encephalon
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How many stars crosses the threshold to non-platonic relationships?
How many stars crosses the threshold to non-platonic relationships?
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.
Hopefully the thing about (early ch. 3)isn't just swept under the rug, because right now it feels like a real cop-out after all the stuff aboutRean suddenly getting a pendant from Emma to suppress his power enough to make it safe to use Spirit Unification regularly again.him losing control over his power and passing out in the Northern War and how he's had trouble with it since
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.
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.
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 exceptare the best.Jusis and Millium
I hope Ange's okay.
Spoilers (in context of where I'm currently at):
Fun fact, I thinkIt's like Falcom's telling me something! Runner up would be Rean giving Altina a hatpat.Jusis and Millium have the funnest and most unique victory quote so far.
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.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.
Wait - so, without spoilers, are we getting a Sen IV after all or no?
Yes 100% confirmed Sen 4 is happening.
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
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.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.
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.
Yes 100% confirmed Sen 4 is happening.
It depends on how you view 100k. And how Falcom views 100k.
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.
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.
Are there no hidden sidequests anymore?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?
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.
Are there no hidden sidequests anymore?
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.
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).
First, sell-through rate only tells you the expectation of retailers, not publishers. Second, Tokyo Xanadu did not flop.