RPG Progress Report

[Exhuminator]

The way you describe the game does make more sense and gives me the impetus to try it again someday.

As for the JRPG I've been playing...

Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth1 on Vita

I've got about 11 hours in this and I think I'm done for now. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is a bad game. It's got a lot going for it. Re;Birth1 has an excellent presentation, nice colorful graphics, upbeat music, and lots of deep combat related subsystems. I of course love the character designs (especially the HDD modes) and appreciate the (more mild than I thought it'd be) ecchi factor. The combat design itself is serviceable, and gets the job done relatively well. Although to stay on target for the bosses, you do have to grind a fair bit purposefully. I'm not a big fan of manual grinding... err, I mean in a game. Anyway.

My big issue is the plot is unbelievably vapid, and even after 11 hours of playing there's been nothing story-wise whatsoever to draw me into Nep's quest. Rather the story consists of streams of bubbly inane banter between the girls that does nothing for me. I mean, I do appreciate the occasional video game or anime in-joke that gets dropped, but a man can only read so many jokes about pudding, before his eyes glaze over and he starts questioning what he's doing with his life. Re;Birth1 could still be a game about happy young girls fighting for justice in video game land, while also spinning an interesting narrative with offbeat humor. It could. But it isn't. This game fails miserably at its attempts to be so.

So what I'm left with here is a game that isn't quite what I thought it would be. It's still not a bad RPG though. I mean, it's easily a 7/10. But I'm not looking to beat 7/10 games right now, 8/10 minimum. Plus I'm really not in the right mindset for vapid banter about pudding pudding pudding. For the right person, I'm sure what I find grating here would actually be endearing, but that person just isn't me. I just can't get into putting another 15 hours of my life into an RPG with a plot this banal. I still enjoyed a lot of things about Re;Birth1, and I still got love for the Nep. Just not enough love to finish her first quest presently. Maybe I'll pick it up later when I'm hungry for pudding someday.

Anyway, I'm thinking tonight I'll give the Lufia 2 remake on DS a shot. Hopefully it will hook me. I'd like to be part of the current Together Retro in some relevant fashion.

tl;dr

What I thought I was getting:

What I actually got:

[MrPopo]

You've encouraged me to finally get around to taking one of my boxes of pudding in my pantry and cooking it up on the stove.

[Michi]

I'm still plugging along in Birthright. I think I've put about 120 hours in with all the time I've spent just completing challenges to level everyone up and battling other players. I thought I was doing pretty meh with my whole battle team, but my one friend who has the game says I keep killing off his team, so I guess I'm doing better on that front than I thought.

I just finished Chapter 25 though, which means I'm right at the end, so I think I'm going to cut back on the leveling up and just push forward. Then I'll probably take a break and watch movies for a week before starting up Conquest.

[ElkinFencer10]

I'm still plugging along in Birthright. I think I've put about 120 hours in with all the time I've spent just completing challenges to level everyone up and battling other players. I thought I was doing pretty meh with my whole battle team, but my one friend who has the game says I keep killing off his team, so I guess I'm doing better on that front than I thought.

I just finished Chapter 25 though, which means I'm right at the end, so I think I'm going to cut back on the leveling up and just push forward. Then I'll probably take a break and watch movies for a week before starting up Conquest.

I had to take a break from Fates after Birthright and Conquest (I just got burnt out), but I'm about to pick Revelation back up and try to finish that this weekend. I want to finish it before Bravely Second comes out for sure.

[Michi]

I'm still plugging along in Birthright. I think I've put about 120 hours in with all the time I've spent just completing challenges to level everyone up and battling other players. I thought I was doing pretty meh with my whole battle team, but my one friend who has the game says I keep killing off his team, so I guess I'm doing better on that front than I thought.

I just finished Chapter 25 though, which means I'm right at the end, so I think I'm going to cut back on the leveling up and just push forward. Then I'll probably take a break and watch movies for a week before starting up Conquest.

I had to take a break from Fates after Birthright and Conquest (I just got burnt out), but I'm about to pick Revelation back up and try to finish that this weekend. I want to finish it before Bravely Second comes out for sure.

This is what I'm a little afraid of, hence the planned break. I mean, right now I'm all gung-ho about it, but I'm afraid that I'll get half way through Conquest and loose steam.

[laurenhiya21]

Undertale
Going through another run of Undertale, this time a Pacifist run. Keep on getting crushed by stuff so it's getting a bit difficult for me to progress

Atelier Totori
Speaking of getting crushed, I built the ship in Totori, tried to beat the boss and it did not go well. At all. I think one person in my party did maybe 50 damage tops (the others doing way less than that), and since the boss heals 100hp per turn I didn't really get anywhere

Also found out that was NOT the final boss (like I thought it was) but I still have 1/3 of the game to get through. I'll probably try and power through it, but we'll see how it goes.

Black Rock Shooter
Think I'm on the second stage. It has a very different battle system from what I'm used to, so I'm still somewhat getting used to the controls. It's in real time, but you're stuck in place and aim with the control stick instead. You can dodge and defend, but they make your heat gauge go up so you can't just spam them willy nilly. Really interesting so I hope I continue to like it.

[ElkinFencer10]

I mean, right now I'm all gung-ho about it, but I'm afraid that I'll get half way through Conquest and loose steam.

That's EXACTLY what happened to me.

[Markies]

I finally beat that stupid escort mission in Phantasy Star Online last night with Dr. Mome. He was stuck at Level 12 and would die in 2 hits. I finally got to Level 29 and I was able to kill the boss much quicker.

I have one more boss and then I am done with Scenario 3. Scenario 4 is the last one and then I have beaten the game.

It hopefully won't be too long now!

[pierrot]

I finished Terra Phantastica. Unfortunately, the epilogue (which is affected by a lot of the choices made in the dialogue between the two main characters, and a couple other spots) is really only a blurb, aside from the 'best' ending, which I unfortunately missed out on, it seems. The blurb I got was more or less, 'Everything returns to some semblance of normalcy.' The good in that is, I don't feel compelled at all to play through the game six times to see a bunch of different endings. The bad is that it's a little disappointing, since I had thought the choices I was making throughout the game had a little more weight on the ending.

Alas, it was a solid experience that did a lot of things well. Not a game I can really rant and rave about, but I would recommend it to the SRPG fan who has played everything else. It's a well above average game, but it really could have used a camera rotation mechanic. Also, I abused the hell out of a glitch to change unit formations without using AP, and two busted aerial mage units (at least toward the end of the game); I don't know if I would have actually had the patience for the game without those things.

[BoneSnapDeez]

How does it stack up against the Dragon Force, Sakura Wars, and Langrisser games on Saturn?