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[duckroll]

For those interested, here's what's on the preorder CD:

Track 1 - World Destruction Main theme -The hands of time- (Composed and Arranged by Yasunori Mitsuda, Words by Masato Kato, Performed by Czech Philharmonic Collegium)
Track 2 - Barni Village (Composed and Arranged by Yasunori Mitsuda)
Track 3 - Sand Mirage (Composed and Arranged by Yasunori Mitsuda)
Track 4 - Toppi's Theme (Composed and Arranged by Shunsuke Tsuchiya)
Track 5 - Crimson Future (Composed and Arranged by Kazumi Mitome)

 

[Aeana]

Still having a lot of fun. I learned a few more things about the battle system thanks to the guide in Famitsu (way more informative than the manual!), and I'm about 8 hours in now. The dungeon I'm in is kind of annoying, because it has a series of optional delivery quests to do. I've been doing them, but I fear I'm starting to get overleveled. :O

As duckroll was saying, it does start out tough, but it's gotten quite a bit easier. The difficulty is a little bit uneven, because sometimes I end up against a boss who I can barely do any damage to, but I haven't gotten any game overs past the first one in the first dungeon.

The story is starting to go places, but I still think it's silly. I was talking to duckroll about it, earlier, and he thinks it's pretty much self-parody now, which I totally agree with. It's really wacky to be with party members who want to destroy the world, but are all cheery about it.

EDIT: Woww,

Spoiler

when you get to level 20, you can upgrade your rush attacks to level 7 (instead of 5), and when you do so, you get a chance to choose a bonus. Choosing the characteristic change bonus lets you turn a rush attack into a linking attack that doesn't take BP. :O

 

[Mejilan]

Sounds like customization is going to be a blast!

 

[Aeana]

I was musing earlier about wanting more critical attacks, because every time you perform a critical attack, you get an extra battle point. The problem with that is, when your battle point bar is filled to the maximum, your combo ends and you have to perform a deathblow. Since you get extra custom points based on the number of hits in your combo, you want to keep the combo going longer.

With the upgrade I mentioned above, battle points are less hard to come by, which means criticals actually become the enemy. :O An interesting turnaround!

I'm lovinggg this combat system and the customization system.

 

[duckroll]

Yeah the game's really pretty solid all round. Even the dungeons are pretty well designed honestly. The worldview is REALLY quirky, and it's definitely meant to be somewhat humorous. It works for me because the characters are honestly pretty charming. The art direction is fantastic too. I don't really regret getting excited for the game at all. It's a good RPG, and an original IP. Definitely a way better RPG than Luminous Arc was as a SRPG.

 

[Adam Blade]

So, odds of it getting localized for non-Moonspeak speakers?

 

[duckroll]

So, odds of it getting localized for non-Moonspeak speakers?

It's hard to tell at this point. Apparently Shiren DS sold like shit for Sega, plus WD has tons of voice so that'll been additional dubbing costs for localization, and it's a 2Gbit cart to boot, which means additional production costs if they want to print US carts. Coupled with the fact that DS RPGs don't seem to do great in the US, it's possible that Sega might just skip this altogether.

 

[Pachinko]

It's possibly they could just remove the voices and shave the cart down to a 1 megabit one but I guess that's still expensive ?

I'm mildly interested in this game simply because it has the same look of a few games I enjoyed on the psone.

 

[Llyranor]

Keep the JP VA, save on the hiring costs!

Anyway, can anyone describe the combat system in more details? The little tidbits in this thread sound nice, but I don't feel like I have a good grasp of it yet.

 

[charlequin]

It's possibly they could just remove the voices and shave the cart down to a 1 megabit one but I guess that's still expensive ?

The voices are fundamental to the game system, amazingly enough. :lol

 

[jj984jj]

EDIT: Woww,

Spoiler

when you get to level 20, you can upgrade your rush attacks to level 7 (instead of 5), and when you do so, you get a chance to choose a bonus. Choosing the characteristic change bonus lets you turn a rush attack into a linking attack that doesn't take BP. :O

There was someone on GFAQs saying that this can pretty much break the game,

Spoiler

but he could link all 3 rush attacks by level 20.

 

[Aeana]

There was someone on GFAQs saying that this can pretty much break the game,

Spoiler

but he could link all 3 rush attacks by level 20.

I can do that now, although I'm not sure I would say that it actually breaks the game, it does help get CP quickly. I can do a 35-hit combo with Molte and get 50 extra CP per battle.

 

[Prime crotch]

It's hard to tell at this point. Apparently Shiren DS sold like shit for Sega, plus WD has tons of voice so that'll been additional dubbing costs for localization, and it's a 2Gbit cart to boot, which means additional production costs if they want to print US carts. Coupled with the fact that DS RPGs don't seem to do great in the US, it's possible that Sega might just skip this altogether.

Well Shiren was a very niche title, I think they were aware of that, but maybe SEGA can pull a Yakuza 2 with WD?

 

[Cygnus X-1]

I see the pre-rendered backgrounds are still so much used in 2.5D games. Just amazing considering that these are the descendant of the much-beloved and regretted Silicon graphics Workstation.

 

[Relaxed Muscle]

I see the pre-rendered backgrounds are still so much used in 2.5D games. Just amazing considering that these are the descendant of the much-beloved and regretted Silicon graphics Workstation.

Are you talking about World Destruction? because the ones on this game are in 3D...

 

[Aeana]

Keep the JP VA, save on the hiring costs!

Anyway, can anyone describe the combat system in more details? The little tidbits in this thread sound nice, but I don't feel like I have a good grasp of it yet.

In battle, you have access two different kinds of attacks: rush attacks, and blow attacks, as well as attack skills and support skills (magic). Rush attacks are fast and hit multiple times, and blow attacks generally only hit once, but have an extra effect (like 'knock into the air' or 'stun'). You start the game with only one rush attack and one blow attack, but as you win battles, you gain 'custom points' which can be spent to power up your attacks and your magic.

Powering up your level 1 rush or blow attacks will eventually unlock a second and third rush or blow attack. After unlocking them, you can chain like attacks together. For example, after performing a rush attack, you can perform your second rush attack, and then your third. The only way to access the second and third attacks is by starting at the first one and building up. This is how you build combos. Combos are important, as you get an extra custom point for every hit over 10, and 2 extra for every hit over 20 in your combo.

Battles are governed by battle points (BP). Every action takes a battle point (or in the case of items, it takes all of your battle points and ends your turn). You generally start a battle with 2 BP, which means you can perform two actions: two rush attacks, one rush attack and one blow attack, 2 blow attacks, 2 magic attacks, etc. Your options are pretty limited if you only have 2 BP, however, but there are ways to get more. One BP is awarded for landing a critical hit (once per turn), for getting your combo to 10 hits or higher, for having the extra effect on a blow attack kick in, and a few other things.

That's the combat system in a really wordy nutshell. I hope it wasn't too confusing. There's quite a bit more to it as far as advanced techniques go, but those are the basics.

 

[Mejilan]

That sounds really fucking awesome.
You gain Custom Points simply by battling? So there's no real limit to them? You can eventually power up everything, if you'd like?

 

[Aeana]

That sounds really fucking awesome.
You gain Custom Points simply by battling? So there's no real limit to them? You can eventually power up everything, if you'd like?

Well, you could power stuff up to its maximum level (though that will cost a tonnnn of CP, regardless).

On the customize screen, everything has a level, which is increased every time you upgrade a trait on a skill. So say rush attack 1 has a maximum level of 5, but it has two traits: attack power and accuracy. You'd only be able to power the skill up 5 times, but you'd do so by adding a point to either attack power or accuracy.

So a level 5 rush attack could have 3 attack power, 2 accuracy; 5 attack power; 5 accuracy; or any mix... but never max attack power or max accuracy.

 

[anaron]

Been waiting anxiously for the impressions of this for very long.

So glad the game seems to be really good! Makes the possibility of it not coming here even even more painful. D:

Keep up with the updates! They're very much appreciated.

*subscribes to thread*

 

[ivysaur12]

Wow, sound great.

 

[JaMarco]

That's the combat system in a really wordy nutshell. I hope it wasn't too confusing. There's quite a bit more to it as far as advanced techniques go, but those are the basics.

Sounds nice.
Now that your further in, how is the speed of the battles?

 

[Mejilan]

Wow, sounds like customization up the wazoo. Awesome!

 

[duckroll]

Sounds nice.
Now that your further in, how is the speed of the battles?

Every battle lasts about 1-2 turns at most really. The battles were never slow in the game, I dunno why reviewers said they were. The only battles that would drag on a little are some of the boss fights. Otherwise it's a pretty speedy system. A battle can get delayed quite a bit if you run into several enemies and they somehow get enemy advantage and get all their turns first. Those aren't very common but if they do happen, every enemy could get like 2 turns before your characters do and if they use spells or stuff it could be pretty boring. If I see a large group of enemies and they get enemy advantage, I just hold the run button to run after the first attack. :lol

 

[Cedille]

Based on what little I heard via peercast, I think female VAs are pretty bad.

 

[Aeana]

Based on what little I heard via peercast, I think female VAs are pretty bad.

Maaya Sakamoto is bad? :O

 

[Llyranor]

Alright, battle system sounds great. Thanks for the details!

How's the battle transition and loading speed/input command speed and such? Usually how much time can you explore before the next random encounter? Thanks!

 

[grandjedi6]

It's hard to tell at this point. Apparently Shiren DS sold like shit for Sega, plus WD has tons of voice so that'll been additional dubbing costs for localization, and it's a 2Gbit cart to boot, which means additional production costs if they want to print US carts. Coupled with the fact that DS RPGs don't seem to do great in the US, it's possible that Sega might just skip this altogether.

eh?

 

[charlequin]

eh?

Do you have a counterexample?

 

[Hcoregamer00]

Maaya Sakamoto is bad? :O

I never heard her voice acting, but her music is AMAZING, one of my favorite JPOP artists.

 

[grandjedi6]

Do you have a counterexample?

Well we know The World Ends with You sold really well.

 

[Aeana]

The story is really... something.
The game is pretty funny. It started out as a pretty silly adventure, but the further I get, the more I appreciate the totally wacky plot. It's like it's some sort of parody. I can't say I expected anything like this.

duckroll said it best to me, earlier: "it's about a fantasy RPG world where everyone is working hard at filling their roles, even though they really have no real reason or motivation to do what they're doing except because they have to, and they have lots of fun doing it."

So you have a heroine who is

Spoiler

part of the World Destruction Committee, ready to destroy the world (all the while being incredibly cheery) and her orders are delivered to her via a newsletter that magically falls out of the sky.

And a hero who is just a dork who is happy to be with a beautiful girl and agrees hastily to anything she says

Spoiler

"All righty! Let's go kill the water king, yaay." "OK."

I'm pretty sure that the people who were expecting a serious "world-ending RPG" will be disappointed with the game, though. At least, so far. I'm not really that far in.

 

[ivysaur12]

I'm pretty sure that the people who were expecting a serious "world-ending RPG" will be disappointed with the game, though. At least, so far. I'm not really that far in.

Disappointing, but at least all these positive gameplay impressions give me hope for other imageepoch games.

Question: Is there a team of "good guys", maybe your typical JRPG party that's trying to save the world from the World Destruction Committee? I feel like that would be fairly humorous.

 

[charlequin]

Well we know The World Ends with You sold really well.

That it sold well well or that it outstripped a conservative first order?

I'm not trying to say you're wrong, btw, just that I don't know of a DS RPG that we've confirmed to have sold well in the US or of one we've confirmed to sell more than, like, 200k.

 

[Rpgmonkey]

I'm pretty sure that the people who were expecting a serious "world-ending RPG" will be disappointed with the game, though. At least, so far. I'm not really that far in.

Not really disappointed, but certainly surprised...

 

[Llyranor]

Heh, parody sounds good to me.

 

[grandjedi6]

That it sold well well or that it outstripped a conservative first order?

I'm not trying to say you're wrong, btw, just that I don't know of a DS RPG that we've confirmed to have sold well in the US or of one we've confirmed to sell more than, like, 200k.

It sold 270k according to IGN: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=12901365&highlight=world#post12901365

 

[charlequin]

It sold 270k according to IGN: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=12901365&highlight=world#post12901365

grandjedi6
Master of the Find More Posts By Search
(Today, 08:24 PM)
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That's really surprising.

(I don't suppose anyone has ever seen any recent information about the manufacturing cost of different cart sizes for DS, have you? We were talking about whether the cost of the 2gb cart would be a barrier to bringing this to the US earlier...)

Closer to on topic, this game is sounding really exciting from Aeana's impressions of the combat system, and the kind of story duckroll describes actually seems more interesting to me than what I was expecting. I really hope XSEED or Atlus picks this up if Sega doesn't localize it themselves.

 

[PillowKnight]

I'm pretty sure that the people who were expecting a serious "world-ending RPG" will be disappointed with the game, though. At least, so far. I'm not really that far in.

That sort of take sounds much better than a serious RPG.

 

[duckroll]

This game is so pretty it should be illegal. I look forward to each new dungeon, town or area I go to next because it always looks great! Gahrgahrgarhahhh!!! The monster desgins are pretty neat too!

 

[speedpop]

My copy should be arriving tomorrow, problem is I have about 4 or 5 assignments due by Friday. Buu~

 

[colinp]

This game is so pretty it should be illegal. I look forward to each new dungeon, town or area I go to next because it always looks great! Gahrgahrgarhahhh!!! The monster desgins are pretty neat too!

How's the soundtrack?

 

[leroy hacker]

So you have a heroine who is

Spoiler

part of the World Destruction Committee, ready to destroy the world (all the while being incredibly cheery) and her orders are delivered to her via a newsletter that magically falls out of the sky.

That sounds like the Student Council on Utena. Awesome.

 

[duckroll]

How's the soundtrack?

It's pretty good. It's not exactly fantastic, but there are some pretty standout tracks. It's better than a regular Tales OST, and probably on par with Baten Kaitos imo. The battle tracks clearly aren't as crazy as Sakuraba's Baten Kaitos stuff, but I feel it's a good comparison in terms of how I felt the music worked with the game. It's not top-tier JRPG music like say Mitsuda's best works, or say Shadow Hearts 1-2 (which I really dig), but it's definitely nice music.

 

[Shirokun]

This game is so pretty it should be illegal. I look forward to each new dungeon, town or area I go to next because it always looks great! Gahrgahrgarhahhh!!! The monster desgins are pretty neat too!

Damn, you're really tempting me to import this. What is the level of kanji like for this game? Anything out of the ordinary?

 

[Jonnyram]

I am tempted into playing this when you say how nice the graphics and music are, but when you mention how the story is basically a parody on RPGs, I get a little turned off. I don't mind stuff being obviously generic, but if it's too far on the parody side (like Enchanted Arms), it's kind of annoying. I might skip this after all :/

 

[duckroll]

Damn, you're really tempting me to import this. What is the level of kanji like for this game? Anything out of the ordinary?

It's pretty low level with a lot of the usual JRPG language subsets. Nothing beyond say Tales or Baten Kaitos. It's not like Xenogears or SMT.

Status update, about 12+ hours in.

Story: It's really similar to Baten Kaitos in formula and worldview, and some of Chrono Cross' setting. It's definitely a Masato Kato scenario, if you're a fan (or just familiar) with his scenarios, it's very telling. It's filled with the usual Kato build ups, RPG "pacing", and "shocking" twists. The actual game tone is very lighthearted and definitely somewhat self-concious of the fact that a lot of what's happening is totally ridiculous and wacky. The characters know a lot of stuff is silly, the writer knows, but everyone just accepts it. It's almost like 30 Rock or Ally McBeal, but maybe not that far off in satire.

Graphics: Fucking amazing. Everything about the game screams really high production values. From the towns/fields/dungeons, to the artwork and designs, to the sprite animations. Everything looks great, and runs really smoothly. Pretty impressive stuff. It's definitely comparable to a late PS1 era RPG like Grandia or Xenogears in terms of graphical quality, just on a smaller screen.

Sound: Lots of voice, lots of music. Pretty good stuff all around. The cast is pretty high profile, and they do the job pretty well. Kyrie is a total dork, so Miyano really fits as his voice. You might hate him, but you hate him because he's doing a good job! The female cast in the game is really awesome. Both Morte and Lia have top notch voices. There are voices in battles, voices in many of the cutscenes, etc. The music ranges from very noticable Mitsuda tunes (in a REAL original RPG!) to pretty good non-Mitsuda RPG music. The music usually fits the areas really well too.

Gameplay: Many of the dungeons are well designed and rather short. Some have interesting puzzles but don't take too long to solve. There's one really awful dungeon a few hours into the game with the most inane sidequest ever in it. Once you're done with that there's nothing in the rest of the game so far that is anywhere close to being as annoying. Lots of the gameplay is stock RPG stuff, but the battle system is pretty interesting at first. Unfortunately after about 5-6 hours in the game you can easily break the battle system completely. That's both good and bad. It's good because then you don't really have to worry about random encounters for the rest of the game because it's so easy. It's bad because well, aside from looking at nice animations and cool new enemy/boss designs for the rest of the game, the battles will be rendered pretty much pointless. Once you hit that point exp/cp/money are all worthless since you'll be getting tons of it from battles that are totally easy. There's definitely a balance issue with the game, and it's something that Image Epoch will have to work much harder at in future.

 

[Aeana]

Gameplay: Many of the dungeons are well designed and rather short. Some have interesting puzzles but don't take too long to solve. There's one really awful dungeon a few hours into the game with the most inane sidequest ever in it. Once you're done with that there's nothing in the rest of the game so far that is anywhere close to being as annoying. Lots of the gameplay is stock RPG stuff, but the battle system is pretty interesting at first. Unfortunately after about 5-6 hours in the game you can easily break the battle system completely. That's both good and bad. It's good because then you don't really have to worry about random encounters for the rest of the game because it's so easy. It's bad because well, aside from looking at nice animations and cool new enemy/boss designs for the rest of the game, the battles will be rendered pretty much pointless. Once you hit that point exp/cp/money are all worthless since you'll be getting tons of it from battles that are totally easy. There's definitely a balance issue with the game, and it's something that Image Epoch will have to work much harder at in future.

I don't know... the random battles are usually pretty easy, but I still have a bit of trouble on some bosses. Especially aerial bosses. I think they kind of dropped the ball on aerial combat options, which makes flying enemies annoying to fight -- especially when they're bosses.

I still think it's super fun, though.

 

[duckroll]

I don't know... the random battles are usually pretty easy, but I still have a bit of trouble on bosses. Especially aerial bosses. I think they kind of dropped the ball on aerial combat options, which makes flying enemies annoying to fight -- especially when they're bosses.

I still think it's super fun, though.

That just means you haven't fully broken the game yet. You should try harder to destroy whatever sense of illusionary difficulty the game is pretending to have! Right now I have to block on some bosses just to skip turns so they get a chance to pull off their cool animation attacks, before I finish them off. :lol

 

[Aeana]

That just means you haven't fully broken the game yet. You should try harder to destroy whatever sense of illusionary difficulty the game is pretending to have! Right now I have to block on some bosses just to skip turns so they get a chance to pull off their cool animation attacks, before I finish them off. :lol

I don't know what I could be doing that I'm not. Everything is maxed.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. I like it better this way. That's why I gimped my weapons for random battles, too.

 

[PolyGone]

I hope it gets an English release