Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread

[Dayni]

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Pfffft... I don't know if this is a glitch in the original or a thing with the promotion palettes mod, but Senno's merchant animations are glitched. When he uses a bow it's fine, but if he tries using a lance, the guy keeps his bow animations, so he just... sort of fires an imaginary bow that propels the spear into the enemy. Amazing. I love it. Bugquest may have ended, but its legacy lingers on, it seems.

Thank you Fates for this beautiful image.

Well, today's the day. I finished Neo TWEWY, therefore it's time to do what I promised. I honestly felt like I should do this from when I decided I'd get the game. Not that I don't have ulterior motives:

So, a point or two first: I'm going to have two levels of spoilers, the first being for those who've finished TWEWY and another for the people who've finished both. If you're purely an outsider to the first game I recommend avoiding opening anything. Also, I might mention a thing or two from the demo but that's freely available to play (Unlike Balan Wonderworld) and I hope that if nothing else everyone who can gives the game a chance. Gameplay's going to have two sections, combat and exploration as these two are pretty easily defined and separated as the two domains the player goes into. Finally, just because of it's size I put the actual review into a spoiler to make scrolling less of a pain for those who'll pass regardless.

Spoiler

 Reminder for everyone;

Quote

I'm going to have two levels of spoilers, the first being for those who've finished TWEWY and another for the people who've finished both

Characters:

I generally like the cast of this game, Fret best boi. Simple right? Sadly not. I don't want to go into too much for spoiler reasons.

Spoiler

One thing that I did prefer in the original compared to Neo is that I felt I learned more about the RG humans and got to understand them better. Even with the shopkeepers this is true, because in the original you'd see some of their thoughts as well and they felt about you as time went on, much less NPCs you see who come from the original like The Prince (what few there are, another thing that bothered me).

Spoiler

And honestly the amount of pieces on the board complicated everything as well. It made seeing people like Nagi develop get pushed down a bit because of the larger story and everyone's involvement in it (the large amount of reapers, players up until Week 3). Does not help that we're seeing characters get focused on after being barely involved before the last week. See Hishima for a great example.

As for the other players, I felt Fuya got shafted honestly. A gang full of river simps and he never got much development before he died fast. The other captains were alright enough I suppose, but man I wish Nagi had gotten someone she could interact with beyond the Wicked Twisters for most of the game. And worse again, Minamimoto got shortchanged a ton too. He's supposed to be a lone wolf, but he disappears for a longer period than he should, not being in Week 2 and only showing up W3D4 and on the final Final day. Nagi doesn't get to call him out, he doesn't get to go into his plan before he just explosits that he can use the bird noise to power himself up and fights you.... only to get 1-shot by Neku coming right in.

Least we get to see Shiki's face at long last. It has been so many years and it finally happened. Her wanting to let Neku know she'd been waiting for him left me close to tears and I wanted to see them talk more after they finally met again.

Rhythm:

The music in this game is pretty good. I do have some tracks I really like, few duds, some I like ironically and then there's the main theme which I'm not a fan of and went out of my way to purchase discs in order to replace playing in the menu.

Spoiler

The ratio of new to remix tracks is not enough new tracks imo. 20 or so of the 51 tracks are remiexs, which isn't so bad until you realise this counts tracks with two languages as separate tracks. This brings it closer to 15 remixes (including Twister getting a remix and the original being in the game)

And yes, bad news for a certain person here, Ooparts (Gimme chance) is one of the remixes, limited to Pig battles (which sucks because I actually liked TWEWY's pig battle music (aka Pokemon stole it for one of the gym themes))

Spoiler

The ones I like the least though are simple: Incongruous and Wander Around Shibuya which I mentioned earlier. It's good though that tracks like Insomnia, CHASE, Last Call, Shibuya Survivor and Divide exist.

I have to say, the addition of dynamic music with Beat's Soundsurf is an enhancement I didn't expect. But that was something cool and it affects all tracks by the looks of it.

Exploration:

You get a decent enough sense of how the game handles exploration in the demo, but one thing that's very much tied to the story is not. Other than that, you'll go from place to place, face whatever combat/puzzle element is at the end of the road and continue on from there until the day is done.

Spoiler

Several items that were used in exploration don't return to Neo. Imprinting does return and while I liked the idea of imprinting multiple words in a phrase together, it is very frontloaded and has next to no relevance in the late game. We also see a shrinking of the amount of areas, mostly because areas are made larger. We do lose some shops sadly but they could have been worse with that.

Spoiler

Some of the changes to the map mean we lose the old Reaper's den at the end of the original, but more than that I miss the snappy transition from place to place, though maybe PS4 Pro is good on that. And being about to run helps a ton because exploring to find secrets and so on can drag a bit.

Evisceration:

Combat in this game gets more complex than we see in the demo thankfully, but even within it I could tell it had something to it. Each character uses a pin, the active character can dodge with B and you get more powerful attacks which are activated with A. The different psychs you use also tend to have more effective use cases depending of what you're facing and weaknesses are thankfully useful in battle at least. Sadly we can't change buttons in the game, which I think would be nice to change which buttons are used for these functions.

Spoiler

Most psych types are represented pretty decently in the game actually, though some are definitely not as powerful (Swift Strike is no Velocity Tackle that's for sure) and other types have been changed to get added (Time bomb requires a double press of the button to use).

Some of the noise types were also lost and I kinda wish they'd been represented.

Also, drop your level whenever you can, your drop rate helps a ton with getting pins and thus money. (Raising difficulty also helps as it can allow a reroll on lower difficulties, this

Spoiler

Some of these bosses were something. Susukichi's final fight, Ayano's, some of the late game dives and longer chains, these fights forced me down from Hard, which was rough because I wanted to be as high as I could for drop purposes.

Presentation:

I do like the art style honestly. Probably my biggest issue is that the game feels like it didn't get the budget to make all the facial details on NPC character designs, which is pretty noticeable when a bunch of them don't even have eyes. To have this for an NPC characters interact with is problematic to put it mildly. Hell, MKN (who's in the demo) is a palette swap of one of the generic character models.

That being said the game can end up being rough on it's visuals, though I wonder how much of it is due to accounting for the Switch and how much is due to budgetary and time constraints. As for slowdown, I saw a bit of it when scanning as has been mentioned (moreso earlier on frankly) and sadly a few times in combat, but it tended to pass in combat quite quickly and I never had a big issue when playing with it to be honest and the PS4 port is supposedly better about all that.

Spoiler

Some of the characters feel a little off, either because the art style doesn't translate that closely to the original even despite the three year gap or due to the voice actors playing their voices just differently enough from the original (funnily, they actually have all but one who did voice work in the original back, a bit of news I didn't anticipate).

Spoiler

I actually really like the Reaper noise looks in this game, helps emphasise each one's own character. The scale of the Mr. Mew fights come across very well too and getting to see that somewhat replicated with Suskichi's last fight was cool.

Exposition:

This game's story.... On the one hand I'm curious how viable it'd be to play it for those who've not played TWEWY. The game does actually try to bring forward relevant information for players who haven't/need a refresher. But I'm not sure that'll be enough for people. Or that they'd even want to deal with the story as it stands.

There is no way they could get away with making this game into 12 episodes for an anime and make it work, like they kinda did with the original this year. It's too dense for that.

I do think the mechanics are explained fine enough for the most part, I don't think I felt confused by all but a certain thing.

Spoiler

It does do things differently from the original. Less than might be liked, but to say more would be to spoil.

Spoiler

I could say a ton on the ending. I could talk on how the literal deus ex machina is a bothersome part of it all and how they actually showed the guy in a trailer but he buggers off after that. I could argue that the overuse of the OG cast in the ending hurts the opportunity to use some of the new cast and how several of those are left by the wayside or still not quite used rightly. I could complain about how the story is made too large for it's own good and especially due to the scale of the cast, including not seeing events that it would be nice to see but which might understandably be non-essential.

But there are things I do like. The relationships formed by most of the main cast allow them to open up around them, the battle royale element early on works pretty well despite how it gets sidelined to some degree, I expected worse from the AND incorporation.

Scramble Slams on the other hand I still don't get how to get points scored on. At all.

Remainder:

One change I absolutely love is the change made to food. While this isn't in the demo, I want to describe how they made food a thing to actually observe in the main game. You start off with the new characters being pretty low on stats as opposed to people like Minamimoto and you can only raise their stats by purchasing food. Fullness has been simplified compared to the original in that the meter is across the party, you get food by going to various restaurants and ordering for the whole party.

Spoiler

Clothing in this game is also adjusted, with Shiki's brand being actually pretty useful from what I've gotten to use from it, but none of this is forced imo: you can choose to limit yourself, but it'll be rough to avoid using clothes/food in Neo on higher difficulties imo.

Spoiler

Mutations were.... certainly interesting. They're not as cool as the old pin evolution methods and frankly more confusing until you get the social network option that unlocks telling you how they mutate, but they are simpler than worrying about how to Master Masamune instead of evolve it in FR that's for sure.

On replaying days, I forgot this when I first tried it, but fast forwarding is available on material you've seen before, but I didn't remember the button at the time, it's R2. Also, you keep your party that you had at the most recent point, which worries me when it comes to mutating pins with Minamimoto: How?

I also accidentally unlocked a secret report before endgame so I was completely taken aback to see it there. I'm curious how you unlock the lot but I'll try to be blind with the postgame too (Including Another Day which does exist, Nice).

Well, that's most of the stuff I wanted to briefly go over done. I liked the game for the most part, but some things can't be ignored (and I'm pretty sure I've ignored some, but the battery on this laptop won't last forever). Guess there'll be an updated review?

TLDR: I think it's good, but it doesn't quite have the original's magic and has the potential issue of being a sequel that leans quite a bit on the past. Thank fuck there's a demo that's a solid enough impression imo, so I'll recommend that and if it looks like you might the game I'd say consider it even if you've not played the original. I don't think I have everything I wanted to say here (Especially on story), but I'm typing this on a bus and frankly should be refreshing myself on the game before doing this.

[Sooks]

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Besides, I'm not doing like some other people who savestate every turn and load whenever the RNG doesn't go their way. I really don't like using save states, but if I am just doing the same moves every time, well, I save myself the hassle of doing it 100 times for each tiny mistake I make in the later stages of the map. Heck, it's not like the levels change, either.

So… you do the same moves all over again when the RNG doesn’t go your way? Why?

[Venger_06]

57 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

Also i have no access to Entrap, either.

So no Freeze or Entrap, and Hex and Silence won't exactly help me in Takumi's Castle

Well, shit. I had the help of Galeforce Leo, so I cheesed Hinata's squad.

54 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

And this is not a game where you want to accept losses and keep going, losing the wrong unit can make the game unbeatable lol.

And some people still think Conquest is the best game to ironman.

40 minutes ago, Armagon said:

They are fundamentally the same thing Ruben. You must realize that Ruben.

Save points in the map are a mechanic that the devs intended. Save states are not.

[Armagon]

11 hours ago, Benice said:

btw @Armagon, I know you briefly expressed interest in Dark Souls, and I feel like it's worth mentioning that Dark Souls 1 is a bit like a 3d metroidvania in terms of the world design, so that might be a little interesting for you.

(I missed this) yeah I have heard that Dark Souls is basically a 3D Metroidvania.

I think my first "Souls" game tho will be Jedi: Fallen Order, as it's basically Dark Souls: Star Wars edition and I like Star Wars so yeah. It is published by EA tho and that sucks balls but hey, if Dragon Quest fans can buy games where the music is composed by a confirmed bigot, I can bite the bullet and buy this one EA-published game (it's not like they actually made the game anyway).

2 minutes ago, Ghost_06_ said:

Save points in the map are a mechanic that the devs intended. Save states are not.

I meant it fundamentally achieves the same purpose. Just one is there and the other one is a "cheat".

[Codename Shrimp]

I am trying to solve this without Entrap but i just can't lmao

I can take care of one Unit with the help of rescue, but that's won't help much. If i don't use rescue any unit i send out there will just die either by Lancers and/or archers (that have counter so i can't just 1 range them) lol. Calamity Gate Corncob will just get destroyed by Archers or Niles. Ryoma will die from 2 Lancers. Most of my units will

Hmmm.

In my Og Run after Entraping one of the guys i was able to use Attack stance from the right stair to clean up the rest, but here i will have to figure out how to take care of everyone from the left stairs lol...

Hmmmmmmmmm

Edited August 26, 2021 by Shrimperor

[Saint Rubenio]

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

They are fundamentally the same thing Ruben. You must realize that Ruben.

I mean yeah kinda, but... One's cheating.

Besides, save points in DSFE have to be earned, which I know you don't like, but it's a big difference. Turnwheel/divine pulse are far closer to being glorified save states, and RD battle saves are... Well, just glorified save states.

26 minutes ago, Sooks said:

So… you do the same moves all over again when the RNG doesn’t go your way? Why?

No, what I meant is like, I got a strategy down that works consistently for something like the first half of the map, but then I make a mistake and have to redo everything because there's no reason to change the first few turns if they work. After three or four resets, I'd rather just make a state and save myself the hassle of doing the exact same thing again. Especially in this game and difficulty, where the levels stay the same and absolutely nothing changes on a reset.

25 minutes ago, Ghost_06_ said:

And some people still think Conquest is the best game to ironman.

The argument they've made to me was that Conquest is tightly designed and therefore each mistake is on the player, not on the game's bullshit. So theoretically you can just not make mistakes and you won't be caught by stuff like ambush reinforcements.

That's all well and good. The problem is that when you do make a mistake, the game is way, WAY too unforgiving. You lose a dad early on and that's two units and a chapter full of rewards you lose from a single mistake. You lose a mom and you still lose two units and a map, you just get to choose which child poofs out of existence. You lose Niles and every useful generic/boss is out of your grasp. You save yourself from an unfortunate situation with staves and the game becomes unbeatable because you have to save them all for the final maps. You lose your tank or your damage dealer later on and you're in deep shit because all the late joiners are squishy healers or children you may or may not have lost. You lose gold and you can't buy brave weapons to one-round early Takumi, leaving you exposed to his shitty proc skills.

The game is tightly designed enough that if you're absolutely perfect, you will be just peachy. That much I agree with. The problem is that there's, in my humble opinion, too little room for error, and more alarmingly, too little room for RNG screwage. I'm not saying the game should be PoR-tier mindless, but you can't even let yourself use a staff charge to correct a mistake. It's one of the other reasons I place NMotE above this one. It takes far more for everything to go to hell there.

...maybe I should try Conquest in casual one day. Being the filthy elitist I am it goes against my principles to play on casual mode, but it would certainly be less stressful. And no resets is something I would welcome with open arms.

18 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

I am trying to solve this without Entrap but i just can't lmao

I can take care of one Unit with the help of rescue. If i don't use rescue any unit i send out there will just die either by Lancers and or archers lol. Calamity Gate Corncob will just get destroyed by Archers or Niles. Ryoma will die from 2 Lancers. Most of my units will

Hmmm.

In my Og Run after Entraping of the guys i was able to use Attack stance from the right stair to clean up the rest, but here i will have to figure out how to take care of everyone from the left stairs lol...

Hmmmmmmmmm

Sacrifice the loli.

Edited August 26, 2021 by Saint Rubenio

[Codename Shrimp]

3 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

the game is way, WAY too unforgiving

shouldn't that be a positive

 

3 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Sacrifice the loli.

You mean Sakura?

No, she's one of my strongest units.

And like @Ghost_06_ says

Imouto supermacy

Edited August 26, 2021 by Shrimperor

[Acacia Sgt]

This certainly looks cool:

 

[DodgeDusk]

After spending about three years last night figuring it out, I finally installed the Birthright units in Conquest patch. Must say: Charlotte dunks on Rinkah in the early game.

[Codename Shrimp]

3 minutes ago, DodgeDusk said:

Must say: Charlotte dunks on Rinkah in the early game.

Rinkah sucks major Ass.

So do Setsuna, Hayato, Subaki and Orochi.

Hinata, Oboro and especially Hana are cool replacements tho

Edited August 26, 2021 by Shrimperor

[DodgeDusk]

1 minute ago, Shrimperor said:

Rinkah sucks major Ass.

Quite. I'm curious as to how busted Ryoma is.

[Codename Shrimp]

...Sakura just missed a 95

a fucking 95 that i really needed...

4 minutes ago, DodgeDusk said:

Quite. I'm curious as to how busted Ryoma is.

not as busted as i expected him to be. His join chapters and a couple chapters after he is like 10x as op as Xander

but once Enemies are promoted and have WTA over him he just dies if they look at him funny. 

He is still stronger than Xander tho. Especially with Vantage/Life-and-Death/Swordfaire he kills peeps fast before they can attack him

Just not who have WTA over him or those tanky enough to survive his attacks (especially with armored Blow)

Edited August 26, 2021 by Shrimperor

[Sooks]

21 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

maybe I should try Conquest in casual one day

Remember when Ruben considered himself a Kaga elitist?

I’d go for it if I didn’t save state every turn, maybe, sounds nice.

Edited August 26, 2021 by Sooks

[DodgeDusk]

3 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

...Sakura just missed a 95

a fucking 95 that i really needed...

not as busted as i expected him to be. His join chapters and a couple chapters after he is like 10x as op as Xander

but once Enemies are promoted and have WTA over him he just dies. 

Expecting this. I need HP and bulk. Tsubaki's time to shine.

[Codename Shrimp]

phew was able to fix that missed 95. Real scary tho

[Lightcosmo]

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Yeah, I suppose if I had to pick between wasting an extra hour doing the exact same moves to get to the same point where I died previously or being deemed a cheater, I'll gladly take the insults.

I wasnt really insulting you, sorry if it sounded that way!

[Codename Shrimp]

Me trying to solve the bridge

[Sidereal Wraith]

 

[Acacia Sgt]

Ahahaha

 

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 hour ago, Dayni said:

So, a point or two first: I'm going to have two levels of spoilers, the first being for those who've finished TWEWY and another for the people who've finished both. If you're purely an outsider to the first game I recommend avoiding opening anything. Also, I might mention a thing or two from the demo but that's freely available to play (Unlike Balan Wonderworld) and I hope that if nothing else everyone who can gives the game a chance. Gameplay's going to have two sections, combat and exploration as these two are pretty easily defined and separated as the two domains the player goes into. Finally, just because of it's size I put the actual review into a spoiler to make scrolling less of a pain for those who'll pass regardless.

*snip*

TLDR: I think it's good, but it doesn't quite have the original's magic and has the potential issue of being a sequel that leans quite a bit on the past. Thank fuck there's a demo that's a solid enough impression imo, so I'll recommend that and if it looks like you might the game I'd say consider it even if you've not played the original. I don't think I have everything I wanted to say here (Especially on story), but I'm typing this on a bus and frankly should be refreshing myself on the game before doing this.

Thanks!

I'm very likely to get the game sooner than I thought. Since the gaming laptop I've zeroed in on is taking forever to get in stock (and there's a bit of personal distrust towards buying one on Amazon- the various individual sellers on the site as opposed to one purveyor is a turnoff), and a certain occasion is coming up. I honestly don't have many games I want right now, so NEO will have to do.

 

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

It is published by EA tho and that sucks balls but hey, if Dragon Quest fans can buy games where the music is composed by a confirmed bigot

I SERIOUSLY HAD NO IDEA I DIDN'T LEARN UNTIL AFTER I'D BOUGHT IV, V, VII, VIII and XI!

And I bought all the 3DS Etrian Odysseys unaware of its artist's questionable preferences. Are we supposed to look this stuff up when we buy a game? What are the odds of the wrong sheet in prominent individuals?

-Although, I concede I bought DQIII after learning the Wagnerian truth. I'm not entirely innocent. Bad people need to stop being involved in good stuff.

Edited August 26, 2021 by Interdimensional Observer

[Venger_06]

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

if Dragon Quest fans can buy games where the music is composed by a confirmed bigot,

Work ≠ author.

52 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

The argument they've made to me was that Conquest is tightly designed and therefore each mistake is on the player, not on the game's bullshit. So theoretically you can just not make mistakes and you won't be caught by stuff like ambush reinforcements.

This is the problem. The devs should always account player mistakes when designing a game.

52 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

That's all well and good. The problem is that when you do make a mistake, the game is way, WAY too unforgiving. You lose a dad early on and that's two units and a chapter full of rewards you lose from a single mistake. You lose a mom and you still lose two units and a map, you just get to choose which child poofs out of existence. You lose Niles and every useful generic/boss is out of your grasp. You save yourself from an unfortunate situation with staves and the game becomes unbeatable because you have to save them all for the final maps. You lose your tank or your damage dealer later on and you're in deep shit because all the late joiners are squishy healers or children you may or may not have lost. You lose gold and you can't buy brave weapons to one-round early Takumi, leaving you exposed to his shitty proc skills.

The game is tightly designed enough that if you're absolutely perfect, you will be just peachy. That much I agree with. The problem is that there's, in my humble opinion, too little room for error, and more alarmingly, too little room for RNG screwage. I'm not saying the game should be PoR-tier mindless, but you can't even let yourself use a staff charge to correct a mistake. It's one of the other reasons I place NMotE above this one. It takes far more for everything to go to hell there.

Also, Shadow Dragon gives much better replacements. As Excelblem proved, as long as you keep Marth alive you can beat the game.

Damn, am I really praising Shadow Dragon?!

Edited August 26, 2021 by Ghost_06_

[Codename Shrimp]

Almost there.

2 minutes ago, Ghost_06_ said:

This is the problem. The devs should always account player mistakes when designing a game

That's what Normal mode is for

[Venger_06]

3 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

That's what Normal mode is for

I would really like to be able to play a game with a higher difficulty without having to worry about making every move perfectly, thanks.

[Codename Shrimp]

20 minutes ago, Ghost_06_ said:

I would really like to be able to play a game with a higher difficulty without having to worry about making every move perfectly, thanks.

Well, i am for one do think higher difficulties should punish you really hard for your mistakes. Especially Lunatic. Better than Hard modes that feel like Easy mode

And honestly, even Conquest normal is harder than your average FE game on hard difficulty

Edited August 26, 2021 by Shrimperor

[Sidereal Wraith]

God I feel so lonely…