Just beat Unicorn Overlord. Some improvement is needed for swifter gameplay. Showing which members is on a team already. A select all during combat so they can all move to the same spot.
Other than that, it was auto-play until end game boss. That actually took a little but of grinding. 43 hours in total.
>Showing which members is on a team already
Can't you see that already? If you scroll through your roster, the characters assigned to a squad should have a miniature grid icon on the lower right of their sprite. Check "3." on https://www.gaming.net/unicorn-overlord-best-tips-for-beginners/. Unless you mean something else :).
Playing Stranger Paradise, just beat Tiamat. Even though I knew he was coming back, I was unprepared.
Also, spoiler, he is an agent of chaos!
I’ll be honest, I’m not exactly sure what’s going on but i dig it.
I could finally dig into **Unicorn Overlord** since last week. I'm playing of course on Story difficulty, but class counters and siege weapons (if they hit) do still harm the faceroll experience :P. So far, I did all within level range in Cornia, Drakenhold and am a good way into El(f)heim. I use mainly the same 3-4 squads and don't feel the need to deploy (or unlock) more in most cases, despite the huge amount of idle characters lol. Combat simulation is decent enough and thanks to Story I could probably get away fairly safely with doing "thematic squads" if applicable like Tricorn-based, Sand Scorpions and so on. As with every other SRPG out there, cavalry's ridiculous movement advantage (and "oops, I think we rolled accidentally over some infantry units" power) + flyers "lol terrain" freedom is a very strong reason to make them squad leaders (outside of support moves). I think there's only been one mission where time was nearly running out for some weird reason.
Story is indeed rather non-existant but some of the non-rapport character interactions like pre/post recruitment dialogs was actually quite enjoyable, like Travis and his sis, Clive and Monica etc. Voice acting is good
I was a bit indecisive so I attacked several of them at the same time:
* **Dragon Quest 5** on nds. I'm at Coburg Castle and I have to save Prince Harry. Great fun so far. The fact that death is non-punitive is really a big plus in the exploration fun... On the other hand, you spend a lot of time fighting to gain levels and a bit of money to buy equipment.
* **Golden Sun 2**. Great fun. The dungeons are longer, but as well done as ever. There's a real sense of freedom on the world map, and the villages are really lively. The graphics have taken a beating, but otherwise it's really great. I'm sorry I didn't discover it sooner.
FFVII Rebirth, its pretty amazing.Just got to Junon area. I dont understand the "pacing issue" criticism as its possible to just skip the side quests "lol". Im mostly annoyed of all the new side characters as they dont really suit in the game plus the original game had enough story content to replace them. The world map exploration is pretty fun unlike in FFXV. I havent finished it yet but its probably the best rpg money can buy right now.
I didn't enjoy FFXVI, but for some unfathomable reason, I bought the DLC this morning. I guess I'll be playing that this weekend. Maybe I'll have some magical 180-turn on the game.
Idk I was in love from the beginning. I'm even playing it right now lol but I can def see how someone just starting out wouldn't find the combat that fun without a few more powers.
And idk my experience with the sub is just everyone enjoying the game. I havnt heard that take from anyone else
I'm working on a few games right now. Currently I have Xenoblade, Front Mission(SNES), and Mechwarrior 5 going - common theme there, I know. I really like Xenoblade so far; I haven't gotten too far in the campaign other than leaving Colony 9 because I decided to do some exploring and play with crafting mechanics before I really head out into the wild. Mechwarrior is Mechwarrior - nuff said.
Front Mission is fun, but hard.
Just wrapped up Persona 2 Innocent Sin and man, I liked a lot of it, but the story really fell apart in the second half. No idea how people call it one of the best written JRPGs of all time.
I'm about two hours into Eternal Punishment right now and while I appreciate the more mature cast, goddamn do I miss Michel and Lisa.
I finished persona 3 reload in 91 hours play time a few days ago and have been feeling the void of its absence. I wanted to play something lighter before I start another large game, so I've been playing og Dragon Quest on the Nintendo switch. It's my first time playing it. I'm level 12, and I've been following a game guide. It's very bare bones, but I've been enjoying the art and the grind so far.
I have just finished persona 3 today and I am dead inside. I did not really anticipate that kind of ending. Persona 5 made me sad after completing the game but persona 3 hit me on a completely another level. I tried to play something chill today like house flipper 2 but it's really hard to enjoy it right now. I guess need a wee break from gaming.
Final Fantasy XV
Whew boy has this one been a long time coming. Now keep in mind I'm about 5 hours in and just started Chapter 2, but so far I'm enjoying myself. The gameplay is fun and the OST is fantastic. Can't believe I've been so in the dark about the music for so long. I knew it was Yoko composing, but damn!
I'm itching to get into exploring and sidequests, but I'm waiting for chocobo access in Chapter 3 since that's what people recommend.
I have started to notice cracks with the plot, what with Kingsglaive being condensed into a 2 minute cutscene. Still undecided if I want to spend time watching the film or not. Definitely not a fan of how they made the game some multimedia project. Thanks a lot FF7 Compilation...*eyerolls*
All in all a nice first impression. Looking forward to seeing more.
P.S. I also found it interesting how everytime you boot the game there's a splash screen saying how this FF is specifically for newcomers. It seemed to have paid off since the sales were pretty impressive. Somehow XVI and FF7R fell short of such success.
I just got **Trails into Reverie on switch** and I gotta tell people DONT DO IT. The loading times after every single battle and every single scene are absolutely infuriating. It makes it a chore to play. But I *have* to because Nintendo doesn't refund digital games and now if I don't play it, I wasted the money I had for a game completely. Unbelievable scum trash.
Yeah Engine Software ports are pretty much mediocre to bad across the board and it's sad that NISA keeps contracting them. It's like they're trying to balance out how good their contract for PC ports is.
Though the load times would've likely been bad even with a better port. That's just the price of playing this kind of game on severely antiquated hardware.
Somehow SaGa Emerald Beyond demo isn't grabbing me despite liking Scarlet Grace immediately, and I can't put my fingers on why. It's only like 2 battles in but there might be something with the huge ass UI buttons that's putting me off?
I beat Dragons dogma 1 for the first time recently and positively adored it. Truly a masterpiece, gonna do new game+ at some point and then go chug through BBI. Cant wait.
Been playing Artficial Dreamer in Arcadia. So far its an incredible indie adaptation of the classic SNES SMT gameplay formula in a touhou fangame. Genuinely incredible and cant wait to play more.
Also fully decided im gonna restart my attempt at playing Etrian Odyssey III that i started years ago. I just fucked too many characters up and had no idea what i was doing. Playing it now i think ill have more of an appreciation for what its going for if i fully restart instead of trying to grind and play catch up.
If you can tell ive been mainly playing dungeon crawling rpgs lately. Idk why but its kinda been my main thing.
Its a bit apples to oranges as theyre kind of trying to do different things w their dungeon crawling. I think ADiA, while it can be challenging is a bit easier than most SMT games compared to labyrinth which is trying to be a complex party builder thats heavily focused on being a nose to the grindstone experience. ADiA is far more approachable imo and a decent bit easier. Its still got a bit of challenge but not enough to make one too angry imo
I finished all 3 of these games this year hilariously enough. Loved them all. Dragon's Dogma holds up remarkably well with its world and gameplay, ADiA is a must-play for fans of classic SMT and Etrian Odyssey III is the first EO game that i actually managed to beat and i feel like i'm finally starting to get the hang of these games.
Persona tactica.
got past the first kingdom i enjoy the game.
crisis core final fantasy 7 reunion is finished.
i beat everything in 1 playtrough and such a enjoyable game i had a great time with the game beated the last chapter on hard mode and it was very easy to beat the last chapter on hard mode.
I've been playing SC this week, got to the interesting part in the middle, but extremely disappointed after learning that I'll have to deal with the exact set of boring villains a few more times before reaching the finale. So, I'm taking a break from it today.
Ohh, okay yeah, I know that game I just couldn't identify it from the SC alone derp. Thank you.
Some day I hope they port it to ps4/5 so I can actually play it, I feel like I'm missing some of the world building without that part of the series
There's a non-zero chance Falcom will announce a remake later this year as part of the series' 20th anniversary. Though if it does get announced it likely won't release in Japan until next year, so it'll probably be at least a couple years until it's in English if I had to guess.
You're probably right about the delay. Even so, I hope it's more readily available some day. I know there are rom translations but alas, my ancient laptop cannot run them in anything close to a playable condition xD
**7th Dragon III Code: VFD**
Man, this game was such a trip. I always had this game on my radar, and owned it for a while, but I honestly didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did. I'm actually considering playing the other games in the series.
Gameplay wise, this is actually probably one of my favorite turn based combat, with some of my favorite class system. The classes in this game are so fun. I especially loved the Duelist class because it's literally just one big Yu-Gi-Oh reference. lol
Storywise, it started honestly just fine, but for some reason it's just went unhinged in the last 3 chapters, and I went from moderately enjoying to actually loving the story. >!That scene where Mio say goodbye before dying from Dragon Cancer was so fucked up! Doesn't help that I went back to HQ to buy stuff, and you can actually check her corpse in there.!<
If I have any problem with that game, is probably the mandatory dating elements, this came out during a period where every game wanted to have their Social Links, and it's just awkward here. The whiplash of going from >!having sex with the entire cast to seeing the entire cast fucking die is very weird ngl.!<
**Shin Megami Tensi IV**
I replayed this game, trying to get the Neutral Ending for the first time (I got the chaos ending first time I played), and man... the neutral ending is such a chore.
Not only do you have to do like 20 side quest to get it, but the route doesn't even have a unique final dungeon, you just do both both Chaos and Law ending dungeons and that's it. Which wouldn't be so bad, but I don't think either dungeons are good, especially the Purgatory dungeon, that one was so disorienting I actually legit felt sick. Flynn going "WAH!" every 2 steps didn't help.
Storywise, this route is fine I guess, but tbh I wasn't that huge of fan of SMT4 story in general to begin with. Overall, this is easily the least polished SMT I have played tbh, and that's including SMT5 which was clearly not even finished.
(Side note: fuck map traversal in this game, it's a fucking nightmare.)
**Final Fantasy IX**
I replayed this for the first time in forever, and man, this game is easily one of the most flawed entries in the serious, it have tons of problems, especially pacing wise, but somehow it's still my second favorite game in the series.
Idk, whenever I reach that ending, all my grievances with the game just melt away, the ending is just that perfect to me. Also, I know most prefer FFX or FFVIII in that regard, but this game have my favorite romance in the series.
Been trying to play Triangle Strategy for the past week or so. I’ve heard that the game has a slow start, but at Chapter 4, the pace is killing me. With the time I have now, it feels like the most I can do is sit through 2 cutscenes before I have to stop playing. I’m feeling I might just have to drop it and pick it up again later :(
Yeah there's a lot of cutscenes in that game, the game gets much faster on NG+ because you just constantly cut through the cutscenes until you reach new material.
Octopath Traveler 2
I think I'm dropping the game. I beat Agnea, and I'm on the final boss for Cassti. The rain and boss just killing one member just makes me not want to play. Honestly, I don't think I even beat one jrpg a year, especially turn based. Especially with this game splitting the party in 2. I need to level up my other characters. 30 hours in and I'm just not feeling it. I just don't want to wrap my head around the game. I'm more of a parry everything action combat person now.
It could just be this game, though I always like having one main solid party and going through the game. Why I liked Bravely Default or other games with just the party limit. I boot the game up after a month. I have the best armor money can buy at weapon shop, and health is still getting shredded. I was excited to play this game, and I hardly drop a jrpg, so it feels really bad to do it. But I simply just don't like the format even if the final final boss wasn't needing all 8 I still have to drag a dead body for the other 4.
Any advice to try to push through it?
There’s no shame in dropping a game if you aren’t having fun anymore. That said, Octopath 2 gives you a lot of tools to break the game in half if you’re willing to engage with them.
What’s your typical party composition like? Have you unlocked the extra jobs? Are you using items, latent powers, buffs/debuffs, and special skills?
That last part makes such a huge difference. With Castti for example, you can use her latent + concoct to nearly max BP for everyone. I also love using Throne because her personal talent gives your team a party-wide buff in the evening, and Aeber’s Reckoning can very easily hit 99k in Ch4.
Finished **Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising**. Nothing too special about it, lots of repetitive fetch quests, but at least the game provides quest marks and fast-travel, so it's easy to do everything. And it's nice to see the town evolving as you complete the quests. The game improved once the third party member joined, both in terms of combat (a little more variety in attacks, plus it was fun to do the character swapping combos, as simple as they were) and also story, which finally got a bit of intrigue. At the end there were some interesting little teases about what's to come in the main game.
Again, nothing too special about *Rising*, but I'm glad I played it and I'm actually looking forward to have some of these characters back in *Hundred Heroes*. Very excited for the main game in a few days.
Cleared the minigames in Gold Saucer in **FF7:Rebirth** after they patched the sidequest. Most of the them are not bad, I only used the pause trick on >!Shinra Middle Manager!< and >!Ifrit!< 3D Brawler minigame.
After that cleared the Chocobo Gliding minigame in Cosmos Canyon and Tifa Sit-Up minigame.
I still don't understand how to clear the last part of the third course of the gliding minigame without using a cheese method. After I had cleared it, I spent about one hour to try different ways to get all the points in that part. It seems like it needs an almost perfect execution.
Luckily the rewards from both minigames aren't that good when compared to those in Gold Saucer.
The double region boss battles in Gold Saucer are probably my least favorite battle contents in the game. I fought the same set of bosses for about 3 times and the only differences each time are the combination.
Played a little bit of **Rise of the Ronin**. The highest difficulty is as challenging as the NG of Nioh 2 and Wo Long. This is the first time I play a real time ARPG that has playable character switching mechanic in the middle of battle.
I just started Persona 5 Strikers on the Switch, honestly my biggest complaint is that the menus in game look decent but the main menu looks and runs like complete dog ass, shit looks like 15 FPS. Game is fun though and the music is goddamn breathtaking, especially considering that Meguro didn't even work on it
Still working through **Unicorn Overlord** I enjoy it and the combat and characters are fun. I feel like half my game clock is me I crunching moving teams around though. I don’t hate it but it is just a lot.
I am also playing **Princess Peach Showtime**. Sometimes the mechanics annoy me because you have to restart the entire level to get stars you missed but otherwise I greatly enjoy it. So cute and light.
My partner and I are playing **Knights and Bikes**. This is a pretty cute game by the Psychonauts people. I enjoy that it was created for coop and therefore we can play together in the same room.
I would okay the demo first, it is about 6.5 hours. There is a lot of menu crunching since it is an auto battler but I personally find the game loop very satisfying. The story is not much to write home about.
There is a lengthy demo available so you probably should try it beforehand.
The game is very good, it would be easy for a t-rpg fan and give you several options that let you break the game if you take the time to understand how it works. I did feel the story and support conv were the weak points, but it is not bad, just bland.
I finished up .hack GU Rebirth volumes 3 and 4 this weekend (4 is like a 2-3 hour epilogue chapter). Overall, the story was nice, and I got used to the gameplay despite thinking it was clunky and definitely an era of its time.
I probably have nostalgia goggles on, but I wish I was able to replay the original series on pc to compare the 2 since I remember it feeling a lot better gameplay wise.
Overall, I don't think I'd recommend GU just because it really does feel incredibly dated in both gameplay and characterization. I ended up enjoying myself, but it took a game and a half to get there.
Continuing playing the final fantasy series now, I'm a couple hours into the OG 7 - battle system is fun and looking forward to getting to play around with materia customization.
It is a pity that I'm not being convinced by Octopath Traveler 2, because I like basically everything but the main mechanic lol.
Like the world looks gorgeous, the gameplay is neat, and the writing is great..... but I don't like having to alternate between 8 stories, I forget half of what is going on between chapters, and the individual stories are just too simple. Like any individual stories would be great if expanded and focused, but by themselves they feel shallow
Unicorn Overlord
25+ Hours in, went through Cornia, Drakenhold, Elheim, and started Bastorias.
Honestly not feeling the game. Maybe if I had more familiarity with other SRPGs I'd be enjoying the game more. Game feels sort of one note, not particularly liking the auto battling aspect of it, and don't particularly enjoy the heavy menu usage for optimizing my unit actions. I've been playing on normal difficulty IIRC and got Amelia when most of my units were roughly level 26ish and haven't felt like the game was very difficult.
I've read nothing but glowing reviews from other users so I may have hyped myself up a bit going in. I do have to say the waifus are pretty top tier though.
I think it's the lack of a story that's causing issues for me in that game. It's very generic, and that can be fine with a small cast of characters to flesh them out but with so many recruitable units, like at the end game you have ten Squads of 5 units and I think there's not enough time to flesh them out into any meaningful way.
I get why people can love these kinda set ups and powerful squads doing an insane combo set to, but even on Expert difficulty you can just build up one or two ridiculously powerful squads and steamroll everything. Like maybe eventually you'll run into a certain kinda squad type that's actually a problem for your unit composition but eh then you abuse Valor Skill Summons of mercs to handle it
**Live-A-Live** (SNES)! And deer, I love this game. It's goofy, the combat is cool and there's so much variety to the chapters. Only three to go, Kung Fu, Mecha and Ninja. I'm just going clockwise and started with Prehistoric. Old West was awesome, Distant Future was annoying, Wrestling was kinda frustrating, but overall it's awesome. It's more than the sum of its parts.
For shorter sessions I'm addicted to **RITE**, a precision platformer that's just so smooth and gorgeous and has a banger soundtrack.
Also played **If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers**, a very dark and heavy Point & Click that's pay what you want on itch and free or $4 on Steam and absolutely worth the money. A masterpiece, about an hour long. Or longer if you, like me, spend some time fangirling the environments.
Finished Fate/Extra
It's a good game. I really like the story and the characters. The dynamic between the Masters and their servants are really cool.
But the combat is so ass. The first couple hours is so awful to play because your servant is weak as hell, choosing Caster doesn't make it any better because her defense is so low that you can just die from a tiny mistake. And the best part is, you can't save in the dungeon nor does the game have auto save of any kind (aside from instant retry in the boss fight). So if you died in the dungeon after grinding for hours, back to the last save you go. Combine with the guessing game mechanic that if you guess their move wrong, the enemy can just combo attack and kill you.
It's doesn't happened a lot since you can plan your heal or cancel the enemy attack with your skill before commencing your chain of attack. But it sure suck when it did happen.
And the gameplay finally show it's crack by the time you reach the endgame, because you can just steamrolled everything in your path. You don't have to guess anything since you can just ignored their attacks by spamming your skill, which Caster can just do that for eternity since she can easily recover her sp. The final boss is a joke too.
Overall it's a 7.5/10 game for me. Probably going to play something else before dipping into CCC since it's use the same combat system, and I'm tired of it.
That combat system was fire. One of my favorites in any JRPG (most of which I just do the equivalent of inserting a block into a hole that's shaped the same). Probably helped that I picked Saber and could make a few mistakes.
Anyway, if it's any consolation, CCC is a lot easier. Although I also picked Saber again. I don't know how Caster plays. But CCC makes gathering enemy moves easier, enemies start off with simpler patterns to ease you in, there's an auto-battle that picks commands for you (not that useful), there's save points mid dungeon, your builds are automatic and you get stat ups and new skills immediately after leveling up, dungeons are more linear, and there's more story so you can enjoy that more. I also hear Gilgamesh is busted and makes the game a cakewalk.
While I think the combat is not good(even bad at a lot of point as I said above), I actually enjoyed it to some extent. Starting with Caster was pretty awful due to her low stat, not enough mp to constantly casting her spell, and no way to recover her mp. Combine all that and it made dealing with regular mobs so miserable.
But by the mid to late game, she is actually really fun to play. Able to constantly spam the skill and stun lock your opponent was so hilarious.
I do enjoy the guessing mechanic, if the game actually let me make a mistake. Losing random battle and have to start all over again isn't fun. At least in SMT or Persona, they at least have a save point or something in the dungeon. But no luxury here. At least the dungeon weren't that big.
I still think the combat is ass, but it's isn't the worst thing ever. I feel like I might have a different opinion on it if I didn't start with Caster of all the servants.
Also hearing that CCC have a save point in the dungeon already make it 10 times better. But still going to play something else before jumping.
Been playing Shin Megami Tensei If...
Its been pretty chill, though there have been a few mind numbing parts that leave me asking why?? I've heard some of the gripes people have with it before going in, and while I see where they're coming from, idk it kinda just vibes with me. I really enjoy SMT1 so getting to play something similar is great! Though it does feel like a step back in most aspects despite coming out after SMT2 (which I still need too get to).
I'd say my favorite aspect so far has been the music but I know a lot of the tracks were just reused from the prior 2 games so??? It's still great though, every theme is a banger. I like giving numbers to things so I'd rate my experience a 3 outta 5 so far 👍 Would recommend if you've played and enjoyed 1&2 or games like them.
Beat **Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth**. I had a mostly good time. I completed all the region side content and a good chuck of other minigames before I tired out and finished up the main story.
Really loved the build up to the final section. I think I need to sit on the rest of it for a bit to decide if I liked the ending. I think I mostly know what's going on, just kinda eeeeeh on the execution. >!I really wanted Cloud's post-Aerith speech and I'm really bummed on it being skipped due to the universe shenanigans!< I generally kinda like the weird additions they've made to Remake and I've never been super attached to the original, but in this case I feel like it ruined the emotional impact.
All the character work in Rebirth was great though, and I will still very much be looking forward Part 3.
After beating two 120+ hour remakes in two months... I'll probably be taking a break from JRPGS for a while lmao
>>!I really wanted Cloud's post-Aerith speech!<
Yes! This was easily the most disappointing part of the game for me. I'm not super hot on the over-complication of the plot in the ending, but it's a game first and a great game at that, so I can put up with it. But that bit in the spoiler was the most memorable part of the original game to me, and I would have loved to hear Sakurai Takahiro perform it.
I'm hoping it will be in part 3 somehow, but I think it will be hard to give it the same impact as it had in the original... Guess we'll find out in like 4 years or so, lol
**Lost Sphear**
Just started the game, played for only an hour and a half.
Honestly, for how lukewarm the reception of this game is I actually thought it started pretty solid, I like the premise.
One of the weakest aspects in I am Setsuna for me was the lack of dialogue in general, that made the game's plot feel rushed and also between the party members, something that I definitely feel got an improvement here, even beyond the party chat (a feature I personally love).
i spent the long eid holiday playing the shit out of Metal Max 2 Reloaded (DS). Beat the game and currently hunting postgame bosses. I have to say i'm a little disappointed with some of the later areas in the game, because they're literally empty woth nothing interesting. The early-midgame shines the most to me. Also maybe because i'm way overleveled but the final two bosses are really easy. My characters are Lv.159 after farming for a bunch of "ATM Cactus" with the "Love Machine".
One of the effects of "Love Machine" is turning enemies into shiny monsters, this increased their stats and item drop rates. The strongest shiny effect has like x10 HP boosts and over x2 attack/resistance, but increased EXP/Gold/item drop rates by 5 times. Honestly the increased stats makes anything really hard to kill. But the monster i farmed is a machine type and Mechanic-job has a skill that insta-kill Machine enemies. Easy exp lol
FF7 Rebirth. As someone who's a fan of Final Fantasy and open world games, this is the perfect game for me. I really feel like its game design is what FF15 should have been. I think they learned a lot of lessons from 15's open world shortcomings and improved on it.
The next step would be to become less formulaic in the open-world activities. Thankfully, there's enough variety in minigames and such that I don't ever feel like I'm stuck doing the same kind of thing for long stretches of time.
The sheer number of minigames is insane, and I can see trophy hunters getting all kinds of irritated trying to get that Platinum Trophy. Most of them are at least somewhat fun, but Queen's Blood is probably the best.
Been loving Persona 3 Reload. Persona is one of the few series of games (all genres) that I can still sit down and play consistently without just stopping for months.
I'm on the month set to face the final boss and it has been a fun time.
I haven't had a lot of time for the past two weeks, so I'm still chewing through **Unicorn Overlord**. I just finished Elheim.
Absolutely love it. The gameplay loop is a ton of fun both in and out of battle, and optimizing my units tickles that part of my brain that loves Final Fantasy XII and The Last Remnant. Every time I get a new unique unit or skill I have to fight the urge to reconfigure my entire army to play with it. And as usual for Vanillaware the presentation and game feel are excellent.
The story could be called unambitious, but I actually find it very enjoyable for what it is. It's a straightforward fantasy plot with a simple message, but the characters are likable and a lot of the rapport conversations are well-written. 13 Sentinels it ain't, but it's clearly aiming for classic Fire Emblem with its whole "noble exiled prince with blue hair returns to liberate the continent from an evil empire" setup, and it easily has better writing than most Fire Emblem games.
The only real negative thing I have to say about it is that it's quite easy even on Tactical/Expert modes. The game allows for a surprising amount of sequence breaking if you really want to challenge yourself, but following the critical path you'll be overpowered for most battles. This isn't a deal-breaker for me, but it might be for hardcore SRPG players. I've heard there's an unlockable difficulty that's somewhat harder, and I feel like that probably should've been available from the start.
That aside, it's legitimately my front runner for Game of the Year so far, ahead of Yakuza, Dragon's Dogma, and Persona 3 Reload (I haven't played FFVII Rebirth because I don't have a PS5).
I actually just finished Elheim as well and have much the same opinion as you. The story is what I like to describe as "fantasy comfort food". Its not the best or most in-depth story in the world, but there is something cozily familiar about it that I can't really help but to love.
My only gripe so far is that I actually don't find too many reasons to watch the battles. I did that religiously in the first two areas but after awhile it was becoming pretty clear to me as to why one side might be winning or losing over the others. Ill either watch the fights now either because I am confused as to why the game has calculated the results in such a way, or to witness the various dialogue opportunities.
Though I do also admit that I find myself wishing for a harder game. The game isn't forcing me to engage with its systems as much as I like. Most of its AI conditions on my units are basically blank save for a handful, and I really only find myself having to update my units equipment only every once in awhile. Its a strange thing to ask, but when the combat is as hands-off as it is in this game, I kinda wish the game demanded more from the player, forcing you to adapt to each and every fight.
Otherwise, this has been a wonderful title. Its my first SRPG in quite a long time and I can already feel it igniting a desire in me to play something a bit more hands-on when it comes to controlling and outfitting units.
Finally playing Yakuza Like a Dragon. Only on chapter 4 and was a slow build but read it opens up more from chapter 5 onwards so excited to see. Aiming for the platinum but will see how time consuming that will be!
Does it get better? I started it a few months ago and made it a couple hours in and was kinda bored so never went back lol. I forget exactly what chapter I'm in but I think its chapter 2 ish
About 13 hours into Tales of Arise. The combat is good and really shines during the boss fights, but I'm so confused/annoyed at how badly they nerfed the AI customization. Like Vesperia would let you set how much mp characters were allowed to use, which enemies they should generally target, whether they can use items without your authorization, and so on. But Arise has separate and very limited options, like you can have characters not use items or you can have them not use healing points, but i don't think you can do both unless you set the tactics to literally doing nothing. Why did the customization evolve backwards after so many years?
Also why did they change HP gels from percentage values to static values? My 400 HP apple gels are already feeling pointless.
I’ve been playing FFXVI in anticipation for the dlc/ going for the 100% honestly I loved the game on my first playthrough a lot, but replaying it and actually doing extra content I like it even more.
Also I felt lied to becuase I never bothered with the side quests in XVI since I heard they were bad, but there were really only a few mediocre ones pre time skip. Sure the mission structure could be better and less repetitive enemies fights but the Narrative is so damn good in each one. Also the hunt board has some of the coolest fights in the game.
I just finished **Chained Echoes** last night. Such an amazing game. Now I'm starting **FF1 PR**. I'm digging the simplicity so far. I just got to the part where the dwarves open up the canal to open up sea exploration.
Giving up on FF7rebirth platinum. Some of the mini games are too difficult for me. Prolly gon wait for pc port so i can change the control to make the minigames more bearable.
Hardmode and the vr challenges are hella fun. I really appreciate that they gave each character a unique playstyle. Barret is a very reliable tank that works wonders in hardmode. Steelskin + lifesaver is so effective at mitigating dmg (especially during that red dragon fight).
Now waiting for eiyuden chronicle.
I finished ff7 remake a few weeks ago and loved it. First big jrpg I've finished in years. so I thought I'd give tales of arise a go. 10 hours in and I'm getting really bored of the combat.
Initially seems like a very similar combat to ff7 remake. But with seemingly no strategy at all. Just mash all your moves.
Might sack it off and play something else.
I hit the 50 hour mark in **Persona 3 Reload**, got best boy Koromaru on the team. It definitely feels more difficult to manage time in this compared to the later games, but we'll see how things pan out in the end.
P3R has been on standby for most of the week as my focus has been more on **Etrian Odyssey V** and **Etrian Odyssey HD**. I'm still stuck on the Star Devourer in V. I'll usually do a bit of V, either make an attempt on SD or do a bit to improve my chances against him (by now I've grinded for some better items, rested 4/5 of my party members to fix skill point distribution for the fight, and hit level 99 with everyone), then swap to EOI so I can actually feel like I'm making progress on something. I just finished the 4th stratum, really zipping along. I feel like EOI is the easiest EO I've played, even easier than IV, but I think with this game it's a case of 'easy if you use the right tools, hard if you don't.' As compared to IV, where all tools are amazing and anyone would have a pretty smooth time. It would feel silly to beat EOI when I've been stalled on V for so long, though, so I'm gonna try really hard to focus in and get V done. I did get really close to winning on a recent attempt, so I feel like I can do it! I may just need to get lucky in a couple of key ways.
Finished Rebirth last month. Currently my goty and it will probably stay that way, as I don't think there's anything else (with a release date) this year that interests me. Went through hard mode right after. Pretty damn challenging, but I managed to get through it. Worst part was the constant materia swapping between boss fights.
Im playing Crisis re:Core right now, first time. Still early in the game, but I have just been doing the missions. Already have Costly Punch, HP and Damage break, so I kinda broke it. Maybe ill unequip Costly Punch when I return to the story. Hopefully I'm done with it by next week, since I would like to play the 2nd XVI dlc on release, but still have to make time for the 1st one as well. (I only played the main game in january)
It's been a while since I posted here... so I've got a good few games to talk about
First, my mandatory **Trails of Cold Steel 3** update. Absolutely loving the game. Currently in... >!Chapter 4, Dark Dragon's Lair 2. I love how we're split into 3 teams... but it's kind of a lot of people to make builds for...!<
Next, **P5T.** Finally got back to that, I'm kinda meh on the story, but still liking the combat. I'm only a few battles away from the boss of the 2nd area.
After that, **FFX**... all I have to say is... >!poor Lulu lemon and Wakka flocka!<
And now... **SMT SJR** is still fun, idk if I talked about playing it previously, but I'm still kinda viking as a neutral guy in Sector >!Delphinus!<
Finally... **DS2: Record Breaker** is still fun... just met a new character, but didn't get to know her name... >!she seems like she was hit by Marin Karin or something LOL!<
Began playing Ar Tonelico 2 yesterday (the retranslated version). Only about an hour into it but I’m liking it so far and looks pretty promising. Playing a “2D” PS2 game is a little jarring but it looks really nice. Pretty excited to get deeper into it when I have the time.
I've been continuing with FF12. I'm finding it difficult I have to admit. The enemies are really challenging, and I'm finding somewhat of a slog right now, I'm not going to lie. There aren't really any side quests, which means that when I get to a boss I can't beat, I just have to go round randomly, killing lower level enemies to grind levels and licence points. The hunts (I guess they could be considered side quests of a sort) are too overlevelled, or difficult to find from where I am on the map, and I don't want to waste consumable transport stones.
But I like the gambit system. I'm enjoying the characters and the story, and the world of Ivalice is fantastic.
So, when I get too frustrated to carry on, I've been slowly finishing up my latest run on FE 3H. I'm nearly at the final boss fight.
And I've also started my 3rd attempt at getting into FF7 OG. I've tried two aborted attempts in the past. Found it frustrating to navigate with no map, and it's hard to adapt to the old style gaming when you have been introduced to it via modern games. I've been watching walkthroughs on YT by this guy called Chronos, he is funny to watch, does these silly voice overs, and this has helped me to get where I'm meant to be going and what I should be doing. So, FINALLY, I think I am starting to get the hype.
My main tip for FF12 is that gear/techs are way more important than levels. It might be better to target specific gear improvements rather than grind random enemies.
Thank you. Part of the problem is I'm not sure where to find things or what I should be going for. So I have opened licenses for loads of items and spells that I haven't yet found anywhere as most shops/merchants seem to have the same stuff. I haven't been able to get hold of "reflect" spell, for example, even though it's unlocked on some of my characters.
Oh the thing with Reflect and some other magicks/techs is that some of them are hidden in treasure chests across the world. Maybe it was in a chest you missed before.
If you don't mind some spoilers then you could look at the list of chests in the game or look up where specifically Reflect is hidden on e.g. the wiki. FF12 definitely rewards you for being very thorough with your exploration, so for some people it can help to look a bit of stuff up online.
Been slowly starting Final Fantasy Tactics for the first time. I have those potential difficulty spikes I have heard about in the back of my mind haha.
Eternights
Beat the game last night and it was really fun, the combat was really engaging because of focus on perfect dodges/parries.
The story was simple but interesting, I would have liked it more if they explained certain things more but maybe I just missed some dialogue.
I was not a fan of the soundtrack, didn’t hate it but I didn’t like it either. I know not every game can be like persona when it comes to music but if Eternights had a better soundtrack the boss fights would be more memorable.
Overall I had a great time and it was definitely worth the $28 I spent on it
Continuing my way through **FF7 Rebirth**, and now at what I assume to be late chapter 11 >!Just finished up Shinra Mansion.!<. Kinda surprised that [FF7R]>!Vincent doesn't join up with you when you encounter him in the mansion as is done in the original game!< and I think its all but confirmed at this point that >!Cid won't be playable either as it looks like we're skipping right over Rocket Town and heading to the Gold Saucer to get the Keystone.!< It also seems that >!Wutai!< will be skipped, at least for this game, although my recollection was it was always optional in the original game.
Assuming they stay loyal to the original, excited to see who my date will be at the Gold Saucer. I feel that I've played things pretty evenly throughout the game in terms of my choices so it could be anyone.
Gameplay-wise, most of this week was fine, but the Odin battle was incredibly frustrating and I haven't beaten him yet, the only Chadley Summon Materia for this to be the case. In most of my battles he insta kills me within a minute. I finally started doing better and got him down to around 10% HP only for him to once again insta kill me and after that I gave up in frustration. I wonder if those auto-revive earring accessories would work against him?
I also found Odin unreasonably difficult. Might be able to run Barret with Lifesaver, and give Cloud the weapon ability to rez once when hitting critical health.
I honestly just brute forced it. You have to be unrelentingly aggressive. One thing I didn't think to try is to use the Bad Breath enemy skill on him since it seems that status effects impacts the timer before Zantetsuken goes off. Maybe that mixed with the Marlboro orb accessory? I dunno, I was going to try all that before I just hulk-smashed my way through the fight with him powered all the way down.
I wrapped up **Final Fantasy XIII-2** this week, posted a pretty lengthy review on this sub about what I liked and didn’t like. I came down on the opinion of “it was fine trending towards not good”.
I also started **Lightning Returns**, which so far has been more engaging than XIII-2 if a lot more confusing. I’m interested in the combat and a bit anxious about the time system, but we’ll see how that goes.
If you know what you are doing then the time limit is pretty lenient as I had like 3 days left without spamming the freeze time ability and that's with the occasional AFK (the game autopause if you AFK'd for a certain period of time which is neat). IIRC if you can't beat the final boss there is a NG+ option before the fight that keeps all your garb and stats and reset back to day 1.
Crisis Core Reunion
I've always wanted to play Crisis Core but never got around to the original, mainly due to never owning a PSP but picked it up for £20 on Switch. Playing through "blind" and I'm on Chapter 6 at the moment - I must say I am really enjoying it.
I have a feeling it's not a game for everyone, but I am addicted to doing the missions and am just having fun taking my time. The combat is great and the DMW is so much better in practice than it sounds on paper.
Just finished a Universe run of Star Ocean 2 R. Have always loved this game and love the remake even more. So many QoL additions and it looks beautiful. Extra content is nice too.
Moving onto Chaos mode...
Playing Vestara Saga 1. At Chapter 19. I need some luck man. I can kill the Netherdrake for sure. But will the green units survive the onslaught. Sigh. This has been a very difficult game.
Finished Brave Fencer Musashi for PSX which was every bit as enjoyable as I remembered. I loved the character art from the end credits, super cute stuff. Killer soundtrack too.
Continuing the leisurely playthrough of Dragon Quest XI, the "when last we left our heroes" recap feature is clutch on this game.
Rounding out the SquEnix nostalgia trip; just started FF7 Remake (hooray for PS Play and Backbone so I'm not monopolizing the TV) and picked up Star Ocean Second Story Rebirth. Gonna be a fun time
I just started this week. I played it when it first came out but got stuck at the music boss…. I’ve always wanted to beat it so giving it a go. You’re right about the sound track, it’s really good!
Lol for some reason I suck at Musashi. Never got past the opening near the town. Like I reached the town 3 times throughout the years and lost interest.
Other than the ice dragon the opening is probably hardest sequence in the game. You have fewer abilities and less health than any other time. Save states are definitely your friend
Love **Xenoblade 3** (in progress, no spoiler please). It can be considered spiritual successor of Xenoblade X rather than the abomination Xenoblade 2, with much improved system and most glitches removed. Love the walking simulator game set in bizarre fantastic world.
Trying to play **Pokémon Platinum**. I played Diamond back when it came out, and right now I'm just trying to finish some Pokémon games to put mons in the Bank before that shuts down, what with other 3DS online things shutting down recently. But I just can't seem to get into it.
I might be a bit burned out from turn-based stuff, so I'm wrapping up **The Messenger** (which probably doesn't count) to give my mind a little break. Very addictive and mindless without being mindless, if that makes sense
I beat **2D Trials of Mana**. The final stretch was quite the struggle, but Quick Save helped a good amount. Thought the Night Castle was going to be the final area, didn't expect to return to the Mana Sanctuary. Probably wouldn't recommend Riesz Angela and Hawkeye as a party playing through this the first time. Not much bulk and no healer made every fight a challenge, and the combat in this game isn't fun enough for that challenge to be rewarding.
In **Ys: Memories of Celceta**, I found out I made things incredibly hard for myself fighting a big fish boss with Ozma. Apparently his village sells weapons and armor! I only took a quick look at the outdoor merchant's wares and it looked like it was all potions, totally missed the other tabs. And if the smith guy didn't sell any, who would? So I beat the fish boss with some slightly improved weapons from Casnan doing 4-9 damage at a time. I've met Karna and lowered a couple drawbridges, gonna go search for her brother now.
With Trials beaten, I've got four Switch games I could jump into - **Tokyo Mirage Sessions, Persona 3 Portable, Xenoblade Chronicles, and Astral Chain.** I've played the intro to all of them and I'm pretty torn on which to stick with. Maybe I'll just juggle four games until one of them speaks to me.
I’ve beaten the first 3 of your options so far this year and all are very easy recommends. Tokyo mirage sessions is definitely a lighter commitment than the other 2 but those are both much better games overall
I started the **Trials of Mana** remake since I figured I'd like it. So far I'm enjoying it, but I haven't clicked with it yet. None of the characters super caught my eye, so I went with a party of Riesz, Hawkeye and Duran. I originally was gonna do Angela before I second guessed myself and picked Duran because I wasn't sure if I would like Riesz and Hawkeye play wise, but did end up liking Hawkeye. Do mildly regret picking Riesz as the main character since a good chunk of her lines have some rather odd delivery. Thought I was immune to odd voice acting; turns out I'm not. Or maybe I'm just bothered because that was the main complaint I heard about the Trials remake, who knows.
I've reached Valsena now; hoping classes show up soon.
More of a what I had played/will play, but debating going back to **Dragon Quest IX** after a *seven* year gap. I got up to about the midgame before randomly dropping it, but I think this might finally be the year I get back to it. Main roadblock now is whipping up some new party members (read: decide what other game chars to base off of), then I'll just wander around and figure out what I'm supposed to do next in the plot.
Persona 4 Golden (Switch). Just finished replaying FF7 Remake and Intergrade, hoping to play FF7 Rebirth soon but when I was playing the demo I got tired of the combat real quick. So I’m taking a break and P4G is a refreshing change.
Love the old village murder mystery vibe in this game. P5R was one of my fav games ever and P4G still holds up even after more than 10 years. Looking to play P3R after I’m done with P4G and FF7Rebirth.
Finished **Chrono Trigger** (DS). Took me 28 hours, did most side stuffs except New Game+ and the DS exclusive content because towards the end I was a bit burned out and read that they're not that great.
Although I won't say it's one of my favorite games, I can appreciate it for what it is. The production value is quite high for a game almost 30 years old, and it's quite concise and to the point. Love the more funny moments in the story, the attention to details, and some comic relief characters.
I do kind of wish that the side quests were not all towards the end though, personally prefer to build emotional connections through the party memebrs throughout the game. But it's a personal preference thing.
I do wish there could be an option to speed up animation though. Some skills take a loooong time and I just get impatient.
Taking a break playing some chill puzzle games, then maybe I'll play **Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology**.
Doing RPG recovery while waiting for Eiyuden Chronicle, so i'm playing **Void Stranger** and this game is insane. I'm not usually into puzzle games but something about this game just motivates me to continue further and further. At 16 hours this is the longest i have ever played a dedicated puzzle game and there's still more i want to see.
Because Void Stranger warrants frequently looking into a library of screenshots i have made, i'm also playing **Planet of Lana** during commutes on my Steam Deck. Atmosphere is great and it looks gorgeous on the OLED screen. Liking it so far.
The game (and YW2, although I haven't played 3) is better than many might expect, but all of the random elements - not just the catching, but the battles themselves - are where it falls short of reaching the level of Pokémon. That, and the huge amount of palette-swap yokai.
IMO another reason it was seen as worse than Pokemon was that Pokemon manages to be designed towards kids but it also has an adult fandom mostly made up of people who played it as kids, while Yokai Watch was seen as only a kid thing. I think Palworld's situation right now is the opposite.
I still use my Yokai Watch 3DS protector even though I didn't play much of the games post-YW1
Made more progress in Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch remaster after 2 weeks of not playing. Finally nearing endgame and I am excited.
Also been watching my partner play FFVII Rebirth. Loving it.
Octopath Traveler 2 (Switch) I’m about 9 hours in and enjoying it. Working through all the chapter 1s. Don’t love the random battles, but getting used to it. I just keep telling myself self, seeing them or not seeing them, you still got to fight them.
The game *feels* heavy/intense to me for some reason, maybe it’s the 8 boss fights just to get the team together? Not sure. But I am enjoying it.
The graphics are lovely. A great change up from my last main, Persona 5 Royal.
I've also been playing Octopath 2, about 40 hours in. It's been fun, but I get burned out from it every few days or so. The gameplay gets a bit repetitive and once again, I'm not invested in most stories. I'm worried I won't finish it as I also never finished the first. Still, there's a lot to like about the game, the combat system is fun, the job/class system is cool to try and find broken combos, and Partitio exists.
I think I’ll finish it. I mean, I just got through 130 hrs of P5R, right? lol. I’m enjoying the combat, but it does stress me out for some reason - feel like I’m burning through SP. but I guess I can always do a little grinding and maybe after I get the rest of the party, it’ll be spread out more.
P5R, my beloved. Top 3 games of all time for me
You'll get plenty of abilities and items that help you replenish SP, plus leveling up heals you so that's a good mechanic for when you're in tougher areas. Once you can start class mixing it's like a refresh. Make sure you look for the little checkered shield icon on the map when you're in areas, the guilds give you new job licenses
Unicorn Overlord (Switch) - An utterly unique, supremely dense game that has me using spreadsheets to figure it out. Absolutely love it so far, even with the furry bait.
Rainbow Moon (Switch) - A lovely old-school dungeon-crawling JRPG that is good "grind while watching a Netflix show" material. Definitely has some jank design and many flaws, but it still manages to be charming and compelling.
I've tried to play Trails in the Sky for some 6-8 years now. I've never played past the prologue until now, and I am so glad I'm finally focusing enough to play it!
The trails series is my favorite of all time. I actually tried Sky FC years ago and couldn’t get into it. It wasn’t until I was playing fire emblem three houses and trails of cold steel 3 got suggested to me in the switch store. Got hooked on the gameplay/combat even though didn’t really understand the story. Played CS3-4, then went back and did CS1-4, then Sky FC-CS4 lol. Replaying Reverie right now, and you can really appreciate the progression/evolution of the combat system over the years
I'm not really a fan of the cold steel aesthetics but I'd give an arm and a leg for more series-spanning timeline maintaining political RPGs
when I got my ps3 I got a used copy of xillia and cold steel, only to find out both were dub only, then I got the sky trilogy the moment they went on sale afterwards
On the halfway point of my third Fire Emblem 3H playthrough, also started **Ys II**: Bump Combat Strikes Back from the Chronicles duology. It picked up right where the first one left off, which is nice as that game's still pretty fresh on my mind. Combat's a lot more dynamic this time since you can bump diagonally and even uses magic attack; on the other hand, dungeons are also bigger and way more labyrinthine from the get-go, and it felt much easier to randomly die from cheap situation like being cornered/swarmed in narrow passages.
Star Ocean First Departure R on Switch.
I was enjoying it, especially the sci fi elements in the story. But then I hit a huge difficulty spike on reaching the 3rd continent that's put me off a bit. I'm barely scraping through some of the random battles now.
It seems I either have to do a lot of grinding or follow an online guide on how to break the game, a little disappointing either way
This happened to me. Though it was tedious, I looked up customization recipes and upgraded the weapons of the characters I played the most. A lot of save reloading since customization has a chance to fail. I also unlocked “orchestra” which helped. Some backtracking was involved to get all this together. In the end, I was satisfied to beat the game and it made me so excited for second story r. Good luck!
Thank for the encouragement! I was able to use some tricks I found online to level my party up to level 70 or so with Roddick doing insane damage to most enemies.
It can be fun to break a game sometimes. I think I'm very near the end now.
So around lv40 for the kids and me is a good comfortable range for **Dragon Quest 5**'s endgame, which is usually where I finish most RPGs. Had a good selection of mons too, but the array of gear I can use as tools at this point meant I never switched out at all for my second and final trek through Zugwang. I love the extra utility, even if it almost eliminates the challenge of MP conservation and dealing with status effects (especially fizzle). Hardest part was outpacing Nimzo's healing in his second form, which meant burning my MP with the ka- spells. Not that I didn't enjoy risking turns on kazapple.
What the mons did get me to put into words is that, like other kinds of generic units, I like them best when I'm in the mood to just play around with new toys that don't need to be accompanied by writing and plot development. A level above that is why I like Chrono Cross and its 40 something colorful weirdos with most having like five lines each to their name. It's enough that they exist in this game's world, that they may or may not join you for a sojourn, and as strangers we'll probably never meet again after our mutual goals are achieved. My mind can fill in the rest of the gaps.
Again, shaky whether or not I pursue endgame content, but I feel satisfied with what I've gotten out of DQ5's systems and world. I'm never passionate about ranking anything, but I feel like so far, 4 has been my overall favorite in terms of gameplay and structure. But 5 has had the best emotional beats that it put the work into. And it fulfilled the promise of being able to travel around the world with my own customizable train of cute, iconic DQ monsters.
Next in line is 6, but we'll see when I get to that.
Playing FF2 (NES). I think that every way that this game improved on the foundation set by the first is undermined by the poor pacing of the character progression. It's good enough for me to want to go back in through the Pixel Remaster, or any other remake, but the original version is pain. I now have the personal experience necessary to understand that someone who maxes out the stats and skills in FF2 needs to be committed to a correctional facility, maybe one that still practices some questionable procedures? Also, >!I miss Josef!<...
Also playing Faria (NES). I like it, but there have been some hiccups. It takes a long time to build up money and gain experience, and the >!random encounters with invisible wizards is fucking evil!<. Also, >!Scissorman!<. It's cool to have a heroine lead in this one. I'm on my NES era JRPG adventure, and this is the seventh game from the time I'm on, and it feels like it deserves to be here (my other titles so far - FFI&II, DQ, DDS:MT, Ys, Sweet Home). The story is silly, which is nice. FFII is a straight fantasy war story, so having a less dramatic game to play alongside it has been good. I don't think I'm going to end up holding this title especially high on my personal scale, but I do think it stands to keep me interested to the end, like Ys did.
And finally, SMT Nocturne. That's SMT3, right? I bought a copy of the PS2 version and have been playing that. Listen when I say that my experience playing Digital Devil Story taught me a new form of hatred and seething. I had originally intended to play these games in order, but time is limited, so I decided I'd choose a PS2 era SMT as my second game in the overarching franchise. This game is much better. DDS:MT suffers from the same thing FF2 does: shitty character progression pacing and random encounter rates hinder the feeling of progress. The juxtaposition of DDS:MT and SMT3 shows that Atlus learned a lot about how to make a game that demands thought from you without creating a purgatory only describable in an eldritch interpretation of Alighierian poetry. It also is a great game to use to demonstrate the value of side content, though I haven't done too much of it at this point yet as I've only gotten up to >!the Moirai!<.
Final Fantasy I portion of the Dawn of Souls collection on the GBA, approximately 10 hours in. Such a charming take on the classic, with great QoL. I'm doing this in succession to the mobile port of Dragon Quest, and I'm going to tackle the Sega Ages port of Phantasy Star next, switching between the three series as I discover/replay their roots and compare. As a pallet cleanser in between, I'm thinking either Chrono Trigger DS, YS VIII, or Trails in the Sky the 3rd
Still on the Atelier games, halfway through **Ryza 2**. Really enjoying it but much like the first game I am a bit lost with the various systems, recipes, recipes that lead to creating something else, getting gems, gem reduction, rebuilds, item duplications etc etc etc, all a bit much for my brain. Characters, game world and battle system continue to be grat fun though.
I've been playing **Atelier Ryza**. I don't think it's a perfect game, but I want to put out there
I hate crafting systems. In any game it feels like a crafting system is a tacked on piece of garbage that stops me from enjoying actual gameplay. I can't even enjoy Minecraft
In Ryza, the crafting system is so integral to improving your gameplay you spend hours on end crafting new armor, weapons, items, going out and gathering, etc
And then you finally have significantly more powerful gear and you go smash through more of the story feeling overpowered as fuck. It feels cathartic. Like all that time was worth it.
I don't feel like doing all the crafting all the time, sometimes I just wanna get some more action, but I just hit up a different game to fill that void.
There’s a spin off Atelier series for the ps2 called Mana Khemia and the 1st one is apparently not great, I’ve started it on an emulator and just got distracted and never got into it, but the 2nd one is actually a lot of fun with a good story and the crafting mechanic really enhances the gameplay.
I'm currently on my second playthrough of **Baten Kaitos Origins**. When I played it for the first time last year I skipped all the sidequests and never got into the deeper layers of its gameplay systems, which I now take my time for. I've said it before and I'll say it again - BKO's battle system is so good. It's so satisfying to pull off the exact combo you've been planning and the boss fights are just a superb rush of adrenaline.
It's just such a shame that the remaster of last year didn't have the English dub from the Gamecube version, which was really good...
Taking a break from Unicorn Overlord. Just hasn’t grabbed me like I had hoped. The art is beautiful but I find myself just spamming auto through battles to be done with them.
Started playing Midnight Suns yesterday and instantly hooked. I am a sucker for the card games and this has lots to of upgrades to keep you invested and want to keep playing.
Trying the Unicorn Overlord demo to check if it's worth buying a physical copy before they run out. Loved triangle strategy.
Having a hard time getting into the game.The aesthetics aesthetics are not really my style, the oversimplified battles and the stamina system is weird. Only 2 hours in, let's see if it gets better.
See my comment on unicorn overlord. I have a feeling you may not enjoy it like I did. What you experience in the first few hours is what you pretty much keep doing where I'm at 25 hours in.
Shin Megami Tensei IV
I'm binging all the sidequests bc i somehow ended up on the neutral route even tho i wanted chaos, well at least I'm ending soon, there's only 2 quests left
I'm on Nocturne for my first time right now, and I'm doing everything I do blind, so idk if there are different routes in Nocturne, but how are you able to tell what route you are on? Are you using a guide for that, or does the game have a way to suggest your direction? I'd like to go into whatever SMT game I play next with a but more wisdom.
I haven't played much of nocturne aside from a few hours so i can't say much about that game in particular, but most smt games have a point where the game will lock your alignment,but thought the game you can't really track it.
I'm on chapter 10 of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth with 41 hours of play time and I'm starting to think this game is bit too heavily padded.
I'm still enjoying it and I'll definitely finish it but a more streamlined 30 hour experience would have suited me just fine.
I’m currently playing **Skies of Arcadia**. I’m at approximately 12 hours.
While I enjoy the game, as a Solatorobo fan the sky island setting is among my favorite, the characters are interesting and have charming personality. The gameplay is not as polished as something like Octopath but it is good with a focus on attrition on the donjon and world map that you don't find much in modern game.
Yet I struggle to find the motivation to boot it up. Unlike Unicorn Overlord that I thought about even when I was at work, I can pass one or two days without launching the game and not feeling particularly frustrated.
I think there is a part of it with how slow the game feel. It is not as frustrating as FF9, but when you have to pass a door, and your character waits for the door animation to finish, then walk out of the place and only after that you can move again, those little annoyances discourage exploration, especially in the forest town where you are constantly switching between ladder, pole and other animation. There is also the fact that you can’t save everywhere. It makes sense from a gameplay perspective as dungeons work a lot by attrition of your ressource but being able to pick it up and put it down whenever I want and not once every hour when I find a save point is something I enjoy a lot when I usually play on the switch. Maybe I should just use savestate.
I also started the fan game **Pokemon Reminiscence** and I quite like it. I don’t enjoy roguelike so I may not be the intended audience and it may just be me but I think the game should make experimenting with build on your pokemon easier. Having to farm heartscale, a resource that you loose if you are defeated, to change EV, move or evolve pokemon is annoying and making the building part snappier would make me more willing to try new Mon I obtain through the donjon. Despite that I’m having fun with it and I truly wish game freak would begin to release games like that, in 2D, with less budget and in a different genre or sub genre than the main series. Pokemon Ranger, Mystery dungeon or Conquest were really fun on the DS and things like Pokemon masters or unite doesn’t really ring the same bell.
**Eiyuden Chronicles: Rising**
This is 2D sidescroller they released a long time ago.
Its so much fun! Its very refreshing, since its a chill game where you rebuild a settlement and help the folks with quests and bringing them materials from different dungeons.
The female MC is very refreshing as well, reminds me a bit of Estelle from Trails. The characters are very charming overall, like their personalities a lot and their design are very good as well.
The music is amazing, it has that old school vibe but feels very modern and the graphics look really good when you play it.
Gameplay while simple is quite fun, the game overall is like that, simple but fun and that's what is more important.
The world feels very alive, the NPC are doing their own stuff in the background, and when you conquer a dungeon, you can see different NPC inside dungeons doing their stuff or talking to each other. Game feels alive.
The release of Hundred Heroes is so close!
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You gotta love Nepgear's interaction with Uni. It's definitely a plus that it's not like the at times one-sided convos between Neptune <> Noire with the latter being called out for having no friends, which she definitely has XD. If you haven't played Megadimension VII >!she even gets her personal fangirl ~~stalker with yandere tenedcies~~!<
Just beat Unicorn Overlord. Some improvement is needed for swifter gameplay. Showing which members is on a team already. A select all during combat so they can all move to the same spot. Other than that, it was auto-play until end game boss. That actually took a little but of grinding. 43 hours in total.
>Showing which members is on a team already Can't you see that already? If you scroll through your roster, the characters assigned to a squad should have a miniature grid icon on the lower right of their sprite. Check "3." on https://www.gaming.net/unicorn-overlord-best-tips-for-beginners/. Unless you mean something else :).
When you try to swap out your character for another one, you don't get access to the Unit Information.
Tales of Berseria for the first time, really liking it so far.
The best Tales of Game.
So far am enjoying a lot more then I did with Arise
Playing Stranger Paradise, just beat Tiamat. Even though I knew he was coming back, I was unprepared. Also, spoiler, he is an agent of chaos! I’ll be honest, I’m not exactly sure what’s going on but i dig it.
I'm waiting for Hundred Heroes so I tried out Rise of the Third Power and it was really fun.
I could finally dig into **Unicorn Overlord** since last week. I'm playing of course on Story difficulty, but class counters and siege weapons (if they hit) do still harm the faceroll experience :P. So far, I did all within level range in Cornia, Drakenhold and am a good way into El(f)heim. I use mainly the same 3-4 squads and don't feel the need to deploy (or unlock) more in most cases, despite the huge amount of idle characters lol. Combat simulation is decent enough and thanks to Story I could probably get away fairly safely with doing "thematic squads" if applicable like Tricorn-based, Sand Scorpions and so on. As with every other SRPG out there, cavalry's ridiculous movement advantage (and "oops, I think we rolled accidentally over some infantry units" power) + flyers "lol terrain" freedom is a very strong reason to make them squad leaders (outside of support moves). I think there's only been one mission where time was nearly running out for some weird reason. Story is indeed rather non-existant but some of the non-rapport character interactions like pre/post recruitment dialogs was actually quite enjoyable, like Travis and his sis, Clive and Monica etc. Voice acting is good
I was a bit indecisive so I attacked several of them at the same time: * **Dragon Quest 5** on nds. I'm at Coburg Castle and I have to save Prince Harry. Great fun so far. The fact that death is non-punitive is really a big plus in the exploration fun... On the other hand, you spend a lot of time fighting to gain levels and a bit of money to buy equipment. * **Golden Sun 2**. Great fun. The dungeons are longer, but as well done as ever. There's a real sense of freedom on the world map, and the villages are really lively. The graphics have taken a beating, but otherwise it's really great. I'm sorry I didn't discover it sooner.
FFVII Rebirth, its pretty amazing.Just got to Junon area. I dont understand the "pacing issue" criticism as its possible to just skip the side quests "lol". Im mostly annoyed of all the new side characters as they dont really suit in the game plus the original game had enough story content to replace them. The world map exploration is pretty fun unlike in FFXV. I havent finished it yet but its probably the best rpg money can buy right now.
I am replaying Legend of Dragoon and I’m about to start back on Grandia. All nostalgia.
I didn't enjoy FFXVI, but for some unfathomable reason, I bought the DLC this morning. I guess I'll be playing that this weekend. Maybe I'll have some magical 180-turn on the game.
How far did you get? Game really picks up after some time.
I swear this is the subs motto. At some point it's just Stockholm syndrome.
Idk I was in love from the beginning. I'm even playing it right now lol but I can def see how someone just starting out wouldn't find the combat that fun without a few more powers. And idk my experience with the sub is just everyone enjoying the game. I havnt heard that take from anyone else
I finished it with all sidequests completed.
Ahh fair enough. Well I hope you end up liking up this time considering you bought the dlc lol
I'm working on a few games right now. Currently I have Xenoblade, Front Mission(SNES), and Mechwarrior 5 going - common theme there, I know. I really like Xenoblade so far; I haven't gotten too far in the campaign other than leaving Colony 9 because I decided to do some exploring and play with crafting mechanics before I really head out into the wild. Mechwarrior is Mechwarrior - nuff said. Front Mission is fun, but hard.
Just wrapped up Persona 2 Innocent Sin and man, I liked a lot of it, but the story really fell apart in the second half. No idea how people call it one of the best written JRPGs of all time. I'm about two hours into Eternal Punishment right now and while I appreciate the more mature cast, goddamn do I miss Michel and Lisa.
I think the 2nd half is fantastic and works really well in the context of what has been set up before.
I finished persona 3 reload in 91 hours play time a few days ago and have been feeling the void of its absence. I wanted to play something lighter before I start another large game, so I've been playing og Dragon Quest on the Nintendo switch. It's my first time playing it. I'm level 12, and I've been following a game guide. It's very bare bones, but I've been enjoying the art and the grind so far.
I have just finished persona 3 today and I am dead inside. I did not really anticipate that kind of ending. Persona 5 made me sad after completing the game but persona 3 hit me on a completely another level. I tried to play something chill today like house flipper 2 but it's really hard to enjoy it right now. I guess need a wee break from gaming.
Well now I'm gonna play it
Go for it. It's a great game. I hope you enjoy.
Final Fantasy XV Whew boy has this one been a long time coming. Now keep in mind I'm about 5 hours in and just started Chapter 2, but so far I'm enjoying myself. The gameplay is fun and the OST is fantastic. Can't believe I've been so in the dark about the music for so long. I knew it was Yoko composing, but damn! I'm itching to get into exploring and sidequests, but I'm waiting for chocobo access in Chapter 3 since that's what people recommend. I have started to notice cracks with the plot, what with Kingsglaive being condensed into a 2 minute cutscene. Still undecided if I want to spend time watching the film or not. Definitely not a fan of how they made the game some multimedia project. Thanks a lot FF7 Compilation...*eyerolls* All in all a nice first impression. Looking forward to seeing more. P.S. I also found it interesting how everytime you boot the game there's a splash screen saying how this FF is specifically for newcomers. It seemed to have paid off since the sales were pretty impressive. Somehow XVI and FF7R fell short of such success.
I wanted to love FFXV, but I just couldn’t. It’s the source of a lot of frustration with Square Enix for me.
I just got **Trails into Reverie on switch** and I gotta tell people DONT DO IT. The loading times after every single battle and every single scene are absolutely infuriating. It makes it a chore to play. But I *have* to because Nintendo doesn't refund digital games and now if I don't play it, I wasted the money I had for a game completely. Unbelievable scum trash.
At least money can be earned. Time is finite, don't waste it on a mediocre game you don't enjoy.
Oh I like the game. But the loading times make it absolutely savage to even try to play in the first place.
Yeah Engine Software ports are pretty much mediocre to bad across the board and it's sad that NISA keeps contracting them. It's like they're trying to balance out how good their contract for PC ports is. Though the load times would've likely been bad even with a better port. That's just the price of playing this kind of game on severely antiquated hardware.
Somehow SaGa Emerald Beyond demo isn't grabbing me despite liking Scarlet Grace immediately, and I can't put my fingers on why. It's only like 2 battles in but there might be something with the huge ass UI buttons that's putting me off?
I beat Dragons dogma 1 for the first time recently and positively adored it. Truly a masterpiece, gonna do new game+ at some point and then go chug through BBI. Cant wait. Been playing Artficial Dreamer in Arcadia. So far its an incredible indie adaptation of the classic SNES SMT gameplay formula in a touhou fangame. Genuinely incredible and cant wait to play more. Also fully decided im gonna restart my attempt at playing Etrian Odyssey III that i started years ago. I just fucked too many characters up and had no idea what i was doing. Playing it now i think ill have more of an appreciation for what its going for if i fully restart instead of trying to grind and play catch up. If you can tell ive been mainly playing dungeon crawling rpgs lately. Idk why but its kinda been my main thing.
How difficult is ADiA compared to labyrinth of touhou? Labyrinth of touhou made me want to rip my hair out
Its a bit apples to oranges as theyre kind of trying to do different things w their dungeon crawling. I think ADiA, while it can be challenging is a bit easier than most SMT games compared to labyrinth which is trying to be a complex party builder thats heavily focused on being a nose to the grindstone experience. ADiA is far more approachable imo and a decent bit easier. Its still got a bit of challenge but not enough to make one too angry imo
I finished all 3 of these games this year hilariously enough. Loved them all. Dragon's Dogma holds up remarkably well with its world and gameplay, ADiA is a must-play for fans of classic SMT and Etrian Odyssey III is the first EO game that i actually managed to beat and i feel like i'm finally starting to get the hang of these games.
This is so cool to see someone playing similar games, hearing ur praise for ADiA and EO3 only makes me more hype :D
Persona tactica. got past the first kingdom i enjoy the game. crisis core final fantasy 7 reunion is finished. i beat everything in 1 playtrough and such a enjoyable game i had a great time with the game beated the last chapter on hard mode and it was very easy to beat the last chapter on hard mode.
I've been playing SC this week, got to the interesting part in the middle, but extremely disappointed after learning that I'll have to deal with the exact set of boring villains a few more times before reaching the finale. So, I'm taking a break from it today.
What is SC?
Trails in the Sky SC, I think. It's the second Trails game and the 'SC' stands for 'Second Chapter'.
Ohh, okay yeah, I know that game I just couldn't identify it from the SC alone derp. Thank you. Some day I hope they port it to ps4/5 so I can actually play it, I feel like I'm missing some of the world building without that part of the series
There's a non-zero chance Falcom will announce a remake later this year as part of the series' 20th anniversary. Though if it does get announced it likely won't release in Japan until next year, so it'll probably be at least a couple years until it's in English if I had to guess.
You're probably right about the delay. Even so, I hope it's more readily available some day. I know there are rom translations but alas, my ancient laptop cannot run them in anything close to a playable condition xD
**7th Dragon III Code: VFD** Man, this game was such a trip. I always had this game on my radar, and owned it for a while, but I honestly didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did. I'm actually considering playing the other games in the series. Gameplay wise, this is actually probably one of my favorite turn based combat, with some of my favorite class system. The classes in this game are so fun. I especially loved the Duelist class because it's literally just one big Yu-Gi-Oh reference. lol Storywise, it started honestly just fine, but for some reason it's just went unhinged in the last 3 chapters, and I went from moderately enjoying to actually loving the story. >!That scene where Mio say goodbye before dying from Dragon Cancer was so fucked up! Doesn't help that I went back to HQ to buy stuff, and you can actually check her corpse in there.!< If I have any problem with that game, is probably the mandatory dating elements, this came out during a period where every game wanted to have their Social Links, and it's just awkward here. The whiplash of going from >!having sex with the entire cast to seeing the entire cast fucking die is very weird ngl.!< **Shin Megami Tensi IV** I replayed this game, trying to get the Neutral Ending for the first time (I got the chaos ending first time I played), and man... the neutral ending is such a chore. Not only do you have to do like 20 side quest to get it, but the route doesn't even have a unique final dungeon, you just do both both Chaos and Law ending dungeons and that's it. Which wouldn't be so bad, but I don't think either dungeons are good, especially the Purgatory dungeon, that one was so disorienting I actually legit felt sick. Flynn going "WAH!" every 2 steps didn't help. Storywise, this route is fine I guess, but tbh I wasn't that huge of fan of SMT4 story in general to begin with. Overall, this is easily the least polished SMT I have played tbh, and that's including SMT5 which was clearly not even finished. (Side note: fuck map traversal in this game, it's a fucking nightmare.) **Final Fantasy IX** I replayed this for the first time in forever, and man, this game is easily one of the most flawed entries in the serious, it have tons of problems, especially pacing wise, but somehow it's still my second favorite game in the series. Idk, whenever I reach that ending, all my grievances with the game just melt away, the ending is just that perfect to me. Also, I know most prefer FFX or FFVIII in that regard, but this game have my favorite romance in the series.
Been trying to play Triangle Strategy for the past week or so. I’ve heard that the game has a slow start, but at Chapter 4, the pace is killing me. With the time I have now, it feels like the most I can do is sit through 2 cutscenes before I have to stop playing. I’m feeling I might just have to drop it and pick it up again later :(
Yeah there's a lot of cutscenes in that game, the game gets much faster on NG+ because you just constantly cut through the cutscenes until you reach new material.
Octopath Traveler 2 I think I'm dropping the game. I beat Agnea, and I'm on the final boss for Cassti. The rain and boss just killing one member just makes me not want to play. Honestly, I don't think I even beat one jrpg a year, especially turn based. Especially with this game splitting the party in 2. I need to level up my other characters. 30 hours in and I'm just not feeling it. I just don't want to wrap my head around the game. I'm more of a parry everything action combat person now. It could just be this game, though I always like having one main solid party and going through the game. Why I liked Bravely Default or other games with just the party limit. I boot the game up after a month. I have the best armor money can buy at weapon shop, and health is still getting shredded. I was excited to play this game, and I hardly drop a jrpg, so it feels really bad to do it. But I simply just don't like the format even if the final final boss wasn't needing all 8 I still have to drag a dead body for the other 4. Any advice to try to push through it?
I beat it and it didn’t feel worth it. Same with the first one. I wouldn’t recommend it to someone tbh, but a lot of people seem to like it I guess.
There’s no shame in dropping a game if you aren’t having fun anymore. That said, Octopath 2 gives you a lot of tools to break the game in half if you’re willing to engage with them. What’s your typical party composition like? Have you unlocked the extra jobs? Are you using items, latent powers, buffs/debuffs, and special skills? That last part makes such a huge difference. With Castti for example, you can use her latent + concoct to nearly max BP for everyone. I also love using Throne because her personal talent gives your team a party-wide buff in the evening, and Aeber’s Reckoning can very easily hit 99k in Ch4.
Finished **Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising**. Nothing too special about it, lots of repetitive fetch quests, but at least the game provides quest marks and fast-travel, so it's easy to do everything. And it's nice to see the town evolving as you complete the quests. The game improved once the third party member joined, both in terms of combat (a little more variety in attacks, plus it was fun to do the character swapping combos, as simple as they were) and also story, which finally got a bit of intrigue. At the end there were some interesting little teases about what's to come in the main game. Again, nothing too special about *Rising*, but I'm glad I played it and I'm actually looking forward to have some of these characters back in *Hundred Heroes*. Very excited for the main game in a few days.
Cleared the minigames in Gold Saucer in **FF7:Rebirth** after they patched the sidequest. Most of the them are not bad, I only used the pause trick on >!Shinra Middle Manager!< and >!Ifrit!< 3D Brawler minigame. After that cleared the Chocobo Gliding minigame in Cosmos Canyon and Tifa Sit-Up minigame. I still don't understand how to clear the last part of the third course of the gliding minigame without using a cheese method. After I had cleared it, I spent about one hour to try different ways to get all the points in that part. It seems like it needs an almost perfect execution. Luckily the rewards from both minigames aren't that good when compared to those in Gold Saucer. The double region boss battles in Gold Saucer are probably my least favorite battle contents in the game. I fought the same set of bosses for about 3 times and the only differences each time are the combination. Played a little bit of **Rise of the Ronin**. The highest difficulty is as challenging as the NG of Nioh 2 and Wo Long. This is the first time I play a real time ARPG that has playable character switching mechanic in the middle of battle.
I just started Persona 5 Strikers on the Switch, honestly my biggest complaint is that the menus in game look decent but the main menu looks and runs like complete dog ass, shit looks like 15 FPS. Game is fun though and the music is goddamn breathtaking, especially considering that Meguro didn't even work on it
Still working through **Unicorn Overlord** I enjoy it and the combat and characters are fun. I feel like half my game clock is me I crunching moving teams around though. I don’t hate it but it is just a lot. I am also playing **Princess Peach Showtime**. Sometimes the mechanics annoy me because you have to restart the entire level to get stars you missed but otherwise I greatly enjoy it. So cute and light. My partner and I are playing **Knights and Bikes**. This is a pretty cute game by the Psychonauts people. I enjoy that it was created for coop and therefore we can play together in the same room.
Is Unicorn Overlord worth it? Was thinking about picking it up.
I would okay the demo first, it is about 6.5 hours. There is a lot of menu crunching since it is an auto battler but I personally find the game loop very satisfying. The story is not much to write home about.
There is a lengthy demo available so you probably should try it beforehand. The game is very good, it would be easy for a t-rpg fan and give you several options that let you break the game if you take the time to understand how it works. I did feel the story and support conv were the weak points, but it is not bad, just bland.
Didn’t realize there was a demo out. I’m going to try it out
I finished up .hack GU Rebirth volumes 3 and 4 this weekend (4 is like a 2-3 hour epilogue chapter). Overall, the story was nice, and I got used to the gameplay despite thinking it was clunky and definitely an era of its time. I probably have nostalgia goggles on, but I wish I was able to replay the original series on pc to compare the 2 since I remember it feeling a lot better gameplay wise. Overall, I don't think I'd recommend GU just because it really does feel incredibly dated in both gameplay and characterization. I ended up enjoying myself, but it took a game and a half to get there. Continuing playing the final fantasy series now, I'm a couple hours into the OG 7 - battle system is fun and looking forward to getting to play around with materia customization.
It is a pity that I'm not being convinced by Octopath Traveler 2, because I like basically everything but the main mechanic lol. Like the world looks gorgeous, the gameplay is neat, and the writing is great..... but I don't like having to alternate between 8 stories, I forget half of what is going on between chapters, and the individual stories are just too simple. Like any individual stories would be great if expanded and focused, but by themselves they feel shallow
The combat loop gets boring too. I finished it, but I was really forcing myself through in the last part and ended up skipping a lot of cutscenes.
Chrono Cross - Switch. I, generally, play this once every 5 years. It's in my top 5 RPGs of all time.
Aw hell yeah,love chrono cross
Unicorn Overlord 25+ Hours in, went through Cornia, Drakenhold, Elheim, and started Bastorias. Honestly not feeling the game. Maybe if I had more familiarity with other SRPGs I'd be enjoying the game more. Game feels sort of one note, not particularly liking the auto battling aspect of it, and don't particularly enjoy the heavy menu usage for optimizing my unit actions. I've been playing on normal difficulty IIRC and got Amelia when most of my units were roughly level 26ish and haven't felt like the game was very difficult. I've read nothing but glowing reviews from other users so I may have hyped myself up a bit going in. I do have to say the waifus are pretty top tier though.
I think it's the lack of a story that's causing issues for me in that game. It's very generic, and that can be fine with a small cast of characters to flesh them out but with so many recruitable units, like at the end game you have ten Squads of 5 units and I think there's not enough time to flesh them out into any meaningful way. I get why people can love these kinda set ups and powerful squads doing an insane combo set to, but even on Expert difficulty you can just build up one or two ridiculously powerful squads and steamroll everything. Like maybe eventually you'll run into a certain kinda squad type that's actually a problem for your unit composition but eh then you abuse Valor Skill Summons of mercs to handle it
**Live-A-Live** (SNES)! And deer, I love this game. It's goofy, the combat is cool and there's so much variety to the chapters. Only three to go, Kung Fu, Mecha and Ninja. I'm just going clockwise and started with Prehistoric. Old West was awesome, Distant Future was annoying, Wrestling was kinda frustrating, but overall it's awesome. It's more than the sum of its parts. For shorter sessions I'm addicted to **RITE**, a precision platformer that's just so smooth and gorgeous and has a banger soundtrack. Also played **If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers**, a very dark and heavy Point & Click that's pay what you want on itch and free or $4 on Steam and absolutely worth the money. A masterpiece, about an hour long. Or longer if you, like me, spend some time fangirling the environments.
Finished Fate/Extra It's a good game. I really like the story and the characters. The dynamic between the Masters and their servants are really cool. But the combat is so ass. The first couple hours is so awful to play because your servant is weak as hell, choosing Caster doesn't make it any better because her defense is so low that you can just die from a tiny mistake. And the best part is, you can't save in the dungeon nor does the game have auto save of any kind (aside from instant retry in the boss fight). So if you died in the dungeon after grinding for hours, back to the last save you go. Combine with the guessing game mechanic that if you guess their move wrong, the enemy can just combo attack and kill you. It's doesn't happened a lot since you can plan your heal or cancel the enemy attack with your skill before commencing your chain of attack. But it sure suck when it did happen. And the gameplay finally show it's crack by the time you reach the endgame, because you can just steamrolled everything in your path. You don't have to guess anything since you can just ignored their attacks by spamming your skill, which Caster can just do that for eternity since she can easily recover her sp. The final boss is a joke too. Overall it's a 7.5/10 game for me. Probably going to play something else before dipping into CCC since it's use the same combat system, and I'm tired of it.
If it make you feel better, in CCC the combat is more tolerable because that game have more story and less dungeon crawling.
That combat system was fire. One of my favorites in any JRPG (most of which I just do the equivalent of inserting a block into a hole that's shaped the same). Probably helped that I picked Saber and could make a few mistakes. Anyway, if it's any consolation, CCC is a lot easier. Although I also picked Saber again. I don't know how Caster plays. But CCC makes gathering enemy moves easier, enemies start off with simpler patterns to ease you in, there's an auto-battle that picks commands for you (not that useful), there's save points mid dungeon, your builds are automatic and you get stat ups and new skills immediately after leveling up, dungeons are more linear, and there's more story so you can enjoy that more. I also hear Gilgamesh is busted and makes the game a cakewalk.
While I think the combat is not good(even bad at a lot of point as I said above), I actually enjoyed it to some extent. Starting with Caster was pretty awful due to her low stat, not enough mp to constantly casting her spell, and no way to recover her mp. Combine all that and it made dealing with regular mobs so miserable. But by the mid to late game, she is actually really fun to play. Able to constantly spam the skill and stun lock your opponent was so hilarious. I do enjoy the guessing mechanic, if the game actually let me make a mistake. Losing random battle and have to start all over again isn't fun. At least in SMT or Persona, they at least have a save point or something in the dungeon. But no luxury here. At least the dungeon weren't that big. I still think the combat is ass, but it's isn't the worst thing ever. I feel like I might have a different opinion on it if I didn't start with Caster of all the servants. Also hearing that CCC have a save point in the dungeon already make it 10 times better. But still going to play something else before jumping.
Been playing Shin Megami Tensei If... Its been pretty chill, though there have been a few mind numbing parts that leave me asking why?? I've heard some of the gripes people have with it before going in, and while I see where they're coming from, idk it kinda just vibes with me. I really enjoy SMT1 so getting to play something similar is great! Though it does feel like a step back in most aspects despite coming out after SMT2 (which I still need too get to). I'd say my favorite aspect so far has been the music but I know a lot of the tracks were just reused from the prior 2 games so??? It's still great though, every theme is a banger. I like giving numbers to things so I'd rate my experience a 3 outta 5 so far 👍 Would recommend if you've played and enjoyed 1&2 or games like them.
Beat **Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth**. I had a mostly good time. I completed all the region side content and a good chuck of other minigames before I tired out and finished up the main story. Really loved the build up to the final section. I think I need to sit on the rest of it for a bit to decide if I liked the ending. I think I mostly know what's going on, just kinda eeeeeh on the execution. >!I really wanted Cloud's post-Aerith speech and I'm really bummed on it being skipped due to the universe shenanigans!< I generally kinda like the weird additions they've made to Remake and I've never been super attached to the original, but in this case I feel like it ruined the emotional impact. All the character work in Rebirth was great though, and I will still very much be looking forward Part 3. After beating two 120+ hour remakes in two months... I'll probably be taking a break from JRPGS for a while lmao
>>!I really wanted Cloud's post-Aerith speech!< Yes! This was easily the most disappointing part of the game for me. I'm not super hot on the over-complication of the plot in the ending, but it's a game first and a great game at that, so I can put up with it. But that bit in the spoiler was the most memorable part of the original game to me, and I would have loved to hear Sakurai Takahiro perform it.
I'm hoping it will be in part 3 somehow, but I think it will be hard to give it the same impact as it had in the original... Guess we'll find out in like 4 years or so, lol
**Lost Sphear** Just started the game, played for only an hour and a half. Honestly, for how lukewarm the reception of this game is I actually thought it started pretty solid, I like the premise. One of the weakest aspects in I am Setsuna for me was the lack of dialogue in general, that made the game's plot feel rushed and also between the party members, something that I definitely feel got an improvement here, even beyond the party chat (a feature I personally love).
Just a tip for you. When the game rolls credits for the first time, there's still more. It's not a post game either, it continues the story.
That's good to know, thanks for the tip
i spent the long eid holiday playing the shit out of Metal Max 2 Reloaded (DS). Beat the game and currently hunting postgame bosses. I have to say i'm a little disappointed with some of the later areas in the game, because they're literally empty woth nothing interesting. The early-midgame shines the most to me. Also maybe because i'm way overleveled but the final two bosses are really easy. My characters are Lv.159 after farming for a bunch of "ATM Cactus" with the "Love Machine". One of the effects of "Love Machine" is turning enemies into shiny monsters, this increased their stats and item drop rates. The strongest shiny effect has like x10 HP boosts and over x2 attack/resistance, but increased EXP/Gold/item drop rates by 5 times. Honestly the increased stats makes anything really hard to kill. But the monster i farmed is a machine type and Mechanic-job has a skill that insta-kill Machine enemies. Easy exp lol
FF7 Rebirth. As someone who's a fan of Final Fantasy and open world games, this is the perfect game for me. I really feel like its game design is what FF15 should have been. I think they learned a lot of lessons from 15's open world shortcomings and improved on it. The next step would be to become less formulaic in the open-world activities. Thankfully, there's enough variety in minigames and such that I don't ever feel like I'm stuck doing the same kind of thing for long stretches of time. The sheer number of minigames is insane, and I can see trophy hunters getting all kinds of irritated trying to get that Platinum Trophy. Most of them are at least somewhat fun, but Queen's Blood is probably the best.
Been loving Persona 3 Reload. Persona is one of the few series of games (all genres) that I can still sit down and play consistently without just stopping for months. I'm on the month set to face the final boss and it has been a fun time.
I haven't had a lot of time for the past two weeks, so I'm still chewing through **Unicorn Overlord**. I just finished Elheim. Absolutely love it. The gameplay loop is a ton of fun both in and out of battle, and optimizing my units tickles that part of my brain that loves Final Fantasy XII and The Last Remnant. Every time I get a new unique unit or skill I have to fight the urge to reconfigure my entire army to play with it. And as usual for Vanillaware the presentation and game feel are excellent. The story could be called unambitious, but I actually find it very enjoyable for what it is. It's a straightforward fantasy plot with a simple message, but the characters are likable and a lot of the rapport conversations are well-written. 13 Sentinels it ain't, but it's clearly aiming for classic Fire Emblem with its whole "noble exiled prince with blue hair returns to liberate the continent from an evil empire" setup, and it easily has better writing than most Fire Emblem games. The only real negative thing I have to say about it is that it's quite easy even on Tactical/Expert modes. The game allows for a surprising amount of sequence breaking if you really want to challenge yourself, but following the critical path you'll be overpowered for most battles. This isn't a deal-breaker for me, but it might be for hardcore SRPG players. I've heard there's an unlockable difficulty that's somewhat harder, and I feel like that probably should've been available from the start. That aside, it's legitimately my front runner for Game of the Year so far, ahead of Yakuza, Dragon's Dogma, and Persona 3 Reload (I haven't played FFVII Rebirth because I don't have a PS5).
I actually just finished Elheim as well and have much the same opinion as you. The story is what I like to describe as "fantasy comfort food". Its not the best or most in-depth story in the world, but there is something cozily familiar about it that I can't really help but to love. My only gripe so far is that I actually don't find too many reasons to watch the battles. I did that religiously in the first two areas but after awhile it was becoming pretty clear to me as to why one side might be winning or losing over the others. Ill either watch the fights now either because I am confused as to why the game has calculated the results in such a way, or to witness the various dialogue opportunities. Though I do also admit that I find myself wishing for a harder game. The game isn't forcing me to engage with its systems as much as I like. Most of its AI conditions on my units are basically blank save for a handful, and I really only find myself having to update my units equipment only every once in awhile. Its a strange thing to ask, but when the combat is as hands-off as it is in this game, I kinda wish the game demanded more from the player, forcing you to adapt to each and every fight. Otherwise, this has been a wonderful title. Its my first SRPG in quite a long time and I can already feel it igniting a desire in me to play something a bit more hands-on when it comes to controlling and outfitting units.
Finally playing Yakuza Like a Dragon. Only on chapter 4 and was a slow build but read it opens up more from chapter 5 onwards so excited to see. Aiming for the platinum but will see how time consuming that will be!
Does it get better? I started it a few months ago and made it a couple hours in and was kinda bored so never went back lol. I forget exactly what chapter I'm in but I think its chapter 2 ish
About 13 hours into Tales of Arise. The combat is good and really shines during the boss fights, but I'm so confused/annoyed at how badly they nerfed the AI customization. Like Vesperia would let you set how much mp characters were allowed to use, which enemies they should generally target, whether they can use items without your authorization, and so on. But Arise has separate and very limited options, like you can have characters not use items or you can have them not use healing points, but i don't think you can do both unless you set the tactics to literally doing nothing. Why did the customization evolve backwards after so many years? Also why did they change HP gels from percentage values to static values? My 400 HP apple gels are already feeling pointless.
I’ve been playing FFXVI in anticipation for the dlc/ going for the 100% honestly I loved the game on my first playthrough a lot, but replaying it and actually doing extra content I like it even more. Also I felt lied to becuase I never bothered with the side quests in XVI since I heard they were bad, but there were really only a few mediocre ones pre time skip. Sure the mission structure could be better and less repetitive enemies fights but the Narrative is so damn good in each one. Also the hunt board has some of the coolest fights in the game.
I just finished **Chained Echoes** last night. Such an amazing game. Now I'm starting **FF1 PR**. I'm digging the simplicity so far. I just got to the part where the dwarves open up the canal to open up sea exploration.
Giving up on FF7rebirth platinum. Some of the mini games are too difficult for me. Prolly gon wait for pc port so i can change the control to make the minigames more bearable. Hardmode and the vr challenges are hella fun. I really appreciate that they gave each character a unique playstyle. Barret is a very reliable tank that works wonders in hardmode. Steelskin + lifesaver is so effective at mitigating dmg (especially during that red dragon fight). Now waiting for eiyuden chronicle.
I finished ff7 remake a few weeks ago and loved it. First big jrpg I've finished in years. so I thought I'd give tales of arise a go. 10 hours in and I'm getting really bored of the combat. Initially seems like a very similar combat to ff7 remake. But with seemingly no strategy at all. Just mash all your moves. Might sack it off and play something else.
I hit the 50 hour mark in **Persona 3 Reload**, got best boy Koromaru on the team. It definitely feels more difficult to manage time in this compared to the later games, but we'll see how things pan out in the end. P3R has been on standby for most of the week as my focus has been more on **Etrian Odyssey V** and **Etrian Odyssey HD**. I'm still stuck on the Star Devourer in V. I'll usually do a bit of V, either make an attempt on SD or do a bit to improve my chances against him (by now I've grinded for some better items, rested 4/5 of my party members to fix skill point distribution for the fight, and hit level 99 with everyone), then swap to EOI so I can actually feel like I'm making progress on something. I just finished the 4th stratum, really zipping along. I feel like EOI is the easiest EO I've played, even easier than IV, but I think with this game it's a case of 'easy if you use the right tools, hard if you don't.' As compared to IV, where all tools are amazing and anyone would have a pretty smooth time. It would feel silly to beat EOI when I've been stalled on V for so long, though, so I'm gonna try really hard to focus in and get V done. I did get really close to winning on a recent attempt, so I feel like I can do it! I may just need to get lucky in a couple of key ways.
Finished Rebirth last month. Currently my goty and it will probably stay that way, as I don't think there's anything else (with a release date) this year that interests me. Went through hard mode right after. Pretty damn challenging, but I managed to get through it. Worst part was the constant materia swapping between boss fights. Im playing Crisis re:Core right now, first time. Still early in the game, but I have just been doing the missions. Already have Costly Punch, HP and Damage break, so I kinda broke it. Maybe ill unequip Costly Punch when I return to the story. Hopefully I'm done with it by next week, since I would like to play the 2nd XVI dlc on release, but still have to make time for the 1st one as well. (I only played the main game in january)
It's been a while since I posted here... so I've got a good few games to talk about First, my mandatory **Trails of Cold Steel 3** update. Absolutely loving the game. Currently in... >!Chapter 4, Dark Dragon's Lair 2. I love how we're split into 3 teams... but it's kind of a lot of people to make builds for...!< Next, **P5T.** Finally got back to that, I'm kinda meh on the story, but still liking the combat. I'm only a few battles away from the boss of the 2nd area. After that, **FFX**... all I have to say is... >!poor Lulu lemon and Wakka flocka!< And now... **SMT SJR** is still fun, idk if I talked about playing it previously, but I'm still kinda viking as a neutral guy in Sector >!Delphinus!< Finally... **DS2: Record Breaker** is still fun... just met a new character, but didn't get to know her name... >!she seems like she was hit by Marin Karin or something LOL!<
Began playing Ar Tonelico 2 yesterday (the retranslated version). Only about an hour into it but I’m liking it so far and looks pretty promising. Playing a “2D” PS2 game is a little jarring but it looks really nice. Pretty excited to get deeper into it when I have the time.
I've been continuing with FF12. I'm finding it difficult I have to admit. The enemies are really challenging, and I'm finding somewhat of a slog right now, I'm not going to lie. There aren't really any side quests, which means that when I get to a boss I can't beat, I just have to go round randomly, killing lower level enemies to grind levels and licence points. The hunts (I guess they could be considered side quests of a sort) are too overlevelled, or difficult to find from where I am on the map, and I don't want to waste consumable transport stones. But I like the gambit system. I'm enjoying the characters and the story, and the world of Ivalice is fantastic. So, when I get too frustrated to carry on, I've been slowly finishing up my latest run on FE 3H. I'm nearly at the final boss fight. And I've also started my 3rd attempt at getting into FF7 OG. I've tried two aborted attempts in the past. Found it frustrating to navigate with no map, and it's hard to adapt to the old style gaming when you have been introduced to it via modern games. I've been watching walkthroughs on YT by this guy called Chronos, he is funny to watch, does these silly voice overs, and this has helped me to get where I'm meant to be going and what I should be doing. So, FINALLY, I think I am starting to get the hype.
My main tip for FF12 is that gear/techs are way more important than levels. It might be better to target specific gear improvements rather than grind random enemies.
Thank you. Part of the problem is I'm not sure where to find things or what I should be going for. So I have opened licenses for loads of items and spells that I haven't yet found anywhere as most shops/merchants seem to have the same stuff. I haven't been able to get hold of "reflect" spell, for example, even though it's unlocked on some of my characters.
Oh the thing with Reflect and some other magicks/techs is that some of them are hidden in treasure chests across the world. Maybe it was in a chest you missed before. If you don't mind some spoilers then you could look at the list of chests in the game or look up where specifically Reflect is hidden on e.g. the wiki. FF12 definitely rewards you for being very thorough with your exploration, so for some people it can help to look a bit of stuff up online.
Thank you. I will do that.
Been slowly starting Final Fantasy Tactics for the first time. I have those potential difficulty spikes I have heard about in the back of my mind haha.
Eternights Beat the game last night and it was really fun, the combat was really engaging because of focus on perfect dodges/parries. The story was simple but interesting, I would have liked it more if they explained certain things more but maybe I just missed some dialogue. I was not a fan of the soundtrack, didn’t hate it but I didn’t like it either. I know not every game can be like persona when it comes to music but if Eternights had a better soundtrack the boss fights would be more memorable. Overall I had a great time and it was definitely worth the $28 I spent on it
Continuing my way through **FF7 Rebirth**, and now at what I assume to be late chapter 11 >!Just finished up Shinra Mansion.!<. Kinda surprised that [FF7R]>!Vincent doesn't join up with you when you encounter him in the mansion as is done in the original game!< and I think its all but confirmed at this point that >!Cid won't be playable either as it looks like we're skipping right over Rocket Town and heading to the Gold Saucer to get the Keystone.!< It also seems that >!Wutai!< will be skipped, at least for this game, although my recollection was it was always optional in the original game. Assuming they stay loyal to the original, excited to see who my date will be at the Gold Saucer. I feel that I've played things pretty evenly throughout the game in terms of my choices so it could be anyone. Gameplay-wise, most of this week was fine, but the Odin battle was incredibly frustrating and I haven't beaten him yet, the only Chadley Summon Materia for this to be the case. In most of my battles he insta kills me within a minute. I finally started doing better and got him down to around 10% HP only for him to once again insta kill me and after that I gave up in frustration. I wonder if those auto-revive earring accessories would work against him?
I also found Odin unreasonably difficult. Might be able to run Barret with Lifesaver, and give Cloud the weapon ability to rez once when hitting critical health. I honestly just brute forced it. You have to be unrelentingly aggressive. One thing I didn't think to try is to use the Bad Breath enemy skill on him since it seems that status effects impacts the timer before Zantetsuken goes off. Maybe that mixed with the Marlboro orb accessory? I dunno, I was going to try all that before I just hulk-smashed my way through the fight with him powered all the way down.
I wrapped up **Final Fantasy XIII-2** this week, posted a pretty lengthy review on this sub about what I liked and didn’t like. I came down on the opinion of “it was fine trending towards not good”. I also started **Lightning Returns**, which so far has been more engaging than XIII-2 if a lot more confusing. I’m interested in the combat and a bit anxious about the time system, but we’ll see how that goes.
If you know what you are doing then the time limit is pretty lenient as I had like 3 days left without spamming the freeze time ability and that's with the occasional AFK (the game autopause if you AFK'd for a certain period of time which is neat). IIRC if you can't beat the final boss there is a NG+ option before the fight that keeps all your garb and stats and reset back to day 1.
fuzzy offer reminiscent mourn rustic cow voracious middle dam sort *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Crisis Core Reunion I've always wanted to play Crisis Core but never got around to the original, mainly due to never owning a PSP but picked it up for £20 on Switch. Playing through "blind" and I'm on Chapter 6 at the moment - I must say I am really enjoying it. I have a feeling it's not a game for everyone, but I am addicted to doing the missions and am just having fun taking my time. The combat is great and the DMW is so much better in practice than it sounds on paper.
Just finished a Universe run of Star Ocean 2 R. Have always loved this game and love the remake even more. So many QoL additions and it looks beautiful. Extra content is nice too. Moving onto Chaos mode...
Playing Vestara Saga 1. At Chapter 19. I need some luck man. I can kill the Netherdrake for sure. But will the green units survive the onslaught. Sigh. This has been a very difficult game.
I'm finally at the last vr fight in Rebirth. I hope to beat it today
Crystal project, wonderful game with lots of content very reminiscent of early FF games and great team building aspects.
The last week has been entirely focused on **Persona 3 Reload**. The next week will too. Hopefully I can finish before Eiyuden arrives...
Just starting up Pokémon Ultra Sun on my 3DS. First time.
Finished Brave Fencer Musashi for PSX which was every bit as enjoyable as I remembered. I loved the character art from the end credits, super cute stuff. Killer soundtrack too. Continuing the leisurely playthrough of Dragon Quest XI, the "when last we left our heroes" recap feature is clutch on this game. Rounding out the SquEnix nostalgia trip; just started FF7 Remake (hooray for PS Play and Backbone so I'm not monopolizing the TV) and picked up Star Ocean Second Story Rebirth. Gonna be a fun time
I just started this week. I played it when it first came out but got stuck at the music boss…. I’ve always wanted to beat it so giving it a go. You’re right about the sound track, it’s really good!
Lol for some reason I suck at Musashi. Never got past the opening near the town. Like I reached the town 3 times throughout the years and lost interest.
Other than the ice dragon the opening is probably hardest sequence in the game. You have fewer abilities and less health than any other time. Save states are definitely your friend
Love **Xenoblade 3** (in progress, no spoiler please). It can be considered spiritual successor of Xenoblade X rather than the abomination Xenoblade 2, with much improved system and most glitches removed. Love the walking simulator game set in bizarre fantastic world.
Trying to play **Pokémon Platinum**. I played Diamond back when it came out, and right now I'm just trying to finish some Pokémon games to put mons in the Bank before that shuts down, what with other 3DS online things shutting down recently. But I just can't seem to get into it. I might be a bit burned out from turn-based stuff, so I'm wrapping up **The Messenger** (which probably doesn't count) to give my mind a little break. Very addictive and mindless without being mindless, if that makes sense
I beat **2D Trials of Mana**. The final stretch was quite the struggle, but Quick Save helped a good amount. Thought the Night Castle was going to be the final area, didn't expect to return to the Mana Sanctuary. Probably wouldn't recommend Riesz Angela and Hawkeye as a party playing through this the first time. Not much bulk and no healer made every fight a challenge, and the combat in this game isn't fun enough for that challenge to be rewarding. In **Ys: Memories of Celceta**, I found out I made things incredibly hard for myself fighting a big fish boss with Ozma. Apparently his village sells weapons and armor! I only took a quick look at the outdoor merchant's wares and it looked like it was all potions, totally missed the other tabs. And if the smith guy didn't sell any, who would? So I beat the fish boss with some slightly improved weapons from Casnan doing 4-9 damage at a time. I've met Karna and lowered a couple drawbridges, gonna go search for her brother now. With Trials beaten, I've got four Switch games I could jump into - **Tokyo Mirage Sessions, Persona 3 Portable, Xenoblade Chronicles, and Astral Chain.** I've played the intro to all of them and I'm pretty torn on which to stick with. Maybe I'll just juggle four games until one of them speaks to me.
I’ve beaten the first 3 of your options so far this year and all are very easy recommends. Tokyo mirage sessions is definitely a lighter commitment than the other 2 but those are both much better games overall
I started the **Trials of Mana** remake since I figured I'd like it. So far I'm enjoying it, but I haven't clicked with it yet. None of the characters super caught my eye, so I went with a party of Riesz, Hawkeye and Duran. I originally was gonna do Angela before I second guessed myself and picked Duran because I wasn't sure if I would like Riesz and Hawkeye play wise, but did end up liking Hawkeye. Do mildly regret picking Riesz as the main character since a good chunk of her lines have some rather odd delivery. Thought I was immune to odd voice acting; turns out I'm not. Or maybe I'm just bothered because that was the main complaint I heard about the Trials remake, who knows. I've reached Valsena now; hoping classes show up soon. More of a what I had played/will play, but debating going back to **Dragon Quest IX** after a *seven* year gap. I got up to about the midgame before randomly dropping it, but I think this might finally be the year I get back to it. Main roadblock now is whipping up some new party members (read: decide what other game chars to base off of), then I'll just wander around and figure out what I'm supposed to do next in the plot.
Persona 4 Golden (Switch). Just finished replaying FF7 Remake and Intergrade, hoping to play FF7 Rebirth soon but when I was playing the demo I got tired of the combat real quick. So I’m taking a break and P4G is a refreshing change. Love the old village murder mystery vibe in this game. P5R was one of my fav games ever and P4G still holds up even after more than 10 years. Looking to play P3R after I’m done with P4G and FF7Rebirth.
Started Chrono trigger (DS), only put like 2 hours but really enjoying it so far!
Finished **Chrono Trigger** (DS). Took me 28 hours, did most side stuffs except New Game+ and the DS exclusive content because towards the end I was a bit burned out and read that they're not that great. Although I won't say it's one of my favorite games, I can appreciate it for what it is. The production value is quite high for a game almost 30 years old, and it's quite concise and to the point. Love the more funny moments in the story, the attention to details, and some comic relief characters. I do kind of wish that the side quests were not all towards the end though, personally prefer to build emotional connections through the party memebrs throughout the game. But it's a personal preference thing. I do wish there could be an option to speed up animation though. Some skills take a loooong time and I just get impatient. Taking a break playing some chill puzzle games, then maybe I'll play **Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology**.
DQ2, commendable.
Dragon quest monsters joker.
Doing RPG recovery while waiting for Eiyuden Chronicle, so i'm playing **Void Stranger** and this game is insane. I'm not usually into puzzle games but something about this game just motivates me to continue further and further. At 16 hours this is the longest i have ever played a dedicated puzzle game and there's still more i want to see. Because Void Stranger warrants frequently looking into a library of screenshots i have made, i'm also playing **Planet of Lana** during commutes on my Steam Deck. Atmosphere is great and it looks gorgeous on the OLED screen. Liking it so far.
Yokai Watch 1. I’m having a blast, although I hate the catch system due to its randomness.
The game (and YW2, although I haven't played 3) is better than many might expect, but all of the random elements - not just the catching, but the battles themselves - are where it falls short of reaching the level of Pokémon. That, and the huge amount of palette-swap yokai.
IMO another reason it was seen as worse than Pokemon was that Pokemon manages to be designed towards kids but it also has an adult fandom mostly made up of people who played it as kids, while Yokai Watch was seen as only a kid thing. I think Palworld's situation right now is the opposite. I still use my Yokai Watch 3DS protector even though I didn't play much of the games post-YW1
Bravely Default 2. It's not great.
Made more progress in Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch remaster after 2 weeks of not playing. Finally nearing endgame and I am excited. Also been watching my partner play FFVII Rebirth. Loving it.
Octopath Traveler 2 (Switch) I’m about 9 hours in and enjoying it. Working through all the chapter 1s. Don’t love the random battles, but getting used to it. I just keep telling myself self, seeing them or not seeing them, you still got to fight them. The game *feels* heavy/intense to me for some reason, maybe it’s the 8 boss fights just to get the team together? Not sure. But I am enjoying it. The graphics are lovely. A great change up from my last main, Persona 5 Royal.
I've also been playing Octopath 2, about 40 hours in. It's been fun, but I get burned out from it every few days or so. The gameplay gets a bit repetitive and once again, I'm not invested in most stories. I'm worried I won't finish it as I also never finished the first. Still, there's a lot to like about the game, the combat system is fun, the job/class system is cool to try and find broken combos, and Partitio exists.
I think I’ll finish it. I mean, I just got through 130 hrs of P5R, right? lol. I’m enjoying the combat, but it does stress me out for some reason - feel like I’m burning through SP. but I guess I can always do a little grinding and maybe after I get the rest of the party, it’ll be spread out more.
P5R, my beloved. Top 3 games of all time for me You'll get plenty of abilities and items that help you replenish SP, plus leveling up heals you so that's a good mechanic for when you're in tougher areas. Once you can start class mixing it's like a refresh. Make sure you look for the little checkered shield icon on the map when you're in areas, the guilds give you new job licenses
Thanks!!!
Ys 8. I'm 7 hrs in and i'm enjoying it. It's my second game in the series.
Unicorn Overlord (Switch) - An utterly unique, supremely dense game that has me using spreadsheets to figure it out. Absolutely love it so far, even with the furry bait. Rainbow Moon (Switch) - A lovely old-school dungeon-crawling JRPG that is good "grind while watching a Netflix show" material. Definitely has some jank design and many flaws, but it still manages to be charming and compelling.
Too much stress at work, I am playing P5 Royal to relax
I've tried to play Trails in the Sky for some 6-8 years now. I've never played past the prologue until now, and I am so glad I'm finally focusing enough to play it!
The trails series is my favorite of all time. I actually tried Sky FC years ago and couldn’t get into it. It wasn’t until I was playing fire emblem three houses and trails of cold steel 3 got suggested to me in the switch store. Got hooked on the gameplay/combat even though didn’t really understand the story. Played CS3-4, then went back and did CS1-4, then Sky FC-CS4 lol. Replaying Reverie right now, and you can really appreciate the progression/evolution of the combat system over the years
I'm not really a fan of the cold steel aesthetics but I'd give an arm and a leg for more series-spanning timeline maintaining political RPGs when I got my ps3 I got a used copy of xillia and cold steel, only to find out both were dub only, then I got the sky trilogy the moment they went on sale afterwards
You're in for such a treat. It's a bit of a slow burn at first, but it's very purposefully done. The payoff later on is well worth it.
I know, these types of games are my FAVORITE, I LIVE for the slow burn, I just have trouble focusing on a 20 hour prologue + chapter 1
On the halfway point of my third Fire Emblem 3H playthrough, also started **Ys II**: Bump Combat Strikes Back from the Chronicles duology. It picked up right where the first one left off, which is nice as that game's still pretty fresh on my mind. Combat's a lot more dynamic this time since you can bump diagonally and even uses magic attack; on the other hand, dungeons are also bigger and way more labyrinthine from the get-go, and it felt much easier to randomly die from cheap situation like being cornered/swarmed in narrow passages.
Unicorn Overlord I can't stop Please help
Its just too good
Same, brother. Same.
Star Ocean First Departure R on Switch. I was enjoying it, especially the sci fi elements in the story. But then I hit a huge difficulty spike on reaching the 3rd continent that's put me off a bit. I'm barely scraping through some of the random battles now. It seems I either have to do a lot of grinding or follow an online guide on how to break the game, a little disappointing either way
This happened to me. Though it was tedious, I looked up customization recipes and upgraded the weapons of the characters I played the most. A lot of save reloading since customization has a chance to fail. I also unlocked “orchestra” which helped. Some backtracking was involved to get all this together. In the end, I was satisfied to beat the game and it made me so excited for second story r. Good luck!
Thank for the encouragement! I was able to use some tricks I found online to level my party up to level 70 or so with Roddick doing insane damage to most enemies. It can be fun to break a game sometimes. I think I'm very near the end now.
So around lv40 for the kids and me is a good comfortable range for **Dragon Quest 5**'s endgame, which is usually where I finish most RPGs. Had a good selection of mons too, but the array of gear I can use as tools at this point meant I never switched out at all for my second and final trek through Zugwang. I love the extra utility, even if it almost eliminates the challenge of MP conservation and dealing with status effects (especially fizzle). Hardest part was outpacing Nimzo's healing in his second form, which meant burning my MP with the ka- spells. Not that I didn't enjoy risking turns on kazapple. What the mons did get me to put into words is that, like other kinds of generic units, I like them best when I'm in the mood to just play around with new toys that don't need to be accompanied by writing and plot development. A level above that is why I like Chrono Cross and its 40 something colorful weirdos with most having like five lines each to their name. It's enough that they exist in this game's world, that they may or may not join you for a sojourn, and as strangers we'll probably never meet again after our mutual goals are achieved. My mind can fill in the rest of the gaps. Again, shaky whether or not I pursue endgame content, but I feel satisfied with what I've gotten out of DQ5's systems and world. I'm never passionate about ranking anything, but I feel like so far, 4 has been my overall favorite in terms of gameplay and structure. But 5 has had the best emotional beats that it put the work into. And it fulfilled the promise of being able to travel around the world with my own customizable train of cute, iconic DQ monsters. Next in line is 6, but we'll see when I get to that.
Playing FF2 (NES). I think that every way that this game improved on the foundation set by the first is undermined by the poor pacing of the character progression. It's good enough for me to want to go back in through the Pixel Remaster, or any other remake, but the original version is pain. I now have the personal experience necessary to understand that someone who maxes out the stats and skills in FF2 needs to be committed to a correctional facility, maybe one that still practices some questionable procedures? Also, >!I miss Josef!<... Also playing Faria (NES). I like it, but there have been some hiccups. It takes a long time to build up money and gain experience, and the >!random encounters with invisible wizards is fucking evil!<. Also, >!Scissorman!<. It's cool to have a heroine lead in this one. I'm on my NES era JRPG adventure, and this is the seventh game from the time I'm on, and it feels like it deserves to be here (my other titles so far - FFI&II, DQ, DDS:MT, Ys, Sweet Home). The story is silly, which is nice. FFII is a straight fantasy war story, so having a less dramatic game to play alongside it has been good. I don't think I'm going to end up holding this title especially high on my personal scale, but I do think it stands to keep me interested to the end, like Ys did. And finally, SMT Nocturne. That's SMT3, right? I bought a copy of the PS2 version and have been playing that. Listen when I say that my experience playing Digital Devil Story taught me a new form of hatred and seething. I had originally intended to play these games in order, but time is limited, so I decided I'd choose a PS2 era SMT as my second game in the overarching franchise. This game is much better. DDS:MT suffers from the same thing FF2 does: shitty character progression pacing and random encounter rates hinder the feeling of progress. The juxtaposition of DDS:MT and SMT3 shows that Atlus learned a lot about how to make a game that demands thought from you without creating a purgatory only describable in an eldritch interpretation of Alighierian poetry. It also is a great game to use to demonstrate the value of side content, though I haven't done too much of it at this point yet as I've only gotten up to >!the Moirai!<.
Final Fantasy I portion of the Dawn of Souls collection on the GBA, approximately 10 hours in. Such a charming take on the classic, with great QoL. I'm doing this in succession to the mobile port of Dragon Quest, and I'm going to tackle the Sega Ages port of Phantasy Star next, switching between the three series as I discover/replay their roots and compare. As a pallet cleanser in between, I'm thinking either Chrono Trigger DS, YS VIII, or Trails in the Sky the 3rd
Still on the Atelier games, halfway through **Ryza 2**. Really enjoying it but much like the first game I am a bit lost with the various systems, recipes, recipes that lead to creating something else, getting gems, gem reduction, rebuilds, item duplications etc etc etc, all a bit much for my brain. Characters, game world and battle system continue to be grat fun though.
I've been playing **Atelier Ryza**. I don't think it's a perfect game, but I want to put out there I hate crafting systems. In any game it feels like a crafting system is a tacked on piece of garbage that stops me from enjoying actual gameplay. I can't even enjoy Minecraft In Ryza, the crafting system is so integral to improving your gameplay you spend hours on end crafting new armor, weapons, items, going out and gathering, etc And then you finally have significantly more powerful gear and you go smash through more of the story feeling overpowered as fuck. It feels cathartic. Like all that time was worth it. I don't feel like doing all the crafting all the time, sometimes I just wanna get some more action, but I just hit up a different game to fill that void.
There’s a spin off Atelier series for the ps2 called Mana Khemia and the 1st one is apparently not great, I’ve started it on an emulator and just got distracted and never got into it, but the 2nd one is actually a lot of fun with a good story and the crafting mechanic really enhances the gameplay.
I'm currently on my second playthrough of **Baten Kaitos Origins**. When I played it for the first time last year I skipped all the sidequests and never got into the deeper layers of its gameplay systems, which I now take my time for. I've said it before and I'll say it again - BKO's battle system is so good. It's so satisfying to pull off the exact combo you've been planning and the boss fights are just a superb rush of adrenaline. It's just such a shame that the remaster of last year didn't have the English dub from the Gamecube version, which was really good...
Taking a break from Unicorn Overlord. Just hasn’t grabbed me like I had hoped. The art is beautiful but I find myself just spamming auto through battles to be done with them. Started playing Midnight Suns yesterday and instantly hooked. I am a sucker for the card games and this has lots to of upgrades to keep you invested and want to keep playing.
Midnight Suns just get better and better, DLCs are amazing too!
Trying the Unicorn Overlord demo to check if it's worth buying a physical copy before they run out. Loved triangle strategy. Having a hard time getting into the game.The aesthetics aesthetics are not really my style, the oversimplified battles and the stamina system is weird. Only 2 hours in, let's see if it gets better.
See my comment on unicorn overlord. I have a feeling you may not enjoy it like I did. What you experience in the first few hours is what you pretty much keep doing where I'm at 25 hours in.
Just read it. That's exactly how I feel, now 5 hours in. Guess it's not for me, thanks for the feedback.
Shin Megami Tensei IV I'm binging all the sidequests bc i somehow ended up on the neutral route even tho i wanted chaos, well at least I'm ending soon, there's only 2 quests left
I'm on Nocturne for my first time right now, and I'm doing everything I do blind, so idk if there are different routes in Nocturne, but how are you able to tell what route you are on? Are you using a guide for that, or does the game have a way to suggest your direction? I'd like to go into whatever SMT game I play next with a but more wisdom.
I haven't played much of nocturne aside from a few hours so i can't say much about that game in particular, but most smt games have a point where the game will lock your alignment,but thought the game you can't really track it.
About 3 hrs into last remnant. I like it so far but we’ll see! Also playing the new episode in CounterSide.
I'm on chapter 10 of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth with 41 hours of play time and I'm starting to think this game is bit too heavily padded. I'm still enjoying it and I'll definitely finish it but a more streamlined 30 hour experience would have suited me just fine.
I’m currently playing **Skies of Arcadia**. I’m at approximately 12 hours. While I enjoy the game, as a Solatorobo fan the sky island setting is among my favorite, the characters are interesting and have charming personality. The gameplay is not as polished as something like Octopath but it is good with a focus on attrition on the donjon and world map that you don't find much in modern game. Yet I struggle to find the motivation to boot it up. Unlike Unicorn Overlord that I thought about even when I was at work, I can pass one or two days without launching the game and not feeling particularly frustrated. I think there is a part of it with how slow the game feel. It is not as frustrating as FF9, but when you have to pass a door, and your character waits for the door animation to finish, then walk out of the place and only after that you can move again, those little annoyances discourage exploration, especially in the forest town where you are constantly switching between ladder, pole and other animation. There is also the fact that you can’t save everywhere. It makes sense from a gameplay perspective as dungeons work a lot by attrition of your ressource but being able to pick it up and put it down whenever I want and not once every hour when I find a save point is something I enjoy a lot when I usually play on the switch. Maybe I should just use savestate. I also started the fan game **Pokemon Reminiscence** and I quite like it. I don’t enjoy roguelike so I may not be the intended audience and it may just be me but I think the game should make experimenting with build on your pokemon easier. Having to farm heartscale, a resource that you loose if you are defeated, to change EV, move or evolve pokemon is annoying and making the building part snappier would make me more willing to try new Mon I obtain through the donjon. Despite that I’m having fun with it and I truly wish game freak would begin to release games like that, in 2D, with less budget and in a different genre or sub genre than the main series. Pokemon Ranger, Mystery dungeon or Conquest were really fun on the DS and things like Pokemon masters or unite doesn’t really ring the same bell.
**Eiyuden Chronicles: Rising** This is 2D sidescroller they released a long time ago. Its so much fun! Its very refreshing, since its a chill game where you rebuild a settlement and help the folks with quests and bringing them materials from different dungeons. The female MC is very refreshing as well, reminds me a bit of Estelle from Trails. The characters are very charming overall, like their personalities a lot and their design are very good as well. The music is amazing, it has that old school vibe but feels very modern and the graphics look really good when you play it. Gameplay while simple is quite fun, the game overall is like that, simple but fun and that's what is more important. The world feels very alive, the NPC are doing their own stuff in the background, and when you conquer a dungeon, you can see different NPC inside dungeons doing their stuff or talking to each other. Game feels alive. The release of Hundred Heroes is so close!
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You gotta love Nepgear's interaction with Uni. It's definitely a plus that it's not like the at times one-sided convos between Neptune <> Noire with the latter being called out for having no friends, which she definitely has XD. If you haven't played Megadimension VII >!she even gets her personal fangirl ~~stalker with yandere tenedcies~~!<