RPG Thread XX has over 100 hours of gameplay

elessar123 said:
Only the Witcher would have a quest where drawing money from a bank is infuriating.
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They did such a good job on that quest. Lingering camera angles, everything. I hated and loved it at the same time.

Actually wrapped up B&W a few days ago. Really, really nice send-off to the game.

 
I did literally every side quest available in B&W and left the main quest alone. I came back after 2 weeks and went, oh right, Detlaff.

 
Played about 10 hours of Tokyo Mirage Sessions this weekend, well into the second chapter now. It's a really solid RPG. The combat is very Persona-ish. The story is very Japanese, and if you aren't a fan of J-Pop this certainly isn't your game. I'm playing under Normal difficulty, and I've already had 3 game-over screens so far, so it isn't simple (unless you're playing on easier difficulties). All of those game-overs have been from the special rare "savage" enemies that show up in dungeons occasionally, so it certainly keeps you on your toes. The dungeons are well-designed, and the overall presentation is very stylish. I'm really enjoying it so far.

 
Krymner said:
Played about 10 hours of Tokyo Mirage Sessions this weekend, well into the second chapter now. It's a really solid RPG. The combat is very Persona-ish. The story is very Japanese, and if you aren't a fan of J-Pop this certainly isn't your game. I'm playing under Normal difficulty, and I've already had 3 game-over screens so far, so it isn't simple (unless you're playing on easier difficulties). All of those game-overs have been from the special rare "savage" enemies that show up in dungeons occasionally, so it certainly keeps you on your toes. The dungeons are well-designed, and the overall presentation is very stylish. I'm really enjoying it so far.
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For the most part I agree and for the most part I enjoy it for its gameplay. It's mainly Persona with about 30% Fire Emblem thrown in. The couple things that kind of grate me a bit are:

1) If you are someone who skips a decent amount of normal enemies like I do in games and tend to approach things a little underlevel then this game will be rather frustrating at times. Mostly because the bosses are set to be several levels ahead of a normal persons progression and damage is very much primarily level based. This leaves you with either grinding, skipping less enemies or using the DLC dungeons (Which also came with the SE) to mitigate it. This also translates into drops after Chapter 1 as well since you need a lot more of the higher tier stars to craft carnage weapons and learn radiant skills. Oh and Stage Level is determined by how many battles the character has been in (or is it sessions? Which at 7 or 8, sub-cast can join sessions and not sure if that counts).

2) Sidequests aren't recorded anywhere which is kinda stupid. I have no idea how many more people I need to recruit on this mission unless I go and find the stupid quest giver and talk to him. Annoying, especially if you don't finish a quest before you save and quit, then proceed to forget it when you pick it back up.

3) I hate how it forces you to use the Wii U Gamepad for main story and side story progression. Oh and how the only map is located on the Wii U Gamepad.

4) Being a primarily PC gamer running SSDs, the load times for everything can be slightly irritating as it's longer than your average console game and how frequent you encounter load screens (Menu/Battle/Map Transition/Scene Transition). I've had a couple times where I initiated a skill and the camera just stared at the character for an extra two seconds before it finally went off.

I pretty much always carry Smoke Machines for Savage Encounters. I don't really find them worth fighting with how easily they can wipe your party if you have bad composition against them as they're repeatedly exploiting your weak points. At least for new Savage encounters.

 
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Just really started Tokyo Mirage Sessions. Is there a way to know when you collected all the pieces to a new carnage weapon while in a dungeon without backtracking?

Have to quit for tonight but I was wondering before I get into the second dungeon.

 
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Sir_Fragalot said:
Just really started Tokyo Mirage Sessions. Is there a way to know when you collected all the pieces to a new carnage weapon while in a dungeon without backtracking?

Have to quit for tonight but I was wondering before I get into the second dungeon.
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You usually get a text when you have all the pieces for a new carnage or radiant unity, so checking thru those texts is the only way I know of.

 
The one time I'm actually playing an RPG and I don't post in this thread about it.

Trails In the Sky is loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong.

Like nothing happens too.

I mean, it's fine dialogue and stuff but man

does nothing happen.

 
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Still got the Trails games in my backlog. I'm debating whether to play them after Tokyo Mirage Sessions, or start the Persona PSP games instead.

 
Trails FC basicaly has a bunch of small waves and then a bit of a tsunami at the end. The story is fairly resolved, but leaves a cliffhanger for the sequel.

Trails SC has some larger waves that slowly turn into a tsunami over time and resolves most everything. Has some issues with the main enemy writing up until the end though.

Cold Steel 1 has a bunch of small waves that are larger by the end, but really cut off just as it's starting to get quite a bit bigger. The story does not resolve, at all, in any way and leaves a huge cliffhanger for the sequel. fuck you Falcom.

My biggest draw for the series is that they actually tell a story and the lore supports the story as well as the world. I like how the story treats the main characters while not giving them the usual jrpg treatment and also how they evolve through the game/series. Everything is a bit slow to build up and most everything is connected in some way. Gameplay is decent and improved over the series and the changes to the battle system are actually supported by the changing lore as time passes.

Trails FC is around 35-45 hours long.

Trails SC is around 65-85 hours long.

 
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QUESTION:  Does Breath of Fire III ever get better/good?  My god, this game is a slog.  Story and characters are meh, battle system is boring, and the encounter rate is off the god damned charts.  I can't remember the last time I played a game with this many random encounters.  Shit.  I'm about 1/3 of the way in (still a child, on my way to a lighthouse).  About 11 hours in and I just don't know why I'm playing other than I bought the damn game.  (for the record I adored BoF4, though haven't played it in years so willing to admit it may be nostalgia goggles)

On current topic, I too am slowly chipping away at TiTS:FC.  I find taking one "chapter" at a time helps.  Like mini novelas or something.  Cuz yeah, it's sloooow, but just so well done (from world building and character perspective).  Battle system sucks though.  And how the hell is FC 34-45 hours?!  I'm OCD about talking to all the citizens after each small story progression because Falcom did a great job of changing the dialogue constantly, which I'm sure doesn't help the "slow" feeling.

Also speaking of Falcom: finally got around to playing Ys 1 and... first 2/3 is amazing.  Seriously.  But fuck that tower at the end.

 
I honestly don't remember much about BOF3. I last played the game over 10 years ago, so I can't really give good input. I remember liking it but I also remember not liking BOF4 & BOF5. It was fun, but not super memorable enough for me to remember specific details over a decade later.

As for Trails FC, talking to everybody after any event will add considerable time to game time. I don't remember what my first playthrough time was and when I replayed it on the PC release doing all sidequests, it took me about 35 hours (Obviously didn't talk to everybody that time). I usually go through on normal difficulty and after a certain point combat becomes a joke as you often just cast a single spell and kill all normal fights in one hit. If you don't know what that is, then it could be a bit of a slog I imagine.

There are always people that take way longer than me though. Finished Trails SC in around 80 hours and talked to everybody and did everything I could in that time. Other people were reporting taking 110+ hours and I'm just sitting there wondering what the hell they were doing with all that extra time.

 
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Beat Evoland II yesterday. The graphics are basically the same as the first game's (in other words, the "8-bit" sections are way too colorful), as is the quality of the music. There's tons more references and gameplay styles this time outside of Zelda/Final Fantasy/Diablo. Some work really well (the strategy RPG section, the Donkey Kong-inspired boss fight, etc.), others not so much (the rhythm game boss fight out of nowhere, the brainteaser bits which were so obviously Professor Layton-inspired, etc.). This extends to the achievements; most make sense, but I have to wonder why there's one for talking to some random pointless NPC that looks like Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite, but not for completing the set of the best equipment or even beating the final boss.

One thing that surprised me the more I played was how solid the plot is. There's too much extraneous dialogue, and, at times, it's obvious that the script was written by non-native English speakers (bad typos, some weird phrasing), but the core story is very good. Time travel plots seem to be very hard to write, but this is one of the better ones, dripping out information at a good pace, incorporating some creative twists, and wrapping up most everything by the end. Speaking of which, the ending was just okay.

detectiveconan16 said:
Don't you dare Square Enix. What happened to artistic vision?
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Sorry, I had to favorite that tweet, because the snark is on point: that outfit is absurd. It must take her forever to take it on and off, and I can't imagine it's very comfortable. The best thing I can say about it is that it's an interesting bit of costume design, for certain definitions of "interesting" :lol:

Zmonkay said:
Also speaking of Falcom: finally got around to playing Ys 1 and... first 2/3 is amazing. Seriously. But fuck that tower at the end.
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Ahahaha, good ol' Darm Tower. Yeah, that part can get... tedious. Ys II has a bit more variety, thankfully.
 
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Yep.  fuck BoF3.  I tried ya'll.  I really did.  But nope.  Can't put up with it any more.  Sad I couldn't even get to "adult" part haha.

And Draekon, you must share this magical nuke spell I can spam!  FC is so close to being good, but the battle system is just mind bogglingly boring imho.

Also glad to hear about the variety in Ys II.  That's on my shortlist of things to play soonish.

 
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Zmonkay said:
And Draekon, you must share this magical nuke spell I can spam! FC is so close to being good, but the battle system is just mind bogglingly boring imho.
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I think it's just White Gehenna (Hell Gate is alright if you can't get that yet though), Time Orbal Arts. No enemies have any resists towards it more or less and it deals a ton of damage with a 20% chance of causing faint to anything that happens to survive. I don't remember if FC has an EP regen quartz or not, but I know SC does. So if you have a quartz that does that, then you'll want to try and pair it with whoever is spamming that. Otherwise just just reduce cast speed first and then the EP cost second. This works in both FC & SC, but I think SC has some better orbal arts that come after White Gehenna as well that are even deadlier (though enemies may have resists against).

For boss fights, Clock Up EX is insanely good as well which is also Time. If you don't mind farming poms a little, you can also spam Shadow Spear with all characters in hopes of the 20% insta-kill chance as well if you don't want to spam S-Crafts. Poms have specific locations on certain maps they like to appear that make them fairly easy to farm.

 
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I beat the game last night.

Clocked in 36 hours. I constantly talked to everyone in the first two chapters but after that I didn't really bother. Its really cool how often dialogue updates and that the npcs in town would have their own little stories, but ultimately I didn't care enough to spend all that time running around.

As for battles, after a certain point I feel like you can skip most encounters and be fine. For the last 2 or 3 chapters I only fought things that I saw for the first time and monster chests or when I was trying to fill meter. FC doesn't have a regen EP by the way, just an EP Cut and more max EP, but the only time I ever even needed to restore EP was during the final boss (it might be an issue though if you're fighting everything that pops up). Having Action 2-3 and Cast 2 (and as a result, Clock Up) definitely helps for battles, I had them equipped on all my characters.

 
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Started The Guided Fate Paradox yesterday and am currently two chapters in. It's a Mystery Dungeon-style game, but it's about 90% cutscenes. Story sequences at appropriate moments are fine, of course, but a cutscene between each individual (smallish) dungeon floor is a bit much :cold:

Hope it gets better, or at least starts to have more substantial dungeons.
 
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Thanks for the TiTS:FC tips.  I'll keep em in mind once I meander back to playing it.

As for the Guided Fate Paradox, I liked what I played but I think only played the first 5 or 6 chapters.  Loved the sprite graphics, the music was pretty good from what I recall, and the story wasn't anything special but wasn't terrible either.  Very much enjoyed the gameplay, and it was the first game of that type I'd played, but I then I started traveling heavily for work and for some reason didn't really come back to it.  Think I only payed 5 bucks or so on a PSN sale.

Seemed a bit grindy, but that seems to be inherent in Nippon Ichi's output.

 
Finished Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE.  

I've started Persona 1 PSP, and...eh...it's certainly old-school. Very grindy so far. Every new demon I try to recruit, I always try Masao's "Dance" option before anything else just for a giggle. Best thing about the game so far has been the music, cause the story is all over the place crazy.

 
Zmonkay said:
Thanks for the TiTS:FC tips. I'll keep em in mind once I meander back to playing it.

As for the Guided Fate Paradox, I liked what I played but I think only played the first 5 or 6 chapters. Loved the sprite graphics, the music was pretty good from what I recall, and the story wasn't anything special but wasn't terrible either. Very much enjoyed the gameplay, and it was the first game of that type I'd played, but I then I started traveling heavily for work and for some reason didn't really come back to it. Think I only payed 5 bucks or so on a PSN sale.

Seemed a bit grindy, but that seems to be inherent in Nippon Ichi's output.
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Got up to the end of Chapter Six the other day and yep, it has gotten somewhat grindy, but in a good way. Also unlocked the first big optional dungeon, but have yet to make it all the way through (then again, I've only attempted it a few times).

The storytelling is starting to improve a bit, too. Certain characters are still cryptic about certain things, and the technical jargon is still convoluted, but stuff's getting revealed at a decent pace.

Also started Fantasy Life recently and hoo boy, I can see myself sinking many, many hours into this one outside of the main story. Going to try and not get too carried away, though.
 
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Indignate said:
Yo Blue, whatever happened to all those RPGs that you personally fully funded on Kickstarter?

Do you keep track of any of those?
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Sorta kinda. I haven't backed a game in awhile (protip: comics Kickstarters are much more reliable). Well, that's not entirely true. There was one game I backed recently which wasn't able to meet its goal (the otome VN Beastmaster and Prince), so maybe I dodged a bullet there...

In no particular order:

Barkley 2: hasn't come out, but I've seen and played it at the past couple of PAXes. It's taking forever, but at least it's coming along.
Cosmic Star Heroine: supposedly out by the end of this year. There's preorders up on Humble, so that's something.
Project Phoenix: ahahahahaha
Frog Fractions 2: this might be an RPG! Who knows?! I don't know if this exists yet, but that's part of the fun :D
Unsung Story: didn't back at a level to get a copy of the game, but it's ahahahahaha x10.

Have you or anyone else here backed an RPG that's come out? Surely someone here has to have had better luck than me with video game Kickstarters.
 
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RPGs?

Shadowrun Returns & Shadowrun Hong Kong - Delivered.

Shroud of the Avatar - Disappointment due to the direction they took post-kickstarter.

Torment: Tides of Numenera - It's coming along.

Pillars of Eternity - Delivered.

Wasteland 2 - Delivered.

The Banner Saga - Delivered. Also didn't realize I got future episodes for free when backing.

Cryamore - Seems to be coming along, but i forget it exists all the time.

Cross Code - Didn't back, but did buy into early access because the demo is fucking awesome. It's slowly coming along.

Valdis Story - Delivered. Was a whim back and turned out to be decent. Technically a metroidvania game though.

I do kinda wish I backed a few I missed such as Cosmic Star Heroine & a couple others I can't remember the name of anymore. Not a big deal either way.

 
That Draekon track record.

I've only backed two things.

Indivisible - 2018

&

K.flay album - Was dope.

 
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Indignate said:
That Draekon track record.
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Yeah, seriously. That's pretty damned good.

As I implied earlier, I tend to have much better experiences with comics Kickstarters. The only video game Kickstarters I've backed that delivered were for the third Gaymer X convention (I didn't go; just wanted to support it) and an archival project to preserve Theresa Duncan's games (similar situation here).
 
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I've only gone in for Pillars (success), Torment (will be in the works until the heat-death of the universe but will still probably come out before Barkley 2 at least), and Shadowrun: Hong Kong (success). Was tempted by Unsung Story, but my cheapness kept me away from that bullet.

What's the story with Shroud of the Avatar these days, anyway?

 
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There are a few that didn't go so well for me, but they weren't really RPGs. I think only one has actually completely fallen through but backed it with a paltry amount so I didn't really care.

The Crotch said:
What's the story with Shroud of the Avatar these days, anyway?
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How they went very heavy micro-transactions for things post-kickstarter to try and raise more money. Apparently they're around 10 million, but the prices are absolutely ridiculous and if you run around in single player it's empty house lots everywhere and take up like 95% of every town without proper structure or maps unless you find the NPC who sells them and even then they're not too useful. They still call themselves pre-alpha but have already claimed "No more character wipes" as of the last update as well. Other than that the combat system is pretty disappointing as well as a bunch of other things I can't remember without going to look them up.

I'm not hateful about it like many other people are. Most of which who spout stupid uninformed stuff just because they're unsatisfied. I just kinda wanted an updated early Ultima Online or Ultima VII kind of game really.

 
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I was tempted because I'd like to get into a large space sim and play with friends without going the MMO route, but I decided against it. If it ever releases, I may buy it then. At normal retail or discounted price. Though only after I've made sure whether or not it's the type of game I want to play.

 
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My game backing track record sucks.

- Project Eternity (delivered)

- Cryamore (coming along?)

- Torment (coming along?)

- Chasm (coming along?)

- Battle World Kronos (delivered, mediocre)

- Project Phoenix (fuck)

- Mighty No. 9 (fuck)

- Tower of Elements 2 (technically the missus's, delivered)

- Unsung Story (fuck)

- Unwritten Tales 2 (missus's, delivered)

- Earthlock (missus's month from delivery)

- Heart Forth, Alicia (moving along slowly?)

- Amplitude (meh)

- Clannad (only a localization, delivered)

- Bard's Tale IV (lol)

- Muv Luv (only a localization)

 
I backed Mighty No. 9 too. I consider that a flop and should probably be renamed to Dash Man. Heart Forth, Alicia is one I wanted to back but forgot about the kickstarter before it ended. I hope that one turns out good as it looks pretty good.

 
Frankly I don't do Kickstarter backing anymore unless it's for visual novels that need helping.

I know i'm still waiting for Cryamore, Soul Saga and Torment. I doubt either of the first 2 will be amazing, but someday I will get them. Also backed Dead State which kind of was a dud for me and heavily discounted shortly after release. 

 
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Can't wait to play Bioshock Infinite 2.

 
I'm craving man-sized ventilation ducts so I will probably pick up Deus Ex.

Stranger of Sword City is currently a brick wall right for me right now. The current boss types are suddenly unbeatable, and now it's just a matter of grinding.

 
Ugh. Grinding. That's all I do in Persona 1. I'm amazed the series lived to see sequels. I mean, there are aspects of the game that I do like, but the constant grind negates all the good stuff. I'm glad I'm just going for the normal "good" ending, 'cause I hear the snow-queen path is even more grindy.

 
I had the same experience playing Persona 2: Innocent Sin. Good story and characters,and aged in everything else. The worse being the demon negotiation system,which is amusing for a couple hours and then becomes this monotonous chore.
 
The demon negotiation isn't too bad in Persona 1. Leveling up the Personas is what takes so long to do, because you have to use them to level them up. They get their first couple of spells easy, but it's those last-tier spells that become tedious to obtain.

I'm near the end of the game now tho. I just pushed thru a big chunk of it as quick as I could, and now I'm kinda under-leveled for the final dungeon. I've just been sticking with the same Personas for awhile now because I have a good array of spells, but now I need to fuse some new ones and level those up for the final boss run. One last grind session, then end game.

 
awwww yeay I'm bumpin threads!!

I finally beat Fire Emblem Awakening!

it was the first game I ever bought for 3DS, stopped playing halfway thru, really wanted to play FE again since the new one was coming out, but ended up not getting the new one since I was unable to get the Special Edition, so I just played the old one again!

restarted the game tho, didnt continue my save. Took me roughly 35 hours to beat.

played Classic mode which means a few of my dudes died, including Frederick who's like the strongest character in the game until the end where he's the weakest and I'm like wtf why do I keep bringing him into missions? Dude died like on the 2nd to last stage and I was like yo eff that guy he shoulda died long ago anyways.

Weird thing about character deaths tho is they're not actually dead... like some of them still show up in cutscenes o_O One of them even married Chrom...

and then I had no idea about the whole children system, so had I known I woulda played the game much differently at the beginning =P I was able to get some kids based on the characters I was using tho so all is good there.

and the cool thing is, when some ppl die, you just stick to the ones that work... like my roster had all these weak guys on it that I never used, but the ones I were using pretty much steamrolled through the entire game once you start Master Sealing and pairing them up 

so yup! super fun game! not gonna bother with DLC tho, but I am really looking forward to getting my hands on FE Fates one day!

except now I have SMT Apocolypse, Shiren for the Vita, Tokyo Mirage Session, Xenoblade X which I saved right before chapter 5 story mission, I bought DQ7 too, and gonna buy a PS4 on black friday for FF15 and Persona,

I also wanna play the new Phoenix Wright and my stack of Vita visual novels.

it's impossible to get to all of these lol, but whatever it's a good problem to have =P

 
Yay, the thread's alive again! I've been seeing you playing Awakening lately, JEKKI, so congrats on beating it! As you've probably seen, I'm going through Ace Attorney 6; currently in the middle of the (very crazy) third case.

RPG-wise, I'm in the middle of Fantasy Life, but I've found it... surprisingly dull. I don't know what it is with me and Level-5 games lately, but they just aren't grabbing me; played the first Professor Layton earlier this year and wasn't too impressed with that one either.

After i beat those two, my next RPG (well, game in general, really) will probably be Pokemon Sun, once that comes out. I too have bought the DQVII remake, but as long as it's supposed to be, I don't think I'll have time to dig into it until after the holidays. It's been forever since I've played a DQ, though, and I've been getting the itch to dig into one, so it probably won't sit around in my backlog for too long.

 
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Characters that are at least semi-important to the plot often don't die in FE games, they merely get permanently injured. In Awakening, none of the first-generation women totally "die"; in Fates, none of the first-gen men die.

I think.

Plugging away at FE Fates: Revelations right now, myself.

 
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