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[JRPG]s Are Teambuilding Exercises

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Posts

  • ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    Here's a neat puzzle for anybody who's into localization.

    Spot the localization error.
    Gyt7flY.jpg

    And no, it's not "fist" being an 'element.'

    Answer:
    It's the O button marker on Back-up Boobs. X is the default cancel button in Japanese, but O is default cancel in English. They shifted things in the battle interface to account for that (Eng vs Jp), but missed the icon in the party menu.

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  • chocoboliciouschocobolicious Registered User regular
    Going to just say Sophie 2 has a 81% on meta and 83 on open critic.

    Going to also say some people just don't seem to like any game, anime or anything else that they ever post about.

    Game is pretty good from the time I've put in. Which is admittedly only a few hours as I'm instead busy thirsting after Chaos, but I'd still say it's an alright game worth picking up and isn't just some jank game they made in their spare time.

    Ryza is at 84/80 and Ryza 2 and 81/82 on MC/OC, just for reference.

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  • Grey GhostGrey Ghost Registered User regular
    I don't know man, they've given some pretty concrete examples of problems they have with it. I don't think just citing aggregate scores or claiming they just don't like anything they engage with is a meaningful response

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  • I needed anime to post.I needed anime to post. boom Registered User regular
    it's a very ironic choice to say that some posters are very consistent with their posting

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    sarukunDemonStacey
  • shoeboxjeddyshoeboxjeddy Registered User regular
    ArcTangent wrote: »
    Here's a neat puzzle for anybody who's into localization.

    Spot the localization error.
    Gyt7flY.jpg

    And no, it's not "fist" being an 'element.'

    Answer:
    It's the O button marker on Back-up Boobs. X is the default cancel button in Japanese, but O is default cancel in English. They shifted things in the battle interface to account for that (Eng vs Jp), but missed the icon in the party menu.

    Sony actually enforced a change to make games on their platform confirm to EN style, I guess this game is on an older platform so that hasn't happened yet?

  • ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    ArcTangent wrote: »
    Here's a neat puzzle for anybody who's into localization.

    Spot the localization error.
    Gyt7flY.jpg

    And no, it's not "fist" being an 'element.'

    Answer:
    It's the O button marker on Back-up Boobs. X is the default cancel button in Japanese, but O is default cancel in English. They shifted things in the battle interface to account for that (Eng vs Jp), but missed the icon in the party menu.

    Sony actually enforced a change to make games on their platform confirm to EN style, I guess this game is on an older platform so that hasn't happened yet?

    Huh, I didn't know that. Neat. But it looks like it was specifically for the system interface with the PS5 and games are free to do whatever they want, though it is pressure to change as well.

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  • chocoboliciouschocobolicious Registered User regular
    Grey Ghost wrote: »
    I don't know man, they've given some pretty concrete examples of problems they have with it. I don't think just citing aggregate scores or claiming they just don't like anything they engage with is a meaningful response

    I was responding to multiple people with that. Such as claiming it's just a throw away game before Ryza 3. Which considering there is no absolute metric, giving an aggregate score to show on average that it's as good as the games before it (and much better than the ones it is related to) is pretty useful.

    As for the reasons: if that works for you. That's fine. I guess there are people who play games and want a different game then what's on the label. 'The game is too much like the series has been fit the last 25 years' just isn't going to move me to nod my head along.

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  • DonnictonDonnicton Registered User regular
    I haven't gotten up to Sophie 2 yet as I like to take long breaks between Atelier games so I don't burn out on them, but I can't imagine anything could be more of a softball playing-it-safe filler game than Lulua was.

  • PoorochondriacPoorochondriac Ah, man Ah, jeezRegistered User regular
    I love metacritic because there's always two places I've even heard of and everything else is like GameManiaczzz or RPGamerCentralNexus or The Pogs And Pizza And Playstation Blog

    Sure I don't know or care who TheIrascibleGameRanter is but he gave the graphics an 8 out of 11 and dammit that counts for something

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  • ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    edited March 2022
    Donnicton wrote: »
    I haven't gotten up to Sophie 2 yet as I like to take long breaks between Atelier games so I don't burn out on them, but I can't imagine anything could be more of a softball playing-it-safe filler game than Lulua was.

    I don't know. It's one of the weird unpleasant quirks of recent Gust (since Ryza) that they don't build off the prior, and Sophie 2 is that in absolute spades. It used to be practically a hallmark of the series, even more than stuff like Pokemon, DQ, or SMT. Those at least have hundreds of monsters, not like... a dozen. They started a new trilogy, threw out two thirds of the assets and slowly built up again. By the time you get to the last one, you have an actual respectable variety of monsters. Same goes for playable characters. But Ryza has like... only 15 different models of monsters, including all bosses. Sophie 2 has a whopping 16, and most have upwards of 10 palette swaps or a tiny cosmetic change. I think only 4 or 5 are new, again including all bosses. This is the fourth game in the Mysterious set. It's all the same models and animations that they've been using since Dusk. I honestly don't get it. Why re-use a few but just not have wolves, hamsters, bears, dragons, etc anymore? And literally the bare minimum number of party members to create a full party. Lulua at least had eight (party of five) plus a couple DLC. Sophie has its six to fill the party of six and that's it. Some of Sophie's animations are even reused on top of that. Not having a bunch of assets for no real reason screams filler game to me. Plus the complete lack of any postgame or extra stuff too.

    Similar for a lot of the mechanics. There are some interesting ideas here, but the implementation has no real thought into putting it together into any kind of cohesive package. Like the replacement for the support guard skills is an equippable accessory... except the first couple you get are generic "+ Def" or "Thorns," and then the next about eight you unlock are absurdly niche things like "when defending against an ice attack, gain one stack of ice resistance." Almost all of the weather stuff also falls into this category. There's shitloads of equipment passives that do things like "+5% crit during Sunny," but you can only manipulate the weather in combat for story bosses, so it's basically just "+5% crit in 20% of battles." It's so minor that it's not worth even thinking or caring about.

    Also, in unrelated news, guess who accidentally figured out that you can just jump over the exit/entrance triggers in maps and wander out of bounds? Most are positioned flush against the edge of maps so you just bump into invisible walls and fall into the loading zone, but not all, and I did manage to find a building hovering partially on thin air outside the map.

    ArcTangent on
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  • DragkoniasDragkonias That Guy Who Does Stuff You Know, There. Registered User regular
    So anybody try that Monark game? Wondering if it's a "Wait for a sale" title.

  • KupiKupi Registered User regular
    I love metacritic because there's always two places I've even heard of and everything else is like GameManiaczzz or RPGamerCentralNexus or The Pogs And Pizza And Playstation Blog

    Sure I don't know or care who TheIrascibleGameRanter is but he gave the graphics an 8 out of 11 and dammit that counts for something

    IIRC, it counts less than the names you recognize. One of MetaCritic's deals is that they have some kind of internal metric they gauge the various reviewers by, with longer-tenured and better-funded reviewers being weighted more heavily than the latest blog shop to be stood up. So it's not like TheIrascibleGameRanter is being given equal weight to, I dunno, PCGamer or The AV Club.

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  • never dienever die Registered User regular
    I love metacritic because there's always two places I've even heard of and everything else is like GameManiaczzz or RPGamerCentralNexus or The Pogs And Pizza And Playstation Blog

    Sure I don't know or care who TheIrascibleGameRanter is but he gave the graphics an 8 out of 11 and dammit that counts for something

    I would at least check out the Pogs and Pizza and PlayStation blog, they know their branding at least.

  • cj iwakuracj iwakura The Rhythm Regent Bears The Name FreedomRegistered User regular
    Dragkonias wrote: »
    So anybody try that Monark game? Wondering if it's a "Wait for a sale" title.

    From what I played of the demo, yes. I've heard the story gets good later on, but the demo is dial-a-trope squared.

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  • DemonStaceyDemonStacey TTODewback's Daughter In love with the TaySwayRegistered User regular
    edited March 2022
    Dragkonias wrote: »
    So anybody try that Monark game? Wondering if it's a "Wait for a sale" title.

    When I was told that all enemies in the game are just variations of that skeleton model I basically fully checked out of being interested.

    Also Arc I gotta ask... why do you keep seeming to continue playing this game you are not enjoying? Where is the point you say "I do not like this game enough to keep playing"?

    DemonStacey on
  • KamarKamar Registered User regular
    I wanted to say something about game threads on PA forums seeming to often be about how much everyone playing the game hates it, then I remembered that I posted repeatedly in here when I was pushing forward through Tales of Symphonia and loathing the experience.

    ...I don't even ultimately have that negative an opinion of ToS, though I'd only recommend it with a big 'feels more old-school in annoying ways than some SNES games' caveat.

  • DragkoniasDragkonias That Guy Who Does Stuff You Know, There. Registered User regular
    Yeah I don't think ToS is bad but it is very much of its time and you have to go in with that mindset

    Shadowfirevagrant_windsShenl742
  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    I soured very hard on Symphonia when I played it because I bought it specifically because of the promise of lots of anime cutscenes on the back of the box and then that amounted to the title screen montage video and like a short video at the very end of the game

    BahamutZERO.gif
  • ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    Kamar wrote: »
    I wanted to say something about game threads on PA forums seeming to often be about how much everyone playing the game hates it, then I remembered that I posted repeatedly in here when I was pushing forward through Tales of Symphonia and loathing the experience.

    ...I don't even ultimately have that negative an opinion of ToS, though I'd only recommend it with a big 'feels more old-school in annoying ways than some SNES games' caveat.

    There's nothing wrong with giving something a chance, even something that you're wary about or have misgivings going in, and then loathing it. Learning new and surprising ways for something to disappoint you that you never dreamed of. Sticking with something because it has a good reputation and people say it's good, so it's got to get better, right? Or something that you want to be good, but you know in your heart of hearts that it won't be. Like the upcoming new Valkyrie game. God, that's going to sting even more than being pitched to gacha garbage did.

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  • vagrant_windsvagrant_winds Overworked Mysterious Eldritch Horror Hunter XX Registered User regular
    Rune Factory 5 reviews coming out and it's a mixed bag.

    Game is getting very much praised for it's writing and characters.
    Game is getting absolutely bashed for it's technical issues, frame drops, freezes, and hard crashes.

    // Steam: VWinds // PSN: vagrant_winds //
    // Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
  • MadicanMadican No face Registered User regular
    How on earth do you fuck up a Switch game that badly without it even being a musou.

  • vagrant_windsvagrant_winds Overworked Mysterious Eldritch Horror Hunter XX Registered User regular
    edited March 2022
    Madican wrote: »
    How on earth do you fuck up a Switch game that badly without it even being a musou.

    Believe it or not most of the delay wasn't the translation but seemingly getting the buggy as hell JP version into a passible playable state?

    Inexperienced transition into 3D woes?

    vagrant_winds on
    // Steam: VWinds // PSN: vagrant_winds //
    // Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    that's a shame, I have a real soft spot for the rune factory games, was hoping it would be largely fixed up from the messy JP release.

    BahamutZERO.gif
  • DragkoniasDragkonias That Guy Who Does Stuff You Know, There. Registered User regular
    Hmm I was looking forward to that game too.

    I'll give it a month and see if they can patch it up.

  • ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    Madican wrote: »
    How on earth do you fuck up a Switch game that badly without it even being a musou.

    Believe it or not most of the delay wasn't the translation but seemingly getting the buggy as hell JP version into a passible playable state?

    Inexperienced transition into 3D woes?

    That matches my impression when I watched some vids of the original Japanese release. Animations were incredibly janky and pretty much all cosmetics were massively glitchy and constantly clipping right through models during cutscenes. It just looked like a bad mobile game. The really awful part was the load times though. Would take ~15 seconds to load anything, even if it was just your house. Quick traveling back to the farm took 15 seconds to load the house, and then you immediately stepped outside for another 15 seconds load. I do understand the first major patch did supposedly improve that a bit, but it seemed to change it to instead 10 seconds of loading and then 10 seconds of textures and models gradually popping in. No idea if there were additional patches that helped things more though.

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  • akajaybayakajaybay Registered User regular
    Now that've hit my fill of Elden Ring for a while, I've circled back to Xenoblade Chronicles.

    Played through Futures Connected and liked that a lot. It was a good pay off for Melia who seemed a bit underserved in the back half of Chronicles.
    And nopon, surprisingly, still really work for me. Good stuff.

    So of course now I've started Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Strong start. I feel like being very forwarned about the blade outfits has me keeping expectations in check, and so far I'm enjoying it. Still getting used to all system differences. I do think the creature and character art styles in XC:DE are superior.
    These new Brogs and Bunnits just aint quite right. Also I am terrible at the salvage timing prompts. Strong plot start.

  • simulacrumsimulacrum She/herRegistered User regular
    akajaybay wrote: »
    Now that've hit my fill of Elden Ring for a while, I've circled back to Xenoblade Chronicles.

    Played through Futures Connected and liked that a lot. It was a good pay off for Melia who seemed a bit underserved in the back half of Chronicles.
    And nopon, surprisingly, still really work for me. Good stuff.

    So of course now I've started Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Strong start. I feel like being very forwarned about the blade outfits has me keeping expectations in check, and so far I'm enjoying it. Still getting used to all system differences. I do think the creature and character art styles in XC:DE are superior.
    These new Brogs and Bunnits just aint quite right. Also I am terrible at the salvage timing prompts. Strong plot start.
    I recommend keeping this video saved but don't look at until the combat really starts to open up its a lot to absorb and the game teaches you poorly
    https://youtu.be/GEksqxaML58

    One thing I'd recommend doing at the beginning until mid game is canceling the first hit of your auto attack by moving you'll build up to your driver arts quicker and speed the pace of the combat up a bit

  • MadicanMadican No face Registered User regular
    edited March 2022
    I've seen a speedrunner break open the game using the free "healer" fire unit everyone gets. Like ludicrous, kill the boss in a single blow damage.

    Edit: And I would not recommend watching that video if you don't like spoilers because oh boy there's a lot of those.

    Madican on
  • TcheldorTcheldor Registered User regular
    There're a lot of speedrun strats for big damage based on what dlc you choose to use.

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  • never dienever die Registered User regular
    I just beat Strangers of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origins and mechanically it was pretty good. Its watered down Ni-Oh in some ways but the classes are a lot of fun. The plot, with all of its hilarity and weird scenes, ends up telling a surprisingly decent story.

    DemonStacey
  • OwenashiOwenashi Registered User regular
    https://youtu.be/yogS2oJ2pZI

    New One Piece RPG announced with a story by the manga's creator.

    kimeBlackDragon480
  • akajaybayakajaybay Registered User regular
    The gacha pull blade system is DUMB. And I need to remember to pay better attention when they describe where to go next because the map markers are not cutting it. But otherwise still liking it. Only gotten one "rare" blade out of these core pulls. But they're super weird.

  • MadicanMadican No face Registered User regular
    akajaybay wrote: »
    The gacha pull blade system is DUMB. And I need to remember to pay better attention when they describe where to go next because the map markers are not cutting it. But otherwise still liking it. Only gotten one "rare" blade out of these core pulls. But they're super weird.

    If you have Nintendo Online you can use cloud saves to cheat blade pulls if you want.

  • akajaybayakajaybay Registered User regular
    I did think it was weird it only had a single save slot. Is that why? Weird. Not using Nintendo Online, I'll muddle through.
    I have a massive stack of DLC-ish gifts I have yet to redeem since I grabbed the Torna pack. I feel like those typically tilt a games difficulty badly. But if I start to feel things are getting rough I'll start cracking those open.

  • chocoboliciouschocobolicious Registered User regular
    akajaybay wrote: »
    I did think it was weird it only had a single save slot. Is that why? Weird. Not using Nintendo Online, I'll muddle through.
    I have a massive stack of DLC-ish gifts I have yet to redeem since I grabbed the Torna pack. I feel like those typically tilt a games difficulty badly. But if I start to feel things are getting rough I'll start cracking those open.

    I played through with almost entirely generic low rank blades and it was fine. It's more important to have the right elements for when the game badly explains the elemental combo thing you'll want to then look up on YouTube.

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  • I needed anime to post.I needed anime to post. boom Registered User regular
    honestly i've played a lot of gachas just because the early game, where you're trying to bolt together a team out of random draws, can actually be pretty fun and intellectually stimulating. it's like doing one of those pokemon randomizer nuzlocke sorta things. i'd really love it if a game could nail down a way to get that experience in-game, so with all the faults of the blade gacha i'm glad there's experimenting

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    Madican
  • akajaybayakajaybay Registered User regular
    edited March 2022
    Yeah I'm trying to keep track in my head what the elemental loops that can hit the third stage are. My original set of folks with their default blades only seem to have a couple possibilities. Also keep cracking cores hoping for a lightening fighter. No luck so far. Since a bunch of stuff in here is lightening weak.
    But I just hit the point the combat system loops unfolded a bit further with use of the party gauge etc. Have a fourth member now also.

    akajaybay on
  • ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    honestly i've played a lot of gachas just because the early game, where you're trying to bolt together a team out of random draws, can actually be pretty fun and intellectually stimulating. it's like doing one of those pokemon randomizer nuzlocke sorta things. i'd really love it if a game could nail down a way to get that experience in-game, so with all the faults of the blade gacha i'm glad there's experimenting

    Isn't that just a rogue-like?

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    SageinaRage
  • simulacrumsimulacrum She/herRegistered User regular
    If you a get a generic blade with orbmaster hold onto them that skill is op later

  • MadicanMadican No face Registered User regular
    ArcTangent wrote: »
    honestly i've played a lot of gachas just because the early game, where you're trying to bolt together a team out of random draws, can actually be pretty fun and intellectually stimulating. it's like doing one of those pokemon randomizer nuzlocke sorta things. i'd really love it if a game could nail down a way to get that experience in-game, so with all the faults of the blade gacha i'm glad there's experimenting

    Isn't that just a rogue-like?

    No

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