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Sen No Kiseki III |Import OT| Teacher by day, Military Officer by night

I wonder if PSNprofiles is working on another awesome import walk through like they did for 1 and 2 before the official localization came out.

It was basically a supplement walkthrough but had all the maps with their respective treasure chests and copied all the kanji from the game on the guide so you knew where to go.
 

Balfour

Member
How many stars crosses the threshold to non-platonic relationships?

You mean the actual stars on their bond rank?

If so it depends on the character. anyone with 3 stars doesn't even have bonding events unless they are in another's event

As for non-platonic you only get to advance on
Alisa, Emma, and Laura. You get an actual choice if you see the last bonding event for one of them. It sounds like Sara just gets a confession from him I think. I don't know what is said in the scene, but you don't get the option sadly. Too bad. I like Sara. And it is wierd because you can do it in SEN 2. The rest are platobic/buddy relationships. As for Claire you don't even see any events for her, just that she seems to have a thing for Rean, which was around since the end of CS2, but you don't get anything here
 

Shouta

Member
Man, chapter 2 was even better than chapter 1. It managed to mix the perfect amount of nostalgia and character growth all while tying it into the story. The end of the chapter isn't quite as crazy as the first but it's just way stronger all around.

Time to dig into Chapter 3.
 

Korigama

Member
Hm, I'd keep up with watching the stream, but not able to manage 720p/60 FPS on my connection (having the option to downgrade to 360p in the past worked for me, though). Seems I'll just have to review the VODs.
 
Game is good but I am not impressed by the graphics. I think YSVIII looked better. And so did DQXI. Will they ever go open-world and abandon loading screens and invisible walls?
 

Bebpo

Banned
So I'm finishing up Chapter 2 around 40 hours now, and pretty mixed on the game at around halfway.

I actually think the game is great, but the school section really really screws over the pacing of the entire game. Cut the school section out and this is easy my favorite Sen game already. But all the school stuff makes it a very like/dislike game.

Here's my thing, since the game is a formula like the other Sen games (and most of the other Kiseki games in general), the formula is like this (times I give are if you're doing everything 100%, talk to all NPCs every update, play cards once with each new card npc, do all quests, watch all friendship events through save/reloads):

I. School section of 6-8 hours of zzzzzzzz and zzzzzz dungeon; Pretty much no plot movement. NPCs in the town are not very interesting, only the students, school dungeon is zzz since there's no mystery or lore this time. Friendship event cast doesn't seem quite as interesting imo.
II. First half of new location story of 6-8 hours. Very slow paced, find lost cats and wallets and talk to a million NPCs, explore the new town/city without much plot movement.
III. Second half of new location story of 6-8 hours. Awesome. Exciting. Can't put down. Every chapter's second half of the location's story feels like the kind of exciting movement you normally get in the second to last chapter of a Kiseki game where things are happening. Great stuff.

= About 20 hours+ total per chapter for me so far.

Now here's the thing, On its own #II aka the first half at a new location being slow paced helping people out quests is fine. It's a new location, which is exciting and there's nothing wrong with slowly exploring the new location(s) and the people there and doing little quests to flesh out the area with a few hints here and there of plot. This helps set up the story so when it kicks into gear for the second half it's even better.

This is how before Sen, pretty much every Kiseki chapter was. If you cut #I, aka the school section of 6-8 hours out and it was just #II->#III every chapter, Sen 3 would be awesome and feeling like a good 8.5->9/10 so far on the level of Crossbell outside the cast which is no Lloyd & crew imo.

But not only is the school sim section a bore, because it's back to back with the #II aka first half of new location slow paced story it creates like 14 hours straight of snail crawl pacing between each set of story movement.

For example, you push through the school section, maybe as fast as you can just to get it over with and get to the next location, and after burning through 5-8 hours in a day or two of gaming sessions to burn through it, what do you get next? Plopped into a new location finding cats and dogs and lost wallets and nothing happening for another 5-8 hours. It's such a downer and it's making me dislike the game during this period each chapter.

Then the story picks up in #III aka the back half of the location and it's great and I really like the game and can't put it down.

So that's where I am at this point in the mixed bag of Sen 3. What I would do for a Sen 3 without the school. I'm tempted to just ignore all the NPC talk/sidequests to try to make those sections as short as possible, but been trying to S rank each chapter, so gotta do it all.

After Tokyo Xanadu school, Sen 1 school and Sen 3 school. I hope this is it for school Falcom and they've had their school fun and we never see another school game from them again. It's kinda weird too because I have no problems at all with the school sim in Persona 3/4/5, it's quick and fun, but for some reason how they do school in these Falcom games is just really boring and feels like busy work to a degree. I think it may have to do with all these missables in it so you have to do tons and tons of stuff to get everything, whereas in Persona you just attend a class and answer a question and go work a job and go to sleep or something and it's short.

Just my $.02 where I'm at. I don't really think anything there is spoilerish so not spoiler tagging anything.
 
Mid Ch. II

It was interesting to see people's responses to the end of Ch. I. I was surprised that the game takes you to Hamel and it's one of the better parts of the game, but I don't know if there was anything particularly exciting about it outside of Hamel itself. The game reverts back to the mistakes of Sora SC - "experiments" that seem to exist for the sole purpose of creating conflict for the characters. I did really enjoy the way Yuuna and co decide to go over and see what is going on for themselves and how the scene played out in terms of their involvement.

Later in the game, Crossbell is largely blocked off. To the point where you can't even travel through the govt district to get to Orchis Tower. I thought much of the area surrounding Crossbell might be blocked off, but I never imagined major parts of the city would be as well. And now more interactions with Ouroboros that don't seem like they will amount to much in the grand scheme of things. The scene with Yuuna taking things out on Rean at the top of Orchis Tower doesn't really seem to work and Randy saying that VII組 should take over for the 特務支援課 feels like such bullshit, it's almost insulting. Randy's inclusion is seeming like a mistake and the return to Crossbell isn't quite what it should have been. It's not the stark portrayal of an occupied city state that it needed to be - the portrayal we see at the end of Ao. Falcom is happy to give characters dark or tragic backstories, but scenarios that should have a dark veneer to them? Maybe not so much.

I know people have talked about Ch. III being crazy, but I'm keeping my expectations in check. I just hope I don't complete the game and go "okay, so what?" I have a feeling that at the end of the day, Sen I will be the larger, more complete game. Even if the school sections were, for the most part, a bit more of a slog.
 

Bebpo

Banned
I get what you're saying re: tests, and I agree it's a bit lame that every Kiseki game is the bad guys going lets do a test and then you fight and then they run away and there's no real progress until the final chapters when stuff that actually matters happens.

But that's every Kiseki game and at this point 8 games in I've sorted accepted it. Its how Falcom makes their final chapters each game so good, they spend the whole game teasing and setting up and then when it pays off in the last chapter it's super satisfying and you leave the story with a great impression and can't wait for the next game. It's a little abusive of the fanbase, and I do wish they'd change up how formulaic the series is with each game being the same formula over and over until like the last chapter. I mean like in Sen 2 for the first 1/3rd of the game you knew that each mini-chapter you'd meet 3 old cast members again in each location, that someone would come in when you fought a boss and save you and etc... etc... so there's fewer surprises because it's a formula. Without bothering to spoiler text stuff, Sen 3's chapters so far are exactly the same.

Although one small criticism I have with Falcom is how they make playable characters 100x more powerful in cutscenes than when they are in your party. Like a character will appear and kill some boss in 1 hit you just spent a whole party fighting and when that character is in your party their stats are just the same as yours. It's honestly pretty stupid imo lol the power levels in the cutscenes and actual gameplay feel like they have very little relation to each other these days.

Btw, another thought I had after chapter 2 was that one of the major criticisms I had with Sen 1 & 2 was how serious it was and how it was missing most of the fun sillyness and humor of the Liberl and Crossbell games. Sen 3 is the same in that respect. There was one moment in Chapter 2 around 60% through where
Kurt and Yuna tell Altina "let's go away from the creepy pedo Rean" with Yuno putting her arm around Altina and leading her away from Rean and Rean freaking out. Not only was that a cute little humor bit, but magically it was the first time Yuno/Kurt/Altina really started to grow on me and become likeable cast members.
Just like Olivert never would have been as loveable without his goofy minstrel ballads in Sky or Lechter wouldn't be as likeable without his great comedy tourist bits in Zero, the trails series has always used humor and jokes, whether it's Cassius Bright cracking a joke to Tio being a foil to Randy's playboy-ism [or Waji trolling everyone], or Kevin hiding his sadness with jokes, to create likeable interesting cast members.

Even in Sen 2, a lot of people like Duvale the most of the antagonist team because she was hot headed and goofy. I actually liked Milleum the best of the supporting team members because she was silly. Kiseki/Trails has always been a goofy fun series along with the serious bits. I'm not saying Sen 3 doesn't have any humor (feels about on par with Sen 1/2), but it's pretty serious/dry.

I get it that this is a serious arc here in Erebonia because these are depressing serious times and everything is sad and war. But spending a decade (Ao was 2010? Calvard won't be before 2020) losing out on a lot of the sillyness and lighter heartedness of the series was a big mistake imo. I worry that with the Sen series they've tried to make the game too realistic to match the more realistic proportion 3d, and I just hope when we get to Calvard we get some light hearted goofy cast members again. I really think it's one of the main reason the Sen main school cast is a lot worse than the Sky/Crossbell main cast. I mean Estelle was hilarious and her and Olivert made the first game work.
 

Shouta

Member
I'm quite happy with the school segments myself. They feel like they slimmed it down from Sen 1 and Sen 2 a little bit thanks to the smaller number of students and available bond points but it still does what it's meant to do, be the vehicle to move the plot forward while helping to set up the story and characters. Seeing everything from the viewpoint of a teacher is really interesting too. You can just ignore what's going on on campus as well and it feels like it fits since you're just heading home from work instead of handling overtime, lol.

They really refined what they learned in the first two games as well. The students are far more unique and easy to remember, they have their own backstories that come up, you get to see them interact more with those main characters in the foreground, and they have actual involvement in the main story even if it's tertiary. It's just way more engaging than anything that Persona, for a game that does something similar, has done in regards to this aspect.

That said, I can understand it being a bit in the way if your interest is in the over-arcing story only. That's probably the thing that clashes the most with the school setting. They're not focusing on either aspect entirely which means that the the extent to which they do stuff in each section is fairly limited. Not as many crazy school events for the player to see and there are fewer quests in the local cities and less socializing with the citizens that live there. Since it's a change in location, it feels like it's less connected to what's going on when things do get moving. These sections in Sky and Zero/Ao were all still situated in the city themselves even though you were doing the same thing like finding cats and shit. It feels connected despite being mundane.

Mid Ch. II

It was interesting to see people's responses to the end of Ch. I. I was surprised that the game takes you to Hamel and it's one of the better parts of the game, but I don't know if there was anything particularly exciting about it outside of Hamel itself. The game reverts back to the mistakes of Sora SC - "experiments" that seem to exist for the sole purpose of creating conflict for the characters. I did really enjoy the way Yuuna and co decide to go over and see what is going on for themselves and how the scene played out in terms of their involvement.

Later in the game, Crossbell is largely blocked off. To the point where you can't even travel through the govt district to get to Orchis Tower. I thought much of the area surrounding Crossbell might be blocked off, but I never imagined major parts of the city would be as well. And now more interactions with Ouroboros that don't seem like they will amount to much in the grand scheme of things. The scene with Yuuna taking things out on Rean at the top of Orchis Tower doesn't really seem to work and Randy saying that VII組 should take over for the 特務支援課 feels like such bullshit, it's almost insulting. Randy's inclusion is seeming like a mistake and the return to Crossbell isn't quite what it should have been. It's not the stark portrayal of an occupied city state that it needed to be - the portrayal we see at the end of Ao. Falcom is happy to give characters dark or tragic backstories, but scenarios that should have a dark veneer to them? Maybe not so much.

I know people have talked about Ch. III being crazy, but I'm keeping my expectations in check. I just hope I don't complete the game and go "okay, so what?" I have a feeling that at the end of the day, Sen I will be the larger, more complete game. Even if the school sections were, for the most part, a bit more of a slog.

Ch II stuff

I do agree that some of the districts being cordoned off kinda sucks. It would have been nice to get a full recreation of Crossbell but since the story only involves areas that are necessary for the story, it makes sense.

The end of chapter 2 will make it more clear where things are going but the Orchis Tower roof definitely isn't an empty interaction. Yuna's break down on top of there makes total sense especially in light of her character, her own personal history, and her identity as a citizen of Crossbell. Having Randy as a part of the team and him asking Class VII to do what they can also makes sense as well considering the circumstances and what they were intending on doing with this chapter as a whole.

This story with Crossbell wasn't intended to be dark. It's supposed to be complicated, which it is, but definitely not dark. The average citizen in Crossbell isn't particularly affected and when you consider what's happened before, during, and after Zero/Ao, it's not a surprise. It's even mentioned in the story for that chapter that Crossbell is being treated as part of the Empire and is a core element in their new 8 Cities plan that's being proposed. That actually ends up benefiting the citizens.

One other thing to consider is that it's largely a matter of viewpoint. Sen is a look at the world through the eyes of an Imperial. Considering all that happened during Zero and Ao, many of the citizens of Erebonia thought that it was a good thing that Crossbell was integrated into their country. The tensions with Calvard, the events of Ao and them becoming an independent country ruled by a dictator, are all bad things from their perspective. For a citizen of Crossbell, it's pretty different. That's a huge reason why Juna is a part of the story, in fact. She's there as a representative of Crossbell and to be the voice of that situation.

In any case, this story is really the beginning of the Crossbell march towards independence. This explains the situation after the end of Ao in a pretty clean manner and paves the way for that epilogue now.
 

preta

Member
Hopefully the thing about (early ch. 3)
Rean suddenly getting a pendant from Emma to suppress his power enough to make it safe to use Spirit Unification regularly again
isn't just swept under the rug, because right now it feels like a real cop-out after all the stuff about
him losing control over his power and passing out in the Northern War and how he's had trouble with it since
.
 

Bebpo

Banned
Ch 2 stuff:

I just figure when it comes to Crossbell that since obviously we'll be going back in Sen 4 they decided to do the usual Falcom thing of splitting the city/surroundings in half and saving half of it for next game.
I mean all these entries/exists "This is outside the range of our mission, let's not go here" bits...yeah, pretty sure we'll be able to go through those next game.

Also, in general at this point, the game is covering a lot less than even my lowest expectations of timeline progression. But at the same time it's fleshing out these chapters and events in so much depth and detail and lots of great moments that I can't complain. Like at this point at ch.3 40+ hours in, I feel like I've already played a full rpg worth of game and I'm only halfway. But yeah, unless stuff changes in the back half of Sen 3, then Sen 3+4 combined is probably only going to cover like 8 months of timeline movement.
 

Shouta

Member
Hopefully the thing about (early ch. 3)
Rean suddenly getting a pendant from Emma to suppress his power enough to make it safe to use Spirit Unification regularly again
isn't just swept under the rug, because right now it feels like a real cop-out after all the stuff about
him losing control over his power and passing out in the Northern War and how he's had trouble with it since
.

I fully expect to see it later on myself. It's very likely that
there will be a point where Rean's power will increase and the pendant won't be enough to stabilize him at all. That would make the most sense

Ch 2 stuff:

I just figure when it comes to Crossbell that since obviously we'll be going back in Sen 4 they decided to do the usual Falcom thing of splitting the city/surroundings in half and saving half of it for next game.
I mean all these entries/exists "This is outside the range of our mission, let's not go here" bits...yeah, pretty sure we'll be able to go through those next game.

Also, in general at this point, the game is covering a lot less than even my lowest expectations of timeline progression. But at the same time it's fleshing out these chapters and events in so much depth and detail and lots of great moments that I can't complain. Like at this point at ch.3 40+ hours in, I feel like I've already played a full rpg worth of game and I'm only halfway. But yeah, unless stuff changes in the back half of Sen 3, then Sen 3+4 combined is probably only going to cover like 8 months of timeline movement.

It's very likely that Sen 4 will handle the section involving the liberation of Crossbell, I think. At the very least, it'll set the stage for it to happen. It would make sense to do so now that we've seen what Crossbell is like post-occupation and we understand what happened to the cast directly after the game. Falcom really wants to make sure all the pieces are in place and explained in the story before the move on so it wouldn't be like them to simply jump to the liberation without showing what happened between major plot movements.. It'll be pretty interesting especially with how much is going on right now.
 

Jiraiza

Member
Finished chapter 3 with 96 hours clocked. Gotta admit, I'm starting to feel the Trails burnout. I don't think the ending of chapter 3 was as super shocking as some people seem to make it, but it was pretty surprising. May or may not make a big wall of text on chapter 3 except
Jusis and Millium
are the best.

I hope Ange's okay.

Spoilers (in context of where I'm currently at):
Fun fact, I think
Jusis and Millium have the funnest and most unique victory quote so far.
It's like Falcom's telling me something! Runner up would be Rean giving Altina a hatpat.
 

Bebpo

Banned
It's way to early for me to say where Sen 3/4 is going in certain aspects since I'm only halfway, but just from what's happened so far the feeling I'm getting is that Sen 3 is fleshing out all the backstories, exposition, development and pulling everyone and every plotline together...
...so that Sen 4 can just be the huge epic action finale to the Sky/Crossbell/Erebonia trilogy.

Like Sen 3 feels A LOT like Ao, chapter 1-5? or whatever the chapter is before the final one where it's episodic but a lot of exciting stuff goes down. And then I can see Sen 4 being like that 30 hour shark jumping crazy action finale that Ao had but even longer and more involved.

Also ch 2 spoiler
I actually thought I finished Ch.2 and was on Ch.3 after the top of the tower fight scenes and saved. Then I found out there's still more in Crossbell lol, this game is long.

Anyhow, my complaint in the story so far is how long Sen is taking in doing stuff with the Church faction compared to Sky SC/3rd/Zero/Ao. They barely existed in Sen 1/2 until the end mention and Thomas doing a few things. Rosanne has like zero personality so far compared to the other two assistant who are awesome. And the church faction hasn't shown up yet in Sen 3 at this point. We have tons of Ouroboros since Sen 2, tons of every other faction, but the church is being saved for pretty late in the overall Sen 1-4 story, which is a bit of a bummer. Church faction is actually my favorite faction thanks to Kevin and Wadji both being amazing. I'm really looking forward to whenever they finally decide to show up and start kicking ass in Erebonia.

I'm quite happy with the school segments myself. They feel like they slimmed it down from Sen 1 and Sen 2 a little bit thanks to the smaller number of students and available bond points but it still does what it's meant to do, be the vehicle to move the plot forward while helping to set up the story and characters. Seeing everything from the viewpoint of a teacher is really interesting too. You can just ignore what's going on on campus as well and it feels like it fits since you're just heading home from work instead of handling overtime, lol.

They really refined what they learned in the first two games as well. The students are far more unique and easy to remember, they have their own backstories that come up, you get to see them interact more with those main characters in the foreground, and they have actual involvement in the main story even if it's tertiary. It's just way more engaging than anything that Persona, for a game that does something similar, has done in regards to this aspect.

I do think making the school kids cast like 1/3rd as many students and instead developing them into more unique personalities is a huge improvement. I hardly remember any non-party school kids from Sen 1/2, but I like a lot of these new students like the crazy cook kid from the mountains lol. I actually enjoy talking to all of them every dialogue update to see their storylines.
 

PK Gaming

Member
DLVb9pfV4AAiD7Q.jpg


DLVcDmGU8AAYUMs.jpg
 

Shouta

Member
I do think making the school kids cast like 1/3rd as many students and instead developing them into more unique personalities is a huge improvement. I hardly remember any non-party school kids from Sen 1/2, but I like a lot of these new students like the crazy cook kid from the mountains lol. I actually enjoy talking to all of them every dialogue update to see their storylines.

Freddy is great. He stands out a lot because of his design and having a character focused on survival like that is pretty interesting. Having his Specials be really good items but involve collecting bugs and stuff kills me, lol.

I can actually point out all the characters and personalities right now. So Falcom did a pretty good job on that front. I also like that they only brought back the most memorable folks from Sen 1 and Sen 2 for this game.
 

Balfour

Member
Finished chapter 3 with 96 hours clocked. Gotta admit, I'm starting to feel the Trails burnout. I don't think the ending of chapter 3 was as super shocking as some people seem to make it, but it was pretty surprising. May or may not make a big wall of text on chapter 3 except
Jusis and Millium
are the best.

I hope Ange's okay.

Spoilers (in context of where I'm currently at):
Fun fact, I think
Jusis and Millium have the funnest and most unique victory quote so far.
It's like Falcom's telling me something! Runner up would be Rean giving Altina a hatpat.

I guess Ch3 wasn't big for you

Let us hope the rest does it for you
 

Bebpo

Banned
Can't believe how big this game is. I take back all the criticism I had of Sen 3/4 split before playing.

This game definitely feels like it took 3 years to make. The crazy thing is I really feel they could've split Sen 3 in two games and sold it in part 1/2 and then Sen 4 probably the same, so 4 games for the back half Erebonia story. But yeah that would've been insane, but also making Sen 3 like 100+ hour long game is pretty insane too, especially if Sen 4 ends up being as long/huge.

Yeah, I really doubt Sen 4 comes out in a year. It's probably 2 years in 2019 fall. Gonna be a tough wait I'm sure after Sen 3, but if the quality and size of the game is like Sen 3 I'm fine with waiting. That being said, with the crummy sales that Sen 3 did, and Sen 4 probably not gonna do any better, I dunno how they can survive 5 years of development for 3+4. I hope the weak sales don't cause production problems for Sen 4 like having to shrink the size of the game with a lower budget or rush it out quicker. Especially since it's going to be the finale, so might as well take their time to get it right. I'd actually be ok with the Kiseki franchise closing down after Sen 4 and never getting Calvard and beyond if the do a great satisfying Sen 4 conclusion to this all.

I guess we'll see in a few months when Falcom starts talking about Sen 4 officially.
 
I dunno how they can survive 5 years of development for 3+4. I hope the weak sales don't cause production problems for Sen 4 like having to shrink the size of the game with a lower budget or rush it out quicker.
Tokyo Xanadu well outselling its market expectations likely makes up for Sen III's drop, meaning Falcom shouldn't have to worry about cash flow for the moment.

Glad to hear you're really getting into the game!
 

Balfour

Member
It had crummy sales? It sold 80% of its initial shipment I thought. Which was like 93.2k copies. That is not counting digital sales which was also on the Japanese PSN top sellers list. Which is a success for Falcom. While it didn't do quite as high as Sen1/Sen2 it also didn't have a mobile, Vita version (which always did better than the PS3 version over there). It also topped sales for that week, beating FIFA and Fire Emblem. It also did better alone than either console of the last titles

In comparison, Ys 8 only launched with 44k on Vita in 2016 and then only 28k for its PS4 launch months later for Japan. This is their usual targets. Espevially when Ys7 and Memories of Celceta sold less in its launch. And still thise were ported

For a small company only really making games for Japananese console market, i believe that is a success for them. I am sure they had their sales expectations in check. Especially when they decided to cut the Vita to try and up the quality

It selling 80% of what they initially shipped tells me it is around what they expected. Which even 100% sold would not have been equal two the last titles on launch from both consoles

People though this game was ginna flop like Tokyo Xanadu did
 

PK Gaming

Member
It had crummy sales? It sold 80% of its initial shipment I thought. Which was like 93.2k copies. That is not counting digital sales which was also on the Japanese PSN top sellers list. Which is a success for Falcom. While it didn't do quite as high as Sen1/Sen2 it also didn't have a mobile, Vita version (which always did better than the PS3 version over there). It also topped sales for that week, beating FIFA and Fire Emblem. It also did better alone than either console of the last titles

For a small company only really making games for Japananese console market, i believe that is a success for them. I am sure they had their sales expectations in check. Especially when they decided to cut the Vita to try and up the quality

It selling 80% of what they initially shipped tells me it is around what they expected. Which even 100% sold would not have been equal two the last titles on launch from both consoles

People though this game was ginna flop like Tokyo Xanadu did

People jumped to conclusions as they are wont to do. What's unusual is that some users used the initial sales figures to dump on Falcom for dropping Vita support (somewhat understandable) or outright claim they deserved to sell poorly(???).

Pretty strange of fans to want their series to tank.
 

Korigama

Member
People jumped to conclusions as they are wont to do. What's unusual is that some users used the initial sales figures to dump on Falcom for dropping Vita support or outright claim they deserved to sell poorly.

Pretty strange of fans to want their series to tank.
Vita owners seemed to react considerably more poorly to needing to move on to a new platform for this than PS3 owners, in spite of the latter also needing to start again. It was never particularly realistic to expect any one platform to provide the possibility of playing all of the games in one place one day other than PC.
 

Balfour

Member
People jumped to conclusions as they are wont to do. What's unusual is that some users used the initial sales figures to dump on Falcom for dropping Vita support or outright claim they deserved to sell poorly.

Pretty strange of fans to want their series to tank.

Since now they ecpect XSEED to localize, going PS4 only sounds also easier considering the Vita's health in the world market, let alone this game. It is a gamble for tha Japanese market yes, but they also said the Vita was limiting them a bit. They could still port it one day, but it would probably look and perform like ass
 
Selling 80-100% of a shipment sounds good, but the amount that Falcom can ship is limited to what retailers are willing to buy. It's not necessarily what Falcom themselves expected (or hoped) it to sell.

I'm going to fail a quest because I haven't been able to come across サモーナ? for 思い出のストラップ and a quick google search didn't seem to answer where I should be fishing.
 

Balfour

Member
You have a point, but comparing physical units alone going from two platforms (one a mobile) to one in Japan of all places, doesn't mean it had crummy sales

Famitsu reports the game had over 100k in physical sales alone. Falcom also said this. Falcom also said themselves that this game had far higher digital sales than the previous entries. When previous entries launched with 140k on 2 platforms not counting digital and this one onlt above 100k, but had far more digital sales, I think the game did fine. Especiall after they dropped the Vita. Being a small company like Falcom and based iff their sales history, I believe they know what to expect
 

Shouta

Member
Selling 80-100% of a shipment sounds good, but the amount that Falcom can ship is limited to what retailers are willing to buy. It's not necessarily what Falcom themselves expected (or hoped) it to sell.

I'm going to fail a quest because I haven't been able to come across サモーナ? for 思い出のストラップ and a quick google search didn't seem to answer where I should be fishing.

Check the vendor across the street from where you exchange for the strap lol.
 

Jiraiza

Member
I'm going to be 50 before this series ends, good lord.

Still hoping for a decent guide/helper that can walk us non-JP folks through like they had for the first two.

It's not that hard to get everything. You have unlimited saves and every optional event/item is marked on the map. The only thing would be the Edgar books which requires you to talk to certain NPCs to get them. But if you talk to all the NPCs anyway, you're likely not going to miss them.
 

Yu Narukami

Member
It's not that hard to get everything. You have unlimited saves and every optional event/item is marked on the map. The only thing would be the Edgar books which requires you to talk to certain NPCs to get them. But if you talk to all the NPCs anyway, you're likely not going to miss them.
Are there no hidden sidequests anymore?
 

Balfour

Member
Yeah this is kind of my biggest worry right here. So many NPCs that could have hidden sidequests in these games and sometimes the time window for them is so small.

All quests are marked now. You just have to go to each map and check every so often during each chapter
 

Bebpo

Banned
Are there no hidden sidequests anymore?

Most there's ever been. So many hidden quests, events, books. They barely give you any official quests, it's mostly stuff you find around town each dialogue update. Some great quests so far.

Heck, not only do you need to talk to every NPC every update, but you also need to revisit every field map because sometimes new events pop up there too. Luckily that kinda stuff (outside the books) is marked on the mini-map so combined with instant fast travel to every town section and field you can just jump to each field available in the chapter and pull up the mini-map.
 

Cruixant

Member
Got my game yesterday but only managed to play through the introduction so far lol.

Mapping the battle menus to buttons is kinda confusing, but I guess I'll get used to it.
The models and overall IQ are definitely improved from Sen 2 too, looks really good. Although, model animation doesn't really seem to be much better? Maybe it shines further in the game, but it doesn't feel as much of a big step up.

Can't say much else. I hope I get more time to play it during the weekend.
 

Bebpo

Banned
Re: animation, the main thing I'd like to see them work on is running animation everywhere you go. You see it all the time and it looks awful like ps2 era.

Also for graphics, the water looks pretty close to ps2/budget ps3 as well. The rest of the environments range from ok to good, but they could fix up their water art for sure.
 

Stuart444

Member
I don't have an issue with the running...

however as someone that loves seeing water in games, I'll agree with you, it doesn't look great. Fix up the water and I'd be really really happy.
 

Thoraxes

Member
Oh man, I forgot to mention one of the really good QOL things I noticed and really love: The NPC "Talk" indicator when you walk up to them changes color after you've seen their dialogue. (If Ys VIII did it, I haven't played it yet because of the delayed PC Version).

IIRC, I don't remember the other two games doing it, at least definitely not the first Sen.

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Also the game just looks super sharp on the Pro. I'm pretty sure it's downsampling. (Edit: for a 1080p user like myself)
 

Aters

Member
It selling 80% of what they initially shipped tells me it is around what they expected. Which even 100% sold would not have been equal two the last titles on launch from both consoles

People though this game was ginna flop like Tokyo Xanadu did


First, sell-through rate only tells you the expectation of retailers, not publishers. Second, Tokyo Xanadu did not flop.
 

preta

Member
First, sell-through rate only tells you the expectation of retailers, not publishers. Second, Tokyo Xanadu did not flop.

Seriously. Tokyo Xanadu was the opposite of a flop. They expected 50,000 and sold 150,000. Definitely expect a sequel.
 
Oh man, I forgot to mention one of the really good QOL things I noticed and really love: The NPC "Talk" indicator when you walk up to them changes color after you've seen their dialogue. (If Ys VIII did it, I haven't played it yet because of the delayed PC Version).

That is the most amazing thing.
 

Balfour

Member
First, sell-through rate only tells you the expectation of retailers, not publishers. Second, Tokyo Xanadu did not flop.

My bad, should have looked that one up more on Xanadu

and I see with the sell-through rate. But still it is quite good despite them dropping the Vita, especially compared to the numbers of their other console releases. Ys 8 didn't break those launch numbers (In Japan) with two consoles. I know Sen no kiseki is currently a more popular series, but it has done pretty well despite not having the mobile boost. I perfectly believe Falcom has reasonable expectations. They usually do. I still think they need to at the very least release it on PC or something. Home console markets just aren't where they used to be there

Regardless, can't wait for Sen 4
 

Jiraiza

Member
Gotta say, I love all the new students, but Aurelia's so great as the headmaster. I was always under the impression she'd be super rigid and strict, but she's an insanely fun character.
 
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