There's two kinds of hard in DRPGs: actively brutal early game until you learn how to adjust and/or break it(most Etrian Odysseys, Wizardry, etc), and those that make it harder than it should be because of stupid mechanics(Stranger of Sword City).
I feel like the difficulty curve of most Etrian games is a U. Starts rough, you stabilize at a moderate level of challenge (depending on how broken your comp is), and then you get to the postgame and it stops being nice. Fuck 4's postgame dungeon and it's 5x AoE petrify enemy groups.
I play EO's postgames until I reach the door of the final boss. Worked for 1/2/3, anyway. I enjoy the mapping, but not having a very particular set of builds just to last more than a turn against the penultimate boss.
Yeah, the earlier ones were extremely "do this or die" iirc. 5 worked out to have a lot more options - it was mainly "can you keep up". Which is why it's the one I actually beat - any composition with enough damage output/sustain can beat it down eventually basically.
Nexus had too much mapping though, I burned out on that one.
Etrian 3 was the only one I've played. I played through it from scratch two or three times, without fighting the actual final boss or doing the last couple of sea quests.
I think the general level of bullshit was pretty fun, I just wish there wasn't such an absurdly large amount of grind involved in leveling and gearing and respeccing when things didn't work out. Even some of the things you could do to cut down the grind (eg RNG manipulate one of the later sea quests to 100% kill it with instant death) barely put a dent in the required grind.
Etrian 3 was the only one I've played. I played through it from scratch two or three times, without fighting the actual final boss or doing the last couple of sea quests.
I think the general level of bullshit was pretty fun, I just wish there wasn't such an absurdly large amount of grind involved in leveling and gearing and respeccing when things didn't work out. Even some of the things you could do to cut down the grind (eg RNG manipulate one of the later sea quests to 100% kill it with instant death) barely put a dent in the required grind.
Edit: oh also fewer trap options for builds, pls
3 ultimately came down to whether you were willing to play stupid games (hoplite / ninja tanking, for example) to win stupid prizes (the endgame). I've beaten it, including the sea quests, but didn't attempt to clear out the postgame content more than once.
I could only beat one of the post game dragons in EO3, after multiple attempts. Didn't bother with the others. Decided to take a break and come back later to go for the other two endings.
IIRC, you can get one conditional drop from the stratum five fake final boss, which can either create one weapon or one armor, or do one upgrade on one of those (out of a possible eight upgrades per item). So you're sort of encouraged to NG+ and play through stratum five dozens of times to gear up. Barf.
IIRC, you can get one conditional drop from the stratum five fake final boss, which can either create one weapon or one armor, or do one upgrade on one of those (out of a possible eight upgrades per item). So you're sort of encouraged to NG+ and play through stratum five dozens of times to gear up. Barf.
This is EO3? Hm.
Sad that EOX is probably the end of the series, I liked the little bit of EO1R and 2R I played, would have liked to have seen EO3/4/5 get remakes. Switch ports, too, would have been faboo~.
That's a decided lack of Savior of Sapphire Wings LE tracking numbers, NISA.
In fact... In an email titled "Update on your Trails of Cold Steel IV for PS4 Order":
Hello,
We would like to give you an update on your order for Saviors of Sapphire Wings / Stranger of Sword City Revisited Limited Edition (Nintendo Switch™)
Due to an unexpected delay in assembly in our warehouse, the outgoing shipments for preorders have been affected. We are working diligently to expedite the process and minimize any further delays. Once we have an update on when you order will ship, we will let you know right away.
Thank you for your patience while we work through this unexpected delay, and we look forward to getting your order shipped to you as soon as possible.
Best wishes,
NISA Online Store
The Steam release is still set to go live sometime today.
Yeah copies of the game are a bit backordered right now. I didn't get mine until today and they fucking bent it during shipping because of course they did, and for some reason it's not properly marked as delivered in their system so I can't return/replace it until whenever it decides to resolve? 3-5 business days. Jesus. Fortunately there's plenty on ebay for only a couple bucks more for shipping and Amazon gave me $10 credit for the trouble, I'll just have to return this one later.
Yeah copies of the game are a bit backordered right now. I didn't get mine until today and they fucking bent it during shipping because of course they did, and for some reason it's not properly marked as delivered in their system so I can't return/replace it until whenever it decides to resolve? 3-5 business days. Jesus. Fortunately there's plenty on ebay for only a couple bucks more for shipping and Amazon gave me $10 credit for the trouble, I'll just have to return this one later.
My LE from NISA will apparently ship Monday. Not the end of the world, I suppose.
A new Etrian Odyssey game for Switch might have been leaked. The same person who leaked SMT3R's release date before it was announced is claiming SMT5 this year, EO-something for Switch (EO3R?) in 2022.
Monster wo Taoshite Tsuyoi Ken ya Yoroi wo Te ni Shinasai – Yuusha Tai ga Maou wo Taosu – Sono hi wo Shinjiteimasu. (Defeat Monsters to Get Strong Swords and Armor - We Believe in the Day the Heroes will Defeat the Demon Lord.) Monyuu for short.
Character designs are by Mota, who did CompaHeart's Genkai Tokki: Seven Pirates, the latest game in the Genkai Tokki (Monster Monpiece, Moe Chronicle, and Moero Crystal) series which we didn't get. Monsters are being done by Akifumi Yamamoto, who did the monsters for 7th Dragon by ImageEpoch (who shut down apparently; bummer).
Art style shown so far is chibi characters and traditional looking Experience monsters. Odd clash between the two, but the character designer Mota's art was chibi for Genkai Tokki 4 and they were more anime proportioned in the game, which was pretty fanservice heavy.
cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
I am not liking Elminage Gothic, the changes to make the game needlessly frustrating are reminding me of Stranger of Sword City... that's not a good thing.
A new Etrian Odyssey game for Switch might have been leaked. The same person who leaked SMT3R's release date before it was announced is claiming SMT5 this year, EO-something for Switch (EO3R?) in 2022.
They were right about 3 HD, but definitely not V...
I am not liking Elminage Gothic, the changes to make the game needlessly frustrating are reminding me of Stranger of Sword City... that's not a good thing.
A new Etrian Odyssey game for Switch might have been leaked. The same person who leaked SMT3R's release date before it was announced is claiming SMT5 this year, EO-something for Switch (EO3R?) in 2022.
They were right about 3 HD, but definitely not V...
Website was last updated on March 12th according to wayback. It now says Simultaneous Worldwide Release in 2021. It originally said instead "Coming soon to the Americas and Europe."
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cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Last time I played it was when it came out in 2014, pre-patch, and I think I was on 32 bit Windows XP and my computer was slowly killing itself on this really unoptimized-for-its-time game. I had to abandon it because it was giving me glitched out lines and colors that looked like a video card dying.
Of course now it performs fine, for what it is.
I both love it and hate it. I think it's good enough that more people should play it.
It is a game hamstrung by some really kinda bad design decisions that stack up to make it feel more artificial than it should. It is no freewheeling adventure, every single monster encounter is meticulously planned out, and YOU have to meticulously plan your party to hopefully gain power faster than they do. It's designed more like a theme park ride than a living world full of adventure where you can head off in any direction at any point. And you don't really know what tools you're going to need until you need them, and you can get halfway through it and realize you ruined your characters and should probably start over. Monsters do not respawn. There is a limited amount of XP in the game and there are certain things you have to do to eke out every last point.
However, nobody makes first person dungeon crawlers with care like this anymore. I want to say at least they tried. I am used to the entire market for many years now having been Japanese games with the absolute bare minimum in graphics and detail...and I suppose this must be due to keeping realistic sales/budgetary expectations. But so many are just all dungeons made from a couple mix-and-match wall segments, and anything visually different must be described in text. Even Etrian Odyssey, the gold standard.
M&MX by contrast is an attempt at a mini-Skyrim, with mountains, trees, rivers, ruins, and a variety of scenery and 3D characters all over the place. I know Grimrock (2) did this too, but that's a different style of game, the action puzzler where you dance around trying to avoid getting hit. M&MX has turn-based combat and mechanics that remind me a little of what Etrian did, you can't attack-attack-attack through fights, you have to use your abilities in concert with each other. Buffs and debuffs matter. And building characters is a little exciting, choosing where to slot in skill points and hitting those big breakpoints that suddenly give you a huge boost. Like dual wielding daggers and then unlocking a second attack for every dagger equipped so all at once you're dealing double damage. And then you unlock the light magic Radiant Weapon debuff so the enemy can't block any of those attacks.
And there are entire towns to explore, just like the old M&Ms, Pool of Radiance or Bard's Tale. Not just a menu of places to visit! And some neat ideas like gear you have to keep equipped so it can level up and unlock its power. It has dungeons and quests locked behind having certain classes or races on your team, might not be able to experience everything in one playthrough. Towns and dungeons feel like real, organic places and not artificial reasons to have a series of doors and traps and puzzles.
Elminage Gothic garbage mess I complained about in this thread before:
Logically designed fort from M&MX:
But it also feels like the game was made by a very controlling person. Like "must...not...give...players...freedom!" "If we let them approach the encounter from THIS angle they'll be able to retreat and fire arrows from range, we can't have that, it would be too easy!" Over and over.
You can even see this in the world map design:
At the start of the game (on the lower right) you have exactly one big wide open plain where you can go anywhere, and then it quickly gives way to the rest of the game being nothing but twisty little passages where you can be ambushed from both sides as Designer Intended.
Compare to something like M&M4, where you can walk all over ALL of this with the right skills:
Somebody had a deathgrip on this thing but in spite of its issues, in many ways they did an impressive job at making it all work with a variety of party builds and still surviving these meticulously placed encounters.
Good LORD is EO4 stacked with optional, scary post-game content right from the gate. Everywhere I go, death. Death everywhere.
The postgame labyrinth is absurd.
There is an enemy combination of 5x petal things. They have a party-wide petrify attack. They can and will ambush you and every single one of them will use it and give you an instant game over.
Good LORD is EO4 stacked with optional, scary post-game content right from the gate. Everywhere I go, death. Death everywhere.
The postgame labyrinth is absurd.
There is an enemy combination of 5x petal things. They have a party-wide petrify attack. They can and will ambush you and every single one of them will use it and give you an instant game over.
I just started the second area. I'm just overwhelmed by all there is to do, and especially all the terrifying FOEs roaming the skies. It reminds me of Doomgaze/Ultimate Weapon roaming FFVI/VII.
EO3 was my first and this far only experience with the series. It is fascinating to me how the FOEs went from avoid-at-all-costs to "please respawn faster so I can farm you" over the course of the game. Also how, on a fresh replay, some of them were quite killable even on the first encounter if I'd been building for them (the first stratum boss has a conditional drop that's reasonable to get and makes a weapon that is endgame quality)
Art style is chibi in game. Stats look like standard Experience stats (same as SoSW / SoSC / Demon Gaze). Was right, the art difference between the chibi characters and the monsters is a bit striking.
Apparently Ubisoft is permanently ending support for Might & Magic X in late May, which means no more earning Ubisoft points for achievements and presumably the game won't be able to phone home to Ubisoft Connect anymore.
Ubisoft games have purchasable DLC type things, but not for real money, purchasable with coins you earn from doing certain achievements. In this game they're a set of relics you begin the game with (cool gear that levels up while equipped), a genie hireling who can buff you once a day, and the Temple of Meow dungeon (a Might & Magic "weird cult" staple). At some point they auto-unlocked all this content in MMX for everyone. But the concern now is that when support ends, the game won't be able to validate that you have the ability to access that content anymore.
It's possible that unless someone gets hacking, no one will ever be able to visit that dungeon from a new save again.
3. If the game is Ubisoft Connect-enabled:
The Ubisoft Connect service will no longer be available for the game on consoles.
Units (the Ubisoft Connect currency) and Actions for the game will be disabled, meaning you will no longer be able to earn Units by completing Actions for the game.
Rewards will be disabled in-game, meaning that you can still unlock them, but you will not receive them. If you unlock them after the closure of the online service for the game, please feel free to contact our Customer Support team to be refunded.
4. The ULC will be disabled, meaning that you will no longer be able to unlock them. On PC, even if you have redeemed them, the ULC will no longer be available. On consoles, the ULC will be available until you decide to reset your saved game files.
I guess I came back to this game at just the right time...
I bounced off M&MX because of a couple of annoying design choices. Characters that are stunned or asleep don't gain exp at the end of battle. Also it was annoying that the game would spawn enemies from areas I had already cleared out just to be able to make my group fight enemies on two sides.
I do keep thinking about going back. Really most of the M&M series.
Yeah, it definitely has its issues. Stun, sleep, and the usual other statuses like death prevent XP, but there's a limited amount of XP in the game! It's even the worst implementation of status XP prevention too, in that the excess XP isn't distributed to other members, so you just get nothing. If you ever finish a fight with someone stunned you really want to reload the game, and that's no fun.
I feel like they should choose one. Either don't block XP gain with statuses, or give opportunities for endless XP.
Also funnily enough there's a Uplay achievement to get your entire party to level 40...except if you do everything perfectly (meaning: hire a +10% XP hireling ASAP and never let him leave), your maximum level will be around 37. You cannot get that achievement without hacking. Feels like things were rebalanced at some point just before released and never re-evaluated.
Some other weird bits:
After you defeat a boss at the elemental forge, you unlock the special ability to walk through deep vine-y forest tiles. At the point in the game when you do this...you have never encountered a single forest tile like this anywhere. You are forced to kill the boss to make a guard leave the bridge he's guarding which leads to the first areas with these vine tiles. So...you unlock exactly nothing.
They picked a bad implementation for traps. You don't see them at all unless a trap sense spell is active. However, there are only like 3 small areas with traps in the entire game. They are all pretty early on. I will say these areas look visually ripe for traps, but it's still weird. The balance between wanting players to be on their toes and cast trap sense spells all the time and re-cast when they wear off, vs. teaching the player pretty quickly that there are almost no traps in the game so you don't bother detecting them and just blunder into them and die. Best trap implementation in games like these are chests where it tells you "there is a trap. Who will disarm?" And you have a thief designed to take care of these things.
I'm not a fan of the overall design where the game itself is a "class building puzzle" to be solved, but you don't have sufficient information along the way to solve that puzzle. If you focus a party on non-magical pursuits and also don't beeline for skill breakpoints (expert/master/grandmaster), you may have to start over completely. Like if you decide to spread around your points a bit and level things evenly, you're going to have trouble. A secondary aspect to this is that you don't have access to some skill trainers until specific cities or points in the game, so you might even do everything right and go straight for master level daggers, and then find out you won't be able to actually train in that until you get to the third city. So it's also about knowing the game well enough, or reading a guide, to level the things that you can actually train in at the point you're at.
However, again, in spite of all this later in the game when you get some combat skills up to master or grandmaster, you feel so powerful and the game gets easier. I just really missed the tile by tile exploration with stuff hidden all over the place, chests and buffs and secret doors and all that, and this game scratches the itch.
It'll be the director and producer getting drunk, answering questions, and previewing Monyuu again.
Edit:
They showed off some preorder posters
Showed off some more character art. There's a claymore using class that looks just like your standard Isekai protagonist.
Showed some more demo footage, this time the character creator. Looks like the chibi art style is used in game, looks a lot like EO. Even has the pallet swap thing from EO.
I've been randomly playing the Bard's Tale Trilogy.
I just got to the end of the first game. Not bad, if you just want to kill some stuff and level up. Actually pretty good for the era it comes from.
I really dislike poor economies like this, though. I guess that's inherent in one town/one shop games, especially the extremely prototypical games like this. But it's just conceptually annoying that the shop only sells basic swords and robes and you have to find literally everything else in the dungeon. Shining in the Darkness subverted this by gradually unlocking great expensive new gear in the shop as you progressed. Etrian Odyssey is probably the epitome of how to do it, bringing back resources to craft/unlock items in the shop.
From what I understand the next two games in the trilogy are a complete bore because outside of a few new classes to promote to, there are no new spells or abilities to learn, and almost no new gear either. If you import your party you will be overpowered and have everything you could ever need, there's nothing to look forward to with new levels other than for archmages in 2, and chronomancers and geomancers in 3. And I know I can do a half-import or a reset import, but I don't feel the desire to start all over again. I see it as a fault in the game design, that they let you import but don't have anywhere for your imported characters to progress. Oh well.
* Chibi Art, Not so Chibi bosses
* EO style FoEs (same as many JP Wizardy games are doing nowadays)
* JP Wizardry Descendant style classes, same as other Experience games
* Items have ranks in this, apparently beyond your bog standard "this is a D rank sword drop so it can be one of 3 different D rank swords."
* 3 stats on any given item, that randomly are given 0-5 stars, with S ranks being those with all 5 stars?
* Treasure chests tell you what rank they are, and roll between 3 ranks, apparently. Likely just like how previous Experience games have done them, but now they actually tell you.
* 3 stats on any given item, that randomly are given 0-5 stars, with S ranks being those with all 5 stars?
Are you talking about the stuff shown at 2:59 in the trailer? Because those are ratings for clearing each map. Apparently getting a high rank in one floor means that the loot on the next floor will be better.
The things I noticed in the trailer were that the variety of the 8 classes (Knight, Samurai, Warrior, Monk, Ninja, Gunner, Martial Artist, and Mage) seems a little lacking compared to previous games. You can apparently have characters change class outside of dungeons at any time, however. And there seems to be a fairly strict level cap in place which goes up each time you defeat one of the seven demon kings.
* 3 stats on any given item, that randomly are given 0-5 stars, with S ranks being those with all 5 stars?
Are you talking about the stuff shown at 2:59 in the trailer? Because those are ratings for clearing each map. Apparently getting a high rank in one floor means that the loot on the next floor will be better.
The things I noticed in the trailer were that the variety of the 8 classes (Knight, Samurai, Warrior, Monk, Ninja, Gunner, Martial Artist, and Mage) seems a little lacking compared to previous games. You can apparently have characters change class outside of dungeons at any time, however. And there seems to be a fairly strict level cap in place which goes up each time you defeat one of the seven demon kings.
Iiiinteresting. I'm not bilingual, to my eternal shame, so I'm just winging it with what I can see and catch people talking about in chat with DeepL.
Wonder how it calculates the map clearing? I mean, unless it's randomly generated maps or something, won't you slowly grind up to 5 stars on each of the three categories as you fill out the map? And yeah unless Monk is the healer, that does seem super spartan. Wizardry 5 tier spartan. Wonder if there are subclasses?
Wonder how it calculates the map clearing? I mean, unless it's randomly generated maps or something, won't you slowly grind up to 5 stars on each of the three categories as you fill out the map?
Your rank seems to be based on the average level of your party, the number of turns it took you to clear the map, and how many party wipes you suffered. The S rank example shown has the party winning in 7 turns with no wipes and an average level of 3. I'm not sure what "turns" means in this context or if you get chances to improve your score after clearing a map.
Anyone tried the Saviors of Sapphire Wings/Stranger of Sword City games on Switch yet? I'm curious to know if it's worth a buy or not. Especially how the second game compares to it's XBox version.
Anyone tried the Saviors of Sapphire Wings/Stranger of Sword City games on Switch yet? I'm curious to know if it's worth a buy or not. Especially how the second game compares to it's XBox version.
I finally got around to firing it up after realizing I have spent more time in Rimworld the past few weeks than I have, technically speaking, spent awake.
It's good. SoSC RE is probably a straight port, which is fine. I talked about it a lot a few pages back -- I'm looking forward to having another chance to screw that one up. The additional elements they added in RE are just fun. Proooobably will skip out on the way I abused the game the first time (solo time-ninja run to avoid the LP system outright). I am kinda interested in the puppeteer class that they added alongside the time mage and the isekai protagonist classses. It seemed like it could be interesting, but, probably broken? Not near as broken as Time Mage, though, hah.
I'm doing Sapphire Wings right now. Haven't quite gotten a full party yet, but it's interesting and I'm sure I will soon. Not sure if the game has anything exploitable like the Time-bending-Ninja-death-ball-thing from SoSCRE, but, if there is I'll find it soon enough.
They still haven't fixed the typo with the Valliant class name. Ree.
Edit: No solo time-ninja shenanigans in Sapphire Wings -- you are required to take at least one Squire into the dungeon with the main character. Boo~!
Edit: Oh, darnit. Mary Skelter Final just arrived, too. And I haven't even touched Mary Skelter 2 yet. Or... finished 1, really. Man, it's gonna be an Autumn / Winter of DRPGs, isn't it?
IIRC when I mentioned it last someone mentioned it has something to do with flowers causing the labyrinth to change? The trailer shows someone using a flower to create a door to enter a hidden area, so that's interesting.
Also, random realization, NIS's DRPG, the followup to Labyrinth of Refrain, hasn't been announced for the US yet. Hope it does, Refrain was a strong contender for my favorite game of that year.
Edit: Hm. Switch port announced for November, maybe that'll be the version we get in the West?
Oh goodie, found the Amazon page for the physical version of Undernauts. What the hell is this screenshot, a girl with hooves for hands in a rusty wheelchair? Yeah this is an Experience game. Time to preorder.
All these post-covid game releases are going to be bad for my wallet, everyone's scrambling to get back onto the market.
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I play EO's postgames until I reach the door of the final boss. Worked for 1/2/3, anyway. I enjoy the mapping, but not having a very particular set of builds just to last more than a turn against the penultimate boss.
Nexus had too much mapping though, I burned out on that one.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
I think the general level of bullshit was pretty fun, I just wish there wasn't such an absurdly large amount of grind involved in leveling and gearing and respeccing when things didn't work out. Even some of the things you could do to cut down the grind (eg RNG manipulate one of the later sea quests to 100% kill it with instant death) barely put a dent in the required grind.
Edit: oh also fewer trap options for builds, pls
Märchen being the German word for fairy tale, incidentally.
3 ultimately came down to whether you were willing to play stupid games (hoplite / ninja tanking, for example) to win stupid prizes (the endgame). I've beaten it, including the sea quests, but didn't attempt to clear out the postgame content more than once.
This is EO3? Hm.
Sad that EOX is probably the end of the series, I liked the little bit of EO1R and 2R I played, would have liked to have seen EO3/4/5 get remakes. Switch ports, too, would have been faboo~.
In fact... In an email titled "Update on your Trails of Cold Steel IV for PS4 Order":
The Steam release is still set to go live sometime today.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1363840/Saviors_of_Sapphire_Wings__Stranger_of_Sword_City_Revisited/
Edit: Went live at 1 PM EST. $50 with 20% off launch sale, so $40.
My LE from NISA will apparently ship Monday. Not the end of the world, I suppose.
A new Etrian Odyssey game for Switch might have been leaked. The same person who leaked SMT3R's release date before it was announced is claiming SMT5 this year, EO-something for Switch (EO3R?) in 2022.
https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2021/03/19/experience-reveals-new-dungeon-crawling-rpg-monyuu-for-switch
Monster wo Taoshite Tsuyoi Ken ya Yoroi wo Te ni Shinasai – Yuusha Tai ga Maou wo Taosu – Sono hi wo Shinjiteimasu. (Defeat Monsters to Get Strong Swords and Armor - We Believe in the Day the Heroes will Defeat the Demon Lord.) Monyuu for short.
http://monyuu.jp/
Teaser trailer is up, full announcement later this week. Trailer calls it a "Test Your Skills * Dungeon Crawling RPG."
Character designs are by Mota, who did CompaHeart's Genkai Tokki: Seven Pirates, the latest game in the Genkai Tokki (Monster Monpiece, Moe Chronicle, and Moero Crystal) series which we didn't get. Monsters are being done by Akifumi Yamamoto, who did the monsters for 7th Dragon by ImageEpoch (who shut down apparently; bummer).
Art style shown so far is chibi characters and traditional looking Experience monsters. Odd clash between the two, but the character designer Mota's art was chibi for Genkai Tokki 4 and they were more anime proportioned in the game, which was pretty fanservice heavy.
Livestream in 3 days (5 AM PST on March 26th)
And I liked Original.
They were right about 3 HD, but definitely not V...
https://www.atlus.com/smt5/home.html
Website was last updated on March 12th according to wayback. It now says Simultaneous Worldwide Release in 2021. It originally said instead "Coming soon to the Americas and Europe."
Last time I played it was when it came out in 2014, pre-patch, and I think I was on 32 bit Windows XP and my computer was slowly killing itself on this really unoptimized-for-its-time game. I had to abandon it because it was giving me glitched out lines and colors that looked like a video card dying.
Of course now it performs fine, for what it is.
I both love it and hate it. I think it's good enough that more people should play it.
It is a game hamstrung by some really kinda bad design decisions that stack up to make it feel more artificial than it should. It is no freewheeling adventure, every single monster encounter is meticulously planned out, and YOU have to meticulously plan your party to hopefully gain power faster than they do. It's designed more like a theme park ride than a living world full of adventure where you can head off in any direction at any point. And you don't really know what tools you're going to need until you need them, and you can get halfway through it and realize you ruined your characters and should probably start over. Monsters do not respawn. There is a limited amount of XP in the game and there are certain things you have to do to eke out every last point.
However, nobody makes first person dungeon crawlers with care like this anymore. I want to say at least they tried. I am used to the entire market for many years now having been Japanese games with the absolute bare minimum in graphics and detail...and I suppose this must be due to keeping realistic sales/budgetary expectations. But so many are just all dungeons made from a couple mix-and-match wall segments, and anything visually different must be described in text. Even Etrian Odyssey, the gold standard.
M&MX by contrast is an attempt at a mini-Skyrim, with mountains, trees, rivers, ruins, and a variety of scenery and 3D characters all over the place. I know Grimrock (2) did this too, but that's a different style of game, the action puzzler where you dance around trying to avoid getting hit. M&MX has turn-based combat and mechanics that remind me a little of what Etrian did, you can't attack-attack-attack through fights, you have to use your abilities in concert with each other. Buffs and debuffs matter. And building characters is a little exciting, choosing where to slot in skill points and hitting those big breakpoints that suddenly give you a huge boost. Like dual wielding daggers and then unlocking a second attack for every dagger equipped so all at once you're dealing double damage.
And there are entire towns to explore, just like the old M&Ms, Pool of Radiance or Bard's Tale. Not just a menu of places to visit! And some neat ideas like gear you have to keep equipped so it can level up and unlock its power. It has dungeons and quests locked behind having certain classes or races on your team, might not be able to experience everything in one playthrough. Towns and dungeons feel like real, organic places and not artificial reasons to have a series of doors and traps and puzzles.
Elminage Gothic garbage mess I complained about in this thread before:
Logically designed fort from M&MX:
But it also feels like the game was made by a very controlling person. Like "must...not...give...players...freedom!" "If we let them approach the encounter from THIS angle they'll be able to retreat and fire arrows from range, we can't have that, it would be too easy!" Over and over.
You can even see this in the world map design:
At the start of the game (on the lower right) you have exactly one big wide open plain where you can go anywhere, and then it quickly gives way to the rest of the game being nothing but twisty little passages where you can be ambushed from both sides as Designer Intended.
Compare to something like M&M4, where you can walk all over ALL of this with the right skills:
Somebody had a deathgrip on this thing but in spite of its issues, in many ways they did an impressive job at making it all work with a variety of party builds and still surviving these meticulously placed encounters.
Oh also it has Uplay and that's the majority of peoples' complaints with it. But it's also on sale on steam for 6 dollars for the next week.
Either that, or they literally use one or the other depending on what screen you're on.
Edit:
Oh NISA. Never change.
Two different ways ON THE SAME PAGE.
(It's 100% supposed to be "Valiant.")
The postgame labyrinth is absurd.
There is an enemy combination of 5x petal things. They have a party-wide petrify attack. They can and will ambush you and every single one of them will use it and give you an instant game over.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
I just started the second area. I'm just overwhelmed by all there is to do, and especially all the terrifying FOEs roaming the skies. It reminds me of Doomgaze/Ultimate Weapon roaming FFVI/VII.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Edit: That is a lot of alcohol. Ha.
Art style is chibi in game. Stats look like standard Experience stats (same as SoSW / SoSC / Demon Gaze). Was right, the art difference between the chibi characters and the monsters is a bit striking.
6 person party.
https://imgur.com/a/9CwqfsK
Character bonus points are 10 - 21?
Classes are not restricted to stat values like in Wizardry / Elminage.
There may be a character level cap that you have to break through? "Red indicates the level cap has been reached."
Edit:
Another Experience game. High school Urban Horror. No idea if a Gridder.
https://imgur.com/a/kuo2l5A
Ubisoft games have purchasable DLC type things, but not for real money, purchasable with coins you earn from doing certain achievements. In this game they're a set of relics you begin the game with (cool gear that levels up while equipped), a genie hireling who can buff you once a day, and the Temple of Meow dungeon (a Might & Magic "weird cult" staple). At some point they auto-unlocked all this content in MMX for everyone. But the concern now is that when support ends, the game won't be able to validate that you have the ability to access that content anymore.
It's possible that unless someone gets hacking, no one will ever be able to visit that dungeon from a new save again.
https://forums.ubisoft.com/showthread.php/1241617-Online-Services-Update-Masterlist-Forums
I guess I came back to this game at just the right time...
I do keep thinking about going back. Really most of the M&M series.
I feel like they should choose one. Either don't block XP gain with statuses, or give opportunities for endless XP.
Also funnily enough there's a Uplay achievement to get your entire party to level 40...except if you do everything perfectly (meaning: hire a +10% XP hireling ASAP and never let him leave), your maximum level will be around 37. You cannot get that achievement without hacking. Feels like things were rebalanced at some point just before released and never re-evaluated.
Some other weird bits:
However, again, in spite of all this later in the game when you get some combat skills up to master or grandmaster, you feel so powerful and the game gets easier. I just really missed the tile by tile exploration with stuff hidden all over the place, chests and buffs and secret doors and all that, and this game scratches the itch.
It'll be the director and producer getting drunk, answering questions, and previewing Monyuu again.
Edit:
They showed off some preorder posters
Showed off some more character art. There's a claymore using class that looks just like your standard Isekai protagonist.
Showed some more demo footage, this time the character creator. Looks like the chibi art style is used in game, looks a lot like EO. Even has the pallet swap thing from EO.
Not much game footage shown other than that.
Starts with a new trailer for Mon-yu. Hypes up the difficulty?
This time they're showing gameplay footage in the bottom right corner as they talk.
Might be out July 15th?
I just got to the end of the first game. Not bad, if you just want to kill some stuff and level up. Actually pretty good for the era it comes from.
I really dislike poor economies like this, though. I guess that's inherent in one town/one shop games, especially the extremely prototypical games like this. But it's just conceptually annoying that the shop only sells basic swords and robes and you have to find literally everything else in the dungeon. Shining in the Darkness subverted this by gradually unlocking great expensive new gear in the shop as you progressed. Etrian Odyssey is probably the epitome of how to do it, bringing back resources to craft/unlock items in the shop.
From what I understand the next two games in the trilogy are a complete bore because outside of a few new classes to promote to, there are no new spells or abilities to learn, and almost no new gear either. If you import your party you will be overpowered and have everything you could ever need, there's nothing to look forward to with new levels other than for archmages in 2, and chronomancers and geomancers in 3. And I know I can do a half-import or a reset import, but I don't feel the desire to start all over again. I see it as a fault in the game design, that they let you import but don't have anywhere for your imported characters to progress. Oh well.
Mon-yu trailer is up.
* Chibi Art, Not so Chibi bosses
* EO style FoEs (same as many JP Wizardy games are doing nowadays)
* JP Wizardry Descendant style classes, same as other Experience games
* Items have ranks in this, apparently beyond your bog standard "this is a D rank sword drop so it can be one of 3 different D rank swords."
* 3 stats on any given item, that randomly are given 0-5 stars, with S ranks being those with all 5 stars?
* Treasure chests tell you what rank they are, and roll between 3 ranks, apparently. Likely just like how previous Experience games have done them, but now they actually tell you.
The things I noticed in the trailer were that the variety of the 8 classes (Knight, Samurai, Warrior, Monk, Ninja, Gunner, Martial Artist, and Mage) seems a little lacking compared to previous games. You can apparently have characters change class outside of dungeons at any time, however. And there seems to be a fairly strict level cap in place which goes up each time you defeat one of the seven demon kings.
Iiiinteresting. I'm not bilingual, to my eternal shame, so I'm just winging it with what I can see and catch people talking about in chat with DeepL.
Wonder how it calculates the map clearing? I mean, unless it's randomly generated maps or something, won't you slowly grind up to 5 stars on each of the three categories as you fill out the map? And yeah unless Monk is the healer, that does seem super spartan. Wizardry 5 tier spartan. Wonder if there are subclasses?
Let's Play Final Fantasy 'II' (Ch10 - 5/17/10)
I finally got around to firing it up after realizing I have spent more time in Rimworld the past few weeks than I have, technically speaking, spent awake.
It's good. SoSC RE is probably a straight port, which is fine. I talked about it a lot a few pages back -- I'm looking forward to having another chance to screw that one up. The additional elements they added in RE are just fun. Proooobably will skip out on the way I abused the game the first time (solo time-ninja run to avoid the LP system outright). I am kinda interested in the puppeteer class that they added alongside the time mage and the isekai protagonist classses. It seemed like it could be interesting, but, probably broken? Not near as broken as Time Mage, though, hah.
I'm doing Sapphire Wings right now. Haven't quite gotten a full party yet, but it's interesting and I'm sure I will soon. Not sure if the game has anything exploitable like the Time-bending-Ninja-death-ball-thing from SoSCRE, but, if there is I'll find it soon enough.
They still haven't fixed the typo with the Valliant class name. Ree.
Edit: No solo time-ninja shenanigans in Sapphire Wings -- you are required to take at least one Squire into the dungeon with the main character. Boo~!
Edit: Oh, darnit. Mary Skelter Final just arrived, too. And I haven't even touched Mary Skelter 2 yet. Or... finished 1, really. Man, it's gonna be an Autumn / Winter of DRPGs, isn't it?
Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi
IIRC when I mentioned it last someone mentioned it has something to do with flowers causing the labyrinth to change? The trailer shows someone using a flower to create a door to enter a hidden area, so that's interesting.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1570510/Undernauts_Labyrinth_of_Yomi/
Has a weird mix of Fantasy and Modern aesthetics.
Also, random realization, NIS's DRPG, the followup to Labyrinth of Refrain, hasn't been announced for the US yet. Hope it does, Refrain was a strong contender for my favorite game of that year.
Edit: Hm. Switch port announced for November, maybe that'll be the version we get in the West?
https://www.nintendoenthusiast.com/nis-dungeon-rpg-labyrinth-of-galleria-coven-of-dusk-coming-to-switch/
With no magic?
... And no minimap?
Thanks game, forgot you were an Experience game for a second there.
All these post-covid game releases are going to be bad for my wallet, everyone's scrambling to get back onto the market.