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[Unchained Blades], more like Unchained Breasts (3DS/PSP)
Xenogears of Bore
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Unchained Blades is a dungeon-crawling title made by FuRyu; a large compilation of many creative minds (including Takashi Hino (Grandia) as the scenario designer, Toshio Akashi (Lunar) as the director, and a soundtrack composed by Tsutomu Narita (Xenoblade Chronicles) with Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy) contributing the theme song) to bring the PSP and the 3DS one heck of an RPG.
Who cares about that? I just want to fight the strongest!
It is now available for the first time on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. It's also currently available on the PlayStation Network and is both Vita and PSP compatible. The price on both eShop and PSN is $29.99.
The PSP version displays a map over the dungeons, while the 3DS version will have all that on the bottom screen.
In a world inhabited by mythical beings, where colossal labyrinths called Titans tower over the land, there's a legend that any being who can approach the Goddess Clunea high in the sky shall have a single wish granted. A powerful and self-absorbed dragon named Fang aims for those heights to meet with the Goddess and learn the name of the strongest monster in the world. His drive to find and kill this ultimate opponent and firmly establish himself as the dominant monster of the land is mighty enough to entreat the gods, but his boldness is also his undoing.
Disdainful and disrespectful to the Goddess, she strips him of his dragon form and banishes him to the surface. Bereft of the power he once wielded as the Dragon Emperor, Fang must now adjust to surviving in a far weaker body as he navigates the dangerous mazes of halls in his quest for revenge upon the creator herself.
Blah blah blah. 3D Dungeon crawling, massive battling animu goodness. Big tittied furry/scalies, hulking bits of man flesh, all the minions you could ever want.
Fang
The fierce and powerful Dragon Emperor.
A young king of the Dragon Clan whose arrogance and lack of respect towards the ruler of the world, Goddess Clunea, resulted in her stripping him of his adult body and enormous power.
Tiana
The phoenix princess.
Despite being the princess of the Phoenix Clan and the legitimate heir to the throne, she secretly longs to become a dragon - the giant, spiky, fang-filled mouth kind of dragon. Why one of the powerful phoenix royalty should want to become a dragon is a source of much curiosity (and hilarity) to her traveling companions.
Lucius
A mysterious swordsman who must see the Goddess at all cost.
Unlike most would-be wishers, he challenges the Titans solo and seemingly without a care for injury or fatigue. His manner of dress suggests that he is a denizen of the Demon World's Reaper Clan.
(Voiced by: Liam O'Brian!)
Niko
A goofy, somewhat excitable girl from the Spirit Fox Clan.
As part of this carefree fox tribe, she is a girl with nine tails and a keen sense of smell. She is very friendly and tomboy-ish but does show her feminine side from time to time. She also has an unhealthy love of buttons, especially the ones that drop boulders on your head when pushed.
Lapis
A medusa with androphobia (fear of men).
A shy Medusa Clan mage with the power to turn men to stone at a glance. Unfortunately, her fear of men tends to lead to a trail of unlucky petrified admirers. As a result, her greatest desire is to rid herself of this troublesome phobia with the help of the Goddess.
Sylvie
A Reaper Clan girl on a quest to aid her brother.
A somewhat prim and proper black mage on a mission. She is brave, kind, and sincere despite the ominous reputation that Demon World clans tend to have above ground.
Hector
A cowardly Golem prince.
A recently fledged Golem Clan prince. Though he may now be considered an 'adult' due to his fledging, he's still a boy at heart. Is currently on the run from his hundreds of rather large and aggressive fiancées.
Mari
A tiny Mandrake girl.
An emotionless girl who doesn't say much. Seems wise beyond her years when she does speak, but why a child would be wandering about the dungeon on her own is the greater mystery.
Clunea
Goddess that created the world.
The all-powerful deity that created the world and the massive living labyrinths known as the Titans. She tasks all those who would beg a wish of her to undertake the "Holy Ordeals" and conquer these Titans. Has the ability to make miracles come true.
Biggest collection of freaks and weirdos ever assembled.
3D Dungeon Crawling
Traverse through the bodies of the Titans by way of first-person dungeon crawling, bringing up to four party members along with you. Explore the dungeons fully and fill in the map as you take each step, or forgo the map entirely and learn to carefully avoid dangerous traps.
Real men shuffle side to side!
Each Titan possesses a unique set of puzzles and traps to discover. From Titan Darius' pits of lava to holding your breath as you swim through the flooded corridors of Titan Tortuga, the elements will prove to be no easy adversary on your journey. Hidden treasure chests with key items, dark corridors, barred passages and one-way halls will challenge you to reach the Ark of the Titan each step of the way.
Traps are for walking straight into!
Skill Trees!
The Skill Map is a chart of obtainable skills and abilities unique to each of the playable characters in the game. Earn Skill Points by leveling up in battle and choose a path of Skills from a multitude of directions. You can improve each individual party member's health, have them learn healing or elemental abilities, obtain powerful physical attacks, or perhaps teach them how to have a stronger affinity with enemies from the same clan.
Why yes, this was shamelessly stolen from FFX!
Monster Ranching!
As you battle, your performance is rewarded in the form of Charisma Points. The more Charisma you have, the more likely an enemy might consider you a worthy Master. When a bright ring appears on top of an enemy, show them your strength by choosing the Unchain option – an option which challenges you to time your actions within a pattern of circles - and create a small army of Followers who can fight alongside you, help you learn special Skills unique to their element, deflect attacks, or even take damage in your place.
Too bad there isn't a page set up somewhere to completely abuse this knowledge...
Lots and lots of monsters
Don't think being charismatic is all it takes to win a battle; many enemies won't be fooled, so you'll have to face them head on. Customize a party of four lead characters and play to each of their strengths in turn-based combat. Place all of your strongest members on the front lines to soak up damage, or choose to use a healer or support mage in the back row. Each character can also bring up to four Followers with them to battle, allowing up to sixteen additional party members to give you that extra edge in a tough fight. Just remember that the enemy can have a full party ready for action, too- sometimes even enough of a party to take up two or three screens at the same time.
None of the monsters are anywhere as strong as I am!
CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE: I stole almost all of this from CJ "Persona 2 will one day be complete on PSP" Iwakura. Some of it might come from somewhere else but who cares.
3DS CODE: 3093-7068-3576
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WHICH VERSION TO BUY: Either one really. I like my maps on the bottom screen and don't carry around either a PSP or a Vita during my daily going around though, so I waited for this one.
HOW DO I GET MY CHARISMA UP? Hard work and diligence or by going to this link: http://unchainedblades.wikia.com/wiki/Follower_Conversations
HOW SHOULD I GO ABOUT THE SPHERE GRID THE SKILL TREE? Pick a weapon and go with it. For mages you might want to look at skills that make them better at that.
HOW DO I GET MONSTERS TO UNCHAIN? Anytime you hit them at around half health they have a chance to get into that state. So guard a lot and use weak attacks.
HOW MUCH DOES THIS GAME STEAL FROM EO? About as much as I stole from CJ for the OP. It also borrows heavily from every dub anime cast you've heard in the last ten years, about fifty years of anime tropes, about ten years of fetishes, about ten different manga artists styles, and music from at least five different games. It's why I don't feel bad about ripping off the OP.
WHY IS THE FIRST BOSS SO HARD? Because you suck. Get better followers, grind.
HOW COME THEY TOOK THE REX OUT OF THE TITLE? God/XSEED only knows.
B button is confirm and A is cancel. Probably a carry over from the PS button layout. It is tough to adjust at first but meh.
The 3D effect during conversations is quite nice. Not deep but it adds to it a bit. However the 3D effect on the dungeon is super shallow which makes me sad...but it's not the end of the world. There's no AA with 3D off but it looks a little less jaggy due to not having separate images for each eye.
The game is pretty obviously a PSP game released on 3DS so the polygonal graphics don't exactly push the system very hard, but it's not ugly either. It's functional.
Having the map on the lower screen is pretty nice.
It feels as polished as an Etrian Odyssey game. Quality VA and a story with specific characters makes it more interesting in that respect - it's hard for EO to have a traditional JRPG story when your characters are almost faceless. This one has a decent story going on. The music is pretty good stuff too.
Overall I think the game is well worth the asking price, it's a nice long game to have downloaded onto your system too, something you can come back to for a while. From what I understand there is post game content and/or reason for a second playthrough.
A couple other random things about the game that may help in deciding if this is for you:
- The game is 4000ish 3DS blocks, or about 500 meg.
- Unchained Blades has Etrian Odyssey style gather points for picking flowers or whatever, but they can be randomly generated and you have to watch a radar to find them as you walk around. Harvesting implements can break. You can also craft items if you have the right ingredient items, but this can also fail, wasting the items. You have two save slots and it seems like you can save anywhere you want...which means you're going to be doing a lot of saving and loading until stuff doesn't break or fail. There are passive abilities that can improve harvesting, though.
- As stated above in the OP, your followers talk to you a lot, and you will probably want to use this resource to determine what to say to them.
- Attacks queued up on one monster who dies move on to another monster rather than failing, which is nice.
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire,
If you hold L and R at the same time you will strafe back and forth in one spot for easy grinding.
Some advice I found at GameFAQs said this:
- Get burst skills
- Focus on one weapon
- Group attack skills are useful
And I can attest to its correctness. In fact I suggest you start off by more or less beelining straight for a second burst skill level (generally on the far ends of the skill trees). They help a lot against bosses. A lot of skills require certain amounts of anima to use, and you might as well pick up these powerful abilities that don't require anything.
Generally all characters start off using a pretty good weapon to stick with for the whole game, with the exception of Hector - I definitely recommend switching to claws for him ASAP! Axes lower a character's speed.
Get heal and the 2nd level heal as soon as possible for any character that can learn them. Don't bother with the first area heal spell, it's super weak. The second one is nice, though.
More specific character advice copy/pasted from GameFAQs:
Hector: Try to favor claws, as he's axe skills are kinda meh until his all hit, and even still they nerf your speed. Taunt is a godsend, and his passives are pretty sexy. Bursts are decent.
Lapis: Her level 1 burst is all she'll really need, as she's not good at filling her gauge. She's got a couple off good passives, sinster eye and her heal buff. Most of her better skills for most of the game are actually early on in her grid. She'll fall off a little damage wise later though, no reason to bother with daggers since they add nothing to her aside from a small speed boost.
Mari: Harps are considered long range weapons, which is good for her, and offer some great disables for randoms and buffs for bosses. Staffs have a slew of debuffs and some attack skills. Get healing march and sunbath ASAP. They're both amazing. She also get's area high heal which is good. Rest of her kit though is pretty unimpressive. You'll mostly use her to disable and toss healing out occassionally. Her bursts are near worthless as well, her level 3 is just a defense buff.
Tiana: Jebus bird girl. Plenty of good passives to buff everything she does, and decent base skills. Firebird is lol easy mode. She can make decent use out of staves or raipiers so pick there. Her bursts are solid and all targeting, but she's got skills I'd say are more important to grab first.
Niko: Bursts are solid, but her item find passives are a godsend for timesaving. She's actually good with daggers if you can place her up front, otherwise stick her with bows. Her evasion buff and wind damage buff are also quite handy. Penta Winder is great for it's anima requirement.
Sylvie: Level 1 burst is good, 2 is weak, and 3 is good. Absolutely rush her mp sustaining passives. They are too good. Grab her attack magic buff early as well. Seal resistence is handy on her. Like Lapis, daggers are pretty useless on her, even with her learning a couple of debuffs from em. She's got plenty of AoE attacks and of various elements, so tailor her to fill in the gaps. Avoid magic overcharge though, it's got horrible anima requirements.
Lucious: His level 3 burst saves him from being fairly gimped, but just barely... So many weapons, and so many of them are worthless. Swords and Blades only please, he doesn't have the proficiency. to make remote use of anything else. Passives of note on him are resurrection, and ha. He'll have zero AoE attacks using blades outside of his bursts, which are honestly worth getting to at least 2 quickly, since his level 1 is worse than Mari's. His personal party buff is pretty amazing with Fang though, which is something to consider.
Thankfully, games pretty forgiving and you won't suffer too much if you make a couple of mistakes leveling.
The next few titans didn't feel as tightly balanced for me. I felt they should have had more dps to make up for your (almost certainly major) healing abilities. I'm playing the PSP version.
And the first boss is a giant cockblock wake-up call that hates you.
And the game looks great on the Vita. The map overlays in the PSP/Vita version works well as you're not maping it yourself (it auto-maps on your steps).
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
EU persons can buy US games on PSN with US $ PSN cards and a US account. I have bought several games in this way.
True, but account switching on a PSP requires a network connection and is a small pain.
On the Vita they made it require a 'return to factory settings' and separate memory cards.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
That's going to suck when I eventually upgrade to a Vita. I'm glad it's still possible though.
THAT SAID, I gave up on the first titan, despite really enjoying it. Also because Growlanser IV came out.
My PSP broke and I don't have any interest in getting a Vita, so a 3DS version would be my only option.
I think you'd get more life out of getting a new PSP than a 3DS, though the latter will have Soul Hackers and SMTIV. If it weren't for those two games, I'd never touch a Nintendo handheld again.
I already got a 3DS, though.
While this game does look kinda cool, I'm not gonna get another PSP just for it.
Well, there's Corpse Party: Book of Shadows and Class of Heroes 2 coming up. That's really all I can think of, but factor in the 20+ amazing games it already has and I'd be crazy to ditch mine.
Really, a sequel to Corpse Party is coming out? That's pretty cool. Still, I've only got so much money to spend on games and getting another PSP or a Vita (which has a grand total of one game I want) is pretty low on my list of priorities.
Remember. If you want to see the Unchained Blades Sequel in NA, please buy this game!
Switch (JeffConser): SW-3353-5433-5137 Wii U: Skeldare - 3DS: 1848-1663-9345
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A thousand times yes.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
How are they going to simulate 3D footage on a 2D screen?
Switch (JeffConser): SW-3353-5433-5137 Wii U: Skeldare - 3DS: 1848-1663-9345
PM Me if you add me!
He said eShop which implies he was watching it on a 3D screen?
Me can't read good 2day.
I'm guessing laziness on XSeed's part then.
Switch (JeffConser): SW-3353-5433-5137 Wii U: Skeldare - 3DS: 1848-1663-9345
PM Me if you add me!
Also, what moron designed perfectly serviceable walls to look like potential passages? That's going to drive me insane!
(Have to remember to keep referring to original names since I've renamed everyone, mostly after various pets. Niko is just as spastic as the cat I named her after, which is amusing.)
BTW, is there a way to respec the skills? I'm 10 hours in, near the end of the first titan, and it seems I specced my guys 100% wrong.
Yeah, but the effects are pretty minor.
Not that I could find without starting over. Suck it up! Also, try to move some anima around to see if you can gain access to abilities you've bought but can't actually use.
It seems like there might be a minimum charisma to unchain enemies; I was starting to wonder if I was ever going to get anyone, then suddenly started getting the first floor enemies pretty easily once I had two characters at level 1 charisma; new enemies on the second floor do not want to unchain no matter how many times the white mage uselessly hits them for one point of damage.
What anima a particular skill requires is stupidly hidden in the Status menu instead of on the Skill menu. In general I could use a guide to what the fuck all these cryptic symbols are. Very few are intuitive, none are explained.
Not really clear what I should be spending my money on; I'm kinda wondering if pouring it all into harvesting supplies will be more useful than incremental armor upgrades.
I'm not the most hardcore dungeon crawler dude; I've only really played Etrian Odyssey III, and I got like four tiers down and felt like that was enough. I bought this more because I'd like XSeed to support the damn 3DS already, and because I don't think I have a seventh playthrough on Borderlands 2 in me just yet. It's working out better than I'd hoped, and I'm genuinely enjoying the game. Despite the awful dub and the font that puts whole spaces after apostrophes.
So... why not Lances on Fang? Strong back-lane damage and tankyness and leaves more swords for Lucius.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
There's an easier way.
When assigning followers, if you hit the X button after selecting a Master the right window will show you what anima is needed for learned skills. You might have to scroll down using the Y button if you have a lot.
When you heal a master character it heals all their followers.
Switch (JeffConser): SW-3353-5433-5137 Wii U: Skeldare - 3DS: 1848-1663-9345
PM Me if you add me!
From what I've read, Lucious is not that good, he's got weird combinations of skills and weapons. I wouldn't want to put a typically front row character in the back either, there are plenty of people to fill the back row slots as it is.
Also if you find a big healing crystal in the dungeon it will revive them.
Campsites should work too.
I agree. I've only managed to get a single follower with Lucius so far. Either he one-shots the monsters or they one-shot him.
I've somehow made it to what seems to be the boss fight. A 6-on-1 boss fight (spread over three screens) when I have a guy with no AoE attacks. I'm going to be here a while.
Tip: be sure to ask both towns for quests. Completing one of them will earn you a katana that's better than anything you'll be able to buy/craft.