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BassForever said:
Just switch out your party more often? This really isn't a hard problem. Especially in 7 when materia can be equipped by anyone and keeps it's exp.
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Or maybe just have reserve party members gain XP to give players more freedom when they want to switch out party members as they please? I also switch out party members all of the time in Octopath Traveler and guess what, some characters still fall behind, especially behind the main character whom you can't switch out.
 
HockeyBird said:
Or maybe just have reserve party members gain XP to give players more freedom when they want to switch out party members as they please? I also switch out party members all of the time in Octopath Traveler and guess what, some characters still fall behind, especially behind the main character whom you can't switch out.
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Sounds like a skill issue

I obsess over keeping my party at even levels and will even redo boss fights if a character dies and I get the kill causing uneven levels.
 
HockeyBird said:
Or maybe just have reserve party members gain XP to give players more freedom when they want to switch out party members as they please? I also switch out party members all of the time in Octopath Traveler and guess what, some characters still fall behind, especially behind the main character whom you can't switch out.
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But if they do that then how am I supposed to manage my character rotation?

No seriously that's actually a minor issue I have with Rebirth, since everyone on the backline levels the same as everyone else, I can't figure out who to have in my party at any given time. But admittedly it is fairly minor of an issue
 
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BassForever said:
Sounds like a skill issue

I obsess over keeping my party at even levels and will even redo boss fights if a character dies and I get the kill causing uneven levels.
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That is one thing I hate - when dead party members don't get XP. Because I will redo a boss fight if I accidentally win with only one character alive and they gain too many levels above everyone else!
 
SammyJ9 said:
That is one thing I hate - when dead party members don't get XP. Because I will redo a boss fight if I accidentally win with only one character alive and they gain too many levels above everyone else!
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Omg I'm not alooooone ❤️
 
SammyJ9 said:
That is one thing I hate - when dead party members don't get XP. Because I will redo a boss fight if I accidentally win with only one character alive and they gain too many levels above everyone else!
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I'll join that club. Everyone deserves EXP. Heck, the ones that had to get offed arguably deserve it the most!
 
meatbag said:
I'll join that club. Everyone deserves EXP. Heck, the ones that had to get offed arguably deserve it the most!
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Painful lessons, literally. ‘I learned I should really dodge attacks when the enemy shouts ‘extinction!’ before firing a nuclear missile at the 20-feet-wide battlefield’
 
finally got around to finishing Infinite Wealth, took me almost exactly 100 hours to do everything

in the end i'm not sure whether or not I liked it more than 7, the gameplay was pretty much better in every way but as much as I liked the Kiryu stuff I feel like the story really suffered from the dual protagonist thing and it ended up feeling super unfocused and mostly pretty underwhelming
 
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Meanwhile the boomer DQ "you are going to level new characters from Lvl 1, remove them for story reason sometime and they are not going to get auto leveled up when the get back, and you are going to love it"
 
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ermitron2 said:
Meanwhile the boomer DQ "you are going to level new characters from Lvl 1, remove them for story reason sometime and they are not going to get auto leveled up when the get back, and you are going to love it"
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I always just make a new character for that stupid town quest in DQ3.
 
Speaking of Final Fantasy 7... I actually bothered with setting up 7th Heaven and can happily report that it is actually working with my Dualsense, so I guess I will be finally playing OG FF7 after all!

Trails to Azure first though! I'm still in the very early game, chapter 1, and boy do these characters talk. A lot. Am I experiencing burn out ahahah
 
Reached Gizmalucks Grotto in FFIX, calling it a night. Also did what I assume is the early recruitment of Quina
 just through my habit of poking around suspicious areas. Also got a chocobo
 
Finally started up Trails in the Sky. I anticipate mostly playing it on Deck, but starting out on PC just now it feels pretty weird to have essentially a PSP level game that properly supports 4K120. I also had to do a double take very early on when I was anticipating a naming screen to pop up, but instead they started calling the character Joshua. Wondered if it pulled it from my Steam or Windows accounts.
 
Mandos said:
Reached Gizmalucks Grotto in FFIX, calling it a night. Also did what I assume is the early recruitment of Quina
 just through my habit of poking around suspicious areas. Also got a chocobo
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I love chocobos in FF9. Hot n' Cold is a fun minigame, and then the world map chests are also fun to locate as well as having nice rewards
 
JoshuaJSlone said:
Finally started up Trails in the Sky. I anticipate mostly playing it on Deck, but starting out on PC just now it feels pretty weird to have essentially a PSP level game that properly supports 4K120. I also had to do a double take very early on when I was anticipating a naming screen to pop up, but instead they started calling the character Joshua. Wondered if it pulled it from my Steam or Windows accounts.
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Sounds like you should sue Falcom for using your name without permission 🤪
 
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JoshuaJSlone said:
Finally started up Trails in the Sky. I anticipate mostly playing it on Deck, but starting out on PC just now it feels pretty weird to have essentially a PSP level game that properly supports 4K120. I also had to do a double take very early on when I was anticipating a naming screen to pop up, but instead they started calling the character Joshua. Wondered if it pulled it from my Steam or Windows accounts.
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Awesome! Looking forward to hearing your impressions as you play through :)

All of the characters have names, so for better or worse you don’t get to name anyone.
 
After playing Persona 5 Royal and Persona 3 Portable earlier, I find myself freaking out every time Crono in CT is near death thinking it's a game over lol
 
Mekanos said:
After playing Persona 5 Royal and Persona 3 Portable earlier, I find myself freaking out every time Crono in CT is near death thinking it's a game over lol
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I’ve always disliked that rule. I remember it in SMT games too, where I’m like ‘how come everyone else is quickly revived inside one round with items and abilities but if I hit the deck I’ve apparently been one-shot killed and it’s game over?’ Even worse when it’s a game with random ‘death’ abilities that are low accuracy but then auto-game-over if they target and hit the MC. Usually requiring taking up your accessory slot with immunity to it.
 
I found it annoying in LAD 7 too, though at least there Ichiban can get a skill that lets him take a fatal hit and stay alive.
 
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Game Over on Hero death is one of the last vestiges of proper difficulty in a genre where you can overcome any challenge by pumping enough numbers into yourself.

I've played too many RPGs where the challenge completely drops off by the midgame to not appreciate it.
 
Weiss said:
Game Over on Hero death is one of the last vestiges of proper difficulty in a genre where you can overcome any challenge by pumping enough numbers into yourself.

I've played too many RPGs where the challenge completely drops off by the midgame to not appreciate it.
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‘Boss randomly decides to cast ‘death’ spell on player’ isn’t difficulty though. It’s just a random game over for something the player couldn’t have done anything about without forewarning of the boss moveset. At the end of the original version of SMT SJ, it was just ‘if the boss selects this move, then selects the PC, it’s game over unless you know about it in advance and put the ‘immunity to that spell’ item on out of the several dozen ones you have’. That’s really not ‘difficulty’. And to be fair the original game was tough enough already :D
 
Just beat Persona 3 Reload last night. Really loved it. Now I’m in the post-completion funk where I’m not sure what I play next. Replay Persona 4? FF7 Rebirth? Unicorn Overlord?
 
PixelKnight said:
‘Boss randomly decides to cast ‘death’ spell on player’ isn’t difficulty though. It’s just a random game over for something the player couldn’t have done anything about without forewarning of the boss moveset. At the end of the original version of SMT SJ, it was just ‘if the boss selects this move, then selects the PC, it’s game over unless you know about it in advance and put the ‘immunity to that spell’ item on out of the several dozen ones you have’. That’s really not ‘difficulty’. And to be fair the original game was tough enough already :D
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I mean yeah, that is difficulty. If a spell can instantly end your game then it's something to watch out for, and in contrast to tons of other RPGs those instant death spells and status ailments are important in Shin Megami Tensei.

With Strange Journey in particular the first sector to have instant death spells unlocks armour that nulls them outright (with an Elec weakness so you have to pick and choose which is more valuable to you). Later on you get Tetraja (shields your entire party from one Light/Death spells for the duration of the battle) both as a spell and as a consumable item, and can find rare Sacrifice items that tank one instant death spell for the MC.

It's not convenient but it's not supposed to be, and if dying is how the player is meant to learn how to play this survival horror-tinged dungeon crawler with an emphasis on defensive gameplay then:

top-guess-lll-die
 
I think the bosses that wipe all party buffs are a bit irritating when you’ve spent a while setting up defences but yeah, alright, I see your point!
 
PixelKnight said:
I think the bosses that wipe all party buffs are a bit irritating when you’ve spent a while setting up defences but yeah, alright, I see your point!
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This reminds me of the midgame massive skill/level check boss in Dragon Quest 8: Dhoulmagus. He's the first boss that has the 'envelops your party in a wave of ice!' skill that negates all buffs, which is a pretty big wake-up call for how you've probably been fighting bosses so far. That on top of being a two-phase boss that's already very difficult unless you're overleveled. He was a big wall for me when I first played the game.
 
Weiss said:
I mean yeah, that is difficulty. If a spell can instantly end your game then it's something to watch out for, and in contrast to tons of other RPGs those instant death spells and status ailments are important in Shin Megami Tensei.

With Strange Journey in particular the first sector to have instant death spells unlocks armour that nulls them outright (with an Elec weakness so you have to pick and choose which is more valuable to you). Later on you get Tetraja (shields your entire party from one Light/Death spells for the duration of the battle) both as a spell and as a consumable item, and can find rare Sacrifice items that tank one instant death spell for the MC.

It's not convenient but it's not supposed to be, and if dying is how the player is meant to learn how to play this survival horror-tinged dungeon crawler with an emphasis on defensive gameplay then:

top-guess-lll-die
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Eh, I don't really like the instant game over version - I prefer how it is in SMT4 where your main character can still get insta-killed and losing them means you lose access to things like items and demon-swapping, so it's very likely you'll get a game over, but if your remaining demons manage to finish the combat you revive with 1 HP and can still recover.
 
Before I get too much further in Engage, how did everyone who played and beat it manage the sheer amount of characters and managing those characters as the game progressed? Then there's all the different rings, be they emblem or bond, weapons, classes, etc.
 
EvilChameleon said:
Before I get too much further in Engage, how did everyone who played and beat it manage the sheer amount of characters and managing those characters as the game progressed? Then there's all the different rings, be they emblem or bond, weapons, classes, etc.
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Ultimately you’ll likely settle on a dozen or so characters which is conveniently how many emblem rings there are and how many you can deploy to a stage, so I wouldn’t worry too much about bond rings- they are just stand-ins until you get the full set in the late game.

Like all FE games, I tend to just pick 12-14 to focus on, you get so many strong pre-promoted units in the late game (as a nod to people playing on permadeath who might be under-strength) but they are rarely as strong as the characters you’ve levelled up manually. Don’t worry about two thirds of your roster just being there or levelling them up, it’s a bit pointless unless you want to grind out the bonds on the units you don’t care about.
 
PixelKnight said:
I’ve always disliked that rule. I remember it in SMT games too, where I’m like ‘how come everyone else is quickly revived inside one round with items and abilities but if I hit the deck I’ve apparently been one-shot killed and it’s game over?’ Even worse when it’s a game with random ‘death’ abilities that are low accuracy but then auto-game-over if they target and hit the MC. Usually requiring taking up your accessory slot with immunity to it.
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I understand "mc died game over" in the SMT games where it's you and your team of contracted demons. I agree it's incredibly out of place in the Persona series and hopefully is changed for P6.
 
I always saw them keeping the "MC death = game over" mechanic in Persona because the MC is so strong with their various Personas, so that is seen as a way to balance it out. I don't necessarily mind the mechanic, per se, but maybe it would be better served saved for Hard Mode or something.
 
I’ve always interpreted MC = death as the MC is the strategist of the group and losing them means you don’t have someone to take over and the whole story unravels.

Generally I don’t have a problem with it as it’s just part of a game’s mechanics and while it can make for some annoying bosses it also gives you a character you have to strategize around. Sort of like a better take on escort missions or “protect this dumb AI character” missions as you at least have control over the thing you’re protecting.
 
Randomly thought about Vagrant Story tonight from the BS Direct leak, but I really do think that game could shine in a remake/remaster. It has a lot of flaws mostly due to the hardware and just sheer ambition of cramming a game like that onto the PS1, but the vibes are immaculate.

I forgot that the cathedral music goes this hard:

 
shoptroll said:
I’ve always interpreted MC = death as the MC is the strategist of the group and losing them means you don’t have someone to take over and the whole story unravels.

Generally I don’t have a problem with it as it’s just part of a game’s mechanics and while it can make for some annoying bosses it also gives you a character you have to strategize around. Sort of like a better take on escort missions or “protect this dumb AI character” missions as you at least have control over the thing you’re protecting.
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I mean for SMT it makes sense. You pass out or die, your team eats you. Or deserts you. Also in games where there’s an uneasy alliance or the possibility of a traitor
 
There's no such thing as a slow year for RPG gamers. Even if there are few releases, which isn't the case this year, I'm sure we all have backlogs of games that we haven't gotten to yet. RPGs are on the longer side so even when are done with one game, there's another big adventure waiting for us. Once I'm done with Rebirth, I'll probably start Unicorn Overlord. I still have Ocotopath Traveler II to finish which unfortunately got caught between Fire Emblem Engage and Xenoblade 3: Future Redeemed last year and then Tears of the Kingdom stole all of the time between May and July. Still have Valkyrie Elysium and Yakuza 7 yet to be started. Haven't picked up Persona 3 yet (although it might be good to hold off considering it's an Atlus game). Ys X comes out late in the year although I was hoping it would be out in the summer. It would have made for a nice sunny, hot days game.
 
When you accidentally take the wrong exit out of Gizmaluck Cavern but cheats let you beat some enemies in the high level area XD…. Well that
dragon still took out a party member
 
HockeyBird said:
There's no such thing as a slow year for RPG gamers. Even if there are few releases, which isn't the case this year, I'm sure we all have backlogs of games that we haven't gotten to yet. RPGs are on the longer side so even when are done with one game, there's another big adventure waiting for us. Once I'm done with Rebirth, I'll probably start Unicorn Overlord. I still have Ocotopath Traveler II to finish which unfortunately got caught between Fire Emblem Engage and Xenoblade 3: Future Redeemed last year and then Tears of the Kingdom stole all of the time between May and July. Still have Valkyrie Elysium and Yakuza 7 yet to be started. Haven't picked up Persona 3 yet (although it might be good to hold off considering it's an Atlus game). Ys X comes out late in the year although I was hoping it would be out in the summer. It would have made for a nice sunny, hot days game.
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This is why when Eiyuden Chronicle was delayed until May I was like ‘phew’ :)
 
SammyJ9 said:
Randomly thought about Vagrant Story tonight from the BS Direct leak, but I really do think that game could shine in a remake/remaster. It has a lot of flaws mostly due to the hardware and just sheer ambition of cramming a game like that onto the PS1, but the vibes are immaculate.

I forgot that the cathedral music goes this hard:

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The what leak??? 👀
 
shoptroll said:
I’ve always interpreted MC = death as the MC is the strategist of the group and losing them means you don’t have someone to take over and the whole story unravels.

Generally I don’t have a problem with it as it’s just part of a game’s mechanics and while it can make for some annoying bosses it also gives you a character you have to strategize around. Sort of like a better take on escort missions or “protect this dumb AI character” missions as you at least have control over the thing you’re protecting.
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I feel that would make more sense if P3-5 didn't give you a navigator whose sole job is to account for stuff like that. Considering they have lines for when the other characters are knocked out, it's bizarre they have no solution if the wild card falls.
 
HockeyBird said:
There's no such thing as a slow year for RPG gamers. Even if there are few releases, which isn't the case this year, I'm sure we all have backlogs of games that we haven't gotten to yet. RPGs are on the longer side so even when are done with one game, there's another big adventure waiting for us. Once I'm done with Rebirth, I'll probably start Unicorn Overlord. I still have Ocotopath Traveler II to finish which unfortunately got caught between Fire Emblem Engage and Xenoblade 3: Future Redeemed last year and then Tears of the Kingdom stole all of the time between May and July. Still have Valkyrie Elysium and Yakuza 7 yet to be started. Haven't picked up Persona 3 yet (although it might be good to hold off considering it's an Atlus game). Ys X comes out late in the year although I was hoping it would be out in the summer. It would have made for a nice sunny, hot days game.
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Ha, I almost wish I could go into early retirement so I'd have more time to tackle my ridiculously long RPG backlog. I'm still quite aways away from finishing Xenoblade 3 (still sidequesting in Ch. 5) and I'm eager to get to FFVII Rebirth.

Xenosaga III is also on my shortlist, and I want to finally get to it this year. I bought it at launch years ago, and have managed to not get around to it yet for some reason.
 
Sombron going "I'm afraid your friend Veyle is really my friend Veyle" like Le Chiffre in Casino Royale is peak gaming.
 
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Mandos said:
When you accidentally take the wrong exit out of Gizmaluck Cavern but cheats let you beat some enemies in the high level area XD…. Well that
dragon still took out a party member
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Even without cheats that's a good grind area if you have a way to cheese the Grand Dragons. I think at the point of the game you get there, it's pretty much Limit Glove (does 9999 damage if Quina has 1HP).
 
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Mandos said:
When you accidentally take the wrong exit out of Gizmaluck Cavern but cheats let you beat some enemies in the high level area XD…. Well that
dragon still took out a party member
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Ah, I remember that.

Burmecia’s theme is 🔥 though
 
Started Dragon Quest VIII the other day. I think this is at least the fourth time I've tried to get through it? Across both PS2 and 3DS. Despite its popularity, this one has just never been able to grab me. I've made it all the way through VII and XI, which I'm pretty sure are vastly longer, but this one? Most of my attempts didn't even get Angelo. Currently I've just gotten the boat, and I don't think I've ever gone much further than this.

Trying to analyze why that is, and the main things I've noticed are how small and forgettable most of the early towns are, and how the effort to start faster and streamline the game from VII really didn't do it any favors.

The vignettes start to pick up in the mourning town, but all of the best ones so far still feel like they would have been lost in the shuffle in VII. That town is a real Wind Waker of a story, almost all of the work is done in the last few minutes. Still, I loved the fairytale mysticism of the moonshadow window, and the ending scene made my eyes burn with tears a little, which for me is basically sobbing. Also, damn it took me forever to find the way to get to that mountain. Not a big fan of the overworld in this one.

Something I'm surprised isn't landing is the smaller scale of the story. I miss being on a journey to save the world. I know it eventually ends up in you fighting a god of evil or something like always, and maybe it's because DQ never has interesting antagonists, but chasing Dhoulmagus is surprisingly boring. A lot of this is probably down to the decision to begin in media res, so we have zero personal investment in going after him despite being told about what he did. Dragon Quest should be great at this more personal stuff, and I remember Chapters of the Chosen doing it just fine.

On the one hand, I appreciate its commitment to getting going as fast as possible. 3DS bonus characters aside, you get the full party very early in this one. You fight your first Slimes after just one brief intro cutscene. It sets you loose fast. On the other hand, I think it's just overcorrecting for DQVII's infamously long introduction by throwing you right into it with the bare minimum of context, and the story suffers a bit for it. It takes a while before the game stops operating in flashbacks, and giving you scenarios where the most important events have already happened before you even show up.

The gameplay also isn't really a benefactor of the speedy introduction, for some reason. I feel like my options are decidedly worse here than in other DQ games for at least the first 15-20 hours, despite the speedrun to a full party. It took forever to build up a decent selection of spells, I'm at around level 30 and magic attacks are only now actually becoming good. My party is a mess that's only very slowly coming together under careful guidance. I've barely played III, but I feel like the instantly created party members in that one can do their job better from level 1 than this lot could at level 20.

It's just odd. Jessica's offensive spells are nearly useless when you get her, and it takes like 20 levels for her to get some that start outclassing the whip in damage (the whip doesn't do very good damage to begin with). I wonder if the reason they did skill trees in the first place was to give you more diverse options with such a small cast and no job system, but their do-everything design mostly just ends up making them feel muddled in their purpose. I think Jessica is supposed to be the mage and Angelo the priest, but their skill trees give a lot of weight to completely unrelated things too. It's weird that every single character has an entire skill tree dedicated to fighting barehanded.

I've never been a fan of the tension mechanic either. It's supposedly more efficient than just attacking repeatedly (though apparently not even until you hit high tension), but doing nothing for several turns in a row doesn't feel great. Dragon Quest combat is all about being reactive to the situation, long term planning like this is a poor fit and you're just asking to be smacked down when you get too reliant on it. Apparently it also results in most later bosses spamming Disruptive Wave, so it becomes mostly useless anyway. I'm approaching that point and I've almost never found use for it despite trying, and there have barely been any bosses so far anyway. I also noticed Intimidate was even a thing for the first time? No one ever talks about it, seemingly because it has very few uses.

I generally think of each Dragon Quest as sharing the same basic foundation yet having its own distinct goals, but I feel like I'm being confronted with so many things in this that are just outright worse than XI specifically. Alchemy became a whole lot more involved, Pep works so much better with DQ's combat than Tension, skill trees got much better, the party is twice as big...

So yeah, it's been alright once it got going a little, hopefully I'll see it through this time, but I have a very hard time seeing myself ever relating to why this one is so loved. What's it supposed to be excelling at compared to the others?
 
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