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Glen-i

N-E Staff
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Posts posted by Glen-i


  1. 56 minutes ago, darksnowman said:

    But maybe because it's not on the same console it doesn't count?

    This is the rub. If it was for the next Switch, then I'd be very much "Eh, whatever", but it's the fact that people who bought the original don't get any option to upgrade other then paying full price and starting from scratch, even though it's on the same console.


  2. 4 minutes ago, darksnowman said:

    @Glen-i'd be all over Pokémon doing this (Yellow, Crystal, Emerald, etc) and now he'll post irrefutable evidence to the contrary.

    Pokemon stopped doing this last generation. And before the 3DS, doing it via DLC wasn't possible. It's not a good sign when Pokémon is ahead of you in this regard.

    It also differs because SMT hasn't really set it as a precedent to expect. This is Atlus pulling shenanigans because Persona players eat this stuff up.


  3. 3 hours ago, Julius said:

    if you don't want the least definitive version of an Atlus game, don't pick it up at launch and be willing to wait 2-3 years for a definitive version. 

    And yet, that didn't happen for SMT IV, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, or Radiant Historia. I don't think I'm to blame for thinking it would be more of a Persona thing.

    Granted, the other two did get updated ports, but at least they were on different consoles.

    Anyway, I'm not paying for the "privilege" of starting a fresh file of a game I already have on my Switch. Atlus can get stuffed with that nonsense.


  4. 6 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

    No, because Earthbound Beginnings was localised all the way back in 1993-1994.  The English version was already done.

    That wouldn't be the case for Earthbound Endings however... it would be a similar situation as with Sin & Punishment and with Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & The Blade of Light.

    Also EB was sold as a VC release anyway, not given away for free as part of a subscription.

    All I know was that Mother 3 was made available on Japanese WiiU, and nothing came of it.

    Gonna assume it's not happening. History has said as much.

    But hey, you can easily play it now. You have the Japanese GBA app.


  5. 19 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

    So basically you want it just like the other games?

    Yeah, you get it!

    I was mostly joking, I would never buy another Legends game, but I'm not budging on the battle system in Legends being utter crap.

    Because it is, it's awful!

    And also, I don't like Legends, Let's Go, or the direction the mainline games is taking, so what am I gonna do? Get stuffed, I guess?

    EDIT: Anyway word of general warning. Pokémon Presents is about the entire franchise, not just the mainline games. Expect a whole load of mobile game tat, and certainly no guarantee of a mainline game.


  6. On 19/02/2024 at 11:34 AM, Hero-of-Time said:

    Also, it appears this game has been made even easier than the original. Someone on Era took images of a couple of stages that showed changes had been made that took away some of the challenge. 

    Oh no, that's a deal-breaker for me.

    I thought they would've left the levels untouched, especially as they added an easier difficulty mode.

    • Like 1

  7. 3 hours ago, Julius said:

    So yeah, while guessing what Game Freak/TPCi are going to do next based on patterns is a fruitless endeavour, I think there's definitely small a chance that we see Johto games next.

    I disagree.

    They didn't haphazardly set the second DLC of Scarlet/Violet in "Unova" for giggles. Unova's next.

    You know what though? I'd be willing to give a Legends style game another chance. They'd have to tweak a few things though.

    - Get rid of of the open areas nonsense. Don't need it now that the mainline games are open world.

    - Make me catch Pokémon through battling them. Give my Pokémon some reason to contribute! It's not remotely satisfying just chucking a ball at them and moving on. Make me work for it! If I want to catch thousands of Shinx, I'll play Pokémon Go, which I won't. Because it's crap.

    - No-one likes gathering hundreds of crap to craft stuff. Boring busywork. And while we're getting rid of boring busywork, have the corresponding Pokédex entry fill in completely once I catch a Pokémon. Don't make me use Tackle 40 times to get halfway there.

    - Use the old battle system. It's not broken, don't try to fix it.

    They can keep those action segments where you have to dodge a boss's attacks in real time before using an opening to switch to turn based and dealing loads of damage. Those were legit great!

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1

  8. 19 minutes ago, Josh64 said:

    I'm not sure they'd do Mario Kart right away as they seem to be getting a lot out of the Booster Course Pass by having it as an extra for NSO Expansion

    Actually, there is a physical version of that.

    But it only goes to Wave 5 for stupid reasons.

    • Like 1

  9. 2x1_NSwitchDS_ChainedEchoes.jpg

    Chained Echoes is a turn based RPG mostly developed by Matthias Linda. Yes, that's not a company name, that's a person's. It's not a complete solo effort, but over a long 7 years, I can only imagine a painstaking amount of effort went into it. It was released on all modern platforms on December 2022. I played the Switch version.

    The game is set on the continent of Valandis, and doesn't have a true central protagonist for most of the game, but the main focus is on five characters. Glenn, the mercenary with an incorrectly spelled name. Lenne, a princess who is undercover to better understand her country. Sienna, a thief known as the "Red Succubus". Victor, a famous playwright, and his friend, Ba'thraz, a blacksmith, who's my favourite character. Why is he my favourite? Who knows? Couldn't possibly be because he's a lizard. Nah, don't be silly. (Real talk, his backstory hit the hardest, so yeah. My lizard bias at first. But after that? Genuine favourite)

    A year ago, Valandis was in the midst of a war. It had been going on for 150 years, but then it suddenly ended when a humongous explosion killed thousands of people and scared everyone into signing a peace treaty. This explosion was caused by something called the Grand Grimoire, and Glenn may have been tricked into setting it off. He's feeling a bit guilty about it, but bigger issues may be arising as rumblings of someone trying to restart the war are starting to circulate. The 5 main characters all have their own reasons for stopping this war, but explaining that would be spoilers.

    The plot is very excellent. Easily the strongest aspect of the game. The characters are all great, Sienna was another fave of mine. She's very sarcastic, and may be a little self-aware.

    GGr9_CcaEAAj8zE?format=jpg&name=large

    I mean, she's not wrong.

    The battle system is the other strong aspect of Chained Echoes. It's pretty unique. Best to explain this with a picture.

    GGr9_CdbcAAVq_4?format=jpg&name=large

    There are two main mechanics to battles. The first one is the tag team system. If you look at the bottom right, you'll notice the red haired guy at the very bottom has another person next to him on the HUD. That means those two characters can swap between each other. The key thing is that they can only swap with each other. So you need to think about who can compliment each other well. You don't want to leave yourself without some way of healing, for example.

    The other main system is the Overdrive bar, on the top left. That arrow moves towards the right whenever anyone performs an action. When the arrow is in the yellow section, then everything is normal. If it goes into the green section, then you're in Overdrive mode, which means you take less damage, deal more damage, and skills cost half the TP. However, if you let the arrow travel to the red section, then you take wayyyy more damage. That's bad.
    Some things can make the arrow go back to the left, swapping characters does it a little, as does defending, but when you're in Overdrive, a random type of skill will be shown on the top left, where that padlock symbol is. If you use a skill with the same symbol, then the arrow jumps to the left a considerable distance. Using an Ultra Move (Basically, a limit break, but any character using theirs will deplete the bar entirely, and each character has a different one.) also makes the arrow go to the left. So the flow of battle revolves around balancing that arrow in the green area.

    Each character has skills unique to them, but you can find "Class Emblems" which basically function as a rudimentary job system. It's a very basic implementation of a job system, but hey, it's some level of customisation, and that's no bad thing.

    I wish I could say the same for how you get stronger though... For some stupid reason, this has a similar method of leveling up as Chrono Cross. Levels are tied to how many bosses you've beaten, which means grinding won't do much. You do get SP for winning fights, which upgrade the skills you have equipped, but don't expect it to help much. Each level you get has to be manually spent on either a usable attack, a passive skill, or extra stat boosts.

    I don't like the kind of system that arbitrarily limits the player, especially if the game happens to be really quite difficult. Chained Echoes doesn't mess around, I honestly found standard enemies more difficult then the majority of bosses. The game autosaves all the time, which is good, because it's very easy to end up dead suddenly. The balance is all wack. After the midway point, when you get at least 8 characters to use, it gets a lot more manageable. It is handled better then Chrono Cross, mind you, as there's a number of optional level ups, normally tied to sidequests or the achievement board.

    GGr9_CZbkAAXQCM?format=jpg&name=large

    The descriptions are pretty great though.

    Honestly, the game has a lot of cool mechanics that I haven't mentioned, but it would take too long to go through them.
    Anyway, the visuals are fine, probably didn't help that I played Sea of Stars right before this game. Kinda unfair, really. But now that I know that most of it is done by one person, I can be a bit more lenient now.

    The music's decent too. Not a massive masterpiece, but very nice.

    So yeah, the game's solid, and quite an impressive product with how small the team was.

    Spoiler

    Sea of Stars
    Chained Echoes

     

    • Like 2
    • Thanks 1

  10. 48 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

    Looks like a new edition of the game is coming. Gematsu are reporting that Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance has been rated in Korea. I know that there has been a rumour going for a while now that a complete edition would be getting released on Switch, PS4 and PC. This looks to be it.

    A little annoyed, because I just played through that 4 times recently.

    Secretly hoping it's more in the vein of SMT IV: Apocalypse with that kind of title. I would totally be up for for a Majora's Mask style seperate game with recycled assets!


  11. 39 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

    Financial news.

    Again, stupidly high budgets for the AAA industry just aren't sustainable. 

    The problem is that the majority of dedicated customers won't settle for anything less. They've been conditioned as much. It's why indies get snubbed in general discourse because of their relatively low budgets.

    Probably why they tend to do so well on Switch, the average Nintendo user doesn't give a toss about how pretty a game looks. So without that barrier, those games have more room to showcase what makes them worth purchasing.


  12. 25 minutes ago, Julius said:

    Don't know how much I'll talk about the DLC in this thread, but I'm here to mainly heap praise on Fort Condor. I love it. Spent over 2 of the 3 hours I played tonight just having a blast with it :D

    I was legit surprised by this mini-game. Because I really don't like the PS1 version (Luckily, you can throw it and still get the huge materia with a standard boss battle), and I was dreading it when I saw it was a thing here, but Remake's interpretation of it is solid!

    In fact, that applies to most mini games. The minigames in the PS1 games and X are pretty janky, and not very fun, but Remake has nailed them, even if the more difficult pull-up sessions were difficult to deal with because I use Nintendo Switch button layouts.

    • Like 1

  13. 2 hours ago, darksnowman said:

    Oh and, it's the best thing to come from Breath of the Wild. ;) 

    This is almost correct.

    The actual best thing is some of the songs that came from it.

    Excuse me? Oh no! Not from the actual game, don't be ridiculous! I'm talking about the banging remixes we got in Smash Ultimate and Age of Calamity!


  14. 2 minutes ago, bob said:

    I actually really like the fact that the Cindaquil/Quilava/Typhlosion line is really ambiguous in what sort of animal it's supposed to be.

    Actually, you reminded me of something I wanted to ask.
    Now, I'm fully aware that not everyone will have played every generation of Pokémon (@BowserBasher being the main example), but despite that, I still want those people to tell us their favourite starter Pokémon of each generation. I'm interested in what those people would gravitate to, even if it's skin deep.


  15. 1 hour ago, RedShell said:

    They just generally lack cuteness IMO compared to grass and fire types.

    That's, uh, wait, what?

    D8dLCxwUIAMKgVf.jpg

    You monster!

    38 minutes ago, Cube said:

    And as for poor Totodile, he has some really ugly designs to look forward to.

    Now, hang on! Croconaw, sure. But Feraligatr is a rugged, handsome bugger!

    Well, these days. NO! DON'T LOOK AT THE GOLD SPRITE! 

    160.png

    Where's it's neck?

    Actually, speaking of weird Feraligatr sprites. Here's the back sprite from the Gen 3 games.

    maxresdefault.jpg

    I swear, this is not edited! That's the actual sprite in-game!

    After that, Game Freak finally settled on a more consistent design for it.

    52 minutes ago, Julius said:

    I remember Feraligatr giving me memorable times drawing loops around it in Pokémon Ranger and in Guardian Signs (a boss in the latter if I'm remembering right? So it had some cool art!)

    feraligatr.png

    Good memory! I take it, this is what you mean?

    typhlosion.png

    Typhlosion has one too!

    Where's Meganium's? That's cute, you think Meganium's popular enough for that? I'm not wrong. Meganium is really unpopular!

    meganium.png

    Nah, only joking.

    Still unpopular though.

    52 minutes ago, Julius said:

    Totodile was the Pokémon I ended up as my first time through Blue Rescue Team (Charmander was my partner, and so getting to the point where I had a Feraligatr and Charizard walking around was AWESOME);

    See, now this is amusing. Because in Explorers of Darkness, I got assigned Charmander through the quiz, and went with Totodile as the partner. And now every time I replay the Explorers games, I can't bring myself to deviate from that initial selection. Charizard and Feraligatr just feel like a weirdly natural duo, despite being completely different types. Probably helps that they're both reptiles.

    And yes, the nicknames my Charizard and Feraligatr have are the same nicknames from my Explorers file.

    Spoiler

    kitted_out_by_glen_i_d9llcwn-fullview.jp

     

    • Like 1

  16. Just now, Hero-of-Time said:

    I'm now expecting Dcubed to come in here and say that he owned the game but lost his copy somewhere down the line.....

    He most certainly didn't. In fact, it's one of the rare times in the 90's where he borrowed a game off of me at one point!

    Anyway, I remember Extreme-G being thoroughly OK. Then again, I don't really like F-Zero, so this game probably never stood a chance with me.

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