Schopenhauer
Member
My amazon order is on track to arrive sometime tomorrow afternoon. I probably won't play it till after Mass Effect 2 though. Don't want to feel like I am rushing through it or anything.
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Official Sands of Destruction (DS) Thread -- Save the World? No, Let's End it!
- Thread starter Volcynika
- Start date
Reluctant-Hero
Member
My copy shipped today as well. I should receive on the 15th. I've been looking forward to this game since I played it at PAX last September.
Ok I have played close to 2 hours, here are some very early impressions:
+Really good graphics especially for DS, possibly the best I have seen on the system so far. I haven't noticed any slowdown yet either, which is really nice.
+Music! I love Mitsuda and have been looking forward to this game's music, and it does not disappoint. It isn't on CC or Xenogears level so far but it really is great.
-Voice Acting. I had no idea how much there would be. It's not the amount but quality that irritates me already. It's just...laughably bad so far. I wonder if they paid some people walking around outside their offices to come in and record some lines for them?? :lol I guess at this point I just hope it becomes more scarce further into the game.
-Translation. Maybe too early to tell how this is going to shake out but so far, I'm not impressed at ALL. I have already noticed a couple english language phrases that make no sense at all because they are butchered and awkward sounding. There aren't typos or anything but it's all just so BLAH and a little off.
Story seems insane so far but I think it may be coming off worse than it actually is because of the bad voice acting and iffy translation. About the encounter rate - It seems so far that battles are going to be verrry frequent. I was getting into a battle every few steps tonight and while battles move at a fine pace, it was really annoying. We'll see, maybe it's just a fluke since I'm barley into the game yet.
I'll update with more thoughts after I have played a bit more. Take everything above with a grain of salt, I'm sure some of it will change after more playtime
+Really good graphics especially for DS, possibly the best I have seen on the system so far. I haven't noticed any slowdown yet either, which is really nice.
+Music! I love Mitsuda and have been looking forward to this game's music, and it does not disappoint. It isn't on CC or Xenogears level so far but it really is great.
-Voice Acting. I had no idea how much there would be. It's not the amount but quality that irritates me already. It's just...laughably bad so far. I wonder if they paid some people walking around outside their offices to come in and record some lines for them?? :lol I guess at this point I just hope it becomes more scarce further into the game.
-Translation. Maybe too early to tell how this is going to shake out but so far, I'm not impressed at ALL. I have already noticed a couple english language phrases that make no sense at all because they are butchered and awkward sounding. There aren't typos or anything but it's all just so BLAH and a little off.
Story seems insane so far but I think it may be coming off worse than it actually is because of the bad voice acting and iffy translation. About the encounter rate - It seems so far that battles are going to be verrry frequent. I was getting into a battle every few steps tonight and while battles move at a fine pace, it was really annoying. We'll see, maybe it's just a fluke since I'm barley into the game yet.
I'll update with more thoughts after I have played a bit more. Take everything above with a grain of salt, I'm sure some of it will change after more playtime
Most of the voice work is definitely pretty annoying, but I was actually just coming to comment on how competent I thought the translation was. It's not amazing, but I haven't seen any of these awkward phrasings you mention.
Also, I kind of feel like the first boss was easier than in the Japanese game... not sure, though. It could just be in my head.
Also, I kind of feel like the first boss was easier than in the Japanese game... not sure, though. It could just be in my head.
I'm back sooner than expected.
Still pretty, still great music.
but FUCK the encounter rate in this game. Jesus. It's already to the point that I want to rage launch my DS at the wall lol. I don't want to take ONE STEP after a battle and get into another one. I REALLY don't want to get out of the 2nd battle and walk about 5 steps and enter yet another one :/
I don't know much about voice acting on the DS, but there are a lot of awkward pauses after one character talks and the next one starts. Sometimes it flows normally and sometimes it just hangs for like 5 seconds til the next voice clip. I even had the voice just drop out in the middle of the main character talking a few minutes ago, but that has only happened once so far.
Instruction manual - Bad. Black and white , and again it's just worded strangely the entire way through. I read it, but it was not very helpful at all tbh. Disappointing (I have a thing for game manuals, when well done).
I read the import impressions thread to see what others thought and I notice they mention the story being sort of silly in the beginning but getting better - I agree with the zaniness, I can't really tell if it's making fun of itself or it's just bad lol but they are all boucing around like "weeeeee! let's destroy the world!!!!!!" it's so weird!
Difficulty is ok so far. I do seem to get ambushed an awful lot which leads to more drawn out battles, but eh, it's not horrific yet.
Sorry for the downer remarks - I have been really excited about this game since it came out in Japan, and maybe I just had higher hopes for it than what could be delivered. Maybe it gets better and the things that are bothering me will smooth out. Eh. I'll post more later after I've played some more.
Still pretty, still great music.
but FUCK the encounter rate in this game. Jesus. It's already to the point that I want to rage launch my DS at the wall lol. I don't want to take ONE STEP after a battle and get into another one. I REALLY don't want to get out of the 2nd battle and walk about 5 steps and enter yet another one :/
I don't know much about voice acting on the DS, but there are a lot of awkward pauses after one character talks and the next one starts. Sometimes it flows normally and sometimes it just hangs for like 5 seconds til the next voice clip. I even had the voice just drop out in the middle of the main character talking a few minutes ago, but that has only happened once so far.
Instruction manual - Bad. Black and white , and again it's just worded strangely the entire way through. I read it, but it was not very helpful at all tbh. Disappointing (I have a thing for game manuals, when well done).
I read the import impressions thread to see what others thought and I notice they mention the story being sort of silly in the beginning but getting better - I agree with the zaniness, I can't really tell if it's making fun of itself or it's just bad lol but they are all boucing around like "weeeeee! let's destroy the world!!!!!!" it's so weird!
Difficulty is ok so far. I do seem to get ambushed an awful lot which leads to more drawn out battles, but eh, it's not horrific yet.
Sorry for the downer remarks - I have been really excited about this game since it came out in Japan, and maybe I just had higher hopes for it than what could be delivered. Maybe it gets better and the things that are bothering me will smooth out. Eh. I'll post more later after I've played some more.
Ok 4 hours played now and well, the last dungeon's encounter rate was perfect. That really confuses me since it's been horrible up until now. I was in there at least 30 minutes and had no back to back fights and went like 20 seconds or more between fights....really odd.
Voice acting in the last couple scenes wasn't as bad as everything before it either, but I'm still finding the translation to be a little off. I don't know how to put that any better but I don't think many people are going to be handing out kudos over this aspect.
Still gorgeous and I really wonder how they get the textures to look as good as they do. I mean yeah, the sprites get really pixelated when the camera zooms in (which they do a lot in cutscenes, reminds me a bit of Xenogears in that regard) - but the 3D stuff...it's WAY smoother looking than other DS stuff...Zelda ST comes to mind immediately.
Battles have gotten more interesting now that I have gotten a few new abilites that I can chain together. I'd say the game is easy at this point...the boss I just fought hit my characters for 1 point of damage, or missed completely the entire fight. That was unexpected!
Ok this is my last rambling for tonight, I will probably stop back in tomorrow night after I have had all day to fiddle with it
Voice acting in the last couple scenes wasn't as bad as everything before it either, but I'm still finding the translation to be a little off. I don't know how to put that any better but I don't think many people are going to be handing out kudos over this aspect.
Still gorgeous and I really wonder how they get the textures to look as good as they do. I mean yeah, the sprites get really pixelated when the camera zooms in (which they do a lot in cutscenes, reminds me a bit of Xenogears in that regard) - but the 3D stuff...it's WAY smoother looking than other DS stuff...Zelda ST comes to mind immediately.
Battles have gotten more interesting now that I have gotten a few new abilites that I can chain together. I'd say the game is easy at this point...the boss I just fought hit my characters for 1 point of damage, or missed completely the entire fight. That was unexpected!
Ok this is my last rambling for tonight, I will probably stop back in tomorrow night after I have had all day to fiddle with it
That's unfortunate. And this is exactly why it pays to preorder early via Amazon. You get the built-in benefit of automatically adopting every single pre-release price drop that occurs after your preorder, and get locked at the lowest of them should the price jump up again.
MidnightScott
Banned
Wow this game is really awesome in my opinion. I like anything that kind of plays like Golden Sun so it has my interests. I like the music and the voice acting from Morte is wonderful, so is Kyrie. The anime seemed a bit strange when I watched it on FUNi's site last night.
Maybe I'm just not picky but I find the game to be awesome =D
Maybe I'm just not picky but I find the game to be awesome =D
Random thoughts continued:
Camera jerks around in towns. You can't change the camera angle in towns but as you are moving around it moves to different angles and then back to the "normal" view, but it's jarring and abrupt.
was a hard fight- after the last boss doing nearly no damage, he was killing my party members and hitting for really high damage multiple times in a row before I could act!
More on difficulty: The place I am in now has fairly easy normal encounters but then, randomly, one enemy will hit me for around 1/4 of my HP and then get 2 or 3 more attacks right after, effectively leaving me with around 10HP or dead. Probably crits but it sucks. The difficulty, just like the voice acting quality and encounter rate, seems to be all over the place with the game. As a package, the whole thing just feels schizo at this point :lol
I'm not having a BAD time despite what it may sound like, but I am very conflicted overall currently. I'll be back later with more...
Camera jerks around in towns. You can't change the camera angle in towns but as you are moving around it moves to different angles and then back to the "normal" view, but it's jarring and abrupt.
Porcus Rex
More on difficulty: The place I am in now has fairly easy normal encounters but then, randomly, one enemy will hit me for around 1/4 of my HP and then get 2 or 3 more attacks right after, effectively leaving me with around 10HP or dead. Probably crits but it sucks. The difficulty, just like the voice acting quality and encounter rate, seems to be all over the place with the game. As a package, the whole thing just feels schizo at this point :lol
I'm not having a BAD time despite what it may sound like, but I am very conflicted overall currently. I'll be back later with more...
cosmicblizzard
Banned
So is the story like Disgaea in its goofiness or does it actually try to be serious?
cosmicblizzard said:
Hmm. The first few hours it's not totally unlike Disgaea but it never gets all the way up to that level crazy (yet). It has started to mellow out some with all the insanity, which is a nice change of pace. Again, I think the (to me) funny bad voice acting makes it even sillier, if I was ever supposed to take them seriously, that was all over when they spoke. Not all the voice acting is that horrible though, there are some decent ones in the mix now. This question may be for someone who has played the entire game. It's not slapstick comedy, but it's by NO means something like Xenogears in maturity/seriousness.
Freyjadour
Member
Spent a few hours with it. I'm now at
. Overall I'd say the experience does nothing but improve as you continue to play. The first hour to two are pretty "meh" though.
Once you start obtaining chain skills and leveling them up to a point where you can pull off 10+ combos, the battle system starts to really shine. While I was fighting a boss, Taupy pulled off two crits in a row on a Flurry chain into a stun with a Blow attack leading to a Follow Up air ability which gave me 6 BP and lead to a final "Special" attack. Needless to say that felt really cool, but it isn't particularly easy to pull off at this point in the game. Most battles seem to follow an "attack twice, next character" rotation, but I can see where that will open up more. Definitely has a Xenogears feel to it, I am more impressed than I expected to be with the gameplay.
Music is fantastic. VERY strong Xenogears vibes from some of the dungeon and battle music, and CC vibes from a few of the locales as well. I can't say that someone who had no previous experience or care about Mitsuda would really notice the soundtrack, but being someone who melts into nostalgia everytime I hear a CC or XG track, I definitely do.
It's strange how much I notice Xenogears is the small details of things. The zooming of the camera, the way NPCs move around, the swaying of Kyrie on the battle screen. Despite the much more light-hearted story, I expect to be jumping into giant robots any minute now.
Sky Gaol
Once you start obtaining chain skills and leveling them up to a point where you can pull off 10+ combos, the battle system starts to really shine. While I was fighting a boss, Taupy pulled off two crits in a row on a Flurry chain into a stun with a Blow attack leading to a Follow Up air ability which gave me 6 BP and lead to a final "Special" attack. Needless to say that felt really cool, but it isn't particularly easy to pull off at this point in the game. Most battles seem to follow an "attack twice, next character" rotation, but I can see where that will open up more. Definitely has a Xenogears feel to it, I am more impressed than I expected to be with the gameplay.
Music is fantastic. VERY strong Xenogears vibes from some of the dungeon and battle music, and CC vibes from a few of the locales as well. I can't say that someone who had no previous experience or care about Mitsuda would really notice the soundtrack, but being someone who melts into nostalgia everytime I hear a CC or XG track, I definitely do.
It's strange how much I notice Xenogears is the small details of things. The zooming of the camera, the way NPCs move around, the swaying of Kyrie on the battle screen. Despite the much more light-hearted story, I expect to be jumping into giant robots any minute now.
Freyjadour
Member
Apologies for the double post, but the game just threw a pretty huge "WTF" moment at me.
Fighting boss in
, get him down to around 10% I'd guess, and he buffs himself with some super ability. Damage increases from around 1-6 per hit to 40-60 per hit and he gets 4 turns in a row. Proceeds to slap my party into the ground. Game Over.
Wat :lol
Fighting boss in
Sky Gaol
Wat :lol
Freyjadour
Member
Oichi said:
Yeah, it's....random? :lol Sometimes you'll go through dungeons with encounters every 10 seconds, sometimes you'll go for 2 minutes without one.
I'm not really sure on the difficulty either. At least there's no one saying it's any different.
Honestly, it feels easier more than anything. I was really hoping that they would make it more difficult.
Edit: slightly misread, oops. You already knew most of that. Chaining flurry skills later on is what really makes you feel powerful, though.
Yeah, battles get more interesting once you can do combos over 10 consistently, since that gives you more BP. Criticals also do this. Wearing accessories with a full heart on them also raises your morale, giving a chance to start the battle with extra BP. The longer you wear them, the higher the chance is.Freyjadour said:
Edit: slightly misread, oops. You already knew most of that. Chaining flurry skills later on is what really makes you feel powerful, though.
Freyjadour
Member
Kishgal said:
I noticed that Taupy sits on low morale almost constantly even with two heart accessories on. A bit irritating.
MidnightScott
Banned
I was gonna go try and buy a copy for my brother from Best Buy. I called them up first just to make sure they have it and they say they don't carry it in stores. Only reason I wanna get it from Best Buy is because I have a $10 rewards coupon. Don't feel like paying for shipping or waiting for site to store so I guess I'm boned until they decide to put it on store shelves.
I found it odd, I thought they would carry all SEGA published games at least. =s
I found it odd, I thought they would carry all SEGA published games at least. =s
Freyjadour
Member
At
now.
So, yeah, I think that the Sega Translation Unit misinterpreted import impressions. I'm pretty sure that Chain Skills break the game even further now. My first attack is enough to kill any standard enemy 4-5 times over, I one-turned a boss, and just blew through what probably should have been a very irritating boss battle in 3-4 turns. I don't foresee anything in the game having any chance of touching me again. :lol :lol :lol
Hopefully someone cares enough about the game to make a hack someday to severely lower damage out, or something. Because everything else in the game is quite good, honestly.
Azure Tower
So, yeah, I think that the Sega Translation Unit misinterpreted import impressions. I'm pretty sure that Chain Skills break the game even further now. My first attack is enough to kill any standard enemy 4-5 times over, I one-turned a boss, and just blew through what probably should have been a very irritating boss battle in 3-4 turns. I don't foresee anything in the game having any chance of touching me again. :lol :lol :lol
Hopefully someone cares enough about the game to make a hack someday to severely lower damage out, or something. Because everything else in the game is quite good, honestly.
Freyjadour
Member
Kishgal said:
Oh god. The fourth time they had me running back and forth between the beginning and end of that dungeon...
Freyjadour
Member
duckroll said:So, based on my import impressions in the old thread, would any of you say it's worth my time to pick up the US version? It sounds really disappointing, and they don't seem to have really fixed or added anything of note.
If they changed the difficulty, they've made it easier. I'm not exaggerating in the least when I say that after I brought both Flurry 1 and 2 to Rank 7, I absolutely destroy everything in sight with little to no effort.
That considered, I can't say I would if you'd already experienced it.
Volcynika said:
Level caps. I imagine that you can reach 6 at 15, and then 7 at 20. Something like that.
Oh well, it's really too bad. Since they took so long with the US version (almost 1.5 years!) I was really expecting something substantial like Rogue Galaxy Director's Cut or something like that with a long list of detailed changes, improvements and additions so I could make a decision on whether I wanted to play it again in English.
Sounds like since no one can tell if they even changed or added anything, it was just another lazy ass job by Sega. I can't say I'm very impressed with how this was handled at all...
Sounds like since no one can tell if they even changed or added anything, it was just another lazy ass job by Sega. I can't say I'm very impressed with how this was handled at all...
I do like the people who worked on this and I am a big fan of RPGS. Especially for DS. So on a scale 1 to 10 how do you guys like it so far ? and would you think I enjoy it?
Story?
Music?
Characters?
how do those three rank because those are my biggest concerns. Next would be graphics.
Story?
Music?
Characters?
how do those three rank because those are my biggest concerns. Next would be graphics.