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About a month ago I decided that I wanted to play through all of the Zelda games. Prior to this I’ve played like half of them but only beaten like 5. Currently I have 9 left to beat. I’m not counting remakes and remasters as separate games either. It’s really fascinating playing them one after another and noticing similarities and differences between mechanics and how the games flow. Zelda is truly a fantastic franchise and I really recommend it.

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Banner Saga is a game I picked up for cheap on Switch. Picking up a new strategy game can be intimidating with having to learn new rules, even if the gameplay looks like something you'd immediately grasp at a glance. And individual rule changes can be hard to adapt to when you're used to something like Fire Emblem. A fire emblem player like myself is perhaps numb to the sight of one of my units dying to an ambush spawn, but completely blindsided by the idea that your units not only are physically blocked from moving through enemy units, but also ally units. Or that you can't undo a movement action that was made just to check your damage potential. But altogether, by the end of the game I was reading the UI accurately enough to make informed decisions in combat. One aspect of the gameplay I never got over is how the turn order shifts when a unit on either side dies. The best shorthand explanation I can give is that the more enemies you kill, the more turns they get, at least until it's down to one enemy. It felt like an odd system of penalizing the player for finishing off enemies rather than leaving them alive just to ensure that a battle does not get easier the further you progress in it. It's not contextualized in anyway within the game, leading me to wonder if it was more a developer oversight than an intended comeback mechanic for you or the enemy.

Outside of combat, it's a resource management sim reminiscent of Oregon Trail or FTL: Faster than Light where you're repeatedly faced with decisions in which the outcomes are unclear. I don't know if these events are in any way randomized to make each playthrough unique, but I'm sure that repeat playthroughs could allow the player the chance to min max each situation for the best outcome. It's definitely the highlight of the game, either way. The combat, once understood, quickly became routine with little room for interesting strategy or use of special abilities. It's also a surprisingly short game with a narrative that begins wrapping itself up very abruptly. You wouldn't even notice this is how the game wants to end until all the plot-important characters just sort of show up at the same place for a climactic battle with very little buildup. There's also a transfer save feature so that your playthrough can continue straight on to the next game with all your choices and hard work intact. I'll confess this feature is what made me interested in the first place. I don't own the latter two games at the moment, but definitely look forward to continuing my journey some day since I love that concept in video games.

Edited by Glennstavos
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Playing Xenoblade 1 currently. After about 20 h I can say it's a very enjoyable game, although 2 was a bit better in a few aspects. I prefer the combat system of 2 with the blades because it was clearer. Pressing the right skill button in time is harder said than done in 1. The landscapes are beautiful, the characters are very well represented, the plot is surprisingly very dark. The soundtrack is nice, but also doesn't quite reach the level 2 had. Still a very pleasant game so far.

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Xenoblade is probably the most interesting RPG. Mature and well-crafted scenario, inspired and attractive design, sublime and catchy music ... The game brings together everything that a good RPG should have.

Edited by avensis
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  • 2 weeks later...

So my currently most anticipated game right now is Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time. But the announcement trailer had something I didn't like. An affirmation that the post-trilogy games never happened. And that struck me as a bit mean. Crash's post-ps1 track record was never stellar, but there were good games. To prove it, I booted up Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex - the 'old Crash 4'. The developers for the game did what most companies do when handed a popular IP: don't rock the boat. Almost every level gimmick from Crash 2 and 3 is present in Wrath of Cortex, with only a few new ones. If you were hoping Crash games would get less gimmicky following the third one, this game will disappoint you. Although I will say that I like how levels usually weren't one playstyle for the whole run. In fact, levels tend to get pretty long by the end of this game. It's also a notably easier game than the trilogy, with more plentiful masks than in the previous games. Before I finished the game, I ended up with 99 extra lives without even trying, which is something I never experienced with the previous three games. Time Trials are easier too. It feels like they designed each one to be beatable without the sprint ability you earn at the end. And when you have Sprint, the only challenge is making it to the end without dying. Unlike Crash 3, you don't need gold or better relics for completion percentage, so it's a very completionist friendly game.

There's some design aspects I don't like. For some reason, the ceiling climbing movement speed is far slower in this game than in Crash 2 and 3. The run-toward-the-screen chase segments are far too easy. I appreciate the camera being pulled back so that you can see more than a foot in front of Crash, but whatever is chasing you in this game actually matches your current speed. This keeps the difficulty of outrunning the thing consistent when you play these levels again with Sprint, but it won't ever catch up to you unless you stop. The music is good in this game, but there's some amateur moments where it stops completely before looping back to the start - especially common in bonus stages. The Coco levels are generally good, but I wish she had any unique ability from Crash, especially since she doesn't get certain upgrades like the double jump. I also feel like the game could have taken some extra steps to make the characters more expressive. It feels like there's too many blank stares, both in the cutscenes and idle animations. The intro cutscene is especially dull to watch. But overall this was a fine crash bandicoot game. I'd even dare to say it was the best one before the N Sane Trilogy came out.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Pokemon Black Version 2 - I skipped the SwSh DLC and dug out my DSi to fire up B2 to scratch the Pokemon itch. Gen 5 is still the best generation gameplay wise. There's just so much to love: the 3vs3 and rotation battles, how it works as a direct sequel, how it scales perfectly when levelling up a full party equally, the Audinos hidden in tall grass, the unique graphical style with some 3D elements (top4 rooms look amazing!), the PWT and so on. Can't wait for the moment when it will be Black/White's turn to get a remake.

By the way, I nearly forgot what an awesome console the Nintendo DSi is. Excellent build quality: sturdy, matte finish, proper d-pad, handling it just feels super nice. Definitely one of my favorite handhelds ever, only real drawback is the lack of GBA compatibility (but the DS' library is huge enough to stand on its own). Will probably stick with it for some time to revisit a couple of gems like Etrian Odyssey III, Kirby Mass Attack or Bomberman 2. 

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2 - finished my first run yesterday, now on level 4 in episode 2. Doesn't make such an impact as the first game two years ago but it's still a must-have for every Classicvania fan out there. The new characters are fun and I love how the game is constructed around multiple playthroughs adding new boss-moves and branching patchs while replaying the levels to keep things fresh. It even has co-op, but I doubt that's more than a bonus, since beating it single-player on veteran difficulty is already tough as nails.     

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I finally played Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and I'm glad I did. While I wouldn't say the game "holds up", it did give me some perspective on the world of western rpgs in the early 2000s. There's a gap there between my experiences with Fallout/Baldur's Gate and Mass Effect/Skyrim eras of the genre. KOTOR didn't give me as many role playing choices as I would have liked. A lot of times there's this scummy npc with no option to just attack him. Really puts into perspective the freedom of being able to just kill any npc in a game like Fallout. In general I wasn't impressed by the "dark side" choices in the game, which usually constitute your character loudly proclaiming they'll kill the person they're talking to in a cartoonishly evil way, and almost never for a logical reason. This wasn't exactly Mass Effect where you're carefully weighing choices. However, there's a lot of fun to be had in hearing your (mostly light side) party members protest your evil deeds, but never betray you. Watching them squirm under their complicity in your actions is sadistically joyful to watch and is perhaps the only entertaining feature of a dark side playthrough.

Being able to become a jedi is pretty much the one thing that fulfills the promise of "star wars role playing game", but I was surprised to find that your character MUST become a jedi as part of the story. I wish the game were written to accommodate players who would refuse that path, but it does not, and it's a jarring tonal shift for evil characters. Combat feels a tad stilted. A lot of battles had my party members standing around and not doing anything because the AI couldn't figure out how to attack even though the attack command is automatically thrown into your action queue at random intervals. Every time you kill an enemy, your queue resets, so it's a lot of re-inputting of the same command. I love the potency of status ailments, but the game will straight up lie to you about enemies being immune to something which was odd. I definitely don't want to come off as too critical of the game, as I did enjoy my time with it.

I also beat Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2. Not really sure how I feel about the game. A lot of the level design rubbed me the wrong way, and I imagine that bumping the difficulty down to casual wouldn't have adjusted such frustrating enemy placements. The truth is that the fourth character, Hachi, is just so powerful that it feels like the game was built around his skill set with the other three being an after thought. He has the most health, he doesn't have as much knockback when hit, he can turn invincible, his damage is excellent, and his hover skill lets him subvert a lot of obstacles, while also continuing to deal damage while other party members must constantly choose between attacking and dodging with committed jump arcs. He's the best character for platforming challenges and boss fights alike. It's not so much a game balance concern, but a "these other three characters are not fun to play" sort of concern. And like the previous game, any party member dying resets your progress on that screen, rather than allowing you to continue. I was fine with it in the last game, since it was one of many callbacks to Castlevania 3, but now it's just an obnoxious pace killer that can make the challenge feel cheap.

I still had a lot of fun with the game, but I feel like it's not living up to its potential. Maybe a few more playthroughs of the other "episodes" will show me the greater objective of this game's design, but it just doesn't feel like the same revelation that was the previous game.

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10 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

Maybe a few more playthroughs of the other "episodes" will show me the greater objective of this game's design,

That's where the game begins to really shine imo. Hachi is basically CoTM2's "easy mode", allowing you to cheese through boss fights without really paying attention to their patterns. I didn't use him much in subsequent playthroughs apart from the ice-stage, which was designed around him. I'm on my fourth run currently and without Hachi it's very obvious how much emphasis is put on effective sub-weapon use. Robert is a great addition to the roster, especially if one wants to play it safe. Dominique has some rewarding platforming segments, requiring to use her "pogo-stick" jumping to get to otherwise out of reach places. 

I'm not sold yet on the legacy characters' implementation though, largely since the first few stages are so tightly designed to fit the new cast's abilities but the final episode may change things around a bit. 

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Finished Path of Radiance this morning and will start Radiant Dawn pretty soon.

Playing through FE Warriors and having a great time destroying everything in sight, haha. I wish there were Tellius reps and more Elibe reps than just Lyn though.

Edited by twilitfalchion
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Fire Emblem: Three Houses.

I really don't like it, I think it's pretty much safe to say, that if something isn't like how it was done in previous Fe games, I think i's a bad change. (Seriously how do you even screw up a mini-map by not having it even show the actual units?, you have GBA sprites in another menu, just slap those on the map so it's actually not completely pointless.)

Fire Emblem 6.

Liking it so far, kinda surprised at how quick some supports go considering how it was in FE7.

Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness.

One of my favourites in the series, probably helps it's actually the least combat-focused game in the series.

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Two "play and put aside" games:

  • Monster Train. This one's only two months old. A deck-building game, similar principle as Slay the Spire, if you've played that one. Throughout a run (which takes about an hour or so), you'll be able to choose between some monster and/or spell cards to put into your deck, trying to set up some nice combos on the way, purging cards that are obsolete (or don't fit with your strategy) and upgrading those that you're keeping. Very fun, quick game, with no long-term planning needed beyond a single run.
  • The very old Pokémon games. I've finished Blue a couple days ago, beating Lance's Dragonite and the Rival's Blastoise with my Raticate (and without powerleveling). Now I've picked up Crystal and I'm looking forward to see how my Beedrill will do against the Elite Four. :lol: There's a lot of nostalgia involved, for sure, but those old pixely games do have their own charm.
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Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout is my new addiction. Especially midgame the gameplay loop of unlocking a new area or tool,  then gathering the crap out of said area or with said tool to eventually spend literal hours just crafting, fiddling around with new recipes or improving existing ones melted my time away. 

I also gradually liked the weirdly layered battle system more. It has a unique tempo to it, since expending a full bar of action points gains you double and triple attacks + efficient item use can definitely make a big difference. I can't recall any other Switch game that made me press the minus (-) button so many times. 

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Panzer Paladin pretty much like Curse of the Moon 2 scratches the neo-retro itch. It mixes elements of Megaman,  Castlevania and Blaster Master but despite these obvious inspirations the game still maintains a sense of uniqueness. Combat is very methodical, so that panicking even once can cost a great deal of energy. You constantly collect breakable weapons, which you can throw at enemies or destroy them, activating special effects such as healing, stat boosting, shooting and many more. I found the check-points fit very well into this concept, because to activate them you need to sacrifice one weapon. Best thing though: if you die and feel you were close to, for example, beating a boss but ran out of weapons you can always remove the once locked sacrificed item from said check-point. Reminds me a bit of the risk/reward save system in Shovel Knight. 

The level design is very horizontal and straightforward. I had no problem finding the hidden 1ups that usually require getting out of the mech, smashing a passage and jumping on a couple of platforms. Few vertical elements are not necessarily a disadvantage here, because the beat 'em up flair fits Panzer Paladin well. Knowing the developer's previous game, Flinthook, the grappling mechanic while you are out of your mech feels a bit underused. 

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On 7/25/2020 at 10:57 AM, henrymidfields said:

Just started to replay Final Fantasy X on the HD remake on my old PS3.

Yikes, I wish you luck, the PS3 version has pretty poor load times.

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Played a few games in the last month

Star Fox Adventures

Spoiler

Star Fox Adventures is an unfortunate game. What was once a unique passion project at Rare became twisted into a half hearted Star Fox game. On the one hand, Rare employees were crushed to throw away all their hard work and start again on the gamecube.  On the other, the legend Miyamoto was letting you use his much more popular, established characters and branding. Money over art is to blame. Of course the game would probably still had been good if the nasty business between Rare and Nintendo never happened during the game's development. You can also argue that the game sold far better with the Star Fox brand than it ever would have as "Dinosaur Planet" on the aging N64. It was almost a two million seller. Less than half of Star Fox 64's numbers, but still far better than every Star Fox game that has released since. That's the power a name carries in this industry.

So let's talk about the game. It's a 3D zelda style adventure on a planet full of dinosaur tribes and magic taking the place of sci fi elements. Fox wields a staff in combat, but combat has no depth beyond occasionally freeze blasting an enemy that seems to be blocking all your attacks. Your health pool is extremely generous, so I often made no effort to avoid hazards. Even if I did die, I would revive with one of up to ten revival items you can carry at a time. As a zelda styled game, overworld design wasn't bad. I had clear info on where to go and what my objective is when pausing the game. I was surprised to find I didn't get truly stuck even once for this ~15 hour adventure game. Whenever I didn't immediately know what to do in the room, I'd identify the one thing I could do, and it turned out to be the answer. It's very utilitarian dungeon design. When the game isn't throwing puzzles at you, it's usually a time trial challenge. Mundane tasks spiced up by a ticking clock even though there's no logical cause for urgency. Arwing sequences exist, but are slow and don't offer any challenge. They really overstay their welcome when you need to replay them every time you visit certain areas, like the krazoa palace.

The narrative is where the game goes from boring to frustrating. The prologue sets up the characters of Krystal and General Scales. Krystal gets trapped by some unseen force until the end of the game, while the confrontation with Scales is missing entirely in favor of a half hearted return of Andross for the finale. The game's actual protagonists aren't any better. Fox is characterized as a greedy jerk just working for a pay check. Every dialogue with him is an exasperated shrug as npcs tell him what he must do next on his adventure. It's repetitive and almost devoid of humorous situations or misunderstandings. Perhaps the idea was to allow for some character growth, but there's only one cutscene where you could argue Fox has grown slightly more selfless. The game's final gameplay sequences are also annoyingly repetitive. Three rail shooter segments where the player must mash the A button for minutes at a time. They really should have allowed for auto fire by holding the button. Or at least the charge shot in the arwing's case. Either would reduce the strain on the thumb.

While I wouldn't recommend this game to anybody - even to those actively curious, the game's not terrible, it's just frustrating to think of how much talent and opportunity was squandered. The game has smooth controls, the animation and artwork is well done for an early sixth gen game, Star Fox aesthetic elements and music is kept to a surprising minimum which I think works to the game's favor as it tries to capture its own identity. I can't imagine how people reacted to Adventures upon release, but going in not expecting a Star Fox game is not only ideal, but a privilege for those of us playing these games in the future.

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

Spoiler

 

Lightning Returns is a hot mess, but it's expected when you're the finale to this trilogy. I remember a quote from a developer interview where the director confidently claimed they managed to turn a profit after the first game by diligently reusing its content in followup games. Sure enough, I think I could recognize every enemy model, and most of the music from the previous two games. 100% of the main characters of Lightning Returns are also protagonists and antagonists of those previous two games, wearing the same clothes they were wearing millennia ago, and in some cases resurrected from death with no explanation at all. Some logical questions about how this story fits within the canon of the previous two games are addressed with a mere hand wave, often literally explained with "God works in mysterious ways". Some returning characters also completely reset their character arcs, either disregarding their character growth in the previous games, or just doing a straight rehash of their main conflict as if it was never previously resolved.

If I had to describe the core concepts in one sentence its "Majora's Mask, but as a jrpg". Before you take that as high praise, let me elaborate. The game is almost entirely a collection of side quests scattered across four segregated areas of the world. There are main quests too, but they mainly only differentiate themselves from the side quests by having a big boss fight at the end, and maybe something resembling a dungeon as structure. It's Lightning's job to save as many souls as she can by order of God during the world's final two weeks before armageddon and rebirth of the world. She does this through quests and quests alone. The time limit starts at 7 days, but expands to 14 as you complete main quests. Each 24 hour day is just one hour of real time, but you can extend your time with chronostasis, a cheap ability that costs EP that is earned by killing random enemies. Time pauses completely during battle, so with chronostasis, a day can last pretty much as long as the player wants as long as they're diligently recharging EP through battles.

Character progression is interesting. This game has nothing in the way of experience points, instead your stats increase only by doing quests. Your abilities have a separate progression, where you must collect copies of the same ability to level them up in a grindy process that provides extremely low returns. Most of my high level abilities were earned as battle rewards, not from synthesis. Customizing loadouts with the stuff I picked up was pretty engaging though. The FF13 combat still holds up well, with only the confounding difference that they removed the stagger guage. Staggering is still in the game, there's just no progress bar, only vague color to indicate how close you are, and no visual at all for showing if the stagger effect has worn off. One addition to the combat that I loved however was guarding. It's much more engaging than the sentinel abilities of the previous two games, and gives combat a more action rpg feel. Perfect guarding a physical attack can even instantly stagger your attacker in some cases.

This game is one for the completionists. If you decide you had enough and want to finish the game, the option will not be presented to you until you've unlocked and passed the final day. I did indeed forfeit my remaining days just to see the game's conclusion, because I ran out of content that sounded fun or easy. Your stats carry over to NG+, but not quest progress, so I'm puzzled on whether the first or second playthrough is being emphasized here. There's also a system of upgrading your equipment that is bizarrely segregated to NG+ playthroughs when it would have felt right at home in a first playthrough. I also feel like I trivialized a lot of the game's content by taking advantage of an accessory that reduced all damage by 75%, and I would just switch to that job class the moment before I take any damage while the other two are dedicated damage dealer loadouts. Spamming the overclock skill also proved very overpowered. Still, I have to acknowledge this is the best the combat gets in the trilogy.

 

Halo Combat Evolved

Spoiler

 

I played a bit of Halo with friends growing up, but never had a chance to play the first two games on my own until now with the steam release of the MCC. There's no question this was a landmark title for FPS games. I think the covenant enemies are also extremely well designed, though I don't like how the Hunters either die in one shot to the back or a full clip depending on weapon choice. In general it's hard to guage the strength of the game's various weapons, as they tend to be built for dispatching particular enemies. With the exception of the battle rifle, which hits everything like a wet noodle, and the needler which will inefficiently kill enemies, assuming it ever hits them in the first place. Beyond those two weapons, I think everything you can pick up in the game feels great to use without ever overpowering other options. You run out of ammo fast, so it's important that everything feels good to use as you grab whatever's available. 

Of course, much of the play experience changes once the Flood show up. Yeah it seems every FPS game around the turn of the millenium has a zombie/mutant outbreak, and this one is no different. On the one hand the Flood are far more aggressive than the covenant and task the player with always having room to back up, since getting cornered will lead to a quick death. Master Chief's movement speed is slow. Slower than FPS games both newer and older than Halo, but his speed outside of vehicles is meticulously calculated. You're moving just fast enough to side step the incoming shots of most covenant weapons. And although the game's environments are extremely open (and typically quite empty), vehicles are always planted so that the player won't have to hoof it on foot.

Indoor environments drag on, I should say. A lot of rooms in the game are copy pasted - sometimes back to back, which can get you turned around quick. Repetition also rears its head in later missions when you're running through the same environments as a previous mission only now it's full of Flood enemies. There's no in-game map, beyond a mini map that simply points out vague enemy locations, never a room's layout. I would even say that mini map is largely useless until the flood show up, since those enemies are constantly spawning behind you as well as in front, and the player would have no other way to know when they're surrounded before they get smacked from multiple sides.

One thing that surprised me was the game's difficulty. I played on Normal, and I got killed several dozens of times. There's a dedicated player base of folks that tackle these halo games on the hardest difficulty, so I know the game is always beatable and that I shouldn't complain about things likely explained away by my lack of skill. However, the details behind how I die can sometimes feel cheap. It's surprising how many ways you can just die immediately at full health and shields. Grunt methane tanks finding their way to me as I dive into cover was especially frustrating. And lot of attacks that just drop your shields immediately, like a random plasma pistol charge shot, feel like a constant threat the moment you leave cover. The shield recharge delay and rate are far slower than modern shooter shield systems, so I felt like aggression was only very rarely rewarded. Taking out an elite quickly to instill panic in grunts, is about the only general strategy I can think of that works well and doesn't require patience. Another strategy I felt was a touch overpowered is simply backtracking to a previous area when halfway through a fight. This will force the game to drop a checkpoint, essentially saving your progress. Though this became very difficult once Flood entered the equation. They just would not stop spawning in many rooms, and checkpoints require all nearby enemies to be dead.

 

 

Edited by Glennstavos
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Well, I’ve went back and finished .Hack//G.U. Reconnect. Was okay not as good as the main G.U. games or the Original series at that. Reloaded up Bloodborne too, man I missed that game... I used to be better at it too. Other then those I actually got thru the original part of Persona 5 royal... I’m quite thankful for the parts the shorted(the 5th and 7th palaces)

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5 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Lightning Returns is a hot mess, but it's expected when you're the finale to this trilogy. I remember a quote from a developer interview where the director confidently claimed they managed to turn a profit after the first game by diligently reusing its content in followup games. Sure enough, I think I could recognize every enemy model, and most of the music from the previous two games. 100% of the main characters of Lightning Returns are also protagonists and antagonists of those previous two games, wearing the same clothes they were wearing millennia ago, and in some cases resurrected from death with no explanation at all. Some logical questions about how this story fits within the canon of the previous two games are addressed with a mere hand wave, often literally explained with "God works in mysterious ways". Some returning characters also completely reset their character arcs, either disregarding their character growth in the previous games, or just doing a straight rehash of their main conflict as if it was never previously resolved.

If I had to describe the core concepts in one sentence its "Majora's Mask, but as a jrpg". Before you take that as high praise, let me elaborate. The game is almost entirely a collection of side quests scattered across four segregated areas of the world. There are main quests too, but they mainly only differentiate themselves from the side quests by having a big boss fight at the end, and maybe something resembling a dungeon as structure. It's Lightning's job to save as many souls as she can by order of God during the world's final two weeks before armageddon and rebirth of the world. She does this through quests and quests alone. The time limit starts at 7 days, but expands to 14 as you complete main quests. Each 24 hour day is just one hour of real time, but you can extend your time with chronostasis, a cheap ability that costs EP that is earned by killing random enemies. Time pauses completely during battle, so with chronostasis, a day can last pretty much as long as the player wants as long as they're diligently recharging EP through battles.

Character progression is interesting. This game has nothing in the way of experience points, instead your stats increase only by doing quests. Your abilities have a separate progression, where you must collect copies of the same ability to level them up in a grindy process that provides extremely low returns. Most of my high level abilities were earned as battle rewards, not from synthesis. Customizing loadouts with the stuff I picked up was pretty engaging though. The FF13 combat still holds up well, with only the confounding difference that they removed the stagger guage. Staggering is still in the game, there's just no progress bar, only vague color to indicate how close you are, and no visual at all for showing if the stagger effect has worn off. One addition to the combat that I loved however was guarding. It's much more engaging than the sentinel abilities of the previous two games, and gives combat a more action rpg feel. Perfect guarding a physical attack can even instantly stagger your attacker in some cases.

This game is one for the completionists. If you decide you had enough and want to finish the game, the option will not be presented to you until you've unlocked and passed the final day. I did indeed forfeit my remaining days just to see the game's conclusion, because I ran out of content that sounded fun or easy. Your stats carry over to NG+, but not quest progress, so I'm puzzled on whether the first or second playthrough is being emphasized here. There's also a system of upgrading your equipment that is bizarrely segregated to NG+ playthroughs when it would have felt right at home in a first playthrough. I also feel like I trivialized a lot of the game's content by taking advantage of an accessory that reduced all damage by 75%, and I would just switch to that job class the moment before I take any damage while the other two are dedicated damage dealer loadouts. Spamming the overclock skill also proved very overpowered. Still, I have to acknowledge this is the best the combat gets in the trilogy.

 

 

 

I actually just played the first 2, and this one is next for me.

But here's hoping you enjoy it, as it's not -the- greatest game, it's still got some charm. Personally to me, the game lacks creativity besides some aspects of the battle system, although it's technically similar to X-2, it's not completely the same, so point's there.

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currently playing on PS4 and GBA: God Eater 2 Rage Burst, Fire Emblem Blazing Sword.

 

before GE2RB, i played with GE Resurrection on PS4, and i gotta say the game surely has changed a lot since its original version released on PSP, because they added tons of new features and other cool stuff. too bad the online of GER is pretty much dead, as the game isn't exactly new and can be completed solo without issues. not sure about GE2RB's online though, as i haven't checked that out yet.

GER is surely a game worth giving a try in case someone is interested in titles similar to Monster Hunter, with the difference that GER actually has different story arcs through the entire game, and the visuals are anime style.

i'll probably move on to GE3 once i'm done with GE2RB. maybe i'll even make some video showcase about gear builds, who knows.

 

as for FE, i'm still in the middle of my marathon, and it's surely going to take a while before i manage to replay and complete all of the "canon" titles from the franchise.

at least i'm finally done with the games from the NES and SNES eras, so that's already 5 titles off the list. Thracia 776 has been the hardest of them all so far, while Genealogy has become my new favourite.

gotta be honest though, switching from SNES to GBA titles made the gameplay look way easier than i remember. probably the overall difficulty from the older, more "hardcore" titles changed my point of view and approach to these games.

i'm playing Eliwood's NM route at the moment in order to refresh my memory, but i plan to replay all 3 routes in HM as well to see how it goes this time around.

as usual, Hector didn't disappoint so far. almost feels like playing with a Jeigan unit disguised as a lord.

i will move to Binding Blade once i'm done with Blazing Sword.

Edited by 𝙵ᴇɴʀᴇɪʀ
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On 8/3/2020 at 7:49 AM, Diovani Bressan said:

I started to play Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town this weekend. The original game on GBA was one of the many games I played a lot, so be able to play the remake makes me very nostalgic and happy.

That was the very first game I bought for my Switch Lite. (In fact, it is what finally got me to get the system.)

 

I've been playing Rune Factory 4 Special. My characters are named Claire and Pete, both of Mineral Farm. 

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Most recently, I've been playing:

Shantae and the Seven Sirens: I can probably say this is one of my favorites in the series, I like the fusion dance mechanic quite a bit since it opens up various platforming and combat opportunities, the world you explore is pretty neat, it's just plain fun.

The Henry Stickmin Collection: This game is just plain hilarious, and Completing the Mission gets to be quite awesome at times too.

Project M: EX Remix: Just played some matches with some people I know over Parsec, and have had a blast with it. One round in particular was amazing, where everyone except one person played as Sans and at some point repeatedly used his trombone taunt, which was often followed by them getting KO'd. 

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