On October 17 2022 02:54 BisuDagger wrote: Started on New Super Lucky’s tale. This is a pretty clever game. I hope they can manage a sequel because this game has a ton of potential.
Finished Legends Arceus. It got a lot of praise from gaming friends so I was hyped, but I thought it was super disappointing. Sneaking up on a pokemon in tall grass and chucking a poke ball at its back was novel for the first 3 times, then it's just business as usual and you start noticing all the flaws. Some thoughts in spoilers below.
The graphics and story are bad, but that was expected so I don't really mind. The controls were bad. B is sprint while mounted and sneak on foot (Pressing L thumbstick is sprint on foot), baffling decision. Took ages to figure out how to fly up on Braviary. Clunky controls with the pokemon mounts in general. Trainer battles got completely gutted. Actually frustratingly bad battling system in this game. Hated it. Travelling between 2 open areas isn't possible, you always have to go through the village which means 2 loading screens for 1 travel action. Some RNG with filling the pokedex like usual, but it felt worse in this game. Some pokemon required you to spawn a 'space-time distortion' and the best way to spawn these was just to stand around and do nothing... Every 5 mins they have a chance to spawn, but battling a wild pokemon pauses the timer. So after 20 minutes of waiting around the distortion finally appears and now there's more RNG because the pokemon you need might not spawn while it's up, meaning you have to wait around for another one.
All in all a frustrating and disappointing experience, if it didn't have Pokemon in the name I would not have finished it.
Now started on FE:Warriors 3 hopes and liking it so far. Not sure I'll do 4 different playthroughs like I did with 3 houses, will see how long 1 playthrough is.
Aiming was the worst. Every time I move, dodge or anything, the default throwing arc was too low to the ground. I have to aim the camera a little higher to get more distance. Makes the special pokemon battles more frustrating. Considering how popular baseball is in Japan, you'd think somebody on the development team would know better.
Also, Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope came out today *and* Persona 5 Royal comes out tomorrow! Looking forward to playing these; I enjoyed the first M+R game, and I've never played a Persona game before.
I enjoyed playing Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle when I played it a few years ago, but I like Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope significantly more! Improved combat, actual worlds and quests to explore, etc.
Given the mostly positive reviews for this next game, I'm surprised I'm writing such a negative first impression, but...
Just started my first Persona game ever... Persona 5 Royal. For the first 20 minutes, the game had my attention and seemed really exciting, but then the dialogue and story dragged out for like another half hour or so, after having exactly one 15-second battle (the intro, auto-win battle) and being able to freely move as Joker for less than 5 minutes. Found myself falling asleep before the first hour of "playing" the game (scrolling through dialogue) was over, so I just started skipping the rest of the writing just so I could finally save and quit the game. Persona 5 Royal has pretty cinematic scenes with good music, but the game is already starting off on the wrong foot for me, given how much the writing is droning on and on. I appreciate a good plot, but it shouldn't come at the expense of gameplay. I'll play for another hour tomorrow, but if I can't actively do anything interesting in the game within the first two hours of it, I'm moving on to a real game that isn't just a book.
I really hope this game turns around and doesn't end up being a waste of money.
The game definitely opens up a lot, with great plot, and a good mix of combat elements that are either interesting or very simply satisfying, and the music is A+. Everything just oozes style. However, if you just don't enjoy a visual novel-type game, it might be a bit hard for you. It definitely blooms into a complex game, that has a lot of elements to think about and play with, but character dialogue is always a substantial part of the game.
There's also definitely a lot of repetitive dialogue at the start, I guess I forgot how slow the game is to start off. It hits you over the head with it, and the tutorials take some time, too. It definitely helps to approach it like a visual novel to start off, I always just leaned back and steeped in the story since that was clearly how it was paced. Do with that what you will, if it just isn't hitting you the right way after another try, that's totally understandable.
On October 28 2022 11:47 NewSunshine wrote: The game definitely opens up a lot, with great plot, and a good mix of combat elements that are either interesting or very simply satisfying, and the music is A+. Everything just oozes style. However, if you just don't enjoy a visual novel-type game, it might be a bit hard for you. It definitely blooms into a complex game, that has a lot of elements to think about and play with, but character dialogue is always a substantial part of the game.
There's also definitely a lot of repetitive dialogue at the start, I guess I forgot how slow the game is to start off. It hits you over the head with it, and the tutorials take some time, too. It definitely helps to approach it like a visual novel to start off, I always just leaned back and steeped in the story since that was clearly how it was paced. Do with that what you will, if it just isn't hitting you the right way after another try, that's totally understandable.
That's really helpful context, thanks It sounds like the same potential issue I had with Triangle Strategy (the balance between exposition and gameplay). I'm really looking forward to exploring the combat elements in the game, which I hope I'm able to do soon.
Edit/Update: I gave it another shot, and I think the game just isn't for me. On a related note, a friend of mine said this about the franchise: "Good news- If you are willing to put 130 hours into the game AND hit the secret criteria you need to unlock the epilogue, the story is amazing. Bad news- half of those hours will be a dating sim. That’s just how Persona games go."
The Switch is a good platform for visual novel games. I guess it depends if you like visual novel type games and if you enjoy games like Ace Attorney or Legend of Heroes. Half of any Persona game is a slice of life game akin to a dating sim and those parts are very text heavy.
The start is a bit slow, like most RPGs, especially very long ones like this. But I think you might get bored raising confidant levels as well, which is the bulk of the game outside of the dungeons.
This new trailer for Sonic Frontiers looks absolutely amazing, although I've seen some gameplay footage of the game so I'm going to wait a few days after release before I decide whether or not I want to buy it. From what I've seen so far, the open world seems pretty empty, which I'm hoping isn't the case.
On October 28 2022 11:47 NewSunshine wrote: The game definitely opens up a lot, with great plot, and a good mix of combat elements that are either interesting or very simply satisfying, and the music is A+. Everything just oozes style. However, if you just don't enjoy a visual novel-type game, it might be a bit hard for you. It definitely blooms into a complex game, that has a lot of elements to think about and play with, but character dialogue is always a substantial part of the game.
There's also definitely a lot of repetitive dialogue at the start, I guess I forgot how slow the game is to start off. It hits you over the head with it, and the tutorials take some time, too. It definitely helps to approach it like a visual novel to start off, I always just leaned back and steeped in the story since that was clearly how it was paced. Do with that what you will, if it just isn't hitting you the right way after another try, that's totally understandable.
That's really helpful context, thanks It sounds like the same potential issue I had with Triangle Strategy (the balance between exposition and gameplay). I'm really looking forward to exploring the combat elements in the game, which I hope I'm able to do soon.
Edit/Update: I gave it another shot, and I think the game just isn't for me. On a related note, a friend of mine said this about the franchise: "Good news- If you are willing to put 130 hours into the game AND hit the secret criteria you need to unlock the epilogue, the story is amazing. Bad news- half of those hours will be a dating sim. That’s just how Persona games go."
Gonna give you another response that's more akin to your friend's line of thinking.
I did finish the game in all its glory with full unlocks and everything. The story is kinda interesting in the first arc (although exaggerated and stereotypical) with Kamoshida, but that's unfortunately the high point and every arc after that becomes a bit more of a villain of the week ordeal with decreasing levels of emotional attachment to characters/villains. The big bad in the vanilla game (which you encounter about 75% of the way through) was sort of a ginormous let-down followed by an Oh Great jump the shark boss (and dungeon) that made no sense and was out of left field. The Royal boss and the story leading up to it was a much better climax and ending, but ultimately you look back and feel like 90% of the game was kinda empty business. In my opinion it was a supremely overrated story, but do note that I am an avid reader and I find even games like Wrath of the Righteous extremely shallow. Frankly as with WotR it's another game that would have benefited from a greatly decreased cast and more emphasis on fleshing out each character. Whatever.
From a gameplay perspective the balance of the game is piss poor as tends to be the case with these games. You can very easily build up some key units that just carry you/wipe stuff out with relatively minimal investment. Difficulty is equated to tedium or random surprises, and otherwise you're really just rotating persona types while working your way up the level ladder and skill tree using more-or-less the same abilities. It's not helped by all but one party member having mostly a locked set of moves, which doesn't allow for much flexibility or maximizing, coupled with a rather hard weakness/immunity spectrum mechanism. Ultimately it becomes easier to just jack up certain skills that ignore everything except a pinpoint immunity and use whichever one is not going to run into immunity. Turns the game into more of a brainless button mash against HP sponges - not particularly interesting.
Thanks andrewlt and Southlight for the additional perspectives The Switch is definitely great for visual novels, but that genre (and Persona 5) don't really seem to be a good fit for me, even though I like to read books!
On an unrelated note, the first new N64 icons/portraits just got released, 33 in total, most of which are references to Super Mario 64, Kirby 64, and Majora's Mask!
On November 05 2022 11:13 Southlight wrote: :D amusingly I just started poking away at TriStrat last weekend, so I am in that phase of "oh my goodness much talk wow"
I would have definitely preferred Triangle Strategy to have considerably less narration and considerably more gameplay; I really enjoy tactical role-playing games
I'm really loving Harvestella so far! It's an action JRPG with a ton of optional stuff to do, like side quests and farm simulation. I'm pretty new to the farm/life sim part, but it's fun optimizing each day with seeing how much story/rpg progress I can make while also juggling other optional things (like side quests and planting/harvesting crops to make money). The demo was solid - it convinced me to buy the game - but the full game is way better than I expected. Huge quality of life improvements compared to the demo, from longer days (the original time cycles from the demo were really fast, making it hard to accomplish much before getting back to my home/bed before midnight, but it's totally manageable now) to a more comprehensive and intuitive UI. Interesting class/job systems and skills too, although there doesn't seem to be a ton of customizability in terms of weapons/armor (yet?). No separate battle screens, just real-time combat like in Ys 8, and the fights so far have been fair although pretty simple. Interesting story so far that's gradually introduced at a reasonable clip while continuing to explore and play each day.
On November 05 2022 11:13 Southlight wrote: :D amusingly I just started poking away at TriStrat last weekend, so I am in that phase of "oh my goodness much talk wow"
Triangle Strategy's text heavy parts are very front loaded. Towards the end, I actually got a bit of battle fatigue because the battles are longer and there are less dialogue between. At the start, the battles are shorter and there is way too much dialogue in between.
I've been playing Persona 5 Royal almost non-stop since it came out, over 100 hours in now and just finished the 5th out of the 8th original palaces. Normally, slice of life games would be boring for me. But put in a decent enough story with decent stakes, and I end up loving the slice of life moments between the cast. The really long JRPGs with an endearing cast end up being my favorites and the ones I end up replaying later on. Ryuji and Morgana can be annoying though.
Royal is easier than P5 vanilla, same way as Golden is easier than P4 vanilla. The exception is the 5th palace boss battle, which they dropped the ball with when they changed it. It ended up being too difficult on normal but I heard it's actually easier if you crank up the difficulty. With that said, I find that Persona games (and SMT as well) have very satisfying combat compared to other RPGs. I enjoyed the handcrafted dungeons on rails way better than the procedural generated ones of earlier games. It helps that the game has a really good enemy encounter rate without having any annoying puzzles that require so much back and forth.
I've been playing Great Ace Attorney Chronicles whenever the NFL is on TV. The slow scrolling dialogue text is really annoying. The option to change it to appear instantaneously is a bit hidden and it requires a button press on every dialogue box to do so. But it doesn't do it immediately so I end up overpressing buttons and skipping a dialogue box by accident sometimes. Good thing these games come with a dialogue history tab.
On November 06 2022 09:52 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: I'm really loving Harvestella so far! It's an action JRPG with a ton of optional stuff to do, like side quests and farm simulation. I'm pretty new to the farm/life sim part, but it's fun optimizing each day with seeing how much story/rpg progress I can make while also juggling other optional things (like side quests and planting/harvesting crops to make money). The demo was solid - it convinced me to buy the game - but the full game is way better than I expected. Huge quality of life improvements compared to the demo, from longer days (the original time cycles from the demo were really fast, making it hard to accomplish much before getting back to my home/bed before midnight, but it's totally manageable now) to a more comprehensive and intuitive UI. Interesting class/job systems and skills too, although there doesn't seem to be a ton of customizability in terms of weapons/armor (yet?). No separate battle screens, just real-time combat like in Ys 8, and the fights so far have been fair although pretty simple. Interesting story so far that's gradually introduced at a reasonable clip while continuing to explore and play each day.
On November 06 2022 09:52 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: I'm really loving Harvestella so far! It's an action JRPG with a ton of optional stuff to do, like side quests and farm simulation. I'm pretty new to the farm/life sim part, but it's fun optimizing each day with seeing how much story/rpg progress I can make while also juggling other optional things (like side quests and planting/harvesting crops to make money). The demo was solid - it convinced me to buy the game - but the full game is way better than I expected. Huge quality of life improvements compared to the demo, from longer days (the original time cycles from the demo were really fast, making it hard to accomplish much before getting back to my home/bed before midnight, but it's totally manageable now) to a more comprehensive and intuitive UI. Interesting class/job systems and skills too, although there doesn't seem to be a ton of customizability in terms of weapons/armor (yet?). No separate battle screens, just real-time combat like in Ys 8, and the fights so far have been fair although pretty simple. Interesting story so far that's gradually introduced at a reasonable clip while continuing to explore and play each day.
Fuck, that looks really cool! Thank you for sharing ^^
You're welcome! Also, just discovered this gem: Harvestella (by Square Enix) has a fabulous reference to Octopath Traveler (also by Square Enix). Two of my favorite Switch games
Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet - Official Game Overview Trailer
I'm still enjoying Harvestella for the foreseeable future, and then I have Tactics Ogre Reborn to play through, so I'm going to hold off on buying Pokemon S/V and Sonic Frontiers for now, especially if the reviews are just meh.