RPG Progress Report

[Sarge]

MrPopo, that solo White Wizard run sounds mortifying. Hoo boy.

[MrPopo]

Well, here's the thing. Once you're past the Ice Cave its smooth sailing. You already have the Zeus Gauntlet for dealing with several enemy packs, you should be able to run from everything that sucks, and there is no longer much density in guys who just utterly screw you. You'll pick up the Mage Staff and Black Shirt in the next couple dungeons, you get a Ribbon really quickly and stop worrying about most attacks, and all in all things are just so much easier. The Ice Cave is just such a massive hurdle.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Lunatic Dawn rules.

This series reminds me a bit of King's Field. Not in terms of gameplay, but aesthetics. These games are ugly, crusty, and give zero shits about your feelings. They're nothing like any other JRPG released during this era (mid-90s). I'm tempted to pick up some of the PlayStation installments, if only because the artwork is so killer.

[Betagam7]

KEVIN STRONG

I enjoyed how brokenly strong he was. It turned the game into an RPG beat-em-up! Even though Angela was my story character I barely used her magic.

[MrPopo]

Magic in SD3 is merely good, rather than hilariously overpowered like it is in SoM.

[PartridgeSenpai]

Tales of Hearts R: I just got to where I finished assembling Kohaku's Spiria Core, so I figure I'm right near the end of act 2 (of 3, probably). I'm a bit conflicted about how I feel about the game so far. It's not my favorite Tales game I've played, but I'm still really enjoying it.

The bad translation is still very annoying. There are times I just wish I had a Japanese copy, as the written English just adds so much nonsense that isn't in the Japanese speech. If the translation took the story as seriously as it was originally presented, this'd definitely be a much better written game.

As an interesting note, there are actually a LOT of things changed compared to the DS original and this Vita remake (which I have found on the Wikipedia article for the game). The "R" in "Tales of Hearts R" stands for re-imagining, and this game really is a proper remake, not just a port. Not only did they give this game the Tales of Destiny treatment, where you get one of the main antagonists of the early game in your party eventually (which isn't exactly the same as what they did with Tales of Destiny, but it's a similar idea), but they also just wholesale added a new character who wasn't in the original narrative (Gall). I guess they just really liked Raven in Tales of Vespiria or something, because they basically just inserted him into this game: A wise-cracking older man who is sort of a voice of experienced reason to the party, despite his troubled past. The only problem being that his troubled past isn't really touched upon too much, as he only really exists on the fringes of the narrative, not having been a part of it originally. Combined with the bad translation, this just has the effect of breaking immersion a lot, which is a shame

[Exhuminator]

Brandish 2

After returning from a week long vacation in Texas, I picked this back up. There was a little readjustment period, trying to remember where I was and what I was doing, but I got it back together. Based on a walkthrough's table of contents, I appear to be about 2/3rds of the way through. Finally hit my first Dark Zone, which in Brandish-speak means You Die Zone. Thankfully it wasn't too long of a section, but shortly after I hit a section of extremely difficult timed platforming-jumping puzzles. I was hoping Brandish 2 wouldn't carry this concept over from the first Brandish, but a little slid in. The section was optional at least, but did contain exclusive treasures.


Brandish 2 knows its audience.

There are definitely some interesting differences going on in Brandish 2 versus the original. I may bother with a full review for this once I beat it.

[fastbilly1]

FF7 update:
8bitdo FC Pro came in, instantly makes the game better by letting me use the stick on the overworld and the dpad in combat.

Gameplay wise, I just got the car, then went back to Junon to exploit the alarm until I hit level 40 or so. The only cheat I did in game was give everyone Mastered EXP Pluses, so right now Cloud is level 30. Well that and savestates when I cant get to a save point.

Things are going as smoothly as you can hope, except the random materia I missed, like Enemy Skill.

[ElkinFencer10]

Still powering through Chrono Trigger. I got the Masamune repaired last night and returned it to Bone (that's what I named the Kermit the Frog lookalike). Hoping to have the game finished by Friday.

[Xeogred]

You renamed Frog? Oh... you're one of those...