Glen-i

Huh, now that I notice it, Second Story R doesn't force that Square Enix trademark on screenshots like they do with almost every other game. Weird, but appreciated.

Nintendo have curated an expectation of quality of gameplay over fancy shmancy graphics as soon as they realised they wouldn't be able to compete directly with Sony and Microsoft after the Gamecube, and it's paying off in spades. Now that graphical leaps are subject to huge diminishing returns with inflating costs, Nintendo are coasting along relatively smoothly on their reputation of "Hey, our games function at launch, and you know they'll be fun". Very much, the long con, there.

Yeah, we're still around.

Just a heads up for @BowserBasher and @S.C.G if you're still up for some F-Zero tonight.

Literally me starting to watch that. "Oh, that's not too bad, I've definitely play... OH GOD!" If that doesn't get improved, I may have to just convince you to get the PC one and mooch off of that.

Yeah, he teamed up with me for my first run of this. We took the 10,000 dollars, because it was funny! The Special K.O. system is very cool. It's a very a good way to encourage you to spend that Special bar regularly, luckily, it refills relatively quickly. I can already see the potential for some awesome combos when I get some practice in. The difficulty slider is a very cool idea. Easier modifiers get you less tokens There are a couple of problems though. The loading times are really long. They're not as long as the initial load, but it does slow the pace a bit. Also, the leaderboards are not as good as I'd hope. Unless I'm missing something, it only shows the top 50 players, and there's no way to compare your scores to friends. Which means it'll never be any good for me. But yeah, it's great. Would love to do some more 2 player runs with other people here.

Joke's on you, I'll be getting the Switch version! Unless the achievements are also in-game, like Rising... Oh God! What if they're in-game, like Rising!?

Helps that I can discount all the characters who are human. Narrows it down a bit, but still leaves me with options. But I imagine this is the kind of game where you can just go with a party of the most interesting characters and stick with that if you want. At least, I hope it is. It could also be like Chrono Cross, where only 6 of the characters are any good. I doubt it'll be that bad, though.

Argh! So many people not going into the NSO options to remove the buttons on the bottom of the screen! I hate it! Star Ocean: The Second Story R is an action RPG developed by Gemdrops, and was released on the Switch, PS4, PS5, and PC last year. It's a remake of the PS1 game, "Star Ocean: The Second Story" The game follows two characters, the first is Claude C. Kenny, an ensign of the Earth Federation (Think of it as the Federation from Star Trek). He's on a mission of some sort, when weirdness happens. Said weirdness transports him to the planet Expel, where he meets the second protagonist, Rena Lanford. Expel isn't aware of intergalactic life, so when Claude whips out a Laser Gun to save Rena from the local wildlife, she mistakes him for a hero in the local legends that wields a "Sword of Light". Word of this gets out quick, and the town mayor asks Claude to investigate the Sorcery Globe, a meteorite that has spawned monsters all over the planet. Claude agrees to look into it, but only so he can find a way off of the planet (he doesn't tell them that). Rena tags along because she wants to find her real parents, she's adopted. The framing device is interesting, you choose between Claude and Rena as the main character, and this tweaks the plot a little, as there's a number of scenes where the two are separated and you only see what happens to the character you chose. So there's naturally a few gaps in the plot. The general plot is fine, but my big issue is that for 75% of the game, the game kinda forgets that it's in a Sci-Fi setting. The planet Expel is for all intents and purposes, a medieval planet, and Claude's laser gun breaks in the first half hour, so he's stuck swinging a sword for the rest of the game. It does remember that the game is called Star Ocean in the last 25% of the game, but it's kinda too late, and it feels like a missed opportunity. The game plays similarly to the "Tales of" games, in that battles are all real time, with you controlling one character, and the AI handling the other members of the party. They're pretty dumb though, with them running towards enemies with no regard for how dangerous that might be. Luckily, there are a veritable smorgasbord of ways to become incredibly powerful, and they all come from the Speciality system. As you play the game and level up, characters accrue SP, which can be spent to improve various things, such as "Aesthetic Sense" or "Penmanship". Some of these provide immediate benefits, but with the right combination of stuff, that character develops a speciality that can be used for certain benefits. For example, leveling up Penmanship allows that character to write books that help other characters level up specialties. As well as that, there are "Super Specialties" that require mutliple party members. If multiple characters develop a talent for writing, then they can work together to write an excellent book that you can get published and start collecting royalties for, which is an excellent way to amass loads of money. It's not limited to that, you can do other stuff like doubling your EXP gains, calling some weird rabbit monster to help you travel over mountains, or even flat out steal from NPC's (Yes, @Dcubed, Octopath Traveler got that idea from this game)! It all snowballed into hilarity for me as Claude accidentally forged the best sword in the game halfway through it, and went on to apply a HP draining effect to said best sword. Add to that an accessory that triples the amount of times he hits an enemy, and he was literally invincible! For comparison's sake, the second highest ATK in my party was 2,100 I haven't played a game that heavily encourages the player to utterly demolish it like this since Bravely Default, it's loads of fun! Anyway, the second unique aspect of Star Ocean is how you build a party. Claude and Rena are the only mandatory characters in the game, but there are 13 other characters you can get, and they are all optional. You can finish the game with none of them if you want. I don't recommend it, but you can. The problem is that you only have space for 8 characters, so you can never recruit everyone in one playthrough. The ending cutscenes are determined by who is in your party, and how much they like each other. There's 99 different cutscenes you can see in the ending (!), so multiple playthroughs are encouraged. Good thing this game only took me about 30 hours to beat then. The game looks drop dead gorgeous, utilising the 2D-HD look that Team Asano games have popularised in recent times. You probably know by now, that I love this style! If only the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters looked this good. The portraits that show up in cutscenes also look great. Incredible detail that makes the PSP versions look positively amateurish. The music is also great. You have the option to use the original PS1 soundtrack, or an arranged version. I preferred the arranged version, but I've not played the other versions before, so I don't really have any nostalgia for them. This is a fantastic remake, the only problems I have are small nitpicks with the structure of the original game, but it's not enough to affect my enjoyment. Highly recommended! Dragons, Sci-Fi, that whole connection!

Not Nintendo.

Yeah, this is true. It's standard precedure.

Player's Choice tonight at 8pm.

That's the unique selling point of the series, a ridonkulous amount of playable characters. And seeing as this is a spiritual sequel... Actually, the box says "100+", so it may not be a downgrade... I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up being 108. Anyway, had a quick peek at that box art, and noticed Hogan was there at the top left. He shows up in Rising, and I'm glad he's playable here. Mainly because he looks like he stepped out of Dillon's Rolling Western! Must be Gallo's long lost cousin, or something...

As someone who slogged his way to get the true ending in that game. It's not worth it. Not even close.

Actually, I noticed this. Any hit to the beetle will reverse it. So you throwing it while you were in Piranha Plant's Poison Cloud was very unwise and hilarious. Some really close matches tonight, but a really spectacular finish on the last one. I had no idea you could cancel that into a Final Smash!

I like to think I'm incredibly impartial when I say this. Best stage ever, @RedShell. No notes. Might as well retire.

Stamina matches tonight from 7:30pm.

That's legitmately amazing! It's an interesting way of getting some money out of games you have no plan on doing any work on.

Welp, there will end the only interest I ever had in Star Trek... Sucks...

Thinking back on it, it might also be the game correcting your position after dealing with lag.

I kinda want these... Yes, these grips are merch from the team behind this game. Japan only, it seems like.

Yeah, the thing with official Pokémon pronounciations is that most of it comes from the anime. And when it comes to the English names, that's handled by Americans, who tend to not really care for how certain words are pronounced in other countries. The pronounciation for some of the Galar Pokémon will make you want to fold into yourself.

Wow, I never would've noticed that. Guess my mind just filled it in. @Ashley, might be worth fixing that sharpish.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is available on NSO Game Trials. Well... I've not played it, and seeing as I am getting Hundred Heroes, it'd be rude not to!