Tales of Final Dragon Ocean: A JRPG Thread

Solysp

Well we've given up on FF X-2 entirely, FFXII Zodiac Age is on order and we'll try that this weekend. I remember really liking 12 despite the ATB system. Hopefully Mrs. Red Robe likes it as well so it can be our next couch game.

DemonStacey

Tcheldor wrote: »

P5 Strikers Done. Final time 34 hours. I haven't done any post game stuff really, and I'm unsure I will, but it's just

you unlock harder versions of the boss fights and after you clear them all there's some super post game boss to fight. Dunno how much I care to do it

.

All in all, enjoyed it a ton.

I'm at like 47 hours. Still in

Osaka

plus all the remaining side content. This game can be quite beefy even without post-game(ewwww gross, why does it have postgame AND NG+ locked content? whyyy)

Baidol

Started up Atelier Ryza 2 and I am happy with the QoL changes where the game just starts you with large basket and the game tells you what items you are about to harvest (after finding them for the first time). This way I know I am about to pick up literal garbage and make the conscious decision each time to do it anyway.

SageinaRage

Aistan wrote: »

Lost Odyssey is brilliant mechanically in supporting the story of these immortals being static and unchanging in their lives until they meet mortals who are more flexible and able to learn from experience. By spending time with these normal people they grow and change for the better, and also gain skills and abilities that make them more effective in combat.


Don't Forget Me Now, You Hear?

The flip side of this is that the mortals are essentially useless as actual party members, they are just there for your immortals to siphon knowledge from until they can be discarded from the party. Once you've learned the good abilities from them you should remove them.

The utility of immortals also has nothing to do with actually being immortal, it has to do with being able to mix and match abilities that they've learned. It's like having a Final Fantasy 4 team and a Final Fantasy 5 team both in the same game.

I don't want to start a whole argument but I think some people are confusing the emotional impact of the short story memories and the actual plot of the game. The short stories are well written and emotionally wrenching. The plot and characters of the game I didn't find very compelling at all.

Septus

I put the game down(so far) after about 3 or 4 hours on the basis of somewhat repellant cutscenes, and a very vanilla and a too unguided experience going through the first city. I need to try it some more, but from what I saw on youtube, the main cutscenes will remain awfully hammy.

AJR

Lost Odyssey might have the most uninteresting antagonist I've ever seen in a videogame. Dude looks like he works in upper management of an accounting firm.

There's a lot of stuff I found cool in that game. But I lost interest about 3/4 of the way through.

Tcheldor

DemonStacey wrote: »

Tcheldor wrote: »

P5 Strikers Done. Final time 34 hours. I haven't done any post game stuff really, and I'm unsure I will, but it's just

you unlock harder versions of the boss fights and after you clear them all there's some super post game boss to fight. Dunno how much I care to do it

.

All in all, enjoyed it a ton.

I'm at like 47 hours. Still in

Osaka

plus all the remaining side content. This game can be quite beefy even without post-game(ewwww gross, why does it have postgame AND NG+ locked content? whyyy)

Eh. You clear game, load your save which puts you right before the final boss, and get told, here're the new post game requests to check out if you want.

It's like, whatever.

Lavender Gooms

SageinaRage wrote: »

Aistan wrote: »

Lost Odyssey is brilliant mechanically in supporting the story of these immortals being static and unchanging in their lives until they meet mortals who are more flexible and able to learn from experience. By spending time with these normal people they grow and change for the better, and also gain skills and abilities that make them more effective in combat.


Don't Forget Me Now, You Hear?

The flip side of this is that the mortals are essentially useless as actual party members, they are just there for your immortals to siphon knowledge from until they can be discarded from the party. Once you've learned the good abilities from them you should remove them.

The utility of immortals also has nothing to do with actually being immortal, it has to do with being able to mix and match abilities that they've learned. It's like having a Final Fantasy 4 team and a Final Fantasy 5 team both in the same game.

I don't want to start a whole argument but I think some people are confusing the emotional impact of the short story memories and the actual plot of the game. The short stories are well written and emotionally wrenching. The plot and characters of the game I didn't find very compelling at all.

AJR wrote: »

Lost Odyssey might have the most uninteresting antagonist I've ever seen in a videogame. Dude looks like he works in upper management of an accounting firm.

There's a lot of stuff I found cool in that game. But I lost interest about 3/4 of the way through.

This is all correct. Once they've learned everything you fill your active party with immortals and ignore the mortals entirely, undercutting the message somewhat.

And the antagonist suuuuuuuuuuuuuucks from a writing perspective. I dunno how you write a guy so intimately tied to all the protagonists' backstories while simultaneously making him the most boring person in the universe but they managed it.

And Queen Numara's outfit is fucking ridiculous.

I still love the game despite all that. I'd never seen anything like it before or since.

Tcheldor

Then again, his name is gongora.

Gongooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Gongorrrrrrrrrrrrra.

Gooooooooooooongora.

Such a good name to say outloud.

H0b0man

Lost Odyssey does have a fantastic opening though. Your thrown in this gigantic battle between two nations where fucking everybody gets killed. Then a bit later Kaim just kinda stands up, dusts himself off and starts walking through all this carnage to get back to town for another job.

Tcheldor

H0b0man wrote: »

Lost Odyssey does have a fantastic opening though. Your thrown in this gigantic battle between two nations where fucking everybody gets killed. Then a bit later Kaim just kinda stands up, dusts himself off and starts walking through all this carnage to get back to town for another job.

Definitely was confusing at the time as to wtf was going on with that whole scene.

rhylith

I am probably going to attempt and fail to actually get all the way through Lost Odyssey a 4th freakin time because of all these posts.

Tcheldor

rhylith wrote: »

I am probably going to attempt and fail to actually get all the way through Lost Odyssey a 4th freakin time because of all these posts.

I liked the game a bunch. Plus the final battle songs are great.

DemonStacey

Tcheldor wrote: »

DemonStacey wrote: »

Tcheldor wrote: »

P5 Strikers Done. Final time 34 hours. I haven't done any post game stuff really, and I'm unsure I will, but it's just

you unlock harder versions of the boss fights and after you clear them all there's some super post game boss to fight. Dunno how much I care to do it

.

All in all, enjoyed it a ton.

I'm at like 47 hours. Still in

Osaka

plus all the remaining side content. This game can be quite beefy even without post-game(ewwww gross, why does it have postgame AND NG+ locked content? whyyy)

Eh. You clear game, load your save which puts you right before the final boss, and get told, here're the new post game requests to check out if you want.

It's like, whatever.

That's the part I don't like. That means it's all taking place back before. So I'm not really interested in time traveling back. And means I should have been able to do it then the first time around!

If they were already having a NG+ with stuff locked that makes it even sillier to lock that post game stuff. You already have content for the people who want more things to keep playing. This random lock of post game stuff doesn't actually add anything.

SageinaRage

I'll admit, there's a lot of intriguing stuff about Lost Odyssey, it has a bunch of weird character, plot, and gameplay ideas. I just wish they came together better. The fact that spells have their own independent timing was an interesting idea, but the fact that you have to pick them all together and can't tell what the enemy is doing meant that it was impossible to time anything well. White magic became completely useless, because half the time you try to use it, the person you're healing dies before you get a chance to. Better to just use potions which are instant.

Or having mortals/immortals - but immortals can still die in battle, even though plot wise they can't?

The fact that so early on you have this big involved ceremony for someone you don't know

The funeral for Kaim's daughter - you spend like an in game hour on this, at less than 10 hours in the game, for someone who you are not introduced to as a player? It felt super weird to be doing this for someone that the player is absolutely not emotionally invested in. Like, show how invested Kaim is, sure! Show his and the kid's reaction! But making the player spend an hour picking flowers and doing all this stuff? Just...feels weird. You essentially got roped into planning a funeral for a stranger.

If you do want to try it, just be warned - the hardest boss in the game is probably the very first midboss in the first area you are exploring. The recipe for success for most boss fights in that game is to put your two fighter immortals in the front, give them abilities that do something on Defend, and then just have them defend forever.

And I will say that Jansen is a great character, he is what got me through the game. He's legitimately really funny, I laughed several times to him.

Raijin Quickfoot

I LOVE Lost Odyssey

SimBen

SageinaRage wrote: »

I'll admit, there's a lot of intriguing stuff about Lost Odyssey, it has a bunch of weird character, plot, and gameplay ideas. I just wish they came together better. The fact that spells have their own independent timing was an interesting idea, but the fact that you have to pick them all together and can't tell what the enemy is doing meant that it was impossible to time anything well. White magic became completely useless, because half the time you try to use it, the person you're healing dies before you get a chance to. Better to just use potions which are instant.

Or having mortals/immortals - but immortals can still die in battle, even though plot wise they can't?

The fact that so early on you have this big involved ceremony for someone you don't know

The funeral for Kaim's daughter - you spend like an in game hour on this, at less than 10 hours in the game, for someone who you are not introduced to as a player? It felt super weird to be doing this for someone that the player is absolutely not emotionally invested in. Like, show how invested Kaim is, sure! Show his and the kid's reaction! But making the player spend an hour picking flowers and doing all this stuff? Just...feels weird. You essentially got roped into planning a funeral for a stranger.

If you do want to try it, just be warned - the hardest boss in the game is probably the very first midboss in the first area you are exploring. The recipe for success for most boss fights in that game is to put your two fighter immortals in the front, give them abilities that do something on Defend, and then just have them defend forever.

And I will say that Jansen is a great character, he is what got me through the game. He's legitimately really funny, I laughed several times to him.

In response to that spoiler

That’s intentional. Kaim and Sarah lost their memories and suddenly have to deal with the fact that they’re married, have grandkids and that their daughter they don’t remember just died. The kids are devastated and like they know they have emotions about all this even though it’s so quick and overwhelming. Everything about this game is set up to put you in the weird headspaces that being immortal would put you into.

Lavender Gooms

...

I completely forgot about the kids.

And their dumb, terrible outfits. And personalities. And voices.

Nevermind, Lost Odyssey is bad.

Raijin Quickfoot

Aistan wrote: »

...

I completely forgot about the kids.

And their dumb, terrible outfits. And personalities. And voices.

Nevermind, Lost Odyssey is bad.

But the map music!!

https://youtu.be/SaCkn9l3Rg4

SageinaRage

SimBen wrote: »

SageinaRage wrote: »

I'll admit, there's a lot of intriguing stuff about Lost Odyssey, it has a bunch of weird character, plot, and gameplay ideas. I just wish they came together better. The fact that spells have their own independent timing was an interesting idea, but the fact that you have to pick them all together and can't tell what the enemy is doing meant that it was impossible to time anything well. White magic became completely useless, because half the time you try to use it, the person you're healing dies before you get a chance to. Better to just use potions which are instant.

Or having mortals/immortals - but immortals can still die in battle, even though plot wise they can't?

The fact that so early on you have this big involved ceremony for someone you don't know

The funeral for Kaim's daughter - you spend like an in game hour on this, at less than 10 hours in the game, for someone who you are not introduced to as a player? It felt super weird to be doing this for someone that the player is absolutely not emotionally invested in. Like, show how invested Kaim is, sure! Show his and the kid's reaction! But making the player spend an hour picking flowers and doing all this stuff? Just...feels weird. You essentially got roped into planning a funeral for a stranger.

If you do want to try it, just be warned - the hardest boss in the game is probably the very first midboss in the first area you are exploring. The recipe for success for most boss fights in that game is to put your two fighter immortals in the front, give them abilities that do something on Defend, and then just have them defend forever.

And I will say that Jansen is a great character, he is what got me through the game. He's legitimately really funny, I laughed several times to him.

In response to that spoiler

That’s intentional. Kaim and Sarah lost their memories and suddenly have to deal with the fact that they’re married, have grandkids and that their daughter they don’t remember just died. The kids are devastated and like they know they have emotions about all this even though it’s so quick and overwhelming. Everything about this game is set up to put you in the weird headspaces that being immortal would put you into.

Hmmm, that makes sense, but it doesn't feel like it quite fits? The memory loss wasn't related to them being immortals, it's due to gongora working his magic on them. Besides which, Kaim remembered her when they met (I'm pretty sure? I feel like I remember him reacting in the moment), and the kids definitely remembered her. They could have shown some flashbacks or something to help go through the realization that Kaim does.

At any rate, I don't think having the funeral or trying to make it emotional was wrong, it was the fact that it involved so much time and busywork on the part of the player. By the time it was over I had spent like 10% of my time playing the game planning and attending this funeral.

Bucketman

I keep seeing ads for DQ11 on Steam, and I finally gave in so I guess I'm starting that tonight

Baidol

I really like how Atelier Ryza 2 has skill upgrades that improve the quality of items you pick up via normal gathering. This makes it so much easier to craft quality moderate quality items (e.g. not 999 quality) without resorting to random plant growing.

I am also moderately amused that they decided to add a new upgrade mechanism for items made through alchemy for players who wanted more things to manage.

Dragkonias

I saw Ryza 2 bought item duping back which is good cause making equipment for the whole team was so annoying in the first one.

rhylith

Bucketman wrote: »

I keep seeing ads for DQ11 on Steam, and I finally gave in so I guess I'm starting that tonight

Hell yeah

ArcTangent

Dragkonias wrote: »

I saw Ryza 2 bought item duping back which is good cause making equipment for the whole team was so annoying in the first one.

One of the most baffling things about Gust is how they're randomly throw away various QoL upgrades that they've built up and used consistently for 2-3 games, and then bring them back 2-3 games later, or rework them to be strictly worse and more obnoxious to use.

Raijin Quickfoot

Bucketman wrote: »

I keep seeing ads for DQ11 on Steam, and I finally gave in so I guess I'm starting that tonight

I have put at least 300 hours into getting the platinum in this game twice.

Madican

Raijin Quickfoot wrote: »

Bucketman wrote: »

I keep seeing ads for DQ11 on Steam, and I finally gave in so I guess I'm starting that tonight

I have put at least 300 hours into getting the platinum in this game twice.

200 of which were spent in the casino

Raijin Quickfoot

Madican wrote: »

Raijin Quickfoot wrote: »

Bucketman wrote: »

I keep seeing ads for DQ11 on Steam, and I finally gave in so I guess I'm starting that tonight

I have put at least 300 hours into getting the platinum in this game twice.

200 of which were spent in the casino

No way! I had a system to hit the jackpot and get paid.

DemonStacey

The visuals of Lost Odyssey alone were enough to completely kill any and all interest I ever had in that game sadly.

I just can't get into a game if I hate looking at all the characters and the combat was visually kinda boring too iirc

Dragkonias

I thought Lost Odyssey looked gorgeous but I'm a sucker for slightly washed out color palettes put to soft music.

SimBen

Lost Odyssey looked like nothing else when it came out. It was the exact midpoint between the releases of FF12 and 13. I remember being really impressed by how cinematic the battles looked.

It has absolutely aged worse than even like your FF9s and such.

Donnicton

Dragkonias wrote: »

I saw Ryza 2 bought item duping back which is good cause making equipment for the whole team was so annoying in the first one.

God the item duplication cauldron was the Alpha and Omega of the first game. It's just too bad that the first game had no real post-game to really flex it on outside of crafting for the sake of crafting.

simulacrum

Some gameplay and art from the new trails game

https://twitter.com/xenosaga7/status/1369171401387634689

Kuro no Kiseki

field - > action combat encounter -> turn-based combat transition

https://twitter.com/xenosaga7/status/1369170855842877442

Kuro no Kiseki character artworks by Enami Katsumi

Tofystedeth

I've never played Suikoden, but I know some people dig it. What's the best way to play it these days? It looks like the first couple of games actually had PC releases. Were they decent?

rhylith

Suikoden 2 has a reputation as one of the best jrpgs.

I could never get into it because I couldn’t get over cancel being on triangle.

I don’t think it’s available on PC? You’d need a ps3 or vita probably.

Donnicton

Tofystedeth wrote: »

I've never played Suikoden, but I know some people dig it. What's the best way to play it these days? It looks like the first couple of games actually had PC releases. Were they decent?

I believe only the first game ever got a PC release and it was Japan only. The only way to play them outside their original consoles would be as PSOne/PS2 Classics. 1 and 2 are available on PSP/Vita/PS3 as PSOne classics, and 3 and 4 are available on PS3 as PS2 classics. Suikoden 5 never got a classics release.

I would not recommend trying to buy the original releases. Or do, it's your money.

Dragkonias

So wait it's action and turn-based at the same time.

That's actually interesting enough to get me interested in Trails again.

initiatefailure

is 5 the one that was more a tactics game? or am i fever dreaming a fake game

Donnicton

Suikoden Tactics is a PS2 game that exists.

ArcTangent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcVVsFYtTPA

Pretty ambivalent, but I've been drifting away from the Tales series as it tries to be more open world and Final Fantasy. The puzzle dungeon more cartoonish ones of the GCN/PS2 era were my jam, although I certainly liked Destiny and Eternia too. Give me more Dwarven Vows, fewer weird-ass slave wife things. Half convinced Berseria only didn't have a slave wife because Velvet was female. It had Laphicet though, so...