped to the tan girl, gave her red-default brown hair, and changed the eyes to blue. For a name, Alena + Meena = Almena, both names from DQIV, Alena because she is a martial artist, Meena because she had a darker skin tone, and I liked her.

My Harbinger is the non-punk male with the stray red highlight, his hair recolored to dark green and blue- a bit like a globe actually. For his name Badh Kala. Badh being an old Irish war goddess, she often was depicted as a crow- catha, so Badh Catha. Kala is supposed to be Kalas, but the nine character limit including spaces left off the s, Kalas, the Baten Kaitos male protag, is Japanese for "raven", which is basically interchangeable with crow.

My Masurao is dark skin tone with a darker purple hair on the more decorated female form. Her name is Malika- Arabic for "queen". 

My Botanist is the alternate of the first female, with black hair. Took me a while to pick which appearance, since none of the Botanists were that appealing. Her name is Lantilm, Lavender, Mint, Camomile, Balm- all various herbs, which is what they use in battle.

My Necromancer is the long haired male. The mature female is too in your face with her necromelons, and I can't ignore how the lolimancer is naked save for that very open jacket so much so it might as well not be there. It's only a matter of viewing perspective which keeps you from seeing her nether nether region. The male actually had their skin tone changed from the very unique purple to a dull greyish one, and their hair to a shade of white with gold eyes. I realized I should probably make a character named based on DDS2. And for that I took Metempsychosis- the term that appears at the end of the game referring to how Solar Data goes from the sun, returns to the Sun, is recycle and sent again in an endless cycle. And I combined it with "moksha". Originally I was thinking "nirvana" Buddhist liberation from the endless cycle of reincarnation, but DDS is more Hindu than Buddhist although it uses some of it too, so I went with Hinduism's nirvana equivalent, which is what moksha- "liberation" is. The name "Meteksh" thus befits a Necromancer, for it is derived from life, death, reincarnation, and freedom from this cycle, the Necromancer is built around toying with life and death.

For my guild name, it's Manyarata. Etrian Odyssey, the word "odyssey" is derived from the Classical Greek story, which is an epic poem. The Epic of Manas + the Hindu epics of the Ramayana and Mahabhrata.

The first Strata was painful, EO always begins with your guys being nothing, and darned it was bad. Lots of deaths at the start due to the absence of a Dragoon to reduce damage. I didn't buy new equips until I got pretty much to the end of the Strata just before the boss, and once I did, things weren't perfect, but I was doing palpably better, a Kodachi+5 on my Masurao made a massive difference. Since the quests required I slay one of every FOE in this labyrinth, I did and it wasn't really hard at the end, if each encounter still completely exhausting. The Stratum boss (fought at lv 16) did burn all of my Botanist's TP, but the fight was in comparison to prior 1st Stratum bosses, rather weak, I just ignored the peons for I had no chance of destroying them all in time and they infinitely spawned (I did block the side reinforcements though), and I guarded every time it was about to Explode. 

As for the rest of my journey so far, up to the start of the 3rd Stratum:

  Hide contents

Harbinger is definitely a starting weakling I've heard, Stifling and Wilting Miasmas were my primary investments for it, alongside that, Paralyzing Reap. Yet with so little TP and Scythes seemingly so weak, it's primary function is the two debuffs. The Pugilist, the binds aren't as certain as I'd like, but they're very useful. Damage-wise, it wasn't as good as I expected, but I remembered hearing Overexertion is a great buff, so I got it to 4 for the 1st, and then 9 in the 2nd Strata for a major buff to my Masurao. It was the Masurao, with Armor Pierce and Duel emphasized (and investment in High Ground, but it didn't seem to do much compared to Overexertion), who cut the deepest enemies by far. The Botanist healed with zero investments into the -smokes, did this mean plenty of empty turns? Yes, but the healing was a sine qua non for my team. The Necromancer focused on Poison Bomb to 4, and the some Gravedigger to 5 thinking the free Wraiths would come plentifully- it hadn't and I shifted by focus into Fierce Shield, an excellent defensive measure. 

The 2nd Strata, well it appears to have broken the theme I noticed in the other three EOs I've played. That theme being the 2nd Strata is a variant on a forest that isn't like the 1st Strata, EOV's 2nd is no forest variant at all. Visually I like this one just as much as any other though. While I was still limited by no second names, things got much better once I adjusted to the initial threats, and on 9 and 10F, I was quite comfortable. The Bind punches hit 5, Duel was maxed and Armor Pierce hit 5, the Botanist by the end began actually saving points for the 2nd name, rather than invest into any more Race skills or the smokes, Herb Mastery, or the two other passives. Only the Harbinger remained lacking, but the debuff Miasmas did their job, Wilting brought to 9, I also maxed Endless Shroud hearing it useful for Deathbringer. My MVP ended up being the Necromancer, because Poison Bomb is the bomb! At 5+, it kills every enemy in two turns, three at most, with a Luck Necklace and maxed kitty coffin and Wilting Miasma, it's almost impossible to miss with it.

The FOE puzzles were on the weaker side initially, particularly the 1st Stratum's compared to EOU's and EOU2's, and the Primordiphant I blindly got passed on my first try after running from it twice. It is certainly no Salamander, and maybe not the Wyvern's equivalent either. But later in the 2nd, things did pick up. And on the 10F's optional puzzle, I said "the scorpions are blue now on the map and I'm going to kill one of each Stratum FOE before fighting the boss" and thus I immobilized one of the two scorpions with a stone pillar and then slew the other to just bypass the puzzle and get one logged (I'll come back later for a petrified drop). The only of the three FOEs to present any challenge at all was the Tengu, only owing to its ally trickery, which just prolonged the battle a little, but not for long because Poison Bomb is so good.

The 2nd Stratum boss was certainly a step up compared to the 1st, befitting the final enemy between me and the legendary titles. I needed to hop to GFAQs (which is pretty good when it comes to EO) to figure out exactly what I should be doing. Since near party wipes and massive healing was ridiculous, by myself, I managed to get it to near death, but the Wing Shield heal and exhaustion on my part just brought me to an end. Even with a better idea of what to do, I won after several tries within a quarter inch of defeat. The boss had a sliver of health left, it Dive Kicked all but my Botanist and Harbinger dead, I used one more Volt Jar and a Paralyzing Reap, and that was just enough to kill it! As you would expect, I was overjoyed by the thrill of victory.

Then going back for the Legendary Titles, I like them, but sadly I soon realized they wouldn't sudden just melt the game. *Sigh* The first two floors of the 3rd Stratum have already proven rather nasty- mostly because of the skeleton archers (and yet again the game has broken from Stratum tradition). It'll take time it seems even after using the 5 free skill points on taking a Legendary Title before my chars start annihilating with them. My Deathbringer is going to prioritize building an offense after nabbing the minimal for Chaos Reap. My Spirit Evoker wants minimal access to Tombstone Vice, but after that, it's back to Gravedigger and Reincarnate and then Fierce Shield before Tombstone again. The Barrage Brawler will get that skill with followup when the target is bound/ailed, seems like it'll be a good damage source. The Merciful Healer has the bind and party heals, and can now learn whatever it wants, not sure what exactly that'll be. Only the Blade Master, focusing on Petal Scatter for damage, seems to have a cozy, easy to think through future ahead of them.

 

EOV's difficulty is pretty insane. Because it fits EO's general theme (a labyrinth that is as dangerous as it's fascinating.), and because the game design is a real delight..
I had  a Dragon, but an offensive version, and a team based on Chains, which makes winning random battles easier.

On 29/06/2018 at 9:11 AM, Slumber said:

That's something I like about Dragon Quest. It's one of the only JRPG franchises I can think of that consistently portrays religion in a positive light(It's actually the only one I can think of off the top of my head), even though the games aren't religious in the slightest and it only plays a major part in the plot in... two of the games? Maybe it's because Japan is a very secular nation, but it seems like any JRPG that focuses on religion ends with "It was evil the whole time." Most don't go to the borderline comedic lengths FFX does to show this, but it's still generally not all that nuanced, which I really think they should be when you're tackling a concept as heavy as religion.

I'm curious about your opinion on DQ7, now. Since it's the one most based  on religion after all.

 

And that's actually one of the thing I liked in Glory of Herakles IV. Since the game is based on Greek mythology (though later on, you se an interresting interpretation of the Tower of Babel), it gives a very interresting view on Gods. They are pretty much selfish jerks who play with Humans life, for the most parts, but they aren't truly evil, their role being really amibiguous. (There's also a pretty funny scene when Herakles confront Hades. It seems to be a reference to the first game, actually.)
Herakles is another part that is interresting actually. It's a really bigoted character, but not for religious reasons. Its really strict view of heroism contrasts many time with the orthers (namely Plato.) That's something that is quite rare enough to notice.
The whole game's theme is humans fighting against death (and as such defying the Gods.). And since it keeps the motives really humans, it avoid judging them.

[eclipse]

14 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I think it has something to do with having FFT in the title and people lionizing FFT's plot. That and the irony of saying escapism is bad in a video game. But I wouldn't call the plot at all bad really, I enjoyed it enough, but mind you the last time I played this game was over a decade ago so I kinda forget a good bit of it, particularly from later on. Basically stuff from beyond say the Babus-Exodus battle is where my memory gets foggy. I only played past that point once when I was a kid, the postgame mini-arc with Cid I recall liking as well.

By which you mean?

FFTA's plot is weird - the older I get, the more I like it.  I thought the irony was great.

Anyway, depending on what you bring on a quest, you can recruit some special units - their skills/stats are a notch and then some above your average grunt's.

[henrymidfields]

With the assumption that Okina and Inaba Cities are along the Joban Line around the border of Ibaragi and Fukushima Prefectures, my next question is: Where in Tokyo is Yu's house? This one I think I have a clearer answer to. Again, there will be some spoilers and some assumption of Tokyo geography knowledge.

Spoiler

In the city proper, there are 23 in which out of that, JR Yamanote Line (mentioned in my previous posts) loops around the central 5 or so wards. There are a couple of clues in both P4 proper and Dancing All Night that led me to particular wards as being more likely candidates while ruling out others. Assumptions include theories from my previous posts.

Firstly, there the opening cutscene where Yu rides the Yamanote Line on his way to Inaba. From the station Yu gets on, he heads in the direction towards Akihabara, and - assuming my theory from my previous posts are correct, Yu gets off at Ueno Station to take the Joban Line. He could either be coming in from Osaki, or from Ikebukuro, or any of the stations between them and Ueno, excluding Akihabara Station itself - as from them, the Yamanote Line would be the most direct route to Ueno. (*)

(*) Clockwise, it is: Ikebukuro - Otsuka - Sugamo - Komagome (Toshima-Ward / Kita Ward) - Tabata - (Kita Ward / Arakawa Ward) - Nishi-Nippori - Nippori - (Arakawa Ward / Taito Ward) - Ueno - Okachimachi - (Taito Ward / border between Chuo and Chiyoda Wards) - Akihabara - Kanda - Tokyo Main Station - Yurakucho - (border between Chuo and Chiyoda Wards / Minato Ward) - Shinbashi - Hamamatsucho - Tamachi - Shinagawa - (Minato Ward / Shinagawa Ward) - Osaki

Thus we have Toshima, Kita, Arakawa, Taito, Chuo, Chiyoda, Minato, and Shinagawa Wards as the possible candidates. Bunkyo Ward is also a possibility due to the Sugamo and Komagome Stations being close to the Ward's border. Other stations on the Yamanote Line are not considered here, as they have other lines that provides a more direct route to Ueno Station. For example, from Shibuya, one can take the Subway Ginza Line, which is more direct. Nerima and Itabashi Wards is also a possibility, as a number of connecting trains runs via the two wards to Ikebukuro.

Out of the possible candidates, Bunkyo, Taito, Chiyoda, and Arakawa Wards may be ruled out, and Chuo Wards may be an unlikely candidate as well:

• For the Bunkyo/Taito/Arakawa Wards,  Ueno Station itself is close enough for Yu's parents to drive him directly to, or pay around 2,000 yen for a taxi ride. Given that they are going overseas for work, it's likely that Yu's family has a high-paying job, and therefore it's reasonable that they are able to afford either a car or a taxi ride. In addition, for Arakawa Ward, the next express train station on the Joban Line (Kita-Senju Station) is nearby.
• For Chiyoda Ward, the majority of the residential areas are on the western side (Bancho, and Kojimachi districts), which is accessed either via the Sobu Line, or the subway. The Yamanote Line runs through areas that are almost exclusively commercial.
• For Chuo-Ward, there are very few residential areas (if any) in the first place.

Which leaves Nerima, Itabashi, Minato, and Shinagawa Wards. as possible suspects As my battery is running out, I will continue my post another time.

 

[Slumber]

11 hours ago, Tamanoir said:

I'm curious about your opinion on DQ7, now. Since it's the one most based  on religion after all.

DQ7 is actually my favorite game of all time. I really enjoy the story and the way Orgodemir/Satan and God are involved.

Though the reveal that

Spoiler

God was alive the whole time, totally fine, and just watching humanity try to fix things for itself

kind of undermines a lot of what makes the set-up for the game cool.

[Sage of the Mist]

Ever since I saw that speed run of FF4 i've been thinking of playing it to see if I hate it any less as time has passed.

Also currently playing FF2 (dawn of souls) Which I think is sort of underrated due to the level up system, which is actually quite easy to abuse if you know how and what to do.

Otherwise I just finished Chrono trigger for the first time, I personally found it a bit underwhelming for all the hype it gets, its essentially a Final Fantasy game that's laid out slightly differently, and not even a very good one at that.

[DragonFlames]

So, I beat Penance - the widely lauded superboss of FFX - for the first time today and I simply have to ask: What is the difference between legitimately fighting him and just offing him with Zanmato? Because I saw little difference there, to be honest. I sat through the hour long fight and beat him, but I didn't feel accomplished at all. The fight isn't even hard, unfair or anything. It commits what I would call the cardinal sin of boss fights and gaming in general: It's boring. Around half an hour in I was like: "Can't this thing just die already?"
The constantly respawning arms, the attack animations that just take freaking forever, the 12 million HP... I swear, this fight felt like "baby's first superboss" more than anything else.
Suffice to say, anyone who didn't have the PAL version of this game didn't really miss out on much.

Hell Wyrm from FFXII was 1,000 times more exciting than this.

So, my final thoughts on this game: Play through the story, the one part of the game that doesn't suck (apart from the gameplay itself), skip the atrocious minigames, don't bother with the overly complicated grind to beat the boring-as-all-hell superbosses.
Putting all this together in a score, I'd give the game a 4/10 in a rating system where 5 is the average score (so the only one that actually makes any semblance of sense). 

[Jingle Jangle]

I finished the story of Ni No Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom, that was a nice experience. Most of my time was spent in building my Kingdom. While the game was easy, I bummed up the difficulty for most of the game. "A kingdom where everyone can live happily ever after!" sounds like childish idea for a game, but the it makes it work.I heard that this game is close to Suikoden  with a young protagonist leading a small army, having the option to recruit NPCs, building a prosperous town and having army battles. But I never play that series. On to the next game.

[Interdimensional Observer]

On the EOV front, after the rough start, the 3rd Stratum wasn't so bad. The day-night hazard mechanics were interesting, but it made me feel sort of limited, despite the ease of obtaining long-lasting Guard Soles, towards doing my serious adventuring at night.

The Stratum boss was a complete and utter joke, I seriously thought there might be more after killing it because it was so easy. Took the first few turns taking out its protective goons with Poison Bomb and some attacks to move to the frontline so I could pound away on it. Once it moved up, I had some Overexertion, High Ground, and Armor Pierce applied. Then I in a single turn Cursed and Chain Blasted it (sadly the Curse wore off before it died), after which I went whole hog, dealing 5-hit Leading Blows and Petal Scatters under the effects of Overexertion, plus Frigid Reap. This, as I discovered earlier in the Stratum vs. its FOEs, is my team's bread and butter big bad offense. The boss died so helplessly it never even breathed life into its backline goons (still got their codex entries though).

The next Stratum- I appreciated the aesthetic changeover. I also appreciated how easy Amrita farming is going to be should I ever need it (and my Merciful Healer could reasonably pop some when I've crippled my enemy- they have no offense). What I didn't appreciate was the usual difficulty spike upon arrival to a new Stratum, be it the super fast vanishing strikers, the party-wide sleep, or the elemental attacks. It was all so cruel, but I do love my EO and I am driven ever deeper into Yggdrasil. The difficulty will let up a bit as I adjust to the Stratum anyhow.

 

On 7/3/2018 at 3:44 AM, Tamanoir said:

On 7/2/2018 at 2:00 PM, Interdimensional Observer said:

 

EOV's difficulty is pretty insane. Because it fits EO's general theme (a labyrinth that is as dangerous as it's fascinating.), and because the game design is a real delight..
I had  a Dragon, but an offensive version, and a team based on Chains, which makes winning random battles easier.

My second team, months from now, is actually going to be a Chain team. My first attempt at a Chase/Link/Chain team, that is the most logical option for a Fencer-Dragoon-Rover-Warlock-Shaman group. Should be fun, interested to see where it will fail and succeed compared to my Pugi-Harb-Masu-Bot-Necro team, I'll miss the Poison and the Binds, that is for sure, but I'll have Dragoon damage reductions and much superior elemental coverage to compensate.

 

8 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

So, my final thoughts on this game: Play through the story, the one part of the game that doesn't suck (apart from the gameplay itself), skip the atrocious minigames, don't bother with the overly complicated grind to beat the boring-as-all-hell superbosses.
Putting all this together in a score, I'd give the game a 4/10 in a rating system where 5 is the average score (so the only one that actually makes any semblance of sense).

I'm in total agreement the postgame is just awful. There isn't even a lore explanation for the Dark Aeons or Penance, they just exist. And why does that Monster Arena not open wayyyy sooner (just include a save point warp there feature) and why does it need so many monster copies? Which is why I'm never going to attempt all that meaningless superboss filth, there is a limit to how much I'll do to fight a superboss, too much of grind, and I won't waste my time.

 

On 7/4/2018 at 2:10 PM, Sage of the Mist said:

Otherwise I just finished Chrono trigger for the first time, I personally found it a bit underwhelming for all the hype it gets, its essentially a Final Fantasy game that's laid out slightly differently, and not even a very good one at that.

I felt the game was good for its era. It does get MASSIVELY overhyped though as a classic, and this negatively affects the game's actual playability I think, since people come in expecting it to be greatest thing ever and are disappointed when it is less than this. Same with FFVII, and X, and VI, and XC, and OoT, and... . Hype is EVIL! 

I really should try something like Lost Sphear which claims to be inspired by CT and compare it with CT side by side on as much objective-ish criteria as I can. Wouldn't surprise me if someone did an LP or some other log trying this. I'd want to get this little argument out fo the way.

 

On 7/3/2018 at 4:20 AM, eclipse said:

Anyway, depending on what you bring on a quest, you can recruit some special units - their skills/stats are a notch and then some above your average grunt's.

Despite having the game guide for it, I never discovered those special recruits existed until I found out about them online. There is one with the Ultima skill for each race I remember, which given the rarity of Materia weapons and the 999 AP grind, that is significant.

I also kind of fondly look back on how awesome stealing was in that game, since new abilities were locked to equips and a lot of weapons and armor were unbuyable, packing Sleep or Stop and stealing anything and everything of value (Steal: Weapon was hard to find early, but Steal: Ability I think was able to take it from someone much sooner than a Swordbreaker was available) made things so much better.

The Law system got out of hand later on, and class balance wasn't perfect, but overall I loved the game as a kid. Too slow for me now though.

[smgrinus]

@Jingle Jangle If you ever get the opportunity to play Suikoden & Suikoden II, do so. You'll love them. Suikoden IV also stands out quite a bit and is excellent. You can ignore the rest of the series since Konami butchered those... 

[Tamanoir]

2 hours ago, grinus said:

@Jingle Jangle If you ever get the opportunity to play Suikoden & Suikoden II, do so. You'll love them. Suikoden IV also stands out quite a bit and is excellent. You can ignore the rest of the series since Konami butchered those... 

 

12 hours ago, Jingle Jangle said:

I finished the story of Ni No Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom, that was a nice experience. Most of my time was spent in building my Kingdom. While the game was easy, I bummed up the difficulty for most of the game. "A kingdom where everyone can live happily ever after!" sounds like childish idea for a game, but the it makes it work.I heard that this game is close to Suikoden  with a young protagonist leading a small army, having the option to recruit NPCs, building a prosperous town and having army battles. But I never play that series. On to the next game.

Also The Aliance Alive is really cool. Suikoden's creator worked on it.

Now, my only experience of Suikoden so far is Tierkreis. It wasn't that bad (well, the soundtrack is fantastic. The dub is special, and I'm not sure I should trust the French Translation when it makes the most baic mistake (tralslated "aged man/woman" as "man/woman of Aged")

5 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

 

The 3rd Stratum Boss isn't hard, but it can be tricky with his goons conutering every attacks at some points. Took me a few time honnestly (that's the direct drawback of Chain Team actually. You rack tons of attacks on a single turn.)

My team was Chain Fencer, Cannon Dragoon, Omnimancer Warlock, Hawk Rover and Merciful Herbalist (with a Bow, though...) A Merciful Herbalist is often busy healing the team (and Brouni's Hygieia's Bowl saved me many times.). The Dragoon was mainly here to build turrets,and debuffing with Barrage Wall (Debuffing can be quite effective against a certain secret FOE ion teh 5th Stratum.)
I should go back to finish the 6th stratum at some point...

Yeah, I wasn't gonna take care of FFX's post game. It was already painful enough to finish the main story.

It being some sort of classic is its main issue here actually. Not sure how much it influenced other games after it. Would I still like it as much if I discovered now, as I did back then ? I'm not so sure honnestly.

15 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

So, I beat Penance - the widely lauded superboss of FFX - for the first time today and I simply have to ask: What is the difference between legitimately fighting him and just offing him with Zanmato? Because I saw little difference there, to be honest. I sat through the hour long fight and beat him, but I didn't feel accomplished at all. The fight isn't even hard, unfair or anything. It commits what I would call the cardinal sin of boss fights and gaming in general: It's boring. Around half an hour in I was like: "Can't this thing just die already?"
The constantly respawning arms, the attack animations that just take freaking forever, the 12 million HP... I swear, this fight felt like "baby's first superboss" more than anything else.
Suffice to say, anyone who didn't have the PAL version of this game didn't really miss out on much.

That kinda reminds me of Dual Orb 2. It's an old SNES RPGs with good enough graphisms (can't remember anything about the story though... One ally turn evil, and there's a bard. )
The Boss battles were absolutely awful though... They weren't hard of anything, but they had tons of HPs.

[DragonFlames]

3 hours ago, Tamanoir said:

Also The Aliance Alive is really cool. Suikoden's creator worked on it.

I agree. I liked this game more than I expected to (since I didn't really like Legend of Legacy when I played the demo). The only thing I really dislike about this game is that some enemies (especially bosses) have WAY too much health after a certain point. I got stuck many, many times because of that.

3 hours ago, Tamanoir said:

That kinda reminds me of Dual Orb 2. It's an old SNES RPGs with good enough graphisms (can't remember anything about the story though... One ally turn evil, and there's a bard. )
The Boss battles were absolutely awful though... They weren't hard of anything, but they had tons of HPs.

That's the kind of thing I hate most about boss fights. When the only challenge they actually pose is their ridiculous HP pool.

9 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I felt the game was good for its era. It does get MASSIVELY overhyped though as a classic, and this negatively affects the game's actual playability I think, since people come in expecting it to be greatest thing ever and are disappointed when it is less than this. Same with FFVII, and X, and VI, and XC, and OoT, and... . Hype is EVIL!

Totally agreed. Hype really damages a game more than it helps. *shoots glances at FE Fates*
Most of the time, it isn't really the game's fault, either. It's just that after a while, the hype gets so big that the game can't possibly live up to it anymore.

9 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I'm in total agreement the postgame is just awful. There isn't even a lore explanation for the Dark Aeons or Penance, they just exist. And why does that Monster Arena not open wayyyy sooner (just include a save point warp there feature) and why does it need so many monster copies? Which is why I'm never going to attempt all that meaningless superboss filth, there is a limit to how much I'll do to fight a superboss, too much of grind, and I won't waste my time.

As I've said, you won't miss much. Even for someone like me who really enjoys grinding in games and maxing everything out when possible, FFX's grinding was too much.
It wouldn't have been as bad if the Dark Aeon and Penance boss fights were actually fun, but they're not. The Dark Aeon fights are "spam Quick Hit 6 billion times to win, summon own Aeon when enemy gets an Overdrive". That's it. The Penance fight is "kill both arms, then attack body until arms respawn. Rinse  & repeat until victory" a.k.a the most boring crap I ever had to sit through.
Bottom line is: there really is no shame in just using Zanmato to instantly kill them. You're not missing anything by doing that.

At least every other JRPG I've had the pleasure to play has some memorable boss fights that require you to think on your feet and build a strategy that works for you. Bravely Default and Second, 7th Dragon III, the Tales series, Shin Megami Tensei, Persona and Etrian Odyssey are games I feel get the difficulties of their bosses and the strategies you can - and must - employ to beat them exactly right. The biggest shout-out in that regard goes to Etrian Odyssey where you can use EVERYTHING at your disposal - yes, even items - to beat the bosses up to and including the post-game ones.
And yet Final Fantasy is continually cited as the pinnacle of JRPGs. Why?
Although to be fair, I haven't played Final Fantasy I-III, V, VIII, IX, Lightning Returns or the MMO ones so I can't judge those, but the ones I did play... well, let's just say that with the exception of XII - and even that is a stretch compared to some of the other games I've listed - none of them felt like "pinnacle of JRPGs" to me, neither in terms of gameplay, nor story.

Sorry for the small rant. Just had to get that off my chest. You can ignore it, if you like.

9 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

On the EOV front, after the rough start, the 3rd Stratum wasn't so bad. The day-night hazard mechanics were interesting, but it made me feel sort of limited, despite the ease of obtaining long-lasting Guard Soles, towards doing my serious adventuring at night.

The Stratum boss was a complete and utter joke, I seriously thought there might be more after killing it because it was so easy. Took the first few turns taking out its protective goons with Poison Bomb and some attacks to move to the frontline so I could pound away on it. Once it moved up, I had some Overexertion, High Ground, and Armor Pierce applied. Then I in a single turn Cursed and Chain Blasted it (sadly the Curse wore off before it died), after which I went whole hog, dealing 5-hit Leading Blows and Petal Scatters under the effects of Overexertion, plus Frigid Reap. This, as I discovered earlier in the Stratum vs. its FOEs, is my team's bread and butter big bad offense. The boss died so helplessly it never even breathed life into its backline goons (still got their codex entries though).

The next Stratum- I appreciated the aesthetic changeover. I also appreciated how easy Amrita farming is going to be should I ever need it (and my Merciful Healer could reasonably pop some when I've crippled my enemy- they have no offense). What I didn't appreciate was the usual difficulty spike upon arrival to a new Stratum, be it the super fast vanishing strikers, the party-wide sleep, or the elemental attacks. It was all so cruel, but I do love my EO and I am driven ever deeper into Yggdrasil. The difficulty will let up a bit as I adjust to the Stratum anyhow.

The stratum 4 boss can be a bit tricky if you go in unprepared. But it's a really, really fun boss fight.
Here are a few pointers that may help you out.

He fights you alone, but that doesn't mean he's a pushover. He has two forms and his attacks differ greatly between them. Be prepared for massive AOE damage and status effects as well as a great number of elemental attacks. He also has a nasty attack that dispels all buffs you might have and does more damage the more buffs you had, so bringing a Unihorn (obtainable at gathering points in Stratum 4) or two might be a good idea.