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Post by dsparil on Feb 20, 2023 11:01:28 GMT -5
Hit a softlock in the final chapter of Live a Live with my save right before the boss Jaggedy Jack who I'm just not strong enough to beat at this point. Very annoying. I've spent a few hours on this chapter already. Guess I'll have to start the chapter again. Ahhh...… Most of the final chapter is actually optional so you don't need to fight that boss if you don't want to. You can also get that dungeon's treasure and make it out before the boss shows up. The timing is tight though.
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Post by excelsior on Feb 20, 2023 12:21:46 GMT -5
Hit a softlock in the final chapter of Live a Live with my save right before the boss Jaggedy Jack who I'm just not strong enough to beat at this point. Very annoying. I've spent a few hours on this chapter already. Guess I'll have to start the chapter again. Ahhh...… Most of the final chapter is actually optional so you don't need to fight that boss if you don't want to. You can also get that dungeon's treasure and make it out before the boss shows up. The timing is tight though. Oh, I realised this after I first came across the fight, but there was nothing to be done because the autosave was seconds before the timer ran out and my manual one was only moments before that. I've caught back up now. Without looking it up I'd guess I've done quite a bit of the optional content at this point. I needed to level up a lot so more interesting that way.
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Post by kaoru on Feb 21, 2023 2:15:35 GMT -5
I finished Maru's Mission, which is the GameBoy Ninja JaJaMaru-kun game (the first one if you count the Ninja-kun games as part of that franchise). It was pretty fun, if also very short. The world travel theme at least meant that there was a nice diversity when it comes to stage background designs and different bosses. For the sphinx boss they even decided to not make it a fight but her famous quiz, which was a nice touch. The difficulty is a bit unbalanced tho, some bosses you can literally just spam with your shurikens before they can do much.
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Post by lurker on Feb 21, 2023 22:34:28 GMT -5
Curious what Nintendo has planned for Star Fox's 30th Anniversary.
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Feb 22, 2023 5:54:21 GMT -5
Considering it's not one of their bigger franchises atm, and they didn't do anything for previous anniversaries, and the fact that yesterday came and went without anything, I'd guess they have nothing planned.
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Post by excelsior on Feb 22, 2023 7:01:12 GMT -5
Apologies for returning the conversation to this game again, I just thought I'd give an update as to my Live A Live chapter preferences now that I've finished it. Please note that there are spoilers. Best Cube/Distant Future - I really enjoy the horror, alienesque story at work. Controlling Cube gives an interesting third party perspective on events. Old West/Sundown - I like a good western, so this was up my street. I particularly enjoy this chapters theme song. China/Shifu - I liked the simpler story which felt more personal. The ability to choose our favourite of the three students allows for more personalisation and replayability. The end battle rush could have been condensed though. Middle Ages - A nice traditional JRPG condensed into a couple of hours. Works well for me as a fan of the genre. Near Future/Akira - A bit more out there in terms of storytelling. It's enjoyable due to being pretty over the top, and manages to keep the main character sympathetic. Final Chapter - It's mostly a grind to the end including traditional JRPG style ultimate weapon side quests. Generally could have done with more bosses to build up your levels, and there's a few aspects that made me think that a guide is needed to play this chapter, or that it's better on a replay. The end boss is a real chore. Present Day/Wrestling - Nice as an homage, though it had worn out its welcome for me by the end. Edo Japan/Oboromaru - The exploration didn't really work when you're told where to go. This also lead to surprise traps feeling awkward and this chapter also doesn't reflect the best of the combat system. Prehistoric/Caveman - The humour kept repeating and combat was drawn out. There's little to this outside of grinding for loot and I wasn't having much luck in finding anything, which further created issues for me in the finale. Worst
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Post by JDarkside on Feb 22, 2023 17:57:30 GMT -5
I'm enjoying Lost Judgment but after this and the first Judgment, I am now understanding why so many people seem to hate Tsuyoshi Furuta (since I have yet to play Yakuza 6).
For those unaware, Furuta is the writer for Yakuza 6 and the Judgment series, and while he has strengths (especially when it comes to writing rival villains), boy does his work have a lot of Problems. A lot of it is structural, and in an unexpected way - the plots are often a bit thin. This is like the opposite problem of the rest of the series, which tends to over complicate to absurd degrees, while Furuta's plots are often very simple when laid out (though Lost Judgment is an improvement here with factions having multiple facets and complications). Judgment came down to "this guy did the bad thing," which the characters figure out about halfway through the game, and the rest of the time is spent filling in the gaps with the big question answered, relying on The Mole plot line to keep things feeling a bit more fleshed out, when it's just another extension of the main conflict. There's a lot of really strong moments, but it fails at making Yagami and team feel like they're solving a puzzle and more like they're going from busy work to busy work until someone tells them something (sometimes after punching).
The other big issue is the man is very preachy when he cares about a subject, and he does a messy job on those topics. It went so bad in Yakuza 6 that the game can very easily be read as Japanese conservative propaganda, and it most likely is (at least the South Korean government thinks so due to one very sus as hell dialog bit with the game's Korean side villain coded as a possible war crimes denial message, long story). In Judgment's case, there were a lot of bad and misleading statics about alzheimer's, something that the game's entire plot revolved around as a core factor. Scenes would stop for long dialog dumps about how bad alzheimer's is, but overplaying it so much to make it out to be the thing that will doom Japan or whatever at some points. Lost Judgment fairs a bit better with how it deals with bullying (there's one particularly uncomfortable bit portrayed in chapter nine I legitimately had trouble watching, which was the clear intended effect), but even it can't help itself but kneecap the start of the game's need of character definition and building so Furuta can have the characters show that he actually did do his research properly this time (which in all fairness, he seems to have done).
The one thing the game has not improved on at all compared to his previous scripts, however, is how the female cast is treated (outside Saori getting to be a professional lawyer now). There's a lot of weird horny side tracks baked into the main story, female characters not doing things they clearly should have done solely for a really lame joke later where the punchline is "wait she's PRETTY!?!?", and what happens to one major female character in particular is just straight up women in refrigerators stuff YET AGAIN. Oh boy, some guys get to angst about dead lady (and in Yagami's case, this is his second one now). Not surprised to learn these plot beats were due to the guy who did Haruka's character so dirty in 6.
All of this said...I really do like Lost Judgment a lot, despite the sour notes. The main plot is actually fairly complicated but not too complicated, stuff that happened in earlier chapters are proving to have actually had a point and not just be more buying time for gameplay set pieces, and I cannot say enough good things about the school stories. They range from really funny to surprisingly emotional, especially the boxing storyline. If they ever wanted to do a detective game properly, I say just make a small release revolving around Amasawa and a new characters to act as the muscle, make it more lighthearted and focused on solving crimes and mysteries then the usual fistycuffs.
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Feb 22, 2023 18:15:38 GMT -5
Well, it only took me 7 months (!?!?), but I finally beat Etrian Odyssey V. That's only about 80 hours according to my 3DS timer, so why it took 7 months I don't know. Well, I do know, it's the 400 hours I've put into Splatoon 3 and my studies which started picking up again around the same time. But it's still a bit pathetic. Next RPG will be a short one, that's for sure (and I probably won't pick up any big ones until I'm finished with the new Zelda).
First I'll have to do the 6th stratum though. I feel like the final boss was a bit easy, but I always do all the quests and don't really run from battles, so I tend to be well-leveled. He felt difficult at first, but once I had a bit of an idea of what he could do and I used my spare skill points he was kind of a pushover. So I'm curious about the post-game boss(es?). I'm playing on Advanced, so it should be difficult enough. The stratum is pretty cool so far at least.
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Post by retr0gamer on Feb 23, 2023 8:04:19 GMT -5
Well, it only took me 7 months (!?!?), but I finally beat Etrian Odyssey V. That's only about 80 hours according to my 3DS timer, so why it took 7 months I don't know. Well, I do know, it's the 400 hours I've put into Splatoon 3 and my studies which started picking up again around the same time. But it's still a bit pathetic. Next RPG will be a short one, that's for sure (and I probably won't pick up any big ones until I'm finished with the new Zelda). First I'll have to do the 6th stratum though. I feel like the final boss was a bit easy, but I always do all the quests and don't really run from battles, so I tend to be well-leveled. He felt difficult at first, but once I had a bit of an idea of what he could do and I used my spare skill points he was kind of a pushover. So I'm curious about the post-game boss(es?). I'm playing on Advanced, so it should be difficult enough. The stratum is pretty cool so far at least. I've only experience with EO1 and 2 but the 6th Strata in them were an absolute nightmare with bosses that required you to build your team specifically to face the superboss by breaking the game. EO1's super boss would have taken me way too much time to beat and the dungeon was obnoxious. EO2 I got stuck at the 4th stratum boss as my team just could not outlast his DPS. I ended up having to grind up a hexer, which I purposefully avoided adding to my team as they kind of break EO. I really did not have the stomach for grinding up a new team for whatever lurked at the end of stratum 6. It's kind of a shame as stratum 6 in EO2 is gorgeous with a lovely music track.
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Feb 23, 2023 9:14:36 GMT -5
I've only experience with EO1 and 2 but the 6th Strata in them were an absolute nightmare with bosses that required you to build your team specifically to face the superboss by breaking the game. EO1's super boss would have taken me way too much time to beat and the dungeon was obnoxious. EO2 I got stuck at the 4th stratum boss as my team just could not outlast his DPS. I ended up having to grind up a hexer, which I purposefully avoided adding to my team as they kind of break EO. I really did not have the stomach for grinding up a new team for whatever lurked at the end of stratum 6. It's kind of a shame as stratum 6 in EO2 is gorgeous with a lovely music track. I gave up on EO1's 6th stratum as well. The level cap of 70 (iirc) wasn't enough. I don't think there's a way to increase the level cap, but maybe there was a way to still gain stats after resetting or something? Or maybe you just had to have the perfect build (which I didn't have, so it'd be a matter of resetting my characters and this time making the build perfect). Either way, it was too much effort, so I gave up on it. Exploring the actual stratum was also a bitch like you said. EO2 has a way to increase the level cap, but reading about it, it sounds comically obnoxious, so I'll see how I feel about that when I finally play that one. But in games after EO2, you can increase the level cap via quests/bosses. Just like how starting with Untold you no longer have to unlock classes, and instead can start the game with any class (or was that Untold 2?), a nice QoL feature. Or more like a feature to make the post-game actually completable to non-insane people. It's still a shame the DS versions don't have this, since there's a lot of differences in the remakes. It makes me wonder if the remasters will address this at all. EO4 was very doable. You can increase the level cap from 70, to 80, to 90, to 99 by doing certain quests, and though those bosses are tough, it was fine. For the final superboss I just had to grind to level 99 by beating one of the previous superbosses over and over. Which wasn't too bad. I assume that EO5 is similarly "accessible" (relatively speaking).
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Post by mainpatr on Feb 23, 2023 17:23:35 GMT -5
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Feb 23, 2023 19:02:05 GMT -5
Well, I got a little more than I bargained for with the first superboss in Etrian Odyssey V (Dryad). I still have two skill points per character left, so there's a tiny bit of wiggle room, but it's looking pretty dire. The gimmick of the boss is that she's very vulnerable to binds and most ailments, but if you don't manage to bind her in time, she'll either insta-kill you (if you don't bind arms or legs), or heal up so much that you'll have to reset (if you don't bind her head). If you bind/afflict an enemy, their resistance to binds and ailments will go up, so the longer the battle goes on, the more resources you have to spend to try to keep her down. But I can't get much farther than halfway with my team's damage output until I get to the point where she'll manage to either slip a devastating instakill attack, or heal up half her health. Either will end the battle. And I actually have a pretty decent team for binds. What happens if you focused on classes that don't bind or afflict ailments? I guess in a way you'd be better off actually, since you'd probably be able to deal more damage, and just do the binds via items. Either way it's a bizarrely restrictively designed boss.
I really wonder if I end up finding some kind of revelation that allows me to more quickly deal more damage or keep her down better, or if it's the RNG fest that it seems to be right now. Because right now it just seems like I have to spend hours and hours brute forcing it before I get lucky enough, if that's even statistically possible with my team. Hrm...
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Post by retr0gamer on Feb 23, 2023 20:11:03 GMT -5
I've only experience with EO1 and 2 but the 6th Strata in them were an absolute nightmare with bosses that required you to build your team specifically to face the superboss by breaking the game. EO1's super boss would have taken me way too much time to beat and the dungeon was obnoxious. EO2 I got stuck at the 4th stratum boss as my team just could not outlast his DPS. I ended up having to grind up a hexer, which I purposefully avoided adding to my team as they kind of break EO. I really did not have the stomach for grinding up a new team for whatever lurked at the end of stratum 6. It's kind of a shame as stratum 6 in EO2 is gorgeous with a lovely music track. I gave up on EO1's 6th stratum as well. The level cap of 70 (iirc) wasn't enough. I don't think there's a way to increase the level cap, but maybe there was a way to still gain stats after resetting or something? Or maybe you just had to have the perfect build (which I didn't have, so it'd be a matter of resetting my characters and this time making the build perfect). Either way, it was too much effort, so I gave up on it. Exploring the actual stratum was also a bitch like you said. EO2 has a way to increase the level cap, but reading about it, it sounds comically obnoxious, so I'll see how I feel about that when I finally play that one. But in games after EO2, you can increase the level cap via quests/bosses. Just like how starting with Untold you no longer have to unlock classes, and instead can start the game with any class (or was that Untold 2?), a nice QoL feature. Or more like a feature to make the post-game actually completable to non-insane people. It's still a shame the DS versions don't have this, since there's a lot of differences in the remakes. It makes me wonder if the remasters will address this at all. EO4 was very doable. You can increase the level cap from 70, to 80, to 90, to 99 by doing certain quests, and though those bosses are tough, it was fine. For the final superboss I just had to grind to level 99 by beating one of the previous superbosses over and over. Which wasn't too bad. I assume that EO5 is similarly "accessible" (relatively speaking). You just reminded me about EO. I think you had to retire a party member at level 70 which gave you 10 extra skill points for each time you retire. You'd have to grind to the level cap multiple times to take on the final boss.
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Post by JDarkside on Feb 24, 2023 5:59:41 GMT -5
Lost Judgment final hours here, baby.
Loved how the school stories wrapped up, especially because Koga didn't get to use guns in his boss fight. It made him super easy but also fighting him in the first game sucked and was bad because he was a gun user so this is an improvement. The mystery is finally getting a lot of major reveals, and I had a boss so fast that I had to actually use crane style to keep up. Huge improvement from the first game, where it was strictly the anti-mob style because it was so awkward otherwise. Not bothering with Amon this time, just wanna wrap things up and move onto the Kaito Files.
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Post by 🧀Son of Suzy Creamcheese🧀 on Feb 24, 2023 8:03:42 GMT -5
You just reminded me about EO. I think you had to retire a party member at level 70 which gave you 10 extra skill points for each time you retire. You'd have to grind to the level cap multiple times to take on the final boss. Oh, is that what it was. I thought benefits from retiring didn't stack though? Either way it's too much work.
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