RPG Progress Report

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Xeogred
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Re: RPG Progress Report

Post by Xeogred »

Exhuminator wrote:
Xeogred wrote:Aren't Falcom the Y's guys? Which worries me... :lol:

Looks pretty cool. How is PSP emulation thesedays? I don't like handhelds much, but the PSP truly does look like some kind of JRPG goldmine.
Falcom are the Ys guys. Which Ys games have you played that make you worried? There are some bad Ys games, but the bad ones weren't made by Falcom themselves.

PSP emulation is going very well:

http://www.ppsspp.org/

If I didn't have hacked PSPs laying around, I'd definitely hit up PPSSPP for playing fan trans stuff. Especially since it supports upres'ing polygons internally.
Chronicles, Oath of Felghana, the SNES one, and probably some others. I went into Chronicles expecting Secret of Mana and my world was destroyed with the bump system. The others I've played I get bored of about an hour or two in. The bump games aside, I typically love ARPG's, but yeah. I really don't like the aesthetics much for the 3D ones though, nasty polygons. Chronicles looked gorgeous. The music is awesome in most of them. But yep, sums it up. I've had more success with the Tales games, and haven't beaten any of those yet...

I did like The Ark of Napishtim though.
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Exhuminator
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Re: RPG Progress Report

Post by Exhuminator »

Well, I can see what you're saying. But, dude. You owe it to yourself to play Ys Origin. It's the best action-RPG I've ever played. Seriously, don't sleep on it. If you dig that, give Ys Seven a go. Ys Seven is really, really good. Ys Origin is damn near perfect.
PLAY KING'S FIELD.
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Sarge
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Re: RPG Progress Report

Post by Sarge »

I like all the non-bump games. They're all fantastic. Ys Seven is my favorite, but Felghana and Origin are both spectacular as well. And even though Napishtim is a little janky with the platforming, it's great as well.

And honestly, I think I could eventually get the hang of the bump ones, if I'm in the right mood. But those later ones are can't miss.
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Ack
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Re: RPG Progress Report

Post by Ack »

Drakkhen

I know all of you stay up at night waiting to hear my epic tales of grinding in this game. I just know it.

Anyway, I played Drakkhen last night, and I grinded. I spent most of my time grinding actually, but it was enough to get Xen the sorcerer to level 8, which meant it was time to plunge into the desert. The enemies in the desert region are some of the hardest in the game. The weaker ones are some of the strongest from the polar region, but then you get the weird demon looking things that still easily destroy my armor. Or worse, you get the dragons.

Dragons were some of the super monsters which could appear early on in the Amiga, Atari ST, and DOS versions of this game. While they were stopped from doing that in the starter area, they now show up in the desert, and they stomp my part. On the plus side, they take so long to actually arrive that I know when to start inputting the escape command to keep them from ever getting off an attack. This means I could easily push through the desert, fighting the weak stuff for experience and running from the strong. So I did. I made it all the way to the next castle I needed to visit, where I was forced to wait for the day/night cycle to complete so I could enter at dawn.

What awaited for me inside the castle was absolute horror...or so I'm told. Each room of this particular place came with a full description of the bloodspray and broken bodies I was stepping over. Unfortunately for the game, none of this was actually visually present. It was empty room after empty room, without so much as a dark splotch to represent that there is blood somewhere. This isn't a case of Nintendo censorship either; the computer versions do the same thing. Come on guys, this just feels like a lack of effort to back your own story. You could have spent a bit more time on this and not implemented the weird armor durability system that I loathe so much.

Anyway, I was once again contracted to perform a hit on Drakkhen royalty, so I stepped outside to begin the grind in preparation for a new fight. And then I discovered something excellent: I encounter fights even while standing still. In other words, I can set the controller down and walk away, and my party still gets into fights. This means auto-grinding! I took my guys to the weakest area of the game and shut the console off for free experience.

Unfortunately, even auto-grinding is gimped in this game. There is a random encounter with a merchant who shows up and requires I interact with him to proceed. He shows up often enough that I will inevitably have to deal with him, and I can't simply leave the cancellation button pressed to automatically make him go away. I know this because I tested. Still, I'm leaving the game running while I'm away in the hopes that I'll eek out just a smidge more experience, which will mean I can focus on grinding a bit less. This plan has already worked out a little bit. Fast hit level 9 this morning while I was eating breakfast.

Ack is level 9. Fast is level 9. Xen is level 8. Noise is level 8. I have 4/8 Dragon Tears.
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Sarge
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Re: RPG Progress Report

Post by Sarge »

I find these detailed writeups quite interesting, actually. I don't lose sleep waiting, but I love reading them when they drop. ;)
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Exhuminator
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Re: RPG Progress Report

Post by Exhuminator »

If Ack played through a King's Field, I'd probably lose sleep waiting on those war journals. :lol:
PLAY KING'S FIELD.
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noiseredux
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Re: RPG Progress Report

Post by noiseredux »

I'm starting to have trouble enjoying my time with ME2. Mostly because I don't care for the way the quests are set up. Meaning, I look at my journal. Ok, this next quest says I need to travel to Purgatory. Go to the space map thing. Nothing says Purgatory. So now I have to Google or look through the strategy guide to figure HOW to get to where I'm supposed to go next. It's just not really natural to me. It breaks up the flow of the game if I have to keep stopping to figure out "hey how to get to the next place?" I don't know. It doesn't feel like it's giving me this same momentum push that I had while playing Dragon Age for instance.
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Xeogred
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Re: RPG Progress Report

Post by Xeogred »

That's weird, since I recall all the ME games being 10x more linear than DA, especially ME2-ME3. It was to the point where you could just tell looking at a barren small planet on the map that it was going to be one of those 5 minute optional ones.
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MrPopo
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Re: RPG Progress Report

Post by MrPopo »

noiseredux wrote:I'm starting to have trouble enjoying my time with ME2. Mostly because I don't care for the way the quests are set up. Meaning, I look at my journal. Ok, this next quest says I need to travel to Purgatory. Go to the space map thing. Nothing says Purgatory. So now I have to Google or look through the strategy guide to figure HOW to get to where I'm supposed to go next. It's just not really natural to me. It breaks up the flow of the game if I have to keep stopping to figure out "hey how to get to the next place?" I don't know. It doesn't feel like it's giving me this same momentum push that I had while playing Dragon Age for instance.
When you go to the star map each system should have icons that indicate which quests are at which star system. From there you either find an icon where you land and go there or else do the local travel and find which one has the icon.
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SNESdrunk
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Re: RPG Progress Report

Post by SNESdrunk »

Ack wrote:Drakkhen

I know all of you stay up at night waiting to hear my epic tales of grinding in this game. I just know it.
I... I was... :|

I'm glad you're playing this, because I don't think I'd ever have the patience for it. I quit at level 42 for Robotrek and that was repetitive and grindy enough.
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