Soooooo what'cha playing?

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Finished Kirby Superstar this weekend.

Can't say I enjoyed the game too much. The Great Cave Offensive was more tiresome than fun, simply because I do not like labyrinth maps like in Castlevania with the difference not having a map there which made it even more tedious. Also some bosses gave me trouble. Milky Way Wished is just a compilation of the maps from previous maps, so not innovative at all. The Nova shooter section felt like pure random for me since there's no real time gap to dodge all the enemies, really poorly designed. Final boss was cool at least, but that's not surprising considering how popular it was. Overall it was not the most exciting Kirby game for me

5 / 10

 

Started to play Kirby's Adventure (NES). I was very surprised about the variation of copy abilities. I didn't know crash was added before bomb and fire was separated. So far it's a fun game, have come to world 6.

[vanguard333]

I just finished Valkyria Chronicles 1 a bit less than an hour ago.

I have to say, it is interesting playing it for the first time after having played VC4 as the first game in the series that I played, and seeing where I feel each of them was better than the other.

In terms of gameplay, VC4 was definitely a refinement in a number of ways. But there are a few places where I think VC1 was actually better than VC4, and the biggest one would be what I'm going to call: "Boss Fight" missions. Both games like to have multiple missions where the player goes up against a major antagonist while having that antagonist be extremely powerful and usually unable to be taken out by typical methods, either due to an absurd war machine or due to said antagonist being a Valkyria, and I honestly think that, for the most part, VC1 did these better than VC4. Gregor & the Equus, Jeager & his tank, Selvaria, Maximillian & the Batomys, the Marmota & Valkof, and Maximillian, while not perfect, were all great boss fights that fit the gameplay very well. I especially enjoyed the fights against the Batomys, the Equus, Selvaria, and Marmota & Valkof the most.

With VC4... they had some great ideas, but the "Boss fight" missions were hit-&-miss. The closest ones I'd say to being good were Klaus Walz and Crymaria. But Klaus Walz is fought four times, and every time, the strategy is the same: Riley + anti-tank mortar + either aim boost or save-scumming. One or two blows to the radiator of his tank and he's down. It is a bit more interesting when he's paired with Crymaria, but still not great. Crymaria herself, when the player actually becomes expected to fight her, is interesting, especially since the main characters are having to do something that squad 7 in the first game couldn't do: defeat a Valkyria (that's using her powers) without a valkyria of their own. But the fight has one thing that brings it down: there's too many random generic minions, which is a recurring problem in a lot of VC4 "boss fight" chapters. VC1 often kept the number of random minions down when putting them against a boss, as the focus is on beating the boss. This game doesn't.

I'd list the rest of them, but there's only one other main villain that's actually a boss fight (not counting the assassin girls): Belgar, and his fight is an atrocious, tedious, buggy mess that can be easily bypassed with an anti-tank mortar and the order that increases the radius of explosions (and it's honestly better to face him that way rather than the way the player was meant to defeat him even if it makes him an anti-climax). You never fight Forseti, and while I initially felt that makes sense: he's a strategist with a limp; you can't really make him a boss fight, I then played VC1: Gregor is a strategist with a limp, yet he has a boss fight thanks to the Equus.

 

Another area where I thought VC1 was better than VC4 was with its final antagonist. Both games' final villains: Prince Maximillian for VC1 and Heinrich Belgar for VC4 are remarkably similar: both are leaders who pretend to be pragmatic while in reality being completely nuts and obsessed with power (valkyria power in Maximillian's case and a fantasy version of nuclear reaction in Belgar's case), and yet, despite both of them being very involved in the story of their respective games and driving forces in the conflicts, when it came time to actually confront them in the final mission, Maximillian was a proper climax and final threat, while Belgar... it was as if the writers had almost forgotten about him; he almost comes across as hurriedly stapled-on at the end.

VC1 Spoilers:

Spoiler

Maximillian is a man who sees the world in terms of power, ruthless ambition, and conquest; he is in many regards everything the heroes are fighting against, as well as the thing that characters like Faldio risked becoming. The heroes initially encounter him back in chapter 7, and then they confront him again in the final mission. When they do, his ancient superweapon is destroyed and beginning to crumble, his war vessel meant to carry the superweapon is badly damaged, and he himself is using experimental artificial-valkyria armor (that seems to be slowly killing him) in a desperate attempt to regain control of the situation now that the heroes have brought down his main plan. He fights them all alone; his resorting to manipulating others in desperation to never need anyone has left him without anyone supporting him in the end, and he is a proper climactic boss fight. His impact is felt, and his death illustrates the folly of depending on a big stick (in reference to the saying, "speak softly while carrying a big stick"). He is a very fitting final antagonist for the game.

VC4 Spoilers:

Spoiler

With Belgar, on the other hand, he appears after the ceasefire has been called and all the story's main themes have been tied up. He shows up intending on detonating the A-2 bomb, and during the boss fight, as his tank takes more damage, he gives a motive rant to himself (no one can hear what he's saying) that reveals what a player that remembers Riley's flashback has already figured out: he killed Riley's dad, stole the incomplete research into ragnite implosion, and set fire to the Miller Factory before ordering the imperial army to bomb the city of Hafen to cover up his crime.

Hafen being bombed by the empire was the reason the main characters all enlisted in the Federation Army in the first place, yet the heroes never learn of what Belgar did. They have no idea about him at all, so the only real stakes in the conflict is, "Will the heroes be able to save Angie before she detonates?" It is such a massive waste of potential. I get that this game already had a very personal villain for the heroes in the form of Kai/Forseti, but Kai was a former friend who snapped after seeing the Federation's plan to use Valkyria bombs; he's broken, and his conflict with the heroes is one of a man going, "Yeah; I became scum because of this war, and so did all of you!" Belgar caused the main characters, as well as Kai, to get involved in the war in the first place, and yet... nothing.

 

Since I bought the remastered version of VC1, I was able to play what in the original version was DLC: namely two side-missions: one about "the Edy detachment" and the other about Selvaria Bles and her army. The Edy detachment mission was... okay; it was fairly well-structured overall, but it was just a bit of fluff. I will admit though that the joke at the end where, if you get A rank on the mission, Edy sings to the rest of the detachment and is so terrible that they all pass out, did get a bit of a chuckle out of me.

The Selvaria missions, however, were far better, both in story and in gameplay. Personally, I'm not usually a fan of side-missions in these games were the bulk of the army is a bunch of random grunts, as they're usually terrible in gameplay, but this one shakes things up by them being imperial grunts using imperial weapons. I liked the insight the DLC story gave into Selvaria as a character, and I really liked the Oswald character and his interactions with Selvaria, to the point where I almost wish Oswald had been in the main game as more than a random ace scout. Plus, after going through the bulk of the main story with General Damon being a jerk the main characters can do nothing about because he's their general, it was fun to play two missions where he's the enemy leader and the player can blow up his tank in each mission.

And of course, after getting A-rank in all three main Selvaria missions in the DLC, you unlock a bonus missions where you can use her with all of her Valkyria powers. The mission was very easy, but a lot of fun.

 

Now, I'm not sure what to play next, though I do have a few ideas (finish Three Houses, start playing Majora's Mask, etc.)

[ciphertul]

9 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

With VC4... they had some great ideas, but the "Boss fight" missions were hit-&-miss. The closest ones I'd say to being good were Klaus Walz and Crymaria. But Klaus Walz is fought four times, and every time, the strategy is the same: Riley + anti-tank mortar + either aim boost or save-scumming. One or two blows to the radiator of his tank and he's down. It is a bit more interesting when he's paired with Crymaria, but still not great. Crymaria herself, when the player actually becomes expected to fight her, is interesting, especially since the main characters are having to do something that squad 7 in the first game couldn't do: defeat a Valkyria (that's using her powers) without a valkyria of their own. But the fight has one thing that brings it down: there's too many random generic minions, which is a recurring problem in a lot of VC4 "boss fight" chapters. VC1 often kept the number of random minions down when putting them against a boss, as the focus is on beating the boss. This game doesn't.

I'll put this in spoilers

Spoiler

Crymaria doesn't really compare to Selvaria so saying the VC4 group does better isn't true. Crymaria is pretty much incapitated by damaging her staff which help control her power, outside of her fear of tanks Selvaria has no such weaknesses.

 

9 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

The Selvaria missions, however, were far better, both in story and in gameplay. Personally, I'm not usually a fan of side-missions in these games were the bulk of the army is a bunch of random grunts, as they're usually terrible in gameplay, but this one shakes things up by them being imperial grunts using imperial weapons. I liked the insight the DLC story gave into Selvaria as a character, and I really liked the Oswald character and his interactions with Selvaria, to the point where I almost wish Oswald had been in the main game as more than a random ace scout. Plus, after going through the bulk of the main story with General Damon being a jerk the main characters can do nothing about because he's their general, it was fun to play two missions where he's the enemy leader and the player can blow up his tank in each mission.

Oswald is a minor character is the rather bad anime, so if you want more of him that would be the place to check.

However I do think that VC1 has a better overall story then VC4, the characters are better in VC1 too. Take Irene's speech near the end of VC1, it gave me goosebumps with how well done it was. No moment in VC4 came close to it. I am curious of who you ended up using in them though.

[vanguard333]

8 hours ago, ciphertul said:

I'll put this in spoilers

  Hide contents

Crymaria doesn't really compare to Selvaria so saying the VC4 group does better isn't true. Crymaria is pretty much incapitated by damaging her staff which help control her power, outside of her fear of tanks Selvaria has no such weaknesses.

 

I'll put my reply in spoilers:

Spoiler

I am aware of all that and I wasn't saying that Squad E does better than Squad 7;I just said that they fight a Valkyria that's using her powers, without them having a valkyria of their own (unlike squad 7, where valkyria-Alicia beats Selvaria in a cutscene), and that made for an interesting challenge.

 

8 hours ago, ciphertul said:

Oswald is a minor character is the rather bad anime, so if you want more of him that would be the place to check.

However I do think that VC1 has a better overall story then VC4, the characters are better in VC1 too. Take Irene's speech near the end of VC1, it gave me goosebumps with how well done it was. No moment in VC4 came close to it.

I already knew about that and I have no intention of watching the anime, but thanks.

Hm... Honestly; I'd say that each story had different strengths and weaknesses, and I'm not sure which one I'd say was better, and same with the characters to some extent. I'll put the rest in spoilers:

Spoiler

If you look at the stories, they're very different and are trying to do different things and explore different themes of warfare: VC1 is all about a Gallian civilian militia liberating its homeland: a land constantly under threat from Europa's two superpowers, from an Imperial Invasion, and perhaps its biggest theme is about how carrying a big stick (metaphorically-speaking) isn't the way to try to bring down a superpower; it will only escalate the scale of the destruction. VC4, meanwhile, is about a group of Gallians who joined the Federation army to get vengeance on the Imperial Alliance after it destroyed their hometown and the Gallian government did nothing because it wasn't an invasion, and they have to learn that the army they sided with to take the fight to the empire isn't all that good either, with an overarching theme of what can happen if we become too consumed with hurting our enemies. 

Both stories explore their themes well overall, though I wish they had explored it a bit more in certain places and I feel they both tripped over their own feet in one or two small areas. If I had to say which one I think did better in this particular area, I think I'd have to say VC4 because of one thing: the main characters have to confront and internalize the message. As Kai points out to each of them, they all betrayed something in the name of helping the Federation fight the Empire; in Riley's case, in completing her dad's research and giving it to the empire, she inadvertently created the valkyria engines/bombs and gave their world fantasy nukes powered by little girls. When it comes time to set the bomb to detonate and destroy the Imperial Capital, only for a ceasefire to be called, you'd expect the characters to feel relief that they don't have to blow up a little girl and a city full of civilians... but instead, Claude expresses frustration, and almost throws a tantrum, and it's then that he realizes what the war has turned him into, and he decides not to go through with the bombing. It's honestly a very powerful moment.

With VC1, the main cast are already on the side of, "Trying to stop the empire with a bigger stick is bad", and it's Faldio, a supporting character, that has to internalize the lesson. As I pointed out, Maximillian isn't someone the protagonists were ever in danger of becoming; he's their antithesis, and Faldio is the one that was in danger of becoming like Maximillian. Not helping is the fact that, when he chose to shoot Alicia and awaken her Valkyria powers, Gallia's army was about to be destroyed by General Damon's incompetence, and they really did have no other way of defeating Selvaria. Don't get me wrong: Faldio was completely in the wrong and how he tried to justify himself spoke to him wrongly becoming convinced that Gallia having its own living weapon was the only way for it to secure independence, but it's easy to look at him and see his real mistake as having chosen to shoot Alicia rather than tell her and Welkin what he had discovered and give them the choice.

Another thing I prefer about VC4 in terms of story is that the mission structure is a bit more... focused, for lack of a better word. It's Operation Barbarossa Northern Cross, then surviving the winter after that operation falls apart while heading to the rendezvous point, then Operation Cygnus. With VC1, it is a bit more scattered, which does make sense in that they're part of a militia taking back parts of Gallia, but it does mean that there's less cause-&-effect in terms of the sequence of events, though this is mainly an issue in the middle of the story rather than in the beginning or ending.

Another thing that illustrates the difference are the deaths of a main character: Raz's death and Isara's death are very different, with Isara's death being deliberately random and meaningless: a meaningless death in a war full of meaningless and senseless death, while Raz's death is a heroic sacrifice to save the rest of the squad. They're both very different in terms of framing and what they're trying to elicit. However, I have to say that I think Raz's death hit me far harder than Isara's. Part of it was how it was intertwined with the gameplay: you, the player, have to knowingly send Raz and one other unit to their deaths, and you have to choose that other unit. But I think another reason I thought it was more impactful for me was how much more of a part of the group Raz was, whereas Isara came across to me as having been written to be ultimately disposable in narrative terms, to the point of there even being another character whose only purpose in the story was to inevitably replace her after she passes. When I got to chapter 11, I was thinking, "They're suddenly giving Isara a lot more focus; yep, she's going to die."

I should probably say: for characters, I prefer squad E and squad F over squad 7, but I prefer the antagonists in VC1 over the antagonists in VC4.

 

8 hours ago, ciphertul said:

I am curious of who you ended up using in them though.

Honestly, one thing I really enjoyed about these games is that, unlike Fire Emblem, you can use different units in different missions and not have to stick to one core group no matter what the situation, thanks to how the level-up system works.

That said, there were a few characters (outside of the main characters that you'll deploy anyway for the additional CP) in VC1 that I gravitated towards using more often than others: whenever I felt I needed another shocktrooper, it was always Lynn, thanks to her personal potential that lets her sometimes do two actions in one turn. I even gave her the Ruhm and the best flamethrower rather than give that equipment to Rosie, and I used Lynn to bring down the Marmota's engines and later to defeat Maximillian. When I needed an engineer, I mainly used Karl, mainly because I usually was using Lynn as a shocktrooper. When I needed a sniper, I mainly used Marina, with Catherine being my second choice for sniper.

With VC4, it was even more flexible and gave a lot more incentive to try out all the different units available. I honestly can't even remember if I gravitated towards anyone in particular outside of the main characters. The only unit I remember consistently choosing to use over other options was that, for my second tank unit, I always picked the APC rather than the Glory; the APC was just too versatile not to use, and the Glory is really redundant in VC4, unlike the Shamrock in VC1 that I liked using with the flamethrower selected.

Edited July 6, 2021 by vanguard333

[Sire]

Chiming in on the Valkyrie Chronicles anime, it's okay. Overall, the game is superior in almost every aspect, but the anime does have some points of its own (mostly by having the antagonist perspective and how it handles two plot points better than the game). If you have spare time and loved VC1's cast, I would give it a go. Otherwise, it may be better to just look at the "best of" scenes or something like that.
-- Granted, I don't think there is an ENG Dub version, so if you played with ENG voices in VC1, you'll be listening to the JP voices in the anime.
-- Regarding the plot points, placed in the spoiler.

Spoiler

1. Isara's Death
-- I loved the scene where Welkin returns home and has memories of Isara (with the reality of her gone also being imposed on the scene). This was an anime-only moment that deviates a bit from the OG game, but I loved this scene.
-- Granted, a part of the reason may be because I wanted to create a similar scene in one of my own stories, and seeing the concept being executed fairly well made me happy.

2. Faldio's Death
-- They made him go out cooler in the anime, where they board the Landship but Faldio gets shot. He sacrifices himself using a grenade so the main party (or just Welkin, I don't remember) can continue forward.

* * * * * * * * * *

As for me, after recommending Prophesy of Pendor to another, I decided to re-install the mod for Mount and Blade: Warband and give it another go. I already had two all-nighters of simply playing the game and being re-engaged with the world. // Currently, I'm a vassal for the Fierdsvain and am simply biding my time for an eventual rebellion so I can found my own kingdom.
-- The early game seems easier than before, although that may be because I'm experienced with the mod. Previously, you could run into top-tier Knight units (particularly Knights of the Dawn, a zealous order who burns heretics first and asks questions later) at the start of the game and be completely screwed if you are running around in Fierdsvain lands.

Looking at the current development again, it seems the latest version of PoP may be the last for Warband. There is talk about potentially brining a new PoP mod to Bannerlord (the sequel to Warband), but there is a lot of work that needs to be done before that happens.

[vanguard333]

5 hours ago, Sire said:

Chiming in on the Valkyrie Chronicles anime, it's okay. Overall, the game is superior in almost every aspect, but the anime does have some points of its own (mostly by having the antagonist perspective and how it handles two plot points better than the game). If you have spare time and loved VC1's cast, I would give it a go. Otherwise, it may be better to just look at the "best of" scenes or something like that.
-- Granted, I don't think there is an ENG Dub version, so if you played with ENG voices in VC1, you'll be listening to the JP voices in the anime.
-- Regarding the plot points, placed in the spoiler.

  Hide contents

1. Isara's Death
-- I loved the scene where Welkin returns home and has memories of Isara (with the reality of her gone also being imposed on the scene). This was an anime-only moment that deviates a bit from the OG game, but I loved this scene.
-- Granted, a part of the reason may be because I wanted to create a similar scene in one of my own stories, and seeing the concept being executed fairly well made me happy.

2. Faldio's Death
-- They made him go out cooler in the anime, where they board the Landship but Faldio gets shot. He sacrifices himself using a grenade so the main party (or just Welkin, I don't remember) can continue forward.

 

I see. As I said, I probably won't watch it, but I might watch a "best of" or something like that.

Spoiler

1. That is an interesting addition that sounds rather neat.

2. I honestly didn't mind how Faldio dies in the game except for me initially thinking, "If you cut the power, then why do you need to pull him into the hole and both fall to your death; why not just shoot him?", but then I realized from the explosion that Maximillian still had some remaining power in his lance and they probably couldn't just shoot him, so that was fine. He goes out bringing down the big villain; I don't see why that would need to be changed.

 

Well, I decided to start playing Majora's Mask. It's the GameCube version that's on the Collector's Edition, which, unbeknownst to me until fairly recently, was apparently infamous for a number of issues that came about as a result of how it was emulated for the Collector's Edition. So, I'm hoping for the best in that I have a bit of minor audio issues at worst (which the collector's edition does warn the player about when starting up the game, interestingly enough) while also preparing for the worst and making sure to go back to the Dawn of the First Day often in case of a crash.

Edited July 7, 2021 by vanguard333

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Finished Kirby's Adventure. I think I am helding the world record for having the longest final boss ever. Oh well, at least I have beaten it. It was not a bad game at all, I just was bad at it. As mentioned before I was positively surprised of the giant variety of abilities considering it was the first Kirby game which had them.

Anyways started to play Ys Origin, so sth. completely different. The bosses give me lots of trouble, but I think they're made the player shall not beat them in the first try to learn their patterns. Have beaten the second boss yet. Aside of that it feels quite solid.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I've been in an uncommon mood for tactical RPGs the last few months, and it's led me to Shining Force on the Sega Genesis. It's a genre shift from the dungeon crawler Shining in the Darkness that preceded it. Coming out just two years after the original Fire Emblem, it does use a lot of FE1 as a base. Level up gains are random, your level cap is 20 and you can promote to a better class upon reaching 10. Shining Force lacks a battle forecast or battle stats. Your hit rate, avoid rate, and how much damage you deal are all hidden from the player. In Fire Emblem you could simply compare your attack and weapon stats against your opponent's defense and get a reliable figure, but Shining Force rejects such notions. Units do have numerical stats you can check, but it's always a crapshoot trying to calculate how much damage they could do or how many units you need to kill something. Adding to the chaos is the turn order. There is no player or enemy phase. Turn order is vaguely determined by a unit's agility stat, however it's not a hard and fast rule. If Ken gets a turn right before Luke, you should try to ignore any expectation that Luke's next turn will once again follow Ken. Turn order is constantly changing and constantly hidden from the player. If you want to swap out a front line unit in need of healing for a healthy one, it's a dice roll whether you can get character A out and character B in before the enemies pass through the opening you left in your wall.

And boy are you building a lot of walls in this game. Too often does the map design start you off with a tiny chokepoint with a mob of enemies waiting beyond it to fight you. You've got to knock them down one at a time, and with an unknown turn order it can be a challenge planning out the most efficient way through when you can't know who's moving next. The pacing of battles can also be obnoxious since you can only deal damage when it's your turn. Since there are no counterattacks in this game, combat occurs at approximately 50% the pace that Fire Emblem games do. And adding to the slog is how the game runs through the turns of enemies that aren't moving or attacking. You have to sit there and wait as the game cursor scrolls to each enemy unit and shows them choosing the Wait command before scrolling to the next unit.

The toughness of enemies is often startling as well. This game has a bad habit of introducing new enemy types at the end of the map instead of one or two at the start so that player's can test out their strength in a safe environment. Several times I had to reset because I let my lord stand in range of a new enemy type with enough damage output to one shot him with the aid of a crit or double attack (both of which are completely RNG in this game, and don't seem to be tied to any stat). And, excuse me for not being prepared for the enemy mages to kill my lord with one swing of their healing staff. This game is jank. In terms of difficulty, I'd definitely rate this among most of the hardest difficulties of Fire Emblem. Because even a suitable understanding of the game's mechanics cannot save you from the RNG. The enemy strength is much higher than what you normally encounter in Fire Emblem, however, the enemy AI is considerably dumber than even FE1. Enemies will stand in one spot and wait for you to bog them down with ranged attacks just because they lack the AI script to do anything other than Wait for something to enter their melee range. They'll occasionally move towards but not attack a unit that is in range. When they are ready to attack somebody, they'll sometimes fail to notice that they can kill one of your injured units. I also noticed the FE1 quirk where enemies would almost without fail target your Lord character whenever he's in range. My recommendation for a suitable experience difficulty-wise is to drop a save state every time it's your Lord's turn. Because his turn is the only one that matters as far as you getting a game over or not. 

The way this game handles promotion is nothing short of baffling. While looking up game mechanic speculation on old forums, some users claimed that promotion at 20 was always optimal, and since so much of the game resembled fire emblem I didn't question it. I ended up promoting my units around level 15 when the game had started selling weapons that could not be wielded in a base class. I dropped a save state to compare stats before and after promotion and my jaw dropped. Your stats are dropped down to a base level, and you only get an incredibly minor stat bonus based on how many additional times you leveled up past 10. Any very lucky level ups you earned are erased, as are any stat boosters you decided to use before promotion. Promoting at 20 is only advisable for players who intend to spend at least a dozen hours grinding battles to just add up to five additional points to that unit's stats for the endgame. It's not worth it. My decision to wait until level 15 made me feel like a fool when the game immediately spiked in difficulty. The best thing to do is promote at 10 and bask in your new class' much higher level up gains. If you really want your units to grow as strong as they can be, than just compulsively save state to reroll their level ups. The difference between a good level up and an empty level up can be game changing for that unit.

About the only way the game takes it easy on you is the lack of permadeath. Only your Lord dying can cause a game over. Any other unit can be revived in towns once you've cleared the map. The cost to revive a unit was consistently below the amount you earn for killing just one enemy. Getting a game over does cut your money supply in half, which sounds threatening, but you just never run low on money in this game. Shining Force was a trying experience, and like other games I've played recently has given me a new perspective on how much Fire Emblem gets right in its design. Ultimately the only thing I like in the game was the towns and NPC interactions. There's some fun scenes, and the translation seems stellar for the standards of early 90s RPGs. The battle sprites are also pretty awesome. Much larger and more detailed than you'd see in classic fire emblem.

[Lyn]

Legend of Mana (Switch)

The art style is very charming. I really like the music. Exploring the town of Domina. 

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

I finished Ys Origin (Yunica's story) today.

First of all it has been my first Ys game I have finished yet because unlike the others this gave me the motivation to do it. The controls were better than in I, the 2D graphics are more clear than 3D for me, a short but well enough told story only focussed on the essential. The bosses were hard, even on easy mode, after taking a bit time to see their attacks, they were absolutely managable even for a Ys noob as I am. However the most notable aspect of the game is its music. I only have played a bit of Ys 8 (whose OST didn't impress me), but Origin's OST was a masterpiece. Only the music was already motivation enough for me to play it through. 

I needed nine hours (retries not included which would made about eleven), but even for being short, I can absolutely recommend this game to all who like action RPG dungeon crawlers with a marvelous OST. Overall this was the perfect Ys game for me.

I will do the two other stories as modes an other time since I do not feel like to replay the exact same game even if with slightly different gameplay.

Instead I am going to continune the series with Oath of Felghana.

rating: 8.25 / 10

[𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥]

regarding consoles: i just finished the Comrades expansion for Final Fantasy XV a couple days ago. even though the online is dead, the expansion itself has been alright, with few differences from the main game in terms of gameplay mechanics, wich actually made the combat more entertaining for different reasons.

in terms of story, well...let's just say it's bare bones, but that was to be expected since Square decided to cancel the last DLCs that were planned for FF XV and move on.

currently playing Scarlet Nexus on PS4, wich kind of feels like a simplified action game with few nods to Devil May Cry in terms of gameplay. the story hasn't been anything special so far, but i'm still in early game so i can't judge yet. overall the game looks ok, even though it's clearly not at the same level of other "major" triple A games.

also playing FE Path of Radiance on PC, and i gotta admit it's been a lot of fun so far. the gameplay was quite ahead of its time for a GameCube title, there's plenty of memorable characters, and the lore seems to be crafted with care. gonna move to Radiant Dawn later on for sure.

regarding portables: still playing FE Sacred Stones on my phone, doing my last dungeon runs on Eirika's side. after that will be done, i'll move to Ephraim's route. then, once i'll be done with Sacred Stones, my session of FE titles from the GBA era will be finally completed.

 

regarding future titles: it's probably going to be Tales of Arise after september, followed by Elden Ring next year, both on PS4. as for portables, i guess i'll switch from GBA FE to Advance Wars for a while, at least until i manage to re-play and complete once more all the titles from that franchise( gonna be a long run yet again ).

[vanguard333]

Well, I'm currently at the second dungeon in Majora's Mask, and the game so far has crashed twice. In both cases, I was able to figure out the cause: too many things going on at once in terms of loading for the emulator to handle. The first time it happened, I went through the door to the Deku Palace at the same time as one of the monkey NPCs, and the second time occurred when I plummeted from the fifth floor of the second dungeon to the first floor, I paused the game while Goron Link was still in his "in pain" animation to check the dungeon map, and then it crashed when I un-paused the game.

Considering that I've heard that the Wii U virtual console emulation of Majora's Mask doesn't have the issues that the GameCube Zelda Collector's Edition emulation of Majora's Mask had, I'm guessing that Nintendo probably learned from whatever it was that happened when trying to emulate Majora's Mask for the GameCube.

In any case, I've been really enjoying the game so far, other than one or two cases where the controls seemed to be against me: mainly the shooting gallery minigames and the Goron rolling. For the shooting gallery minigames, I find myself really missing the gyro aim that's available in the newer Zelda games; I don't know how anyone was able to get a perfect score in the swamp shooting gallery minigame in the N64 era. As for Goron rolling, I get the feeling that it's really fun once you master it, but unlike how you're given an entire bay in which to master the Zora Swimming at your leisure, you're not really given much of anywhere with which to master Goron rolling until you get to the temple to the entrance, where you have to roll across a very narrow winding bridge and then roll up a narrow spiral to the dungeon entrance. Combine this with steering Goron Link being really twitchy, and the natural result was that I plummeted off a ledge probably about 300 times before reaching the entrance to the dungeon.

But, outside of that, the game has been a lot of fun. I really like the three-day cycle mechanic, and one reason for that is that it justifies so many things that 99% of action-adventure games and RPGs have to make you suspend disbelief for because of obvious limitations, one of those being that you have all the time in the world to stop the big bad before they destroy the world: the bad guy really is going to destroy the world in three in-game days; you just get to repeat those three days over and over again until you're ready to stop him. You don't lose any immersion if you decide to just go do some sidequests and minigames and put the main plot on hold for a bit. Another limitation that this justifies is NPCs just repeating the same programmed commute & activities: time loop, so it's justified. I'm also enjoying the transformation masks overall; I like how they each give Link different movements and attacks and are genuinely useful; one thing I disliked about Twilight Princess was how awkward and limiting Wolf Link's combat was and just how underutilized Wolf Link was in the game overall.

 

1 hour ago, 𝙵ᴇɴʀᴇɪʀ said:

also playing FE Path of Radiance on PC, and i gotta admit it's been a lot of fun so far. the gameplay was quite ahead of its time for a GameCube title, there's plenty of memorable characters, and the lore seems to be crafted with care. gonna move to Radiant Dawn later on for sure.

Yeah; Path of Radiance is really good; it is just such a shame that it's hard to obtain outside of PC and emulation. I hope IS remasters it and Radiant Dawn as a bundle on the Switch, so that a lot more people can finally play those two games.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

This week I played the Switch release of No More Heroes 2. I was expecting a very long game when you have to beat 50 assassins ranked above you, but it turns out the majority of them are killed offscreen during certain story events. The game is actually shorter than the first, but only because you don't need to grind side jobs to access the next story mission. If you want to make a straight shot to the end, you could beat the game in five hours and it wouldn't be especially harder without purchasing upgrades. They ditched the open world too, now everything is accessed from a menu. I think these changes are in direct response to backlash from the first game. While I appreciate that you can play the game at your own pace, I'll admit I miss the metanarrative of your character's daily grind of nonsense jobs in order to finance what he's really passionate about. The plot of NMH2 is pretty bad, though I wasn't expecting anything passable. Travis' motivation is getting revenge for a friend we have never seen him interact with. And a major plot spoiler of the first game gets retconned in the opening cutscene in order to justify why there's a new cast of assassins you need to take down. 

The gameplay in NMH2 is rock solid. Being able to choose your weapon between three types doesn't yield any real advantages or weaknesses, but at least you get new animations to look at. The fleshed out hand to hand combat is also appreciated since you can intentionally access wrestling moves as easily as your beam katana finishers. It also allows you to continue fighting if your sword runs out of energy. There were some fights near the end that I felt dragged on a few minutes too long, and I wish there was some real enemy variety, but these are easy to overlook. Perhaps the biggest flaw is the slots system that activates after every kill. There's nothing the player can do to influence the result, so these power ups that essentially turn on God Mode for a bit are activated at random. Other than that, this a solid action game for its time. It's no God of War or modern Devil May Cry, but certainly gives you ways of expressing yourself. 

I also played Mega Man Legends. Not for the first time, but I always felt I never gave the game a fair shake. So this time around I did all the side quests, and talked to a lot more NPCs. I can definitely see why people love this game, I sure would have if I had grown up with it. And there's so many cozy interiors to poke your nose into. Great environmental design where most objects are rendered in the game world. And when parts of the city are destroyed during story sequences, you can donate money to their repair, how wholesome! The saturday morning cartoon facial expressions are much higher fidelity than what you'd normally find on a PS1 game, and there's a dancing monkey that saves your data. So much love is in this video game. Somebody on the development team has a real issue with dogs though. There's a minigame called Beast Hunter where you kick balls at an animatronic dog for points. And in the Japanese version, an early scene of the game has you rescuing Tron by kicking the dog that's chasing her. There's also a part of the city where rabid dogs attack you and the only way to interact with them is to kick them. And the toughest enemies in the game are giant robot dogs that breathe fire. Wow, I detest dogs too, but I wouldn't express that in my game design. This is a cry for help.

Dungeons aren't as intricate as in a Zelda game, but you've got a pretty great map for showing what areas you may not have explored yet. And there's a giddy pleasure to discovering seemingly junk items that can be converted into new special weapons or upgrades. Not being able to change your special weapon from outside your base is a real drag though. It's already hard enough to encourage special weapon experimentation in Mega Man games, and just like in the X series, your buster is so incredibly versatile and only gets better as you find more upgrades. You can spend precious zenny on upgrading special weapons, but it's much better spent on health upgrades. If Mega Man Legends has useful special weapons, then I certainly missed it. I spent much of the game with the vacuum arm equipped. I don't need help killing enemies, I need help picking up the money they drop, and the vacuum is the perfect tool for that.

[Fabulously Olivier]

Been playing Persona 5 Strikers, replaying Sacred Stones, and played through Route A of Langrisser 1.

 

But my PS5 is arriving today, so I'll be playing Spiderman PS4 remastered and Miles Morales very soon. Much hype.

Edited July 23, 2021 by Fabulously Olivier

[Zapp Branniglenn]

This week I played Mega Man Legends 2 for the first time. It was pretty great. I've done a lot of dives into the PS1 catalog to gauge what can be done on that system, and MML2 is really pushing boundaries. This is Spyro or Crash levels of good game design, but with much higher graphical fidelity and a more compelling world to explore. When compared against the first game, the controls are much improved. Mega Man can move in eight directions. You can now lock on to targets and effortlessly circle strafe them and you can also manually aim your shots with the right analog stick when not locked on. The latter is especially important for shooting at fast, airborne enemies. Though it doesn't feel very good unless you remap the controls for shoot to be on R1 rather than square. This is definitely the best third person shooter combat on the PS1, between how much control the player has and how willing the enemies are to fight back. The karma system of the first game returns and actually has an effect on gameplay. Half of the game's dungeons are optional but they help finance all the helpful items you can buy at shops. And instead of one town/hub area, it's a ton of diverse environments with a lot to see. 

If Mega Man Legends is the cozy saturday morning cartoon, then Mega Man Legends 2 is that cartoon being turned into a feature length film - and a holographic Mew card to take home. But it's not perfect of course. The biggest problem with MML2 is the same as the previous game - the special weapons. You still can't swap them out without talking to Roll, who of course doesn't come with you into dungeons or most environments. It's so frustrating to be knee deep into a dungeon and find that there's a wall you can only break with the Drill Arm. You backtrack to go get it, then continue to that dungeon's boss and it's one where the Drill arm can't reach with it's highest DPS in the game. You can modify every other part of your loadout, but the second special weapons slot is taken up permanently by the lifter - a really bad weapon that I assume is only mandatory for the two sequences where it's required to progress. Really none of the special weapons except the drill arm sufficiently match your buster's effectiveness unless you're willing to invest ludicrous amounts of zenny in upgrades at the direct expense of more health. Dungeon design is much better, but still doesn't match the N64 Zelda games. Somebody on the development team was determined to make the worst water level in all video games. It's not just your movement speed that's cut down to a quarter, but all animations, like being knocked over from an attack or opening doors. And if you manage to make the water skates, they barely impact the speed at which you can get around which is disappointing.

Bummer about the lack of a conclusion for this series. It especially hurts to think that the next Mega Man game that came out after Legends 2 was X6, a bogus continuation to a series that already had its intended ending. Even the Zero games got to have their ending. Legends deserved better. I still have the Tron Bonne game waiting on my PS3. Had I known that that one was not only a prequel but also released before Legends 2 I probably would have done that one next.

[vanguard333]

Well, I just finished Majora's Mask. Now, I'm moving on to something hopefully more lighthearted: Monster Hunter Stories 2.

I enjoyed the demo for Stories 1 on the 3DS, but I never actually got the full game. I'm hoping I will enjoy this one.

[Lord_Brand]

On Mega Man Zero 2 now. I've beaten Hyleg Ourobockle, Polar Kamrous, and Panter Flauclaws. Save assists are a godsend, let me tell you. Wish I used them when playing through Zero 1. I had less need to score an A Rank, but the final stage wouldn't have been nearly as frustrating if I'd had an unlimited checkpoint right before the final boss.

Edited July 28, 2021 by Lord_Brand

[BrightBow]

8 hours ago, Lord_Brand said:

On Mega Man Zero 2 now. I've beaten Hyleg Ourobockle, Polar Kamrous, and Panter Flauclaws. Save assists are a godsend, let me tell you. Wish I used them when playing through Zero 1. I had less need to score an A Rank, but the final stage wouldn't have been nearly as frustrating if I'd had an unlimited checkpoint right before the final boss.

It sucks that in Zero 1 you can't skip any cutscenes other then the intro. And also that the core design is a fucking mess.

It's better in Zero 2, but it wasn't until Zero 3 when they would finally allow you to just skip everything.

 

Anyway, I tried my hand on Wild Guns: Reloaded and... not getting the hang of the game all that well, honestly.

They didn't take the opportunity to separate movement and aiming from each other, now that we are in a time where every platform has two joysticks. Didn't even add a button to recenter the reticle or anything. And I feel like increasing the screen size has only really amplified that limitation because that means there is now far more space where your aiming reticle can get lost in while you are trying to dodge. So your reticle can now end much further away from what you are trying to shot now.
In general I feel like the increased screen size is really only a problem if anything. Besides the issue with the reticle, it also makes the stuff that's actually relevant less visible.

I don't plan to give up on this game just yet, but for now it just makes me wish I could play Sin & Punishment on the Switch.

Edited July 29, 2021 by BrightBow

[Lord_Brand]

1 hour ago, BrightBow said:

It sucks that in Zero 1 you can't skip any cutscenes other then the intro. And also that the core design is a fucking mess.

It's better in Zero 2, but it wasn't until Zero 3 when they would finally allow you to just skip everything.

Not only is the cutscene unskippable, you have to watch it every damn time you fight the final boss. Even the PS1 games were courteous enough to skip the dialogue after the first time.

Zero 1 (and to a lesser extent Zero 2) is highly reminiscent of X3, in that the game is designed to punish you for doing things you should want to do. In X3, that was collecting the upgrade chips (rather, one of them) and the Z-Saber. In Zero 1 and 2, that's using Cyber Elves to upgrade and heal yourself. It's like there's an underlying hatred for the player. It just doesn't make rational sense. In a game with benevolent design principles, collecting all four upgrade Chips would allow you to collect the Hyper Chip that combines them all together, getting the Z-Saber would unlock the better ending, and the Cyber Elves either would be multiple use (but maybe once per mission) or provide passive equip effects (like equipping the Beast Elf that gives you extra jump height or running speed). At the very least they could let you feed them energy crystals to keep them alive, to give the player a reason to keep picking them up after they've finished upgrading the Elves.

Truth be told, I've never liked how the Zero and ZX series switched focus from collecting eight special weapons or techniques to a three-element system that feels far less rewarding. In Zero 1, your sole reward for beating most of the bosses are a Cyber Elf you aren't supposed to use if you want a high rank. Even the EX techniques in Zero 2 and on don't help, considering you have to work for an A rank to receive them as opposed to just beating the bosses, and they don't deal extra damage against another particular boss or anything. It feels like they did everything they could to defeat the purpose of playing a Mega Man game.

Edited July 29, 2021 by Lord_Brand

[BrightBow]

1 hour ago, Lord_Brand said:

Zero 1 (and to a lesser extent Zero 2) is highly reminiscent of X3, in that the game is designed to punish you for doing things you should want to do. In X3, that was collecting the upgrade chips (rather, one of them) and the Z-Saber. In Zero 1 and 2, that's using Cyber Elves to upgrade and heal yourself. It's like there's an underlying hatred for the player. It just doesn't make rational sense. In a game with benevolent design principles, collecting all four upgrade Chips would allow you to collect the Hyper Chip that combines them all together, getting the Z-Saber would unlock the better ending, and the Cyber Elves either would be multiple use (but maybe once per mission) or provide passive equip effects (like equipping the Beast Elf that gives you extra jump height or running speed). At the very least they could let you feed them energy crystals to keep them alive, to give the player a reason to keep picking them up after they've finished upgrading the Elves.

And if you run out of lives, the mission you are on counts as failed. Which will quickly lead to the attack on the Resistance base, which will lead to being locked out of any remaining missions and you having to do the final stages with essentially no resources at your disposal.

It feels like the game was intended to be some kinda Rougelike. If you run out of lives, the game is over. Except Rougelikes generally shy away from instant death spikes or anything along those lines. And to get enough crystals for any upgrades, you would have to grind for hours in what's otherwise an extremely short game.

It just makes no sense. Zero 1 is really only saved by the fact that the core action is just that good that one might be willing to put up with all the bullshit surrounding it.
 

Quote

Truth be told, I've never liked how the Zero and ZX series switched focus from collecting eight special weapons or techniques to a three-element system that feels far less rewarding. In Zero 1, your sole reward for beating most of the bosses are a Cyber Elf you aren't supposed to use if you want a high rank. Even the EX techniques in Zero 2 and on don't help, considering you have to work for an A rank to receive them as opposed to just beating the bosses, and they don't deal extra damage against another particular boss or anything. It feels like they did everything they could to defeat the purpose of playing a Mega Man game.

They pretty much had a perfect progression system at their hand in X1. It was simple and gave you direct benefits for exploration.
Then X5 happened, and it was replaced by a bunch of nonsense.
So now you need to collect all parts of an armor before you can use it. And since there are now 2 different armor sets, you probably have to find a lot more then 4 of them before finding them nets you even the tiniest benefit. And let's not even start on the parts system... Like, holy shit that one was stupid.

ZX was most certainly a step in the right direction after Zero was similarly a hot mess. You get concrete rewards for every stage and live ups are now back to simply being directly hidden in stages.
But it's still kinda worse then in X1. Like, in X1 there were 8 live ups and 8 stages. 1 for each stage. So it was easy to know where else you could find any. In ZX, there are only 4.
Since there are now 4 live ups and 4 sub tanks to match the 8 stages, you might think they would have changed the logic so that every stage contains either a life up or a Sub Tank. But of course that's not the case, starting with the fact that not every live up is actually inside of a stage.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

 

7 hours ago, BrightBow said:

It sucks that in Zero 1 you can't skip any cutscenes other then the intro. And also that the core design is a fucking mess.

Yeah absolutely. Putting a ranking system in a Mega Man games sounds like such a smart approach to a new series. Look at how many people spice up their runs of older games with challenges like Buster Only, or No Damage. But you can't improve your rank by replaying the stage later so the reward for a high rank is permanently missable. Actually I think everything is permanently missable in Zero 1 since you can't replay any stages. Applying upgrades that you factually earned further reduces how high your rank can possibly be. Imagine if you were playing Devil May Cry 3 and the game locks you out of reaching SSS rank during combat because you spent the orbs you acquired on health upgrades, or new moves, or anything. But you also have to maintain at least an A rank on the chapters overall for Dante to use the new weapons he's acquiring as part of the story. It would suck in any action game.

Zero was a mess, but I appreciate the remasters putting in save assist. For me growing up, the major issue was just that each level felt monumentally difficult just to beat that I never was able to get to the rest of the game's mechanics. Plus I'm pretty sure the placement of the save assist things correlates to where Zero's checkpoints have always been. So taking extra lives out of the equation successfully cuts out hours of frustrating practice for those levels, allowing me to get frustrated by new things like crystal farming or the ranking system.

Edited July 29, 2021 by Glennstavos

[Lord_Brand]

10 hours ago, BrightBow said:

And to get enough crystals for any upgrades, you would have to grind for hours in what's otherwise an extremely short game.

5 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

So taking extra lives out of the equation successfully cuts out hours of frustrating practice for those levels, allowing me to get frustrated by new things like crystal farming or the ranking system.

On that note, replaying the factory stage after fighting Phantom gives you 500 crystals' worth of free pickups...on the first time through. Everywhere else in the game, the crystal pickups regenerate. But not at the factory. The developers deliberately made the factory's pickups a one-time only deal, probably because they knew people would use that to grind crystals and fully upgrade all Cyber Elves within an hour of gameplay. Two runs through and you'd be able to upgrade most any Cyber Elf at least once. But no, they wanted us to spend hours running back and forth in the desert killing snakes for 4-16 crystals at a time. Utter BS.

And yeah, X5 had a lot of BS going on too. Dual armors were such a cool concept, but they executed on them in such a poor way. The fact you have to clear four stages minimum before getting to use one armor drastically cuts down on how much mileage you get out of them. Falcon Armor at least is useful enough to be worth getting anyway, but Gaea Armor exists pretty much exclusively to get a few pickups and that's it. You can't even switch armors mid-stage, which would have made the payoff for bothering to get both a lot better. What a waste of potential.

Though X8 has easily the ugliest armor in the series, it did at least implement dual armors better by allowing you to mix-and-match parts, though you can't switch them mid-stage. And it also improved over Zero by giving you a convenient means of grinding metals for the shop. Simply get the Metal Generator, start Noah's Park, use tape or a rubber band to keep the control stick pressed left, and leave the game on idle for a few hours. You can chat with friends online or watch a TV show while X, Zero, or Axl run on a proverbial treadmill making you money. I believe it goes a little faster if X has the Leg Parts H equipped, as they make him run faster and the generator tracks each step the active hunter takes.

But overall, later X games all managed to screw up in one way or another. It's gotten to the point I've begun planning a 3D remake series starting with Mega Man X: A New Age that addresses a lot of the issues of the 2D originals while throwing in some exciting twists. I'll make a topic about that one of these days.

[Ouzyxol]

(Going to deviate from the present discussion topic)

Currently I'm playing a lightly modded Witcher 3.  I'm approaching the end of that, and there after, I don't know what I'll do.  Maybe go back to GBA FE?

Maybe attempt to find a good Berwick Saga Translation...  Am I going crazy, but isn't there a thread here on the Forums for that translation?  Time to do some digging...

[Reality]

Back to Mount and Blade 1 - GOING KHERGIT

[Zapp Branniglenn]

This week I played The Misadventures of Tron Bonne, rounding out the Mega Man Legends series. Despite releasing in close proximity to 2, It's controls are in line with the first game, limiting the ease at which you could aim and move. Combat isn't always the focus of the game though as you direct servbots through dungeons or do box carrying minigames. Interacting with servbots back at base was the highlight for me. They wrote some cute interactions. You could also increase their stats with training minigames but I didn't notice any difference in doing so. The player is offered a lot of freedom in which levels they want to tackle. And if you score well enough in those levels, you can skip over the ones you don't care for and see the ending early. 

The Bonnes are certainly the best characters in the Legends series, so making a game where you play from their point of view is a great idea. Unfortunately it's just Tron and the servbots. Tiesel and Bon Bonne spend the entire game captured and thus have minimal story presence. It's a real bummer that they weren't given at least one level of trying to escape on their own just so we could spend more time with them.