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[wrowa]

I just need someone to tell me that the pop-in effect isn't hugely annoying when playing the game. It looks cool, but looking at videos I get the impressions that objects pop in too late.

 

[Labadal]

I just need someone to tell me that the pop-in effect isn't hugely annoying when playing the game. It looks cool, but looking at videos I get the impressions that objects pop in too late.

Watching a few streams, it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would.

 

[RevenantKioku]

I feel like I'm getting to the point already where I only kind of notice the pop in. Some parts there is more than others so it's obvious, but it's becoming pleasant visual background noise.

Not a fan of the shop and equip menus. Wish it showed a comparison to the current equipment. There are not a lot of parameters, so it's not terrible. Do wish it was there.

 

[duckroll]

Not a fan of the shop and equip menus. Wish it showed a comparison to the current equipment. There are not a lot of parameters, so it's not terrible. Do wish it was there.

ARGH! It's one of those!!! Lol. Bad shop interfaces in JRPGs is one of my pet peeves. >_<

So, from the way you described the HP system earlier, it sounds like a much more forgiving version of LP? Instead of permanently losing a "life" if you fall in battle, enemies can just drain Max HP on downed characters until you visit an inn?

 

[RevenantKioku]

Yup. And that makes the battles interesting since shields come with a Block skill which takes hits for the other two part members. So maintaining that character's HP while actually killing the enemies is a challenge.

But it doesn't differentiate between healing a KO'd character and one who's alive. So if your healer goes after they die, they'll still get healed, just come back with less Max HP. If they KO'd character gets hit while down, though, more damage to the Max HP.


I should add that weapons only have attack power and armor defense power (as well as defense levels does elements and kinds of attacks, but these are represented by icons) so in the equip menu it's not so bad.

In the shop, though, I was like "shit, who has what equipped?"

 

[kuroneko0509]

heh escaping from battle sure is the easiest way to go back to world map

 

[RevenantKioku]

Yeah, didn't mention that. Dungeons are kind of all our nothing. If you choose to escape, you'll be sent to the start of the dungeon. Good way to stay safe, but if you want to make progress, you gotta fight.

 

[casiopao]

Uukhhh the OT is making me hoping for this goodness coming here.T_T

 

[Sammy Samusu]

Uukhhh the OT is making me hoping for this goodness coming here.T_T

XSEED, Atlus, NIS, etc are probably waiting to see how it performs in Japan.

Maybe we could get it by the end of 2015, if they act fast!

 

[Sesuadra]

Not a fan of the shop and equip menus. Wish it showed a comparison to the current equipment. There are not a lot of parameters, so it's not terrible. Do wish it was there.

oh no...why is a + or minus sign beside the stats to see if it rises them so hard to do :/ at least give me that..

Spoiler

yes, for me that is a pretty big flaw >.<

 

[Hasemo]

Count me in for this one.
Worst case scenario is selling it after a few days.

 

[Nimby]

Does that poster come with the standard edition?

 

[Hasemo]

Does that poster come with the standard edition?

That's not a poster, it's a clear file.
And yeah, I'm guessing that the clear file and mini soundtrack are both first print bonuses.

 

[thesaucetastic]

Anyone know how the story is so far? The shop thing is disappointing, but I can live with it, grudgingly.

 

[thetrin]

I'm massively busy on a business trip right now, but hopefully I'll have the chance to pick the game up this weekend.

 

[Dark_castle]

Cute OT. I like it.

 

[Pennywise83]

How's the music been so far? I read there are few tracks, but are all top-notch.

 

[thesaucetastic]

How's the music been so far? I read there are few tracks, but are all top-notch.

Judging by the live streams, they're amazing. I don't know how many of them there are in total though.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Man... this game looks really good but also really bad.

Need more impressions before biting on the DL version at 5,980 Yen. Post more, Revenant!

I guess I'll hop over to 2ch in the meantime.

edit: hmmm, seems like a lot of the impressions are that there's basically no story and that the game gets really repetitive. A lot of people are likening it to one of those smart phone "RPGs" that are just about battling and enjoying watching your stats rise.

 

[RevenantKioku]

Music and sound effects are pretty great.
My clock only says two hours, as I was playing around with getting game overs, but not much of the time was on story. The opening for Eloise was fun, then a dungeon, a cutscene and now I'm free to go around.

Spoiler

I went back to the first dungeon and got destroyed. Went to the shop, picked up a map for cheap and have been exploring that area successfully.

 

[Sinople]

Played for around 3 hours. I like it a lot for now.

The emphasis is definitely on exploration and battles: you find new areas, draw the map to sell it and sometimes find ruins giving some information about the history of the island. After that, you're back to town (too bad the only town is ridiculously small) to rest and give a report to the king in case you found something worthwhile, and you're back to exploring.

What I like is how the main character comments about a lot of little things without the game never becoming too talkative to the point of annoyance, as is often the case recently.
I also like the narration and the little description before entering new areas, the only parts with voice acting. It's rather well written and gives a nice touch.

The spirit system is cool too. When you call a spirit, it comes to give help in battle (the water spirit heals some HP and SP at the end of each turn) and allows you to cast spells associated to its element (not sure on this one, maybe they just give you their full potential). I had a fun fight with a boss using the same spirit so we were calling it alternately each turn and the poor thing had to move forth and back between both side the whole fight.

 

[RevenantKioku]

SP heals naturally one per end of turn (as long as that is not the end of battle), I believe. The Water Spirit is giving you the HP. I was reading on 2ch and if I understand correctly, the Wind Spirit gives more SP, and I'm not sure what the Fire and Shadow (or whatever it is) do.

I'm not sure if I missed it in the shop's text, but when you sell the map data, is it just a one time thing? Like, you have to explore everything before you cash in to get the most money? Or can you sell, explore some more and then sell again?

Also, using the shards seems to be how characters eventually unlock the elemental skills.

I really need to sit down with the in-game manual and read a bit.

 

[Sinople]

Yeah, I should read the manual too

You can't sell the same map more than once. That gives you the choice of selling an incomplete one if you're in need of cash or wait until you've done everything (which I recommend considering the bonus for 100% completion is huge).

About the shards, it seems you can use them without the spirit but there's a pop-up asking for a confirmation, meaning there's some kind of drawback. I need to look into it (or read the manual).

 

[thesaucetastic]

So there's no story? Damn, that is super disappointing.

 

[RevenantKioku]

Thanks. That's what I thought by exploring a bit, selling, exploring more, but I was wondering if maybe I had to explore a shitload more to be able to sell again. I do like it this way. (Also bummed because Liber earned a skill during that testing that he hasn't learned up again after I reset.)

Who did you start with? I picked Eloise who

Spoiler

joins up with Owen and Liber for the opening dungeon. When I went back to town I found Garnet in the bar. Swapped her with Owen for no particular reason.

I wouldn't consider those huge spoilers, for anyone who is curious about right at the start of the game stuff.

 

[Sinople]

I picked Filmia, with Liber and Bianca as starting companions. They have a funny introductory cutscene and Filmia's comments (as well as the other characters' comments about him) are humorous for the most part. I'm pretty happy with him.
Unfortunately, it doesn't appear characters have special, unique abilities for now (like in SaGa Frontier for example) or even big differences in stats, so I don't see the point in changing party members. I hope I'm wrong because that would be a little disappointing.

About the story, it's not there's none but it's not "in you face". For now, I've found some hints about the various mysteries surrounding the island and I'm pretty sure it will develop in the usual fight-the-evil-god JRPG fashion, just in a slower, less focused way.

 

[Pinko Marx]

I'm glad Frog is getting top billing as he deserves.
Game sounds simply, but fun, and the OST is amazing as I heard on the twitch.tv stream. Crossing fingers for western release.

 

[Aeana]

edit: hmmm, seems like a lot of the impressions are that there's basically no story and that the game gets really repetitive. A lot of people are likening it to one of those smart phone "RPGs" that are just about battling and enjoying watching your stats rise.

Based on what I've been hearing so far, that seems like a lack of perspective on their part. Probably not used to older RPGs, particularly not the earlier SaGa games. But I don't have the game yet, and I won't until Tuesday, so we'll see what I think when it gets here.

 

[duckroll]

I haven't seen any actual streams or anything yet, but my impression based on what the developers talked about before release is that the game is meant to be more non-linear and the scenario design is such that there is story and world building stuff all over, but how and when you encounter them can vary greatly so it's not designed to be sequential cutscenes and stuff like that.

I recall them talking about Masato Kato's credit in the game as "Text Direction" rather than "Scenario" for that reason. Apparently he did a lot of the writing and story supervision, but it's not scripted traditionally in scenes, but rather meant to be modular text which is spread all over the game.

 

[Sesuadra]

That's not a poster, it's a clear file.
And yeah, I'm guessing that the clear file and mini soundtrack are both first print bonuses.

I'm so jealous ;_;

 

[Sinople]

I played a little bit more. Every time I tried to cast a spell without a spirit on my side, it failed. I can safely say spells are as good as useless without calling a spirit first.

And damn it's getting challenging, the Screaming Valley was hard as nails for me. Maybe there's an easier area I missed somewhere...

 

[Hasemo]

Okay, you can laugh all you want, but I'm done.
The graphics are very good, same with the music.
Battle system is fast, but for some reason I got bored of it after a few hours, when I was fighting the same monsters most of the time, trying to clear the second map.
From what I understand, now that I've played it, the game basically boils down to clearing a map after a map, while each new area adds some kind of a gimmick, like poison flowers that slow you down/an eagle like monster which attacks you if you walk on its shadow etc.
Going in I knew that it won't be a story driven RPG, but I don't think that the battle system is enough fun for me to keep going.
There are also minor annoyances, like no equipment comparison mentioned by RK, oversimplified town and the fact that you can basically turn off your brain for 90% of the time, not counting the boss fights or going into the new area with strong monsters.
I know that I haven't played a ton of it, but it's not a type of an RPG that I enjoy.

 

[RevenantKioku]

Hey, I was right!

 

[kuroneko0509]

Time to continue playing this since I'm done with exams.

 

[Black Soma]

Someone has to localize this. The world needs more SaGa games.

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Based on what I've been hearing so far, that seems like a lack of perspective on their part. Probably not used to older RPGs, particularly not the earlier SaGa games. But I don't have the game yet, and I won't until Tuesday, so we'll see what I think when it gets here.

Maybe, but it was the thread on 2chan, so it's hard to tell. On the one hand, you'd expect most of hte people there to be pretty hardcore and knowledgeable of the genre. On the other hand, you have to expect a lot of cynical assholes, too.

Reading impressions around the net yesterday, it does seem like there is absolutely not story outside of some initial introductions and "ambient" text. Apparently some party members just join up without any context or explanation at all.

Either way, I'm going to wait a bit more until people start finishing the game for more fully-fleshed impressions.

 

[Sinople]

I was struggling yesterday when the difficulty ramped up after a couple of maps but once I realized how each system (formations, roles, spirits, magic) works, it all clicked and it's so good!
The only thing I don't understand is why damages increase when the water spirits influence is strong (or maybe it's the fact one of the other spirits' influence is weakened?). There's nothing about it in-game or in the manual. I guess it wouldn't be a Koizumi game without one or two obscure mechanics.

Regarding the story, (spoiler tags just in case, nothing about the story itself)

Spoiler

every time you find a shard (a spell), your characters hear a song about a part of the story of the island and what happened to it. It works like a jigsaw puzzle this way as there's no order in which you find those. It's true there's almost zero cutscene or traditional plot sequences but there's a "story", it's just that it's not focused on the characters but the island itself. Though all characters have motivations of their own that may link to some developments later down the road.

And regarding the boring encounters: you're not supposed to fight every monster, especially those that are too easy for you, they're not gonna raise your stats anyway, or very little. It's when fighting strong monsters your characters learn new techniques and level up more frequently . The griffon-like thing of the Screaming Valley is ideal for this: it's really strong and contrary to a normal boss, you can flee whenever it's getting dangerous.

 

[Ratrat]

Maybe, but it was the thread on 2chan, so it's hard to tell. On the one hand, you'd expect most of hte people there to be pretty hardcore and knowledgeable of the genre. On the other hand, you have to expect a lot of cynical assholes, too.

Reading impressions around the net yesterday, it does seem like there is absolutely not story outside of some initial introductions and "ambient" text. Apparently some party members just join up without any context or explanation at all.

Either way, I'm going to wait a bit more until people start finishing the game for more fully-fleshed impressions.

Reviews on amazon seem to complain about marketing. I guess if you were expecting a more traditional jrpg experience you'd be disappointed.

 

[komorebi]

I love Hamauzu's music and I've been in love with Kobayashi's hummingbird/marmot/flower bouquet laden character artwork since SaGa Frontier... if this game isn't localized I might have a breakdown of some sort. Looking forward to hearing more impressions because I forgot all about this game.

Also this:

JUST LOOK AT THIS.

 

[Sinople]

This game is the Icewind Dale of JRPG.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

DO NOT BUY THIS GAME

I'm deadly serious

 

[TurnipFritters]

This game is the Icewind Dale of JRPG.

Elaborate?

 

[Bardiche]

This needs to be localized. We need more SaGa games here.

 

[RevenantKioku]

BUY THIS GAME.

I'm super serious, everyone.

 

[Thoraxes]

Every day that passes I think about using my tax return on importing a n3DS (the little one) and this game.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

BUY THIS GAME.

I'm super serious, everyone.

Why would you subject them to thiiiis


Granted, I'm not far into it but the battle system and strength chasm between even initial fodder and player characters are abysmal. The minimal story and gameplay are also cons. It's a wagon buy, if that.

 

[Sinople]

Elaborate?

The focus on exploration and battles, the necessity to use all the tools at your disposal to win against foes both numerous and stronger than your characters, dungeon-like areas that hide dungeons or lead to other dungeon-like areas, the feeling of discovery, the absence of needless talk...
Maybe that's just me but I feel the same way than when I was playing ID. I like, and often prefer, a good story-driven RPG but sometimes it's nice to have this kind of game.

Granted, I'm not far into it but the battle system and strength chasm between even initial fodder and player characters are abysmal. The minimal story and gameplay are also cons. It's a wagon buy, if that.

The battle system is abysmal? No way, it's fantastic.

 

[Labadal]

I'll buy it if it gets localized. I don't care if the story is non-existent.

And for anyone saying this is the Icewind Dale of JrpgS: I like ID.

 

[RevenantKioku]

There is a Quick Save. Use it vigorously.

Why would you subject them to thiiiis

Granted, I'm not far into it but the battle system and strength chasm between even initial fodder and player characters are abysmal. The minimal story and gameplay are also cons. It's a wagon buy, if that.

I think it's designed for a very specific kind of person, but it is not a poorly made game.

Minimal story is also never a "pro" or a "con", it's a thing subject to both taste and desires. Tales of Soap Pasta came out the same day as this. It's nice to see a variety of games available. I'd be a smart and cautious buyer about this, but I wouldn't label it 100% Do Not Buy.

 

[Orniletter]

The focus on exploration and battles, the necessity to use all the tools at your disposal to win against foes both numerous and stronger than your characters, dungeon-like areas that hide dungeons or lead to other dungeon-like areas, the feeling of discovery, the absence of needless talk...
Maybe that's just me but I feel the same way than when I was playing ID. I like, and often prefer, a good story-driven RPG but sometimes it's nice to have this kind of game.

It sounds great, different from your standard vanilla 32bit JRPG but great nontheless.

All I need to enjoy a JRPG are some ok-ish presentation and a good battle system. Seems like this one fits the bill !