Hero-of-Time

Amazing!

I figured I would create this for those who are looking to play online. This will stop invites and session times getting lost in the main thread.

Crazy thing is I bought it for dirt cheap back when it was first released and I've yet to play it. That's weird, I also started playing it last week. I took a photo for when I was finished and ready to talk about it. I'm halfway through at the moment but clearly you and I are having different experiences with it. I don't think it's enjoyable at all.

The credits have rolled and my adventure is over. As you can see, there's still a stupid amount to do if I want the platinum, which I probably wont go for. It would take another 3 runs through the story and this is because of the amount of extra characters you can team up with. Your team can only hold 4 extras and so thats where the multiple playthroughs come in. Apart from the difficulty spike, as well as the lack of fast travel, I really enjoyed playing through this. It's about time I finally dipped my toe into this franchise and it was fitting that I started with this one. It goes to show how bloated games have become. This game offered around 20-25 hours of play time and it just flew by. There were no pointless fetch quests or countless cutscenes that waffled on for ages but said very little. The game was straight forward and to the point, just like a lot of games that were made back then. The SP system is very interesting when you start delving into it. There are an abundance of options at your disposal. Sure, you can break the game but it also allows you to play the game how you want. It's also one of the best ways to get the best gear. Kinda reminds me of Dragon Quest and the melding pot. Very happy to have experienced this and I'm now set to pick up the next game when the time is right.

Odama probably didn't but Mario Baseball is more sought after, what with it being a Mario game and all. This will no doubt increase the resale price.

Mario Superstar Baseball was pretty hard to find back when it was first released. I can't imagine there being many copies printed. It was a late release as well, wasn't it?

Is the Steam Deck available from retailers now? Geniune question. I know it wasn't when it launched. If not, then I fail to see how it will have a mass market reach.

That's the thing, you still have to build a PC. Then there's issues like different graphics card and making sure things are up to spec. The general population don't want to faff on with things like that. With a console you just buy it knowing that once you unpack it then you are good to go, without having to do any reseach. For me, the incentive for continuing buying consoles over a PC is simply because of the reason above. Until there's a standard box that will run every game without upgrading or faffing on then I will never touch PC gaming. Plus, as a huge supporter of physical media, PC ain't the platform for that.

That's good to hear. It's a baffling decision not to have such a system in this game, especially when there were many JRPGs that came before it that had things like airships and fast travel. I'm quite surprised they didn't add it to this updated version.

I continue to play Star Ocean First Departure R. I'm now in the late game area and it's ridiculous just how much back tracking is needed to continue the story. What's worse is that there is no fast travel system or airship available. The best you get is the ability to travel around via a few select ship ports. It's made things very, very tedious.

So, I hit a massive difficulty spike earlier this afternoon. I figured I must have wandered off the correct path but that wasn't the case at all. A quick search on the internet and this was indeed the correct way and it was a difficulty spike that many players before me encountered. Simple level grinding wasn't going to cut it and so I decided to learn all about the SP skills that @Glen-i mentioned when playing the second game. Once I got to grips with these skills I completely broke the game. There's a skill that allows you to make exp cards that give you double experience points after a battle. There's then a skill that gives you the ability to replicate items, these cards included. Next, there's an ability that allows you to improve/create your own weapons. Finally, another ability is available that gives you the opportunity to fight a super boss at any point in the game. Linking all of these things together gave me some fantastic results. I created two of the best swords in the game. These deal critical hits and also cause the enemy to be dazed. Having these on 2 characters was the first step. Next, I created the experience boosting cards and replicated a whole bunch of them. This took a while as its down to RNG and so a bit of reloading of the game was required but totally worth it. After that, I summoned the super boss, used a card and then proceeded to beat the Hell out of it with my new weapons. The amount of experience I get from the fights in the area I'm in usually give around 1000-1500. This gave me... It took around 3 hours of prep to get everything in order but the results have been worth it. I jumped from level 37 to 80+ in the space of half an hour of battling. I got an exp farm on tap. Love it. With Glen doing something similar in the sequel, it must be a common thing in this series.

No idea. @Julius is the man to ask.

Added another party member to the team. Dude clearly wanted to join us. I mean, just look at what happened to him when he ventured off on his own... I'm happy to have him on board though. It's about time I had someone who can heal on my team.

Put some more time into Star Ocean this morning. Found this area in my current location. It's a statue that heals everyone with unlimited uses. This means for the next hour I'll be walking around in a circle, getting into random battles and farming XP. I started at level 21 (currently level 24) and will probably stick around until everyone is level 30. I picked up my first extra character. Dude is called Ashlay and he seems decent enough. High attack power and high HP...my kinda team member. I love the character expression when they get hit during battle. They are hilarious. They give the game a bit of personality. Speaking of the battles, the enemy AI is quite clever. Despite being overlevelled, things can still go south for me quite quickly if the enemy manages to surround me/get me in a pincer attack. I always have to keep an eye on my positioning.

I'm curious, what are these games? I mean, outside of the first party stuff, most games are released on all of these platforms. I suppose the indie scene, MMOs and strategy games have far more releases on PC.

Indeed. The barrier for entry for the mass market is still too high. Until it becomes more of a plug in and play experience, I imagine it will remain this way. Of all the people I've worked with over the years who were gamers, only a fraction of them done gaming on PCs. At my last job, the majority of the software team played exclusively on PC, which is probably because they have an understanding and interest of how things work on the platform.

Just checked my DQ Monsters images and they have them. Very weird.

Just had a look at my Octopath 2 and Bravely Default 2 images and they don't have it either. I wonder if they've ditched doing it now? Star Ocean First Departure R is pretty old in comparison.

Watched The Expendables 4 this evening. Awful movie. Stallone is hardly in it, the story is garbage, next to no big names are in it and the special effects/CGI are some of the worst I have seen in a modern movie. The other films use a lot of practical effects for explosions and such but here everything looks cheap and fake. I enjoyed watching the other two movies this week though. The second is my favourite but the third is probably the funniest. It's there where they really lean into the cheese and their action movie history. Arnie yelling "Get to the choppa!" and Stallone saying "I am the Hague" (a take on "I am the Law") were fantastic to hear. Shame this last one was a trainwreck.

My adventure begins. Loving the pixel graphics. Only put a few hours into it but it's been a fun experience so far. Found a nice area to grind levels in and so done plenty of XP farming for a while. Early story seems intriguing. Looks like theres going to be some time travel shenanigans going on.

Nor do I but if they ever were it would certainly weaken the sales of their hardware. Again, it may be seen as gatekeeping but its how the console business is ran. Xbox only started putting their games on PC because their console business was tanking. Sony have followed the same path because their current strategy is unstainable and they need another source of revenue. Nintendo have no such problems, especially now that they are diversifying their business with things like movies and theme parks.

I forgot to comment on their games goingto PC. Yeah, this is a tricky one and IMO, it's something that hurt the Xbox brand platform. As soon as you start putting your games on other platforms you weaken your own. It may be seen as gatekeeping but exclusives help sell your console. You think the Switch would have sold as well as it did if Nintendo games were available else where? Not at all. There's power in having exclusives. It forces the consumer to buy your product in order to play the game. It may be the old man in me talking but I honestly miss the amount of exclusives platforms used to get. They gave consoles their own identity and purpose.

The PlayStation brand is very strong, especially in Europe. Plus, as we mentioned, 3rd party games do the heavy lifting and as far as consoles go, all the big 3rd party games usually hit a PlayStation console. Historically it's always been like this. It's really the 3rd party support that attracts the customers to the platform and not so much the 1st party support, the complete opposite of Nintendo platforms. Granted, that started to change last generation with the PS4, thanks to the likes of God of War, The Last of Us and Spider-Man doing big numbers. Outside of the 360 generation, the PlayStation platform has always been seen as a mass market console. Games such as FIFA/ EA FC and CoD draw in the masses, despite being available on other consoles. JRPG fans often get served very well on the PS platform as well, especially when the Xbox seems to get sod all. Basically it's the console to get to play 3rd party games. PC gaming has come on leaps and bounds but the price and complexity (when compared to consoles) still alienates the mass market. I've said it many times on here that the PS5 and Xbox Series X weren't really needed. They were needed in the sense that both companies wanted a new product on the shelves but not really needed in terms of being able to deliver new and exciting experiences. The PS4 Pro was more than enough and the fact that developers are still making PS4/cross gen games shows that they were fine with it as well. As for 1st party exclusives that aren't cross gen, there aren't many. Ratchet, Spider-Man 2, Demon's Souls, Returnal and Astro's Playroom are all I can think of.

Yeah, I feel pretty much the same. I can't see it getting any better either. There's only Shu that's left who seems to resonate with the PlayStation community. The rest just seem like a bunch of suits trying to nickel and dime the user base. As you said, the 3rd parties have done a lot of the heavy lifting and it's going to be interesting to see how things play out once the new Nintendo console arrives. If it's has enough power under the hood, I can see a lot of developers using that as their main platform, especially if it sells as well as the Switch. Apparently it's being worked on by the same guys who remade the first game.

I was doing some browsing on Amazon last night and seen there trade for Godzilla vs Power Rangers. I was tempted to pick it up. Have you read it, @Happenstance?