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[GUST] Games. Atelier Ryza is now out, post your opinions here.
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I didn't hear great things about it, but I did want to check it out at one point. I've played plenty of games with mixed reviews that I really liked.
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
// 3DS: 4682-8868-5037 // Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
any plans to do so this week? I was debating picking it up and playing/streaming it over Last Remnant, which is a game that's been frustrating me in its opaqueness(and hasn't been a ton of fun).
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
You really need to have the wiki open 24/7 when playing Last Remnant the first time, sadly. It doesn't explaim shit on it's own and there's so many undocumented in-game things. It's one of my favorite rpgs from last gen, but even I realize it's not for everyone.
My final party was a massive battlefield-wide aoe godly mage unit, two special back-attacking Ninja led units with character summons and specials, a beatstick smash unit, and an offensive item/aoe technique unit. But if you don't read the wiki you'd have no idea how to set something like that up.
As for Blue Reflection, it's a possibility I won't get to it till next week or this weekend as I have family visiting and staying over, and they like to hog my tv.
// 3DS: 4682-8868-5037 // Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
I'm about 2 hours in, just cleared the first major boss.
So far it's pretty good. The characters show some real promise, the battle system has some real nice looking intricacies, and I'm definitely intrigued as to where the game's going to go.
I'm concerned it'll end up being too easy but we shall see.
Definitely recommend as of this point.
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
Levels come from the social link stuff, which also drop items you equip to modify skills. Depending on your dialog choice, you get either a positive emotion that has one effect and boosts the character relationship, our you get a negative emotion that all seem to be actually better items/accessories but you don't boost your character bonds.
Negatives so far is that the optional costumes seem to be stupid and don't do anything in battle as the magical girl costumes overwrite them, making them even more pointless.
The big story bosses have awesome monster designs.
// 3DS: 4682-8868-5037 // Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
Well, truth be told, one of Gust's things is their games being a little too easy. And when they tried to make games difficult, like with Ar Nosurge, it wasn't so much difficult as it was imbalanced to the point that it was impossible to beat. So I'll take the games being easy, in fact I consider it a plus now... I play Gust games for all things other than their combat most of the time, with a few exceptions.
You can definitely control your leveling in this game pretty easily if you want (since you have to actually manually level up each time).
The game's been pretty cool so far.
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
*sees $80 Season Pass*
Alright... this is some Bandai-Namco Costume DLC avalanche level of bullshit. Hopefully this doesn't become a regular thing for them.
The dlc is all costumes and bad. Avoid.
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
The combat is pretty average for an Atelier game, which is honestly something I was expecting. I'm not really cool with the concept of the last person going gets the combo move, because then it's merely the slowest person that goes every time typically.
The level being maxed at only 20 is... disappointing at the very least. I mean yeah, ability points are nice and I'm used to them, but it's not a replacement for a level. In the previous trilogy you had both, this just seems like some arbitrary grinding option that fails in my eyes.
Finding ways to make specific alchemy headway in this game seems like they tried a little too hard to make recipes a puzzle. And some are just... sitting in chests in certain areas? That's maybe one of the lamest ways of coming up with recipes. That's not even a puzzle, that's just 'hope you head to this area and find it!' I don't like using guides for these games, but they made it a bit mandatory in this game, and that kinda sucks.
Clearly, you miss the part in Ayesha where Ayesha disagreed with his assessments. First, he talked about how alchemy could do horrible things and Ayesha replied how it could do wonderful things too. Then, he said that alchemy might not be the one that's evil, but it was humanity who abused it. But Ayesha disagreed with that too, saying there are a lot of wonderful and good people out there. Then, he brought her to Steinfeder to show the alchemically created murder weapon of the past, yet it still didn't change her mind.
And in Shallie Plus, even after seven years travelling with him, she was still as bright and optimistic as ever. Hell, she even got so used to him, his grouchiness didn't do anything to her anymore. She knew he was just one big tsundere (the makers of the game actually called him such in their commentaries in Ayesha). He failed to turn her into a cynic like him. And she even got him to stop smoking tobacco and start smoking her healthier herbs instead.
Ayesha's whole existence called out his cynicism and pessimism, especially since in Shallie Plus, she already inherited all of his alchemy skills, making her his equal.
Keith's teaching method is actually pretty common in the series. Rorona only taught Totori the basics, and Sophie said to Firis to learn on her own after teaching her the basics since she said inspiration from looking at the world is the most important aspect for an alchemist.
The only one that actually taught her student all the way was Totori with Meruru, which was nicely represented with Meruru learning a bunch of recipes automatically after she reached a certain alchemy level, with a cutscene of her sitting with Totori reading books.
Most Atelier heroines seem to be prodigies capable of self-study.
And Keith actually taught Ayesha in the seven years they're together. He should teach her about modern-style alchemy at the very least.
He's a giant ball of misanthropy. Same as Miruca actually. They both didn't care if humanity were to end and Miruca actually criticized Keith for not destroying Central's alchemy research more thoroughly. And they both only liked certain people that they had approved of, not caring about the rest.
At what difficulty? In lower difficulties, you shouldn't need rare post-endgame traits to beat it.
My dudes.
You might like this.
Twitch | Steam
Blizzard: Ianator#1479 / 3DS: Ianator - 1779 2336 5317 / FFXIV: Iana Ateliere (NA Sarg)
Backlog Challenge List
Yeah, the third kinda snuck up on me, like a lot of others Atelier games. Not a lot of fanfare, and there's a LOT I'm still working on in the background. Definitely have to finish Firis soon so I can start to work on this.
Congrats. I haven't 100% any of the Atelier games so far. I've gotten the normal endings on the Arland ones, and I have yet to finish any of the Dusk or Mysterious ones, despite owning all of them except the latest one(and I'm still waiting for Shallie plus to finally go on sale so I can have a complete set on my Vita, but I have the PS3 version if I ever get that far before it does go on sale).
It wasn't very hard to do everything. Some of it pretty much has to be done in new game plus (the rich ending, for instance, requires an amount of money pretty much unattainable without having a lot of extra in-game days after you unlock the last areas, which you won't have in your first playthrough). I just played through the game normally for my first playthrough, and then did NG+ for the 100%. You keep your atelier decorations (like the bigger basket, the item that lets you send stuff right to your container from anywhere, the travel time reduction, etc.), which gives you tons of time to focus on character friendships and such.
I actually liked the NG+ more than the base game, as the removal of any real time constraints made the game very relaxing.
Now that I'm playing Totori, there are most definitely some QoL things that I'm missing, but I really like Totori's voice actress, and I like the overbearing sisterhood shtick going on.
Ahhh. Okay. I never tried NG+ on any of them. I keep meaning to, but always seem to get distracted by other stuff. I still have to get through the regular game of Rorona Plus(I finished Rorona on the regular version, then the Plus version hit. Just wish I could have imported my PS3 save game from the old version so I could have started with NG+, rather than having to go through the game again just to get to NG+).
Rorona 2 sweg 4 u
The original trilogy was pretty known for having rather strict timers, especially the first time through and how late you get the ingredients for the time saving equipment. Escha/Logy is I think the first game that doesn't require you to craft those stupid cauldron/basket upgrades, instead allowing you to just flat buy the bonuses with money as they become available. Doing so as each one becomes available gives you more than enough time to complete the goals, typically with a good 30+ days left over to just dick around doing whatever. Shallie is when they just got rid of the time management system entirely(thank god)
A big BIG difference between OG Rorona and Rorona plus is the ending 'system'. In OG Rorona you could only get one ending in a single playthrough. You could get multiple endings more easily by having a game save close to the end with the game state being just-so, and then finangling things differently throughout the final assignment to trigger different endings. In Rorona plus they just nixed that entirely; when you finish the game a menu comes up that's basically 'what ending that you qualified for would you like to see?' so you can just do everything and then watch the end multiple times, selecting a different ending each time.
It looks like Totori plus might not have that improvement (I'm not 100% sure because information about the games seems sparse), so I might just follow a guide to get all the endings in one playthrough. Anybody with experience that says otherwise should feel free to speak up.
Totori Plus doesn't have that. I don't think Meruru has that either. Totori Plus came out first, then Meruru Plus, and then Rorona Plus was made(so, it was the game with the most drastic changes from the original PS3 version). I think Totori Plus had the least amount of changes from the original PS3 version(as, IIRC, Meruru got a new ending which was later made into free DLC for the PS3 version, and Rorona had the whole graphical overhaul, and overtime added).
Pretty sure Lydie & Suelle have steady deadlines, though I'm not sure if it's like Shallie and not calendar based, or like Eschatology and are.
Atelier Arland DX trilogy just hit Steam. Deluxe Pack with all three games. Individual game pages aren't up yet so this might be a prepurchase right now?
Twitch | Steam
Blizzard: Ianator#1479 / 3DS: Ianator - 1779 2336 5317 / FFXIV: Iana Ateliere (NA Sarg)
Backlog Challenge List
It was weirdly expensive when I first had a PS3, and when I got one again a while back I had completely forgotten it was a PS3 game and that I could finally play it.
IMO, AT3 has the worst combat by far, but probably the best story. Now the story takes a LONG time to get good, but it's pretty nice when it does, and is a nice end to the trilogy.
I'm thinking about it, and I can't think of anything that even contends with AT2 for 'favorite JRPG' in my head, at least as far as traditional JRPGs go.
I liked AT2 with one caveat. It was the only game where I couldn't get myself to like either of the two main girls. Their back and forth for most of the game I think hurt their personalities more than it fleshed it out. Great game, but Jaqli all the way.