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[JRPG]s Are Teambuilding Exercises

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Posts

  • DelzhandDelzhand Hard to miss. Registered User regular
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sh2XvXz-qVk

    There's some interesting information here about how archers work. I'm not sure I agree with the conclusion that "archers are awesome", but it does seem like they have a wider niche than I thought. The fact that Eagle Eye allows you to apply status effect with 100% success is fantastic, and the idea of pairing a 1h bow with a knife for the Shadowpin finisher is pretty smart, too.

  • Munkus BeaverMunkus Beaver You don't have to attend every argument you are invited to. Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    No, archers suck I'm sorry I don't make the rules just that I finally don't need to have Arcylle in every fucking fight now.

    Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
  • TcheldorTcheldor Registered User regular
    So is Harvestella worth picking up? I was hearing very mixed things.

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  • Munkus BeaverMunkus Beaver You don't have to attend every argument you are invited to. Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    It's me, the guy who just got to the end of chapter two and only just remember that the crafting menu is in the shop.

    Why yes, I will get some pants with +1 movement and some broken ass weapons.

    Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
  • MaddocMaddoc I'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother? Registered User regular
    Arycelle makes a better Ninja with 1H Katana + Blowgun

    97H9G7S.png PSN - Masked Unit | FFXIV - Laitarne Gilgamesh
  • LucedesLucedes might be real Registered User regular
    Tcheldor wrote: »
    So is Harvestella worth picking up? I was hearing very mixed things.

    it’s a good classic B-tier JRPG with a decent battle system and an enormous farming subsystem. it has a pretty reasonable amount of content for the price. whether that’s worth $60 to you is your decision!

    there’s no customization on the MC, voices are irritating in some places and absent in most of them, but I found the game enjoyable and engaging overall. some chuds did not like having the option to use NB pronouns for your main character, for some reason.

    GreenDemonStacey
  • chocoboliciouschocobolicious Registered User regular
    Dragkonias wrote: »
    Combat is okay imo.

    It has a lot of systems that are interesting on paper but don't work as well in practice.

    Also the AI doesn't ever use more than 5AP for chains from what I've heard(something that isn't explained in game or at least not very well) meaning some things do not work for them unless you reduce the AP cost of a move.

    But it is fun to zip around on DUMA at least.

    To bring this back up, the game does tell you. Kinda. In the tutorial fight about getting AP bonuses it mentions non-controlled allies don't gain bonus AP and when swapping characters the bonus moves with you so the characters you swap from will go back to 5AP.

    I read this the first time but really didn't give it any thought. It was only when I saw it the second time that it was like, 'Oh so they did mention that.'


    Anywho, new month new gacha:

    Project Neural Cloud came out earlier today. It's a roguelite auto chess thing. Stage based, branching paths and buff cards. 3 selectable skills to do things like teleport units or pick up allies/enemies in a tornado.

    Theme is cyberspace/cloud servers with AI people.

    You're given the best tank and one of the best healers in the game for free so it's basically just building the right offense.

    Banner for 980 currency lets you just pick one of it launch 3star. Should have enough at the end of the tutorial.

    Mostly women but there are some dudes. Design is mostly that future street, hoodies everywhere, design Mica and Hypergryph love so much.

    Played for about four hours today, whew, pretty fun if autochess is your jam.

    steam_sig.png
  • Munkus BeaverMunkus Beaver You don't have to attend every argument you are invited to. Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    Maddoc wrote: »
    Arycelle makes a better Ninja with 1H Katana + Blowgun

    Yeah but I don't wanna use her because I always had to use her previously. And she's not canopus, the cool older brother who buys you beer.

    I did honestly, earnestly forget how much this game twists the knife with every fuckin battle. Oh yeah that guy you killed three missions ago? Yeah, he had a family you asshole.

    Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
  • DelzhandDelzhand Hard to miss. Registered User regular
    Maddoc wrote: »
    Arycelle makes a better Ninja with 1H Katana + Blowgun

    Yeah but I don't wanna use her because I always had to use her previously. And she's not canopus, the cool older brother who buys you beer.

    I did honestly, earnestly forget how much this game twists the knife with every fuckin battle. Oh yeah that guy you killed three missions ago? Yeah, he had a family you asshole.

    Yeah if you go into the Warren Report and look at People every single enemy commander has a full bio. Like okay, that Warlock you three-shotted on the steps of Brigantys or wherever? He was into architecture and painting, before the war he volunteered his time to care for the elderly, and his daughter called him pawpo.

    Normally that stuff is safely tucked away in the menus, but there's at least one battle in Chapter 2 (Law) where the enemy mage straight up goes "You killed my twin brother, is this really the path you want your life to go down?"

    Not really, my dude, but this branch has the best recruits, so...

    Pailryder
  • Munkus BeaverMunkus Beaver You don't have to attend every argument you are invited to. Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    Yeah, every single enemy has a backstory and it's great, but I'm specifically referring to when the enemies bring this shit up to you later.

    "You killed my husband!" Wait that dude was married?
    "You killed my fiance!" Whoa whoa whoa back up. In my defense, she was being kind of a dick.

    And yeah, I am pretty much IMMEDIATELY ending my chaos playthrough to go back to law and get the good ones before I take on the CODA shit, including the malice at the undead palace.

    Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
    Nickle
  • DelzhandDelzhand Hard to miss. Registered User regular
    Man fuck the first battle at Port Omish. Diego either immediately gets surrounded and killed, or runs away from the party and gets killed.

  • MaddocMaddoc I'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother? Registered User regular
    That was the one of the only fights I had to try multiple times

    Ultimately, try using Chariot to fiddle with RNG until Diego parries the first attack from the Berserker.

    97H9G7S.png PSN - Masked Unit | FFXIV - Laitarne Gilgamesh
  • DelzhandDelzhand Hard to miss. Registered User regular
    I actually rearranged my entire team around a winged beastmaster with a lobber, but I also have him a wortdart blowgun and in a stroke of amazing luck, I charmed the Knight, which meant I was free to pass through the rampart aura, and the entire rest of the fight became a hilarious rout.

    d097zczt06no.jpg

    PailryderBlackDragon480Donnicton
  • DelzhandDelzhand Hard to miss. Registered User regular
    Jeez. Knight Commander has SO MANY excellent skills, just picking 4 is hard.

  • MaddocMaddoc I'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother? Registered User regular
    I don't bother with double attack on her, so I go Whip/Ivory Tower/Intercession/Intimidate by default, and I'll flex in Dragon or Beast Slayer or even Mighty Blow as needed.

    97H9G7S.png PSN - Masked Unit | FFXIV - Laitarne Gilgamesh
  • MadicanMadican No face Registered User regular
    Saw two JRPGs I've never heard of but look worth a try. Astria Ascending and Trinity Trigger. One is already out and the other isn't until March.

  • ShadowfireShadowfire Vermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered User regular
    edited November 2022
    Astria Ascending is aggressively mediocre. Check it out on Gamepass if it's still there, I guess?

    Edit: Never mind, I guess it left Gamepass a couple months ago.

    Shadowfire on
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  • ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    Yeah, I saw very few good reviews of Astria Ascending (not to be confused with Astlibra Revision, a recent Metroidvania that is highly regarded), but the main thing I remember is that on release, you had to play a round of the in-game CCG to progress, but it was possible to easily miss enough bits or whatever that you needed to bet, and couldn't backtrack at that point, so you got completely softlocked. Because you couldn't play the unloseable tutorial of a fucking knockoff Triple Triad.

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  • MadicanMadican No face Registered User regular
    Well that's unfortunate, but oh well. I'll replace that with 13 Sentinels then, heard good things about that.

  • cj iwakuracj iwakura The Rhythm Regent Bears The Name FreedomRegistered User regular
    Madican wrote: »
    Well that's unfortunate, but oh well. I'll replace that with 13 Sentinels then, heard good things about that.

    It's incredible, one of the best stories around.

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    BlackDragon480BloodsheedCantide
  • Munkus BeaverMunkus Beaver You don't have to attend every argument you are invited to. Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    Delzhand wrote: »
    Man fuck the first battle at Port Omish. Diego either immediately gets surrounded and killed, or runs away from the party and gets killed.

    Shockingly, that wen fine for me. I am now in death march mode to prepare to recruit Cressida. Before postgame.

    Pray for me.

    Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
  • BlackDragon480BlackDragon480 Bluster Kerfuffle Master of Windy ImportRegistered User regular
    Astria Ascending is a fabulous aesthetic/art style grafted onto a shambling husk of a battle system with all the depth of a kiddie pool and painfully cringe dialog/VA.

    Fun to look at, shit to play.

    No matter where you go...there you are.
    ~ Buckaroo Banzai
    Shadowfire
  • DragkoniasDragkonias That Guy Who Does Stuff You Know, There. Registered User regular
    I'm curious about the Valkyrie Profile game...but not $40 curious.

    More like $25 curious.

    Pailryder
  • DelzhandDelzhand Hard to miss. Registered User regular
    With the TP/MP merge and being able to use items to increase MP, Fusiliers have gotten crazy good. I had a generic female fusilier named Temperance in my PSP save file, and she was a mainstay in my squad despite being conditionally useful because, well, to be honest I just love the female fusilier artwork.

    I ended up recreating her in Reborn, and because of MP items, you can basically use Course Correction liberally. The Vasque map that starts you on an island surrounded by poison at the bottom of a slope surrounded by zombie dragons? Temperance just fired her gun through a building and the earth it sat upon twice to kill the boss.

    Sure fusilier RT is high, but that's nothing Boon of Swiftness or Velocity Shift can't deal with.

    BahamutZERO
  • ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    I've been watching a speedrun of BoF2 before I go to sleep for the past couple days, and I had honestly forgotten how completely batshit insane the entire middle of that game was in every single way.

    I miss that.

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    Raijin Quickfoot
  • DelzhandDelzhand Hard to miss. Registered User regular
    Weirdest part of BoF II I remember is when you go inside the fat queen's body to defeat the fat demons to make her skinny again

  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    huh I have no memory of a sequence like that

    BahamutZERO.gif
    Raijin Quickfoot
  • Raijin QuickfootRaijin Quickfoot I'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    huh I have no memory of a sequence like that

    Me neither…and I feel like that’s not something I’d forget

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  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    looked it up and it indeed seems to be a thing that happened in BoF2, I just forgot I guess

    lmci43k2zmoc.png

    BahamutZERO.gif
    Donnicton
  • ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    huh I have no memory of a sequence like that

    Me neither…and I feel like that’s not something I’d forget

    You don't just need to go into her body, but her sprite is four quadrants that as you kill the fat monsters, each quadrant slims down one at a time.

    But wait, it gets weirder. That part isn't actually bosses or whatever. It's just a bunch of random encounters. With monsters that can run from battle. So the TAS of that segment is just getting into battle and then manipulating them all to run away.

    Also, it bears noting that the dungeon itself is a palette swap of the last time you had to perform demonic exploratory surgery on the insides of a whale. And the purpose of this jaunt was to get a magic pillow to enter the brain (another cellular palette swap) of an ancient tree with demon-induced Alzheimers, which you need to cure so he can... tell you to go south. There's like five dungeons, traveling back and forth across the world multiple times, retrieving multiple kingdom's sacred treasures, all so a fucking tree can say "have you tried going south?"

    And this is after whatever the fuck was going on with Jean's entire questline.

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  • Raijin QuickfootRaijin Quickfoot I'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    Oh yeah…it’s sounding familiar now

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  • MadicanMadican No face Registered User regular
    Man replaces ancient sword with ancient dinner table centerpiece

  • navgoosenavgoose Registered User regular
    Jean was replaced by a handsome lad frog (demon) while he was out fucking about. Jean originally upset nobody recognizes the swap but in reality everyone noticed but liked the new guy better.

    Pretty sure you fail to sway the palace to accept the real Jean and then his sister goes berserk forcing a confrontation with the demon imposter.

    After all is said and done the people of the kingdom still seem like like the imposter being a demon vs the real Jean being a dope is a wash, but they are frogs and stop caring about it.

  • IronKnuckle's GhostIronKnuckle's Ghost Registered User regular
    You're forgetting about the part where Jean challenges the imposter to a cooking competition and you have to go find a bunch of really gross ingredients to help him win.

    BlackDragon480
  • ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    edited December 2022
    And then you throw them all up.

    Or that the imposter chained a dude on the roof to slowly kill him, and instead of saving him, you go get his girlfriend instead. This is how you unlock the secret passage into the sewers by riding their plumbing, which is only accessible from secret torture chambers on the roof.

    This is also somewhere in the middle of the three times you have to jump into a toilet.

    E: Oh, right. And the princess's plan was to activate the castle's self-destruct system, killing everybody, but unbenownst to her, the self-destruct button was actually for hiding the legendary sword. They just told people it was to blow up the castle to make sure nobody ever pressed that button.

    BoF2 was a fucking trip.

    ArcTangent on
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  • navgoosenavgoose Registered User regular
    You're forgetting about the part where Jean challenges the imposter to a cooking competition and you have to go find a bunch of really gross ingredients to help him win.

    You lose that competition and its part of why his sister goes berserk.

    I did forget about the sword/self destruct

  • ArcTangentArcTangent Registered User regular
    The ingredients you find are monsters.

    One of them is fully sentient.

    You hunt down and kill a sentient creature, cook it, eat it, and then throw it up.

    Though to be fair, earlier in this questline, you had to visit a restaurant where witches were throwing a party, but to get in, you had to strip naked, cover yourself in salt and pepper, and then the chef tried to cook you on a massive griddle. He then attempted to murder you when it wasn't hot enough to cook you. You let him go after beating him up, and he teaches you a special skill.

    This was to retrieve a ring Jean gave to the witch he was sexually harassing, which she threw into the restaurant's toilet, and then threw up on. The witch's name is Nympho.

    What even was this game.

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  • Raijin QuickfootRaijin Quickfoot I'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    I like Chained Echoes

    But

    I don’t like that I can’t grind at all. Like there is almost no point to the regular battles other than to take up time.

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  • MNC DoverMNC Dover Full-time Voice Actor Kirkland, WARegistered User regular
    I like Chained Echoes

    But

    I don’t like that I can’t grind at all. Like there is almost no point to the regular battles other than to take up time.

    Wait, have we come full circle and miss grinding in games? I never thought I'd see the day.

    But yeah, I hate wasting time in games. Grinding, random battles, long cutscenes, and open worlds tend to make me want to nope out of a game pretty fast.

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