[R. Kasahara]

Beat Disgaea 4 last month; it was good but grindy.

More recently, I got to the end of the main story in Etrian Mystery Dungeon today. This was a weird game for me, especially considering that I like both franchises that are being mashed together here. However, it's a fairly average Mystery Dungeon, and a sub-par Etrian Odyssey.

On the Mystery Dungeon side: the basics were good, though managing four party members at once could get a little tricky at times. Also, I wasn't sold on the whole Fort system, which locks certain aspects of the dungeons in place, until their main purpose becomes clear later on:

Spoiler

in this game, FOEs, called DOEs, can move between floors, and Forts are there to make sure they don't escape and wreak havok on the town.

Speaking of which, because of certain gimmicks used when encountering FOEs/DOEs, these battles were often a bit harder than the actual bosses, in a more noticeable way than in mainline Etrian. After defeating the final boss, I was like, "that's it?"

On the Etrian side: I usually do pretty much all of the sidequests in the mainline games, but didn't bother here, since gathering points, like everything else, are randomized, making sidequests that involve them that much harder. More importantly, there was way more story in this game than there normally is in a mainline Etrian, and a lot more flavor text and other bits (like customer chatter at the restaurant) that don't contribute much (if anything) to the core plot. Throw in a brief and unnecessarily convoluted bit of drama at the end, and it's far from the tightly-plotted sort of tale I've come to expect from these games. I feel there was a lot more that could be said about certain townspeople than my own party, which feels weird for an Etrian game.

So overall, it was decent, but nowhere near as good as any of the core Etrians, or the better Mystery Dungeons (or Mystery Dungeon clones).
 
The next RPG I'm planning on playing is the 3DS version of Dragon Quest VII. Hoping to start it later this month. Oh, but I should also finally play Shin Megami Tensei IV. Decisions, decisions...

One final note: being a Barkley 2 backer, I downloaded the Janky Demo, but don't know if and/or when I'll dive into it. In case you haven't kept up with that game's development, it's pretty much stalled indefinitely.

[Krymner]

Sad to hear about Barkley 2's stall, but at the pace the game was going, I'm not really all that surprised. How long's it been in development? About 7 years?

 

DQ VII and SMT IV are both good, I thought. I never beat DQ VII back in the day on PS1 (only rented it a couple times and never owned it), but I appreciated all the upgraded visuals and gameplay elements the 3DS version offered. SMT IV can be a bit grindy at times, but I would definitely recommend a guide since there were plenty of times when I was completely lost. I need to get around to SMT IV: Apocalypse one day.

 

I'm about halfway thru the fourth dungeon in Persona Q. The small team of players I'm leveling up is around the early 50's. Playing it only during my lunch break at work is taking awhile.

 

 

Meanwhile, I've been in love with Fire Emblem: Three Houses. The last FE game I played was back on the Gamecube, so its been awhile since I skipped the  Wii/DS/3DS games. I plan on doing at least three (maybe 4) playthrus of the game, just to see what happens in the other houses. So far, its my RPG of the year.  Great story, a lot of depth in the gameplay, and its so well-built how everything ties together.

[Krymner]

Took a little break from Fire Emblem to finally finish up the 4th and final volume in dotHACK//G.U. Last Recode. My final thoughts on the game are that I would rate it just a little above mediocre; its just barely a good game. To me, the whole game is basic and shallow in gameplay, but the story and character growth help push the game up from below average into something just barely worth playing. There is little depth to any of its systems but what is there is competent enough to get the job done, however I just shake my head at the missed opportunities. My one recommendation for anyone wanting to play this collection is to space out the episodes like I did, otherwise, you're going to get burned out on the repetitive gameplay. I played all four volumes over the course of a year-and-a-half, and I'm glad I took time off from each. All 4 of the individual episodes are relatively short; I think the first episode was the longest, taking me about 24 hours (but then I did spend more time than I should have grinding, which made the rest of the episode very very easy, so I don't recommend doing that). Episode 2 took me a little less than 20 hours, episode 3 about 17, and the final episode is very short, clocking in under 3 hours. All in all, its a decent title as long as you don't expect anything great. If you're nostalgic about MMOs from the early 2000's, then you should fit right in. Damn I miss City of Heroes.

 

Anyway, back to Fire Emblem, I guess. Hopefully I'll get it finished in the next couple weeks, but with Astral Chain coming, that might get me sidetracked a bit.

[Krymner]

Finished up several RPGs this month!

 

Fire Emblem: Three Houses was good. I haven't played a FE game since the Gamecube one, and this one was so much better. All in all, however, I am a bit disappointed in the way the game plays out. You always know some big battle is gonna happen at the end of the month, so there's never any surprise, and the build-up towards the climax isn't very suspenseful at all. The missions and side-quests that you can do in the middle of the month are plain boring for the most part. I do want to experience the story from the perspective of another house (I played Black Eagle), but until the DLC comes out and adds a bit more variety, I'll set it aside for now.

 

Phantasy Star has been in my backlog for years, and I'm glad I finally crossed it out. I played the Sega Ages version on the Switch, completely in hand-held mode, and it was great nostalgic old-school fun. I remember back in the early 90's reading a walkthru of the game in some magazine and wishing I had a Sega Master System to play it because it sounded so epic. Over the years, I've tried it out via emulation but never committed to beating it, and when the Sega collection came out on the PS3, I tried it out again but still never got very far. Finally, I've pushed thru and beaten it. Its easier than I thought it would be, and not very long either. Good old-school JRPG.

 

I just beat Persona Q today at last. I've been playing it exclusively on my lunch break at work since May, and 5 months later, I can finally say it is over. Not as long as a traditional Persona game, and I'm very glad of it, because it was getting kinda grindy towards the end. There's nothing to this game but dungeon crawling, Etrian Odyssey-style, but its the character interactions that kept me going. The dungeons themselves are kinda boring (EO had much better/more challenging/interesting dungeons) but if you love the characters from P3&4, then they're the reason to play this game, not the dungeon crawl.

 

Now that Persona Q is done, I'm gonna finally get around to Bravely Second. As for console RPGs, I haven't decided yet which one to play next. I'm still working my way thru Zelda: Link's Awakening now, and playing a bit of Spider-Man on PS4, so I may just go idle on RPGs until Trails of Cold Steel 3 lands later in October.

[R. Kasahara]

Phantasy Star is in my backlog as well; it's one of the last things I picked up from the Wii Shop before it closed. Also should get around to Persona Q sometime, though it's a shame to hear that the dungeons aren't as interesting as Etrian's. By the sounds of it, they probably aren't even as good as SMT: Strange Journey's, right?

 

As for me, once again I started up a completely different game than the ones I had originally been contemplating. Yep, instead of DQVII or SMTIV, I started Pandora's Tower. It's very Zelda-esque in its dungeon traversal and boss battles, but there's a traditional leveling up system so I guess it still counts as an RPG. The Wii Remote + Nunchuck controls are pretty good, though in between this and the Shadow Warrior remake (which I beat yesterday), my right hand is worn out. It also looks and feels like a PS2 game, with slightly better graphics in a few spots.

 

The story is pretty grimdark, and fairly well told, especially considering that it's all done through three characters (there's a fourth that doesn't do much) and a bunch of documents. The young woman you're trying to save from her curse, Elena, is a super domesticated JRPG cliche, as is Aeron, a Hero Who Doesn't Talk Much. The last two characters are a creepy old nomadic merchant, Mavda, and her companion, a skeletal old man who "talks" in unintelligible murmurs.

 

Have no idea what I'm going to play after I wrap this up-- I'm probably about 70-75% done now-- but it has to be something short enough that I can get through it before Pokemon Sword/Shield come out in November. I'd been thinking Project X Zone, but that might be too long.

[Krymner]

I've been wanting to play Pandora's Tower for awhile. It's in the backlog, and I'll try to get around to it maybe next year.

 

 

I've put about 10-hours into Bravely Second, and I have to say, its kinda boring. Its pretty much exactly like the first game, only with a much less-interesting story. I really hate that you have to choose between which job classes you acquire, the new main character is bland, the new french character has a personality (and accent) that has no consistency, and the villains are too cliche`. Its missing the charm of the first game.

 

 

On the console side of things, I'd intended to be playing Trails of Cold Steel 3, but a couple weeks before it came out I started Xenoblade Chronicles 2 on a whim, and I find it too good to set aside. I'm about 30 hours in now, and I've been very impressed. I honestly did not think I would like it as much as I am.

 

Guess I'll push back Cold Steel 3 until after I'm done. I think I'm gonna pass on Pokemon Sword/Shield at launch -- I may get it after the first of the year, but I'm not a huge fan of the franchise, so I can wait awhile.

[R. Kasahara]

Bah, that's a shame about Bravely Second. And it's yet another game sitting in my backlog. I'm starting to think that my backlog goal for next year should involve beating a lot of my currently unplayed JRPGs.

The only RPG I've been playing lately is Into the Breach, which is a pretty ingenious combo of strategy RPG and roguelike. It's also less stressful than FTL, the devs' previous game, was, especially since there's an option to get an ending after completing half of the available areas. Anyway, it's very good, and easy to recommend for those who enjoyed FTL.

Pokemon Shield should be here on Friday. I'm officially in Spoiler Avoidance Mode for that one, but have long been aware of all the controversies about the National Dex (which I personally don't care about), battle animations, and whatnot. I'm just hoping it'll run fine in handheld mode, since I can't imagine playing a mainline Pokemon any other way.