RPG Thread XX has over 100 hours of gameplay

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Also, some of those clips were presumably from different builds, because the lighting seemed way different in them. Compare the player shadow at 3:33 to 3:46.

Or maybe player shadows are just static in outdoor environments? That'd be lame.

 
whooo~!! finished FFXV after roughly 70 hours!

by finished meaning I have no desire to do the remaining post-game stuff; I'm happy with what I have done 

(I did the easiest of the handful of post-game dungeons, not too tough but not fun either... cant imagine doing more of them).

I also was able to beat
Adamantoise
thanks to youtube tutorial.

overall, I really enjoyed the game, it's just so strange that I find it so fascinating! of course it's not without its problems, but I really did love it.

and once the episodic DLC comes out I'll play those too! I'm now officially part of the problem, but I'm OK doing it for a game I really liked!

also apparently I'm only 3 trophies away from Platinum (unless the PS4 is hiding secret trophies), but they're all max level each character's individual skills (I only got Prompto to level 10). But no more grinding for me lol, so won't be getting any platinum here. 

next RPG will be Yakuza 0, but won't be able to start it until late March due to my travel schedule, so gonna enjoy some smaller non-RPGs in the meantime. 

 
Looks like Pillars II is [customspoiler='coming along nicely']
original.gif
[/customspoiler]. Too bad we can't actually have that skin. They look to be 113k from hitting the Sea Monsters & Fishing mile marker though. Would be nice to have. I still need to go through White March & Torment, but with Persona 5 out in a week, I think I'll hold off.

I also have a 50% off Tyranny coupon at the Paradox Store if you want it, Crotch. It's a Steam key, but of course it will eventually go lower down the line. I just have no use for the coupon and it expires at the end of May.

 
Appreciated, but I already have it. And yeah, definitely go through White March - it has some pacing issues at times, but a lot of the best parts of the game are in it.

You see the Planescape EE announcement?

 
Yeah, I saw that enhanced edition announcement. I've been trying to remember if there are any big fan patches/mods that improved the game since you can't apply them to the new version. Granted I guess it doesn't matter that much since about a month ago I bought a $50 Steam Gift card on sale from Amazon and received 10 gift cards when it actually came.

I would have started Torment, but when the game released my computer started making some god awful noises that I didn't get fixed until the weekend with replaced parts. Otherwise I probably would have started that. Though I did just beat Mass Effect: Andromeda and I have to say that was the buggiest game I have encountered in a long, long time. I think I lost around 7 hours total through my playthrough and if I had set the game down for a day, I wouldn't have gone back to it for a very long time. Biowares writing has seriously gone to shit, but that's not to say the game didn't have a few decent moments.

 
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I feel kinda horrible I had to put down Zelda because Persona 5 is out on Tuesday.

Which on Tuesday begins my spring and summer of RPG's. Right now on the list I have Persona 5, Mass Effect Andromedia, Nier Automata, Divinity Original Sin, ESO Morrowind, possibly Valkyria Revolution. Those are the titles I know about...

 
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I'm still early in*, but Persona 5 is very, very good so far. One thing I like is that school isn't mostly just a backdrop for improving social skills (and Links) but feels more like a part of the plot.

Also, the Tokyo settings are giving me flashbacks to my trip there a couple of years ago. The neighborhoods and train stations look very true-to-life. I love it :D

A couple random observations/reactions (minor spoilers?):

A detail in one of the train stations:
Has anyone else spotted Risette on one of the ads? I thought it was a nice touch!

The second obtained Social Link (or Compatriot or whatever they're called now):
Igor?! WTF

* - Where I am right now:
Just got Ann in my party and took Morgana home. This whole Kamoshida storyline so far is already one of the most fucked-up things I've seen in these games; makes me wonder what's in store for the future :razz:

 
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My Persona 5 gets here tomorrow! I beat Zelda just in time to start it. Can't wait, and trying to remain spoiler-free hasn't been easy.

 
Blue, you mentioned Igor. Is that a reference to his new voice? His old Japanese VA died a while back, so the new one is a super deep voice. It seems they tried to match that consistency with the English VA too. It's very weird in both cases.

Is anyone going to play Cosmic Space Heroine or is everyone Persona
I own the game already, but will be playing it after Persona 5. Unless Trails in the Sky the 3rd releases before I beat Persona 5 (very unlikely). Since I'm still sick from an intestinal infection, I may be able to beat Persona 5 before it releases. Though the first few days of Persona 5 I didn't get much playtime in due to issues from my current sickness. So I'm not as far as I'd like to be considering the circumstances.

 
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I backed Cosmic Space Heroine, but yeah, P5 comes first. Maybe I'll dig into it once I've beaten Pokemon Sun, which I've been putting off mainly because of medical problems (which have improved lately). I'm pretty far in on that one-- currently on the fourth island-- so it's likely that'll happen sooner rather than later.

Blue, you mentioned Igor. Is that a reference to his new voice? His old Japanese VA died a while back, so the new one is a super deep voice. It seems they tried to match that consistency with the English VA too. It's very weird in both cases.
No, but his new voice did throw me off at first. Good to hear there's a legitimate reason for it. I don't want to unintentionally spoil anyone else on this even though it's early on, but:
Igor is literally the Fool Social Link in this game. IIRC, no one from the Velvet Room's been an S. Link, and if there would be one, I would've expected it to be someone like Elizabeth in P3 FES. Igor as an S. Link is just weird...

Maybe it was something revealed in the preview trailers and such, but I stayed away from all that, so it threw me for a loop.
 
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man I spent $25 on the FFXV season pass to play the new DLC Gladio.

$25 and I beat it in like 70 minutes lol; it's just a linear dungeon and a boss =P Hope I get my $25 worth down the line!!

(I did beat the score attack and extra boss tho... milking it for all it's worth!!)

I really wanna play Persona now!!! I have it but will be gone this weekend so don't wanna start it until next week.

I'm also playing Gargoyle's Quest for gameboy via 3DS VC, which is a real good game and has some RPG elements I guess... always wanted to play that game, and hope to play the rest of the trilogy too. 

 
I think this is the first E3 in several years where there's no big RPG announced or shown in playable form that I'm excited for. Especially now, since Persona 5 and FF XV have come and gone, there just wasn't anything shown that excited me as an RPG enthusiast.

Undertale is coming to PS4, so maybe I'll finally give that a try?

At least there's still the FF XII remaster in one month! :whee:

 
From E3 this year Mario + Rabbids took me by surprise being a strategy game in the same vein as XCom. I also hope Ni no Kuni II fixes all of the issues with the first game. I could never finish that game because the AI would constantly fuck me over hardcore around halfway through the game or so. Also the gameplay that has been shown of Monster Hunter Worlds looks interesting. I've stayed away from it because I don't like playing those games on handhelds and the constant loading drove me nuts even when they put their enhanced versions on the Wii.

Definitely don't care about the FFXII port coming up though. I really don't like the combat system in it. My friend will likely be getting it digitally, so I'll probably leech it off of him and give it a try again to see if I can finish it as it's the only non-sequel from the main series I haven't beaten.

I think the next RPG I'm looking forward to is Ever Oasis on the 3DS releasing next Friday. I wish it had multiplayer co-op, but oh well. After that will probably be Ys VIII, Tokyo Xanadu eX+, Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection and Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth. Everything else is a wait and see or wait for a discount. Still debating on Etrian Odyssey V though as I'm not sure if that will get a discount before it inevitably sells out.

I do have to say though that I really enjoyed Utawarerumono: Mask of Deception even though I normally don't like visual novels. Not that it will get much talk here, but I was pleasantly surprised by it. It is a bit easy on the gameplay side of things which is a little sparse.

 
man I spent $25 on the FFXV season pass to play the new DLC Gladio.

$25 and I beat it in like 70 minutes lol; it's just a linear dungeon and a boss =P Hope I get my $25 worth down the line!!

(I did beat the score attack and extra boss tho... milking it for all it's worth!!)

I really wanna play Persona now!!! I have it but will be gone this weekend so don't wanna start it until next week.

I'm also playing Gargoyle's Quest for gameboy via 3DS VC, which is a real good game and has some RPG elements I guess... always wanted to play that game, and hope to play the rest of the trilogy too.
I'd really like to pick up FFXV, but I think I'll wait til they are done patching it and there's a complete version for a decent price. I've waited almost ten years, a few more won't hurt.

 
Ever Oasis looks great. It sounds exactly like Dark Cloud (or maybe Racettear, or Rune Factory).

 
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Beat P5 today, finally. That was an interesting nearly three months of my life :razz: Technically speaking, the PS3 version was pretty solid, aside from some audio hitching from time to time (which got especially bad during the endgame). And OMG, I am so glad I'd already bought the soundtrack; a certain boss theme won't leave my head.

Also... Makoto is best girl and you can't sway me from that position :razz:

Meanwhile, I beat Mario & Luigi: Dream Team earlier this week. I had to cheese the final battle with three time-freezing and one defense-lowering badge because it was so shockingly unfair. Definitely my least favorite game in the series, but at least it wasn't as bad as Paper Mario: Sticker Star.

Undertale is coming to PS4, so maybe I'll finally give that a try?
Do that! :)

I think the next RPG I'm looking forward to is Ever Oasis on the 3DS releasing next Friday. I wish it had multiplayer co-op, but oh well. After that will probably be Ys VIII, Tokyo Xanadu eX+, Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection and Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth. Everything else is a wait and see or wait for a discount. Still debating on Etrian Odyssey V though as I'm not sure if that will get a discount before it inevitably sells out.
Ever Oasis looks great. It sounds exactly like Dark Cloud (or maybe Racettear, or Rune Factory).
Ever Oasis does look gorgeous, and sounds like it'd be right up my alley. I would love to check it out, as well as Cladun Returns, Ys VIII, and a few other recent/upcoming releases. However, my JRPG backlog is still unwieldy. My next must-have is Etrian Odyssey V, and I have a Japanese Switch copy of I Am Setsuna due in (it includes the English translation), but other than those, I think I'll be holding off on picking up anything else for awhile.
 
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After having played FFX-2 for approximately 10 hours, I can confidently state the following:

1. I'm officially ready to come out of the closet

2. Liberal doses of FF5 and FF9 in the job/skill/ability acquisition and leveling is a-ok

 
Love FFX-2. I got the remakes on PS4 this past black friday, so I'll replay them both again eventually.

Although it took me a bit longer than I expected, I finally have beaten Trails of Cold Steel 1. I'm anxious to find out what happens in the second one, since there's a lot that wasn't resolved with the plot, but I think I'm going to jump back into Suikoden IV and try to finish that one up. Besides, I think I have more PS2 rpg's in my backlog than for any other console, so I want to thin those out as much as I can.

 
...I played an hour of FFX-2 before I put it down to never touch it again. I really hated the cast of X and the gameplay changes, plus the intro to the game just turned me off. I may try it again at some point. Maybe. Probably not.

I wrote this in another thread but since everybody here doesn't check that one, here's some thoughts on Ever Oasis:

So I've basically completed Ever Oasis. There's more to do, but I went ahead and finished the last boss today. Had a lot of time 'supervising' stuff this weekend that I was able to power through most of the game. I want to say it ran me around 20 hours, but if I continued to try and unlock everything it would easily be 30+.

The story is pretty basic and there isn't a whole lot to it. The translation is decent enough to not be an issue as well. Since there are so many characters, most of them don't have any real personality other than a couple and even then it's bare bones outside of your 'partner' in the game.

Gameplay wise it's mostly positive, but has a few drawbacks. It's your standard action RPG with a similar feel to Fantasy life in terms of combat. You have a party of up to three, including your main character but can always go solo with just the main character if desired. Most (?) characters that participate in combat will gain a skill at some point or another if you invest enough time into them, whether it be through leveling or upgrading their seed shop. With weapons you've got a decent variety that will continue to add new weapon types until about halfway, maybe a little more into the game. All characters are restricted to one weapon type except for your main character who can equip any weapon except for the three from non-seed races. All of which have their own strengths against enemy types.

Combat itself is fairly decent too. At the very start of the game it's quite easy to die because you don't have your "protection" yet and enemies in the first area are able to one-hit you, which will cause you to reload the last save. After you've gained your 'protection' the game gets quite a bit easier. However towards the end of the game I felt it ramped up in difficulty a bit. I even hit a quest for a resident that put me up against enemies that were 7 levels higher than me. While I was able to take them out, I fight pretty aggressively and ended up getting bounced from one enemy into another which had caused my main character to die. Since I was in a party of three however, I switched characters to another and continued. As time passes while I'm with another character in combat, a downed character will have a slowly refilling bar that will eventually bring them back to life to fight again. You can manually speed this up, but it's extremely risky to do so in combat. If you have two of your allies down, only the first one to die will refill their bar before reviving and then continue one with the second downed character. The game did say I had "revive" chances that I started accumulating after certain points in the story, but I never had a complete wipe so I never ended up having to use them.

There are a lot of puzzles in this game that require special non-combat abilities that some characters will have. The puzzles themselves are not hard, however you won't be able to complete every single one the first time you encounter them. They are left for you to return later to complete. Also if you don't have a party member that can perform said ability, you'll need to teleport back using an Aqua Warp and speak to an NPC who will let you change party members. From there you select who you need and then use the warp pad and select Aqua Warp to go back to where you warped from. It doesn't sound to bad, but you'll be doing this a decent amount. More so if you want to hit every single mining and digging node on top of solving puzzles to progress. It can be rather jarring at times, but in the end it was still in my realm of tolerability.

Your 'Oasis', which is more or less a town will level up as you recruit more residents. To recruit residents, they have to visit your Oasis and you will have to perform a variety of tasks for them. Early on it's just a single task and it can very from simply having found the guy out in the wild to begin with all the way to having a specific seed shop up or giving them a specific item. After they are recruited, you will get visitors every day that will purchase things from these seed shops to allow you to gain money. The catch is, the loot drops from enemies will fuel these shops wares. If you don't accrue materials for them, they will sell out and not gain you any money. On top of that, restocking these shops will give them experience and level them up to sell even more wares (up to 3) and require a quest to fulfill in order to actually level up. This does nothing other than allow you to gain income faster. Plus after they sell so much you can earn a stamp for them which goes on one of three types of cards (your choice) and once the card is full, you can have a festival that will have a very large income burst at the expense of shop stock taking a nose dive. Plus restocking keeps residents happy, which will in turn fuel your 'protection'.

You'll also gain the ability to use a garden where you can plant up to 6 crops per area. These too are used to restock shops as you can't sell items. Although some items can be traded to merchants for other items, but it's not something I used more than a couple times. The catch comes in that you can have seedlings that aren't running a shop and tend to these gardens to harvest items tied to their character + garden slot. You can also give them seeds to plant and harvest stuff so you don't have to do it manually as well. Besides the garden, you also have 'exploration' parties which are comprised of non-seedling races. You are able to send a party of three to previously visited areas in order for them to bring back monster drops or harvest materials. It costs money to send them out, but it's fairly inconsiquential.

While the game is fairly well sized, there are plenty of teleporters around to get you from place to place as you progress through the game. Plus after a certain point you can warp around in your Oasis as prior to obtaining it, moving around in it does kind of suck.

I think the biggest issue I had with the game is how tedius it felt trying to keep my shops stocked decently well. While I had few with sold out stock and eventually could no longer keep my 'protection' at maximum, I didn't really like the feeling of seeing red. In my opinion, I believe the game should have exploration and gardening designed a little different to automate it a bit better. I was also juggling shops and who was tending my gardens to try and keep getting new residents coming in while satisfying restock needs. Also like I mentioned much earlier on, they needed to make switching out party members more convenient as it become more and more tedious the farther I progressed through the game.

All in all I did enjoy my time with it, but it was frustrating from time to time. Particularly that little nagging sesnsation in the back of my mind with my shops not having proper materials to restock as much as I'd like. It's definitely a game I'd recommend, but I do suggest that you don't put too much focus on keeping every shop restocked at all times once you get a little bit into the game. It eventually gets to be too much and impossible to keep everybody constantly fully stocked. If you're able to do that, you should be golden. Since it's a $40 title, I'd say $30 is a good price if it interested you. Though I'm sure most will want $20 or lower.

 
...I played an hour of FFX-2 before I put it down to never touch it again. I really hated the cast of X and the gameplay changes, plus the intro to the game just turned me off. I may try it again at some point. Maybe. Probably not.

I wrote this in another thread but since everybody here doesn't check that one, here's some thoughts on Ever Oasis:

So I've basically completed Ever Oasis. There's more to do, but I went ahead and finished the last boss today. Had a lot of time 'supervising' stuff this weekend that I was able to power through most of the game. I want to say it ran me around 20 hours, but if I continued to try and unlock everything it would easily be 30+.

The story is pretty basic and there isn't a whole lot to it. The translation is decent enough to not be an issue as well. Since there are so many characters, most of them don't have any real personality other than a couple and even then it's bare bones outside of your 'partner' in the game.

Gameplay wise it's mostly positive, but has a few drawbacks. It's your standard action RPG with a similar feel to Fantasy life in terms of combat. You have a party of up to three, including your main character but can always go solo with just the main character if desired. Most (?) characters that participate in combat will gain a skill at some point or another if you invest enough time into them, whether it be through leveling or upgrading their seed shop. With weapons you've got a decent variety that will continue to add new weapon types until about halfway, maybe a little more into the game. All characters are restricted to one weapon type except for your main character who can equip any weapon except for the three from non-seed races. All of which have their own strengths against enemy types.

Combat itself is fairly decent too. At the very start of the game it's quite easy to die because you don't have your "protection" yet and enemies in the first area are able to one-hit you, which will cause you to reload the last save. After you've gained your 'protection' the game gets quite a bit easier. However towards the end of the game I felt it ramped up in difficulty a bit. I even hit a quest for a resident that put me up against enemies that were 7 levels higher than me. While I was able to take them out, I fight pretty aggressively and ended up getting bounced from one enemy into another which had caused my main character to die. Since I was in a party of three however, I switched characters to another and continued. As time passes while I'm with another character in combat, a downed character will have a slowly refilling bar that will eventually bring them back to life to fight again. You can manually speed this up, but it's extremely risky to do so in combat. If you have two of your allies down, only the first one to die will refill their bar before reviving and then continue one with the second downed character. The game did say I had "revive" chances that I started accumulating after certain points in the story, but I never had a complete wipe so I never ended up having to use them.

There are a lot of puzzles in this game that require special non-combat abilities that some characters will have. The puzzles themselves are not hard, however you won't be able to complete every single one the first time you encounter them. They are left for you to return later to complete. Also if you don't have a party member that can perform said ability, you'll need to teleport back using an Aqua Warp and speak to an NPC who will let you change party members. From there you select who you need and then use the warp pad and select Aqua Warp to go back to where you warped from. It doesn't sound to bad, but you'll be doing this a decent amount. More so if you want to hit every single mining and digging node on top of solving puzzles to progress. It can be rather jarring at times, but in the end it was still in my realm of tolerability.

Your 'Oasis', which is more or less a town will level up as you recruit more residents. To recruit residents, they have to visit your Oasis and you will have to perform a variety of tasks for them. Early on it's just a single task and it can very from simply having found the guy out in the wild to begin with all the way to having a specific seed shop up or giving them a specific item. After they are recruited, you will get visitors every day that will purchase things from these seed shops to allow you to gain money. The catch is, the loot drops from enemies will fuel these shops wares. If you don't accrue materials for them, they will sell out and not gain you any money. On top of that, restocking these shops will give them experience and level them up to sell even more wares (up to 3) and require a quest to fulfill in order to actually level up. This does nothing other than allow you to gain income faster. Plus after they sell so much you can earn a stamp for them which goes on one of three types of cards (your choice) and once the card is full, you can have a festival that will have a very large income burst at the expense of shop stock taking a nose dive. Plus restocking keeps residents happy, which will in turn fuel your 'protection'.

You'll also gain the ability to use a garden where you can plant up to 6 crops per area. These too are used to restock shops as you can't sell items. Although some items can be traded to merchants for other items, but it's not something I used more than a couple times. The catch comes in that you can have seedlings that aren't running a shop and tend to these gardens to harvest items tied to their character + garden slot. You can also give them seeds to plant and harvest stuff so you don't have to do it manually as well. Besides the garden, you also have 'exploration' parties which are comprised of non-seedling races. You are able to send a party of three to previously visited areas in order for them to bring back monster drops or harvest materials. It costs money to send them out, but it's fairly inconsiquential.

While the game is fairly well sized, there are plenty of teleporters around to get you from place to place as you progress through the game. Plus after a certain point you can warp around in your Oasis as prior to obtaining it, moving around in it does kind of suck.

I think the biggest issue I had with the game is how tedius it felt trying to keep my shops stocked decently well. While I had few with sold out stock and eventually could no longer keep my 'protection' at maximum, I didn't really like the feeling of seeing red. In my opinion, I believe the game should have exploration and gardening designed a little different to automate it a bit better. I was also juggling shops and who was tending my gardens to try and keep getting new residents coming in while satisfying restock needs. Also like I mentioned much earlier on, they needed to make switching out party members more convenient as it become more and more tedious the farther I progressed through the game.

All in all I did enjoy my time with it, but it was frustrating from time to time. Particularly that little nagging sesnsation in the back of my mind with my shops not having proper materials to restock as much as I'd like. It's definitely a game I'd recommend, but I do suggest that you don't put too much focus on keeping every shop restocked at all times once you get a little bit into the game. It eventually gets to be too much and impossible to keep everybody constantly fully stocked. If you're able to do that, you should be golden. Since it's a $40 title, I'd say $30 is a good price if it interested you. Though I'm sure most will want $20 or lower.
Liked for the X-2 comments. It's horrific. Still playing it, though!

 
ahhhhhh yeah I'm back! and I finally beat Persona 5 this weekend!!

best game ever!!!

it's so perfect!!

of course I've read the internet tho so I know ppl do have issues with the game,

and I can also be the one to point out minor things, or compare the game to 3 and 4 before it,

but none of that matters.

What does is the fact that I spent a solid 130 hours playing it, and loved it the entire way thru! If I can keep returning to a game for that long with constant enthusiasm and enjoyment then it's definitely doing something right.

I've always wanted to replay 3 and 4 portable versions, and after finishing this game I think at least P4G is a must... just a matter of when...

right now I've jumped back into Xenoblade X for my first time in almost a year?? I really do wanna eventually beat this, so I'm forcing myself to play at least one chapter in between games so I can slowly and slowly push forward. Spent an hour playing earlier today and definitely feel like I'm getting back into the swing at it (my save was at 20 hours, but I also made sure to save my progress right in front of my next Chapter marker so I would not have any problem figuring out where to go next no matter how long a break I took from the game).

after that I'm gonna play Nier. Always wanted to play it, and with Automata out, feel like I really need to get to it so I can do Automata later as well.

After that, Yakuza 0. I've totally been sitting on these games since they came out lol.

oh yeah, and Episode Prompto this week too!!

I also have a LE of FE Valentia which'll sit right beside Conquest and never get played, right next to Shiren and Trails Cold Steel too, and I'm gonna buy Tokyo Xanadu this week knowing darn well it'll just go on my shelf too lol.

I'd really like to pick up FFXV, but I think I'll wait til they are done patching it and there's a complete version for a decent price. I've waited almost ten years, a few more won't hurt.
The game is already complete IMO, just play it. It's a huge game so they can definitely keep adding to it, but anything they add isn't going to make the game better or different. The story is terrible so you can't fix that, but the boys are the boys no matter what and that's the only reason to play the game.

Even if they added a new boy via DLC ppl would be like yo who the fukk is this guy gtfo.

 
I also have a LE of FE Valentia which'll sit right beside Conquest and never get played, right next to Shiren and Trails Cold Steel too, and I'm gonna buy Tokyo Xanadu this week knowing darn well it'll just go on my shelf too lol.
Just so you're aware, the Vita version is the lesser version when compared to Tokyo Xanadu eX+ (PS4/PC) that comes out later this year.

[customspoiler='Differences between Vita & eX+ enhanced version']
- 60FPS (Vita was 30FPS with drops) at 1080p. (PS4 version, obviously. PC will depend on the port quality)
- New Playable Character.
- New Side Stories for the main cast other than the MC, Kou.
- After Story that's available post-game which takes place several months after the main story.
- New dungeons.
- New music.
- Changes to Asuka character after she unlocks something via story.
- Re-balances difficulty across the board. (Vita was considered 'too easy', even on the hardest difficulty)
- Adds a new, harder difficulty, Calamity.
- Adds Time Attack & Boss Rush modes.[/customspoiler]

 
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Love FFX-2. I got the remakes on PS4 this past black friday, so I'll replay them both again eventually.

Although it took me a bit longer than I expected, I finally have beaten Trails of Cold Steel 1. I'm anxious to find out what happens in the second one, since there's a lot that wasn't resolved with the plot, but I think I'm going to jump back into Suikoden IV and try to finish that one up. Besides, I think I have more PS2 rpg's in my backlog than for any other console, so I want to thin those out as much as I can.
I'm plodding my way through FFX and X-2. Haven't played them since they first game out though I put over 100 hours in each back in the day. Seeing the Shadow of the Colossus remake makes me wish they would do something similar to my favorite entry in the series, FFIX, but on the other hand why mess with perfection?

 
of course I've read the internet tho so I know ppl do have issues with the game,

and I can also be the one to point out minor things, or compare the game to 3 and 4 before it,

but none of that matters.
Probably the biggest issues for me:
- Largely due to the interrogation framing device, it's predictable to a certain point.
Akechi-kun turned out to be much more fucked up than I was expecting, though.
- THERE'S SO MUCH STUFF TO DO AND BUY HOLY SHIT, though to be fair, real Tokyo is like that.
- How Ann was handled in certain scenes. Also, her Phantom Thief outfit isn't exactly tasteful considering what happens to her in the early part of the game.
- Speaking of comparisons to 3/4: Morgana < Teddie. The latter is a shrill perv, no doubt about it, but Mona is an asshole (just like a real cat!). Also, I felt that his story wasn't as well done. I still like him, but he's no Teddie.
- Atlus still loves its horrible gay stereotypes.
- Some of the jokier bits of Futaba's dialogue were cringe-worthy ("Make like a tree, and get outta here!").
-
The plan to fake the protagonist's death was SO convoluted, at least in the clumsy way in which it was explained. I get it, but the writing in that section wasn't great.

I did really enjoy it though; for starters, the gameplay improvements are pretty great, the endgame might be the best out of the 3/4/5 trilogy, and that soundtrack is to die for. Currently working on a review for my blog, but don't know when I'll be done with it.

after that I'm gonna play Nier. Always wanted to play it, and with Automata out, feel like I really need to get to it so I can do Automata later as well.
Same. At least it should be shorter than P5 ^^;

I'm plodding my way through FFX and X-2. Haven't played them since they first game out though I put over 100 hours in each back in the day. Seeing the Shadow of the Colossus remake makes me wish they would do something similar to my favorite entry in the series, FFIX, but on the other hand why mess with perfection?
Speaking of FFIX, I've been wanting to replay that one on and off for awhile now, but I don't think I could put up with PS1 graphics in this day and age. Does anyone here know how the PC version is?
 
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It's basically a port of the mobile version, much like Final Fantasy 3-6 on the PC. So it has the obnoxiously large buttons/menus for everything that I absolutely abhor. They've always tended to run just fine though. There also don't seem to be any noticeable screw ups like they had with 5 & 6's mobile version that was ported and not fixed. I label it as a lazy cash grab port.

The article linked by elessar does mention a mod to speed up battles which is probably nice. Although you could also likely do the same using CheatEngine and making a toggle button for increased speed. Plus you have other mods/patches like the Field Patch, but it's not perfect either. Then you have this as an alternative I believe.

 
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aw man, freaking Xenoblade... what can I say?!?!

like I said I was at 20 hours, was planning on playing just a bit before moving onto my next game...

now I'm at 44 hours >_< Not only is it dumb that I put in even more time than I had even played the game to begin with, but the fact that I did it in less than 2 weeks! Thanks 4th of July weekend...

The game is still confusing and overwhelming af, but I figure as long as I'm not dying it's OK, and as long as the map has a blinky thing all I gotta do is walk there. I am learning the system better, like linking data probes, investing Miranium into the various armor companies, and I even changed my class since I maxed out one of the trees (now my character is so weak tho...).

I got my Skell, had a mission on the furthest continent, ran all the way there becoz the monsters are too strong! And if you die in Skell you lose it and have to buy another :( Now I gotta save the game a lot more often, compared to pre-Skell where death has no penalty at all, and respawns you very conveniently. Despite that continent being filled with monsters that could kill you, the actual mission had me fighting a bunch of Level 12 babies -_-...

so now I've reached a good stopping point; can finally put the game back to rest for a bit and move onto Episode Prompto this weekend, then Nier!!

Just so you're aware, the Vita version is the lesser version when compared to Tokyo Xanadu eX+ (PS4/PC) that comes out later this year.

[customspoiler='Differences between Vita & eX+ enhanced version']
- 60FPS (Vita was 30FPS with drops) at 1080p. (PS4 version, obviously. PC will depend on the port quality)
- New Playable Character.
- New Side Stories for the main cast other than the MC, Kou.
- After Story that's available post-game which takes place several months after the main story.
- New dungeons.
- New music.
- Changes to Asuka character after she unlocks something via story.
- Re-balances difficulty across the board. (Vita was considered 'too easy', even on the hardest difficulty)
- Adds a new, harder difficulty, Calamity.
- Adds Time Attack & Boss Rush modes.[/customspoiler]
haha too late! I already bought it, got a very nice LE package which is half the price of the PS4 version! ($70 vs $150, for what is essentially the exact same package with a different toy).

but yah, it's just for the backlog, it isnt really gonna get played, and if it does I'm sure I can pickup the PS4 version for cheap during a random flash sale.

I do like the Vita, but not so happy with multi-platform games not coming to it (yo soy Setsuna), or coming late (Cosmic Star Heroine), or being lesser versions (Tokyo Xanadu)!

like I had to buy Ys VIII for PS4 coz it had more content than Vita >_< but I'd rather play on Vita, but not a big deal at the end of the day tho.

 
aww yeay, finished Episode Prompto.

man... that was real dumb. lol. Between this and the earlier Gladio chapter, I do miss my $25 >_<

but now I got my Xbox Circle hooked back up and ready to play some Nier!!!

was doing some web searching for the best 360 games, seeing what else I should check out now that this thing is hooked back in, only to realize that I'm still using an OG X360 and can potentially fall victim to a classic RROD during my playthru o_O

I bought this thing in like 08; still lucky to have avoided the system's classic failure, so let's see if I can keep that luck going.

I still got Lost Odyssey chillin in the backlog after all, so I'll need this thing running in 2019 or 2020 when I finally make time to play LO.

 
Continuing my PS2 RPG backlog by finally starting up SMT: Digital Devil Saga. What a crazy story premise. Everyone gets turned into demon cannibals, and you gotta go around eating other people who were turned into demon cannibals? WTF?

 
Continuing my PS2 RPG backlog by finally starting up SMT: Digital Devil Saga. What a crazy story premise. Everyone gets turned into demon cannibals, and you gotta go around eating other people who were turned into demon cannibals? WTF?
Digital Devil Saga is so good (and, yes, crazy). Are you planning on playing the sequel, too?
 
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Yeah eventually I do plan on tackling DDS 2. It is pretty solid gameplay-wise. Very similar to SMT: Nocturne (which I put in over 100 hours into) in many ways. Still not too far into it tho; just now starting on the part where you tell one gang you won't eat them if they help you team up to eat another gang, but I can already predict I'm gonna double-cross them and eat them too. I can't believe everyone is mostly so serious and casual about being cannibals. Crazy.

 
I just finished devil survivor 2 Record Breaker a couple days back and put 90+ hours into it. Have to play the ps2 smt games at some point

Sent from my SM-G928V using Tapatalk
 
- Some of the jokier bits of Futaba's dialogue were cringe-worthy ("Make like a tree, and get outta here!").
-
The plan to fake the protagonist's death was SO convoluted, at least in the clumsy way in which it was explained. I get it, but the writing in that section wasn't great.

I
But that particular joke was ripped right out of Back to the Future (maybe 1, definitely 2). In fact, the first time she started that line, she said it right - Make like a tree and leave - and I was a bit bummed that they didnt got for the BTTF reference. Lo' and behold, they did the next time and that made me smile.

And convoluted doesnt even start to explain it. All the "flight control" that had to happen make it beyond impractical and bordering on ridiculous!

 
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Yeah eventually I do plan on tackling DDS 2. It is pretty solid gameplay-wise. Very similar to SMT: Nocturne (which I put in over 100 hours into) in many ways. Still not too far into it tho; just now starting on the part where you tell one gang you won't eat them if they help you team up to eat another gang, but I can already predict I'm gonna double-cross them and eat them too. I can't believe everyone is mostly so serious and casual about being cannibals. Crazy.
In retrospect, I think I might've made a mistake in playing DDS 1 and 2 before Nocturne. The DDS games were my first experience with SMT, so Nocturne was kind of a letdown.

But that particular joke was ripped right out of Back to the Future (maybe 1, definitely 2). In fact, the first time she started that line, she said it right - Make like a tree and leave - and I was a bit bummed that they didnt got for the BTTF reference. Lo' and behold, they did the next time and that made me smile.
Huh. Never seen BttF 2 and I don't remember that part from the first movie. On the surface of things, they just seemed like poorly-delivered jokey lines *shrug*

 
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Going back and playing FF XII now, I realize how ahead of it's time it was for a JRPG.

It's not 100% open world but for a PS2 game it's pretty massive. Plus the whole almost MMO like battle system, and license board. I think I love it more now then I did 11 years ago when it came out.

 
It's not 100% open world but for a PS2 game it's pretty massive. Plus the whole almost MMO like battle system, and license board. I think I love it more now then I did 11 years ago when it came out.
Cause it was off-line FFXI, literally. Having played FFXI for over a year before FFXII came out, it was trying to emulate the MMO. And they added hunts to that (which I think they took from FFTA, but I don't remember what had hunts first).

 
After a couple of lengthy car trips, I've put a big dent into Dragon Quest VII, and I'm almost done. Just gotta do some grinding before I tackle the final dungeon, because I kinda rushed thru the last few areas. I do appreciate the way the game is very "episodic" but all that backtracking gets kinda old.

I've also started FFXII and about 15-hours into it. Game looks very good on the PS4, and the zodiac changes are nice. Still love Fran and Balthier.

 
Just beat Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World and... it was all right? It's bad for a Tales game, certainly, and I have issues with some parts (the implementation of the monster recruitment system, the too-heavy use of guest party members, a bunch of typos, a few bugs), but it wasn't as awful as I'd heard. The story was half-decent, only truly becoming nonsensical at the end, and the skits and other little bits of character interaction were about as well-written as in the rest of the series. Seeing characters and places from the first Symphonia was nifty in a nostalgic way; Regal was especially awesome in this one considering that I didn't really care much for him before.

Then again, I'm not a super hardcore Tales fan, so maybe I'm being generous :razz:

Not sure what I'll play next; currently leaning towards either Nier or 3D Dot Game Heroes.
 
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It occurred to me that I've only played through one turned based RPG (Parasite Eve). I'm trying to find another RPG to like.

Front Mission 3, Suikoden series, Saiyuki Journey to The West.   None of them held my interest.

Then this past weekend, I think I found it.   PS1 Classic that holds my attention and makes me want to keep playing to the end.

 
Wildarmscase.jpg

Do most people/RPG fans like this game?  I'm on the third "level" where I play as a girl about to attend a festival. 

 
Just beat Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World and... it was all right? It's bad for a Tales game, certainly, and I have issues with some parts (the implementation of the monster recruitment system, the too-heavy use of guest party members, a bunch of typos, a few bugs), but it wasn't as awful as I'd heard. The story was half-decent, only truly becoming nonsensical at the end, and the skits and other little bits of character interaction were about as well-written as in the rest of the series. Seeing characters and places from the first Symphonia was nifty in a nostalgic way; Regal was especially awesome in this one considering that I didn't really care much for him before.

Then again, I'm not a super hardcore Tales fan, so maybe I'm being generous :razz:

Not sure what I'll play next; currently leaning towards either Nier or 3D Dot Game Heroes.
That game is an abomination. The main character was super unlikable and the battle system was subpar for a Tales game. The dialogue was also terrible and for the three to five hours I put up with the game, I kept running into battle system bugs in battle where my AI controlled monster allies would get caught and stuck in place all the god damned time. I couldn't stomach playing any further as it made me want to gouge my eyes out like in the movie Event Horizon.

Just remembering it makes me seethe.

It occurred to me that I've only played through one turned based RPG (Parasite Eve). I'm trying to find another RPG to like.

Front Mission 3, Suikoden series, Saiyuki Journey to The West. None of them held my interest.

Then this past weekend, I think I found it. PS1 Classic that holds my attention and makes me want to keep playing to the end.

Wild Arms 1 Cover Image

Do most people/RPG fans like this game? I'm on the third "level" where I play as a girl about to attend a festival.
You don't like the Suikoden series? Wat. My first question would be which games did you try? The second one is the one that's pretty much universally well liked. First one is mostly positively received. Third depends on who you ask. Fourth is considered boring as hell with the fifth coming back as somewhat of a redemption, but still not as good as its hayday.

I originally read Suikoden and skipped over your next sentence, so I was about to recommend the Trails series. Hah, yeah, probably not anymore now that I've caught myself.

As for Wild Arms, there was a remake of it on the PS2 called Wild Arms: Alter Code F. I liked the game a bit, but it felt a little grindy at times from what I remember. Personally I enjoyed the second game in the series the most and I think it's the most commonly liked one. Third I didn't care much for because of the beginning, followed by the world map scanning with all those stupid fossils. Though plenty of people seemed to like it. Fourth one was very meh, but playable. Fifth one was pretty decent and I enjoyed it. Although I suppose there was also a grid-based strategy game called Wild Arms XF that wasn't half bad.

I want to say Wild Arms is generally enjoyed because we don't get much in the way of Wild West themes, particularly from Japan. It did well with the theme and there were typically enjoyable puzzles in the games that relied on different characters abilities. The guns in the battle system were fun, it made use of the occasional interesting battle mechanic (such as casting fire, then ice to break an enemies shell). Characters weren't half bad and mostly likable. Plus back when it originally came out, people who enjoyed JRPGs then would tend to flock to them because relatively few actually got localized at the time.

I think you should figure out what you like about JRPGs from the ones you like and what you dislike about the ones you don't like. Someone may be able to recommend some for you.

 
That game is an abomination. The main character was super unlikable and the battle system was subpar for a Tales game. The dialogue was also terrible and for the three to five hours I put up with the game, I kept running into battle system bugs in battle where my AI controlled monster allies would get caught and stuck in place all the god damned time. I couldn't stomach playing any further as it made me want to gouge my eyes out like in the movie Event Horizon.

Just remembering it makes me seethe.
Emil is a pretty bad protagonist early on. He's such a limp noodle. However, I thought Marta, after she joins your party, was more insufferable in those early parts. Early Luke in Abyss might've annoyed me more than either of them, though.

I used guest characters in my party whenever possible, so I never encountered many issues with the monster allies. The worst bug I ran into was well into the game. During a story-related battle (can't remember which one), I opened the menu to tweak the party's Artes, then closed it to find that I couldn't manually control Emil. At all. Double-checked all my character control settings and they were all normal. Auto for Emil worked fine, but the controls were completely unresponsive when switching to Manual. Reloading and avoiding the Arte settings for that battle seemed to bypass it. Still, a surprisingly bad bug.

I didn't go into the game with high expectations, which definitely helped. It's mediocre at best.

 
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