MindFreak Posted July 4, 2022 Posted July 4, 2022 1 hour ago, Glen-i said: According to the reveal on Nintendo Direct, it's Live Alive. Ah, good idea to check that out. They must have it the right way.
Hero-of-Time Posted July 6, 2022 Posted July 6, 2022 On 04/07/2022 at 8:35 AM, darksnowman said: The demo has made me want Chrono Trigger and Earthbound done in this style (with voice acting). Was the demo enough to persuade you to buy the game on release day? I've downloaded it myself but am wondering if it's worth playing. Can I grind exp in it?
darksnowman Posted July 6, 2022 Posted July 6, 2022 2 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said: Was the demo enough to persuade you to buy the game on release day? I've downloaded it myself but am wondering if it's worth playing. Can I grind exp in it? Yeah unless reviews out the game as being atrocious in ways hidden by the demo, I plan to get it. It says the demo save data will carry over so no harm having a look at it as you shouldn't be starting from scratch again in the full game. One of the three characters the demo gives you access to is a ninja with whom you have the option to either Splinter Cell it or engage in battle with everyone in your path. I tried avoidance. You can of course go on the offensive and reap the exp. It gives you a kill count after each battle so I can see yours skyrocketing. 1
Julius Posted July 21, 2022 Author Posted July 21, 2022 Early review scores are up, and they are looking good! 1 1
Glen-i Posted July 21, 2022 Posted July 21, 2022 Got this pre-ordered. Legit more excited for this then Xenoblade and Pokémon! Team Asano's track record so far is just that good! 1
Hero-of-Time Posted July 22, 2022 Posted July 22, 2022 I'm still not sure whether to pick this up or not. I tried the demo last night and just wasn't feeling it. I'm also worried about how the story will play out. One of my least favourite things about Octopath was how disconnected every character was for most of the game and I feel it will be the same here. I much prefer a single narrative rather than seperate stories. It's weird, I've wanted to play this game ever since I read about it during the SNES era and now that it's here I'm hesitating to even buy it.
martinist Posted July 22, 2022 Posted July 22, 2022 (edited) Got it through the door today, only played the imperial china part of the demo though. I'm going to go through this in timelline order starting with pre-history heading towards distant future. Should be pretty fun. Then again, I did drop origami king and xenoblade chronicles 1 and 2 so we'll see how this goes. I finished Dragon Quest 11 S though. That was a hell of a game. Edited July 22, 2022 by martinist
Glen-i Posted July 22, 2022 Posted July 22, 2022 15 minutes ago, martinist said: I'm going to go through this in timelline order starting with pre-history heading towards distant future. Yep, that's what I'm doing too. Seems like the most logical way, even though I'm sure it doesn't matter. The complete absence of dialogue in Prehistory is an interesting thing to see in an RPG. Mad to think that this idea came about in 1994. I imagine the relatively short nature of the seven different stories helps with experimental ideas like that.
darksnowman Posted July 22, 2022 Posted July 22, 2022 Seems I could be throwing caution to the wind with chapter selection order based on how @martinist and @Glen-i have set about tackling living these lives. I went straight in and finished off the clank's chapter. The events that occur from where the demo left off... holy moly. At one point, I had an idea of who could be behind it, then I talked myself out of it, only for it to come (half) true. There was a stretch where I thought it was erring a wee bit on the boring side as all you seemed to be doing was: talk to someone/ the group they leave the room go find them talk to them/ the group again they leave the room go find them and so on. But as with most of these things, by the time it was wrapping up an attachment had grown and I look back on it as a decent visual short story sort of thing. Next up, I reckon I'll continue one of the other remaining two from the demo.
Glen-i Posted July 23, 2022 Posted July 23, 2022 (edited) Finished Prehistory this morning. Would've done it sooner if I didn't run into a super powerful optional boss and grinded for that. Spoiler Why the hell does a Cola Bottle summon Lizards of Death that do 999 damage? It's infinite use too! Might just be the most OP broken item in RPG history! Edited July 23, 2022 by Glen-i
martinist Posted July 23, 2022 Posted July 23, 2022 Finished prehistory, didn't find the optional boss though. I'll play through the rest of the game then look up a guide for the extra stuff when i'm done.
Glen-i Posted July 23, 2022 Posted July 23, 2022 21 minutes ago, martinist said: Finished prehistory, didn't find the optional boss though. I'll play through the rest of the game then look up a guide for the extra stuff when i'm done. Yeah, it's very much an "of its time" sort of thing. I can't imagine anyone finding it by themselves. It seems the developers of this remake agree, as there's a Gameplay Tip that hints at its existence, which I can't imagine was there in the SNES version. Anyway, I guess Imperial China is next up chronologically, so that's the one I'm doing next.
Julius Posted July 23, 2022 Author Posted July 23, 2022 (edited) A couple of hours in, just got done with Prehistory myself, and I'm having a pretty fun time. Shocker: the game looks visually fantastic. This is my first time playing one of Team Asano's games outside of demos, and while the depth of field goes a bit nuts at times, I love the colour palette they use and just how animated the sprites are. I mean, look at Pogo and Gori here enjoying the sweet taste of victory, wind blowing Pogo's hair as Gori scratches his behind, it put a smile on my face every time: It's incredibly charming, that's for sure, instantly takes me back to the few other SNES JRPGs I've played, and just makes me want a Chrono Trigger remake in this style even more. Also just love how clean the UI is. I was caught off guard by the music a bit actually, really enjoying Fine Weather's jolly vibes, as well as Kiss of Jealousy's primeval beats which just has this great sounding electric guitar powering over the top, like you're swinging through a jungle. And then there's Megalomania which is an absolute jam, like techno gym music meets Yakuza mini-games in the best of ways also: love and appreciate the jukebox! Not sure if I'm totally used to the battles yet, which definitely remind me a lot of the Mystery Dungeon games, but I got into the swing a bit at the end of the chapter I think. Definitely took a while to adjust as I feel like it takes a beat or two more to transition into battles than I was expecting, and for similar reasons when loading into a new room started throwing tips my way, I had to turn them off as it was super jarring. Anyways, it's not been particularly hard so far, though it sounds like I've missed out on the superboss @Glen-i has mentioned (oh well, I'll just need to keep an eye out in the other chapters!). I don't know what everyone else's experience has been like with Prehistory, but I do think there's an easy way to break some of the fights in Prehistory, specifically the encounters with Zaki: Spoiler Just get Zaki up against a wall and then use Pow Kick on a diagonal/to ensure he ends up sort of bouncing against the wall and he won't actually be able to hit you, like so: I think for whatever reason it then counts him bouncing back and then getting back into his position as his turn? I don't know, maybe it's explained in the hints and I've missed it. I'm really curious to see if a similar tactic carries over to other parts of the game. I will say as a word of warning to anyone who hasn't dived in yet, I don't think that Prehistory is necessarily a great place to start, not because it's hard, but because, well, you're just getting by on a lot of grunts and sighs, so it's not exactly attention grabbing. Spoiler Also, let's not talk about that Prehistory ending between Pogo and Beru. I saw the content warning on the back of the box, but still, that seemed...weird. Super weird. I'm not really sure where I'll go next, if I want to go chronological I guess it's Imperial China, which would seem like a nice change of pace, though The Wild West and Twilight of Edo Japan are also calling to me, just because of how cool those characters look. 20 hours ago, darksnowman said: There was a stretch where I thought it was erring a wee bit on the boring side as all you seemed to be doing was: talk to someone/ the group they leave the room go find them talk to them/ the group again they leave the room go find them and so on. Had a very similar experience with Prehistory, there were some solid 5-10 minute stretches (maybe even longer at the start of the chapter!) where I just found myself running around the screen to start conversations (aka caveman grunt sessions), have some animations play out, then walk over to another room to talk to someone, have more animations play out. I'm curious now to see if that's consistent throughout the game, because it just feels very laboured – I'd hope not, but we'll see! Edited July 23, 2022 by Julius
Glen-i Posted July 23, 2022 Posted July 23, 2022 1 hour ago, Julius said: I don't know what everyone else's experience has been like with Prehistory, but I do think there's an easy way to break some of the fights in Prehistory, specifically the encounters with Zaki: Pogo goes for broke (Reveal hidden contents) I had a similar thing happen on this fight. Except I sat on one side of the area and just kept spamming Big Shout, which inflicted Terror on him, making him move away from Pogo, by the time he even got close, he couldn't last long. Now, I might be wrong, but I think the AI for enemies works something like "Enemies turn arrives, enemy checks to see if your party is in range, if not, enemy moves" If they move, half their turn guage gets emptied, so they lose half a turn from moving. AI manipulation turned out to be very useful for the superboss. It's very dangerous, but I realised that if I placed Pogo one tile down and one tile right of it, and had Gori stand one down and one right of Pogo, then the boss wouldn't use its really devastating attacks, because I wasn't in range. So it'd use a weaker attack that I was in range of.
Hero-of-Time Posted July 23, 2022 Posted July 23, 2022 I ended up buying the game and it arrived this evening, along with a shoddy bookmark as a free gift. Seriously, they shouldn't have even bothered with it. I've only put an hour or so into the game but it hasn't grabbed me at all. The battles system isn't my cup of tea. I like to be able to switch off when grinding but you can't do that here. Having to sniff out the battles is pretty annoying and then the whole moving and positioning drags things out. I much prefer random battles and being able to just select an attack and then execute said attack without having to move into position. It's fine in a strategy RPG but this feels like a weird mixture. Yeah, it's not left a great first impression on me.
darksnowman Posted July 23, 2022 Posted July 23, 2022 I've wrapped up all three from the demo now. Two of them took some unexpected turns however the shinobi chapter was becoming a bit of pain due to the mazy layout of it. I was just kind of glad to get that one over with, which is a pity. The way one of the tunes kicks off reminded me of 65000000 BC in Chrono Trigger so that was jarring, haha. I'll launch into an all-new character next. Reading here that there are optional bosses that are also secret bosses has got me wondering what I've missed so far. Thought I was being reasonably thorough, tbh. I'll have to check the Gameplay Tips to see if there's any mention. Not sure how new game+ works in this but it'd be nice to carry over what you have to make it easier to go for these bosses on the next go around.
Julius Posted July 24, 2022 Author Posted July 24, 2022 (edited) Finished another three chapters, so I'm four deep now; the additional three that I got through were The Distant Future, Present Day, and The Wild West. Yeah, I threw going through the game in chronological order out of the window after Prehistory was a bit of a snooze, and wanted to just try jumping randomly from one spot in time to another instead. After finishing up my session with the game today, I actually had a bit of a nose around to see what order others were suggesting in terms of the order of eras to play through, and some sites are pretty strongly recommending that you don't go through in chronological order due to some chapters lining up in a row chronologically which are pretty long. So make of that what you will! I'll throw my thoughts on each chapter in a spoiler tag from this point I think, there's just too much different from one chapter for being vague to really work when trying to discuss some of the nitty-gritty details. Spoiler Well, someone was a huge Kubrick/2001 fan on this team, huh? Thanks to that you can very quickly tell exactly which way this chapter is going to go. I really loved the lighting and tone of this chapter, I've got to say, and it does what good sci-fi does, which is turn the lens on the undying weaknesses of humanity, despite any technological advancements made. Some parts are definitely handled better than others, such as the way this chapter is bookended by your attempts at making coffee for crew members (the coffee machine waiting expectantly forced a chuckle from me every time I went up to make a drink ), versus the ship being named Cogito Ergo Sum (Descartes's I think, therefore I am) or parts where characters lay it on a bit thick with their beliefs and perspectives on people/humanity, but at least that seriousness was fairly consistent throughout the chapter. Certainly a darker moment or two. One way it relieved some of that darkness was with the in-universe arcade game Captain Square, which is just a bunch of battles with some arcadey music going on and you getting to use sci-fi superpowers on these poor aliens. Took me a couple of attempts to get through, but once you know the quirks of each level, it's a cakewalk. To jump ahead, the final boss in this chapter was pretty boring. Not counting Captain Square (which is optional), this is the only battle in the entire chapter, and you can just get by blasting the skull in the middle of the screen and occasionally healing. There's really not much to it I think The Distant Future is a much stronger chapter than Prehistory, in large part because it's actually got a narrative to follow which doesn't immediately send you to sleep. I do agree with what @darksnowman mentioned about some segments where you just walk around and talk to NPCs to walk around some more and talk to NPCs, triggering cutscenes along the way, again, it's just all a bit laboured and makes the game feel older than it now looks. Spoiler By far the shortest chapter I've played so far, took me just over half an hour to see it through from beginning to end. The thing is, there's a lot I like about this chapter: I love it's presentation, I love that you pick your next fight from a character select screen (even if a tournament arc probably would have been more fun), I love the idea of letting yourself get hit to learn unique moves from these masters and then using them on other masters to become the very best. Knock You Down! is a fun and upbeat track until this saxophone comes out of nowhere and steals the show, and I love it. Unfortunately, I think this chapter is simply too short for you to give a damn, and there's not much in the ways of actual character development (kind of like a fighting game I guess?), so it just seems like an intermission from the other chapters. Fights can last a minute or two down to just a matter of seconds depending on who you're facing, and it just doesn't feel like there's much at stake at all when you take someone on. It's really not helped by the combat in this game being pretty laughably shallow, even by JRPG standards, at least from what I've experienced so far. It's a shame. I think this chapter is a great idea for a game, I love it's presentation and what it's trying to do, but it's only a chapter, and a very short one at that. I'd love a fully fledged game which expanded on everything this chapter was and wanted to do. Spoiler If we're talking about what a chapter achieves rather than what it's trying to achieve, I think this is the strongest chapter I've played through so far, by some margin. I love myself a good Western, and this nails it, from The Sundown Kid being a dead ringer for Clint Eastwood, to the heavily 60's Cowboy Western influenced soundtrack (Wanderer is probably my favourite of the bunch here), to this chapter basically being Seven Samurai / The Magnificent Seven, with you helping a town prepare to duke it out with a bunch of local bandits. I quite liked running around the place to grab items and then sending the townsfolk out to prep as we waited for the eighth bell to toll. It's also got one of the greatest lines of player chosen dialogue in any video game ever made: Some wonderful visuals in this chapter, too. The final battle wasn't too bad, it mainly revolved around shuffling Sundown and Mad Dog around Dio's line of sight, but otherwise it was a walk in the park. I think what makes this chapter so great compared to the others is that it's own arc, from start to finish, despite being bitesized. It actually feels like a chapter from an actual JRPG, a vertical slice of a good chocolate cake, rather than what the other chapters have been so far, which are a bunch of other dessert samples that simply don't begin to satisfy. Overall, while I'm still enjoying the game, I think being four chapters in, I now understand why this wasn't brought over to the West a little more. Sure, there are some more adult moments or lines of dialogue, but I just don't think this is a JRPG in the traditional sense; rather, it's a collection of stories which let you sample different eras with different mechanics and ideas to try out, but ultimately, the mechanics which make this a JRPG are an afterthought, and battles are thrown in more as a storytelling device rather than as an actual source of progression. There's nothing wrong with that, and hey, maybe this changes at some point if/when these characters come together, but there's so far been no reason for me to grind or put much thought into what seems to be a really shallow battle system. I've not come across any superbosses in these other chapters, but even if they're there, and I'm just missing them? I couldn't care less: I think if you're here for the combat or a JRPG experience, again just going off these four chapters, I think you're in for a rough time, because this is all about the story so far, and when it comes to the superbosses, there just hasn't been the depth - and a lack of desire on my part - to warrant me wanting to take them on. It's the flesh of a visual novel with the bones of an adventure game wrapped in the skin of a JRPG. Edited July 24, 2022 by Julius
darksnowman Posted July 24, 2022 Posted July 24, 2022 Just did the present day. Thought my estimated total time was shaping up to be ~30 hours but that's put me back on track for the touted 20-25. There's the seed of a cool concept there but err, yeah, seemed like an idea they had knocking about that was just thrown in to make up the numbers. Noticed a tip that looks like it could be hinting at a boss. Pretty vague though. No way will I remember it for next time so it'd be nice if these things carry over into a new game +. I'm going to check the tips for the present day and if there's the slightest hint of something hidden there I'll eat my hat. 6 hours ago, Julius said: The Distant Future (Reveal hidden contents) Well, someone was a huge Kubrick/2001 fan on this team, huh? Thanks to that you can very quickly tell exactly which way this chapter is going to go. I really loved the lighting and tone of this chapter, I've got to say, and it does what good sci-fi does, which is turn the lens on the undying weaknesses of humanity, despite any technological advancements made. Some parts are definitely handled better than others, such as the way this chapter is bookended by your attempts at making coffee for crew members (the coffee machine waiting expectantly forced a chuckle from me every time I went up to make a drink ), versus the ship being named Cogito Ergo Sum (Descartes's I think, therefore I am) or parts where characters lay it on a bit thick with their beliefs and perspectives on people/humanity, but at least that seriousness was fairly consistent throughout the chapter. Certainly a darker moment or two. One way it relieved some of that darkness was with the in-universe arcade game Captain Square, which is just a bunch of battles with some arcadey music going on and you getting to use sci-fi superpowers on these poor aliens. Took me a couple of attempts to get through, but once you know the quirks of each level, it's a cakewalk. To jump ahead, the final boss in this chapter was pretty boring. Not counting Captain Square (which is optional), this is the only battle in the entire chapter, and you can just get by blasting the skull in the middle of the screen and occasionally healing. There's really not much to it There was a good amount of spot the sci-fi reference. It was the first chapter I saw out, so I took the boss seriously and whittled away what I assumed were its minions before getting to it. Thought doing it in that order helped reduce the threat of the boss but maybe I could have just stood there and whaled on it going by what you're saying. The boss music peaked for me here too. It seemed to fit the battle so well (the visuals, the setting, the face-off between those characters, it being the only (proper) battle in the chapter--I was pumped up) and now hearing it recycled at the end of every chapter in different settings, it's quickly lost its lustre. Think I've decided I'm keeping the wild west for last. Reckon I'll take them up on the option of renaming the character in that one when I get to it... well, unless the default name is amazing. So next I'll jump back to prehistory, then to the future, and back to the west.
Glen-i Posted July 24, 2022 Posted July 24, 2022 (edited) Imperial China done now. I liked that scenario more then Prehistory. The gimmick is pretty neat. Spoiler When it's time to train the disciples, pick one character and focus exclusively on them. Spreading out the sparring matches will do you no good. I found this out the hard way. Ended up resetting the chapter to be more optimal. Also helps if you only use one of Shifu's attacks until the disciple learns it, then move on to the next one. Also, don't bother grinding before hand. The disciples only seem to learn Shifu's moves on a level up, so you don't want them getting stronger until you start training them. Twilight of Edo Japan is next, I guess. Seems stealth is optional, so it shouldn't be too bad... I hope... Edited July 24, 2022 by Glen-i
Hero-of-Time Posted July 24, 2022 Posted July 24, 2022 Finally!!!! I had to defeat the thing and reload the game 4 times before it dropped. I levelled up my guys to 16 and this meant Pogo learnt a stupidly powerful move that knocks off around 650HP off the enemy. It took 5 hours on this story to get but it's finally done. I can now move forward in the game. 1
darksnowman Posted July 24, 2022 Posted July 24, 2022 I noticed the tip for the secret boss in prehistory, so thumbs up for mentioning that @Glen-i. My intention was to have a go at tracking it down as soon as I'd reassembled the party... except going that course lead to the end of the chapter. So I'll have to try to keep that in mind for next time. Prehistory was pretty good, I thought! Reckon the only downside of starting with this one would be you might get the wrong idea about the type of game you're getting into here, because prehistory is a decent little mini-RPG and the rest isn't. Just can't believe what happened to Prince Peasly in the end. I could have smacked him about plenty more. 2 hours ago, Glen-i said: Imperial China done now. I liked that scenario more then Prehistory. The gimmick is pretty neat. Some advice though (Reveal hidden contents) When it's time to train the disciples, pick one character and focus exclusively on them. Spreading out the sparring matches will do you no good. I found this out the hard way. Ended up resetting the chapter to be more optimal. Also helps if you only use one of Shifu's attacks until the disciple learns it, then move on to the next one. Also, don't bother grinding before hand. The disciples only seem to learn Shifu's moves on a level up, so you don't want them getting stronger until you start training them. Twilight of Edo Japan is next, I guess. Seems stealth is optional, so it shouldn't be too bad... I hope... Twas one of my preferred chapters, that one. The Beverly Hills Ninja was a standout. I wasn't smart enough to figure out any of your advice points myself and still found the chapter to be a breeze. Sure you're overpowered for the duration. Though I'd made a mental note to do protip one on future replays to see if it makes any discernable difference. 1 hour ago, Hero-of-Time said: Finally!!!! I had to defeat the thing and reload the game 4 times before it dropped. I levelled up my guys to 16 and this meant Pogo learnt a stupidly powerful move that knocks off around 650HP off the enemy. It took 5 hours on this story to get but it's finally done. I can now move forward in the game. What... have... you... done....
Glen-i Posted July 24, 2022 Posted July 24, 2022 1 hour ago, darksnowman said: My intention was to have a go at tracking it down as soon as I'd reassembled the party... except going that course lead to the end of the chapter. So I'll have to try to keep that in mind for next time. You know you can reload a completed chapter and it will place you at the point right before the final boss of that chapter, right? So you're free to go back and chase anything you missed. I assume you need to beat said boss again if you want to save any changes to equipment or level ups you get though.
darksnowman Posted July 25, 2022 Posted July 25, 2022 6 hours ago, Glen-i said: You know you can reload a completed chapter and it will place you at the point right before the final boss of that chapter, right? Wasn't aware of that. I'm just figuring the game out as I go along.
Hero-of-Time Posted July 25, 2022 Posted July 25, 2022 10 hours ago, darksnowman said: What... have... you... done.... I finished the Imperial China story yesterday evening. That was a pretty breezy chapter of the game. I think it only took a little over an hour to finish. I enjoyed this story much more than I did the one in the prehistoric era. With no super bosses to fight, this meant no grinding was needed and it was pretty much a straight through path to the end. As long as you concentrate on training a single person, you should have zero issues with the battles that take place. In terms of which student I chose... Spoiler I went with Lei as my choice. She is quite feisty and seeing as the game is majority filled with male characters, I thought it would be nice to add a female to the team. I couldn't believe that the other two students got killed! I was thinking they would just tag along in some way but that wasn't to be the case. The ending was pretty cool, with Lei unleashing her true potential, knocking the boss for miles and then breaking the rock in two in the final scene. Loved it. Some of the scenery in this chapter is beautiful. I did take some pics but forgot to upload them and now i'm at work. Needless to say, this chapter was much prettier than the desert and cave areas in the prehistoric chapter. I do agree with what @Julius said in that although the chronological order would have you playing the prehistoric era first, it doesn't really leave a good first impression. I certainly wasn't impressed after playing through it but this next chapter has certainly changed that. I've started to enjoy the battle system a little more now as well. The moves on offer during the China era were much better and faster at brining down the enemies than the chapter before. The prehistoric era battles seemed to take ages to get through and it wasn't until I unlocked some AoE moves that the battles started to speed up a bit. I look forward to starting the Twilight of Edo Japan when I get home this evening. 1 1 1
Glen-i Posted July 25, 2022 Posted July 25, 2022 Fair warning. I've found 2 superbosses in Edo Japan. Damn you, Gameplay Tips! You're too tantalising! Spoiler The Gameplay Tips kinda hinted at three, but it turns out one is instead something ridiculously helpful instead. Don't know if I could've beat that boss in the Hall of Lanterns without it, so fair warning, try and find that if you're going for it. Unfortunately, the other superboss, while super easy to find (as in, you really can't miss it), is in a situation where I can't bring said super helpful thing, so I'm gonna have to go for it without. On the other hand, I found a room that has respawning enemies as long as you don't kill the woman there, so now Oboromaru is at level 16, and has a stupid powerful attack, so I'm gonna have a crack at it later.
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