RPG Progress Report

[Valkyrie-Favor]

It's weird that my main character is so....crap. I'm used to your main character in most RPGs being a consistent and reasonably bulky damage dealer, and on a rare occassion a badass mage who can nuke everything. Totori has the lowest stats in everything but MP - which she uses to make items. She has no spells, she does tiny amounts of damage, and in most battles she's a liability. However, shes the only character who can use items, which is my only way of healing. It's an odd dynamic.

That sounds awesome.

[ZenErik]

When you make good bombs she actually becomes one of the strongest.

[alienjesus]

When you make good bombs she actually becomes one of the strongest.

I worry that will be an unnecessary time waste though.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Magic Knight Rayearth

Just entered Heaven's Labyrinth, a floating "dungeon" in the sky. Looks like there's a lot of jumping back and form between moving platforms, which doesn't thrill me. The controls in this game are a bit slippery.

[alienjesus]

Pretty addicted to Atelier Totori still. Don't think I've had a play session shorter than 4 hours on it yet.

I'm just before the point where my first adventurer license expires, but I have all the stuff ready to renew it. My main team is Totori, Mimi and Sterk. I quite like Rorona too, and Mel is OK. Gino and Marc kinda suck though.

I'm gonna make a spare save as soon as I get my new license and use it as a point to get all the endings from. There seems to be about 11 of them (bad ending, normal ending, good ending, 6 character specific endings, Chim's ending and one extra one in addition.) Each of the endings gives a trophy, and I figure I should be able to get about 8 or 9 of the endings by continuing from that point. The bad ending and bonus ending might require seperate runs though.


I'm struggling with some bosses right now - one is a giant slime thing called a Punincarnate, and the other is a weird fairy in a mine called Jewel Element.

[dunpeal2064]

Shadow Hearts II:

I'll stop posting details, since I don't think anyone reading these posts has played the games, and I don't want to spoil anything.

I did reach a nice turning point in the game, though. Some good story was revealed, and Yuri now has an awesome new ability, which is related to the story advances.

Karin, the lead female role, is actually starting to act like a character! She is even playing off of Yuri's asshole-ness. Nothing much deeper than her poking fun at him and him responding with "Bite Me", but its a start. The other characters are not really noteworthy, story-wise, but their individual mechanics are still fun. The game also regularly forces you to play with specific characters, and limited characters. Luckily, all of your characters gain exp from fights, so you don't have to grind when a character that you don't use is forced on you. Worst case, you just have to fix them up with some useful gear and Crests.

One thing I will say, now that I am a little further in: Anyone interested in the series should definitely play the first game first. What I thought was just going to be a small throwback to the first game, has evolved into both stories entertwining. Again, I don't want to spoil anything, but the latest advancement in the story was awesome, and would not have been if I hadn't played the first game.


Sorcery Saga: Wrath of the Great Curry God:

Had to start over on this, didn't realize that deleting a game on the Vita also removes your saves. Oh well, the game is fun, so I don't mind.

But HOLY DAMN, random generation can really screw you. In what I thought was a good run, I got to the boss of the dungeon, and decided to open the chests near and buff up before the fight (obviously).

The first chest hits me for a small amount of damage, but also stops me from regenerating health when I walk, which is terrible. The 2nd chest is another trap, and cuts the effectiveness of my weapon and shield in HALF, permanently. For anyone that doesn't know, your gear is everything in this game. I had managed to craft up to a +5 Sword and +5 Shield, and those both were dropped to +2. And, since Kuu's dungeon abilities are random every time, I didn't get the fues weapons ability in this run, and was stuck with shit gear to fight the boss.

I tried everything I had. I threw a Bad Magic Pill at the boss, in hopes of weakening him. I used an invincibility scroll to buy some time, hoping Kuu would take some heat off of me so I could find a Potion (Since, of course, I fed them all to Kuu trying to get him to learn the weapon crafting ability).

All of that failed, and I ended up standing one square away from the boss with 5 hp (my health still wasn't regenerating from that stupid trap). Luckily, I had an item that let me escape the dungeon, so I was at least able to keep the items I found.

Now, to start the dungeon all over again, with weaker gear. Lets hope the randomness is just a little bit nicer this time.

[alienjesus]

Sorcery Saga: Wrath of the Great Curry God stuff

I considering trying this game out myself, but I think it won't be for me really. I'm not a great fan of roguelikes or mystery dungeon games, I find them a bit frustrating, and the random dungeons feel soulless. Some of the stuff you just described certainly puts me off.

[dunpeal2064]

If you don't like roguelikes, I would probably pass on this one. I do think it has a little more soul than most rogues, as not all dungeons are random, and there is a lot of story (Not deep story, mostly jokes and Curry, but its something), but I don't think it'd be enough to change someone's mind on the genre. It is pretty traditional.

It does seem like a good "first roguelike" though. I couldn't really get into the Mystery Dungeon games much either, but this one has held my attention. Its not as punishing usually either, I just had really bad luck with that last run



Also, I'm enjoying reading through your posts on Atelier. The only game "from the series" I have played through is Mana Khemia, but Atelier Iris on the ps2 is next up, after I finish Shadow Hearts II.

[Ack]

So over the weekend I beat Live A Live and began playing Breath of Fire 2. And you know what? So far so good, I like it. The animation of the characters and enemies are solid, the music and color palette are excellent, and the story is interesting. Combat is still largely the traditional turn-based fare, but I'm looking forward to seeing how the game handles larger parties and dragon-based abilities later on down the line. As for progress, I've just defeated Joker and gotten Nina into my party, along with Katt. Bow and Rand are building a house.

There are some things I will criticize. First, battle abilities seem largely worthless right now. Katt is far too weak to have her ability, and Rand's Wake ability is damn near useless. At this point Ryu's doesn't heal for enough to be worth it, and it has a small chance of missing entirely. I've never seen Bow's hit. Does this change later on, because right now it is looking like my only options are Attack, Magic, and Item. Second, I understand having variable experience progression, but is Ryu the slowest of all characters? Because at his rate, everyone else will soon be outpacing him. And third, some kind of explanation about fishing would have been nice. I've figured it out now, but I'm terrible at it, and I don't want to admit how many worms I lost trying to get the hang of it. Hopefully things will improve with better rods later in the game.

I still feel I'm in the railroad portion of the game, but I am hoping it opens up soon. I hear there is some kind of city-building mechanic. For those of you in the know, what is this like, and how does it compare to the "city building" of games like Secret of the Stars?

[MrPopo]

Some of the later characters have much better abilities, and the ones who have the current sub-par ones get better ones in their best shaman fusions. I'm not sure about the variable progression, but it wouldn't surprise me that Ryu is the slowest because a large portion of the game forces you to constantly change the members of your party, so it's probably an attempt to compensate for that. As for the town building, it's mostly a case of finding people to come to the town or sometimes choosing between mutually exclusive people for one benefit or another. By end-game you can possibly have some really awesome items available if you chose properly.