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Post by Exhuminator on Aug 17, 2015 7:44:23 GMT -5
Finally hit a legit difficulty spike in Soul Hackers, namely Shemyaza. His attacks are like Delta Pupula, which inflicts Confuse on all, and standard AoE skills: Mazionga, Mabufula, and Maragion. He also has Megidola and there's nothing you can really do about it. It voids Skill and reflects Fire and Ice. Dude also has like three times as much HP as all the bosses before him. It's not so much annoying that he's so difficult, as it is the giant multi-part unskippable cutscenes that occur before you fight him. Every time you lose to this guy, you have to sit there and click through all those dialogue boxes and watch two unskippable CG movies all over again (after going through the reloading process). WTF Atlus, that's some shit tier game design 101. Anyway, I finally took the bastard down and finished the godforsaken Algon Microelectronics dungeon. Luckily the third Vision Quest right after that was short and sweet, so I'm back on the progress train. I'm still enjoying this game, but even at only 20 hours in, I'm starting to feel a bit of burnout. Definitely ready to be finishing this one up sooner rather than later.
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Post by kaoru on Aug 17, 2015 13:45:31 GMT -5
I'm still enjoying this game, but even at only 20 hours in, I'm starting to feel a bit of burnout. Definitely ready to be finishing this one up sooner rather than later. I don't quite remember how far in your current point is, but Soul Hackers shouldn't take more than 25-30 hours.
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Post by 90sgamer92 on Aug 17, 2015 15:28:05 GMT -5
That reminds me that I need to go back and finish Soul Hackers. I got stuck in the maze where you can only press 2 colored buttons (out of 3), and you need to do them in a certain order in order to progress. I managed to get it past on my first try, but I ended up dying to a random encounter. I tried twice since to go back to it, but I gave up in frustration. Any one remember how far into the game that place is?
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Post by Exhuminator on Aug 17, 2015 20:13:38 GMT -5
The colored switch maze is at the Akane Mall's Warehouse section. You were about 60% of the way through the game.
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Post by cj iwakura on Aug 17, 2015 21:41:21 GMT -5
The third VQ is right before the final set of dungeons.
But you have to deal with Algon Soft HQ. I'm sorry in advance.
Be thankful you can save anywhere. I did it on the Saturn version with only one save at the very start.
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Post by Exhuminator on Aug 18, 2015 7:15:53 GMT -5
I got through Algon Main Building last night. The Amami Monolith is up next.
It's clear to me now that Soul Hackers expects the player to have particular demons when fighting the bosses at this point. And if you don't have those particular demons, thus by proxy particular demon powers, you stand little chance of defeating the bosses. I was able to take down Cyber Malsum, but only just barely. His Atom Slicer, Bite the Dust, and Bomb plus Pyroclastic Tempest combos were brutal.
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Post by Exhuminator on Aug 24, 2015 7:32:41 GMT -5
Well I finished Soul Hackers last night. Took me 29 hours. Overall I'd give the game a 6/10. Here's my review: Soul Hackers start off interesting enough. It's got a post-modern atmosphere with a small cyberpunk flair, definitely a far cry from your typical JRPG fantasy setting. An inclusion of a highly late 90's idealized concept of what the internet could be is nicely interwoven as well. An enjoyable cast of characters and above average voice acting gets the plot rolling fast. These strong starting factors draw the player immediately into the technophile charm of Soul Hacker's world. Indeed when this game first begins, you would be forgiven for thinking you were in for a wild sci-fi ride of hacking and mysticism. (The lovely and wild Nemissa being the cherry on top.) All of this is bolstered by an above average soundtrack.
Unfortunately, it doesn't take long to realize that all of these decorative elements are just a thin veneer over what is in reality a straight up traditional dungeon crawler. Still, what's here is simple breezy fun for a good long while. But around the Algon Microelectronics area (about two thirds of the way through the game), the smooth experience drastically changes. You start encountering massive contrived dungeons that are time devouring affairs of switches and portals. You slam up against brickwall bosses that are drastically harder than all the bosses you easily steamrolled before. No longer can you skim by with just the main character, Nemissa, and a few demons of your choosing. Instead you must have exactly the right demons that the developers want you to have (a not so fun guessing game). And if you haven't been leveling your two protagonists the way the developers thought you should, you're in for a bad time of grinding to get the skill points you now disingenuously need. When this difficulty sea-change occurs... forget about a curve, what you face now is a sheer cliff.
Should you have the patience to prevail, you will only be rewarded with more and more monotony as Soul Hackers slucks on. The encounter rate goes from annoying to ridiculous, with the dungeons seeming ever blander. The bosses grow yet stronger and even more unpleasant, coupled with long unskippable cutscenes buffering their battles. Indeed the final third of Soul Hackers is just an unbalanced and uninteresting mess. To make matters even worse, the plot devolves into banal drivel and kills off one of the best characters in the game. Should you manage to endure the terrible late game dungeons and kill the ridiculous final boss, there's a post-game to continue playing. I sincerely doubt you'll feel like continuing the experience though.
Ultimately Soul Hackers is merely decent. It is a flawed dungeon crawler that relies on its concept more than quality game design. Well, if you're a diehard fan of archaic style SMT, this will make the grade I guess. For most of us the monotony, repetitiveness, and unending tediousness of the late game will sour the experience. Soul Hackers starts off so very strong, but it ends so entirely weak. Really I can't help but think Atlus could have done more to better balance and spice up this port (let alone fix the freezes, glitches, and misspellings in it). I'm sad to say that Soul Hackers is more like Soul Slackers. A great big virtual ho-hum to all of us.
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Post by mrsuzuki on Sept 1, 2015 21:12:31 GMT -5
Currently playing Persona 4: Dancing All Night (Japanese version). I'm having a blast on Free Mode. The button timing seems intuitive and fits really well with the dance moves you see on screen. The dances themselves really match their respective characters' personalities, and are plain enjoyable to watch. It's really well-produced. Regarding the song library, despite it being only generally constrained to the P4 soundtrack and remixes, I've found myself enjoying more tracks than other rhythm games with a larger library. Naturally I wish there'd be tracks from other Persona games, but I'm satisfied with what there is now.
On the other hand, Story Mode is a bit of a drag. I'm a couple hours in and the story progression seems all too much of a rehash of the original P4's, which itself was fairly formulaic to begin with. Oh well, just looking forward to the stuff it'll unlock when I finish it.
update: Finished the story, and unlocked All Night mode! Finished all non-DLC songs in All Night mode. It took a little bit to get used to the diagonal presses, and it's not as intuitive as Hard mode, but I'm enjoying the difficulty level. Given the series it's coming from, it's odd that there was no selectable Hard mode for the story, though, only Easy and Normal.
Anyway, I love this game. The only rhythm games I've played have been Taiko no Tatsujin, Rhythm Heaven, some in the game centers in Japan, and more recently IA/VT, but this one is my personal favorite hands down. Story aside, I feel a lot of love and dedication went into the making of the dance part, and the choreography just seemed to fit the characters well.
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Post by mrsuzuki on Oct 5, 2015 12:33:24 GMT -5
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Post by Échalote on Oct 5, 2015 12:36:56 GMT -5
SMTIV was also rife with callbacks to the rest of the main series.
(and, holy shit, that green sprite is hilarious)
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Post by Discoalucard on Oct 5, 2015 15:03:07 GMT -5
On the fence about Dancing All Night - for some reason I picked up Project Mirai DX and realized I wasn't really feeling a rhythm game at the moment. Plus I wasn't all that impressed with the soundtrack either - like Persona 4 in general, I love it but feel it's all a bit played out.
I loved SMT IV but I'm not so sure I really need something in the same universe? They're giving it a total cast refresh but I hope they give us a completely new Tokyo or something like that, and that it's not just a standalone expansion pack. I almost would've preferred a port or a version that balanced out some of SMT IV's issues (Neutral requirement, unbalanced difficulty).
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Post by Reiji-kun on Oct 5, 2015 15:50:04 GMT -5
I hope SMTIV Final will be interesting. I liked SMTIV, but I feel that it really could have been much better than it was and seemed easy even with the highest difficulty setting. I think the press turn system is to blame for that in a few ways, and probably because enemies weren't made dangerous enough like in most other installments. But, this is just my opinion.
Natch, I'm hoping some of my favorite SMT demons return in it again. I'd love to see the obscure ones get another appearance.
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Post by 90sgamer92 on Oct 5, 2015 17:16:48 GMT -5
Dear Atlus, please don't fuck up SMT IV Final's PAL localization.
Edit: Any one have experience from breaking the region lock of a 3DS? I guess I might as well do that and finally import a NTSC copy of IV.
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Post by Chronis on Oct 5, 2015 17:23:31 GMT -5
Somebody on another forum I got to mentioned how the little green alien ghost has an incredibly similar pose and facial expression to Navarre. Looks like this could be something...
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Post by retr0gamer on Oct 5, 2015 17:38:59 GMT -5
Dear Atlus, please don't fuck up SMT IV Final's PAL localization. Blame Nintendo for that, it wasn't Atlus's call and they have no way to release games in Europe so rely on other publishers.
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