Soooooo what'cha playing?

[Lyn]

Tales of Zestiria (Steam). It pretty fun so far. I'm exploring some ruins.

(Don't like the controls, but that might because I'm so used to handheld systems.)

[Lightcosmo]

3 hours ago, Lyn said:

Tales of Zestiria (Steam). It pretty fun so far. I'm exploring some ruins.

(Don't like the controls, but that might because I'm so used to handheld systems.)

Have you encountered issues with the camera in battle? Made battling almost unplayable for me personally. 

[null]

Just Bug Fables at the moment. In the middle of Ch. 4. Been enjoying it so far. Fun gameplay, good cast of characters, and a lovely art style.

Kinda deciding on what to play next now that I've finished both Spider-Man PS4 and Miles Morales. Maybe Ratchet & Clank since it was free on PSN or I might jump into Kingdom Hearts with the 1.5 + 2.5 remix that's been sitting in my backlog for a while now.

[Lyn]

1 hour ago, lightcosmo said:

Have you encountered issues with the camera in battle? Made battling almost unplayable for me personally. 

Not yet. The camera is annoying while exploring though. 

[Reality]

I managed to pull an all-nighter Saturday playing Civilization 5, weird.. I never considered myself that much of a fan of them before.. I guess they had more kick to them than I remembered.

[BrightBow]

The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors

Finally picked it up since it is on sale and... holy shit, it's so good. Should have bought it a long time ago. There are so preciously few Beat'em Ups that limit themselves to one plain and take full advantage of the more intense engagements that allows.

 

Edited June 25, 2021 by BrightBow

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Valkyria Chronicles was a unique game for its time, combining third person shooter elements with a tactical RPG. The game's CP system is its most compelling yet problematic feature. If you want to deploy as many as ten units and move them across the map, then that's ten points to get them part of the way there. Low manning is the name of the game, especially since leaving units undeployed allows you to drop them in later from a captured enemy base. That's cheaper than moving individual units across the map. Chapter 16 is a crass prank involving everything wrong with CP. Any deployed units must be moved from their starting positions to avoid permanent death on the first enemy phase, and four of your six starting CP need to be spent on the two tanks you can't un-deploy. I can't help but imagine how much more the game would make sense if every deployed unit got a free action each turn, and then your CP is shrunk down to 3 or 5 points to spend on units you want to keep moving and attacking with. Unspent CP also gets saved for later turns, up to a maximum of 20, so there's merit for hoarding them as well when the time is right.

With the occasionally obtuse objectives and enemy types, it didn't take long for me to start looking up how other people play the game and see the meta: Scouts. With the right abilities, scouts can glide across torrents of enemy fire towards the objective, often allowing for Turn 1 clears. Alicia in particular just becomes indestructible once you have all her skills. Beyond the dominance of this one class type, I think the remaining units are fairly balanced, though I wish Lancers could hit just a bit harder. No matter what the optimal strategy is, it will usually involve stacking Orders on one crucial unit and taking however many turns they need to do their job. Even without optimizing such strategies, the game gets pretty damned difficult, and not in ways that are easily circumvented by grinding like in other tactics rpgs. I'm left wondering how many people finished it.  I was also surprised to find that the game's ranking system is only concerned with turn count. The amount of kills you get, how many units get downed or killed, none of it matters as far as rank or how much exp and money you earn.

I enjoyed my time with the game. I felt like the story got pretty good in its final chapters, despite being quite the mess in the middle. The game would consistently reveal or remind the player of a crucial plot point mere moments before it becomes pertinent. Leading to some adolescent storytelling where each plot turn could be easily predicted. But a solid start and solid end is an appreciated compromise.

I also played Muramasa Rebirth, the Vita remaster of a sidescrolling action game on the Wii. I don't have a whole lot to say about it. It's a great looking game, it's fun to play, the progression system is not as grindy as its predecessor, Odin Sphere, and there are two campaigns. I only played Kisuke's, though I could see myself going back for the other in the future.  As an action game, it can be a bit brainless, since the manner by which you deflect incoming attacks is to just keep pressing the attack button and the blocking will be automatic as you swing your sword. You do have dodge options, but they're not very responsive and I can only blame the control scheme. I imagine the original Wii version would have had issues due to the lack of buttons, but the Vita had two unused L and R buttons that easily could have served for your dodge rolls and air dashes. Those actions can only be done to the left or to the right, so it would have been more intuitive than hold attack to air dash, or crouch and wiggle to dodge roll. I'm only finding out now that I could remap the controls to be just that, but it absolutely should have been the default.

[ciphertul]

12 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

Valkyria Chronicles was a unique game for its time, combining third person shooter elements with a tactical RPG. The game's CP system is its most compelling yet problematic feature. If you want to deploy as many as ten units and move them across the map, then that's ten points to get them part of the way there. Low manning is the name of the game, especially since leaving units undeployed allows you to drop them in later from a captured enemy base. That's cheaper than moving individual units across the map. Chapter 16 is a crass prank involving everything wrong with CP. Any deployed units must be moved from their starting positions to avoid permanent death on the first enemy phase, and four of your six starting CP need to be spent on the two tanks you can't un-deploy. I can't help but imagine how much more the game would make sense if every deployed unit got a free action each turn, and then your CP is shrunk down to 3 or 5 points to spend on units you want to keep moving and attacking with. Unspent CP also gets saved for later turns, up to a maximum of 20, so there's merit for hoarding them as well when the time is right.

Do you intend to play Valkyria Chronicles  4 too? I technically happens at the same time with a very different group. 

I picked up and playing Scarlet Nexus, the game is pretty darn good so far. Combat is fun and fast pace, the characters are interesting and grow fairly well as the game progresses. Story is a bit on the cliche side with some predictable twists. 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

3 hours ago, ciphertul said:

Do you intend to play Valkyria Chronicles  4 too? I technically happens at the same time with a very different group. 

Not anytime soon, but I do have 2 and 4 sitting in my backlog to play someday. From what I've been told, the series does not diverge from the first entry much at all in terms of gameplay, and I really only singled out the first game because I did play it many years ago only to drop it once I got to that infamous desert boss chapter. So finishing the game at least clears it from my conscience.

[ciphertul]

1 minute ago, Glennstavos said:

Not anytime soon, but I do have 2 and 4 sitting in my backlog to play someday. From what I've been told, the series does not diverge from the first entry much at all in terms of gameplay, and I really only singled out the first game because I did play it many years ago only to drop it once I got to that infamous desert boss chapter. So finishing the game at least clears it from my conscience.

2 is a fair bit different in some good ways and some bad. The maps are really bad in 2. I know a lot of people had trouble with the desert, somehow I got super luck when I played it and Selvaria and her troops never moved. Selvaria's stanf was by far the hardest map.

[vanguard333]

16 hours ago, Glennstavos said:

Valkyria Chronicles was a unique game for its time, combining third person shooter elements with a tactical RPG. The game's CP system is its most compelling yet problematic feature. If you want to deploy as many as ten units and move them across the map, then that's ten points to get them part of the way there. Low manning is the name of the game, especially since leaving units undeployed allows you to drop them in later from a captured enemy base. That's cheaper than moving individual units across the map. Chapter 16 is a crass prank involving everything wrong with CP. Any deployed units must be moved from their starting positions to avoid permanent death on the first enemy phase, and four of your six starting CP need to be spent on the two tanks you can't un-deploy. I can't help but imagine how much more the game would make sense if every deployed unit got a free action each turn, and then your CP is shrunk down to 3 or 5 points to spend on units you want to keep moving and attacking with. Unspent CP also gets saved for later turns, up to a maximum of 20, so there's merit for hoarding them as well when the time is right.

(I'm responding to the whole thing but cutting it so my reply isn't too long)

I'm currently playing Valkyria Chronicles; I just finished chapter 11 (My reaction to it: "it is a sad day for rain", "But, it isn't raining." "(crying) Yes, it is raining."). Incidentally, I'm playing it after having played VC4.

Low-manning definitely is a good idea most of the time; the only times where it isn't that I can think of are times where you want to leave units behind at the starting base, either because you need to defend it or, in the case of chapter 10 part 2, you can unlock a shortcut from the base to the next part of the map.

2 CP every time I want to use one of the tanks is really irritating and makes me miss that, in VC4, tanks only used 1 CP like every other unit. That said, the second tank is actually useful in this game as an armoured flamethrower that's a lot more powerful (and has greater range) than the shocktrooper flamethrowers. VC4 provides both a second tank and an armoured personnel carrier, and you will pretty much always want to pick the APC over the second tank.

Scouts are definitely overpowered in this game because they just have such high movement, and this creates a problem because you want to clear the missions in few enough turns to get A rank for maximum rewards (including royal weapons), but you also get rewards for destroying the tanks and defeating the enemy leaders & aces, and the story missions are not replayable until you beat the game. There were one or two times early on where I felt like I had to choose between securing A rank and getting some of the rewards, though thankfully that was just one or two times. This next chapter, however, looks like it will be another one of those cases: two enemy aces (with one of them being a tank) and I can only get A rank if I clear the mission in one turn.

I agree about the rest of the classes being better balanced. Personally, it isn't greater power that I wish lancers had; it's greater accuracy. Most units do have accuracy issues early in the game (even the snipers for some reason), but the lancers take it up to eleven. Your only options for destroying enemy tanks in one hit (shooting the radiator) is only really feasible either through shooting at almost point-blank range or saving just before then and retrying over and over again until you get it right. Not only that, but I'm on chapter 12 now, and the lancers are my only units that still have accuracy issues. And, unfortunately, this isn't something that VC4 fixed.

 

1 hour ago, Glennstavos said:

Not anytime soon, but I do have 2 and 4 sitting in my backlog to play someday. From what I've been told, the series does not diverge from the first entry much at all in terms of gameplay, and I really only singled out the first game because I did play it many years ago only to drop it once I got to that infamous desert boss chapter. So finishing the game at least clears it from my conscience.

I can't say anything about 2, but I can say that 4 is mostly a straight improvement over 1. Admittedly, in terms of gameplay, it seemed to more be about refining the formula than expanding on it, though there is still some expanding on the formula.

As I mentioned, there's now an APC (though that might have been in some of the other games; I don't know), there's a new unit type called grenadier that basically uses portable mortars (and it is really useful, though enemy grenadiers are a serious pain), a ship becomes your base halfway through the game and that provides additional options beyond orders, there's now a "command" action where, once per turn, an infantry leader unit (someone who provides an extra command point when deployed) can order up to two nearby units to follow them, and there's a new type of unlockable side-missions called "Squad Stories", where up to three of the non-main-character members of the squad have their own little story and mission; it provides more missions and it also fleshes out the characters a lot more.

As far as refinements go, there are a ton. Some big ones include snipers being more accurate from the start (and having intercept fire when they become elites), shocktroopers having improved movement that puts them somewhere between scouts and the other units, order-stacking no longer being nearly as overpowered, missions no longer requiring clearing in absurdly few turns to get A rank, story missions being replayable, tanks now just using 1 CP, etc. Even without getting nerfed, Scouts are no longer overpowered; it's now just one particular scout that's overpowered: Minerva Victor, and she's both a leader unit and one of the main characters, so odds are that you're going to use her a lot.

 

What infamous sand chapter? If you're talking about chapter 7 (the one where the prince fights you using that giant tank and Selvaria eventually shows up), I actually quite liked that one as a sort-of "boss fight" chapter. I liked how there are only a small handful of enemy units other than the boss (thus keeping the focus on the boss), I liked that it's made clear to the player that Selvaria will show up but you don't know exactly where (I guessed completely wrong, though thankfully most of my units were already hiding, so when one or two of the ones that weren't hiding were defeated by her, I simply loaded an only-slightly-earlier save and moved them into hiding nearby, and I incidentally had my tank nearby, so I fired a mortar at the new enemy units and took out most of them, leaving the rest to be brought down by the tank's interception fire). I thought it was cool that you have to be systematic and employ hit-and-run (or rather hit-and-hide) by targeting the turrets on the tank with the lancers to destroy them, and then sending someone up the tank when the radiators are exposed to drop a grenade down the radiators (and I like how the fact that each radiator can be destroyed in one hit by dropping a grenade down them is hinted at by the radiators being shaped like bins), and then, once you do destroy all three radiators, blasting the tank with lances and the Edelweiss is a very fun moment.

…But I can definitely see how it would be infamous; the radiators are only exposed on turns where he has to shoot debris that's in his way, so if you don't knock down all those pillars in time, it's basically game over, and if your infantry units are in plain sight when Selvaria shows up (though why would they be?), they're going to be destroyed.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

24 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

…But I can definitely see how it would be infamous; the radiators are only exposed on turns where he has to shoot debris that's in his way, so if you don't knock down all those pillars in time, it's basically game over, and if your infantry units are in plain sight when Selvaria shows up (though why would they be?), they're going to be destroyed.

The fight with the boss itself was pretty fun as you slowly knock out individual turrets to create directions for your infantry to safely approach. I can't say for certain what held me back in my first playthrough, as it was many years ago, but I can only imagine it was Selvaria. She'll spot you from halfway across the map, and you can't slip behind her vision range like you can other enemies. In this playthrough, when I was on the last radiator, I specifically left open the side of the tank that was the safest to approach in those first few turns. But by the time it opened up, Selvaria was deliberately camping that ladder and gunning down anybody who approached. It just seemed unfair to introduce an element like her (along with a squad of normal enemies) at a point where victory is just a turn or two away.

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

I agree about the rest of the classes being better balanced. Personally, it isn't greater power that I wish lancers had; it's greater accuracy. Most units do have accuracy issues early in the game (even the snipers for some reason), but the lancers take it up to eleven. Your only options for destroying enemy tanks in one hit (shooting the radiator) is only really feasible either through shooting at almost point-blank range or saving just before then and retrying over and over again until you get it right. Not only that, but I'm on chapter 12 now, and the lancers are my only units that still have accuracy issues. And, unfortunately, this isn't something that VC4 fixed.

You don't need Lancers for tanks in VC1. Use the anti-tank Order (Demolition Boost I believe) on a Shocktrooper, Penetrate as well in select circumstances. You'll still need to slip behind to the radiators, but Shocks have more AP, so they have an easier time reaching there. And they'll still be able to easily murder any infantry en route, unlike the one-note Lancers.

[vanguard333]

On 6/26/2021 at 11:42 AM, Glennstavos said:

The fight with the boss itself was pretty fun as you slowly knock out individual turrets to create directions for your infantry to safely approach. I can't say for certain what held me back in my first playthrough, as it was many years ago, but I can only imagine it was Selvaria. She'll spot you from halfway across the map, and you can't slip behind her vision range like you can other enemies. In this playthrough, when I was on the last radiator, I specifically left open the side of the tank that was the safest to approach in those first few turns. But by the time it opened up, Selvaria was deliberately camping that ladder and gunning down anybody who approached. It just seemed unfair to introduce an element like her (along with a squad of normal enemies) at a point where victory is just a turn or two away.

I see. Yeah; that makes sense.

The side I left open was the left side of the tank (the one always facing the edges of the map), so the tank itself protected the engineer from Selvaria. Incidentally, I initially thought Selvaria was going to come from the bottom-left, so I initially planned to keep the Edelweiss around there to shield against Selvaria's approach. Then I thought about it and realized it would make more sense if Selvaria appeared where the tank began, so I moved the Edelweiss near the cliff overlooking where the tank began. Said cliff turned out to be where Selvaria actually appears. So... yeah; I don't know if it was planning or if I was fortunate.

 

On 6/26/2021 at 12:13 PM, Interdimensional Observer said:

You don't need Lancers for tanks in VC1. Use the anti-tank Order (Demolition Boost I believe) on a Shocktrooper, Penetrate as well in select circumstances. You'll still need to slip behind to the radiators, but Shocks have more AP, so they have an easier time reaching there. And they'll still be able to easily murder any infantry en route, unlike the one-note Lancers.

I don't have the penetrate order yet. Also, while I haven't checked the actual numbers, shocktroopers and lancers in VC1 seem to have effectively the same amount of AP (if not the same amount, then a small enough difference that it doesn't really make a difference as the lancers can easily keep up). I might try that one day with the shocktrooper Lynn (as her personal makes it that she can sometimes do multiple actions in one go), but that sounds like it costs more AP from the orders than its worth, especially since you usually want to deploy Largo anyway for the CP he provides.

EDIT: I just double-checked the numbers, and shocktroopers have 450 AP while lancers have 400 AP; a difference of just 50 AP (to put that in context, 50 AP is the minimum amount that a unit can have on any turn).

Edited June 30, 2021 by vanguard333

[Interdimensional Observer]

3 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

Also, while I haven't checked the actual numbers, shocktroopers and lancers in VC1 seem to have effectively the same amount of AP (if not the same amount, then a small enough difference that it doesn't really make a difference as the lancers can easily keep up).

Well, my mistake if me thinking Shocks had more was incorrect.😅

3 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

I don't have the penetrate order yet.

It's only necessary for a tiny number of "special" tanks. Demolition Boost is all that the great majority require, one full magazine to a radiator in VC with Demolition 1-shots a tank IIRC. I stuck to the +clip size line of Machine Gun upgrades.

3 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

since you usually want to deploy Largo anyway for the CP he provides.

Deploying is not the same as using. Largo can sit in his starting position, and as long as he lives, he brings that extra CP every turn. VC almost always gives you more deployment slots than you need as well.

Lancers were almost always deadweight to me in VC1, unless it was pre-Demolition Boost, or something only Lancers could destroy, or tanks that needed to be taken out from a distance. If I could flank with a Shock without it being a suicide mission, they were my usual tank busters.

Tanks were but a fraction of enemy forces too, after the Shocktrooper destroyed one, it could move on and massacre many personnel with ease. They also could've killed any infantry that stood in the way of their tank-kill by themselves if there had been some. Lancers in theory pack a potentially deadly hit on infantry, but their low accuracy makes that problematic, as does the ammo limitations. Mortars could deal more reliable anti-personnel damage, but that greatly diminishes their single-shot tank damage. And Lancers are the only class that have to choose between their normal weapon and Elite promotion one.😑

-But this was my play style, it is absolutely fine if your's varies.😃

[vanguard333]

On 6/26/2021 at 7:04 PM, Interdimensional Observer said:

-But this was my play style, it is absolutely fine if your's varies.😃

(I'm responding to the whole thing and cutting for length)

I see. That's interesting.

I haven't used the machine guns with the extra clip size; it's better on the player's turn, but it's worse at interception fire. I haven't yet found that that trade-off to be worth it in a chapter where the upgrade was available. I have, however, begun having my scouts use the rifles that fire seven shots instead of five.

I agree that mortar lances should've been an add-on rather than a separate weapon; the tanks can carry both an anti-tank shell and a mortar. And the worst part is that VC4 didn't fix this either; again, I feel like Valkyria Chronicles 4 improved all the classes except the one with the most obvious problems.

Edited June 30, 2021 by vanguard333

[Lyn]

The Legend of Zelda- Link's Awakening (Nintendo Switch)

This game is so cute. Exploring the Mysterious Forest.

[null]

Scarlet Nexus. The vibes of the world, art direction, and music are fantastic so far. I like the cast as well, especially the trio of Yuito, Nagi, and Hanabi.

Combat is fast and fun. Satisfying. I'm still early on, but I like how there's a hub world of sorts so it's not just going from map to map.

Positive impressions so far. Can't wait to keep playing.

[Samz707]

Finally got around to a backlog game, Men of War: Red Tide.

Surprisngly for a WW2 game, it actually depicts battles where Russia fought Romania and Italy, which you don't really see at all in WW2 games.

[Reality]

Mount and Blade Warband 1  Looking at Napoleon DLC because I was bored during steam sale

[Sire]

23 minutes ago, Reality said:

Mount and Blade Warband 1  Looking at Napoleon DLC because I was bored during steam sale

Playing M&B: Warband, eh? It's a fun game vanilla, but the experience is greatly improved with mods.

Personally, one of my favorites was an "overhaul" called Prophesy of Pendor, which features a brand new setting and lots of other cool features. The main difficulty of Pendor though is that the early game is extremely unforgiving and the mod itself is often regarded as challenging. Make it past that barrier though and you will discover an interesting setting, the ability to create your own Knighthood Order (essentially a custom soldier with equipment chosen by the player), and more fantastical elements (demons, elves) down the line.
-- While I haven't played the mod in years, a quick check their wiki shows that development seems to be still active (last major update in 2020). I last played 3.6 and they are now somewhere in the 3.9 series.

If you want something a bit more vanilla, but expanded, I believe the Floris mod is regarded as the mod of choice. It expands vanilla gameplay with various features while keeping the setting and factions intact.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

In grade school, Twisted Metal was considered cool as heck. Definitely part of that same edgy, violent style of game that you'd impress your friends with, along with Mortal Kombat before it, and Grand Theft Auto 3 after it. Although if you want to split hairs, the lack of blood violence kept it from true "your mom's gonna hate it" energy. The one that I owned was the fourth one, but years of flash sales on the playstation store brought the first two games to my PS3's collection a long time ago. I decided to take a look. Not my finest dive into the 32 bit backlog, this first game was pretty rough to play. The Gas, handbrake, and reverse buttons are all mapped to the face buttons. And when you step on the gas, there's no acceleration. You're off a top speed from the moment the button is pressed. The handbrake will also throw you in a 180 spin after being held for a fraction of a second. When you and your opponent are circling around each other, there's no way to finesse your way into a favorable position. And when you get nailed by a missile, your car is launched in the air and forcibly turned to the side, hindering your ability to return fire.

Since it's a car combat game, aiming weapons and steering your vehicle can't be done independently of each other. Only one weapon homes in on enemies in front of you, while the rest have to be aimed manually. Three of the seven weapon types either fire a missile directly behind you, or drop an obstacle behind you. Hang on, Oil slicks and mines? Was this a kart racing game at one point? Totally useless in a game where you have no way to anticipate where your opponents might drive, and you can even trigger your own traps. Even worse is the ammo situation. You have to deliberately run aimlessly around the arenas to get enough ammo for kills. And the ammo drops don't respawn. Your character's special move has a cooldown but it's very slow. Your machine guns not only do pitiful damage, but also overheat after a few seconds. 

I suppose the biggest bummer is the game's lack of character. The game's opening and character-specific endings are just slow text scrolls against a still image. In the character select, the character portraits are all photos of what are pretty clearly people around the office willing to play dress up. There was something fun made for the game, live action endings for each character. These are great, but you won't find these in the game itself. They were cut in order to maintain the game's T rating. What a bummer.

Twisted Metal 2 fixes many of my issues with the first and then some. Cars immediately handle better and you can even turn your car while stopped, allowing you to plant your feet so to speak and focus on aiming. It's totally unrealistic for a car to be able to turn in place, but Twisted Metal isn't the sort of game begging for realism anyway so I welcome it. Your machine gun is still weak but now it doesn't overheat so you can fire indefinitely. There's also turbo boosting which I felt made ramming into enemies a more viable option. Weapon drops around the map respawn after a couple minutes and there's destructible objects hiding even more ammo creating a new element of environmental interaction. The mine-like weapons have been ditched and you can fire all non special weapons behind you if you want. And I didn't realize this while playing, but they mapped special moves to D-Pad inputs like Street fighter. So you can pull up a shield or fire a freeze blast if you know the combination. As for the plot, the game has animated movies with voice acted narration by Calypso. It's definitely the right type of ham I'm looking for in a game like this. 

[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.