I haven’t gotten far enough in any one game to write a full post about it. Or maybe I’m just lazy. You figure it out.
Bravely Default – Got out of the Miasma Woods and to Florheim (?) with relatively little fuss. I haven’t played any more in a long, long time, but I did experiment with classes a bit. I changed everyone to a different class just for the kicks. Tiz went Monk -> White Mage -> Monk (he was a terrible mage), Edea went Black Mage -> Knight, Agnes went White Mage -> Black Mage and Ringabel went Monk -> Thief. I leveled all the classes up two or three times, but didn’t notice anything particularly special or exciting. Plus keeping all these classes effectively equipped is a pain. If you don’t equip them right they do terrible damage. Aarghhh… Back to original classes for everyone except Ringabel!
Tsurugi no Machi no Ihoujin – 25 hours, average party level of 13 because I’ve been reclassing like crazy. Wasted a few reclasses because I didn’t know what I was doing. E.g. I knew from the start that I wanted MC’s final class to be Samurai, so I should have started him out as something else and finished with Samurai. And other stuff like that that’s too technical for people who haven’t played the game. As with Bravely Default I just got tired of reclassing so I’m going to leave everyone where they are now.
I’ve cleared all the straightforward early dungeons, now I’m on the “I’ll make you sorry you played this game” ones. There’s one that’s underwater so you can’t use magic (just like the one in Entaku no Seito), a dwarf mine (just like in Entaku no Seito) and a poison-floor dungeon that hates me and everything I represent. The lack of in-dungeon save points doesn’t go well with my super-cautious style of playing either. I get antsy after 10 minutes of not saving and have to backtrack to town. Still I am playing on easy, so I’m making decent progress regardless. I have to resist the temptation to try to tackle all three dungeons at the same time and take them one by one instead.
Hanayaka nari Waga Ichizoku Kinema Mosaic – The direct sequel to Hanayaka nari Waga Ichizoku. My biggest disappointment so far this year. The charm of the first game was the generally cheerful mood and unexpectedly strong writing, and both of them are lacking in this quickie cash-in sequel. It’s more like a game-length fandisc than a proper sequel. Maybe Tadashi’s route just sucks and the other routes are a little better, but I lack the strength to even finish Tadashi’s route, so I’m playing something else instead. I’m playing…
Atelier Judie – I actually have quite a bit to say about this one, since I’ve been playing for a really long time. 30? 40 hours? There was a draggy bit in the middle after I’d paid off my loan and unlocked all the dungeons, but creating a flying broomstick and a Fritz staff opened the game up again.
Progress is slightly limited because I keep wandering in too deep into dungeons and getting killed. I don’t mind too much though, cos dying is the fastest way to get back to the dungeon entrance until you make a high-quality flying broomstick. Despite the setbacks I’m rather enjoying replaying Judie, mostly because I’m not just going round in circles this time. I’ll write something more detailed about this one next time.
Lord of Magna – Haven’t gotten very far in this one, only about 4 hours. Just started Chapter 5: Original Sin. I don’t dislike it per se, but it’s sooo sluggish. The way people just stand around and nod their heads during cutscenes gives me a headache. I try to forward them with the R button but then I end up skipping text. Battles were sluggish too until I put the game on Easy, but now I’m starting to get the hang of things so I might bump the difficulty level up again. Yay for adjustable difficulty!
Fire Emblem Fates – Call me a slowpoke, but I only recently heard that Nintendo put same-sex marriage in the new Fire Emblem. No way. I am not buying a game with same-sex marriage in it. It’s against my Christian beliefs. I’m going to sit this FE out and join you guys for the next one, hopefully. And if this is the future of Fire Emblem then, well, it’s been a good run and I wish them all the best with their future endeavors.
Forgive me but I’m new to this blog so I don’t know if you’re being serious or sarcastic. You would really give up on the Fire Emblem for such a frivolous reason? I’m pretty sure it’s optional anyway and given the genres you’re interested in…it seems odd.
Eh, I’m going to say it’s sarcasm that went over my head since you cover both Otome games and stuff like Toki Memo and Lord of Magna (annnd Earthbound).
The flying broomstick thing though definitely makes me want to go back and play Atelier Judie. More games should have interesting features like that! For a medium where anything is theoretically do-able, it’s surprising how ‘normal’ a lot of fantasy or sci-fi games can be.
I’m serious. Whether it’s a frivolous reason or not is for me to decide.
Atelier Judie is rather pedestrian as far as the other Atelier games go. The number of items for synthesis is TINY, though you can make all kinds of variations based on the quality of the items used. The number of towns, number of dungeons, number of collectable items, number of weapons and armor, all really small. It has some good things about it (more choice isn’t always better) but I still think it’s one of the weaker mainline Atelier games.
Well, guess I can save myself 10 minutes writing up my impressions on Fates then, doop dee doo.
You weren’t writing them just for me, were you? And I’d still like to hear your thoughts if you care to share them.
You, the other guy and whoever else reads the comments, I guess. I’m saving my slightly more public opinions on it when the English version comes out to prevent any “Awakening is the best game evar oh wait the English version is out actually its not that great” incidents.
Halfway through Nohr/Black (like chapter 14 or so), so my disclaimer here is that I take no responsibility if it turns to crap in the 2nd half.
I think they actually mostly delivered on what they promised for Nohr gameplay – it’s a linear, no-grind campaign with a couple of optional missions once in a while if you need some extra experience.
Playing on Classic/Hard, difficulty seems good, missions are a lot more designed than Awakening’s usual “big open field with a bunch of enemies go kill them all”. There’s usually some sort of map gimmick you need to take advantage of to win and weird enemy set-ups where you have to take their special abilities into account.
Speaking of which, there’s a whole bunch of them now on the enemy side and you have to take them into account – while forming a massive defense calvary unit to tank and lure everyone is still one of the more optimal strategies to the game, the game designers at least make you stop and think a little because of e.g enemies that cause you debuffs if you don’t kill them in one hit, enemies that can disarrange your formation and pull you out of fortified chokepoints etc and so on.
Weapons revamp is a mixed bag. I think they succeeded in reforming the weapon triangle, especially introducing a new Shuriken type weapon which is a ranged weapon type that focuses on debuffs and making Bows good again, but the individual Weapons in each subtype have some issues.
Like, each of Iron/Steel/Brave/etc is supposed to have their own strength and weaknesses but I think some are really niche to the point that gaining a new weapon rank isn’t the massive jump that it really should be because e.g using Steel instead of Iron drops your speed to the point where you can’t Double.
The explanation for Eugenics is still dumb but apparently they decided to make it entirely non-canon to the plot this time around – in fact I can’t really think of much reasons to use kids on Nohr since you can’t grind and they introduced a bunch of new seal types that allow you to change to the classes of your partner which was one of the old advantages of having children before – getting units with improved class options.
The new base building feature is sort of interesting in a Suikoden-manner but it also adds a bit of tedious “upkeep” to the game IMO. Like, after every battle you got to feed your pet dragon, cook food for stat boosts, do the Arena to grab resources to do the previous stuff, roll on a lottery or talk to your party members for extra items and pet your comrades for a relationship boost (what sort of army does that?) and there’s usually like a 1 minute animation for each that you got to sit through so it adds up to a couple of minutes of your life shaved off after you finish every mission.
I’m actually skipping a whole bunch of the cutscenes (I’m borrowing it) so I can’t really tell you anything about the plot on a personal note, but I have been reading a lot of opinions on it so I can tell you them in a non-spoiler way.
The big issue is that the storylines of the game AREN’T written in a standalone way so if you only play one side of the story you’ll be extremely confused because they take for granted that you know why something is significant from playing the other route.
And what is essentially the “true” ending of the game is being sold as a “3rd route DLC” which I’m not sure whether it makes it the first game to ever sell you a true ending as DLC. Very scummy, Nintendo and Amazon JP has quite a bit of review bombs because of this reason.
Though on the “bright” side, from other sources I also heard that the way the entire story wraps up is extremely unsatisfying anyway so I suppose that means I’ll just ignore the $20 true ending tax for the game when it’s out in English.
Not entirely shocked that the story turned out to be bad but it is hilarious how Nintendo had this interview where they tried to really advertise the fact that they hired a “manga writer” to write the script… guess they crossed their fingers and conveniently didn’t mention that he wasn’t a GOOD manga writer.
tl;dr I think the gameplay’s fun but it’s really obvious they’re having some reason corporate meddling within the company.
My final comment is that I just kind of wonder how the heck Nintendo is going to localize this game without some hilarious censorship.
Very, very interesting. Thank you so much for your thoughts! Really glad they decided to inject a bit of strategy into FE’s gameplay for once. I know I’ve gone on record saying I don’t want too much strategy in my strategy games, but Awakening in particular was just “gang up on everything until it’s dead” all the way through, which was extremely unsatisfying. The tweaks to the weapons sound promising as well. Maybe they didn’t get it quite right here, but if they listen to fan feedback and work on it a bit more, it could change future games in a good way. Buffs and debuffs are a welcome addition as well, as long as the system doesn’t rely on them too much, and as long as they work equally on both enemies and allies.
The story issues are just what I’d expected. They want you to buy A and B and C, not A or B or C, so there’s no way they would give a full and satisfying story for each. This is one issue the localization can and should improve though. If the translators/editors play all three first they can tweak the dialogue a bit so each game reads better and is easier to follow. Or maybe I’m hoping for too much from a company that seems determined to charge down the Path of the Clumsy Cashgrab.
That said, the story doesn’t matter too much in an SRPG. Lots of them have a simple “evil empire invaded, prince(ss) on the run” kind of backdrop and it works just fine. As long as the gameplay is better than FE:A they might be okay…? Maybe? Depends on how terrible the story is when all is said and done. If it’s not too much trouble I’d like to hear your final thoughts on the story when you’re done. I don’t mind spoilers.
Thanks again, Davzz!
The suikodenish “tune-up your base thing” sounds good but i am also not into throwing lots of money for the full game (and i never REALLY got into Fire Emblem in the first place). For “true ending” dlc, i think both ffxii-2 (which is not as bad as ppl say) and azura’s wrath (never played) did that… and probably more D:.
True ending DLC is just cruel. The fact that other games did it just means the cancer is spreading. Kill it before it grows!
Lol Kina, the gay marriage was an answer to the insane ammount of cristicism Nintendo received for Tomodachi Life (they even had to apologize for not allowing it). Im pro-inclusion and all but it kinda suck that some games, like Dragon Age Inquisiton, changed (canon) content just to satisfy the politically correct crowd (not to mention, more then half the crusaders are bisexual… felt a little forced). What i mean is that it seems unlikely to change (they would probably have to write another apology after all).
Stranger in Arda sounds somehow different from Operation Abyss and Demon Gaze. I just picked the samurai, pumped speed to reduce dual wield penalty and didnt had to reclass or give too much thought about it. Im kinda glad experience make more of the same but being different xD (except ray giant that looks very different).
I only started liking Bravely Default after chapter 4 which was when i was done getting the skills. i love games with classes but i dont like games that you have to use classes skills to compose your final character (like final fantasy tactics). I am probably lazier then you >_>.
Oh yeah, have you played any of the Ateliers for vita (you seem to know you ateliers)? What you think of them? Anyway, that 2d scenes from the ps2 games are always so cool…
Can’t say I understand or agree with Nintendo’s decision, but it’s their choice and I’m not going to argue about it.
As to the Ateliers, unfortunately I don’t have a Vita yet! :-< Thinking about it, though. I only know the Atelier games up to the DS era, nothig about those on the PS3 and later. I'm hoping the Atelier Rorona remake on the 3DS is localized so I can play it in English. I like to play Ateliers in order where possible, so that would be my first choice for next one to play. Bravely Default is already growing on me, even though I'm only in chapter 2. I'm starting to like Lord of Magna too, though maybe it's too early to get excited (5 hours). I definitely got carried away and reclassed too early and too often in Tsurugi no Machi. Especially since I'm playing on Easy, I really didn't have to go through all that trouble. When (not if) I replay it, I'll just pick one or two classes and stick to them.
As far as I’ve heard, the gay marriage option is limited to one or two candidates who are supposedly bisexual, and should be easy enough to ignore if you don’t like that kinda thing. Seems like they stuck it in due to the very loud SJW crowd who leads angry protests for every big game that features romance mechanics without gay options. My copy will arrive next week, so no impressions yet. From other people’s impressions, Hoshido is the “easy” side where you get maps to grind, and Nohr is the “hard” one that doesn’t give any grinding maps. They also stuck in more fanservice and a touching mini game like the one in the new Pokemon games, except you’re now petting people instead of Pokemon.
Speaking of 3DS SRPGs, since you liked Luminous Arc 3 you might be interested in Imageepoch’s final game Stella Glow, which has basically been Luminous Arc 4 under a different name so far.
I think I took a (really long) break from the JP version of Magna at around chapter 5. The battles were really slow, since the enemy animations were slow and there was a pause before every enemy action. Too much time spent watching the opponent do things while I have no control.
That’s why I put LoM on Easy, that way everything dies quicker and therefore the battles end faster. No way I’m ever switching back to Normal. Too boring.
I was going to get Stella Glow JP, but then I heard Atlus was bringing it west in a few months so I decided to wait for that. I was hearing stuff about a Luminous Arc Infinity too, but I stopped following the news on that. If it’s out I’m going to play it too.
If I ever get to around to it, I’ll write something on the plot, but it’s probably going to take quite some time because I don’t plan on doing it until either the game is out officially in English or someone just uploads the story scenes of all paths on Youtube for my convenience.
As for “story ruining the game”, for me I think that really only happens if the gameplay part is terrible which isn’t the case here (or if it’s something like a VN where there basically isn’t any), so I can usually separate the two.
Though I heard that quite a huge part of the dissatisfaction comes from the fact that the devs promised and attempted to shoot for a more complex story and failed – if they had just went for a simple “Evil Empire” plot then while they can probably be criticized for being unambitious, can’t really fault them past that but what happened in this game is more like if some person who only wrote Harem Anime in his life before decided he could write his own version of Game of Thrones.
The Nohr storyline is supposedly the weakest of the lot because of this – the trailers/ads played on the idea of “reforming a country from within” where the kingdom has good people (sort of) but the King’s gone all cray cray. People had this impression that this would involve you secretly gathering allies and undermining his authority until you’re finally strong enough to pull a coup but… from what I’ve heard, apparently how it turns out is “you spend 90% of the game just following the King’s crazy evil orders and only in the very end do you decide maybe you should actually act against him”
And of course I do realize the MC can’t really just go “Hey guys, he’s just some old fogey on the throne, let’s just stab him with our swords and get on with our lives” but I’ve been spoiled on the details of how the plot turns out and… let’s just say the way the MC persuades his allies to finally stand by his side instead of their allegiance to the king is REALLY REALLY REALLY dumb.
“spend 90% of the game just following the King’s crazy evil orders” Noooooo! I hate that kind of plot!!! I can forgive a lot for the sake of good gameplay, but RRGGHH I’d be boiling inside all game long. You have my condolences.