• Hey everyone, staff have documented a list of banned content and subject matter that we feel are not consistent with site values, and don't make sense to host discussion of on Famiboards. This list (and the relevant reasoning per item) is viewable here.
  • Do you have audio editing experience and want to help out with the Famiboards Discussion Club Podcast? If so, we're looking for help and would love to have you on the team! Just let us know in the Podcast Thread if you are interested!

StarTopic RPGs |ST| Our Home Base For All Role Playing Game Discussions!

I finished Xenoblade Chronicles 3 after 130 hours or so and so I finally decided to give Live a Live a shot and... that was kind of a mistake.

I don't know if it is because XC3 is a very streamlined experience but I can't help but find LaL overly-clunky, very obtuse about where you actually need to go next to the point that you waste a lot of time trying to figure it out and with a battle system that shows potential but ultimately is just another way to waste time. I know that this is a remake of a SNES game but I remember other Square games from that era to be much more direct and clear. There are things to appreciate about it though, particularly the presentation since this was a very ambitious game from a story perspective for the time and the HD-2D look makes it shine even more but I think is funny how when Octopath Traveler was released some people commented how Live a Live did its core ideas better and yeah, that's not the case at all, from a variety of scenarios Live a Live is no doubt better (and the scene direction shows how better the developers have gotten with this style) but from every other aspect, Octopath Traveler is simply a better experience.

I actually couldn't go on too much with the game, I just said "Yeah, I might continue the Diofield Chronicle demo instead". It makes me wonder why some reviewers scored this higher than XC3 of all games.
 
0
Like buying equipment (something that can be removed and replaced) is not character growth.

I feel like it could be in a hypothetical EXP-less RPG. Either progressing the campaign, exploring, or grinding drops could give you better equipment with better stats.

I just think that, at least in linear RPGs, having stats you increase through EXP AND equipment simultaneously is rather redundant.
 
I feel like it could be in a hypothetical EXP-less RPG. Either progressing the campaign, exploring, or grinding drops could give you better equipment with better stats.

I just think that, at least in linear RPGs, having stats you increase through EXP AND equipment simultaneously is rather redundant.
I can't say I feel the same myself. Having permanent long-term progression alongside replaceable upgrades feels different enough and ultimately gives me more stuff to tinker with and more ways to play with stat distribution. I do think traditional equipment is boring when armor is just linearly increasing defense for each town you visit. Thankfully more RPGs now usually give equipment various effects and pros and cons between switching pieces. I've always said Paper Mario's badge system is my favorite equipment system, I also find Xenoblade X's equipment very deep despite having traditional armor slots.

But something I think would interest you and the design you're looking for is the Level Zero romhack for Chrono Trigger. It's close to what you describe - all progression comes purely from equipment with no leveling or stat increases. It does make it feel more like a menu-based adventure game. I highly recommended checking it out if you're interested in how that design can play out.
 
Last edited:
Just wanna ask this thread a question:

Can an RPG be an RPG without an experience system? I'm interested in that prospect.
Yeah, but usually some other system is used instead like money or managing equipment. I know I’ve played a few more, but using your strict definition that excludes any leveling up the only ones I can think of are Zelda games and Paper Mario Sticker Star.
 
0
SaGa games (and Final Fantasy II) I think are also experience/level-less (to a degree) and instead just dole out stat boosts directly or using other means like eating monster meat or installing robot parts depending on the game.
 
I can't say I feel the same myself. Having permanent long-term progression alongside replaceable upgrades feels different enough and ultimately gives me more stuff to tinker with and more ways to play with stat distribution. I do think traditional equipment is boring when armor is just linearly increasing defense for each town you visit. Thankfully more RPGs now usually give equipment various effects and pros and cons between switching pieces. I've always said Paper Mario's badge system is my favorite equipment system, I also find Xenoblade X's equipment very deep despite having traditional armor slots.

I feel like linear stat progression works for the first 1/4 to 1/2 of the game as a way to teach the importance of replacing equipment, then the last 3/4 to 1/2 of the game would encourage using different equipment in different situations like fire-nulling armor in a fire area.

I know that permanent stat progression is supposed to be an abstraction of the PC's physical and mental abilities getting better rather than just their equipment. But I still think that the fun of building the numbers of a character could exist without an experience system.

No offense to experience systems themselves though; I'm just interested in the prospect of a subtractive innovation in this case.
 
0
This seems like the best thread to update my thoughts on Soul Hackers 2, and man, I am so conflicted. Some of it, like the additional skills you unlock for the characters and how that plays into the stack system, and how you can tailor builds based on affinities to certain elements, etc., is really good. I don't like it quite as much as the SMTV press turn system, but it has a lot going for it, and you can really tell that this game was done by the TMS#FE team. And the city locations, art for the shops, most of the music, etc., is all really good.

But: The music you hear most often is two tracks: The track for the Soul Matrix dungeons, and the track for normal dungeons, and so far those are the only two dungeon themes for some reason? And they're not BAD, but they're some of my least favorite tracks in the game which otherwise has pretty excellent music.

The dungeons themselves... hoo boy. This might be the blandest, least-interesting set of dungeons I have ever encountered in a JRPG. I think someone described them as "what if Mementos from Persona 5, but that's every single dungeon in the game" and that's honestly about how it feels. They're just all the same dreary bland look and color (blueish, brownish, grey) and they have little to no mechanics of any kind to them.

I'm also still not very interested in the characters (or the plot). But that doesn't really feel like this game's focus, at least IMO.

Current verdict (25 hours in): I feel like if this game had better dungeons I would be loving it, since a lot of the other pieces are there. As it is, it's in a weird spot where I'm enjoying it, but not in love with it, and I keep getting reminded of its faults. But I'm still liking it enough that I want to see it through, especially since it's not supposed to be very long. There's enough fun to be had with the systems and mechanics, no doubt. But this feels like the kind of game I'm going to get to the end and be really wondering how great it could have been, but ultimately wasn't.
 
I finally played through the DioField Chronicle demo between yesterday and today. It's a pretty generous 3 hour long demo that takes you through the first chapter and your save transfers to the full game if you are into it. There's some elements I like here, but ultimately I don't think I was really won over. At least for this first chapter and seemingly the game in general if the save screen is an indication, you only have four characters at once to control for the RTS battles. There's some interesting ideas here, but I felt it was just kind of clunky as you need to micromanage everyone a lot to be regularly casting abilities to play optimally. Normal enemies go down pretty quick, but boss battles (two of which are in the demo) require you to be managing everyone and their positions closely. This only happened once for me in a boss fight since I underestimated it, but if one of your characters go down you can send someone over to revive them. At least from the 5-7 levels in the demo, there's a decent amount of variety in objectives (rout the enemy, base defense, escort mission, etc.), but since opponents spawn in small groups they kind of blend together as there is frequently only one immediate objective you are working toward at a time. The game at least in Chapter 1 felt like busy work which was disappointing.

There's a lot of stuff I liked though. The graphics at least on Switch look sharp where you want them to even if other parts are less developed. I was generally happy with the look here and the character designs, portraits and models, generally look interesting. Summoning Bahamut looked rad as it should. Again it was only Chapter 1, but by the time it ended I was definitely intrigued by the story and characters as it set up enough mysteries and hooks for me. I think my favorite part might have been the base prep. It's pretty simple, but you have a small castle home base where characters gather and your shops are set up. You can also get side quests / optional maps here. With the brief taste it was, I liked upgrading/deciding on my equipment and choosing how to level up my skill trees.

I'm ultimately going to wait for reviews, critics and here, to see what people think of it. I'm rooting for it to be good, but I'm sitting it out for launch at least.
 
Gust just put a new annivesary trailer for Atelier, and as suspected, at the end they tease the new game (Prob Ryza 3) so it's going to be that one for TGS. Also funny (and understandable) they don't transtale Atelier Viorate title

 
Chrono Trigger late game/side quest spoilers -

Mother Brain
is one of the most beautiful boss designs in an RPG, I think.
 
Chrono Trigger late game/side quest spoilers -

Mother Brain
is one of the most beautiful boss designs in an RPG, I think.
God the post-processing or whatever wizardry Squaresoft could pull on the SNES was so good. Always loved the prismatic effects or the abstract geometry rendering they would do for magic in their 16-bit games.

Also, I was digging through Spriter’s Resource recently and Square’s sprite work on monsters and bosses across their entire ouvre was just 🤌❤️
 
Last edited:
Finally finished Soul Hackers 2! I was hoping that the later part of the game would help turn it around for me, but sadly it did not and I feel like it actually gets worse, especially the plot; it goes into some very well-worn ground and cliches that I was not remotely interested in. This is a game that I beat in less than 40 hours and yet somehow it felt incredibly long, which is never a good sign. Oh well. It had some redeeming qualities, but my advice to anyone interested would be to wait for it to go on a good sale if it's the kind of game you think you'd like.

Now, back to XC3 after my break!
 
I finally have enough distance to write my big wrap up post on Xenoblade 3. Overall, I think Xenoblade 3 is easily the best game in the series, though I'm still debating in my heart if it is my favorite (the original Xenoblade Chronicles had such a profound impact on me). It took me 100 hours to roll credits in Xenoblade 3 and I ended up putting in another 42 until I reached my current stopping point. I basically did everything possible in the game. I mapped out everything but the last level 95+ cave, I completed every quest I could find, and maxed out affinity with every location. I only stopped when I did since I'm curious how they'll implement the DLC packs with new heroes and the challenge mode. It's such a cozy and satisfying experience from start to finish and I loved the cast of characters. The main eight are my favorite cast in the series by far even with some weirdness with Noah and Mio. Without going into detail, there were a few scenes on the main path where Noah and Mio acted a bit differently than I expected in ways I disagreed with. Both of them are written so consistently in side content that it only felt weirder as I explored all of it after rolling credits. Eunie and Lanz are definitely my favorites of the group. Eunie is just incredibly funny and Lanz is the heart of the group and gets awesome moments with every main character and some of the heroes too. Big shoutout to Riku who is easily my favorite Nopon in the series as he looked after the group and regularly gave out great wisdom. Manana too was great fun and had some of the best lines in the game in side quests especially. I felt the greater story was largely very good as I enjoyed the big ideas and most of the themes it played with. Most of the big moments landed for me as well even if some of the details are fuzzy at times. I definitely thought I understood everything that happened exactly until I participated in the spoiler thread, but ultimately for the biggest points of plot contention none of it terribly bothered me either (aside from a gross Xenoblade 2 legacy thing). The final ending being so strong and the characters, heroes, and colonies coming together in side quests especially are what's really going to stick with me for the story.

But it is really the game portion of Xenoblade 3 that impressed me the most. I was skeptical at points as I was playing through it, but I was blown away three times in the game when it came to exploration and by the time I walked away I cared about Aionios so much. Aside from the last cave, I spent so much time in these huge zones where I really came to know Aionios like the back of my hand by the end of it. There's just so much adventure to be had in Aionios and the way it is crafted so densely at such a huge scale is absolutely amazing. I think Xenoblade 3 is basically the peak of open zone design. Once the game opens up, my favorite element of the game was that I always had huge alternate adventures I could just take at any moment with huge, unique biomes to roam through as well as the amazing hero and ascension quests to dive into that add so much to the full experience. The combat is easily my favorite in the series. It builds off the original game and X's combat systems (which I vastly prefer over 2's) and just layers so much more on top of it between Ouroboros, Fusion Arts, buff fields, party swapping, the job system, the hero system, and the limit break-like stuff. Juggling all of that is so cool and you can make some really cool builds easily since Monolith brought the most interesting choices forward. My favorite was the Martial Artist with naturally quick cooldowns, a high critical hit rate, and a evasion move (which awesomely lets you make Xenoblade more of an action game) and then add in quick fusion arts, haste via the Troubadour, and great equipment on top of that (like the double fusion art damage accessory) and suddenly you are just constantly unleashing fusion arts all the time and can power up your selected Talent Art incredibly quickly which can be obscenely powerful with the right one. I was thoroughly engaged my whole playthrough with the combat system and I'm very eager to see what the challenge mode brings. As for the music, I thoroughly enjoyed the battle and event music (Battle! Vs Moebius is my favorite game song this year, I always get chills listening to it), but I did find the exploration themes a bit weak compared to past games. They were all kind of wistful and melancholic which worked well in conjunction with the story, but they all kind of blended together in the sense I couldn't really tell you what played where. I really missed the bombastic energy of the Gaur Plains Theme, Gormott, Mor Ardain, and Tantal. I did really dig the Erythia Sea Theme at least.

Xenoblade 3 overall was a dream come true for me. I still liked Xenoblade 2 and it was one of my favorite games the year it came out, but its juvenile and horny tone never sat right with me. Add on its rough pacing for the first thirty hours, its flatter environments (especially in comparison to X), and a combat system I never really loved, altogether it made it a relative big disappointment for me even though I did like most of the characters a lot, the music was awesome, and the game ended strong. Torna and Future Connected were awesome, but I was always really worried how Xenoblade 3 would turn out. This game was the return to form for me the series needed and feels like a complete rejection of Xenoblade 2's vision for the series. It felt like the real sequel to Xenoblade Chronicles and X to me as its ambition and quality measured up to those games. My only real complaint aside from the weak field music was that the villain group was kind of weak and felt extra mustache twirl-y (some were even downright incompetent), and they often lacked the camp factor to make it work. When the rest of the game was so thoughtfully presented, this mostly collection of jokers stood out in a bad way. Regardless, I'm really excited for whatever adventures Monolith has in store for us next in the story expansion and beyond. Xenoblade 3 is my game of the year front runner and one of my favorite games I've played. I thoroughly enjoyed basically all of it from start to finish and I really did not want to leave until I basically did everything possible. Just a phenomenal game.
 
Last edited:
I destroyed Lavos last night. What a relief!

At first, I was going into the fight with my three favorite characters and just getting whomped over and over. A well-equipped team of Ayla, Crono and Frog got it on their second try.

I'll write a review in the games completed thread later today! It really is a perfect game and has a couple features that are pretty much among the best ever (song, party, fighting system, and pacing to name a few.) But the mobile version does come with a few caveats.
 
I destroyed Lavos last night. What a relief!

At first, I was going into the fight with my three favorite characters and just getting whomped over and over. A well-equipped team of Ayla, Crono and Frog got it on their second try.
Were you dying on the first, second, or third form? I remember as a kid the second and third forms took several tries even with my preferred party. Like most Squaresoft final bosses, It hits like a freaking brick far heavier than any of the previous bosses.

Also congrats!
 
0
First form was super easy, especially with Magus. I was having issues with the big laser attacks in the second form. I think I was trying to use a few folks whose magic defense was too low like Robo and Magus.

With Ayla, Crono and Frog, I got one unlucky death in the third form but was good to go after that.
 
0
My goto party for Lavos has always been Crono, Ayla, Marle:

Marle focuses on hasting and healing everyone, Crono and Ayla go to town with Falcon Hit (or whatever it's called) since everything is aligned in a straight line. And then you just beat on it with the triple tech once you're down to a single target.

I'm curious about how similar your Crono, Ayla, Frog strategy was.

The fight also gets stupid easy after a few NG+ runs and you're running full sets of Prism gear and gold studs on everyone 😂
 
I'm curious about how similar your Crono, Ayla, Frog strategy was.

I liked having these three because there was some different options for attacking and healing for the two forms and depending on who became vulnerable to status ailments. So, you could do Falcon Strike while Frog heals, or Slurp Kiss while Chrono attacks with Frenzy or Luminaire. I also gambled with Ayla having the counter-attack Rage Band instead of another big magic defense item, which worked out. Sprinkle in a couple megalixers as needed and you've got a stew going.
 
0
Playing Live A Live, finished the prehistory chapter and am about halfway through Imperial China, about four hours in so far.

Wasn’t overly impressed with prehistory- the endless fart gags, misogyny and flintstones-style cars just had me scratching my head at what tone they were going for here. Really enjoying Imperial China though, Shifu is one of the mentor characters in JRPGs I’ve really enjoyed listening to.
 
Returned to FF15 to play through the DLC episodes, and now I am considering diving into the post-game.

For those who played the game, is lvl 47 (Noctis) to 44/45 (rest) an okay place to get into post-game, or will I have to beef my party up a bit before even thinking about it? I have quite a few unfinished side quests either way, but I'd like to have a rough idea of what I would be getting myself into.
 
Playing Live A Live, finished the prehistory chapter and am about halfway through Imperial China, about four hours in so far.

Wasn’t overly impressed with prehistory- the endless fart gags, misogyny and flintstones-style cars just had me scratching my head at what tone they were going for here. Really enjoying Imperial China though, Shifu is one of the mentor characters in JRPGs I’ve really enjoyed listening to.
Prehistory was probably my least favorite chapter for exactly those reasons, plus just being a bit too long and having too much combat, oddly enough. IMO it's pretty much all better from there.
 
Prehistory was probably my least favorite chapter for exactly those reasons, plus just being a bit too long and having too much combat, oddly enough. IMO it's pretty much all better from there.
Just finished up the Wild West chapter as my third pick, and I really enjoyed it- it was both short and completely different, felt like a good pick in terms of pacing and a fine homage to the film genre. Very funny in terms of the traps the villagers can set too! I’m curious to what happens if you don’t set enough traps- I fought the boss with two of his minions, but presumably you have to fight a lot more minions otherwise.
 
Just finished up the Wild West chapter as my third pick, and I really enjoyed it- it was both short and completely different, felt like a good pick in terms of pacing and a fine homage to the film genre. Very funny in terms of the traps the villagers can set too! I’m curious to what happens if you don’t set enough traps- I fought the boss with two of his minions, but presumably you have to fight a lot more minions otherwise.
Correct, less traps = tougher fight. I think like up to 15 minions? Which I don’t know how that would even be manageable unless it’s done in waves. I had the same outcome you had and it took me several tries to do it without dying.
 
Correct, less traps = tougher fight. I think like up to 15 minions? Which I don’t know how that would even be manageable unless it’s done in waves. I had the same outcome you had and it took me several tries to do it without dying.
I had Sundown KO’d and Mad Dog finished the fight for me. So I felt a bit sorry for him given how the chapter concludes!
 
I'm banging my head against the wall right now in the Wo Long demo, does that count as an RPG? It has, uhh, loot, and levels? But it feels like even less of an RPG than Nioh, at least in the limited scope of the demo. Still I'm looking forward to playing the full game.

I had nearly forgotten that Trails from Zero is out so soon, I think that's next on my list! That or I'll see how reviews and such go for the Diofield Chronicle this week (probably going up tomorrow?), but I'm leaning more toward Trails for that battle system.
 
Still chipping through Live A Live. Just got the Far Future chapter left from the initial set of 7. Really enjoyed the variety so far, it’s made me carry on less through addiction to the game mechanics or story, and more through curiosity of what’s coming up next. The Near Future chapter definitely had a load of stuff out of left field but at this point I’m just rolling with the surprises!
 
After Chrono Trigger, I zoomed through Cosmic Star Heroine and am a few hours into Crystalis on the NES Online app.

I'm on a lucky streak, these are some great, fast-paced RPG's!

I've never played anything quite like Crystalis. It's a lot like NES Zelda, but you get exp for killing enemies and toggle between different elements for different enemies. It provides incentive to actually kill the enemies and not just avoid them. Really cool twist on the formula, I'm digging it a lot so far.
 
After Chrono Trigger, I zoomed through Cosmic Star Heroine and am a few hours into Crystalis on the NES Online app.

I'm on a lucky streak, these are some great, fast-paced RPG's!

I've never played anything quite like Crystalis. It's a lot like NES Zelda, but you get exp for killing enemies and toggle between different elements for different enemies. It provides incentive to actually kill the enemies and not just avoid them. Really cool twist on the formula, I'm digging it a lot so far.
Crystalis is super dated in a lot of ways, but it’s a gem of a game for how old it is. Heads up: some enemies in the game literally can’t be hurt unless your attack power (your level, mostly) is high enough. It also has a bonkers story and tons of Ghibli/manga influence
 
After Chrono Trigger, I zoomed through Cosmic Star Heroine and am a few hours into Crystalis on the NES Online app.

I'm on a lucky streak, these are some great, fast-paced RPG's!

I've never played anything quite like Crystalis. It's a lot like NES Zelda, but you get exp for killing enemies and toggle between different elements for different enemies. It provides incentive to actually kill the enemies and not just avoid them. Really cool twist on the formula, I'm digging it a lot so far.
It's unfortunate we don't have GB game, as it was better balanced and even expanded on the story a bit, still the nes version is a very good game
 
0
Some early reviews for Trails from Zero. Reception looks good so far.

If you haven't played Trails, it's time to overcome that barrier, because there’s no better place to zero in on this fantastic series than in Crossbell.
Nintendo Life

Despite these issues, Trails from Zero is a game that manages to successfully and smartly craft an experience that stands out from its contemporaries.
Nookgaming

Fortunately, Lloyd and the rest of the SSS make for likable characters that you can't help but root for. The dialogue-heavy second half of the game can drag a little bit, but the cumulative experience is still a positive one that I would recommend to RPG fans.
NintendoWorldReport

 
Some early reviews for Trails from Zero. Reception looks good so far.


Nintendo Life


Nookgaming


NintendoWorldReport


Yeah seems like critics are enjoying it. Sitting at 81 on Opencritic which includes all platforms:


Looking forward to replaying it myself on Switch next week!
 
I finally wrote and posted the massive Trails From Zero thread I've been wanting to make for months. If you want 1,959 words on why I love Trails To Zero, here you go!

 
Triple post at this point, I know, but I’ve got more RPG stuff to talk about! In an amusing coincidence, the Trails anime dropped its first trailer. A rough shot or two gets covered up by the rapid cuts. Definitely a bit tough to get a good feel for it, but I’m looking forward to it nonetheless.



Gematsu has some story details that sound intriguing, plus some casting news.


But what I most wanted to talk about was I tried out the Valkyrie Elysium demo finally! My big takeaway is that the controls feel pretty solid and chaining attacks together and specials feels good. There’s roughly two hours of content in the demo: the tutorial, chapter/mission 1, and two side quests that repurpose chapter 1’s map. Your character, just called Valkyrie, has some standard light and heavy attacks, a jump, a dodge dash, and block button, but beyond that is the interesting stuff. You always have access to a grappling hook for traversal and closing the gap with enemies which makes you feel very powerful. You also can summon AI allies and mix in special/magic attacks on top of this by holding the triggers. Each enemy has an elemental weakness, so taking advantage of that with your summons and spells helps you take down enemies quickly.

My big complaint is that Normal is very easy at least in chapter 1. If you have even a smidge of experience with character action games, you will be obliterating most of these enemies and they shower you with a ton of items (which you are graded down for, but still). I wish you could change difficulty on the fly, but you are locked in which is unfortunate. I’m not sure if I want to restart or not considering how long it took to finish chapter 1, but I might start a new save when I pick up the final game in a second slot to test things out. There are a bunch of collectibles in chapter 1, the thoughts of the dying, but I didn’t find them too interesting. It says you lose items if you return to Elysium mid-mission, I wonder if that applies to these collectibles? Something else I want to test in the full game. (I’m sometimes bad with remembering I have multiple save slots to take advantage of in games lol)

So yeah, I did ultimately like it enough where I want to pick up the full game, but the difficulty experience in general got me thinking more games should offer a test mode of sorts to help you pick a difficulty. Like give people some tools and abilities and a repeatable encounter to test out. Something kind of like the old Call of Duty / Titanfall games with the time trial tutorial, but a little more casual would be nice.
 
Are the Voice of the Cards games a connected story, or are they stand alone games?

I ask because the newest one entices me, but I don't know if I should commit to the previous two first.
 
Are the Voice of the Cards games a connected story, or are they stand alone games?

I ask because the newest one entices me, but I don't know if I should commit to the previous two first.
The stories are standalone, but at least Dragon and Maiden are related in the sense it happens in the same world just in different times
 
I've been playing Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition and I'm having such a great time. This game started as an rpg maker 2003 project many many years ago and I believe they changed to Unity for the enhanced edition.

It's a classic SNES-style RPG with no overly complex systems but still a lot of fun to play.

Some of the nice features:
-> No equipment to buy, instead you craft your initial equipment with materials from exploring and main story items.
-> When you level up you gain 10 points which you can allocate however you want. You can also reset the points at a cost if want to change your builds.
-> You can change difficulty at anytime, and there's even a "story" difficulty which allows you to kill all enemies in a single turn, very useful when you are grinding.
-> The music and mapping are absolutely stunning



Highly recommend it to everyone if you are in the mood for a small scale RPG.

Some pics:

ss_1e8292ae07a439f712d9b00733be51f9146255f6.1920x1080.jpg

ss_a7f8bbf3e7509bc8426fd94873daedfc19141899.1920x1080.jpg

ss_29dcf3d75e707d35d5fab53fa3c626b07135a03c.1920x1080.jpg


I'll be playing Trails From Zero next but after that I wanna check out their second game: Rise of the Third Power which looks stunning as well.
 
Last edited:
I've been playing Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition and I'm having such a great time. This game started as an rpg maker 2003 project many many years ago and I believe they changed to Unity for the enhanced edition.

It's a classic SNES-style RPG with no overly complex systems but still a lot of fun to play.

Some of the nice features:
-> No equipment to buy, instead you craft your initial equipment with materials from exploring and main story items.
-> When you level up you gain 10 points which you can allocate however you want. You can also reset the points at a cost if want to change your builds.
-> You can change difficulty at anytime, and there's even a "story" difficulty which allows you to kill all enemies in a single turn, very useful when you are grinding.
-> The music and mapping are absolutely stunning



Highly recommend it to everyone if you are in the mood for a short scale RPG.

Some pics:

ss_1e8292ae07a439f712d9b00733be51f9146255f6.1920x1080.jpg

ss_a7f8bbf3e7509bc8426fd94873daedfc19141899.1920x1080.jpg

ss_29dcf3d75e707d35d5fab53fa3c626b07135a03c.1920x1080.jpg


I'll be playing Trails From Zero next but after that I wanna check out their second game: Rise of the Third Power which looks stunning as well.

Ooooooooh this looks right up my alley, thanks!!


Edit: omg it's 70% off on the eShop right now, great timing!!!!!
<.<
>.>
*adds to backlog*
 
Weird last minute delay for Valkyrie Profile Lenneth on PS5. Was looking forward to trying it out. The new game is still on for next week, but Lenneth is now December 22.

 
Finished up the true ending of Live A Live. What an interesting game! Just… so weird and experimental, like a JRPG before what a JRPG is becomes set in stone. A mixed bag of good stuff, bad stuff, weird stuff, interesting stuff, stuff you wouldn’t expect to find in a game that looks like a SNES JRPG.

I like the way the new scenario presumably rounds the original out a bit. Some of the puzzles and mazes in the last chapter had me scratching my head a bit, but it’s all good.

The final battle was great, it really rounded off the theme nicely, pulled it all together.

I like that it’s not just 40 hours of town (with plot and shops), overworld-dungeons (with random battles). You never know what to expect next, and that has a value of it’s own. As did the running time of a nice tight ~25 hours, although I’m sure you could finish it in well under 20 as I spent a lot of time messing around looking for stuff in the last chapter.
 
Last edited:
I started a playthrough of Across the Obelisk with a few friends tonight. It seems really neat. In terms of gameplay mechanics it seems to be a bit of a mix of Slay the Spire and Darkest Dungeon, but the coop RPG adventure gives similar vibes from when I played Divinity Original Sin 2 with the same friend group. It's a really good time so far. We got to the end of the first area and had to call it for the night, but so far so good.
 
I am on disc 4 of FF9, it’s great. Some core limitations but LOVE the cast and most of the plot. I wish I didn’t have to rely off ffwd to really get the most out of it. Otherwise I can’t complain.
 
I am on disc 4 of FF9, it’s great. Some core limitations but LOVE the cast and most of the plot. I wish I didn’t have to rely off ffwd to really get the most out of it. Otherwise I can’t complain.
FF9 is magical, one of my favorite games of all time. Disc 4 and the plot by that point does fall off a little bit from the rest of the game, but the characters, atmosphere, world, music, etc., are just SO good and charming. The other big downside these days is definitely battle speed, like you said. It was a game that really made the PS1 nearly burst into flames with all the loading and detailed assets and such for the time.
 
I've been playing SAO Alicization Lycoris now that it released on switch, and so far it's fun. Its an action RPG which gives me a lot of Xeno vibes in the exploration and some part of the combat. I also was interested in how it would transalate to switch hardware as even on PS had some perfomance issues, and overall is decent, but the cuts they had to do are... substantial

17DzuCM.jpg
 
Finally got around to three houses and doing all 4 routes doesn't seem like a bad idea im halfway through the first half of one route and im like 5 hours in so unless the second part is much longer than the first i could seeing doing all three parts taking 60ish hours. As im saving optional stuff other than the quick side quests until my last playthrough.
 
0
FF9 is magical, one of my favorite games of all time. Disc 4 and the plot by that point does fall off a little bit from the rest of the game, but the characters, atmosphere, world, music, etc., are just SO good and charming. The other big downside these days is definitely battle speed, like you said. It was a game that really made the PS1 nearly burst into flames with all the loading and detailed assets and such for the time.
I hope the remake is real as its one of the ff games that the end could using some tweaking and deserves a remake of its also my favorite next to tactices and 6.
 
I mentioned this in another thread, but I started a replay of Final Fantasy 8 yesterday. It's my favorite of the series and one of my favorite games in general.

I haven't done many replays this year. It feels good. FF8 has so many unpredictable story beats that it's a cool sensation to have those twists feel more normalized. And everything about the junction system and limit breaks makes a lot more sense to me now. The first few hours feel so chill when you know what you're doing!
 
0


Back
Top Bottom