General JRPG Topic

[Res]

Thank you! I can definitely see your points.

I have to admit that no. 1 doesn’t bother me quite so much as I have limited time in which to really sit back and explore, but if I was playing on the Switch (which I get more time with) I’d definitely be disappointed.

And I hadn’t realize that the moving in combat ruins the cinematic camera angles, so I’ll have it turn it off and see! 

You’re also very right about jumping - it’s frustrating how limited it is. 

[Slumber]

6 hours ago, Res said:

I have to admit that no. 1 doesn’t bother me quite so much as I have limited time in which to really sit back and explore, but if I was playing on the Switch (which I get more time with) I’d definitely be disappointed.

It's one of those things where I wouldn't have minded if it was any other franchise, since it's still a lot more open than most JRPGs these days. It's mostly that it's specifically DQ that bothers me, since they filled a pretty unique niche within JRPGs in that regard, and this game being so rigid with no real payoff in the world and story structure for the first half of the game.

Edited September 13, 2018 by Slumber

[Interdimensional Observer]

I've completed SMTIV Apocalypse on War difficulty. Final boss I heard was EVIL! and even with preparations from online, I barely eeked out a victory, in an exhilarating way, which would have been rage had I died. Losing all three of my demons in its assault, I got an ally turn break on them, and then, still going to lose because I had no way of restoring MP and then getting a full heal. I summoned my Shiva who hit the boss's Phys weakness I gave it before my weakness-giver died, and which I had ignored since I don't use Phys demons normally, that Shiva was just sitting there. Nataraja used Akasha Arts in a desperate, unexpected to kill hit, and dealt the last 900 damage needed to complete the game!

Phase 1 of the boss battle was easy, it wasn't until Phase 2 when things started going south. The poor quality of MP regen items combined with the final boss's party-wide MP drains was really unfair. Bead Chains and Soma, the very best, rare, and limited healing items, give next to nothing in MP, Chakra Pots/Great Chakras give only 150, which at most gives you 4 endgame spell uses. Is the final boss fair? Well it's on the boundary I think.

The rest of my thoughts

Spoiler

Long story short, this game needed to resolve its thematic clash. I'm not going to criticize the characters too much more, other than Toki becoming lovingly obsessed with you being a bit much. I don't want to hate the cast, I don't want to hate anyone, but there were too many partners, each not really well developed, and the atmosphere around them, conflicted with the traditional bleak SMT atmosphere. I want good characters in SMT, I just don't think this was the best way of doing so.

I chose the Bonds path, maybe I'll do Massacre later (I've a separate save file from right before the choice (although goodbye items!), another for the bad endings). I didn't have it in me to be a jerk to everyone, and in boss battles, choices where you sided with your friends seemed superior to choosing selfishness. Dagda didn't do himself too many favors. "You're my Godslayer." That can summarize much of what he said, not exactly diplomatic now, is that? His reasons for distrusting humanity seemed kinda weak, yes humans can be divided, weak, and fickle, but how does being antisocial solve that?

And the idea of humans becoming gods, what does it really change? Humans already can become gods- Jeanne d'Arc, Masakado, Guan Yu, and Cleopatra are all instances of humans becoming more than human. The Demi-Fiend, Jimenez and his predecessor the SMTI Chaos Hero, Zelenin, humans all have ways of transcending their humanity. Heck within SMTIV, ingesting a Red Pill turns one into a demon, which blunts the one issue with some of these other various becoming gods methods- that being they apply only to a small group of humans. And once everyone is a god, unless you pull a Reason of Musubi or a brainwash on the world, oppression is still possible if everyone is individualistic. There too is Dagda's desire to become nature, to be stripped of his physical form, is that what he wants humanity to become? He needed to spend less time being a prickly loner, and more time explaining his views so I could sympathize with them.

To be honest though, I will say SMTIV's Neutral Ending was a flop to me, I actually liked Chaos a bit more, although I am ultimately a Neutralite. There is no real ideology for the Neutral route there, just "believe in Flynn!!!!". Dagda must have been vomiting oceans in a world where Apo didn't happen and Neutral Flynn successfully went about things. And the Goddess of Tokyo and Spirits of Goodwill, Spite, and Hope seemed like happy things that exist just because, with no good reason behind them. I did really like Masakado though, and the whole National Defense Divinities concept. Interesting to see that SMTIV explained them more, but I wasn't happy only Tenkai of them all could be obtained, and that Masakado just faded away after a few lines in Apo.

And I won't say the events following the penultimate dungeon on the Bonds route were well handled either.

• Danu's solution to the "Dagda owns you" problem, while coldhearted, wasn't totally infeasible to me.
• The inclusion of Satan at the last minute and the final boss were clear SMTII references, and not in themselves bad ideas, but they were certainly rushed. Satan's new design was generic, but at the same time, it was okay. Scratchy in their first phase was very traditional SMT, the second was ugly and not too sensical.
• I don't like God and the Great Will being separate beings, and that the idea the Great Will may be more benevolent- benevolence has no place in SMT, there should not be a pure, flawless good.
• This said, I heard secondhand the developers stated that the Scratchy in this game isn't the same as that in others. Given the Amala Network is a nigh-infinite number of worlds, I'll just assume there are many Gods, and also Great Wills, and imagine that somewhere in this nigh-infinity Scratchy and the Great Will are one and the same, since Nocturne doesn't make sense to me if they aren't. And of course, we then get other worlds where Scratchy doesn't reign nor does the Great Will, like the world of Devil Survivor 2.
• God and understanding, not sure what philosophy they were basing this on. But I did read a little Immanuel Kant in college- I DON'T ever recommend it! There are two worlds for him metaphysically, although I forget the names he assigned them. There is the world that comes to humanity through their senses, the world which we can know things about. The second world is the world beyond what our senses tell us, the world we can know nothing about. For Kant, the possibility of God, which I believe he believed in, lay at the boundary of these two worlds, and in a sense, I think you could apply this to the God of SMTIV Apo. 

I did kind of let myself get some spoilers- the gist of the route divides, the penultimate and ultimate dungeon names and some of their bosses, and other lategame details. But that wasn't too bothersome to me, it was still enjoyable playing through it all. 

Gameplay-wise, well the game excels here, this was the very good part, despite my prior critiques. Dungeon design as the game progressed, felt arguably worse than the already lacking SMTIV, despite the decent penultimate dungeon, the final one was just too big, too empty, and too confusing. I'm surprised I wandered along the right path through it all fairly quickly. 

But again, the combat of this game is great overall, the rest of the package simply needed improvement.

A rating? Hm... Smirk/10. I can't quite assign a number, not at this moment. Having SMTV would better allow me to assess this game's legacy and impact, even if Strange Journey Redux seems to have been narratively influenced by this game in its new content.

Phew! Now I have this game off my back, onto playing another JRPG to love and by the end burden myself with!

[DragonFlames]

5 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I've completed SMTIV Apocalypse on War difficulty. Final boss I heard was EVIL! and even with preparations from online, I barely eeked out a victory, in an exhilarating way, which would have been rage had I died. Losing all three of my demons in its assault, I got an ally turn break on them, and then, still going to lose because I had no way of restoring MP and then getting a full heal. I summoned my Shiva who hit the boss's Phys weakness I gave it before my weakness-giver died, and which I had ignored since I don't use Phys demons normally, that Shiva was just sitting there. Nataraja used Akasha Arts in a desperate, unexpected to kill hit, and dealt the last 900 damage needed to complete the game!

Phase 1 of the boss battle was easy, it wasn't until Phase 2 when things started going south. The poor quality of MP regen items combined with the final boss's party-wide MP drains was really unfair. Bead Chains and Soma, the very best, rare, and limited healing items, give next to nothing in MP, Chakra Pots/Great Chakras give only 150, which at most gives you 4 endgame spell uses. Is the final boss fair? Well it's on the boundary I think.

The rest of my thoughts

  Reveal hidden contents

Long story short, this game needed to resolve its thematic clash. I'm not going to criticize the characters too much more, other than Toki becoming lovingly obsessed with you being a bit much. I don't want to hate the cast, I don't want to hate anyone, but there were too many partners, each not really well developed, and the atmosphere around them, conflicted with the traditional bleak SMT atmosphere. I want good characters in SMT, I just don't think this was the best way of doing so.

I chose the Bonds path, maybe I'll do Massacre later (I've a separate save file from right before the choice (although goodbye items!), another for the bad endings). I didn't have it in me to be a jerk to everyone, and in boss battles, choices where you sided with your friends seemed superior to choosing selfishness. Dagda didn't do himself too many favors. "You're my Godslayer." That can summarize much of what he said, not exactly diplomatic now, is that? His reasons for distrusting humanity seemed kinda weak, yes humans can be divided, weak, and fickle, but how does being antisocial solve that?

And the idea of humans becoming gods, what does it really change? Humans already can become gods- Jeanne d'Arc, Masakado, Guan Yu, and Cleopatra are all instances of humans becoming more than human. The Demi-Fiend, Jimenez and his predecessor the SMTI Chaos Hero, Zelenin, humans all have ways of transcending their humanity. Heck within SMTIV, ingesting a Red Pill turns one into a demon, which blunts the one issue with some of these other various becoming gods methods- that being they apply only to a small group of humans. And once everyone is a god, unless you pull a Reason of Musubi or a brainwash on the world, oppression is still possible if everyone is individualistic. There too is Dagda's desire to become nature, to be stripped of his physical form, is that what he wants humanity to become? He needed to spend less time being a prickly loner, and more time explaining his views so I could sympathize with them.

To be honest though, I will say SMTIV's Neutral Ending was a flop to me, I actually liked Chaos a bit more, although I am ultimately a Neutralite. There is no real ideology for the Neutral route there, just "believe in Flynn!!!!". Dagda must have been vomiting oceans in a world where Apo didn't happen and Neutral Flynn successfully went about things. And the Goddess of Tokyo and Spirits of Goodwill, Spite, and Hope seemed like happy things that exist just because, with no good reason behind them. I did really like Masakado though, and the whole National Defense Divinities concept. Interesting to see that SMTIV explained them more, but I wasn't happy only Tenkai of them all could be obtained, and that Masakado just faded away after a few lines in Apo.

And I won't say the events following the penultimate dungeon on the Bonds route were well handled either.

• Danu's solution to the "Dagda owns you" problem, while coldhearted, wasn't totally infeasible to me.
• The inclusion of Satan at the last minute and the final boss were clear SMTII references, and not in themselves bad ideas, but they were certainly rushed. Satan's new design was generic, but at the same time, it was okay. Scratchy in their first phase was very traditional SMT, the second was ugly and not too sensical.
• I don't like God and the Great Will being separate beings, and that the idea the Great Will may be more benevolent- benevolence has no place in SMT, there should not be a pure, flawless good.
• This said, I heard secondhand the developers stated that the Scratchy in this game isn't the same as that in others. Given the Amala Network is a nigh-infinite number of worlds, I'll just assume there are many Gods, and also Great Wills, and imagine that somewhere in this nigh-infinity Scratchy and the Great Will are one and the same, since Nocturne doesn't make sense to me if they aren't. And of course, we then get other worlds where Scratchy doesn't reign nor does the Great Will, like the world of Devil Survivor 2.
• God and understanding, not sure what philosophy they were basing this on. But I did read a little Immanuel Kant in college- I DON'T ever recommend it! There are two worlds for him metaphysically, although I forget the names he assigned them. There is the world that comes to humanity through their senses, the world which we can know things about. The second world is the world beyond what our senses tell us, the world we can know nothing about. For Kant, the possibility of God, which I believe he believed in, lay at the boundary of these two worlds, and in a sense, I think you could apply this to the God of SMTIV Apo. 

I did kind of let myself get some spoilers- the gist of the route divides, the penultimate and ultimate dungeon names and some of their bosses, and other lategame details. But that wasn't too bothersome to me, it was still enjoyable playing through it all. 

Gameplay-wise, well the game excels here, this was the very good part, despite my prior critiques. Dungeon design as the game progressed, felt arguably worse than the already lacking SMTIV, despite the decent penultimate dungeon, the final one was just too big, too empty, and too confusing. I'm surprised I wandered along the right path through it all fairly quickly. 

But again, the combat of this game is great overall, the rest of the package simply needed improvement.

A rating? Hm... Smirk/10. I can't quite assign a number, not at this moment. Having SMTV would better allow me to assess this game's legacy and impact, even if Strange Journey Redux seems to have been narratively influenced by this game in its new content.

Phew! Now I have this game off my back, onto playing another JRPG to love and by the end burden myself with!

That actually nearly matches what I think about the game, as well.

I actually liked the Anarchy ending more than the Peace one. It fit better with the overall mood of usual SMT games, where it's a sort of happy ending, but not really.

On the topic of Kant: I'm glad there is another person who wouldn't recommend reading his texts. Boy, are they ever confusing...

Still have to try the Devil Survivor games, though.

I recently finished my first playthrough of Shining Resonance Refrain and thought that while I'm at it, I'd write some impressions and thoughts down for everybody's reading pleasure (or not).
So, the game is apparently part of a long-running franchise known as "Shining" (not to be confused with the famous horror movie, I imagine), but it felt like it's own entity and entirely disconnected to any other game. At least I never got the feeling that I should have played a previous entry in order to understand this one.

It's an action RPG that looks and feels very similar to the Tales series. You use the Square button for basic attacks and the Triangle button for a so-called "Break" attack, that can put enemies into the "Break" status, which increases the damage you can deal to them and renders them immobile for a while, enabling you to wail at them with everything you have. There are also special attacks called "Force abilities", which you can use by pressing L1 and the corresponding button, which have a variety of effects from casting spells to additional physical attacks to buffing and healing, depending on the character you play as. All in all, it's a fun system, but it does get repetitive after a while and feels less engaging than say Nights of Azure 2's battle system.

The overworld is larger than what it looks like at first, which is both a good and a bad thing. Good in that it subverts expectations by appearing small, but then surprising you with its vastness and it's really beautiful to look at, but bad because there is no way to fast travel to certain areas, so you'll have to walk everywhere manually from the main town. Speaking of towns, there is only the main one, though there are camp sites scattered throughout the areas where you can rest, heal and spend time with your party members (more on that later). Saving is restricted to save points, which can only be found in town and at the aforementioned camp sites, which can be a bad thing if you are in the middle of a story mission that doesn't let you go back to one, but you want to take a break to eat or do something else.

How can I best go about describing the story without going into too many spoilers? Think reverse 7th Dragon mixed with Stella Glow, Tales of and a bit of Naruto and Fire Emblem Fates sprinkled in. Why reverse 7th Dragon? Well, as it turns out, dragons are actually the good guys in this game. The main protagonist has the soul of the strongest of five World Dragons, the Shining Dragon, living within him, which enables him to transform into the form of a giant, golden dragon (yes, even in combat and yes, it's every bit as awesome as it sounds, especially later on), which is why I made the Naruto comparison, only the Shining Dragon is a bit less omnicidal than the Nine Tailed Demon Fox.
Stella Glow, because one of the main themes of the game is music, even the weapons the main characters use are musical instruments. There are such gems as a keyboard gun, a harp bow, an electric guitar axe, a lance flute, and violin sword and shield. This is also where the Fire Emblem Fates comparison comes in: The Armonics (the musical instrument weapons) where forged from parts of the Shining Dragon's body and gifted to the mortals so that they could commune with dragons through Rune Songs, which could also be used to calm rampaging dragons down or even take control of them if used wrong.
Even with all these familiar themes and elements, the story manages to be very engaging and entertaining, since it puts a spin on all these themes that give them their own identity, only the magic music part is played relatively straight.
The basic premise is as generic as they come, however: evil Empire invades good kingdom to conquer it, but as the story unfolds, you'll find out just why the Empire invades and what each party has to gain from the war. Hint: The fact that the Shining Dragon is inside the protagonist isn't something that's there for the sake of looking cool.

What really sells the story, however, is the characters. They are all really well fleshed out and developed over the course of the story and / or have characteristics that set them apart from the usual stereotype you'd normally put them in. Sadly, only four or five of the seven playable characters seem to have closer relevance to the story (two of them fade out for a bit towards the end, although they get a day in the spotlight when you have to fight off hordes of enemies with only the two of them. A shame, because one of the two is actually one of my favourites). The protagonist himself is also a refreshing departure from the usual hero stereotype. He starts out as meek and he's afraid of the power within him (because he lost control of it before), but he mans up towards the end with a believable character arc that really makes me feel and root for him. He's also not oblivious to love, which is a good thing for his several female companions (more on that later).
Sadly, the same can't be said about the villains of the story, who, with two exceptions, feel very generic and almost cartoonishly evil. There's the megalomaniac general who has a Messiah Complex, the sadistic mad scientist and bishounen Lu Bu (I'm not kidding). As for the exceptions, the only thing I can say about them is that their motivations run deeper than mere world domination for the sake of power (I would give too many spoilers if I said more, so I won't).

Which brings me to the final aspect of the game: the dating mechanics. Yes, in a similar vein to Conecption II, Persona and Stella Glow, you have the option of inviting your companions to night events after a few battles (usually four or five) and with enough night events, you get to spend a day with them in town. This is the main source of character development you'll have in the game as you find out more and more sides to your friends that are really, really surprising at times. Like Stella Glow, each and every character has their own unique ending (yes, even the males) and you can pick and choose which ending to get. There's five dates for each character and after the fifth, they're eligible for their respective ending. Romance, however, seems to only happen with the females.
It's also, once again, very clear which female character the writers intended as the designated main girl, although in actuality, there's two, but halfway through, the focus dramatically shifts from one to the other and the actions of the one are arguably only there to set up the relationship between the protagonist and the other girl. There's also the fact that two of your party members try to get the protagonist and the second girl together.

Now, onto some problems I have. These are a bit unsorted, so bear with me:

• There is a certain plot point that gets brought up a few times during the story, but never gets resolved. As a child, the protagonist collapsed one day in his dragon form, whereupon a mystery girl found him, treated his wounds and gifted him with a music box, but forgot to give him the key, so he can't play it. The protagonist repeatedly states his desire to meet that mystery girl again one day to ask her for the key and / or give the music box back to her, but as stated before, it goes unresolved. It is very clear, however, who the girl is, as she has the same voice actress as one of your party members, at least in the English localization.
• Some gameplay mechanics are never properly explained. There is a so-called Bond Diagram, for instance, where you can arrange party members so that they can gain beneficial effects in battle through Resonance. The higher your affection with a character, the higher the chance of a Resonance occuring. Effects are dependent on something called "Traits", which every character gains through the story or through dating them and mixing and matching Traits changes the type of Resonance you get. But this is the extent of my knowledge of that mechanic. I don't know which combination of Traits does what and I don't know what kinds of effects Resonance even has.
• There is exactly one Rune Song that is good. The others are pretty useless. And you get the good one during the mandatory Chapter 4 date. It prevents all ailments and lowers damage taken for every party member.

[Armagon]

Chiming in here to say that i actually got my PC back, which means i can finally finish the games i had on it. Xenosaga, Baten Kaitos, Neptunia and Trails, here i come.

12 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

The overworld is larger than what it looks like at first, which is both a good and a bad thing. Good in that it subverts expectations by appearing small, but then surprising you with its vastness and it's really beautiful to look at, but bad because there is no way to fast travel to certain areas, so you'll have to walk everywhere manually from the main town.

I've been sort-of thinking about getting Shining Resonance Refrain but i haven't decided on it because money (i have the money but i don't know when i'll get another $60). 

This comment caught my attention because if the world is really beautiful, then i don't mind the lack of fast travel. I almost don't fast travel in Xenoblade, which is the king of world design in my book. If the world in Shining Resonance Refrain is half as good, it'll be nice and i won't mind the lack of skip travel.

Unless it's just vast for the sake of it. Give me reason to actually explore. If it's just big for the sake of being big, then that's when it's a problem *cough* Nord Highlands in Trails of Cold Steel *cough*.

[Interdimensional Observer]

13 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

On the topic of Kant: I'm glad there is another person who wouldn't recommend reading his texts. Boy, are they ever confusing...

For Philosophy of Religion, I had to read his Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics. I believe the reason why the Prolegomena was written, the modern editor/translator's introduction said, was because when Critique of Pure Reason, Kant's signature masterpiece came out, he expected everyone to love it. However, it turns out nobody could actually understand it! Wow that is bad if the intellectuals of olden times who had all the time in the world to think about far fewer things that we presently can couldn't grasp it.

The Prolegomena was supposed to be the "Critique of Pure Reason for Dummies", arguing the same stuff but in a different, "simpler" way. Apparently it worked for the people of the late 1700s but I don't get how they could. Making things even worse, the whole point to reading Kant was to get his ideas on God- which didn't show up until the very end of the text, so the ordeal was sort of unwarranted, a passing by professor after class even said Kant for undergrads is cruel.

 

13 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

So, the game is apparently part of a long-running franchise known as "Shining" (not to be confused with the famous horror movie, I imagine), but it felt like it's own entity and entirely disconnected to any other game. At least I never got the feeling that I should have played a previous entry in order to understand this one.

Most of the games are disconnected within the many games of the franchise I think, a few direct sequels, but there is no vast overarching world.

Overall, good review, a bit more positive than the other ones I've read for this game, which cast it as pretty average. They also mentioned a Refrain Mode option that turns 2 NPCs into playable characters. It sounds like something I'd really like, particularly after Eternal Sonata's PS3 edition turned Prince Crescendo and Princess Serenade into playables (and Serenade was strong). Although I too heard that in this game, Refrain Mode adds some new spolierific commentary, and therefore one should skip Refrain Mode on a first play. Did you play in Refrain Mode or the standard one?

If the game gets cheaper and I've a drought of new games, I could see myself getting it. Roughly the same place 7th Dragon fell for me. Not bad for lovers of the genre, just not a first pick.

Edited October 4, 2018 by Interdimensional Observer

[DragonFlames]

6 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Most of the games are disconnected within the many games of the franchise I think, a few direct sequels, but there is no vast overarching world.

Overall, good review, a bit more positive than the other ones I've read for this game, which cast it as pretty average. They also mentioned a Refrain Mode option that turns 2 NPCs into playable characters. It sounds like something I'd really like, particularly after Eternal Sonata's PS3 edition turned Prince Crescendo and Princess Serenade into playables (and Serenade was strong). Although I too heard that in this game, Refrain Mode adds some new spolierific commentary, and therefore one should skip Refrain Mode on a first play. Did you play in Refrain Mode or the standard one?

If the game gets cheaper and I've a drought of new games, I could see myself getting it. Roughly the same place 7th Dragon fell for me. Not bad for lovers of the genre, just not a first pick.

I played the original mode because the game told me playing in Refrain mode has heavy spoilers for the plot. I don't know what exactly changes in Refrain mode besides two NPCs being playable characters (I think I have an idea who that is going to be, though). 
I read some reviews for it as well and I get where they're all coming from. I liked it, because it hit more than a few notes I like about games like these.

6 hours ago, Armagon said:

I've been sort-of thinking about getting Shining Resonance Refrain but i haven't decided on it because money (i have the money but i don't know when i'll get another $60). 

This comment caught my attention because if the world is really beautiful, then i don't mind the lack of fast travel. I almost don't fast travel in Xenoblade, which is the king of world design in my book. If the world in Shining Resonance Refrain is half as good, it'll be nice and i won't mind the lack of skip travel.

Unless it's just vast for the sake of it. Give me reason to actually explore. If it's just big for the sake of being big, then that's when it's a problem *cough* Nord Highlands in Trails of Cold Steel *cough*.

I got the game for 25 Euros on PS4, so maybe you can get it cheaper as well.
The world is really pretty to look at, yes, and there is some incentive to explore it, as there are treasure chests and rare enemies around that give you useful items and lots of EXP respectively. There are also gathering points in the spirit of Tales of Berseria that give you materials you need for quests and the like.

On that note: I forgot to mention that every single darn quest in this game is repeatable. So if there is a reward that caught your eye, you can get multiples of it quite easily.

[Armagon]

Well, i finally got around to finishing Hyperdimension Neptunia Rebirth 3. Most of what i've said about the first two Rebirth games applies to this one as well but Rebirth 3 ended up having a few differences, enough for me to make a separate post detailing my thoughts. So here we go.

What i liked

• In the previous games, EXE Skills used up the EXE Gauge. In this game, both regular Skills and EXE Skills use up one gauge and that gauge has 4 bars for a total of 1000 SP. Regular Skills use up SP while EXE Skills will use up the bars and because of this, it's actually pretty easy to fill up the meter right before a boss. Simply stock up on SP restoring items and you're good to go.
• While you did need to use the Remake System to do so, you could expand the number of attack slots for each character, giving them additional attacks. By default, each character can only attack up to four times+an EXE Finisher per turn if they have one. But you can expand that up to have up to 5 or 6 attack slots.
• They got rid of Share management. Well, it's still there but now you don't need to manipulate them to get the different endings. It's super easy to get the True Ending in this game.
• There's an actual post-game. The previous games just ended after the credits and allowed you to keep playing with New Game+. In Rebirth 3, New Game+ is still there but it's an option because for the most part, the post-game contains a new short story as well as high-level dungeons with mini-stories of their own. I'm currently at the end of the post-game story but the final boss of that is kicking my ass. Never mind the fact that the other high-level dungeons clearly require at least one round of New Game+ for me to complete them. I'll probably do that, maybe.
• There's an actual Fire Emblem reference in the game and it completely caught me off guard because i didn't expect them to to that, let alone reference Thracia 776, the worst one one of the Japan-only FEs.

What i didn't like

• So while the changes to the EXE Gauge were good, they did have to balance it. Because of it, the amount of EXE Skills have been severly reduced and most of them have become Coupling or Formation Skills, which require multiple characters. In fact, it's pretty much only the CPUs that get these. If a character isn't a CPU, then they don't get an EXE Skill. Which means i can't break the game with IF's Apocalypse Nova like i could in previous games (IF actually isn't playable in this game for story reasons but she is playable as DLC).

Also, i'm not sure if i mentioned this before but if you're looking to get into this series, play the games with the Japanese voices. I almost never do this in games but the English voice acting in the series is too normal and quiet. They don't capture the wacky personalities and dialogue of the characters.

At any rate, i'm finally done with this game. I think i'll try out the spin-offs before jumping into Megadimension Neptunia, which is the most recent main series game.

I'll also be able to dedicate more time to Xenosaga, Baten Kaitos and Trails of Azure now. I'm like near the end of Xenosaga Episode II so i should finish that by the end of the month, since it's the second shortest Xeno game in terms of story (it used to be the shortest but Torna ~ The Golden Country took that title).

Edited October 9, 2018 by Armagon

[Interdimensional Observer]

7 hours ago, Armagon said:

I'll also be able to dedicate more time to Xenosaga, Baten Kaitos and Trails of Azure now. I'm like near the end of Xenosaga Episode II so i should finish that by the end of the month, since it's the second shortest Xeno game in terms of story (it used to be the shortest but Torna ~ The Golden Country took that title).

Since you're emulating PS2 games here, you may want to try the Digital Devil Saga duology someday. Since emulation = free, they shouldn't be a bad litmus test for whether Shin Megami Tensei would interest you. You're not interested in buying DS/3DS games now, and experimenting with the future SMT5 on Switch would be a pricey test.

The Digital Devil Saga games have the Press Turn system which Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne invented, and which has become the modern hallmark of the franchise's combat. Basically exploit weaknesses or deal critical hits to gain additional turns, missing or hitting a null/drain/reflect of an enemy causes you to lose turns.

Now, Digital Devil Saga gives you a small team of fixed people to use instead of just a human protag and fusable demons, unlike in the main franchise. However, this in a way allows you to more gradually adapt to SMT, since you can learn the general combat system and the nomenclature most of the spells now, and learn fusion later, which could be a bit intimidating to a novice.

Of the five playable characters you get in DDS1, each has their own weakness and stat spread, but they learn from the same possible skill set. The DDS games uniquely use Mantras for skill learning. Spend money to buy a Mantra (you must buy each Mantra separately for each character), and then earn Atma Points (AP) in combat to master the Mantra, this will unlock its skills that will go into that character's skill pool to be freely swapped in and out of the 8 slots they can fill for battle.

For the plot, well Nocturne basically invented a multiverse for the franchise, and Digital Devil Saga exists in its own separate world, with its own independent mythos. There are a couple of references to SMTII, but nothing with meaning. None of the Law-Neutral-Chaos alignment stuff of standard SMT, but I liked the plot, despite a few issues.

The Digital Devil Sagas are interconnected plotwise, DDS1 ends on a cliffhanger, which along with all the other lures DDS1 lays, are resolved in DDS2. So you must play it first to get the full story, but I wouldn't call either a mega-long RPG, probably more on the shorter side if anything. Each is fairly straightforward until near the end of DDS1 and to a lesser extent the end of DDS2. Having DDS1 data also unlocks some DDS2 bonuses, though the one from the ultimate superboss and the +5 to all stats (which is a minor boost really) will roughly quadruple your playtime; the other bonuses don't need such a colossal time waste and are nice to have though. 

If SMT being dark is an issue for you, well I will say that from the start, Digital Devil Saga delves into one little dark thing- cannibalism. However, the game spares you from graphic imagery, no slurping of intestines and playing with kidneys or anything. The heroes don't like doing it, they only do it because they have to.

Concerning the quality of the games in themselves, they're good, at the least decent, certainly not bad. Or at least for me. Your results may vary.

Nocturne, a mainline game, is in some ways superior, but I don't feel it is as suited for beginners. That and I heard Atlus is always on the lookout for the possibility of remaking it, for whatever a statement is worth, which given SMT has become a Nintendo thing again in recent years, a Nintendo system would likely be a host for it. 

 

Mobile also has access to SMT1 in English, the third game in the franchise (Megami Tensei and Megami Tensei 2 are the original games). It's based on the GBA ports of these Super Famicom games. Worth it? I wouldn't say so. It's a very dated historical curiosity at this point.

 

...Just one giant in-depth slight suggestion.

Edited October 10, 2018 by Interdimensional Observer

[Armagon]

25 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Since you're emulating PS2 games here, you may want to try the Digital Devil Saga duology someday. Since emulation = free, they shouldn't be a bad litmus test for whether Shin Megami Tensei would interest you. You're not interested in buying DS/3DS games now, and experimenting with the future SMT5 on Switch would be a pricey test.

I'll probably check it out sometime in the future. It's pretty low on my list but as i'm emulating, i wouldn't lose anything by doing so.

[Interdimensional Observer]

8 minutes ago, Armagon said:

I'll probably check it out sometime in the future. It's pretty low on my list but as i'm emulating, i wouldn't lose anything by doing so.

You certainly do have a lot on your plate, plus it might not be your thing, since despite being niche, SMT is one of the bigger RPG franchises. But if you many months from now find things are empty, it is there I'm just sayin'.

Edited October 10, 2018 by Interdimensional Observer

[Harvey]

Currently playing Dragon Quest 11 and am right now stuck with this annoying boss Tentacular. What a horrible time to put a boss like this so early in the game.

He gets three turns, can regenerate his tentacles randomly when you destroy them and can randomly stumble you and put you to sleep. And has that chill breadth of his that's more powerful than his other attacks.

This would not be a problem if the Zing didn't have a chance to revive your unit(still an outdated design btw) but then again, it won't take long for that octapus to kill the ally down in one go.

Easily the worst boss ever. And I am just beginning the game.

Honestly, if Sylvando didn't show up, I would have not liked this game one bit. Other characters just pale in comparison unless you like edge in which case, Erik seems to fit that almost nicely. Atleast the plot is so far nice.

EDIT: Just managed to beat it using Erik...he's pretty overpowered.

 

 

 

Edited October 12, 2018 by Harvey

[henrymidfields]

Playing Persona 3, and just defeated the first Full Moon boss. A berserk shadow rigging a runaway monorail with an actual time limit?! Holy shit...

On a P4-related note, I just came across a Japanese Newsweek article discussing the high reliance of mass media in Japanese society. I was only able to find it in Japanese (here), but part of the information can be found in the World Value Survey website which the article referenced from. (http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSOnline.jsp, and for the survey questions they are Confidence: Television and Confidence: the Press.)

It talks about how Japanese people in general have higher confidence in television and newspapers a lot more than other first world countries in general. (It is nearly 70% for television, 80% for newspapers. For reference, the respective numbers are both 60+% for Korea, approx 45% and 50% in Germany and around 20-30% for USA and Australia.) While this seems like good news to the broadcast stations and the press, it raises questions about whether Japanese society in general is over-reliant on media - considering critical thinking is not their biggest strength. Admittedly, they are all 2010-14 numbers, but I doubt they change all that much back in 2005-2009. Looks like the blindly trusting the media was a problem that Japanese society needed to learn from the morals of Persona 4 (and probably still is). Atlus, you truth-revealing son of a gun... 

Edited October 12, 2018 by henrymidfields

[Slumber]

15 hours ago, Harvey said:

Currently playing Dragon Quest 11 and am right now stuck with this annoying boss Tentacular. What a horrible time to put a boss like this so early in the game.

He gets three turns, can regenerate his tentacles randomly when you destroy them and can randomly stumble you and put you to sleep. And has that chill breadth of his that's more powerful than his other attacks.

This would not be a problem if the Zing didn't have a chance to revive your unit(still an outdated design btw) but then again, it won't take long for that octapus to kill the ally down in one go.

Easily the worst boss ever. And I am just beginning the game.

Honestly, if Sylvando didn't show up, I would have not liked this game one bit. Other characters just pale in comparison unless you like edge in which case, Erik seems to fit that almost nicely. Atleast the plot is so far nice.

EDIT: Just managed to beat it using Erik...he's pretty overpowered.

 

 

 

Erik's not even at his most broken yet. He's still relatively balanced prior to a big event in the game.

9 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

Playing Persona 3, and just defeated the first Full Moon boss. A berserk shadow rigging a runaway monorail with an actual time limit?! Holy shit...

On a P4-related note, I just came across a Japanese Newsweek article discussing the high reliance of mass media in Japanese society. I was only able to find it in Japanese (here), but part of the information can be found in the World Value Survey website which the article referenced from. (http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSOnline.jsp, and for the survey questions they are Confidence: Television and Confidence: the Press.)

It talks about how Japanese people in general have higher confidence in television and newspapers a lot more than other first world countries in general. (It is nearly 70% for television, 80% for newspapers. For reference, the respective numbers are both 60+% for Korea, approx 45% and 50% in Germany and around 20-30% for USA and Australia.) While this seems like good news to the broadcast stations and the press, it raises questions about whether Japanese society in general is over-reliant on media - considering critical thinking is not their biggest strength. Admittedly, they are all 2010-14 numbers, but I doubt they change all that much back in 2005-2009. Looks like the blindly trusting the media was a problem that Japanese society needed to learn from the morals of Persona 4 (and probably still is). Atlus, you truth-revealing son of a gun... 

Yeah, I get the feeling the developers of Persona were seeing this coming when they were coming up with the idea for Persona 4.

They picked a more pervasive, arguably more damaging, topic that's been going on for waaaaay longer and is a lot more general to the world at large for 5.

Edited October 13, 2018 by Slumber

[henrymidfields]

On a different note, I've noticed that the JRPGs from Atlus have only English-language localisations, and I've also seen cases of Japanese games in general that doesn't even see a release in Europe. I can kind of understand German/Italian translations missing out (scale of economy, I guess), and I've also found out that even French/Spanish needs different localizations between the two sides of the Atlantic. On the other hand:

1. I wonder what would be the issue of doing localization for, say Quebec and South America respectively, and making adjustments for localizations in Metropolitan!France/Belgium/Switzerland and Mainland!Spain/Andorra (also respectively)?
2. Say, for example, as a Canadian/Mexican, would you prefer to play an English localization (or even the Japanese original) of a JRPG (or any story-heavy game) or a Metropolitan!French/Mainland!Spanish one? (Reverse the question for European gamers.)
3. Are there JRPG games that are localized differently between American English and British English? I'm talking about solely conversation texts - The only example that I know would be Super Mario RPG where they changed a single word. ("bugger" to "pest")
4. More generally speaking, are game companies in general encouraged to include the full set of five languages (EFGIS)?

[Harvey]

12 hours ago, Slumber said:

Erik's not even at his most broken yet. He's still relatively balanced prior to a big event in the game.

I will still argue that he is indeed broken if done right. Persecutter alongside Sleeper hit do wonders.

 

[Etrurian emperor]

Its been about a year overdue but I picked up Berseria some time ago after having fallen out with the Tales series for a bit. There's a lot to like. The cast can certainly stand next to those of Symphonia or Abyss and while predictable the story does it job well enough. Surprisingly the vengeful harpy that is Velvet doesn't annoy me nearly as much as other characters of the avengers archtype do since the game does its job to paint her as ruthless, selfish but ultimately sympathetic as opposed to completely crazy. I like Arthorius as a villain. He reminds me a lot of Van but avoids all those traits that made me think Van failed as a villain.  

But the games has problems that are too big to entirely overlook and the most notable one is that Berseria cuts a lot of corners. There's pop-up EVERYWHERE. I'm an incredibly patient and forgiving guy as far as performance goes but even I'm bothered by enemies, terrain or people popping up wherever I go, even if its amusing in a pathetic sort of way. Berseria is by no means a graphical powerhouse so I don't understand where this sloppy performance is coming from.  I also noticed that they outsource the job done by cutscenes to the skits a bit too much. 

[Slumber]

On 10/13/2018 at 7:26 AM, Harvey said:

I will still argue that he is indeed broken if done right. Persecutter alongside Sleeper hit do wonders.

 

The trade-off with early-mid game Erik is that he requires set-up to do any real damage, he has no utility, and he can't take a hit. And the damage daggers do with his standard set up starts to drop off real quick.

He's good at doing damage to bosses, but others become better at it until Erik goes bonkers in the late game.

Edited October 17, 2018 by Slumber

[Interdimensional Observer]

8 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I like Arthorius as a villain. He reminds me a lot of Van but avoids all those traits that made me think Van failed as a villain.  

Van was so boring! Not particularly EVIL! in any way, bland personality, and any attempt at sympathy is lost in all that is told of his character (on the other hand, I felt ToS had a pity magnet-leaning villain). I'd be interested in seeing what you mean- if only ToB got on Switch. Hopefully ToV on Switch means Bamco is open to a port. Given ToB released in Japan on the PS3, and how much raving ToB has gotten overall, I'd hope that'd help.

 

@Slumber I heard that a few months ago, SE expressed comments wishing they could bring DQX to the West, perhaps in an offline version. Apparently a wholly offline adaptation of an MMO is unheard of, but who knows if it could happen. Your possible interest I ask?

[Slumber]

8 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

 

@Slumber I heard that a few months ago, SE expressed comments wishing they could bring DQX to the West, perhaps in an offline version. Apparently a wholly offline adaptation of an MMO is unheard of, but who knows if it could happen. Your possible interest I ask?

I'd prefer it be online. Not a huge MMO guy, I just really like FFXIV. But I'd give a DQX a shot, since it's apparently pretty good. 

An offline MMO, though? That just sounds like Xenoblade, and I do not like Xenoblade. 

[Lief]

I’ve recently got the Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + 2.5 collection. I played KH1 and 2 on PS2 but only beat 2 on beginner -_-. 

But thanks to the power of 60fps, choosing magic, and some Dark Souls experience, I was finally able to break through dragon Maleficant and beat KH1!!! Overall it was more enjoyable than I was expecting, and didn’t feel “clunky” like other KH players said about it. Combat had a nice weight to it, and it was fun having a lot of MP to clear crowds and snipe with Strike Raid.

 

My biggest gripes are the snoozefest gummi sections, and some platforming was a pain when it’s near impossible to point the camera down while jumping. 

 

I moved onto KH2 on crit, and it’s proving to be a (difficult) blast so far. Planning to tackle all the super bosses and then BBS.

[Etrurian emperor]

7 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Van was so boring! Not particularly EVIL! in any way, bland personality, and any attempt at sympathy is lost in all that is told of his character (on the other hand, I felt ToS had a pity magnet-leaning villain). I'd be interested in seeing what you mean- if only ToB got on Switch. Hopefully ToV on Switch means Bamco is open to a port. Given ToB released in Japan on the PS3, and how much raving ToB has gotten overall, I'd hope that'd help.

I wouldn't say Van is boring. He's got a booming voice, fairly good design and some solid moments in the story. What brings Van down is that its hard to sympathize with him as you said. Van would be a good straight villain but Abyss wasn't trying to portray him as such. They tried giving him a sympathetic backstory, a ''for the greater good'' sort of motivation and a little sister on the opposing team. But despite this Van is still a scumbag without any redeeming traits. He's a sociopath who abandons anyone who's use has run out and I don't think there has been a single time in the story where he has ever shown anyone real kindness.

I agree that Ygdrasil from TOS is a pity magnet villain and Van coming after him probably didn't do Van any good. Where Van betrays everyone and has no real bond with anyone Ygdrasil is kinda pathetic in how many times he makes bad decisions because he's desperate for some friends. Ygdrasil has far more blood on his hands than Van and his plan makes even less sense but he's tragic exactly because he's so insane. Van on the other hand is a completely rational actor who makes the rational decision that destroying the world is a perfect solution to a problem the plot failed to convince me was all that big. 

[Interdimensional Observer]

7 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I wouldn't say Van is boring. He's got a booming voice, fairly good design and some solid moments in the story. What brings Van down is that its hard to sympathize with him as you said. Van would be a good straight villain but Abyss wasn't trying to portray him as such. They tried giving him a sympathetic backstory, a ''for the greater good'' sort of motivation and a little sister on the opposing team. But despite this Van is still a scumbag without any redeeming traits. He's a sociopath who abandons anyone who's use has run out and I don't think there has been a single time in the story where he has ever shown anyone real kindness.

I agree that Ygdrasil from TOS is a pity magnet villain and Van coming after him probably didn't do Van any good. Where Van betrays everyone and has no real bond with anyone Ygdrasil is kinda pathetic in how many times he makes bad decisions because he's desperate for some friends. Ygdrasil has far more blood on his hands than Van and his plan makes even less sense but he's tragic exactly because he's so insane. Van on the other hand is a completely rational actor who makes the rational decision that destroying the world is a perfect solution to a problem the plot failed to convince me was all that big. 

I felt Van was supposed to have ties with the main party, but they just weren't felt.

Spoiler

He created and was looked up to by Luke.

Tear is his sister.

Guy is a fellow Hodian wanting revenge.

Worked in the same organization as Anise.

4/6 PCs, not bad.

 

And one could easily forget the part where he was forced in some lab experiment to destroy Hod. It was told without the slightest bit of flashback. The defining moment that makes him a villain- Hod's destruction is all told. We get plenty of "the Score is bad!", but the part most relevant to the main villain is purely in the past.

And you're right about the lack of genuine kindness he displays. It indirectly made Legretta junk as a character to me since she is so loyal to such a bad individual, and this then hurt Tear since she looks up to Legretta. A chain reaction. On the other hand, it made Sync even more the real tragic one of the God-Generals- brought back from certain death by the bad guy only to be used by them again.

As for Yggdrasil

Spoiler

Oh what a mess his plan was. He got it working for 4000 years, but the end result, which he succeeds in getting Martel's resurrection- was going to backfire even if the heroes didn't stop him. Since Martel would have given up her life anyway after scolding him for the 4000 years of wrongness he did. His way of trying through tragedy- his mad plan, ends up being the thing which makes Martel abandon him. He was darned if didn't try, he was darned if he did, Martel either way wasn't going to be back forever. (His Angels didn't seem like perfect lifeless discrimination-free beings either during the first visit to Welgaia.)

And then that leads the last three minutes of the long journey is him absolutely insane choosing to just leave the world with the delusion his sister is the Great Seed. He is a villain, who perhaps quite unusually, has to resort to an unplanned plan B. 

Not to mention the unnecessary and anyone could see through it Mithos disguise. Rule no. 1- despite IRL people having the same first and or last name, in a video game this never happens. The name and its failed excuse as being a "popular boys' name", combined with the Summon Spirits naming Mithos as their living pact-bound individual for the past 4000 years seemingly, made it all too obvious. This just really honed home how much pity they trying to plan in him. Eirika!Lyon is less pitiful than Mithos one might able to argue (Mithos has more absolute time being pitied, although as a percentage of their game, Lyon might have the lead).

From my limited Tales experiences, ToX had perhaps the best villain so far, not necessarily great, but certainly likable and not too unsound.

[vanguard333]

I wasn't sure whether or not to put this here, but since there doesn't seem to be an XC1 thread, I figured I'd put this here. I bought the original Xenoblade Chronicles for the Wii over the summer. I'm currently at the Fallen Arm in terms of how far I am into the game. Here's what I think so far: (sorry in advance that this is fairly long; I'm trying to be as concise as possible). 

Story and Characters:

One of the best parts of the game is easily the story. It is very well-realized, the conflict and the journey is well-presented, the stakes are clear, and the plot-twists are numerous but well-foreshadowed, even if some are almost a bit obvious:

Spoiler

I realized who Metal Face really is almost immediately. 

My one gripe with the story so far is that, early on, the group, three times, is at the mercy of a Face Mechon that they cannot harm. For Metal Face's first appearance, there's a clear reason why he flees and let the heroes live. The next two times, the reasons are way too deus-ex machina: Xord's red vessels turn blue for no reason given or ever explained, and when surrounded by Metal Face and several Bronze Faces, a Telethia (which haven't even been mentioned in the story yet) appears out of the blue and lightning-zaps Metal Face.

The characters are also really well-done. There is a lot of personality and depth to the main cast that I really like. They seem very... human. Even Riki is very likeable thanks to his motivation being that he needs to support his family back home. My favourite so far is probably Dunban. 

The main villains so far are also very interesting. Xord looks, sounds and feels like a metal Orc, and yet it works, somehow. Egil has been well-built-up, I find him very interesting, though I don't understand why he thinks killing all the Homs will help him achieve his revenge goal; though I'll give the game the benefit of the doubt and assume for now that that's going to be revealed later. But Metal Face is easily the most interesting villain so far. Most stories make their despicable cowards joke villains, because it's hard to make a despicable coward a scary and effective villain... and Xenoblade Chronicles managed to pull it off. The mechon were already an intimidating threat from the fact that they were immune to everything except toppling, massive defense systems, and the Monado. In Metal Face's first appearance, he utterly destroys all the defence systems and takes a point blank shot to the face from a tank and isn't even worse for wear. He immediately proves to be an intimidating threat, and he makes the conflict very personal for almost everyone in the main team. Plus, I like how the game justifies him repeatedly coming back higher-leveled by him getting modifications and upgrades. That's a nice bit of immersion right there. 

The other major NPCs are very interesting and very well-done. Though (spoilers)

Spoiler

Dickson is so obviously evil. He's too mysterious, and not in a "he has a mysterious past" way, but in a "too much of his story doesn't add up" way. Plus, he says out loud at one point that he almost feels sorry for deceiving "these kids"; that's a pretty blunt way of foreshadowing that this character's evil. I would have appreciated a bit more subtlety. 

My favourite of these NPCs so far is probably Melia's older brother, simply for the fact that he's one of the first to admit that the High Entia were wrong to not help the Homs fight back against the mechon. I can't remember his exact words, but, when the Homs from Colony 6 chews out the High Entia for not getting involved, he basically answers with, "We have no excuse. We were arrogant and we thought we could sit out of this, and we were wrong." 

Going back to the main cast, there's one elephant in the room that I have to address... the romance.

Shulk and Fiora is really well-done. It's well-written and it's clear why the two like each other so much. The interactions they have before the main conflict kicks off really endear you to the two of them, which makes it (spoilers)

Spoiler

Quite a shock when Fiora is killed by Metal Face; not because of the surprise, but because of the amount of investment the player has been able to have in the characters. 

…And then Melia comes along and ruins it by making it another cliché YA love triangle. Don't get me wrong; I like Melia as a character; I just don't like that the writers gave her unrequited feelings for Shulk. I cannot stand YA love triangles: they're stale, cliché, and they're everywhere. It seems like no writer can come up with any other way to write a YA romance subplot. It turns this game into yet another story where all the girls want the protagonist except for the one girl that wants the protagonist's bumbling sidekick. It was grating to go through.

Speaking of which; I like Reyn and Sharla, but it can seem rather weird when one remembers that Gadolt's supposed death happened very recently, and that most characters that knew Gadolt are still hoping that he's alive. Fortunately, the story acknowledges this. 

World Design:

The world is very well-realized and well-designed. The concept that everyone lives on the bodies of two dead continent-sized titans is very interesting, but the world does far more than that. Every concept in the world of this game is very well-realized and very thoroughly explored. This goes from big stuff like the magic system "ether" to the seemingly little stiff like (spoilers)

Spoiler

The restriction that the Monado cannot harm sentient life that originates from the Bionis.

Every part of this world seems built on everything previously explored, and that makes it very believable and immersive. I like that most aspects of the world are reflected not just in the story, but also in the gameplay; the mechon's invulnerability being a particular favourite of mine. 

It also helps that the actual layout of the world is well-done as well, with each area having its own things that make it unique and interesting. Though some gimmicks are better than others... (the amount of teleport in the High Entia place can get tedious). But one great thing is that visually, even after more than six years, this game still looks downright gorgeous at times; the swamp area at night being particularly something to look at. 

There are a couple of things that really bring down the world, however. One: you want to explore and see what all there is, but there's a level 70-90 enemy guarding everything even remotely off the beaten path. Two: a lot of the sidequests in this game are rubbish. So many fetch quests, so many 'kill x enemy' or 'kill x number of y enemies' quests. Even the ones that come to you from named characters can be a real letdown at times. 

Gameplay:

Now, the gameplay. Just wanting to get one thing out of the way immediately: the jump mechanic is almost completely unnecessary, and, when it does come up, it usually does so in a rather not-so-good platforming section. I don't know if its a good thing or a bad thing that it ends up being so underwhelming and underutilised. One could have easily removed it and replaced it with something else. 

That out of the way, let's begin: the controls are pretty good. It can be a bit jarring at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's really not that bad. 

Combat... it's both a hit and a big resounding miss. I like the team dynamic and the variance between teammates, being able to see the future, and, on certain characters, the AI is pretty good. But I dislike the system of active abilities and cooldowns. It feels too closely to a button-mash system for me. There's plenty of complexity in the combat system, but not much strategy. I like having to think about what I'm doing in a fight; it's the reason I really like the combat in games like Legend of Zelda, Megaman Battle Network, Smash Bros, For Honor, etc. I don't like this. Also, spike damage should never have been put in the game: you can't tell when an enemy has it and you can't do anything about it except fill your upgrade slots with spike damage resistance. 

The camera is fine when out in the world, but the moment you get in a fight with a large enemy, you can't see any of what's happening: the camera angles itself up so much. I went through both the first Xord fight and the last Metal Face fight unable to see anything because the camera was looking at the sky above. It's terrible. 

The ether cylinder forge is a mess. If you can get it to work perfectly for you, then good for you. For me, it's a tedious chore. 

The customization system is pretty good. The arts upgrade system is pretty barebones, but the skill tree system is pretty good; I especially like that you can have characters share abilities based on their affinity level. It adds another nice layer to the RPG mechanics. 

The shops are virtually useless. "You made this far. Talk to me to purchase numerical upgrades to your items that you'll discard in about 30 minutes". It feels like they were added to justify the existence of currency in this game, as otherwise we'd have nothing to buy. It would've been far better if the items in each shop came with their own benefits and drawbacks, which does sort-of happen when you get to the anti-mechon weaponry. It feels tacked-on, much like the level-up system. 

Some boss fights are a great challenge; others are a chore. Incidentally, phase 1 of the Xord fight is the latter, while the second phase is the former, even if it's no longer much of a challenge. 

Final Verdict:

Overall, I really like it. But I get the feeling that I'm probably not going to replay it after I finish it. The gameplay just isn't interesting enough, the exploration is actually surprisingly limited thanks to the level 70-90 enemies anywhere even remotely off the beaten path, and I just don't think the story's enough to make me want to revisit it. 

Something Fancy and Profound-Sounding to End This:

When Nintendo makes a game, usually they go gameplay, then story, then world. With this game, it feels like Monolift Soft went the other way around: world, then story, then gameplay. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the difference really shows. I can watch cinematics on almost any other piece of media with a screen. But what I can't get in anything other than video games is the immersive quality that comes from good gameplay, good exploration, and being able to guide the characters and essentially be there with them for the ride. This game has a fantastic story and a world waiting to be explored, but it's a shame that it can almost be a chore to do so. 

Edited February 1, 2019 by vanguard333

[Interdimensional Observer]

48 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Xord's red vessels turn blue for no reason given or ever explained

I think the lines are supposed to be

Spoiler

Blood- since the Monado in its sealed state can't hurt highly intelligent lifeforms. And human blood would therefore be something it can't touch. Turn blue means ether is running through them instead I think. Ether being more of an inorganic-ish substance that organic and inorganic life need.

You are right in that there is no explanation for why Xord would run low on blood, but I'd guess the human cores of the Faces can circulate blood through the system for so long before the host has to return, for the health of the host I'd guess. Fiora, I'm sure you're getting something of an idea, doesn't have the most healthy of bodies in her present state.

 

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

Shulk and Fiora is really well-done. It's well-written and it's clear why the two like each other so much. The interactions they have before the main conflict kicks off really endear you to the two of them, which makes it (spoilers)

I'll let you play the game all the way through first, but ShulkxFiora was eh to me. ShulkxMelia I preferred. But that is just me.

Also, when at a certain moment in the game you're assigned control of Melia alone again, pay Shulk a visit and chat to him a few times. Won't say any more about it, but this optional scene should be noted.

 

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

One: you want to explore and see what all there is, but there's a level 70-90 enemy guarding everything even remotely off the beaten path.

I wouldn't say they're THAT plentiful. And while they do impose some restrictions, you can normally find ways to walk around them, even when they're aggressive, their vision/hearing ranges aren't that large. And death means little in this game if you do get spotted. Of course this comes from someone who spent hours exploring XCX evading and sometimes dying as I snuck around places. 

 

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

But I dislike the system of active abilities and cooldowns. It feels too closely to a button-mash system for me. There's plenty of complexity in the combat system, but not much strategy.

It can be strategic in ways, but yes, I admit that more than anything else, the combat system can make or break one's likings for the Xenoblade games. You're not alone here, and I understand the criticisms. Although I personally generally like it and have bought every game since.

 

59 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

The ether cylinder forge is a mess. If you can get it to work perfectly for you, then good for you. For me, it's a tedious chore. 

It is wholly luck-based, no denying that. The best approach is save before using it, and then using two characters with low Affinity towards each other to separate desirable qualities from undesirable ones, and bring them as close to 100% as possible without actually making gems. Then you take two high Affinity characters, I think is ideal for this for his ability or something, and then combine the cylinders to possibly get Mega Heat gems.

 

55 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

When Nintendo makes a game, usually they go gameplay, then story, then world. With this game, it feels like Monolift Soft went the other way around: world, then story, then gameplay.

The irony of this statement is that this is, for Monolith, supposed to be oriented towards gameplay more than plot. Xenogears and Xenosaga- its prior works with Square Soft (now Square Enix) and Namoc- were both heavily oriented towards the story. Tetsuya Takahashi, the father of the Xeno franchise, actually let up on the plot in this game in attempt to develop better gameplay. He more or less forgot about it entirely in the followup XCX for reasons of learning how to develop in HD. But XC2 seems to be a returning to form.