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Post by Digitalnametag on Jan 9, 2018 21:43:12 GMT -5
Tokyo Xanadu eX+ PS4 - Sigh. Rant incoming! This game took me 50 hours to beat. It uses most of the systems from Cold Steel and combines it with a Ys Origin inspired action rpg combat system. This does not balance out well. In the early portions of the game the dungeon segments take 5-7 minutes to complete. These are sandwiched between 1-2 hours of Cold Steel styled exploration. It gets a little better in the last few chapters but probably 35 hours or so of the game is talking to NPCs and cut-scenes. Lemme tell you why that is bad. The story is terrible. It was like watching a generic 13 episode battle anime adapted from a light novel that spends the first arc introducing characters until it shoehorns in a weak conclusion in the last 2-3 episodes. But instead of taking 4 hours to watch it takes 50. Tokyo Xanadu desperately wants to be Persona 3-5. It has the idol character, the rich girl that runs a large conglomerate, the tech wizard, the misunderstood street tough, the goofy best friend, and the generic main character. That sound familiar? These are all popular tropes but the difference is in Persona these characters are interesting. They have flaws and compelling story arcs. Not so in Tokyo Xanadu. Every character (even the kinda bad guys) are hopelessly bright and cheery. Almost perfect individuals. Feynman described it in another thread well. Every playable characters arc in Xanadu goes thusly: Side character:'I'mma give up this situation is bad' Main Character: 'Don't give up! You can do it!' Side character: 'You are right I can do it! Victory!' Groan. They also talk about the power of idols a lot. The female singing kind. Give hope to everyone. Eight wonder of the world. Makes me wanna wretch. This is a cheesy game. The 'Trails of' games could also be groan inducing but the world building and characters were interesting enough that you can put up with it. The conflicts are interesting. You want to talk to the NPCs to see what is happening. I just wanted Tokyo Xanadu to end. Which is a shame because you can tell a lot of care was put into making the game. The main story sucks but the NPCs are fairly interesting, there are a lot of neat character cameos (Towa even plays a central role), and the battle system is fun (but definitely lacking compared to Ys VIII). I really like the character designs and models (all the girls are really cute). The localization is even well done on the PS4 version although some spellings errors were present in the new content. This is a game that needed to be 25-30 hours max. I would play a second one but I hope they hire a decent scenario writer next time. The initial ending cribs a lot from another recent popular school setting game but it would be a spoiler to say which one. Falcom. Once again you label a chapter FINAL CHAPTER yet there are another two chapters after! Also mentioning a small town where murders happen on foggy days (turns out it wasn't Inaba haha) is a little on the nose. At least they know what they are ripping off I guess. There is even a Chie meat reference but that one might be a localization joke. I did enjoy the game somewhat. It is just after loving the Trails of games and the last few Ys games this one was a disappointment. The reviews are right on the money for Tokyo Xanadu. The game is kinda just there. 6/10.
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Post by Feynman on Jan 9, 2018 22:23:51 GMT -5
Falcom. Once again you label a chapter FINAL CHAPTER yet there are another two chapters after! It's not a modern Falcom game unless the endgame drags on several hours longer than it should. I got the ending, then got the true ending, then after that the game revealed that there was even more content exclusive to the Ex version. Just bothering to muscle through the tedium and finish the game at all already took a herculean amount of effort, so I decided getting the true end was enough for me and happily ignored the Ex version content.
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Post by toei on Jan 9, 2018 22:32:25 GMT -5
God, I'm so sick of those cheery ass characters on this motherfucking plane. I have no idea what caused Japanese RPG writing to become so terrible. It used to be that you'd have a bit of cheesy "the power of humanity" nonsense when confronting the final villain and characters were allowed to be reasonably cool for the rest of the game, now it's that same sickening shit throughout. Modern Japanese entertainment aimed at children feels like it's all written by a cult leader. I'm too old to be playing games where a bunch of happy assholes keep telling me to never give up.
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Post by nerdybat on Jan 9, 2018 23:31:10 GMT -5
God, I'm so sick of those cheery ass characters on this motherfucking plane. I have no idea what caused Japanese RPG writing to become so terrible. It used to be that you'd have a bit of cheesy "the power of humanity" nonsense when confronting the final villain and characters were allowed to be reasonably cool for the rest of the game, now it's that same sickening shit throughout. Modern Japanese entertainment aimed at children feels like it's all written by a cult leader. I'm too old to be playing games where a bunch of happy assholes keep telling me to never give up. Considering how Japanese RPGs are often focused around grinding the same locations and enemies again and again, maybe it's not a bad thing that they encourage you to not give up and stuff? And again, we still have all the Shin Megami Tenseis in the world to feel miserable when we want to
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Post by Digitalnametag on Jan 9, 2018 23:40:43 GMT -5
Falcom. Once again you label a chapter FINAL CHAPTER yet there are another two chapters after! It's not a modern Falcom game unless the endgame drags on several hours longer than it should. I got the ending, then got the true ending, then after that the game revealed that there was even more content exclusive to the Ex version. Just bothering to muscle through the tedium and finish the game at all already took a herculean amount of effort, so I decided getting the true end was enough for me and happily ignored the Ex version content. Glad it wasn't just me. I did manage to get through the eX chapter in about two hours but I also skipped a lot of story scenes. The final dungeon was all right with a new boss at the end but otherwise you did not miss much. I would also like to acknowledge that the previous game I finished (Xenoblade 2)is less cheesy than Tokyo Xanadu. And X2 is a game where the main character routinely shouts about beating opponents with the power of friendship.
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Post by toei on Jan 10, 2018 0:12:40 GMT -5
God, I'm so sick of those cheery ass characters on this motherfucking plane. I have no idea what caused Japanese RPG writing to become so terrible. It used to be that you'd have a bit of cheesy "the power of humanity" nonsense when confronting the final villain and characters were allowed to be reasonably cool for the rest of the game, now it's that same sickening shit throughout. Modern Japanese entertainment aimed at children feels like it's all written by a cult leader. I'm too old to be playing games where a bunch of happy assholes keep telling me to never give up. Considering how Japanese RPGs are often focused around grinding the same locations and enemies again and again, maybe it's not a bad thing that they encourage you to not give up and stuff? And again, we still have all the Shin Megami Tenseis in the world to feel miserable when we want to It's not as if there's only the extremes. Characters can act like actual humans beings with complex feelings and personalities rather than vomit flowers every five seconds. Can you imagine turning to your friends while you're just hanging out and earnestly saying, "we can do anything with the power of friendship"? How embarassing would that be? Also, rumors of grinding in RPGs are and always have been greatly exaggerated. I almost never do. People grind because they're afraid to die or believe they need to buy ALL the latest equipment in every new town.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2018 0:14:13 GMT -5
Grinding varies from game to game, though it's more necessary in older titles. Try playing any of the NES Dragon Warriors without grinding at all and see how far that gets you. For me, it was Rhone.
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Post by X-pert74 on Jan 10, 2018 2:55:34 GMT -5
The original Dragon Warrior is truly a grindfest in every sense of the word. Probably 85% of my time with the game was just spent grinding over and over and over again. blrgh.
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Post by personman on Jan 10, 2018 3:33:05 GMT -5
Well new year, clean slate so gonna try and get in the habit with this again.
Donkey Kong Country 2(3DS VC): I was going on a little spending spree and am sick of waiting for news on the Switch virtual console. Last year I grabbed F-zero and the first DKC so, figured this was the obvious next game to get. Have to say, while I still like the original DKC well enough 2 really makes it look like garbage, plus theres no stupidly cheap levels like Poison Pond. Sure, some of the levels can be maddeningly hard but they truly feel fair. Thats something I hear people say about alot of games but I dont think it truly applies as often as people claim. This one though, yeah its the real deal I think.
I'll get started on DKC 3 soon. Sure 2 beats it out in every aspect but I still remember it fondly and dont see why so many hate it.
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Post by Feynman on Jan 10, 2018 10:29:04 GMT -5
The original Dragon Warrior is truly a grindfest in every sense of the word. Probably 85% of my time with the game was just spent grinding over and over and over again. blrgh. The first Dragon Quest game is the absolute worst by far when it comes to grinding. Most games in the series aren't even remotely close to being grindy if you play well, and the reputation the franchise as a whole has for being a grindfest is undeserved, but Dragon Quest 1 is absolutely 100% an arduous grindfest (assuming you're playing normally and not a speedrunner using memory manipulation tricks). I think it's about 12-15 hours long on the NES, and all but one or two of those hours are just mindless grinding. The rest of the series is much better! DQ2 has some grindy moments but it never ever anywhere even close to being as tedious as the first game, and DQ3-5 are more or less grind free. DQ 6-7 are generally reasonable, but a notable step backward in balance from 3-5. DQ 8 is balanced very well, though DQ 9 can be slightly grindy at times if you really want to make the most of the job system. Anyhow! Been getting more Mega Man out of the way the last few days: Mega Man (NES) Mega Man 6 (NES)are both out of the way, and with that the first Legacy Collection was finished. I did about half the "challenges" in the Legacy Collection for fun, but then I got bored and moved on to Legacy Collection 2. So, while my opinions on Mega Man 1-6 are basically set in stone, I haven't spent nearly as much time with MM7 and MM8, so I was happy to revisit those and see how I feel about them now. Mega Man 7 (SNES): This is a game I view a little more favorably now. I still like the NES-style games more, but there is definitely an appeal to 7's big, colorful, expressive sprites. My main complaint with Mega Man7 is how zoomed in it is... the sprites are a little too big, so there isn't as much screen space to work with for hazards and enemies. The developers knew this of course, and they adjusted for it by making everything a little bit slower... enemies and bullets (including your own Mega Buster) move slower so that you have time to react in the relatively cramped screen space. This means Mega Man 7 still feels fair, but it also makes it feel kind of sluggish, especially coming from the NES games. It's still fun and well crafted though, and I like a lot of the clever ideas and neat secrets. The return of the Rush Jet suit from MM6 is also welcome, because it is the coolest Mega Man upgrade. Also Protoman's shield! It's freaking useless and you never need it, but you're going to collect it anyway, because it's Protoman's shield.Mega Man 8 (PSX): I used to think MM8 was crap when I first played it. Even the MM games I generally think of as "the not great ones" are still pretty fun. But I despised MM8 back in the PSX era and steadfastly ignored its existence ever since. But then I revisited MM8 in Legacy Collection 2, and to my surprise I discovered that after all these years it still sucks so much I hate this game why is this game so awful holy crap Capcom what the hell were you thinking. I don't even know where to begin. Almost every stage is a gimmick. One robot master and one Wily level are uninspired shmup sequences. One level is a puzzle platformer. Two levels are jump jump slide slide nonsense. The enjoyable jump n' shoot gameplay that every knows and loves the series for has been replaced by gimmicky bullshit at every turn. The Robot Football you get is not nearly as fun to use as good ol' Rush was. The game's challenge is almost nonexistent. The only good thing about Mega Man 8 is the goofy anime cutscenes and the gloriously bad voice acting. Those are the only sources of entertainment in Mega Man 8. Two more games to go, and I'm starting to get a little burned out on Mega Man, but I bought the Legacy collections and I'm going to finish them, dammit.
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Post by toei on Jan 10, 2018 10:48:05 GMT -5
Grinding varies from game to game, though it's more necessary in older titles. Try playing any of the NES Dragon Warriors without grinding at all and see how far that gets you. For me, it was Rhone. I have. It's one of the few exceptions. I don't remember much grinding in Dragon Warrior IV, though. I've played through SNES and Genesis RPGs, as they were my favorites, and really don't grind much. Phantasy Star 2, a little, but even then, what I'd do is go to the dungeons to "case them out", warp out, and then go back to complete them, so I didn't have to just walk around fighting monsters aimlessly. Other than that, I don't think I've grinded more than an hour and a half combined for the entire duration or any 16-bit RPG, so the idea that it's "mostly grinding" is blatantly false (considering the average is probably 20, 25 hours long). I used to check out FAQs when I'd make it to the end to see if I'd missed anything, and I'd see that their level recommendations were always absurdly high. This leads me to conclude that many players grind a LOT more than they need to. They don't use all the resources at their disposal and try to just brute force it.
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Post by Digitalnametag on Jan 10, 2018 11:34:20 GMT -5
Yeah it is weird that the RPG genre retains the level grinding stigma when the major offender (Dragon Quest) is over thirty years old. I can't really think of many examples where level grinding is necessary in modern games. Off the top of my head the first Pokemon game is kinda grindy I guess. Course that is 20 years old too...
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Post by nerdybat on Jan 10, 2018 11:38:18 GMT -5
Grinding varies from game to game, though it's more necessary in older titles. Try playing any of the NES Dragon Warriors without grinding at all and see how far that gets you. For me, it was Rhone. I have. It's one of the few exceptions. I don't remember much grinding in Dragon Warrior IV, though. I've played through SNES and Genesis RPGs, as they were my favorites, and really don't grind much. Phantasy Star 2, a little, but even then, what I'd do is go to the dungeons to "case them out", warp out, and then go back to complete them, so I didn't have to just walk around fighting monsters aimlessly. Other than that, I don't think I've grinded more than an hour and a half combined for the entire duration or any 16-bit RPG, so the idea that it's "mostly grinding" is blatantly false (considering the average is probably 20, 25 hours long). I used to check out FAQs when I'd make it to the end to see if I'd missed anything, and I'd see that their level recommendations were always absurdly high. This leads me to conclude that many players grind a LOT more than they need to. They don't use all the resources at their disposal and try to just brute force it. My post was more a tongue-in-cheek one, but if being honest, I remember Phantasy Star 2 to be quite a grindfest - at the very least starting from the fact that every new member of your party starts at LV1. Otherwise, I can kinda see your point, but I must say that almost every JRPG I've played has "that one moment" where you have to stop your progress and grind for at least a hour or two. Final Fantasy III has two last dungeons with overpowered bosses combined with underpowered regular enemies, which results in quite a tiresome period of grind due to low EXP income. Persona 3 has the last boss with a crapton different forms, which is, again, much stronger than minor enemies you meet on latest floors of Tartarus, so it's the same "too strong to gain enough EXP, too weak to beat the bad guy" affair. Persona 4 has that goddamn boss in video game dungeon. The Department Store from Earthbound drops enemies with high offence stats on you and leaves you without a healer, which makes grinding mandatory even if you carefully managed your party before that. In other words, it's not about games being grindy front-to-back, but more about the fact that there's almost always a situation where the only way to progress is to brute force through the game via monotonous stat leveling. As for overly cheery characters, though, I didn't really find it that often in JRPGs. Sure, almost all of them have power of friendship as a primary or secondary theme, and that could be explained with the region these games come from - it's a product of all the common problems with relationships and connections in modern Japan, after all. But even with that in mind, the JRPGs that focus on "power of friendship" are usually top-notch when it comes to character writing - some of the most interesting and well-written characters I've seen in the medium were in titles like Persona, Lunar or The World Ends With You. Those are the games that spend the most time fleshing out the cast and giving your chars little moments that add to their personality or give them bigger purpose than "an unit in your party". Darker settings (like SMT or Phantasy Star) tend to focus on protagonist and/or the world surrounding the protagonist, so there's not as much room for character development.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 10, 2018 12:16:53 GMT -5
I have. It's one of the few exceptions. I don't remember much grinding in Dragon Warrior IV, though. I've played through SNES and Genesis RPGs, as they were my favorites, and really don't grind much. Phantasy Star 2, a little, but even then, what I'd do is go to the dungeons to "case them out", warp out, and then go back to complete them, so I didn't have to just walk around fighting monsters aimlessly. Other than that, I don't think I've grinded more than an hour and a half combined for the entire duration or any 16-bit RPG, so the idea that it's "mostly grinding" is blatantly false (considering the average is probably 20, 25 hours long). I used to check out FAQs when I'd make it to the end to see if I'd missed anything, and I'd see that their level recommendations were always absurdly high. This leads me to conclude that many players grind a LOT more than they need to. They don't use all the resources at their disposal and try to just brute force it. Absolutely agree that FAQ writers seem to not understand how to actually play the games they're writing about, but I think grinding can also vary depending upon what you're aiming to do as a player. If you're trying to obtain every demon in SMT? You have to grind. Beating superbosses? Requires grinding, more often than not. Perhaps we have different mindsets on gaming in general, but the idea of not completing every sidequest and beating every boss gives me the heebiejeebies. While we're on the subject, I want to take a moment to thank Feynman for helping me to actually appreciate Dragon Quest. I used to be "that guy" who would grind to afford all of the latest equipment in each new town before venturing into the next dungeon, and that is absolutely not how you're supposed to play those games. He explained the right way to play in a similar thread to this a few years ago, and it absolutely changed my life!
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Post by toei on Jan 10, 2018 12:27:09 GMT -5
I did grind for the bonus dungeons in DQ6 and DQ 8, because they were absolutely worth it, but that's bonus content. I like side-quests when there's some meat to them, but getting every demon in SMT, or 100% of the items, or whatever? You can't complain if that's tedious. I don't see how it could be anything but. That's on you. If you like it, that's fine, though. Do you, or is it more a compulsion you wish you could get rid of?
nerdybat - Regarding Earthbound, there's always healing items and status-enhancing spells (status spells are totally key to Dragon Quest, btw). You might have a hard time, but the Dept. store is doable without any real grinding.
EDIT- Oh, regarding overly cheery or cheesy characters, I'm talking specifically of post-PS1 RPGs. I would say this started maybe in the mid 2000s? A good example is Wild ARMs XF, which has genuinely great gameplay - it's the most fun and varied tactical RPG I've played - but the writing is incredibly pathetic. Literally every ten minutes there's a "THANK YOU FOR BEING MY TOMODACHIS LOL" moment, usually brought about by a gratuitous crisis of faith. Even series like Yakuza are guilty of this, by refusing to actually be about yakuza activities and having Kazuma help orphans make friends or other ridiculous nonsense before going out to beat people so brutally every single fight would qualify as manslaughter in a more realistic setting. That series' pretense of high morality is just a little bit hypocritical, is what I'm saying, though it's still tons of fun. Different matter, anyway.
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